Oh my how the time goes by

Hmmmm where to begin...
Last week (the 5th-9th) James had a week long field training thing he had to do. Basically he slept in a tent all week long out in the cold (and snow) and did Army stuff. He managed to survive and had some fun while there too and was home by 2pm or so that Friday. Seeing as how he was going to be gone all week I got a wild hair and decided to drive to Georgia to see my folks and possible my bro Jared and his future wife Heather. Well it turns out I got to see them all, which was very exciting 'cause I hadn't seen my dad or Heather in a long time. Don't get me wrong it was also great to see my mom and Jared. :-) It took me about 11 hours or so to get there which wasn't too bad. Mama made some good food (Chinese chicken, yummy) that was good for my tummy and Dad and I tried to figure out what exactly is wrong with my computer. He's never seen or heard of the symptoms that my computer has and gave me some stuff to try and fix it with. Of course 'cause my computer is being crazy right now none of it worked. My dad explains what we both think is wrong with it pretty well in a comment on my Computers! post. I believe it's pretty accurate and it's also funny (it has MPD, multiple personality disorder). It was a great visit, I only wish it could have been longer.

As I said before Jared and Heather came down from Chattanooga to see me also and the three of us ran some errands my last day there. The last one for the day was going to the mall so the two of them could register at Macy's. Tagging along for something like that might be boring for most but it was quite the treat for me, I thoroughly enjoyed my time with them and getting to watch them interact with each other. I'm thrilled that Heather is going to be a part of our family, I just hope she adjusts well to our craziness! ;-) To save myself some travel time I spent the night at Jared's place in Chattanooga and left early the next day.

The drive back to Maryland wasn't as easy as the drive down. I got all twisted and turned around a few different times and ended up taking more time to get back than I had anticipated. I was exhausted from not getting any sleep the night before and when I was about 30 miles or so from Aberdeen, MD I called my hubby and almost broke down in tears 'cause I didn't want to drive any more. I was a sad sight I'm sure, but it was good to come home to him and see him. His birthday was the following Sunday (the 11th) which we stretched out over 3 days 'cause we ended up doing the Gettysburg trip that Sunday. I think he enjoyed having a 3 day long birthday, I know I would!

And last but certainly not least, we have a new addition to the Jardin Family. James sister Krissie had her second child (another boy) this past Thursday. They named him Samuel Arthur Camealy and he's as cute as can be! As soon as I can figure out how to get pictures on this thing I'll post some of him and of the newest Leonard baby, Aiden. Anyways I believe Sam came out to be 8 pounds and 6 ounces or somewhere around there, Krissie please correct me if I'm wrong. From what I understand both mom and baby are doing well, as I'm sure husband and older brother are also. I can't wait to see baby Sam in person!

Okay so I'm not quite done...James and I are going to be spending the Christmas holiday with his parents, sister Seana and Grandpa Jardin. We'll head off to Warner Robins, GA on Tuesday, then on the 23rd head to South Carolina to spend Christmas with Grandpa and head back to Maryland on the 26th. It will be a short visit seeing as two of those days are travel days but we are looking forward to seeing everyone and getting to spend some time with them over the holidays. Well in case I don't get a chance to say this on Christmas... MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!! And safe travels to anyone who may be traveling, enjoy the holidays and be safe!

Narnia ROCKED! Go see it!

Computers!

Sometimes, I'm sure like most people, I really hate computers, mine in particular! It's been acting really strange and kinda makes me think it's sick or something like that. Settings change in folders that shouldn't change on their own, things disappear, my internet doesn't work for more than a few minutes, you know, stuff like that. Oh well, hopefully I'll get a chance to talk to my dad about that soon. He's great with computers and also has the patience to help me out over the phone! What a good guy! Not a task for some 'cause I'm not to computer savvy, but I'm sort of learning with all the problems mine's been giving me over the last few months. I hope to one day be able to figure this stuff out on my own. Sad that I don't even know that much about my computer that I've had for 4 years....

