Baby Tyler and family fun

Here is my nephew Tyler! He is four months old. As soon as his mommy posts some of her pics from last night, I will promptly steal them from her page and post them here cause she takes AWESOME pics. She is actually the one who took the pic of the castle in Germany on our home page here.
Lee's brother Adam, his wife Andria and their baby Tyler came up for dinner last night. Since Lee is leaving for Germany on Wednesday, they came for a visit. I will go into the Wii games we all got hooked on in a minute. Perhaps my favorite part of the visit was going for a walk. Hailee, Tyler, Gigi, our dog Bane and I went for a walk in the neighborhood. The last half of it, Ty fell asleep on me! He was soooo adorable! A little drool and some sunshine and he was out!
So, Lees parents got a Wii. The system comes with the Sports games. It includes Golf, bowling, tennis, baseball and boxing. Here are some pics of Adam and Lee boxing. Lee and Andria had an amazing game in bowling. In 10 frames, there were 8 strikes between the two of them. I think Andrias score was a 168 and Lees was a 201. Both were awesome!

Best yet is the golf game. Lee, Adam, Andria and I played 9 holes. It was hilarious. It was even funnier cause Lee and Andrias characters looked like Michelle and Barack Obama. Adam and I were polar opposites in the game. He took the safe shots. He went straight and right up the green. Me, I was trying to cut corners and go over the trees. It worked for me for awhile. Going into the last hole I was +1 over par and everyone else was either +4 or +5. Lets just say that the last hole, it took me 14 shots and Andria 12 shots. It took Lee and Adam 4 shots. There went my lead!
Adam in action!
Hai with her first cousin! She really wanted to hold him but then she would get distracted and we would have to remind her that she is supposed to help hold him up!

A tEa PaRtY

There was this adorable little house outside the Tea Room. Hai loved the little front porch. It even had curtains in the windows!

Hais and Aunt Shan. LoveLoveLoveLoveLove these two!!!

Swimming!!

Just had to post these cute pics of Hais swimming here at Gigi and Papas house. Aunt San got this adorable bathing suit for her and they came right home and went swimming in it!
Thanks Aunt Shan!

Open House

Hais open house!

Mrs. Howell

Kindergarten

Official GoodBye to Our House

Goodbye living room I have painted 5 times in 4 years! (What can I say... I am a little indecisive!) We finally settled on this awesome green color called Tabu! This is the living room that hosted the YaYa Party. It was also the home to the infamous "Puke heard round the world"- thanks John P! It was the home to many scary movies and chick flicks. It hosted easter egg hunts, 4 wonderful Christmas mornings among other important days. Also, it is the home to the "ceiling of many fall throughs!" How can I forget the many nights of RockBand. I must say that our flight school crowd is the best! Will on his knees filming himself, Steph belting out Mississippi Queen, the boy vs girl competition (which was it truly a competition??)
This room looks so much bigger without all her furniture and toys in it. This is where Hai had her first sleep over (with Lillianna). This is where I found play makeup ground into the rug (also Lillianna and Hais- I knew they were too quiet Kim!) It is the place that Hailee got too old to take naps.
This room held a special place in my heart. It was more than a spare bedroom. If we ever referred to it, it was called Shannons bedroom, even a year after she left! It does not look the same as when she was there but it will always be her bedroom!
The master. This is the room where magic happens-- haha. For those who have never seen the MTV show Cribs- nevermind! This room saw a lot of tears (when Lee was deployed).

The kitchen where I had many wonderful conversations. It was our loungin place. It was the home of some wonderful meals and some great memories. It was also the home to a lot of hard work! The flooring spread dust throughout the house. The cabinets were almost the end of our marraige and the most expensive ceiling texture EVER!

Goodbye to our first house!

hAiS fIrSt DaY oF kInDeRgArTeN

Here is Hailee getting her stuff ready to leave!
Getting in the car!
Outside of her classroom. She was a little nervous at this point (so was mom!)
My big girl ready to go into her first classroom.

*End of the day update- She had a wonderful time.
*Her favorite moment of the day... going to the library and picking out her own book.
*Least favorite time of the day... naptime!

AlL sOrTs Of RaNdOm

It has been ten days since I last put something on here. A lot has happened too. Shan, Hai and I headed to my inlaws and spent a week there. Hai had open house (I promise to post pics soon), and we then returned to Fayetteville. Lee is back! We have done some necessary shopping and gotten alot done in the last 2 days.
School is in full swing for me. I am taking 5 classes and already feel a little overwhelmed cause of everything else in life that is crazy right now.
Shan flew home to Cali.
Now Lee, Hai and I are are living in Ry and Crystals spare bedroom. Tomorrow we meet with the movers at the storage unit. We are also heading on post to do some business for the move. I promise to do a full update soon!

Its official!

