2014..

WOW!!!

WOW!!!!

Just thinking about everything we have gone through this past year and all I can say is WOW! What a year. So here is a very quick recap of our year...

January
- Kicked off the new years with family back in Texas
- 2 Months pregnant with surrobaby

- Got temporary custody of Adams niece

- Headed back to Fort Bragg, NC
- First huge snow of the year in NC!!

February

- Bought a minivan.... For those of yall that don't know I am SO not a minivan person haha
- Brynna started gymnastics
- Adam was in the field and his battery was involved in a training accident that killed a soldier, severely injured 2 others, and a few others suffered minor injures.
- Brynna did her very first pageant(she decided pageants just aren't for her)
- J&J(surrobaby's parents) came to visit and we found out surrobaby was a girl :)

 

March
- Brett got septic arthritis and ended up having emergency surgery and was hospitalized for a week and out of school for a month and had to do physical therapy twice a week
- Adam's niece went back to Texas
- Brett turned 6!!



This was 2 weeks after surgery.
The right foot was the infected foot and the left foot was what his normal ankle would look like

April
- Adam reenlisted into the military
- Brett was able to go back to school exactly one month after his last day of school due to the infection
- We headed out to our first beach trip of the year
- AND we found out we'd be pcs'ing to Alaska come October!!!

May
- Our 3 year wedding anniversary
- I got pregnancy induced lactose intolerance(that was miserable!)
- Brett was released from physical therapy
- Headed to the beach for memorial weekend and we decided to camp at the beach at 32 weeks pregnant haha
- Adam became a big brother again!!
- PCS'ing began.......

 

June
- My last full month pregnant
- Found out I was SEVERELY anemic.. My numbers came back at 7.4 and they want them at 11 when your pregnant
- Brett's last day of kindergarten was in June
- We decided to make one more beach trip to the outer banks. It was one beach we wanted to see before we moved from North Carolina and we knew if we didn't go before I delivered then we wouldn't be able to go at all.
- Brynna learned how to swim
- Adam's birthday!!

July
- My due date with surrobaby was July 16th!
- Went into labor July 1st and had surrobaby July 2nd at 1:02am. I was exactly 38 weeks! If you'd like to read more about the surrogacy journey click here and it will take you to my surrogacy blog.
- Since we were moving to Alaska Toyota wouldn't sign off on us taking the van with us so we were able to just give it back. Which I was VERY happy about ;)
- July 17th the movers came and July 18th we headed to Texas
- Adam and I were able to surprise my family in Mississippi while we were on our way back to Texas
- Temporarily moved back to Texas to live with family and Adam started his tdy school to reclass in Fort Sill, OK while we lived in Texas

August
- I chopped off about 10 inches of my hair and donated it..
- Adam failed his reclass which actually turned out to be a blessing in disguised
- Brett started 1st grade and Brynna started pre-k
- Brett came home from his first day of school with his very first loose tooth!

September
- Adams orders ended up change from Alaska to Fort Drum, NY
- Since we were now moving to New York we had to drive. Originally we were flying to Alaska so we had a crap ton of suitcases we'd be flying with us. Well now we had to scramble to find a second vehicle that could tow all of our luggage.
- We ended up purchasing a GMC Acadia
- Adam was promoted to Sgt
- We left Texas and started our road trip to New York September 27th. If you'd like to read about our road trip click here. A few stops along the way were Graceland, Grand Ole Opry, and Niagara Falls.
- We finally got to New York September 30th

 

October
- We were offered our first home October 2nd but turned it down. A few days later we were offered another home which we were happy to accept.
- Brett started school again in New York a few days after we got a house
- October 11th Brett was climbing our fence and had his hand bit by our neighbors dog and we put in a full arm splint for about 3 weeks
- My great grandma passed away a few days before my 24th birthday
- Found out Adam would be deploying sometime in 2015
- Our HHG were SUPPOSED to get here the end of October but never showed up -___-

November
- My mom came to visit to help with our HHG but they ended up getting here after she left.
- We experienced our first REAL snow!!
- Our HHG FINALLY got here November 14th. 4 months without HHG was now fun.
- We got to experience our first lake effect snow storm. THAT WAS CRAZY!!!! Schools shut down, the base shut down, EVEN WALMART CLOSED haha
- We celebrated our very first Thanksgiving just the 4 of us..