Anyways, James and one of his classmates and myself were planning a trip to see some of Gettysburg today but the military has again spoiled our fun. Though we were mainly going for James and his classmate since they have a report to do on it at some point. I still wanted to go 'cause I've never been there before so why not, right? Well, they (James class) has some sort of check today @ 11am to make sure they have all that they need for their week long outdoor field training they are doing next week. James thought it was supposed to happen Sunday but apparently someone from his class decided it wasn't important for him to know that it was today and not tomorrow so he's scrambling to get his gear together. There are some things about the military that really just don't make much since to me, their logic is screwy on occasion. Don't get me wrong I'm glad we have it and all and I admire greatly those that are willing and want to serve our country 'cause it's something I know I couldn't do but it really does bug me how it works sometimes. Oh well, nothing I can do about that! :-P Sorry, I guess this was more of a rant than a I expected it to be...

10 hours

Happy Turkey Day!! I hope anyone that traveled or is traveling made/makes it to where ever safely. James and I left yesterday afternoon around 12:40pm to drive to the Boston area. Normally it's a six and a half hour drive which isn't much fun anyways but it took us about 10 hours to get here this time. Traffic was crazy and so were the people driving. We about got killed a few times by people cutting into our lane earlier than they should have and a couple of those people were the big truckers! Craziness! Oh well, we made it here safely and that's all that matters. We are not looking forward to the drive back, hopefully it won't be as bad though.

We found out some good news about us going to Germany, if that wasn't good news in and of itself! Anyways, we were worried that James would be deployed to Iraq or somewhere else as soon as we got to Germany, which would have been pretty crappy for both of us. But he got an email from his sponsor (the person that's going to help get us settled there) and she said that he wouldn't be going anywhere for a little while at least when we get there. It's wonderful news 'cause I wasn't looking forward to being in a foreign country by myself for a year and change. Now we get to get settle some before he has to go anywhere, YAY!! And possibly get to do some sight seeing too, how fun!

Story Stuff

All right, so, after looking over a few different websites and pouring over many, much, moosen! names I have narrowed the guys name down to two and one girls (even though I said I only needed guys names). I thought I'd get your opinions on which name you like better. So here they are, Quinn Bartley or Gavin Bartley....The girls name is going to be Mackenzie or Kenzie for short. I couldn't find any other Scottish girl names that I liked better than that one. Her name was going to be Coleen but that's Irish and seeing as how the guys names I liked were Scottish I had to find her a Scottish name that suited. Anyways, let me know what you think of the three names and anything else you wish to add, thanks!

Boston!

Well James and I got back from Waltham (just outside of Boston) Monday evening. We had a great visit with my brothers, mom and soon to be sister Amber, Taylor (Amber's first child, a very entertaining 3 year old little girl) and baby Aiden! After much coaxing I actually held him which was very scary 'cause I've never held a newborn baby before, he's so little and cute! It was cool to watch my brother Seth interact with his baby boy, I never thought I'd see the day but it was sweet and made me teary eyed at times. I just wish my dad had been there, that would have been perfect.

Anyways on Sunday my mom, Jared, James and I actually went in to Boston and took a self tour of it, I think it was something called the Freedom Trail...It was pretty neat. One of the first things we saw was an old graveyard that held the bodies of people such as Ben Franklin, John Hancock, Samuel Adams (mmmm beeeer) and Paul Revere. The graves were a treat in and of themselves because of the headstones. Some had skulls and cross bones like what you'd see on a pirate flag, some had skulls with wings on either side of it, some had angel heads with wings on either side, some had what looked like some sort of tree that was bent on them, and some just had writing but it was like nothing I've ever seen at a graveyard! We also saw Paul Revere's House, it's like 300 years old or something, pretty interesting, very creaky. We saw some cool old churches, statues and monuments where obviously a lot of early American history took place. I couldn't tell you in detail about it because I'm not a big history buff so I hope nobody was expecting that! :-P Besides, Jared will probably post something more interesting later anyways...

But like I said, all and all it was a great visit, it was good to spend time with my family. We'll be heading up that way again for Thanksgiving next week so that should be fun also. The drive is not as fun except for the sites. The route we took, took us through New York City which is really neat to see from a distance, the skyline is absolutely beautiful! I can't imagine what it must have looked like before September 11th, even so it was still amazing! And driving across the George Washington Bridge was pretty cool too! For any Law and Order fans that's the bridge towards the end of the opening sequence. We found New Jersey not so attractive (no offense to anyone that lives there or has lived there), there are lots of powerlines and factories really kind of blah. Philadelphia has some cool bridges too, exciting stuff! Random...Dad if you read this anytime soon or I guess anyone that's good with computers, one of the drives on my PC is making it crash or shut off randomly and it also kind of growls at me....help!

