Advise for when you are feeling down

Happy Easter, In theory I should have a nice little inspirational Easter Message for you all - but I don't.  Instead here is an nice little inspirational every day message.

Last month my Aunt Vera sent me a facebook message after I posted my feelings about being spread thin. (Read that post here.)  Her encouragement and suggestions were just what I needed to hear.  Now that I'm feeling better about my life I wanted to share her message with you.  I hope it can help some of you as much as it has helped me.

Before I let you read it I want to brag a little big about my Aunt Vera.  She is one of my favorite people.  When I was little my family lived in a duplex that my Great-Grandparents owned.  Vera was our next door neighbor for a few years.  She was such a fun neighbor.  She's one of those people that can joke about anything.  I loved spending time with her.  I'll never forget that on my seventh birthday she took me to see Beauty and the Beast.

Vera has several degrees in various subjects.  She's always going to school for something.  She takes classes in whatever interests her and those random classes usually lead to another degree.  Currently she is studying business.

After I graduated with my Associates from Snow College, Vera talked me into attending Salt Lake Community College so I could get some classes done there before transferring to Utah State.  I was kind of hesitant to do that because it meant moving back in with my parents.  Vera understood my need for independence and offered to let me live at her house.  I loved living with her.  She taught me a lot about how to be happy without relying on other people to do it for me.

As you can tell, Vera is someone I look up to a lot.  So when this message appeared in my inbox I read it over and over again.

Valerie

Hang in there. Just lower your expectations of yourself. That's what I do when I feel I can't keep up with life and the house work. I say to myself, I will still get into the Celestial Kingdom if I don't do the dishes this week or this month or if I clean the bathroom once a month, I will probably survive. 

Pretend you are on a service mission for the next year or two and all you are required to do is take care of kids. I know I don't know anything about kids but I do still do laundry, cook three meals a day and clean the house. I'm not the best house keeper but I'm ok with that because I would rather be doing other things like nothing. It's like one year for new years I decided to make a resolution not to make any resolutions. I was like that for about 3 or 4 years. After that, I started feeling ok again about making resolutions. Looking back on of those years I really enjoyed and was ok with the fact that all I did before work was sleep and watch TV. I know you are busier than that but try to feel good about all the good you do for your kids. 

Maybe talk to Brandon about setting easier goals right now. Ex. today I am going to change 12 diapers. and then check those goals off. today I am going to make 10 bottles. and then check those goals off. today I am going to put three kids to bed 6 times. and check that off. Make your goals fit what you already do. That way you will be able to feel like you are getting all your goals done. 

You are an amazing lady. Everyone admires you and has confidence in you. Its ok to feel sad and weak. I have felt that way many times. Sometimes even for years at a time and its just me. I will pray for you to be able to notice happy moments throughout the day. Maybe set a goal to notice you are happy 3 times a day and check that goal off. 

You are doing a great job Valerie. I love how you guys read scriptures and sing hymns or primary songs with your kids. One time I listened to a conference talk while I was tending Lucy. The talk was comforting and Lucy seemed to feel of it's importance. Maybe the kids will be calm during it. See what their reaction is. Set a goal to listen to 1 conference talk a week or something like that. 

We are all cheering for you. On my mission I had a companion who was extremely difficult and unhappy. We set simple goals everyday like look at the clouds, eat a banana, eat junk food, only take taxis, carve a pumpkin. It helped her to be happier and I thought it was fun too.

I needed someone to tell me to lower my expectations for myself.  I think I thought that as soon as Brandon came home I would suddenly be able to be perfect.  I'd instantly be able to effortlessly keep the house clean, the kids would never watch TV, and we'd do amazing things every single day.

Instead I just needed to be okay with the fact that Brandon does a lot of the cooking and cleaning, that the kids and I watch a lot of TV together, and that the most exciting part of the week is usually when the garbage truck comes down the street on Tuesdays.  

And when I finally stopped feeling bad that I couldn't be perfect I actually had the energy to have fun with just being okay. 

Good news all over the place

We have had lots of good news coming our way the past few weeks.  Since all of you listen so politely when I tell you all the not so good things in my life I figured you'd want to hear all the good things too.

1. First off is some of the very best news of all.  On Wednesday we found out that Brandon's unit is NOT, I repeat NOT, getting deployed to Korea in June.  Officially its been postponed to October at the earliest, but its pretty much cancelled.  Either way he will be here when Baby D is born!  You can imagine my relief. I'm so glad Brandon will be around to help out through this whole pregnancy.

