Vangie had her Kindergarten Graduation on Friday. Chris was able to escape work for a couple hours and go with me. Here she is shaking the hand of the Principle on the left. She also recieved TWO awards from her teacher!!! A GOOD CHARACTER AWARD and a CITIZENSHIP AWARD. Way to go Vangie!!!  After three Kindergartens in ONE year, it is good to see her graduate!!




Chris has had to work a lot this week so the kids and I have done a lot of walks and bike rides around our new base.
 Okay, so I make them jog around the track as well. Here they are lined up and ready to RACE!!!
  Sophia and Vangie running!!




Above: Breakfast time together!

Below: Making them pose for the camera.

A few things to talk about!

Lucy has been talking more and more. The big kids often play "school" with her and get her to say things. She can say pretty much anything if prompted. She doesn't really talk a lot on her own though, and I know that is just because she is the baby and everyone just gives her everything that she needs. However, the other night she said her first sentence! Joey and Sophia were in Joey's room playing Legos, Lucy wanted to play too but the kids kids were not thrilled about this because her version of playing involved grabbing Lego pieces and destroying what the big kids built. Joey took the Legos away from Lucy and yelled at her a few times when she attempted to destroy something. This upset Lucy very much... she came into the room where Chris and I were at with big tears running down her cheeks.  I asked Lucy what was wrong and she said back to me ... "Joey's MEAN!" Plain as Day!!! Chris and I just looked at each other, it was pretty funny!!

Vangie has also had some Drama. In her new Kindergarten class they eat Lunch very early, so the first day her teacher, Ms. Finn asked me to send Vangie with a snack to school everyday because they had snack time every afternoon. That very first day Ms. Finn said that she would give Vangie a snack and not to worry. Well, must be Vangie REALLY liked the snack her teacher provided! All week I sent Vangie to school with a snack and a couple different times I had a note sent home saying "Please send a Snack to school"... I pretty much ignored the note because things have been super busy here with the unpacking and I HAD been sending a snack, so it couldn't be aimed at ME now could it? Well, yesterday it finally CLICKED and I asked Vangie if I could look into her back pack... low and behold I found ALL the granola bars in the bottom of her bag!! She had been telling her teacher that she had no snack so she could get whatever snack Ms. Finn gave her! I was LIVID.  Then I wrote a note to Ms. Finn saying that she HAD a snack and that she HAD a snack all week so please make her eat her own snack. THEN I found Vangie trying to HIDE THE NOTE! Vangie accumulated TWO and A HALF strikes in ONE morning... a schmitt child record. (three strikes in one week means no allowance... )   He teacher got the note and sent a note home with a smiley face on it for me, so I hope Vangie is forgiven for thieving snacks all week!

I also almost killed Blue today. I put the mattress on the trundle and was trying to slide it under Joeys bed out of the way... It didn't occure to me to look under the bed for a DOG until I heard Blue yelp. She crawled out and limped around theatrically until she got enough huggs and kisses to feel better. Whew, glad I didn't squish her too badly!

Only a few things left to put away around here and then I will get pictures up of the house. Probably this weekend! We are still waiting on our new sectional couch (the old couch was tooo big and had to go, we actually gave it to the movers, it seriously would NOT fit and was so huge it really over-whelmed the space, getting rid of it was our only option) but the couch will not be here for a few weeks so I will take pics of how things look now and just update it later.

Our house:



Above is our New House!! It looks really great from the outside. It is behind the gate, which I like. I feel very safe and I feel safe letting the kids play outside and ride their bikes around the block.

Inside is nice too... the carpet is a bit old, and it is laid out a bit funny, but once I got past those two issues I like it a lot. Our kitchen is bigger... more storage there. There is more USABLE space I guess than our house in Hawaii. We have gotten rid of A LOT of stuff. In Hawaii it was easy to "tuck things away" and forget about things.... once everything got delivered.. we were like "HOLY CRAP!" and have been tossing things every since.

We are still getting the house put together, and I hope to have it completed by the end of this week!

