Tanks and Rock climbing

In the last few weeks since getting to Fort Polk we've been a bit tight on the old cash-o-la so we've had to use our good old imagination (go figure) to keep our selves entertained on a 100% free budget. As such we have explored our new base and attended bbq's with friends and unit bbq's. By the way let me just say that I love Matt's new unit. They are all so welcoming and everyone seems to really mesh well with us so that is always a perk~! Enjoying the majority of those you work with and have to socialize with doesn't often happen, so YAY.

One of the things we did recently was to take a walk around the WWII tanks on display. The kids loved seeing them. Cody and Matthew got really animated about their pictures and wanted to look like they were shooting them, surrendering, or being scooped up by them. Michael isn't in many of them because he was far too excited to see them all and ran ahead so wasn't caught in pictures as often as Cody and Matty. Then last week Matt's unit had a "Mandatory fun day" where the Soldier has to go and socialize with his unit, hey man it's a day off work lol. Family is obviously invited and it is obviously not mandatory for families and I'd LOVEEEEEE to see one of them tell ME what to do.........bbwwwhahahahahaha......ok...soooooo anyways from 9-3ish we were at the gun range on post and they really put on a great bbq. The unit was split up into troops and then into teams competing for the best scores in Skeet shooting Which my hubby BLEW his team away....lol...getting over HALF their team total just by himself. They each shot ten times and Matt got 6 in a row plus one more on his practice shot and his team was really impressed because on average each team mate got one. ..lol. Then they played paintball and out of 2 games Matt only got hit twice, not bad at all and he was the 2nd to last man standing in each game. HAAH go newbie go newbie! I would have had some rockin pictures of the paintball but the mesh netting protecting the on lookers from rouge paint balls made the pictures all turn out black. We had GREAT bbq, all the water and Gatorade we could drink, and for the kids a bounce house, a giant inflate able slip and slide, a rock climbing wall, and a trampoline with the harness for doing flips and so on. THEY HAD A BLAST and were out of my hair most of the day! YAY! I knew Michael and Cody were little spider monkeys and would be the 1st ones sprinting up the rock climbing wall, and they did over and over and over all day, but Matty really surprised me, he climbed that wall all the way to the top by himself and rang that bell on the 4th try, the other 3 he only got 3/4 way up and then thought it more fun to let go and gently glide down on the rope..lol.

We had a great time and it was free. I love how things just tend to take care of themselves like that......no money...some how equals instant fun..lol.

So that's been our fun...... gotta love the Army.

Memorial Day Weekend isn't just for BBQ's and Camping

Dear Madam: I have been shown in the files….that
you are the mother of five sons who have died
gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and
fruitless must be any words of mine which should
attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so
overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to
you the consolation that may be found in the thanks
of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our
heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your
bereavement, and leave you only the cherished
memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride
that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice
upon the altar of freedom. A. Lincoln

http://www.usmemorialday.org/memorialday4.pdf

This is a very good article I found that does a great job of reminding us why we celebrate this day and the history behind it. Please remember what day is meant for. Take 10 minutes out of your bbq's, and camping trips and family outings to teach a new generation what this day is for.

Matt's done!!!!!!

