Let the Anxiety Begin

Now that Chris has started the actual Ranger Indoctrinate Program, he is not allowed phone privileges. I rarely hear from him and when I do, it is a text her or a text there, but when I reply, he is gone! Today I got these very disturbing pictures from him with the following texts...

"I'm so sad!"

"My Leg"

"Can you see it?"

"Hamburger Feet"

Not knowing what the heck he was talking about and what happened, the anxiety attack began, I started to panic, worry, stress, and CRY! I tried to text back to say "Why are you sad? What happened? Are you OK? What wrong with you chest?" but he obviously had to shut his phone off and could not text back. Waiting in suspense, having major anxiety, I finally get a text back that said "Jujitsu 3 against me, broken rib, hurts to breathe, messed up knee". Again, I tried to text back to ask for details, but no response. All night I couldn't help but think about him and all the pain he must be experiencing. I can tell in the picture of his face that his head is swollen and bruised. The picture of his leg tells me that its his left leg, yeah the one that had $40k surgery. The one of his chest makes me nauseous to look at cuz you can totally see his rib sticking out. I can handle the "Hamburger feet" picture, because those are just really bad blisters that I am sure hurt him, but they won't kill him. He refuses to go to the doctor, because they will restart him and he doesn't want that. I know that all I can do is pray for him and have faith the Lord will bless him to be healed. Maybe this is why they say the less you know the better, because the more I know, the more I worry! And the more I worry, the less sleep I get!!!

Auntie Mom

Today my brother in law was speaking at a Word Press Conference and my sister wanted to attend, so she asked if I would help out with the kids.

My day began at 8:45am with Cole and Dallin screaming as if there were a fire or some other emergency..."WAKE UP! Shell Shell...WAKE UP!!!" So, awake I was! I mosey on down the stairs to get my schedule for the day from my sister and out the door she went.

I ate breakfast, took a shower and got ready. Since it was Cole's day for 1/2 time snacks and treats for his soccer game, I had to finish baking and frosting cupcakes, and get the snacks and water loaded in my car.
Green sprinkles for the "Green Dragons"

I helped Cole get dressed for soccer and then helped Sadie make a card and wrap a gift for a baby shower. We dropped the gift and off we went to pick Dallin up from his Cartooning Class in Orem at 11:30am.
After picking up Dallin, we had to race back to Cedar Hills to have Cole and the treats to the soccer field by 12pm. Arriving only 5 or so minutes late, I told Cole to run out there and find his coach while I gather the treats.
Cole running for the ball, but the girl is kinda blocking him out of the picture.

The game was a ton of fun until Cole is kicked in the face and got a bloody nose all over. Trying to calm him down and keep myself from passing out I cleaned him up and shoved a tissue up his lil nostril. It finally stopped bleeding and being a tough guy, he was right back in the game.

After the game, I dropped Sadie off at the baby shower late and head home to get the boys some lunch. Feeling all motivated, I decided to clean my car inside and out.
Look how pretty, all shiny and clean!

Not realizing what time it was and that I was supposed to have a pasta salad made and delivered to the church building for Women's Conference by 4:45pm, I ran to Walmart, bought what I needed and raced home to get started. I threw it together super fast, delivered it to the church and hurried home to get myself changed and ready to attend Women's Conference. Monica got home just after 5pm, changed her clothes and off we went to be spiritually edified while Sadie watched the boys.

Over all it was a great day! I really enjoyed spending time with the kids and I am glad I was able to help my sister out to allow her to go support her hubby! I think I got just a glimpse of what being a mom is all about...running kids all over the place, juggling a million things at once, baking, soccer mom, etc. It was extremely chaotic and I am pretty sure I bit ALL of my nails off! I don't know how you moms do it everyday. I am just glad at the end of the day I was able to relax and enjoy conference with my sister.

Say WHAT???

Today, while at work, I received this text message and picture

"You Ready?"

Chris is so cute. He was out shopping with some Army buddies, who knows where, and he stops to take a picture of a stroller to tell me he wants a baby! Typical guy...he picked out the JEEP stroller, the closest thing to a pimp car for his lil' one. He has been telling me for a while now that he wants to start having kids, but it is next to impossible to conceive a baby right now, with him in the Army. I know he wants one sooo bad and so do I, but it is hard for me, knowing that he will hardly ever be home to be a daddy! I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens, see what God has in store for us.

Mail Day!

Chris and I have had over a dozen mailing addresses here in Utah in the past 3 1/2 years. I got sick of filling out 'change of address' forms, so I decided to set up a post office box. I did this about 2 years ago and it's great because I never have to worry if my mail is being forwarded properly or if mail is being returned to sender and I can check it whenever I want. When we were living in Salt Lake and the post office was only a few minutes away, we would check the mail every 2-3 days. It sort of became our date night...checking the mail...how romantic! Now that I am living in Cedar Hills and Chris is gone, I rarely check the mail. I know what is in there...BILLS, retail ads, BILLS, credit card offers, BILLS, grocery ads, and more BILLS!!! I could care less about all the junk mail and I am in no hurry to go pick up my heaps of bills, so I only check the box once a week. The last 2 week I apparently have been really busy, too busy to check my mail. So I went today and could barely yank it out of the box because it was crammed in there so tight. After much force and tearing a few pieces of mail, I finally got it all out. Sure enough, nothing but BILLS and junk mail.


Would you believe that all of that mail came out of an itty bitty post office box. I think the box itself is only 3" wide by 5" tall. Maybe I'll have to set myself a weekly reminder to avoid this in the future. Now I get to spend the next hour opening mail!

