Two full weeks of Rest and Relaxation

There were two reasons why I wanted to move the family to Fort Rucker while Brandon was still at WOCS.  The first reason was so we could go to his graduation.  The second reason was so we didn't have to worry about moving after the graduation.  

Brandon had a break between his WOCS training at his next training.  That break was so soldiers with families could have time to help their families move.  But since I'd already taken care of that Brandon could just relax during his break.  And relax we did!

Brandon was allowed to take over two weeks of leave.  He was so happy to not have to worry about PT or formations.  I was happy to have my husband around all the time.  

These past two weeks have been so nice.  This is the most relaxed we've been since we've had kids - and it's quite possibly the most relaxed we've ever been.  It was so nice to not have to worry about employment, financial, pregnancy, baby, or Army concerns.  

We kicked off the R and R by going to see the new Avengers movie.  Jacque stayed home with our sleeping kids while Brandon and I went to see the 9:30 showing.  The movie was pretty fun, but later when I thought about it, there were a lot of things that weren't explained - I'd just been too tired to notice  

The next day I woke up soooooo tired.  And it wasn't just because we'd got home around 1:00 am.  I was exhausted from everything involved in the move and the graduation.  It had been 14 days since the packers showed up in Fort Hood and I felt like I'd been going non-stop since then.  

Unfortunately there was still one more thing we had to do before this move was officially "over."  We had to take my mother-in-law to the airport so she could fly home.  Fortunately she had booked her flight to leave from the airport near Panama City Beach Florida and that was a pretty good excuse to have a mini vacation there. 

Unlike me, Brandon, had lots of energy.  He was happy to be done with WOCS and able to do whatever he wanted again.  So I went back to bed and I put him in charge of packing for our trip to Panama City Beach. 

We only live about 90 miles from the beach so the drive down was pretty easy.  Soon we found a place to park at the County Pier, and were getting ready to play in the surf and sand.  Based on how our children reacted to our beach vacation 6 months ago I figured we'd only spend about 30 minutes at the beach before they were ready to go to the hotel.  So I didn't even bother changing most of the kids into their swimming suits.

First we hung out by a beach umbrella and ate pudding and other snacks.     

But soon we headed down to the water.  (Lydia was the only one who had wanted to get into her swimming suit

The water felt so nice and was so pretty.

All the kids loved playing in the sand.  Derrick and Veronica didn't like the water, but Charlotte and Lydia loved it.  We ended up staying at the beach for close to 4 hours.  Thank goodness I'd thought to put sun screen on the kids.

Derrick liked to throw sand at the water.

I showed the girls how to dig tunnels in the sand.

Jacque rented a spot with an umbrella for $10.  She spent most of her time up there.  She said she always wanted to spend hours sitting on a beach under an umbrella. Derrick had been kind of stand off ish with Jacque all week long. But he warmed up to her and would sit next to her and eat chips.  He sat there for a long time.

I loved our Texas vacation, but this beach was so much prettier than any of the ones we visited in Texas. 

Brandon and I tried taking Derrick and Veronica out into the water, but they didn't like that too much.

Charlotte and Lydia loved it though.  They would let the waves push them around and they called it swimming.

The umbrella rental ended at 5:00 and that's about the time the kids were ready to go.  So we got back into the Honda and drove to our hotel.  Brandon had packed fritos, shredded cheese, a chopped up onion, and a can of chili.  He heated the chili up in the microwave and then we had "chili pie" for dinner.  It was nice and easy.

I'd picked this motel because it had a family room with two queen beds and a bunk bed.  Charlotte and Lydia played on the bunk bed and then put themselves to sleep by 6:30.  They were so tired from playing at that beach.

Derrick and Veronica took a little longer to go to sleep.  Brandon and I had fun swapping stories with Jacque.  After the kids were asleep Brandon and I went to find a Walmart so we could buy some milk and cereal and microwave breakfast sandwiches for breakfast.  Vacationing is so easy with three adults.

