We're Here!

It only took 2 short flights for us to get here at Offutt AFB. We've loved everthing, except that they don't have FMO loaner furniture here, so far. The night we got here, Steven took a taxi to a local car dealership and bought a truck. That alone has been a huge blessing for us. We've been running around since. Our first morning here Steven went out to get his in processing check list and check out his new squadron. When he got home he dropped a small bombshell, they don't have loaner furniture here. Since we've lived overseas for most of his career we are used to having to wait a couple of months for our belongings and vehicle to catch up with us. Apparently when you PCS around the states your stuff goes along with you so there is no need for it. Without loaner furniture, we'd live in an empty, 4-bedroom house. We managed to find some klik klak futons so we can use them as couches and beds, but man was that a shocker for us.
On our first trip to Target we missed a turn and had to turn around in the local VA home. They happened to have to have a tank sitting out front. We had to stop and take a photo for Papop!



We were so excited when we saw this outside in our yard! We were hoping to see some snow here :)



I was having a serious lack of caffeine issue, so we stopped at a local coffee chain and got some coffee. Ruby has decided she has a taste for coffee so she tried to get the very last drops out of the empty cup. She kept saying it was yummy in her tummy just like Yiayia's coffee.



A beautiful sunset. And if you look closely you'll see a water tower in the back, we live across the street from it.



We took Sophie to get her haircut and when we went to pick her up she had hair bows in her hair. Steven kept saying, "What did they do to my dog?" And the fleece she has to wear most days, our little Turkish bichon frise does not like the cold Nebraska weather.




I forgot to take a photo on the 27th so here's a filler photo instead. This was on the 24th. Literally seconds after Lilly got out of school and into the truck it started snowing. It was pretty much white out conditions. It stopped after about an hour and then the sun came out again and melted it all. It was pretty while it lasted!



I found this idea on Pinterest. When you use green onions, don't throw away the roots. Put the roots into some water and they will grow back. You'll never have to buy green onions again and even I can grow them with my black thumb and all!



Ruby has been pretty sick for a week. When we got to the doctors she had an ear infection, but she did try to stay happy even when she was feeling her worse. She saw me pick up my camera and asked if I could take a picture of her. I obligingly complied. She really is too cute!

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See I told you even I could grow green onions!



We checked out the thrift store on base. Even though 99.9% of the stuff wasn't for me, Steven did find this for me. It's a Pentax 110 with all the trimmings. It's pretty dirty on the inside so I don't think it will work too well. But for $15 it will look great on my shelf :)



Ruby looking a lot better after starting the antibiotics. She's too much. That twinkle in her eyes, it's her rottenness.



We stopped to check Menard's one day. It is like Home Depot on crack. Seriously, it had electronics, furniture, paint, flooring, window treatments, outdoor things, lumber, automotive things, tools, clothes, food, and so many more things. It was nuts. Steve and I could have stayed there all day, happily! It was nuts!



Like I said, we are loving it here. We are so close to Omaha and it's easy to navigate the area. In the next couple of weekends we plan to go to the zoo, which is only 15-20 minutes away. The girls are so excited. And Lilly, she has been loving school. She's still trying to get used to the longer days, but she has really been enjoying it. Now we just need our things and my car to get here, ha!

-K

Oh boy! This is going to be a LONG post.

We are finally in Nebraska and in our own home again! It's so great to be home again, but with all the craziness I am so behind in blogging! I have about a month's worth of P366 photos to post as well as everything that goes along with a move half way across the world, so please bear with me while I try to catch up.
One night before we left we went to getting something to eat at the bowling alley on base. Steven loves those arcade games that you try and grab a stuffed animal. Every time he sees one he has to try it. This time he won a monkey for Sadie. She loves it, but it was one of those really cheaply made stuffed animals and the butt seam immediately so Daddy came to the rescue and sewed it back up for her.