December
- Adam and I went to our first military ball and we had a great time
- Brynna turned 5!!!! WOW! 5 years old 29lbs and 3 feet 3 inches tall.. And she is still in a 5 point harness which I'm pretty proud of :)
- We had a great Christmas. It was just the 4 of us and it was our first Christmas alone with no family other than the 4 of us but I was so thankful to have Adam home with us and be together :)

What some military spouses may not know..

My husband will tell you I am a researcher. I get as much info as I can about things because I refuse to get myself into a situation that I know nothing about. Some days it drives him absolutely crazy because even though I am ALWAYS right he hates to admit it. Facebook, google, and personal blogs are great ways to get REAL opinions and recommendations. You could learn a lot about the military life or certain installations just by using the internet. Here are the few things you may not know as a military spouse but might want to know :)

PCS/Moving- ANYTIME the military moves you(pcs) you are given DLA. I have read numerous times where people didn't know they received this money when they moved and found out too late so they lost out on the $2,000+. Click here and you can also see what else you receive whenever you move(this is only for a PCS not if you move from one house to another at or near the same base). If ya'll have an upcoming PCS try and go to the levy briefing to write down everything you need to remember. Yes the husbands go but it helps if you go too, that away you aren't clueless when it comes to the move and if he forgets something maybe it will be something you remembered :)

MyCAA- Very few people know about MyCAA and it pretty much turns in to wasted money if not used. MyCAA gives you $4000 to pay for almost any type of schooling. To some $4000 might not be a lot. And truthfully when it comes to school it really isn't. BUT that is $4000 you don't have to spend on school. The only down fall to MyCAA is you have to use it by a certain time. You have to be married to an active duty service member in pay grades E1-E5, O1-O2, or W1-W2. You can use that money to get a certificate in something or you can use the $4000 to help pay for a degree. It won't cover it in full but it will help. So don't let that money go to waste, USE IT! You also need know MyCAA does not cover books so if you take a class through your local junior college you will probably have to pay out of pocket for your books.

FASFA- A lot of military families who qualify for MyCAA also qualify for FASFA and you can use MyCAA and FASFA together. FASFA WILL PAY FOR YOUR BOOKS!

METLIFE- Tricare does not cover dental work. Tricare covers your health and vision but not dental. If you plan on seeing a dentist have your spouse or even yourself enroll you and your children(if you have them) into metlife to cover your dental. ALSO Tricare only covers the eye exam. It DOES NOT cover glasses, contacts, or the contact exam. You will have to pay that out of pocket.

WIC- In the beginning surviving off what little pay ya'll get is hard paying for all the bills, gas, and groceries. And then you are left eating bread and water the last few days before payday. WIC helps military families up until a certain rank. I'm not sure if military families without children qualify but it doesn't hurt to call your local wic office and ask.

Space-A & Patriot Express-  Not many people know about this. Space-A and Patriot Express can be pretty amazing. It is a way for military members and dependents to travel and pay very little for flights. It can be a bit difficult but to pay $4-$50 per person to fly is pretty cheap! For those of yall wanting to know more about space-a click here and it will take you to the FAQ page. I'm not too familiar with it so I don't want to give the wrong information to people, their are many requirements to travel space-a.

ICE- If you only remember one thing from this blog post PLEASE remember ICE! ICE is a GREAT tool for service members and dependents to use and it can be done anonymously if you'd like. Now don't abuse this tool. It is a website where DoD customers can rate their services provided. I will personally say I have used this a LOT in the past year. A LOT more than I wanted to. But every single time it was necessary. Don't file a complaint just because your husband was smoked for showing up 30 minutes late. Or because he is having to work late all week. Their is a time and place for an ICE complaint. You can't expect someone to fix something they know nothing about and that's where ICE comes in place. Not only can you make complaints on the ICE website but you can also provide positive feedback. My son was bit by a dog and the doctor we saw off post at the hospital also worked on post and followed up with us twice about the dog bite. He did great with my son so we provided positive feedback on ICE about him. It is a great tool for all to use.