2.  This next bit of news is equally exciting.  Brandon passed the SIFT test on Thursday.  SIFT stands for Standard Instrument Flight Test.  It sounds like a flying test, but really it was a written test that had nothing to do with instrument flying.  Brandon had to score a 40 to pass.  He got a 52.  The lady administering the test said the highest score she's seen is a 60. 

I'm super proud of Brandon for passing this test.  Of course I knew he could do it, but now I don't have to worry about something going wrong.  There wasn't a study guide for the test so that made it extra scary.  

Taking (and passing) this test is the first sign of life we've seen in a while for Brandon's aviation career.  The test is an important part of his application to be a Warrant Flight Officer and to be trained to fly helicopters.  Think of it like the GRE or GMAT for graduate school.  Now he has to complete a lot of paperwork, get some letters of recommendation, have a flight physical, and probably jump through a lot of hoops before he can submit his application.  It's a lot of work, but it's nice to be working toward flying again.    

3.  We have new computers!  Our laptop is like a million years old and starting so show signs of its age.  We figured it was a good idea to upgrade now before it completely died and we HAD to buy a new one.  Brandon researched a bunch of computers and finally settled on an HP Envy for him.  It's basically his reward for going through basic training.  It's the coolest computer I've ever seen.  It is like an I-PAD and a desktop computer had a baby.  It has a keyboard and a touch screen that can separate if needed.  It runs regular computer programs and apps.

Brandon felt bad for buying a new computer for him and leaving me with the old one.  When we heard about the $250 chromebook Brandon told me to get one.      So now I have a Samsung Chromebook and I love it!  It isn't as sophisticated as Brandon's computer, but it does what I need it to do (gets on the Internet).  And it has revolutionized my life.  It boots up in seconds so when I have a child free minute I can hop online, check my e-mail and facebook, and then shut it down before the kids even notice what I'm doing.  With the old computer it took me 10 minutes just to turn it on and get g-mail to load.  

I can also listen to my favorite Utah radio station 101.9 The End through their website.  I forgot how much I relied on the Chunga and Chad morning show to start my day.  So now I listen to the 8:00 hour (at 9:00 my time) of their show and clean up the whole kitchen or other rooms while I listen.  It's so nice to hear Chunga pontificate about everything under the sun, Chad make jokes, Kenny D review movies, Dr Matt talk about psychology, Zack explain technology, and everyone else that appears on the show.  It's like hanging out with old friends again.  When Brandon comes home from work I tell him the things that they talked about on the show.  I love having grown up things to talk about.

4.  Now that I have the radio to keep me motivated to clean I have more time to work on projects when the kids are asleep.  A few weeks ago I decided that I don't need a new hobby.  I just need to start and finish some of the projects that I've accumulated over the past few years.  Checking those things off of my to do list will help me feel like I am accomplishing something again.  

This is the first project I worked on.  I gathered a bunch more pennies on our vacation and I needed to make room for them so I took that opportunity to redo the whole thing.  After bedtime I popped a movie into the DVD player, turned on the commentary, and remembered how much I like creating things.   I left a lot of room for more Texas pennies.  

I've already told you all about painting the window seat, but I forgot to show you a good picture of the top.  Here it is.  The girls love seeing their art. 

Another project I've been working on is adding red accents to the space above my kitchen cupboards.
The first step was to get a kitchen clean enough to work in.  That took about 3 weeks of seemingly constant cleaning (the joys of toddlers.)

 Then I spray painted cardboard with red paint.  We don't own this place or else I might have just painted the actual wall.  (Or maybe not, spray painting was really easy)

 On Tuesday I measured and cut the cardboard while talking on the phone to my sister during the kids' nap time.

 Then I just had to put it into place.  I also put cardboard on top of the cupboard so cover up the 2 inch gap between the top of the cupboard and the wood underneath.

And finally I unpacked my nice, but unfortunately not childproof, dishes and put them up for display.  My friend Audrey had the same idea to display her nice dishes not too long ago.  Her blog post about displaying her dishes encouraged me to display mine.  I love how it looks.

5.  Derrick is back to his happy self which is WONDERFUL news.  He can play by himself or with the twins instead of crying to be held all the time.  His personality change is another reason why I'm able to get things done around the house again.

He'll be one next week.  He can stand up by himself and will walk if we hold his hand(s).  He likes to play peek-a-boo ALL the time.  He pushes books, cups, remotes and anything else around the floor like they are cars.  