Life on Post

I never thought I'd be able to sleep through the sound of an explosion and I'm not talking like little firecracker explosions. I mean full blown they're dropping bombs on us type explosions, but apparently I can. So, seeing as how this is an ordinance post(base), they test or rather blow up a lot of stuff here and the past two days have been quite interesting. I hear on average about 2 explosions every 20 minutes or so through out the day and they are very loud and scary. Anyways, this morning they started going off right around 7:00am and I heard that one then went back to sleep and didn't wake up again until about 10:00am, so I don't really know if that's a good thing to be able to sleep through or not.....there are a lot of deer here on post everywhere, just chillin' and I saw a ground hog for the first time ever the other day as well as a fox the other night, both of which were really cute! But the deer have infested this place, I've never seen so many before and they aren't really scared of people, they just look at you as you drive by, it's crazy! Apparently hunters are allowed to legally kill up to 25 of them or there abouts and that's a lot of deer!

Well I now have a new nephew, Aiden. He was born Tuesday at 3:00pm to the parents of my brother Seth and his fiance Amber. He was 7lbs 8oz, 20" long with a head of black hair and the doctors say he's perfect, my guess is that means he's uber healthy/normal that sort of thing. Anyways, Aiden makes me an aunt for the second time, this time it's on my side of the family, which is pretty cool. James sister Krissie has a little boy, Luke, who is just cute as a button and sweet as can be and she's expecting her second child, boy also, sometime near Christmas! That'll make three nephews with no nieces in sight as of yet! Exciting stuff! James and I will get to see little mister Aiden this weekend. We are making a special trip up to the Boston area where Seth lives half to see Aiden and half to see Jared who is there visiting as well. We will also be spending Thanksgiving with them, Seth and Amber, my mom will be there also and as of right now I don't think my dad will be able to make it and neither will Jared, which will suck but is understandable with work and all that so, yea.

I said I would give a review of the movie Jarhead, so here it is (if you could even call this a review)...I would say it was entertaining but it's a movie about war so I won't say that. I will say that it's the first "war" movie I've seen and been able to sit through without having to avert my eyes from all the gore 'cause there's not really much gore, at least that I remember. However there were a few parts that I did avert my eyes from, I'm sure you can put 2 & 2 together and figure out why for yourselves. Other than that I would say it was an interesting movie about the first Iraq war from the perspective of the Marines that went there. We all know that war is hell but this movie kind of makes the point that waiting for war is also hell. Again not another movie I would take little kids to see. There is quite a bit of language and it has some really funny parts throughout it. Overall I'd say, I'm glad I saw it once, don't care if I ever see it again and don't care about owning it. Hope that helps anyone trying to decide whether not to see it and if not, well then I guess that's your problem! ;-P
random thought, Heather for some reason i'm forbidden from viewing your blog, did i do something wrong? :-( just thought i'd let you know in case it's not just me...

All moved in and other things

well as the title suggests, we are all moved in to our new room and it's everything i hoped it would be! we have a kitchen all to ourselves with a big fridge, big sink, a stove AND an oven, YAY!! soo much nicer than a normal hotel room! we had a nice treat last night also, a couple of James classmates cooked us dinner and desert! we had yummy steak, mac an' cheese (home made, not the box kind), green beans and a jello no bake oreo pie!! it was delicious!

i'm still so excited for my bro and his girl, i wish i lived closer to them so could spend time with them and all that fun stuff. something that i still haven't quite come to grips with being a military wife is that i will more than likely never live close to my family. of course that doesn't mean i'll never see them, it just means i won't see them as much as i would like to. that makes me sad simply for the fact that as my brothers and i grow up our relationships have changed so much and i miss them more now when i'm away than i did when we were younger. my parents fall into this category as well. i'm hoping that as i adjust more to this idea of the military that it won't be so hard, not to say that i won't still miss my family but maybe it won't hurt as bad as it doesn't now.

anyways on a lighter note James and I are going to go see the movie Jarhead tonight. it looks pretty interesting so maybe a review of it will follow soon!

Exciting News!!

My brother Jared finally officially asked his girlfriend Heather to marry him!! :D I'm so incredibly happy for them, I know they both have been waiting a long time for this. I'm going to have a new sister, YAY!! Heather is such a sweet lady and has been really good for Jared, they truly are a good match for one another. I'm excited for the life they will soon have to share with each other. Marriage, aside from becoming a Christian, has been the best thing to ever happen to me and I highly recommend it to anyone who is willing to work at a relationship.