The weekend before we left we took some time to go to the movies. We went and saw the new Muppet movie. It was so cute and we all loved it. Before the movie they actually had a few of the Muppets there so the kids could take a picture with them. Ruby ran right up, Sadie patiently waited for her turn after Ruby, and Lilly decided she was going to be shy and not take a picture. We managed to convince her to take the photo because she would have balled and thrown a fit when she realized she missed out on something great, it's just what Lilly does and does often. Ruby wanted to keep Kermit and take him with her, but she reluctantly gave him back.

Lilly's last day of school was bitter sweet. As excited she was to get on the plane and leave, she was equally sad. We did our best to cheer her up and thwart off a panic attack. And yes, she does have panic attacks so we have to be really careful with her. Once she's started, it's really hard to get her out of it. Steven asked her if she'd like Papou to bring her something special when he picked us up at the airport, and she said, 'A Dr. Pepper?'. Bless her little heart because she definitely pulled some of Steven's heart strings with that one :)

This year we had the greatest Valentine's Day we've ever had. I really don't know if Steven will be able to ever top it ;) We got on a plane and we headed back to the states! It was awesome. We were able to find some cute little bumble bees that we attached to the girls backpacks. We filled them with chap stick, lip gloss, and some spending money. The were thrilled. We are completely blessed with kids who are the greatest little travelers. They've endured days of traveling with out a stop, long flights, short flights, international flights, and long car rides. They are the best. We arrived at the Passenger Terminal early so we had time to eat some breakfast and hang out in the family room a bit. Ruby was sweet enough to take a picture with me :)

We were thrilled to get to my parent's house in time to celebrate our sweet niece's 2nd birthday! She has the biggest personality and is just so much fun to be around.

We also got to meet and spend time with our new nephew, Logan! He is such a sweet baby.

We were blessed to be able to take a night and go out on a date. We have made a sort of tradition of going out for dinner at Carraba's when we're in town. The food is so good there!

There's a really great McDonald's in Allentown. I know it's a McDonald's, how great could it be. It's really all about the play place. It's music themed and the girls love playing there, so we stole our niece Phia and headed there. After lunch, playing at the play place, we ordered Shamrock Shakes and headed out again!

I forgot to take photos on the 19th and 20th, disappointed about it but hey we've been really busy. So I found a couple of other photos to 'stand in' for those days. The first one is of Phia at Best Buy. We were looking for a protective case for Steven's cell phone.

This one is of our new TV obsession, American Pickers. We love shows from the History channel so this is awesome.

And sadly we had to leave. Before we got on the road, we stopped at Dunkin Donuts. The adults got coffee and the kiddos got Munchkins. Ruby improvised a new way to get the powder off the powered donuts without actually eating the donut. Girl loves her some sugar!


Now that catches up on all the days before we got to Nebraska. All of those photos and days will be in another post. But so far, we love it here :)

-K

Goodbye House,

Hello billeting! I'm almost caught up now! Yay!

This was our first night in billeting. The girls were so excited. And again they think of staying in a hotel in San Antonio with Memaw and Papop! They compare everything to that trip, still :) And sorry for the crappy photo, by the time it I remembered to take a photo, it was late and the only camera I had handy was the one on my tablet.


We took Lilly back to the doctor yesterday because her ear was still hurting. We wanted to make sure that she would be able to fly soon. The first doctor we saw never told us that this type of infection lasts for a couple of weeks. Sadie also picked up a stuffed animal for Lilly since we forgot to pack something in our suitcases for Lilly snuggle with at night. All 3 of them need at least one thing to snuggle with at night or they get upset. How I overlooked this I'll never know, but she sure does love her new river otter :)



And now I'm caught up! Phew. I'll post an update of our PCSing adventure soon, there is just so much going on :)

-K

The Last Few Days in Our House Here

I am in desperate need of catching up on my P366 so I'm breaking it up into 2 posts. The first one is of our last days in our house here in Turkey and the second one is after we moved into billeting(hotel).