6.  Last Friday we went to the doctors for an ultrasound to find out how far along the baby is.  The due date ended up changing by almost 3 weeks from the 1st of September to the 17th of that month.  (Which is more in line with when I was actually, you know, with my husband.)  That means as of today I am 15 weeks and 3 days along. 

It was really fun to see the baby on the monitor.  The doctor commented that it seemed to have really long legs and big feet.  I was like, "you should meet Derrick."  Brandon had fun seeing the baby.  I wanted him to come because so far the only proof he's had that I'm pregnant is a moody, nauseous wife. 

It was a little too early to accurately tell the gender of the baby.  But the doctor said that if he had to guess he would say its a girl.  Brandon and I, being the ultrasound experts that we are, agree with him.  However, this is NOT an official announcement.  It is entirely possible that Baby D is a boy and we just couldn't tell yet.      

7.  We were called to team teach primary a few weeks ago.  My first response was, "what age?"  The bishop promised me it would be Sr Primary and so I agreed.  That night Brandon and I stayed talking about our memories of Primary.  I remember loving and hating primary- sometimes in the same day.  I had teachers I adored, but there there were leaders that treated me like a baby. I remember being so angry sometimes. All those emotions came back as I thought about being a teacher.  

But despite what I feared, I actually love being a primary teacher. We teach the 8 and 9 year olds and they are so much fun.  They all want to answer the questions which is a nice change from having to pry responses out of people in adult gospel doctrine.  And they are learning things for the first time.  We can ask the questions like, "do you know what day the church was organised?"  And they are all like, "no, what day was it?" 

And singing time and sharing time are fun too.  Brandon sits with the class and looks intimidating to keep them in line.  I sit in the back and hang out with my friends. Derrick crawls around and has a great time playing with the other three babies in there.  It's like pre-nursery, and it's a lot more fun for both of us than our previous pastime of wandering the halls.  

8.  One final piece of good news - I'm feeling really good about my life again.  Last month I read the issue of Better Homes and Gardens and burst into tears because I couldn't be as cool as any of those people.  This month I read it and was just fine with how my life is.  

I don't know what changed.  It wasn't anything big.  Instead I think it was just a bunch of little changes.  Like the new computer, Derrick getting happy again, and celebrating the little things I do right.  

Painting the Window Seat

I worried that I would come back from vacation and get all depressed about my humdrum life or whatever.  But actually I came home and discovered that I was in the mood to do projects again.  One of the first projects I tackled was one that has been on my mental to do list for over a year.  

Back in 2011 my Christmas present from Brandon was a window seat out of old plywood he found at the airport.  I've been meaning to paint it ever since then.  At first, when it was part of our living room furniture, I wanted to paint it either dark brown or green to match our existing furniture.  But I never could get a perfect combination of time, energy, and money.  Then we moved here and we put the window seat in the kids toy room.  And that changed my plan for how to paint it.  

 We bought paint Thursday night and then moved the window seat (or winnow seat as the girls say it) out to the garage on Saturday.  Here it is looking very much like a coffin.

 Then I did a base coat with blue and purple.  I used Rich Art Clean Colors Washable Paint that we bought at Hobby Lobby.  After the first coat I was kind of wishing I'd bought regular paint because the wood just absorbed all the paint and didn't give the bright color that I had imagined.

However, by the third coat it was looking a lot better.  I started out painting with a brush, but I discovered that it was easier to just squirt the paint onto my hand and rub it onto the wood.

Then it was time to involve the kids.  They woke up from their naps and I changed them into their painting clothes (pajamas turned inside out).  I squirted a bunch of other colors on the top of the window seat and let the kids go to town.  

I'd imagined the kids laughing with delight as they played with the finger paint.  Instead they all freaked out as soon as their hands got dirty.  The girls started asking to wash their hands right away.  So I got them a bowl of water and paper towels to use.  

Luckily we'd bought brushes along with the paint and the girls liked using those.  Derrick painted for a little bit, but he was more interested in playing in the driveway.

 Brandon came home from an assignment and helped us paint.  We turned the window seat on its side so we could paint the front.  Then we were done for the day. (And the kids went straight into the tub.)

 This is what it looked like as it dried over the rest of the weekend.

Monday afternoon we went back out to the garage for a second layer.  Lydia and Derrick didn't show much interest in the project.  They had more fun playing in the driveway (I really don't know what was so interesting out there.)  Charlotte, who is my little artist and will color on ANYTHING, was having a great time though.  She had so much fun using the paint brushes to smear the colors together.  