Also I lied unintentionally about the shindig with James class, it didn't happened yesterday it happened this evening. however on my behalf I was going with information that i was told so yeah. Apparently yesterday was the practice run. Anyways the event was pretty short and sweet and they (there were three classes total) all got their little Ordinance pins for their uniforms. James sung the National Anthem too which he did very well, made me teary eyed and impressed a few people that I was standing with. The coolest part though was getting to meet a two star general, shaking his hand and talking with him or rather listening to him. It was cool, though sadly I walked right out of our hotel room without my camera, so no pictures. :-(

More yay news, we are all packed and ready to move out of this hotel room tomorrow morning at 6am! Its gonna hurt getting up at 5am but I figure if my husband and many other military people can do it so can I, at least for one day. :-P And we will have an oven!!! I get to cook real food now! From what I understand it's a two room place, we'll have a bedroom with a bathroom of course as well as an office type room and a kitchen that i still don't know whether on not we'll be sharing but it doesn't matter because it has an oven!! Oh and thanks to all those for the name suggestions, keep 'em coming! I'm trying to find one to fit the male character for the story that popped into my head the other day. I would just use Vincent but he's already in another story that I'm working on so I don't really want to use it again, though I am very passionate about that name. why? beats me! :-P

from hotel to hotel

yay! we are being moved out of this hotel into another one, one that's on post. ha! well, at least from what I understand it will have a stove top (don't know about the oven part) and we may have to share the kitchen which is fine. also they do have high speed internet only we gotta cough up the money for it and of course we will which is also fine again seeing as how the army is paying for pretty much everything else! i just hope they have more laundry stuff than they do here. this quality inn that we are currently at is not a huge hotel but it's a decent size and for the whole building they have 1 washer and 1 dryer, so that's been pretty interesting. the move should be interesting as well. we have to be outa here by noon on friday and wait until the army inn decides to let us into our new room, plus James will be in class most of that day. hopefully there won't be any problems and we'll be able to hop from one room to the next smoothly.

there is some kind of shindig going down tonight with James class. i think he said it was a recognition thing where he and those in his class are officially welcomed to the Ordinance branch of the army. apparently i'm allowed to go which means pictures!! although i don't have a way of posting them as of yet but when we get to Germany that shouldn't be a problem, well as long as our stuff makes it over the ocean successfully that is.

on a side note, i need some suggestions for guys names that aren't very common...

Happy Halloween!

And Happy Birthday to all who had birthdays this past month, you know who you are! ;)

I had a random story pop into my head this morning around 4:30am. that's right around the time James usually gets up to go to PT (physical training). only over the last couple of weeks they've been learning combatives which basically means they learn how to protect themselves if they run out of ammo, lose their weapon or whatever, you know stuff that i'm glad he's learning but hope he never has to use. but none of that really has anything to do with the story that popped into my head except the time. anyways my point is that if i can collect my thoughts about it i may post some of it later on so maybe i could get some feedback from you.

in other news Kingdom of Heaven totally rocks my face off! James and I watched it again last night, a definite must see for those of you that haven't. that movie also kinda freaks me out because there are a few times in it where Orlando Bloom looks just like my brother, Jared, it's crazy! my mom and husband think so too. if you watch it, you'll believe! well maybe not but that's not for me to decide.

rumors and such

well there is a rumor going around James class that we might be moved out of this hotel room into another hotel room on post (the army base). it may be nicer than the one we are in with more stuff, like an oven, or it might be similar to what we are in right now only with no internet. i hope if we are moved that it will be to a nicer place, however our experiences with military "housing" hasn't been a good one. even when James was in the air force we had bad experiences and they pride themselves on being the most family friendly of the service branches so my hopes are not very high. oh well, we don't have much choice in the matter unless we want to use our own money to stay somewhere else and i shouldn't complain too much since we do have a roof over our head, a bed to sleep in and food to eat. ah, life in the military. =P