Oh Thank Heaven's!!! This 17 weeks were rather torturous! We are all thrilled that Matt's done and home! As we left for our trip Matty asked "we going to get our Matt, at fort Knox 'tucky?". All three boy's were so excited that they actually behaved in the van for me most of the trip. That is, of course, until I would get lost (thanks Mapquest.......you BLOW) and have to call Kristy, Tara, my Mother in law Lisa, and none of them could help, so my Father in Law Johnny, sent A LOT of time googleing maps with correct routes for me! I'm sure they all think I'm a moron! When this is the 1st trip I've ever gotten lost on...lol. Oh well. THANKS ALL OF YOU ESPECIALLY DAD! And thanks Brittany for the awesome room rates!
I drove by myself with the kids approx 1,786.00 miles in two days, 18 hour days both, AWESOMENESS! lol. We got to the Knox area the night before and CRASHED. We got to go see Matt for a few hours for the I.E.T. (Initial Entry Training) Dinner. MANNNNN it was so good to see him again! They came out in their Class A uniform for the 1st time (the Army green suit for those of you who don't know) . Matt's parent's came, Matt's sister Brittany, and Matt's brother Jordan and his very pregnant wife Amber came as well as Matt's Gramma. It was so cool to have them all there. It was like a mini family reunion. We only got to have Matt for dinner. After dinner we had to leave our Soldier's to go back to the barracks and literally spend the ENTIRE night cleaning the barracks! So Matt went and got into formation in the rain and stood there at attention until they were ready to get back onto the bus. We all went back to the hotels and got a little sleep and were up bright and early to go to the graduation.
The graduation ceremony was really cool. Each platoon marched out in cadence, stood at attention while the Drill Sgt, turned and stated his name, rank and where he was from. Each Soldier then did it and walked down the stage to the seating area and took their seat. As Matt did his, our entire group stood up and SCREAMED AND CLAPPED for him. We were BY FAR the loudest group! YAY Morris'!!!! WOOT WOOT! lol. We saw some video's in tribute of Cavalry Scout's and a guest speaker. All in all, I just wanted it done so I could wrap my arms around my husband and know he was DONE and mine all mine again! After the ceremony they marched back to the barracks, and signed out! WOOHOO! We spent the next 2 days with his family going out to eat (where Matt promptly shoveled food down his throat looking over his shoulders non stop for a drill sgt..lol) and went to the Louisville Zoo, and the Mega Cavern's (don't go if you were thinking about it, it's literally a giant underground dump!,...No...really...a dump and storage center for boats, RV's and stores that don't have enough room for their crap lol) . While in Kentucky we also celebrated Dad's birthday! I love my in law's and it was so much fun having them there for all this!
We all drove home Saturday along the same stretch of highway for the first few hours and Nana suggested we pull over and stop at Dinosaur World to visit the gift shop and take some pictures and stretch our legs. As we were leaving we pulled up the a giant Triceratops replica to take a picture. Graceful I am not! I went to step over the ropes to take a picture with the kids and stepped incorrectly down on my left leg on algae and slipped, twisting my ankle, ripping off two toe nails and scraping up my shin really nicely. AWESOME..lol So instead of getting to drive the 1st shift, I sat with my leg up on the dashboard icing my ankle, my butt wet and covered in really sexy sludge! YUMMY!
So now we are home! And have literally spent 4 days of Matt's leave time on base setting up this move! Right now the movers are here packing up our apartment and tomorrow we head to Fort Polk to live in Guest housing for up to two months while we wait for a house. BUT WHO CARES!!!! My husband is home and I could live in a tent and be happy with him home!

We are Moving toooooooooooooooo.............*drum roll*

Fort Polk LOUUUUIIISSSSSIIIAANNNNAA .....LOL.. YUP! May 24th we sign in. So as soon as Matt is home, the moving process begins. Some of you already know this, because my kitten breath, sunshine and rainbow ponies out look on life has forced me to feign excitement over it. HAHA. Ok...Not really feign. I am rather thankful right now for small blessings! Fort Polk is the BANE of Military existence, right up there with Fort Blister. Oh I mean Fort Bliss, Texas. Frankly every military family member or service member that has heard of our new duty station has given me the "ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I'm soooooo sorry for you" look or has begun Manically laughing. lol All except my little sister Kristy who actualy LIKES it and would love to go back......(new meds perhaps sissy???) jk!!!

Fort Polk is Swampy...... lol . I suppose that's the word. Before I saw it for the 1st time I had visions of old toothless men in coverall's rasslin gator's and such...lol. However, I was able to visit Kristy at Fort Polk, back in 2007 (??) for Easter. The base really isn't that small, and the housing really isn't bad at all. I love that the kids will be attending a school where uniforms are required. I won't have the "BUT MOM, I DON'T WANNNTTTT TO WEAR THAT SHIRT TODAY!!!!!!!" argument anymore. It's white or green polo's suckers! BBWWHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHA. Sorry.....it slipped out. Once again we will be living on base and not in a tiny 3 bedroom apartment, and will hopefully have some type of small fenced yard where Cupcake can play and we could possibly set up the trampoline. None of that matters though. The blessing I am so excited about is that as of NOW and from what we've been told Matt is in a non deployable unit (that is as of now, who knows tomorrow lol) and that means AT LEAST one year home, sleeping in the same bed, being around us!!!!! SIGH, I am seriously thrilled at this. As for it being in Lousisiana...Eh.....he'll be home........really, can't complain. I'm sure my lovely new in law's won't mind that we are only 805 miles from them as opposed to here in Arizona. The closer, the better. HOME HOME HOME. Thank you for blessings in disguise!!!!!