We all got up pretty early the next morning and had breakfast.  Then we left to take Jacque to the airport.  It was really sad to say good bye to her.  The kids look forward to when they can play at her house this summer.

Brandon and the twins really wanted to go back to the beach, so that is what we did.  We went to the area near the city pier this time.

Both girls wanted to get into their swimming suits.

Derrick and Veronica didn't have as much fun this time. I ended up taking them back to the car.

I'd forgotten to pack baby powder to help get the sand off our skin so we ended up with some pretty sandy kids.  They didn't mind too much though.

We loved Panama City Beach and we will definitely be going back.  But I was also so happy to get home.  I'd had enough with living out of suitcases and staying in hotels.  (Actually a more accurate statement would be: I was done with all the packing and planning that is involved with traveling as a family of six.) I was ready to hang out at our new house and make it into our new home.  

On Sunday Brandon bought me roses as a Mother's Day present.  This was the first Mother's Day that he's been around for since he joined the Army.  He took this picture of me while I was on the phone with my Mom wishing her a happy Mother's Day and a happy birthday. 

After attending church in our new ward we came home and Brandon made a delicious Eggplant Parmesan.  He let me hang out in our room and blog the whole time he was cooking.  It was exactly what I wanted.  

 This stuff is seriously so good.

 The next week was full of pretty much nothing.  I didn't even take a picture between Sunday and Friday.  Mostly we just unpacked, watched movies, slept, unpacked some more, and went to the store a lot.  It was bliss.

We also took advantage of the lack of commitments to get some preventative maintenance done on the cars.  We'd ear marked a lot of our tax return money to go toward getting the cars worked on, but we hadn't had a chance to do it until now.  The jeep didn't need much just it's oil leak taken care of.  But the Honda needed a lot of TLC.  The engine belt was over due to be changed and that is no easy or inexpensive process.  The lug nuts on one tire were stripped and those were a big challenge to take care of (as Brandon soon learned) and the engine mounts were cracked.  The Honda ended up being in the shop over the weekend while the mechanic worked on it.  But now it drives so much better and I don't have to worry about that engine belt any more.    

Since the Honda was in the shop we couldn't go anywhere as a family, but we still had the jeep.  (Having two cars is so nice in situations like this.)  Brandon and Derrick went to our new ward's Fathers and Sons camp out while the girls and I stayed home and had a girls night.  We all put on robes and put curlers in our hair.

 I love this picture of all of us together.  The twins had looks forward to this all week. Veronica was happy to be included.

 I painted everyone's nails and we watched Ever After on Netflix.  I told the girls, "we are going to watch a chick flick." They liked the movie even it if was a bit too long for them. (It's a solid two hours)

After the movie we joined in on a conversation with my family on Google Hangouts.  My parents had received their mission call in the mail and were going to open it.  We'd practiced this a month ago and had had a lot of fun talking to (and putting silly clip art on) each other.  My parents were at home in Kearns, Utah,  Lindsey was in Houston Texas, Hillary was in Rexburg Idaho, Emily was in Greenville North Carolina, I was in Fort Rucker Alabama, and my brother was the farthest away in Japan.  (He was on tour with a BYU preforming group.)  Emily couldn't get her connection to work so she ended up just listening in on the phone while my parents opened their call.

My parents had requested to serve as office specialists in the mission office of the Brazil São Paulo Interlagos Mission.  This is in the area where my dad served his mission and one of his former mission companions is the current mission president there.  The mission president had also requested that my parents be called to his mission.  So you'd think that there wouldn't be a lot of suspense while they opened their call, but we all were still really anxious.  We weren't sure if the church would consider my Dad healthy enough to leave the country.  It that was the case they would have received a call to serve somewhere in the US.

So we were all very excited when they read that they'd been called to Brazil.  They report to the Provo MTC in January.  They will be gone for 23 months.  I teased my sister Hillary that if she wants to get married in the next three years she better find a guy and marry him in the next seven months.

