Pre-section day happenings

So it's Selection Day today.  In the next few hours we'll find out what aircraft Brandon will be flying for the rest of his career with the Army (first choice is C-12 airplanes, next choice is Black hawks.)  We'll also find out how long of a break he'll have before he starts his advanced training (please let it be something like 4 months). And we could possibly know where we are going to live next (this one isn't very likely - but things will at least be narrowed down after today).

I keep alternating between super nervous and oddly calm.  I'll just be glad when it's over.  

Anyway, Brandon woke up early for PT and I can't get back to sleep.  That's kind of a good thing because I want to get caught up on the last two weeks before he selects his aircraft. So lets do this thing where we talk about everything that I've been up to the past few weeks. 

Or actually lets start out by talking about what I didn't do.  

I didn't go to my sister Hillary's wedding.  Sob. 

I really really really really really wanted to make it out to Utah to see Hillary and Joe get married on March 12.  But I just couldn't make it work.  First the tickets were expensive.  Even if I drove 4 hours up to the Atlanta airport I would still be paying over $400 for two red eye flights.  

But I would have been willing to pay that if I'd been able to make the schedule work.  Unfortunately, Brandon was in the last week of BWS.  There was no way he could take time off to watch the kids.  And I couldn't think of anyone who could watch them during the day.  Sure I have some friends who might have been able to do it, but asking someone to watch 4 little kids all day long is a lot to ask - especially when they have their own children.  Also I was pretty certain I could hire Mary Poppins herself, and my kids would still be miserable.  I kept picturing Derrick crying because he wouldn't know where I'd gone, and Veronica crying because Derrick was crying.  

I thought that maybe I could just fly out on Friday, be in Utah for the wedding on Saturday, and then fly home Sunday.  But the cost of the tickets made me not want to do that.  $400 for a three day trip just didn't seem right.  

In the end I decided I had to put the needs of my immediate family above those of my extended family. And so I stayed here. 

Hillary and Joe got married in the Mt Timpanogos Temple.  They were married in the evening and then they hosted a dinner for about 50 guests rather than do a large reception.  Hillary even cooked the dinner.  My sisters Emily and Lindsey were able to make it so they helped with setting everything up.

My brother Billy called me up with a Google Video Chat and took me around the room so I could see all the decorations and say hi to all the guests.  In some ways it was like I was really there.  At one point he took me over to a table with a lap top on it. My parents were attending the dinner all the way from Brazil via Skype.

Technology is really cool.  Here I was in Alabama seeing a screen in Utah that was showing my parents in Brazil.

I was able to talk to Hillary for a second before she had to say hi to someone else. She looked really happy.

Brandon and I are hoping to make it back to Utah this summer so we'll spend more time with Hillary and Joe then.    

Okay now lets show some more pictures from that trip we took to Chehaw a few weeks ago.  These are from Brandon's camera.  This is when Charlotte got to feed the rhinoceros.

She was really excited and talks about it all the time.

Here are me and the kids looking at kangaroos and ostriches.

This was a silly one of Veronica.

Charlotte petting an animal during the animal show.

And playing on the play ground.

Okay and now we can talk about stuff that we actually did in the past two weeks.  

Brandon has had this dream to take the girls rock climbing when they turned 5.  This area is a little short on rock climbing locations so he had to settle for a tree for their first location.  

The girls loved it anyway and had lots of fun.

Brandon said they did really well and listened really well too. Hurray for father daughter bonding.

Derrick has taken a great interest in our rug.  He liked to drive his cars under there and say that they are "in the tunnel."  One day he went under there too and said, "In the tunnel."

Here's Brandon on the night he finished BWS.  It's so nice to have a less stressed husband.

We got the paint out one afternoon and Derrick had a lot of fun covering his paper with dots.  He's progressing so well.  Just a few months ago he hated holding a pencil or paint brush.

Charlotte drew a tree with rain.

Lydia did a bunch of pretty colors and later drew the Easter bunny.

On the night before St Patricks day the girls set up traps to try to trap the leprechaun.  Then Brandon was in charge of spinging the traps.  He left gold coins all over.

Brandon was always gone when we celebrated St Patricks day the last two years.  I would usually do something really fun to help us keep our minds off the fact that Brandon was gone.  But this year he was home and I just didn't want to do anything over the top.  The girls asked me why the  leprechaun didn't leave green foot prints. I told them that it was probably a different leprechaun here than the one we had in Texas.  This one must know how to wipe his feet.  