Gold Phase or the lack there of

This SHOULD be the part where Matt's Platoon would be in GOLD phase, where they are given all sorts of FANTASTIC privileges such as phone calls daily, eating without a time limit, showers whenever during the day they feel it's needed as opposed to lining up and go, go,go! showers. I was really looking forward to GOLD phase, I know Matt really was too, but evidently.....some of the other Soldier's just couldn't be good for goodness sake...lol. Nooooooo. A choice few were caught with contraband, they were purchasing candy and tobacco products at the PX and then selling them to other Soldier's in their platoon. MORONS! So Matt's entire platoon was busted back to RED phase! UGH UGH UGH! RED Phase BLOWS! Back to screaming in their faces, smoking them for hours on end for no reason (non stop workout/drills until their shaking), eating with 3 minutes, showers of even shorter time limits and little if any letter writ ting time and NO phone calls. Oh well, I knew I wouldn't get many letters or calls these last two weeks seeing as they are on their 5 day FTX, basically war games, live ammo, bombs going off and so on while they are camping basically, then they do a 25-30k ruck march back in from the Field, with full packs averaging 60-80lbs. LOVELY..lol Ya bet they are sore then! They won't be back until Tuesday this coming week, then things should settle down, and they begin cleaning all their gear to turn back in, out processing, and cleaning the barracks nonstop until we get there for the graduation dinner and ceremony. It's almost done!!!! light at the end of the tunnel folks!!!! I know Matt is super excited to see all the family that is coming! We wish we had more time between the graduation and the move to go visit family but it's on ARMY time..meaning NO time...lol.

Easter

Easter was filled with all the fun of stomach flu's and candy..... Ya. lovely. lol So the whole Ham, potatoes, rolls, and peach cobbler went out the window and we feasted ....rather sipped on chicken noodle soup....yay. Oh well, they were still chipper and in great moods despite the flu and got their baskets, hunted for eggs in the apartment and nibbled a few things before getting sick again. Oh well, real life doesn't wait for holiday's. I hope you all had a fantastic Easter! Thanks Nana, Grandaddy, Aunt Brittany, Aunt Amber, Uncle Jordan and Oma for all the sweet Easter gifts you all sent! We love you all! Nana, those teeth were too funny and the kids LOVED them!

Happy 4th birthday Matthew!!

Today was my sweetheart, Matthew's birthday and he's 4!! omg he's no longer my baby!!!! lol...it killed me! He was so sweet this morning when first thing this morning he came into my room all serious and said."Mommy??.....Can I be four now??" lol I love this little man! We had a small family party for him, just his Dad, his brother's, and one neighbor and her two kids. I finally got to make the dragon cake I've been dieing to try (haha thanks Hanna I saw it on your blog) and he loved helping me make it all day, and after cake and ice cream he opened presents and had a squirt gun fight and he had a lot of fun! He had so much fun that he evidently didn't want it to end. Since Matty has the bad habit of locking himself into his room and not being able to figure out how to get out that Matt flipped the lock around. Well tonight Matty locked it from the outside and then shut Myself, Michael, Cody and himself in..lol. Good thing I was putting batteries in one of his new toys and had a screw driver in hand....it did take us a few minutes to escape but at least it was funny....Michael cracked me up when he said, very point blank "Oh GRRRRREaaattttttt Matthew, Now we are all just gonna die in here!" HAHA. Kids are too fun!

Happy Birthday my sweet little Monkey! Thanks Nana, Grandaddy,Brittany, Amber Jordan, the packo-dogs, Oma, and Dad for all the gifts and cards and calls!

Matthew darling Matty made sure to tell me to let you know he misses you and he says' "I'm 4 now Matt! I getting bigger like you!"

Army Tornado Warning Procedures weren't meant to be this funny!