 By the end I had coaxed Derrick to "drum" on the paint.  He liked that.  And Lydia had fun walking around and around smearing the paint on the top.

 So many times throughout this whole process I had to keep telling myself, "It's their project, not mine." For example, I did all these finger print dots on the side.  Then Charlotte came over with her brush and put big paint blotches on top of them.

 The very last thing we did was put our hand prints on the front.  I took each kid out to the garage by themselves to do these.  For some reason Charlotte and Lydia each wanted to do three hand prints each (It's their project, not mine)

Here is the final result.  A window seat that matches all the bright colored toys in the toy room.

"Normal" Things

The travel slogan around here is, "Texas, it's like a whole other country."  I've found that to be pretty true.  Even the freeways are different in this state.  But do you want to know what is even more like living in another country? Living on an Army Base.  In my opinion its as close to a foreign country as you can get without leaving the US. 

To start off Fort Hood is a Closed Post.  That means if you are new here and want to get on the base you have to stop at the visitors center and get a pass for your car.  (Pay attention if you are planning on visiting us.) Make sure you have your current registration and insurance papers because you'll need those.  And you also have to have a picture ID.  And unless you come early in the morning expect to wait a while waiting for your turn to get a pass.  When we were first here and I was borrowing Lindsey's car I had to wait 30 minutes with all three kids to be able to get back on base.  Not my favorite way to spend half an hour.   Once you have a visitors pass then you can enter the base through one of the many gates.  Make sure you have picture ID for everyone in your vehicle who is over 16.

This is the picture of the gate we go through every time we enter our neighborhood.  I joke we live in one of securest gated communities in the country. Our car is registered with the base so that saves time with the gate.  If I'm driving I have to show ID to a soldier to get through the gate.  Brandon has a special thingy on his ID that he can use in the express lane and it will automatically open the gate.  I still need to get it added to my ID card.

Whenever I go through the gate a guard checks my ID and then says, "Welcome to 'The Great Place.'"  I haven't decided if it means great as in really cool, or great as in really big.  Someone told me that Fort Hood is the largest military installation on the planet.  I believe them, this place is really big.  

Here is a link to a map of the main part of Fort Hood,  For those of you in Utah, this place is way bigger than the Hill Air Force Base.  It's basically it's own city.  The part pictured on the map is about 10 miles long.  

This is one of the buildings on post.  Everything on this base is the same sand yellow.  When we first moved here even the grass was yellow, but it's greening up a little bit now that it's spring.  (An exception to the yellow buildings are the restaurants on base.  Chili's looks just like a Chili's you would see anywhere else- which means it really stands out on base.)

 We live in West Fort Hood which is separated from the main part of the base by Highway 190.  That means when Brandon goes to work he has to go out a gate, get on or go under the freeway, and then go back through a gate.  And then vise versa at night.  It's kind of annoying, but we like being further away from the main post.

 Actually it wouldn't be that bad at all except the traffic at the gates can be a nightmare at certain times of the day.  And traffic on the base is kind of ridiculous too.  If there was ever a place that was a prime candidate for mass transit it's this one.  Think about it, most of the population here has to go to PT training at 6:30 in the morning.  Then most of those people go home to change (Brandon just brings his clothes and changes in a bathroom to avoid the drive), then they all come back to work around 9:00, then they all go to lunch around 12:00, and they all go home around 5:00.  A bus system would eliminate quite a bit of the congestion around here.  But who am I kidding, this is the Army, they aren't going to do anything that actually makes sense.

Instead we are all enlisted in a giant recycling project.  The goal is to close the Fort Hood landfill by 2020.  Which in theory is an awesome goal.  But on a day to day level it kind of drives me crazy.  The very first week we were here a soldier came up to my door and said, "I see you don't have your recycling container out, did you know it was mandatory?"  And I said, "Sorry, we've only been here a few days we haven't really had anything to recycle yet."  I wanted to add, "as you can see my living room doesn't even have furniture.  Do you think I care about separating my plastics and cans?" But I didn't.

For the most part I'm okay with the whole recycling thing.  They've made it fairly easy and most things are recyclable.  But there are still times when I'm cleaning the kitchen and I think, "it's not worth my time to wash this can out."  And I just toss it in the regular trash.  I'll admit it, a clean counter in the short run in much more important to me than a clean planet in the long run.

Anyway, enough about that.  There are lots of random "statues" of different equipment around the base.  And thank goodness too.  All the buildings look pretty much the same.  If it wasn't for this helicopter I wouldn't know where to turn to find Brandon's unit.