Lilly sold more Girl Scout cookies! Since we had already shipped our car, we have been walking everywhere. And if you know Sadie, you know she's an old lady stuck in a 4 year old's body. She kept complaining her hip hurt, then her other hip hurt, and then they both hurt at the same time. For some reason, of her's, she was able to run in the grass so she and Lilly played tag all the way home!




The sunsets here are absolutely gorgeous. I will really miss seeing all the different and amazing colors the sky turns when the sun sets. I'm hoping that Nebraska will have some equally gorgeous sun sets :)



Sunday night, Monday morning, Lilly woke up every couple of hours screaming that her ear hurt. Poor thing was in so much pain that she couldn't sleep. We made a doctor's appointment and she has an outer ear infection, meaning her ear canal is infected and not the usual ear infection. She's on antibiotic ear drops and tylenol/motrin for the pain. This is a sure sign that Lilly is sick, she never wants to take a nap or go to sleep for that fact.


I had to add this photo too. Ruby is one of the most clumsy and accident-prone person I have ever met. She has a bad habit of falling and bumping her head or mouth and has grown so accustomed to checking for concussion symptoms that she decided to check herself after she received her most recent bruise. She's too much!


We're almost done! Steven is marking off completed tasks on his out processing checklist!


Another beautiful sunset while walking home for the last time.


-K

The Great Pack Out of 2012

The movers have come and gone. It took 2 days but they did a great job and now we our lovely FMO- loaner- furniture. The mattresses are killer but we'll get by.

The first day they were here they packed everything into boxes, took apart furniture, and wrapped the furniture in cardboard and paper. I definitely think they did a better job than the moving company in England. All the boxes were labeled and they even put hardware to furniture into zipoc bags for me. The hardware in random boxes was really disappointing last time. When we finally got our things here in Turkey we were unbelievably excited to sleep in our own comfy beds, but we couldn't find all the pieces. We had to search every box and we'd find a piece in the girls' room, a piece in our room, a piece in the kitchen, and a piece in the living room things. To say we were mad is a complete under statement. 

They even made sure that if they came across something military related that they came to us and asked if we needed it. The first thing they asked when they arrived was if we had all our passports and orders somewhere safe so that they didn't get packed up.

Ruby loved watching them, especially when they were putting everything in to the crates. She just sat on our swing or in her wagon and watched. 

The first night we were able to sleep on our own mattresses on floor. Bed time was a nightmare. The girls were all exhausted but they were sleeping on a mattress on the floor of the living room together. Sadie does not like to be touched so she hates sleeping with people.  After an hour and a half they were finally all asleep and I could exhale. Poor Steven was awake for 27 hours straight before he was finally able to close his eyes. He's such a trooper. 

Lilly was a little disappointed that she was able to stay at home and watch them pack. She was luckily able to see the truck with all the crates just before it left.

The girls did have a couple moments of anxiety but they quickly faded. Once they realized that their things were gone until they get to Nebraska and not a moment sooner, they were fine. Sadie got a little nervous when they movers first showed up because Daddy wasn't home and they were packing all of our things. She was fine once Daddy got back home. 

Steven and I've been celebrating this move with some good wine in cheap plastic cups :)

We have a couple more nights in our house and then we move into billeting- aka hotel. The house is just about all clean and it'll be finished when FMO comes back to pick up the furniture. I'm thanking God that this hasn't been too stressful for us. It seems like we're just taking everything in stride and taking it little by little. I do have to say this is so much easier without being pregnant, or just given birth and have a newborn. But we just hope we stay at Offutt AFB for a good while and enjoy it. We especially hope Steven likes his job. The last 2 years here have been really tough for him because he hated his job, but we have less than 2 weeks left here! We're so excited! Now back to cleaning and packing....

-K

The Days Before Our Pack Out

'Hell Week' was just about here so I had to make sure we had photos to document everything, even as stressed as we all were. We had some more cleaning to do and I had a lot of lists to make and jobs to check off. Nothing too exciting but pictures were necessity!

This one was because Lilly's outfit was so cute :) She even added a necklace, she's too cute!