I had a really good giggle at one of Matt's newest letters and I decided to share it with you all. Sit down...you're being privileged. jk. Now even though Matt and his platoon are now in Black phase (which means more privileges) they have yet to earn any privileges. Thus their schedule is just as rigorous and pyhsicaly demanding as Red phase was. Something that hasn't changed unfortunatly is the shower routine. They all line up in the hallway in their pt shorts and nothing else clutching ( I assume) their hygiene bags and wait their turn for their 90 second showers. So picture men waiting in line, some in the showers all soapy (wait don't picture that too much!) and some trying to get dressed as.... WHOOP WHOOOOOP WHOOOOOPPPP, the good old tornado warning sirens blare. Now the Army is huge on procedure, and Drill Sgt.s are Meticulous about it so despite their unclothed, wet or semi cladness they were required to run and shut all the windows and doors and hunker down in the hallways. I cracked up at the visual of men running willy nilly trying to get on their shorts, or cover their wobbly bits, covered in soap, running to close up and sitting there in the hall for who knows how long until it cleared while soap dried on them and they got chills..lol. I'm sorry , now that's just good and funny. Especially since the tornado's didn't touch down near them and it was all for nothing...BBWWHAHAHAHA The Army's tornado warning procedures really weren't meant to be this funny....lol
On another note Matt did earn an hour pass last Sunday and spent almost 30 minutes of it on the phone to me. It was a blissfull phone call where nothing was rushed and we actualy got to talk and shoot the breeze. YAY I'm thinking I will be likeing black and gold phase MUCHO!