We are no longer house owners! Woo Hoo! I will miss the house. But truthfully the hardest thing about leaving the house was the fact that we buried Bullet behind the house. It was hard leaving him there.
I also had the cable turned off and got the wall mount pieces all back to the house.
I am hoping I will have some more exciting posts coming up! I sure you are all sick of hearing about the house. Tomorrow we will be heading to Michelles. We will stay there tomorrow night cause we will head to Busch Gardens at like 5 in the morning Saturday. I am looking forward to a little fun.
Anyways I am off to look into flights to Cali!

WooHoo

So we are out of the house!! Shan and I were basically rock stars and go the house gutted today in a matter of like 3 hours. So we are officially out of there!! It was a weird feeling the walk out of there. I have to go back tomorrow because I am an idiot. Today when I took down the plasma tv, I left the hooks for the wall mount attached to it. We told the new owners of the house that we would leave the wall mount (mainly so that I would not have to take it down and patch any holes). So obviously they want all the pieces to the mount. So tomorrow I will bring the hooks back to the house.
We asked to close early, tomorrow instead of Friday. Then it is done before the weekend. I will go sign the papers tomorrow and then hopefully the new owners will sign either tomorrow night or early Friday. This means that all the paperwork can be done at the courthouse and a check can be cut to us and we can leave Fayetteville!
The plan is still to head to Busch Gardens on Saturday!
Also, found out how much my books are costing this semester, $428! Wow. That hurts a little! Five classes-- $428!!

Progress Pics

Empty Rooms are all around me!! Woohoo! This top room is the spare room and it is empty other than the computer, which will be taken down tonight after I am done with this post. I will still have internet cause my sis has her laptop here.
Hais room (above) is empty other than a small pile of Shannons clothes. I finished painting the section of baseboard that needed to be painted, cause it had been behind her bed and dresser when I touched up the rest.
This is our room. Because of the fact that it is empty and all wood floors, it makes incredible echoes. Lillianna and Hai have decided it is their play room. This is Lillianna who will be joining us in Germany!
If you look at one of the previous postings I made, the garage is 100 times better. All that is left to be emptied is Lees speaker box and the ladder! YEAH! This room was by far my biggest headache.
And here is our living room/bedroom. We have both queen mattresses pulled in here as our bed and couch. Tomorrow we will remove those and the tv from the wall and we will be done with this room.
The final walk through is tomorrow. So the house has to be completely empty. It will be a long day for us, moving things out, but I will be glad it will be done. And then it is off to a hotel for us!

Who reads?

I think that Holly is the only one reading this stuff!

This Summer

So, it has been a horrible summer so far. I honestly did not think that this summer could be worse than last, cause Lee was in Afghanistan last summer. So in my head I would think the summer he was deployed would be the worst. No, not so!
Summertime not only made Lee disappear again (he has been gone since the 12th of July to Alabama for a school) but it has been the worst time for him to be gone. We are in the middle of the biggest move in our families history. Mind you, Hailee has moved three times in her short 5 years of life. But this, moving to an entirely different continent, has taken the cake in difficult moves.
Other moves have been easier also because of the living conditions. Usually we just schedule the movers and clean the house/apartment we are living in. This move threw in the good old "have a house to sell" curveball! Selling the house was fairly easy, took 2 weeks from listing to accepting an offer. It has been the chaos after that is trying.
I wholeheartedly admit that I get overwhelmed easily. Especially when I feel surrounded by chaos. One of my big breaking points is when I am trying to accomplish something and the house is a mess. It literally makes me cry. I know, crazy right?? So obviously I have been on the verge of crying for nearly three weeks!
It is a horrible heat streak going on here too. So while we have been trying to move, it has been like 95-100 degrees out. You also have to add in the humidity, cause it makes it feel at least ten degrees hotter!
Now most of the big things are out of the house and it is down to the little things here and there that must get organized. It really is not too bad. As much as I want to knock it all out now, I know I do well in the "last minute push" to get things done. So, that is probably what will happen.
I must apologize to Kim. I have been pretty bad lately about not returning calls etc. When I get really stressed, I just close off and do not want to talk to anyone. And she is the one I should be talking to- especially since we are dealing with the same stressful move.
Ugh!!!

We are making progress!!

Michelle literally laughed at me today cause I was sweating so badly that you could see the outline of my bra. But all the sweating was worth it. The garage is 75% done. Shan and I managed to get both beds off their frames. So tomorrow our goal is to get the 2 dressers, 2 bed frames, 2 box springs, entertainment center and 2 couches into the storage unit. We are literally going to just have the television, cable box and the 2 mattresses left in the house. We are going to have the mattresses in our living room doing double duty, as couches/beds. Ha ha.
I did our change of address forms. I also started changing the address with our bills.
I have my little check list and I am slowly working down it.
I still have some things that need to get done. I need to call the utility companies to schedule the shut offs. I also need to organize our important papers. I need to get Hailees latest physical for her new school.
I am sure this information really bores you all and I am sorry for that but it is nice to get some of this off my chest!!
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Think I need to get motivated??