music in video games

i have decided that i really miss having my piano around. i have been inspired again by video game music to continue learning how to play. unfortunately i won't be able to pick it back up until we get to Germany and that's only if our stuff doesn't fall into the ocean on its way there! what sparked my recent longing was one of the guys in James class told me about a website that has all kinds of video game music that people, some really talented, have redone in some form or fashion, either with all piano or some piano and guitar and other instruments, etc. anyways some of it is really really awesome and whether you play video games or not you should check this site out and listen to some of the Final Fantasy music. i'll put up some of the songs that i really like for you to check out. to get to the website go here once there click on the search button. on the new page that comes up there should be three boxes you can type in one labeled songs, one forum post and the last users, pay no attention to those. above the songs box there are five links one of the is Game, click on that link. the next page is a list of games, scroll down until you get to F then you'll see a ton of Final Fantasy links, click on any of them (i usually click on Final Fantasy 6). this will bring you to yet another page with a long list of songs and the artists. now if you want or have the time to you can scroll through these songs and find the ones i'm about to list and give them a listen or not, obviously that's your choice. however you'll be missing out on some really cool music. I believe the songs are listed by artist then title then what game they are from and i'll try to do the same so hopefully that will help you. okay here are some of my favorites -- clay-prelude for piano (final fantasy 6), cronomatic-Terra~Pseudo-Live Mix (final fantasy 6), trickwaters-Final Fantasy Prelude for Two Pianos (final fantasy series), Eric Barker-Freya: Burmecian Spirit (solo piano) (Final Fantasy 9), goat-The Sky Was Never A Limit (final fantasy 4), and Ashaman-Carol of the Final Fantasy Belles (Final fantasy 10, Final fantasy 5, Final fantasy 6, Final Fantasy 7, Final Fantasy 8, Final Fantasy 9, Parasite Eve). thats good for now and if you find you like those i've got some more that are pretty good but those are my most favs! also the last one, Carol of the Final Fantasy Belles is a really cool mix of the Christmas song Carol of the Belles (i think thats the name of it) and Final Fantasy music so you may recognize some of it. anyways enjoy!

random info

James and i just got back from seeing the movie Doom. it was pretty entertaining though not one i would recommend for small children or any children for that matter. anyways, i got distracted last night and therefore didn't post anything else like i was planning. i realized that not everyone knows my situation at the moment so i will enlighten....

my husband, James, is in the Army. he started out in the Air Force to be a pilot but that didn't work out as we were expecting (long story) and God moved us (him) to the Army. while he was in the Air Force (AF) we lived in Columbus, Mississippi for about a year and when James was doing his transfer to the Army we found out we would be living in Aberdeen, Maryland while he learns what his job will be. he's going to be an Ammo Ordinance Officer for any Army buffs out there. anyways, that's where we are now, MD, only not living exactly where we thought/hoped we would be, no in fact we are living in a hotel room. i now know how my dad felt living in New Mexico for as long as he did though i think his room was more equipped than ours is. we have two rooms, a bedroom with a bathroom and a living room with a kind of kitchen. a kind of kitchen meaning there is a small fridge, small microwave and a small sink, see a theme? yea. not the most fun thing to do for about 5 months. we've already been here for 2 and will be here until at least the beginning of February. on the up side the town of Aberdeen, though smaller, is much nicer than Columbus, Ms (there's a Target here!!) which makes me happy. plus the Army is footing the bill on the hotel which is nice. we were also turned on to a wonderful PCA church here by one of the guys in James class, which was another thing Columbus lacked. the church is really great, the preaching is excellent, everyone we've met so far have been really nice and we've been over to a couple of their houses for lunch. in fact we went to someone's house today for lunch so it's a very warm church.
back to the Army thing before we left Columbus we also found out that the Army is going to send us to Miesau Army Depot in Germany after James school is done here. he has a report no later than March 1, 2006 which means we will definitely be in Germany by March next year if not before, so that's pretty exciting. we'll be there for two to three years from what i understand which means lots of time for leah to explore Europe!! Yay! i've never lived anywhere outside the US let alone even visited anywhere so i'm really looking forward to seeing Europe. i'm sure this blog will be a little more exciting when we get there seeing as how my days right now consist of reading, knitting, cross stitching, writing, screwing around on the internet, playing lots of video games and watching TV. exciting, i know!

just trying it out

well, i have a blog now just like half the people i know do only they are better at writing than i am so if nothing else my blog will be different from theirs in that respect. in any case i figure this is a good way for those that want to keep up with what's going on in my little world can without having to call or write or those that don't have the time to do either can stay up to date. i may or may not post again later right now i'm just trying this thing out to see how it all works. i can apparently put pictures and voice stuff on here if i really feel like it and can figure out how, so time for me to play!