CYS- Child and Youth Services is on every military installation where dependents are allowed. It is where you enroll your kids in sports, child care, and many other things. If your spouse is deploying CYS gives you a little more benefits. Here at Fort Drum we get:
- 16 hours free care per month/per child at Hourly Programming.
- $2.00 per hour after 16 hrs of free monthly hourly care
- Free Care for deployment briefings
- Free Care for FRG meetings            
(including one month prior and 3 months after  deployment)
- 20% fee discount for Full Day and Part Day care with a working spouse  
- $300 SKIES Credit (instructional) per Dep.  
- $100 CYSS Sports Credit per Dep.
But your child does have to be enrolled in CYS before you qualify for all this. And all you need is an updated physical, shot records, and certain records. You can call CYS to schedule an appointment and see what all you need to bring.

DISCOUNTS- here is a discount list. Those probably are not all of the discounts you and your spouse can receive with a military ID. Any time we make a big purchase or set up service with someone we make sure to ask about a military discount. We don't ask for it whenever we pay for dinner and if they give it we just add the discount they gave us on to our tip we give. But like we bought furniture a few months back and that was a BIG purchase but we got a small discount that makes it not SO BIG! haha. Our phone, tv, and internet service we have a discount. If you buy a car at the end ask if they do a military discount. Don't ask up front because they will probably act like they gave a military discount but jack up another fee to make it even out. During certain military holidays a lot of the stores near military bases will do sales and then if you show your military id you will get even more of a discount! Last year Kirklands had a HUGE sale. I think it was the weekend of veterans day and if you had your military id you got the extra 10% off. Well I had been eyeing this huge painting that I just loved but it was over $100 and I am cheap when it comes to buying décor.. That weekend I managed to get the painting for $30-$40!!

Military OneSourse- The military life does have it's difficulties. Your spouse could be suffering from PTSD and you may think you have no where to turn but Military OneSourse is confidential and offers a lot of help. You or your children could also be having problems coping with the recent deployment. Give Military OneSourse a call. Don't knock it until you've tried it. Maybe you are new to the military and are clueless when it comes to budgeting. Call Military OneSourse. Their is help out there and all you have to do is make the call.

The military does have a LOT more to offer military spouses these are just some of the things I have seen that most people don't know about.

(you can click on every bold blue word and it will take you to their website to get more information)

DO NOT ATTEMPT!!

I want to repeat the title DO NOT ATTEMPT!!

You can't say I didn't warn you.

Okay here goes. So a few weeks ago I got this bright idea to paint our bedroom. My ORIGINAL plan was to move out of this house in exactly a year. But my plan, the military's plan for Adam, and Adams plan for his military career kind of collided. So I decided hmm... why don't I just paint to give this place more of a homely feeling and not just a temporary white walls apartment feel that on post housing has..

I was pinterest inspired and decided in our room I would paint chevron stripes. Now again I will warn you chevron stripes are NOT... I repeat NOT as easy as it looks or sounds. It is not a quick project. It is a full day maybe even 2 day project. I did 2 different walls in our bedroom. A short wall that is the wall you see whenever you open our bedroom door and then the long wall that our dresser will be on. That wall you have to be in our bedroom to see it. I did the chevron walls and Adam did the solid walls. It took me about 12 hours(I didn't do all 12 hours at once) to do the long chevron wall and probably 4 hours to do the short chevron wall. It took him probably 4 hours TOTAL to do 3 solid walls.

Now IF you would like to know how to paint a chevron wall I will tell you what I used and did to paint my chevron wall.. I looked on pinterest to find a few different ways I could do it and then decided how I would do it.

What I used to paint my chevron wall:
- Paint(Olympic Teal Zeal)
- An Angled Paint Brush I'm pretty sure it was a 2inch
- A 9inch paint roller
- Tape(I just bought the cheap tape at lowes)
- A Paint pan
- Level
- Pencil

What next?? Now this is the hard part. Probably the hardest part you will have to do. If you are a perfectionist or extremely OCD I recommend you just hire someone. Or at least set aside a FULL weekend, I'm talking about all day Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. BTW for those of yall like me and think levels are like $100+, they are not. I bought our level for $4.99 so don't think you have to go out and buy this expensive level. Even though next time I need a level I will probably buy a small one too.. The one I bought was a long level so when it came time to do the chevron lines near the ceiling and floor it was a little difficult.

