The rest of block leave

The Army handles vacation time in an interesting way.  The higher up people decide what weeks everyone in the Battalion will go on vacation.  It's called Block leave. Then members of the battalion decide how many days they will take off during block leave.  They can do anything between not taking time off or taking the whole two weeks. 

Soldiers accrue a lot of vacation days (like 3 a month) and Brandon hasn't taken any leave since Christmas so he could have taken the full two weeks off.  But we wanted to save most of his vacation days for a trip to Utah.  So he only took a week off.  He was off from Friday October 31 to Friday November 7.  We planned on spending Saturday and Sunday recovering from our road trip.  

When Brandon requested his leave time he didn't realize that Veterans Day was the Tuesday after we got home.  He pretty much always gets a four day weekend for every Federal Holiday.  So that meant that not only did he have Saturday and Sunday off, but he also had Monday and Tuesday off as well.  And none of those days were taken away from his leave time.  We couldn't have planned it any better.  

And after he did go back to work on Wednesday it was a pretty easy week.  Most of the battalion was still on block leave so there wasn't much to do. I knew that would be the case so I scheduled several doctors appointments for this week.  Brandon was easily able to leave work and watch the kids. And then he usually didn't have to be back at work until final formation in the afternoon. 

So basically that's a long way of saying that this week was really relaxing.  It was the perfect followup to our busy vacation.  

We spent all of Saturday cleaning up from our trip.  I did load after load of laundry.  Here is what our laundry room looked like.  (If I remember right, I'd already done a few loads when I took this picture.)       

Brandon set up the tent so it could dry out in the back yard.  After it was dried and put back in the bag, Brandon said it weighed about 20 lbs less.  

Brandon also vacuumed out the Honda.  It looked so good when he was done.  On Monday he took it to a car wash with the kids so the outside could be as clean as the inside. 

 Veronica found some of Brandon's screws and stuff and made a giant mess.

She also was really happy to see her slide again.  She loves to stand at the back door and yell, "si-DAh" for "outside."

 The girls were happy to be back home with all their toys.

 The weather was slightly cool all weekend,  On Monday the kids decided that it was warm enough to play with water in the back yard.  I agreed with them and even let the twins get into their swimming suits.

 I'm glad I let them play outside because after that things got COLD.  We've had freeze warnings and overnight temps have been in the low 30s.  It's been kind of depressing.  Veronica has been going crazy to be cooped up inside all day. We also have been battling colds.

We're still doing our "Little School" every day.  The kids have been learning about numbers.  They color a worksheet about a different number every day.  We made it to 14 this week.

 I put Veronica into a tutu one day.  I said, "You're wearing a tutu."  And she could mimic "Tu tu" right back at me.  She also can say "Up" when she wants up into my lap. She also likes to yell, "Zah" all the time.  We have no idea what it means, but it's super cute.

 Here is another picture of our "Little School."  Veronica is more interested in participating than Derrick is.  She's really just interested in trying to eat the markers though.  She loves to do things that her older siblings are doing.  She's started running with them as they race through the house.  The other day she stood up against the wall and I'd say "Ready Set Go" and then she'd run around and then come back.  That's a game that the older kids have played since I was pregnant with Veronica.  I can't believe she is old enough to play it now.  

 Derrick made progress with his own language ability this week.  He's started saying "Daddy" every time he sees Brandon.  That alone is amazing!  He also started saying, "Ready Set Go!" and "Here you go"this week. I'm so excited that he's starting to say three word phases.

We got out some of our dress ups and Charlotte wanted to dress up like Santa and have me take her picture.

 And then Lydia (who was dressed up like Cinderella) wanted to be in the picture.

 And then Veronica backed up against the wall too.

 And then Derrick joined in as well.  I don't know why they don't do this when I want them to pose for pictures.

I took Charlotte and Lydia into the doctors for their 4 year old check up and shots.  They did really well up until it was time to get their shots.  Lydia went first and as soon as she started crying Charlotte joined in.  It was pretty sad.  I'm glad we are all done with shots for a while.

They girls totally milked the fact that they'd had shots.  I told them the best way to make their legs feel better would be to walk on them, but they didn't believe me.  Lydia kept pulling herself around the livingroom with just her arms.

I went to the doctor as well this week.  After Veronica was born I vowed that I wouldn't go to the doctor for a year.  With all the other kids I was pregnant again before I made it to a year postpartum.  I was sooooooo sick of going to the doctor.  Well my year is up so it was time to start scheduling appointments again.  First up was a dentist appointment.  I hadn't been since I was pregnant with Derrick.  I was shocked to find out that I don't have any cavities.