We did make a fruit rainbow which was really fun.  I've wanted to make one of these for a year ever since my Aunt Lori posted a picture of the one she made. 

It was Charlotte's idea to put it all on blue jello to represent the sky.

On another day we were outside and one of the neighbor boys showed us a nest that he discovered with three eggs in it.

*let the record show that at this point the kid woke up for the day*

Here are the kids entertaining themselves one afternoon.  I love that they all like doing things like this together. 

I've been trying to take a better picture of my Walter Mitty quote.  This is what I have so far.  But really it looks so much better in person. I love to lay on the couch and look at it.

Charlotte and Lydia created a little salon out of lincoln logs and blocks.  You can see the finger nail polish on the book case.  Charlotte is pretending use tweezers to pluck Lydia's eyebrows.

Spring break started on Friday. We kicked it off by cleaning the house and then going to Milky Moos in Ozark for icecream.

Then we did something I've wanted to do for a long time and walked down the road to look at all the pretty houses.

There are some amazing homes along this street.

We saw a railroad crossing in the distance so we walked over to look at that.  We could hear a train horn so we hung around until it went by.  Derrick was so happy!

Back at home Charlotte made this wagon with bikes for horses.

We still had lots of fruit so for dinner we had a fruit pizza.

On Saturday we went to the Children's Festival on post.  This is an annual event where most everything is free.  Last year Brandon helped out at it when it was at WOCS.  I remember being so sad that we didn't live in Alabama yet and that we couldn't go.  So I was happy that we could go this year.

We walked up to the festival fields and the the kids were so excited to see bounce houses.

After that Brandon took Charlotte and Lydia to the egg hunt while I took Derrick and Veronica to the train.  Back on the 4th of July we'd paid $3 a ticket for this very same train.   It was free today so I was determined to get our money out of it.

We drove by where Brandon and the twins were lined up waiting for the egg hunt.

They were still hunting when we got done with our ride so we did another combo of bounce houses and then the train again.

Derrick was in heaven.

Then we met up with Brandon and the twins and went over to the petting zoo.

The kids really liked the pig.

We crossed the street to a quieter field and had a picnic.  (All the food cost money so we'd brought our own.)

Lydia found a mask somewhere.

Then it was back to the train while Brandon and the twins waited in line to get their faces painted.  (Here's a little hint.  Face painting lines are the worst!  They are always super slow.)

Brandon and the girls were still in line so we went to look at a helicopter.

Veronica is really shy with people right now.  But she wasn't shy of this big dog.

We discovered that one booth was giving out free ice cream so we went there just as Charlotte and Lydia finished up with the face painting.

We waited in line for the train again.  (This was ride #4 for me and #1 for Brandon)  We made friends with another family who had a little girl named Charlotte.  At one point Brandon held that little Charlotte girl.  Veronica got really jealous and as soon as Brandon put down that little girl she wanted to be held.

Everyone had a fun time on the train as it went on it's little route around the block.

Then we went to a place where we could paint bird houses.  I thought Derrick wouldn't care, but he was really excited.  He went to every table and said the name of each color as he painted his bird house.

Charlotte did her's mostly orange.

Lydia's was mostly pink.

And Veronica's was a bunch of colors.

Here's everyone painting.

Then there was just enough time for one final train ride with Derrick and Veronica.  Charlotte and Lydia went over to the Karaoke area and sang "Let it Go."  We could hear them from halfway across the field.

The festival was pretty much over, but some of the bounce houses and slides were still up so everyone got a few more turns on those.

Then it was time to leave.  We walked over to the commissary and picked up a few things for dinner and then we walked home.  Lydia picked flowers as we walked.

And that's it for now.

It's spring break right now so we've been off doing lots of fun (and local) things.  I'll do a post all about those later.

And before I go I just have to mention some cool things about my travel blog.

Did you notice that I finally finished my Texas Coastline Series.  I surprised myself by busting out 4 posts in 4 days.

Then the next week I wrote a post about 25 stay-cation locations near Fort Rucker.  What's cool about this post is that it went from idea to published in less than 24 hours.  I guess I am getting better at this writing thing.  (And it certainly helps that Brandon was able to help with the kids while I worked on that post.)

Okay well the kids need breakfast so I need to go.

Talk to you later