 Water towers are also pretty standard here.   They are another way I navigate around without mountains to guide me.  The street signs also help of course.  The base has streets with charming names such as, "Tank Destroyer, Hell on Wheels, Old Iron Sides, and Battalion.

When Brandon first joined the Army several people told me what great deals to expect when I went shopping for food at the Commissary.  When I finally made it to the Commissary I was not impressed by the "deals."  Yes things were cheaper, but they were all name brand things.  So I could save a dollar on Lucky Charms, but it would still be 50 cents more than I'm used to spending on cereal.  So I'm not a fan of the commissary.

One stop shopping hasn't been discovered by the Army so to shop for non food things like furniture, clothes, or appliances we would go to the Exchange.  Once again I'm not a huge fan.

Brandon and I would prefer to shop at Kroger (the Texas equivalent of Smith's), however, the nearest one is 77 miles away. When I found that out I told Brandon, "I can't believe you brought me to a place without a Smiths!"  We've always lived within a mile of one so this is a huge adjustment.

We've settled on shopping at HEB which is only about a mile away from our house.  HEB stands for Here Everything is Better. (HEB is also the initials of the store's founder, Howard E Butt- ha ha.) I still miss Smith's but I like HEB.  The store has double seater grocery carts and other cool features.  Plus the people are nice.  And when I buy WIC things I don't have to separate them out from my regular food.  (Texas WIC has these cool swipy cards instead of annoying paper vouchers like Utah WIC.)

Killeen is the largest city by the base.  I think the best word to describe Killeen is, sprawl.  It doesn't seem to have much personality.  But it does have major stores so it's okay.  We live closer to Copperas Cove so that is where we shop, go to church, and look for fast food.  Copperas Cove still has a small town feel so I like it better.  

 Lets see, what else is "normal" around here.  Oh the trumpets.  The trumpets.  Let me tell you about the trumpets.  Reveille, Taps, and other trumpet songs are played on a sound system through out the day.  They are played on the military parts of the base, but the sound drifts over to the neighborhoods.  When we first moved here I would have the kids almost asleep and then the those trumpets would start playing.  Charlotte and Lydia would jump out of bed, run to the window,  and yell, "trumpets! See it!" Eventually I trained the girls to sing along to the trumpets.  The words to taps are "Go to Sleep, Go to Sleep."  And Reveille's are "Wake Up, Wake Up, Wake Up!"

While we are on the subject of noises let me tell you a funny story.  For the first six weeks we were here I would hear random banging noises and assume that I was hearing the neighbors slam their doors.  I've lived in apartments for so long that I'm used to hearing random sounds like that and just shrugging them off.  Then one day it dawned on me.  I wasn't hearing the neighborhood neighbors.  I was hearing the Army base neighbors shoot off artillery shells.

That's all the "Normal" stuff I can think of for now.  I know there is more, but the kids are all waking up from their naps and Brandon is home early (another fairly normal thing.)  So that's it for this glimpse into the place I call home.

2013 Vacation Day 8: One last thing to see

Lydia woke up first and wandered around for a while until Brandon took her down to breakfast to keep her from waking the rest of us up.  Charlotte, Derrick, and I were awake by the time they came back upstairs.  So we all went back down to breakfast.  Unlike the last hotel this one actually had a decent continental breakfast.  The waffle iron even made waffles shaped like Texas.  Here are the kids enjoying their food and watching the news on the TV right above them.

Then it was back up to the room to get everything packed up one final time.  This was the last day of our vacation and it was totally obvious by the way we shoved everything where ever it would fit.  

We said goodbye to the "tel." And drove out of town.  We drove about 20 minutes to San Marcos where the final thing on our vacation itinerary was located.  We would have stayed in a hotel in San Marcos, but by the time I was booking one on hotwire the only ones left were out of our price range.

Several weeks ago I'd asked my facebook friends for ideas of things to do in Texas.  My friend Cherylee told me about a place called Aquarena Springs.  I did a quick google search and found out that Texas State University provided glass bottom boat tours on the clear water of the springs.  That sounded awesome to me so I included it on the list of things I for sure wanted to see on vacation.

By the time we got to the springs Lydia and Derrick had fallen asleep and were both snoring softly.