Then I had the doctor's appointment.  It was a good appointment, and my doctor said I was healthy, but I was concerned about my weight. I weighed about 10 lbs more than I did when I was pregnant with Veronica.  That's understandable considering I just went through a stressful deployment, but I still wasn't happy about it.

Worrying about my weight was another thing that I vowed not to do for the past year.  But now that Brandon is home it's time to get serious about losing weight.  I came home from the doctor and set some weight-loss goals and talked to Brandon about how I'm going to accomplish those goals.  I've already made a lot of changes.  In the future I'll do a post with all the details.  But in the meantime I just want  to say that I already feel so much better.

Anyway, block leave ends tonight so tomorrow things will be back to normal at Brandon's work.  We don't really know what normal is though, so this should be interesting.

2014 Beach Vacation: Day 7 - A Perfect Finish

I was actually pretty impressed with the Motel 6 that we stayed at in Baytown.  There were about 4 different wings that surrounded the pool. The weather was clearer than the day before, but it was still cold so we didn't even think about swimming.  The kids liked looking at it though.  

About my only complaint with the motel was that it didn't have a continental breakfast.  So after we got everything packed up we went off in search of a grocery store where we could buy donuts.  We put everyone in one cart and went inside.

Every time we go to the store the girls have asked me if we could buy donuts.  I kept telling them we'd buy donuts when Daddy came home.  Then he came home and I told them we'd get donuts on our vacation.  So we bought a dozen doughnuts to make good on all my promises.

We bought some chocolate milk too and then went out to the car to eat our breakfast.  It was a fun way to start the morning.  We all were in such good moods and all the kids were grinning as we walked through the store.

Brandon and I also polished off the last of the trail mix.  The mix this time had candy corn in it so it would be seasonally appropriate.  

We wiped off the kids sticky hands and faces and then put them in their car seats and started driving.  This was the last day of our vacation, but that didn't mean we were done quite yet.  We still had some things left the list of things I wanted to see.

First up was the Baytown Bridge.  This bridge was most of the reason I'd picked Baytown as the city to stay in that night.  (That and that's where the cheapest hotel rates were.)

The bridge was the first suspension bridge that we'd crossed on this trip.  As with all the other bridges the kids screamed with joy when we crossed this one.  It was fun to look back and see Veronica screaming along with her older siblings.

Then we drove to The San Jacinto Battleground State Park which is home to the Battleship Texas.  The Texas is a Dreadnought Style ship.  As soon as I read the word "Dreadnought" in the State of Texas Guidebook I knew I HAD to see this ship.  Years ago I read a book called Navy and Empire which was all about how England's Navy helped shape the Empire.  The whole book was fascinating, but I remember being super impressed by the chapters about the dreadnoughs.  I don't remember the specifics, but I loved reading about those ships.  I couldn't believe there was a similar one in Houston. 

The ship is docked right next to the Houston Channel so there were lots of barges floating by.

Tickets for a tour of the ship are $12 for adults.  This is where our $70 annual park pass really paid off - because with the pass we could visit the ship for free.  Yay.  So all we had to do was check in with the office and then we could walk onto the ship.

  It was so neat to be on the ship.  It was the most advanced weapon in the world when it was commissioned in 1914.  It served in both World War I and World War II.  I liked imagining what it would have been like to work on this ship.

There were some guns that we could sit on.  Charlotte wanted to climb up in the seat right away.

And Lydia hurried and got in the other one.

The girls were so funny.  They kept saying things like "I just shot a tree." or "I shot a boat."

The ship is undergoing some structural improvements, but we were pretty much able to walk where ever we wanted on the main deck.

There were so many guns along the sides of the ship.

After exploring the main deck it was time to do some climbing and see the upper decks.

All the kids did a great job at climbing the steep staircases.

It was only after we'd climbed up several flights of stairs that I realized it would be a lot harder to get down.

Here's the view from the top.  You can see the San Jacinto Battleground Monument (our next stop) in the distance, and even farther from that you can see the Baytown Bridge.

We weren't able to climb to the very top of the ship, but that's okay because I was kind of concerned about how we'd get down from where we were.

Derrick was starting to concern me too.  He insisted on carrying one of his blankets with him and I was worried he'd trip on it and fall off the high decks.  He actually did trip and fall down a some stairs, but luckily there were only two.  After that I carried him until we were back off the high decks.  Brandon carried Veronica down, and the girls were really safe, so we all made it down safely.  But my legs hurt for two days after carrying Derrick while navigating those steep stairs.