Here we are at the neighborhood park:

Today is the day that every Navy wife loves yet hates. HHG (House Hold Goods) Delivery day!! Today is the day that big semi will pull up in front with 9 crates of our stuff packed tightly with Brown paper and boxes upon boxes upon boxes will be ceremoniously taken off the truck and piled high in every room. We will be reunited with things that we have not seen for 3 months!!  It will be like Christmas!!

The downside?? Figuring out where it will all GO! And putting it all AWAY. This process could take weeks, MONTHS if you let it... but as a Military wife you JUST. DO. IT. The house will be put together in about 3 days.... which will make for a LONG three days! But it will look great when we are done.

I am very excited to be here and to have FAST INTERNET AGAIN!! Now I can update the website compete with pictures without wanting to poke my eyeballs out because it was so slow!

Our drive down went really well... I listened to an Audio book the whole way which made the time FLY by, and I highly recommend this to anyone who needs to do a long travel! Probably the most interesting part was when we stopped at our 2nd hotel in Memphis....  it was SO SCARY.  Chris found this hotel on Expedia... I guess when you put in that you have FOUR kids and TWO DOGS you are pretty limited as to where you can stay... let's just say this play was VERY CREEPY, VERY DIRTY, VERY , VERY GROSS. It made my SKIN crawl!! I had to laugh about it though in the INSIDE because Chris is the one who found this hotel.... which means I  can remind him of that fact for years to  come. We were supposed to stay TWO nights, but after the first night we opted to check out and come back to our home and sleep on the floor!

We spent yesterday shopping... we had to get a washer and dryer- in Hawaii the homes were furnished with them so it was time to get a NICE BIG set of my own. I got a good deal at Sears on a pair that were on clearance because they were last years model. I got the top load kind WITHOUT the middle agitator... that can hold a king size comforter... I am very excited about it! I can't wait to do my first load! We also purchased a Sleep Number Bed. Our old mattress had big divets and was very uncomfortable.
  This is the kids in the Hot Tub at the SCARY hotel. They didn't seem to mind but Chris, Lucy and Me did NOT opt to get into the water. Who KNOWS the last time that it was cleaned. After the pool I made the kids scrub themselves really well to kill any parasites that may have been on their skin.
 
  Below is the  Kitchen on one end and the other end will be out TV room. We also have a Dining room/ living room in the front of the house.

We left Edmore early Sunday morning. Chris and I (okay, mostly Chris) had been loading our U-Haul truck since Friday afternoon, so we only needed to add our last few things early Sunday morning. We pulled out of the driveway at 6 am right on schedule. We stopped for some breakfast at McDonalds (Oatmeal for Lucy and me, Hot cakes for the girls and breakfast sandwiches for the guys) and then we hit the road. My Van has an AMAZING GPS so it made it super easy to know where I was going the whole time. This is really great since I am directionally challenged!!!   We drove all day and arrived at our hotel in St. Louis MO at around 3pm. This was great because the dogs needed to get out and get some air and Lucy had SUCH an explosion in her pants 20 miles to the hotel that the ONLY thing to help we was a serious hose off.  Our hotel room was really cool. It had an upstairs with a bedroom for the kids and a down stairs bedroom and living space/ kitchen.  We all went to bed SUPER early!!-- Like 7pm!

This morning we woke up and I made use of the treadmill in the hotel fitness center while Chris took the kids to breakfast. We were on the road by 8:30am and arrived in Millington by 2pm.
Okay.... so Millington is a bit scary at first glance. BUT our house is SUPER cute and I KNOW we will make it a wonderful home. I will post pictures tomorrow. Right now we are at the 2nd hotel about 30 min away from Millington in Cordova. Its a bigger town with lots of shopping but the hotel is pretty scary. Chris took the kids to the pool and Lucy is enjoying the bathtub.

Tonight is dinner... and Shopping. We need things for the house. Tomorrow we pick up the keys, get the kids into school, up-pack and return the U-haul truck and familiarize ourself with Millington!