First, figure out what wall or walls you want to do. I wanted to do a smaller wall in my room first and I decided to measure the wall and see how small or big I wanted the chevrons to be. Since it was a small wall I divided the width of my wall by 4 because I knew I wanted 4 lines to make 2 chevrons. So I decided to make each line about 8 1/2 inches apart. You will use your level to draw straight vertical lines up your wall. And then again to draw straight horizontal lines on your wall. Use your level each time to make sure your lines don't start to leave. By the time I finished this wall completely and started preparing for the second wall(the much larger wall) I realized why don't I just put dots (you will put the dots where all the corners meet and instead of drawing horizontal and vertical lines you will just draw the chevron pattern from dot to dot instead of corner to corner.) I recommend drawing the lines from dot to dot or corner to corner because just putting tape down it can go off track and the lines help you make sure the tape is perfectly straight.

Now this part had me stumped. I was so confused haha but quickly realized how it needed to be taped. Let me see if I can put this in words. The spots where you want the chevron to be painted you will need to put the tape on the OUTSIDE of your line. So the chevrons you don't want to paint the tape will be on the inside. If you look at my picture to the left you will see some chevrons look skinnier than the others, the skinny ones are the ones that wont be painted the others will be. BTW all my chevrons are the same size the tape just covers more of the chevron that wont be painted. I also put tape inside of the chevron that wont be painted so I don't accidentally start painting the wrong chevron. I did 2 layers of paint and it turned out great with very little touching up. And then the moment of truth. It was time for the tape to come off.. I was terrified. Even though my small wall turned out great. This wall was so intimidating. I just knew it was going to look like crap! I knew I was going to end up laughing at myself and saying screw it paint it all one color haha. BUT I took the tape of and I was pretty impressed. I am freaking talented!

BUT I wasn't satisfied just yet :-\ in this picture you can't really tell but the walls are very yellow-ish or an ugly white. Plus my blue paint kind of bled through the tape to the white paint. Plus they were very dirty and also I had some blue spots that I needed to touch up. Well when I went to buy primer the primer and the paint didn't match!! AT ALL! So I decided hmmm... why don't I just paint the "white" chevrons WHITE! And make the lines cleaner in the process.. So I did just that. WHAT WAS I THINKING??? For future references those of yall that are like me and have no idea what your original wall color is. If you want the wall to be white and then one color chevron stripe. Do yourself a favor a paint a quick coat of white over the wall so that away you know the exact color white you are starting with. THEN do the chevrons. And if you need to touch up later you wont be in the same situation I was in. I did it the long way and had to tape all over again. But like I said it helped with making my lines much cleaner.

This time around I painted a little differently. This time I put the tape on the blue paint(I let it dry a full 24 hours before I even attempted this). You have to place the tape perfectly straight along the chevron lines you already painted. You will first paint over the tape the color your paint is under the tape. So say your tape is on the blue paint like mine is you will first paint a little blue on the tape like I did at the top left. Let it dry COMPLETELY and THEN paint the whole area the second color(my second color was white look at the bottom part of the picture that is my first coat of white, I painted 2 or 3 coats of white to get it to completely cover all of the blue). While the paint is still fresh and wet take off the tape. This prevents the paint from drying and coming off with the tape.

NOW if you are smart and have learned ANYTHING from this blog post this is what you will do.. Say you want your wall to be grey and pink. You will paint your WHOLE wall grey. You will let it dry over night and then you will come back the following day. Take a DEEP breath. AND! Use your level. Plot your points and tape away. BEFORE you paint your pink chevrons you will paint a little grey over all of the tape and let that dry(if you do a light coat of grey like I did with my blue and don't cake it on it will dry by the time you start with the pink.) I would do at least 2 coats of pink and once you do the second coat take the tape off as you are painting. TA DA! Then pour yourself a glass of wine... Learn from my mistakes! Then you can go back the following day and you can do touch ups.

We had a few minor accidents along the way. The first one was ALL Adams fault!! haha. He called while I was painting the blue chevron stripes and this happened. The paint can was FULL and as I got up my leg hit is and it ALMOST fell over. Thankfully it only got a little on the carpet and didn't COMPLETELY fall over. Brynna decided she would try cleaning it up with paper towels. And that evening as Adam watching youtube I explained to him in great detail what happened. As he was walking into the bedroom to take a shower he see's the paint spill and yells down the stairs "WHAT HAPPENED". I knew as I was explaining the paint spill to him earlier he wasn't
listening.