Meanwhile, Brandon and Derrick were having a good time on their camping trip.  Brandon said that Derrick had been a little sad when he realized I wasn't there, and he'd been a little sad when he realized they weren't coming home at night, but the rest of the time he'd been just fine.  

 Brandon said Derrick liked to crouch right by the fire and stare at it.

 He sat there like that for a long time.

 Derrick had slept right through breakfast so its a good thing Brandon had packed a lot of snacks.  They were at a State Park that had a swimming hole so they could have played in that in the morning.  But it seemed a little dangerous to Brandon.

 So instead they took a walk along a river and Derrick got throw lots of rocks into the water.  Brandon said the whole trip had been a good bonding experience for both of them.

Back at home, the girls discovered a faux fir coat that we've had for a long time.  It doesn't have any sleeves so in my opinion it's been pretty pointless  Well Veronica has fallen in love with it.  She wants to wear it all the time.  After I button it on her she'll smile and say, "Fee."  which is how she says "pretty."

On Sunday we celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary.  This is the first time Brandon has been home for our anniversary since 2012.  Back then Derrick was only 6 weeks old.  Since Veronica wasn't born (or even thought of) at that time, you could say that this was the first anniversary we've ever celebrated with our whole family.

Brandon and I made a big breakfast for everyone.

We had scrambled eggs, and waffles, and hash browns, and orange juice.

Then we got everyone ready for church.  Here are our beautiful girls.

Derrick didn't want to join in on the picture so we moved the picture over to him.  Look at these cute kids.  They certainly have kept us entertained these last five years

Getting to church was slightly tricky.  Since we don't all fit in the Jeep I asked one of my new friends in the ward if Charlotte could ride with her family.  That worked out really well.  Hurray for church friends.

After church we made pizza on top of french bread.  (It was supposed to be pizza and french bread but I realized that we hadn't bought yeast yet so I had to improvise at the last minute.)

Usually we plan a big trip to celebrate our anniversary, but this year I was content to stay at home. Brandon and I joked that usually we go on vacation to distract from how boring our lives are  But this year we are exhausted from all the changes so we just wanted to stay home

This second week of our vacation has been more productive than last week.  We've finished the unpacking phase and have moved into the decorating phase.  That's been really fun for me  I found this lamp at the garage sale and bought it for $2.  I had plans to revitalize it by painting it white.  This was supposed to be the before picture.  But then Brandon had other plans.  He thought the lamp looked ugly so he proposed changing the stem for an old rake handle (for real), cannibalizing another lamp for parts, and buying an actual lamp shade.  I think the final product had only the same base, cord, and light bulb as what is in this picture. But Brandon is good looking so I'm putting it up here anyway.

I used some white fabric for another project and then Lydia begged me to make her a pretend wedding dress.  So I pinned one together with safety pins for her.  I was pretty impressed with myself.

Charlotte put on an outfit to pretend to be a prince.

Today Lydia followed me around all morning and asked me to actually sew her dress together.  So I brought out the machine and made her a skirt.  And then I made one for Charlotte.  I forgot to get a picture uploaded to my computer before I locked myself in my room so you're just going to have to wait to see those I guess. (But they look really good)

These are some pictures from Brandon's camera.  I gave away most of the baby stuff before we moved, but one of the baby backpacks was hiding.  Brandon found it when we unpacked and the girls took turns testing it out..

Veronica is obsessed with shoes.  She loves to put on everyone's shoes and walk around the house.  Yesterday she discovered Brandon's Army boots.  Brandon said, "I know this is what you want so I'll just let you do it." and he picked her up and put her in both boots.  She walked pretty far in those things.

Technically Brandon has to go to some classes tomorrow so I guess our R and R is coming to a close, but he gets a three day weekend for Memorial Day so we don't have to go back to normal (whatever that is) just yet.

I'm hoping that we'll have this house mostly put together by Monday.  Then I can do a post to show you all the things we've done to make it feel like a home.  And we might even go somewhere this weekend.  But I don't know if I'm up for too many adventures yet.  This relaxing things has become pretty addicting.