We went below deck after we got down off the high decks.  The first thing we saw was the sleeping quarters for the sailors.  Brandon said that he was so grateful he only had to share his barracks room with one other soldier while he was in Korea.

The size of the lockers also made Brandon appreciate his barracks room.

Even more beds.  Can you imagine being the guy on the bottom bunk.

There were lots of signs that explained what each room was for.  This one made me laugh.

Here's the laundry room.

Back up top the kids had fun playing on some large shells.  Oh you know, just another normal family outing here.

This three inch gun was really fun.  Lydia's side controlled the side to side motion for the gun. Charlotte's took care of the up and down.

I think this picture is going to go down as one of my favorite ones of Lydia.  Zebra print jacket paired with artillery power? Of course those go together.

I had to take a turn playing with the weapon too.

And then Brandon had to join in.

What a good looking guy.  Let's all take a moment to appreciate his vacation beard.

Well obviously we had a lot of fun with that gun.  The whole ship was great to explore and I'm so glad we got to see it.

Here's one more view of the ship.  I think I need to go dust off Navy and Empire again and re-read the Dreadnought chapters.

We put the kids back into the car which was must easier said than done.  Since this was the last day of our vacation we hadn't done a very careful pack job.  There were blankets and pillows everywhere.  Also I'm surprised we looked as good as we did. All our clothes were either damp or smells like the ocean.  I thought I'd put Veronica into clean pants, but when I'd lifted her off the bed she'd left a pile of sand behind her.  Yes, we were getting ready to be home soon.

But we still had one more thing to see.  The San Jacinto Battleground Monument is pretty much right next to the Battleship Texas.  I'd even asked if there was a way to walk to it rather than try to get the kids back in their carseats for such a short drive.  However, they lady at the visitor center advised against it due to mosquitoes.  

So we drove over there.  I wasn't prepared for how massive the monument was.  I couldn't get a picture of the whole thing.

Looking up at it made Brandon and I dizzy.

There is a museum inside the monument.  The girls liked these little dioramas.

There were also lots of paintings.  We also could have taken an elevator to the top of the monument, but that cost money.  I wasn't that interested and didn't even bother finding out how much it cost.

There were lots of displays about important people from Texas history.  I would have liked to look at them for at least a minute, but the kids ran past them all.

So we went back outside and walked around the monument.

I think my only regret about this vacation was that I didn't know a lot about Texas History or the history of the US-Mexican War.  We kept running into important battlegrounds and I didn't know the context. Reading the panels on the monument helped fill in a lot of pieces for me.  The San Jacinto Battleground is where the final battle of the US-Mexican War was fought.  The first battle was fought at Palo Alto near Brownsville where we visited on Sunday.  Between those battles were other ones like the Alamo.   The war lasted from 1846 to 1848.  This was the war that the Mormon Battalion was formed to flight in - even though they didn't see battle.  

We could have gone for a walk around the battle ground, but those donuts were coming back to haunt us.  Everyone was hungry and cranky so it was time to get going.  

There was another small ferry a short distance to the north of the Battleground.  Taking that ferry was the easiest way to get back to the I-10 so that's the way we went.  (We probably would have done it anyway, because ferries are fun.)

The ferry ride was really short.  The kids all had fun.  Derrick liked seeing all the water.

We had one last view of the monument and then we were on our way.

I navigated as Brandon drove through Houston.  Together we made a pretty good team.  We even made the tricky left lane exchange from the 610 to 290 without any problems.

We drove a little bit longer and then we were at my sister Lindsey's house.  She had chips and cheese waiting for us for lunch.   We were going to only stay an hour or two at her house, but we had so much fun that we stayed for dinner too.  She and John invited us to stay the night, and we would have, but Brandon had to sign back into his unit by midnight.

As always I liked talking to Lindsey.  This was the first time we'd seen each other since Brandon got back.  It had only been about 5 weeks since the last time I was at her house, but wow, I was doing so much better.  Last time the kids were still getting over hand foot and mouth disease and I'd hardly been able to make it to her house without a nervous breakdown.  This time I was finishing up the one of the best family vacations of my life.    

We left after dinner.  Brandon wasn't feeling too well so I drove the last 3 hours home.  I know that drive so well that it was easier for me to drive instead of navigate.  Brandon was supposed to sleep, but instead he stayed up and we talked about how much we love being married to each other.  We really are each other's best friends.

We got back to Fort Hood around 9:00.  I drove straight to Brandon's unit so he could sign in. After that his leave was over - but our vacation was still going.  Thanks to Veterans' Day Brandon had a four day weekend.  That meant we still had Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday to spend together as a family relaxing in our own home.