Men.
I swear..

The following day as I was painting the white stripes close to the ceiling I look down from the ladder and the darn primer paint can falls over! ALL THE WAY OVER! I guess its a good thing we have crappy cheap carpet in on post housing. After all the paint spills Adam thought it'd be a good idea to get in a paint fight. Thankfully though we didn't get anything on the carpet or my chevron walls! I would have killed him if he messed up my walls!

Even though this painting project took forever and a day and I decided to do it the most complicated way possible I'm pretty proud of our bedroom. I love the color I picked and I LOVE the chevrons. Now I can't wait for my furniture to get here and to get our bedding.

ROAD TRIP!!

We decided instead of just driving to New York we'd leave a couple days early and turn it into a road trip. The drive was about 1600 miles so the army gives us about 4 days to drive it(they calculate 350 miles a day). Anytime we drove to Bragg we just drove as much as possible stopped once over night and drove the rest but with this one being such a long trip we wanted to enjoy it instead of being miserable and in the car the whole time. So Friday afternoon I pulled the kids out of school we said our last see ya laters and finished packing up the stuff.. For this drive my mom, Gigi, and brother came along to help. I am a horrible long distance driver so if it would have been Adam and I just driving the 2 vehicles we would have taken a lot longer than 4 days.

Saturday morning we headed out about 5:30am.. My plan was 5am but things NEVER go as planned when a bunch of women are traveling. Adam and I drove the Acadia and we had Brett, Brynna, and Corben in our car, then my mom and Gigi drove the Acura. I started driving first and I drove all the way to Texarkana. When we stopped to get gas Adam drove the rest of the day. Every time we stop to get gas we make everyone get out and use the rest room. Seriously 30 minutes after we got on the road again Brett had to pee and then after we let Brett pee Corben had to pee like 5 minutes later! We stopped on the side of the road for both of them and then continued on our way. Once we got to Memphis our hotel still wasn't available so we headed to mud river. Well once we got there we found out Boidoe(our dog) was not allowed in the gates.. Which I personally think is dumb because its an outside area. But oh well. So we went to a grassy area right next to the Mississippi River and had a little picnic so the kids could run around before the hotel was ready.

We finally got to the hotel changed and headed out to Graceland. At first we weren't sure if we were going to pay for any exhibits but once we got there we saw that you couldn't see anything unless you paid for the exhibits. So we did the graceland platinum tour + airplanes tour. It was so neat seeing everything. My only complaints is I did not like the ipad tour. I understand why they do it but I wanted to take pictures and the ipad just kept getting in the way. Also we took our kids and they were more interested in going to the play ground(which was off limits) and swimming in his pool(which was also off limits haha). It was so amazing seeing all his outfits, awards, accomplishments, and so much more. But it also makes me sad knowing that another amazing artist turned to drugs. Graceland took us about 2-3 hours but it was worth it.

 

 

 

 

 After Graceland we headed to Beale st. It was not at all what I expected. We were a little underdressed and not looking to party haha. Beale st is more like a strip of bars. Well we wanted BBQ and a lot of people recommended BB Kings. They wanted a cover charge so we said thanks but no thanks. We walked down the street a bit more and found Rum Boogie. It was a pretty cute place and had really good BBQ but was kind of pricey. We had dinner and then headed home and called it a night.

 

The next morning we headed out early and our first stop was Nashville. It was only a couple hours away so we were only spending a few hours there before we headed to Ohio. Adam brought up slug bugs while in the car and we decided to play well then he said never mind because he "had to pay attention to the road and wouldn't be able to look for slug bugs". When in reality he was just scared I'd win. The first place we went to in Nashville was the Parthenon. The inside of the building was closed but we got to walk around and take a few pictures so that was neat. While we were there we all went to the restroom and leave it to me to almost leave my phone in the restroom. Thankfully Brett and Adam went in after me and Adam grabbed my phone.

