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!