Steven had to clean all of our outdoor things, including his golf clubs. We had to make sure there was no bugs or vegetation on anything so that we wouldn't spread them to the states. The agricultural inspector told him that a moth had been mistakenly brought to the US and it had no natural predators there. Because of that, the moth reeked havoc on the side of a mountain. I didn't want to stress out having to clean all that. I wanted to try and sell it here and replace it when we got to Nebraska. Steven vetoed that pretty quickly. Our patio table has a fire pit built in and Steven loves it, so he took the time to clean it all. Even in the murky, cold, windy, and rainy weather we had all last week. I'm so glad he did because I forgot how much I like the furniture too, and he did an awesome job!

And then this is of the girls helping me make lists and checking them twice!

And thank goodness we are almost done on this side of the world. We are so excited to get on that jet plane!

-K

Hell Week

This week is what I call 'Hell Week'. At the end of this week our household goods will be packed up and start their long journey to Nebraska and our car will be shipped. ANd I am pretty positive that after this week I won't be so stressed. Speaking of stress, I am doing pretty well. Usually when I'm stressed I end up with body aches and an upset stomach, but I feel in control. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I'm not pregnant and I didn't just give birth. I've been sorting and cleaning every day for the past 3 weeks so I think everything is going pretty smooth. We finally have orders and soon we will be done with our pack out, shipping our vehicle, and done with our housing inspection. So after this week it'll be like a whole load off our shoulders, so say a little prayer that everything goes smoothly :) PCSing and I have a love hate relationship. On one hand I am over the moon excited to get out of this country and on the other I hate that we have to pack up our things and we won't see any of it until about the end of April. I'll be happy as soon as we are all settled in our new house. And, God willing, we'll stay at Offutt AFB for a good long while. I'm not looking forward to the deployments but I am happy that at least we'll be living in the states when they do happen.
With all that said, I've been organizing and cleaning fool. I've made it my mission to not only clean everything in a timely manner, but also get everything organized. When we moved here the movers in England packed everything haphazardly. And when I say haphazardly I mean one spoon wrapped in 4 large sheets of paper and furniture hardware in several boxes labeled with different rooms. We had to tear apart every box to find all the pieces to our bed, it was insane. It also made unpacking difficult especially when things for the living room were packed in boxes with the kids bedroom things. This time I got a LOT of ziploc bags. So many bags that I'm thinking I should buy stock in the ziploc company. I filled them with like things so it wouldn't be mayhem to unpack. Most of the cleaning with take place once the house is empty, but I've been doing the appliances and bathrooms so I'll have a good head start before our final inspection.
And speaking of inspections, Steven's squadron in having right now so he was put back onto night shift. So during the day he runs around to do his outprocessing and clean the outdoor stuff, then he sleeps for a handful of hours, and then goes to work for 12 more hours. Poor thing is exhausted. He does so much for us. We are truly blessed to have him as such a great husband and daddy.
Throughout everything I've made sure to take photos and keep up with my P366 project. In a few years it will be nice to look back on everything and have it all documented. It'll be good for the girls too. They love looking at photos and reminiscing about all the amazing things they've done in their short little lives.
Now here are my P366 photos.
23. Reading books at the library while Daddy checks his work email.

28.Getting in trouble yet again! She's is the #1 trouble maker in our house, hands down.

25. The beginning of my great, big organizational project!

26. Sweet, sleepy Milo Kitty.

27. Lilly's first year of selling Girl Scout cookies. She's an awesome sales girl :)

28. Daddy's her best friend she says.

29. Organizing and cleaning has completely taken over the house.

30. She found my favorite pen, drew all over herself, and then lost the pen. Hours later I discovered she drew all over her belly and sides too. See what I mean, she's a trouble maker!


And this is how I spend my nights. Get the girls ready for bed and everything ready for Lilly to go to school the next morning and then I get a glass of wine and watch so tv. Pretty soon this move will be all over and I'll wonder where the time went. Seriously folks, January is just about gone. Until then I'll try and savor every moment, good or bad. Cheers!


-K