 

 

Then we headed to lunch. We were all starving but we had Boidoe and it wasn't cool enough for us to leave him in the car with the windows cracked.. So we found a pizza place(Pizza Perfect in Nashville) that had a patio and allowed dogs out there. It was a pretty neat place too.

After lunch we made a quick pit stop at the Grand Ole Opry. We would have loved to stay longer but we had Boidoe plus we needed to get back on the road to get to Ohio in time to get to Niagara Falls in time.. Well once we got to the Grand Ole Opry we parked up front got out and took a few quick photos.. As I was taking pictures of the boys I look over and there is Brynna vomiting on the concrete right in between the guitars. She wanted to make her experience memorable haha. Once she was done though she still wanted to take a picture.

 After the Grand Ole Opry we were back on the road for the rest of the evening and headed towards Ohio. Which is where we were spending the night. I drove the first 3ish hours and sure enough while I was driving I saw a slug bug and you better believe I let him know I saw a slug bug while I was driving haha. It became dark before we got to Ohio and I had a little surprise for the kiddos. We had cookies, a glow stick party, and then it was movie time until we got there.

 

The next morning we were on the road again and only a few hours from Niagara Falls. BUT before we got out of Ohio we had a quick stop we had to make to see a HUGE chair. Austinburg, Ohio they have a very large chair that I thought would be fun to take some pictures on and see. Let me just warn you.. This chair is not short people friendly. Holy crap I didn't think I was going to be able to get back down. If any of yall are curious where this chair is the address is 1933 HWY 45 Austinburg, OH. We were also supposed to stop in Tennessee and see a cute pink elephant holding a martini glass. But I completely forgot about it and we ended up passing it by.

 



Once we got close to Niagara Falls I called the hotel we were staying at in Buffalo, NY to see if we could check in early and thankfully it was a week day so we were able to. So Boidoe stayed at the hotel and we headed to lunch before we went to Niagara Falls. We had lunch at a place called Duff's they are supposedly known for their wings(btw if yall didn't know buffalo wings were first made in Buffalo, NY). My drink of choice whenever I go out to eat is sweet tea. Lets just say that drink of choice will now have to change to something else :( sweet tea is disgusting here! HORRIBLE haha. At Duff's my mom order wings with Suicidal sauce on it(it wasn't the HOTTEST but it was the one right below their hottest sauce). Lets just say it really wasn't THAT hot. It was hot but not what I expected. My brother ordered Mild Medium and I ordered Medium Light. I should have went up one or 2 more because it wasn't what I expected. Their signs make you think their sauces are REALLY hot but they aren't too bad. But other than that the food was really good. I recommended only ordering 1 large order of fries for a group of people or just one small order of fries for 2 people to share. Their fries are in a decent sized bowl so we wasted a lot of food not knowing that. 

 

 

After lunch it was time for Niagara Falls. FINALLY! This was the thing I was most excited about with the whole trip. There was a lot of construction going on so it was kind of confusing find our way to the falls but when we found it, it was GORGEOUS! We only saw 2 different falls but we will be going back to see more. And maybe even the Canada side. It was so neat standing at the falls and pretty much being able to just wave to the people on the Canada side. It was a lot of walking but well worth it. Plus it was nice getting to stretch our legs after being in the car for so long. Also, next time I will bring Brynna's stroller. IF you hae never seen the Falls you need to put that on your bucket list. No matter where you live. The Falls are a MUST SEE! We tried to stop by an ice cream place called twist o' the mist but it was closed and it looked like it may have been closed down for good. We were a little bummed about that but we found another ice cream place to stop at for the kiddos. After the Falls we headed back to the hotel and played Uno Dare(oh my goodness that game was hilarious) and watched a movie.

 

The next morning we got to sleep in a bit later than the previous days because we didn't have to be anywhere except the airport at 2pm which was only 2 hours away. Around 10am we all headed out to the airport and grabbed lunch once we got to the airport. It was our last meal with Gigi(my grandma), Vivi(my mom), and Corben(my brother) before they flew back to Texas. I hated that they had to leave but I was so glad they were able to come along for the drive and help :) We dropped them off at the airport and then headed to Fort Drum.. It was only about an hour drive but holy smokes it felt like FOREVER! We found out later on the navigation took us the long way but oh well we finally found it :) And we made it in one piece. No flat tires like our PCS to Bragg haha.