Snow Nights

The snow we've been getting has been beautiful. Unfortunately a nice, steady snow fall mixed with rain results in some very heavy snow. The trees around here apparently don't stand up well under such conditions which resulted in a lot of downed trees and damaged power lines. We lost power on Wednesday evening, luckily our house has good insulation. Thursday afternoon the power came back on briefly but turned off again until late Thursday night. That's a long time to be without power when you're trying to clean and organize the house for a move.

Since we couldn't do too much in our house we spent the afternoon at some stores to keep warm and get some moving supplies. We needed a cooler to keep my medicine cold and we found the perfect one at Target for less than $5 on clearance. I love finding a good deal. We also got a mini snow luge on clearance. It looks like a snow sled for toddlers but it's for adults too. We took it out for some rides on the biggest hill we could find in our neighborhood. I had doubts at first about fitting on the thing but it worked surprisingly well! Lance had some great runs with it too. Since the power was out when we got home we played a Train Dice Game which was also fun. Lance ended up going to bed around 7.30 since there was nothing else to do. I waited up until midnight for the power to turn back on.

We hopefully have a house ready for us when we move. I called the housing office today and they were able to accommodate our time frame since we were near the top of the list. We're a little nervous about moving into a house we've never seen in an area we've never visited but it seems like a great house in a good neighborhood on base. When we get there we will still have the option of going back on the waiting list if we don't like the house. If it turns out to be the house we want we'll give out a few more details. For now it's a newer 2 bedroom duplex with a garage. If we get into a home soon then I'll be able to plant an outside garden this spring. At Mom and Dad's house a couple years ago, Lance planted a great little garden of cherry tomatoes and sugar peas. It would be fun to grow those again and maybe some strawberries.

Snowman

It snowed this morning, and then started raining which resulted in some muddy snow. Lance had the day off since his work didn't want unnecessary personal driving on icy roads. He convinced me to put on all the snow gear I could find and play in the snow. We built a muddy snowman out front. I didn't realize how heavy snow could get.

Getting Ready to Move

All right, now that Lance is back it looks like there's some major planning to be done. We spent the last two days working on setting up the main move and getting on some housing wait lists. We started at number 77 on the list with an estimated wait time of about 8 months. In looking around the housing website I saw a small clause that allowed newer service members some wait list credit under certain circumstances. Turns out we qualified and went from number 77 to number 9. Awesome! We're hoping it all works out for us. I'm a little worried about the final inspection for the house we're in now. We haven't done any damage to it, but I'm not sure how picky they'll be about normal wear and tear. I think the movers may have damaged some of the floor tiles when they moved a few things in, not major floor damage, but a scrape or two. We'll see.

We still haven't figured out temporary housing, but a friend of ours who's already living there offered to let us stay for a few nights. I'm hoping that's all the time it will take to have an opening in the neighborhood we want. If all works out well then we'll have a garage which means no more fighting for a parking space. I'm getting really excited about finally having a non temporary home. It will be the first time in our marriage that we'll be living somewhere for more than a year (hopefully). Every other place we've lived we've never fully unpacked. We'll also get to hang pictures on the walls. Lance is planning a game room, hmmm not sure about that one.

Airborne Hooah!!!

Wings

Happy Anniversary!

Today's only half over but it's been great, for me anyways. We'll see when Lance gets to call tonight how he's doing. I had a wonderful time at work this morning. I love playing with Caelen and talking with his mom. We started talking about gardening and they have an aerogarden they didn't want anymore. She gave it to me with a seed pack too, totally made my day! Lance has tried to buy me another one (I have one) but it's never quite in the budget. So now we can grow a more diverse indoor garden.

And my day just got even better. When I came home from work there was a bouquet of flowers at the door from Lance. How on earth he found time to order flowers is beyond me. I'm convinced he's the best husband ever. I can't wait til he comes home, Love you Lance!

a Little Snow

Yay, it's snowing. Hope it stops soon. In the meantime I had fun trying out a new lens. I tried without the flash but then Lance told me the flash would capture the snowflakes better. Here's a few of my favorites.

lake pictures

I've always wanted to do photography and Lance has been great about giving me little tips. Finally he told me to just put the camera on manual and start playing with it. I took a short walk around the lake today (short because it was freezing!) and took a few pictures before my fingers froze too much. The squirrels and ducks were great sports about posing for pictures, the geese not so much. Most of the pictures ended up over exposed, but here's a few that I like. The lake is partially frozen, but unfortunately the duck poo is frozen in with the water, so not so pretty.


Two different squirrels but both liked posing.


Ducks walking on water--frozen water.

long day for Lance

Lance didn't have time to send in a post so he wanted me to let everyone know what he did today. He spent the day standing around doing in-processing. Tomorrow will be even better; they get to wake up at 3-something in the morning to do a PT test at 4am. Kayley and I will send good thoughts his way as we sleep in. Lance will also be jumping off the 34 ft towers. I think it's kind of like a zip line thingy that they practice exiting and dropping their equipment on. Sounds like a lot more standing around waiting for your turn.

Took a cold shower tonight after walking all over benning. Brrrr. cold cold cold. we are inprosessing tomarrow, and tue we do a PT test. what fun. -Lance

From Lance...

surprise 0430 wakeup. these next 3 weeks are gonna be fun. we have a pt test monday after our 0500 formation. i'll try to keep yall posted. these are the 250 foot towers that they drop you from to get you ready for the real deal. i'll get some day time pix later today.