Charlotte and I went to buy the tickets while they stayed in the car with Brandon and slept.  Funny story about Charlotte.  Ever since Wednesday Charlotte had been answering every question with the phrase "I don't."  She said it to: "Do you want to see the whales, do you want to eat, do you want to play, do you want to hold my hand, do you want to go to sleep?" No matter what we asked she would respond with "I don't."  She'd always do what she said she didn't want to do, she just liked saying, "I don't."  It got to the point where we would ask "do you want to ____?" and then say, "let me guess, you don't."

We bought the tickets and then waited in the car for Derrick and Lydia to wake up.  Our tickets were for an 11:30 boat ride and I think we ended up waking the kids up around 11:20.  We walked the short distance to the boat dock and soon we were staring out the bottom of a glass bottomed boat.

The kids all loved being able to see plants and fishies in the water.  Derrick was especially enthralled by it.  He made happy grunting noises the whole time.

It was kind of hard to get pictures through the glass.  The ones I have don't do it justice.  I was amazed by what we could see.  I would consider this boat ride in the top 20 cool things I've done in my life.  This is a picture of some of the small springs that provide water.

Here are the girls looking at the plants in the water.

Like I said, Derrick was fascinated.

More plants.  Some of the plants even had flowers blooming on them.  The water is so clear, and they get so much sunlight they don't know they are underwater.

This is the largest of the springs.  No plants grow around it because so much water flows out of it.

Here is the boat we rode on.  It'd the oldest boat and has been in operation since 1945.  The boat ride lasted about 30 minutes which again was a tad too long for the kids.  Charlotte and Lydia started looking out the sides of the boat and I was terrified they would fall over.  Other than that it was a great experience.  

There was a building next to the springs.  It opened in the 1920's as a hotel.  Now it has some displays and aquariums.  

The girls like looking at the aquariums.  Some how Charlotte had missed seeing every turtle that the boat had passed over.  This was a good chance for her to see a turtle.  

I got one of my usual souvenir pennies.  These are still my favorite souvenirs.

Derrick had more fun grunting at fish.

The girls discovered a little table where they could color.  They were there for a while.

When we were done inside we went up on the roof and looked around.  Here are the three other boats giving tours of the springs.

See how clear the water is.

This is where the water starts flowing for the whole San Marcos River.  Our river guide said, "the reason there water doesn't go past that point is because there is no water past that point."

We took the kids down to the jeep.  We asked them if they wanted to go home or if they wanted to find a children's park that was on the San Marcos map.  Surprisingly they wanted to go home.  So we grabbed a bunch of snack food for the drive home and started driving.  Here is a picture of our jeep.  This will be the last vacation we go on with this jeep.  Our plan is to still keep the jeep (it was our first baby after all) but get a second car that will fit a family of 6 - and a friend or two. 

The kids all fell asleep on the way home.  Brandon and I didn't talk much on the way home.  We both were kind of depressed that we had to go back to reality.

Our vacation had been wonderful.  Full of adventure and relaxation.  The kids had had a great time too.  The girls kept saying, "cation" with big smiles on their faces.  And they talked non stop about everything that had happened.  Derrick had been in a wonderful mood the whole trip.  He was even eating baby food consistently again.

If I have one regret it's that we weren't able to go see a cave.  But not for lack of caves to see.  I found at least five in the vicinity of our travels.  (For future reference they are Natural Bridge Caverns, Inner Space Caverns, Sonora Caverns, Cave Without a Name, and Fault Line Cave.)  Instead it was Derrick that put the kibosh on any cave visiting.  He can't walk yet, but he weighs around 25 pounds.  The caves either didn't allow babies in packs at all or only allowed them in front packs.  Neither Brandon or I wanted to pay $19 to carry Derrick around for 90 minutes while keeping two twins (who also weigh around 25 lbs) happy.  So going in a cave got shelved until another vacation when all our kids can walk.

Another thing that got shelved was going to see waterfalls. Again, not because of lack of falls to see.  Instead all the waterfalls I found are within an hour of our house.  We plan on seeing them as part of the many camping trips we'll go on this year.

But even without waterfalls and caves I'd had a great time. Sure, I saw more animals than I ever thought I would care to see in a week, but I'd enjoyed watching my kids react to them.  It was totally worth it.

All too soon we were in Killeen and then back on Fort Hood.  Brandon signed back in signaling the end of our travels.  We went home and decided we weren't ready for the responsibility of figuring out what was for dinner.  So Brandon picked up pizza at Little Caesar's.

Here are Derrick and Brandon proving that they had finally bonded this week.

Then we just hung around the house while starting to unpack and do laundry.  And that was the end of our awesome road trip family vacation for this year.