Fort Knox Kentucky trip for Matt's graduation

OH MAN!!!! Did I need this trip! I have to admit, that though I am an old hand now at deployments, and TDY's, that being an Enlisted Soldier's wife is so much harder than it was as an officer's wife. I love learning and having all of these new experiences but man, being separated as newlyweds for this last 8 weeks has been FAR harder than I expected it to be! During a TDY (temporary duty station) or deployment I would normally get weekly if not every few days phone calls, and almost daily emails and instant messaging/web camera face time, after the initial few weeks when they set everything up. During Matt's BCT portion of his OSUT however I got in total 8 phone calls, 3 were all business, "I'm here I'm safe goodbye" or "our new bank information is..." 30 second to 2 minute calls, then at the end a few 3 -5 minute calls telling me when graduation was and so on, absolutely NO computer time, and living off of letters. Which was all expected however much harder to endure than I thought..lol. I live for his letters! So this trip to reunite with him for 3 days was all that was keeping me really going.
It was way too expensive to take myself and the boys so I left them with Jon, and flew out at 5 am Thursday, and good thing I left a day early because this trip has been Murphy's Law left, right and center! LORDY! The flight was over weight, we took off, and landed right away, unloaded some luggage and a few passengers and took back off, an hour and 45 min flight turned into an almost 5 hour flight, we ended up circling over Houston for an hour due to fog, ran low on fuel, got diverted, sat at a poe dunk airport for hours, until we got the go ahead to land in Houston, missed 2 connecting flights, had a 4 hour lay over before my last flight, got in and there was major car rental drama which almost reverted me to tears, and I was saved from and $80.00 cab fare by my awesome sister in law and Mother in law! PHEW they had driven up from FL and were only an hour or so from the airport, so they took me to my hotel! The next day they picked me up and we went to Fort Knox, (where we took a picture that is evidently illegal because it's too close to the gate operations at Knox, even though we didn't get the gate procedures in the picture...opps naughty us) then we stood for forever in the waiting area of the theater while the Soldier's did a run through. We were finally seated and it was torture! Seeing all those Soldier's, it was a like a sea of them and you wanted to scream out your Soldier's name and hope he turned so you could see him. It killed me sitting there waiting to see him, waiting for him to be released. Mom and Brittany walked down and were snapping pictures looking for him. If you can see he was in the 3rd row in about the middle of the picture. They had a really cool program where they did skits on the difference between what a Private at basic training WISHES wake up call was like and what it REALLY is like, hilarious! Then they did a drill and showed us how a Cav unit clears a building. And then they had them all stand up and get to put on their beret's for the 1st time as Soldier's, not just recruits. They marched out and we had to follow as they marched them to their barracks (OMG I soo was rethinking my hooker heels at this point...ouch!) and then they were released to be signed out by a family member. Matt almost got yelled at because we didn't realize it was our turn to sign out, we were too busy....reuniting..lol. Matt gave us a tour of their spotless barracks and his locker and gear and then we headed out. It was Brittany's birthday and she was such a good sport to share her day with Matthew. We went to cracker barrel and then all hung out in our hotel room while we tried to find a rental car. During the weekend we got to go to the Civil War museum and other War museums, got to see a civil war battle reenacted which was fun, and got to take a carriage ride, the rest of the weekend was taken up with running back and forth between hotels, personal time and going out to eat, where we were lucky enough to get to take out Cory who so kindly has visited Matt 2x at basic and took that picture for me! He was soooooo nice, now I see why my Gf really fell for him. Total sweetheart and I'm so lucky to know someone like him is there keeping an eye out on my gorgeous husband! We had a wonderful weekend with Mom, Gramma, Brittany, Amber and her nudger, and we were all sad to have to go. Sunday afternoon Matt decided that leaving the hotel 2 hours early was prudent so we did and a good thing too, by the time we got on post and he signed in they told him he had to be in formation in 15 minutes, and in that 15 minutes he had to get a hair cut and get anything from the PX he was going to need for the next two weeks, WOW did he sprint! After a lovely 30 second hair cut he was back, and we were saying our good byes.......so sad..lol. I was sooooo mad at myself, I forgot to get the SD card back out of the laptop and put it back in our camera, so I didn't get any good bye pictures, and I wasn't able to film them getting smoked. Which was HILARIOUS!!!!!! The drill Sgt's were walking down taking roll and seeing who was late and asking if any of them "Now which of you Moron's brought things back to my barracks that were not issued to you??!?!?!?!" lol
several raised their hands, one dork brought back his cell phone, another pictures of his wife to which the sgt asked " are they naked pvt?" "No? well then I don't care now do I" lol and moved on, another soldier brought back a laptop , and the Drill Sgt's face was FREAKING hilarious!! omg! " A laptop!!! an F-ing LAPTOP!!! what were you thinking Pvt!!! He brought back a lllaaaapppptttoooppp.....WTF Pvt!!" We were all rolling. As soon as they finished that the 4 different Platoons were smoked, doing drill after drill after drill and it was so cool to see them working out in sync! I am still kicking myself that I don't have that on video but you can be sure if anyone else there video taped it I'll get a copy and post it. It was priceless. After being smoked they were told they had x amount of minutes to get inside and do something so they all booked past us and Matt blew me a kiss and ran on by....sigh..lol Only 7 more weeks! I can do this~!lol Man I missed him, and baby since I'll be mailing you this blog, I love you, I love you,, I love you, I love you, so so so much and I can't wait to see you!!!
The flight home was a WHOLE nother story I was on time and things were running smoothly on the 1st flight to O'Hare, then we took off and were doing great, even landed a bit early but another plane landed with an emergency, someone had a heart attack and so their plane took out spot and we waited forever, so I missed my connection, luckily they got me on the next one but once we landed, late again, I had to book it through the maze of death that is the Denver Airport, it was 4 escalators down, 2 back up in another hall, a train ride, 2 escalators back up, 5 walking escalators, a stair case, and one hell of a long walk down the hall to my gate and that was just from the C gates to the B gates! omg..lol I barely made it as they were paging "passenger Rachael Morris, last call..." PHEW. I got in late, and went to luggage claim....waited.......waited......waited.....wtf man where is my bag......wait ...wait...wait....carosel stops..... no bag......ugh..so off to United's luggage claims, where it seems another woman took my bag by mistake ...really?? how. come on....it was WAY bigger than hers, WAY heavier...and HAD RACHAEL MORRIS all over it....durrrrrrr. So I had to sit outside contemplating how to get home since my house keys and car keys were in that bag along with our laptops, dig cameras and all the love letters I had written to Matt thus far which he sent home with me as well as all our birth certificates and vital information since Matt had needed to have all that junk with him when he got there. I was FREAKING out, until I remembered I had a spare key I had shoved in my purse....just in case, and that my dog sitter at home would have my other house key....phew. So I headed home without a bag. Fortunately United called only 2 hours later and the bag had been returned and they would deliver it by midnight. YAY !!! what a load off my mind. So all in all the trip was WELL worth it, long and exhausting but FAR too short! Man do I miss him but we have started out count down all over again and this time it's only a month and a half so this is do-able! Ok well that's it, if you're still reading sorry I am so long winded...hahahaha.