So I would normally never show people my house like this, a total mess. But I think everyone understands that I am not only in the middle of a move but without my hubbys help! Then on top of that, losing Bullet- my phone- my atm card has not made me anymore motivated!

So, the easy part of this is actually moving the last of the furniture out. It is really only the big things. Two beds, two couches, kitchen table/chairs, entertainment center and two dressers. Not too bad. But it is the other stuff that is annoying me right now.

My biggest obstacle is trying to get clothes organized. First off, living out of a suitcase sucks! Plus I need to figure out what clothes will be going to my inlaws. Obviously I will be bringing summer/fall clothes but I also need to bring some winter stuff cause depending on when we arrive in Germany, it may be really cold. THen I also need to figure out what clothes I want sent ahead to Germany in our household stuff. Cause we will not have that stuff for awhile after we get there cause they will not ship our family stuff til we have orders for Hai and I to join Lee. That could be as late as the beginning of October!!

Ugh. Friends----- please send me some motivation. I have to have the house somewhat clean for the new owners to walk through this week to do an inspection of the repairs that were done. Not to mention the fact that I have 12 days til the house is no longer ours!! UGH!!!

Hais School!!!

I forgot to add that we toured Hailees soon to be school. We will be living with my inlaws and she will go to the school up there until we leave. It is a TINY school. The building is gorgeous and feels so comfortable. When I walked through it, I fell in love with it! There are 2 buildings and Hailees class is in the lower one. The picture is of the main building where the office, library, cafeteria, fifth grade and second grade classes are. There is a covered walkway down to her building. Between the two buildings is this gigantic lawn with trees, bushes, flowers and benches. It is so pretty. There are only 2 buses for the entire school! That is how small it is. Right now, there are only eleven children registered per kindergarten class and there are only 2 kindergarten classes.

Another fun thing, they do not have an art classroom. It is an art bus. There is an art bus. It is a converted school bus that when you walk in it, there are desks and it looks like a classroom! The art teacher goes from school to school and the kids come out and do art in the bus. It is so cool and Hai loved it! They also do P.E twice a week, which is a good change from the once a week down here in Fayetteville.

Another much needed update

So, like my life could not be any crazier these days. Hai and I spent last weekend up at my in laws. We brought along my friend Michelle B and my other friends three kids. We also had both dogs with us, which made for kind of a long trip. But we had a great time. We came home late Monday night and then had the pleasant surprise of having Shan fly home--- for good!! So after driving 4 hours home (arriving around 8pm) I then got to go get Shan from the airport here in Fayetteville at 12:20 am (her flight was delayed). The next day the contractors were coming and we needed to get some errands done.
So, we put the dogs out in their kennel for the 4 hours we were gone. Apparently it was too hot for Bullet and when we arrived home, he had passed away. Of course, I felt totally at fault. After all, I had left the boys outside and he was gone. But after talking to some of our friends, I know it was not my fault. The boys had been in the kennel a million times before in the last 4 years. They had been in there much longer at times. And it is always hot here, so it could not be just the heat. He had been on pain meds everyday the last 2 weeks and dealing with pain from his legs.
So, as sad as it was, all I can say is that I am glad it is over. He was by far the most amazing dog ever and to say he will be missed is an understatement.
Luckily, I had my sis here to help me through it cause I have learned from experiences like this and when Hai was bit by a dog a few years ago, I am worthless in situations like that. I also had Kim who not only rushed to my side to support me, she also brought strong reinforcements that helped my neighbor David to bury Bullet.
I then also lost my phone that day. (When I say lost, I mean in the moment of my stress, I threw it against the wall and it literally shattered into like 20 pieces).
The next day, a group of us went out to On the Border (a mexican restruant). It is half price margarita night on Wednesday. So, we had 5 margaritas each and then some shots thanks to a couple sitting near us. We had to call for a ride, and Hailees godfather was awesome enough to come and get our drunk behinds!!!
So, one bright spot to my week, we found out Hailee's godparents will be joining us in Germany!!!! They will arrive about 6 months after us. Crazy right??? When we leave Germany, we will have been with Ryan and Crystal for almost 9 years! That is unheard of in the Army. It is one thing to stay in one location for that long with the same people. But we will have lived at three different Army posts with them in a row! 1 1/2 yr at Rucker, 4 1/2 yr at Bragg and 3 yr in Germany. Wow!!
So all is well with the house though. We are just waiting on the papers to go through the underwriting process at the Mortgage Company. So it can be as early as this week, but it will be no later than the 15th. Woo Hoo!!!!
I forgot to add, we are taking Bane to Germany. We cannot bear to lose another animal right now. By the way, our cat Noel who is living with my inlaws, disappeared. No clue what happened. UGH! So, Bane has been getting the star treatment the last few days cause he is a little shook up since Bulley died. We are going to start walking him in the mornings.
Lee is doing good and ready to come home. We miss him and are ready for our big move!!