A day in the life of Private Petty

Since my day was pretty boring and Chris obviously had an eventful day, I'll blog about his fun day instead of my lame day. He must have had a ton of fun, because these are just some of the many many pictures I received today. It first started off with shoe shopping...

"Can I buy these?"

He even got them on sale for $54.99, what a bargain shopper!

Showing me how good they look on his feet!

Trying on a matching Puma jacket...lookin' all tuff!

Time for a snack at Atlanta Bread Co.
He said it's not as good as Great Harvest Bread Co. here in Utah

Then a visit to the local Petco to check out the reptiles.

Oh, I hate snakes...and this one is looking at me!!!

Chillin' at some hotel waiting for his friend.


Dinner at Chili's on the way back to base.
(Chicken, Fries, and Corn--Yum!)
I accidentally deleted the real picture of his dinner, but this is what he ate.


Retired to his bunk for the night!

I am so glad Chris keeps in touch with me and sends me a photographic tour of his day. He is so sweet to do this, because he knows that I love getting pictures from him. It makes me feel like I am a part of his day, even though I am thousands of miles away.

Thank goodness for cell phones with Text & Picture Messaging.

Missing Chris

Chris is so cute, he texts me a daily photo of himself so I don't forget what he looks like! I have pictures of him all over my office, in my bedroom, on my computer, in my wallet, and on my cell phone...how could I forget what he looks like? Anyhow, this is the picture he sent me today. He rarely smiles, but when he does its usually a cute cheesy grin. I love it! I will have to collage all of his self portraits sometime and post them for everyone to see.

Look how handsome my hubby is...


On days like today when work sucks, I'm super tired, I don't feel good, and I just want to lay in bed and forget about the world...it makes me miss Chris more than ever! I miss being able to come home after a bad day and just vent to him for hours. Now my poor sister and brother-in-law get to hear it. I miss Chris taking care of me when I am sick and don't feel good. I miss hearing him tell me "It's OK love! Things will get better, just don't worry about it tonight!" I miss snuggling up with him to watch a movie (movies are like Ambien...they put me right to sleep). I'll just keep counting down the days until I can have a "normal" husband and wife scenario, but until then, I better get used to the life of an Army wife.

E*Trade Baby

Ok, so I'm sure EVERYONE has seen this, myself included, but tonight it was extra funny. Maybe it was just the mood I was in or that I actually paid attention to the commercial. Anyhow, check it out and see if you laugh as much as I did. The last line is the funniest!

What's a stye?

So I have worn glasses and contacts since I was about 12 years old and have never had any problems with my eyes...other than being blind. Today, I woke up with the most painful lump on my eye lid. It hurts so bad, I couldn't even wear my contacts to work. I had to bust out my 7 year old glasses, which the rx is so not current, and attempt to drive to work. That was an interesting experience, making sure I didn't hit the other cars on the road and making sure I didn't miss my exit. After talking with some friends at work, I realized I had my very first stye. I had not clue what a stye was, so I googled it. Definition: A stye or hordeolum is an infection of the sebaceous glands at the base of the eyelashes. While they produce no lasting damage, styes can be quite painful. So basically I guess its just a clogged pore on your eye lid and they say they can be caused from stress. Check out my very first (and hopefully my last) STYE...

Can you see it?

So now the question is...how do I get rid of this NASTY looking thing? When looking online, they tell you not to pop it. It hurts so bad, like I'm gonna squeeze it. Then they said to apply a wet hot wash cloth for 10 minutes, but I couldn't keep the stinking wash cloth hot for more than a minute. Anyhow, they also say a gentle massage will help...so I gave it a try. And sure enough the next morning it had drained and was feeling much better. It is still slightly swollen, but it doesn't hurt as bad and I was able to wear my contacts today. Thanks to Google, I learned all about a stye!!!

The lost Watermelon

Today, I went out side to water my sister's garden for her not expecting to find what I found. She and her kids planted this garden quite some time ago, but it just hasn't produced much of anything, but the one zucchini she found about a week or so ago.

As I was watering the dirt, I noticed that in the corner of her garden box, there was some weeds from outside of the box had overgrown in the garden box, so I decided to climb back there and remove them. To my surprise, I found a run a way vine with this attached to the end of it..

And also this...

Yep, that's right...two baby WATERMELONS!!! After gently placing them back in their box, I quickly snapped some pictures and ran in the house to show my sister and my little nephew who insisted they plant mini watermelons in the first place. I told my sister her garden wasn't a complete failure this year, she had 1 zucchini and 1 1/2 watermelons. My nephew was so excited when I took him out there to show him the yummy lil melon he planted. It was so cute to see his reaction when he saw it. I wish I had a camera to capture the moment. Maybe I will get a picture of him when he gets to eat it!

Happy Birthday Chris!!!

My hubby is 26 years old today. He was actually quite depressed about it. I guess getting older effects everyone in a different way. He felt like he was sooo old and hadn't accomplished anything. I had to quickly remind him that he was married and that was a huge accomplishment!!! Anyhow, he really wasn't buying it, so I just let him feel old for a day. Because I could not be with him on his birthday, I asked him to send me pictures of his fun filled day. So this is what it consisted of...

Morning PT and Chow

Lying in bed listening to some tunes

Fun Game of Battleship with Campbell

Chicken Parmigiana From Olive Garden

A little I-Pod action...and lights out!

It sounds like it was all just too much fun for words! I am sad I couldn't be there, but I am glad his buddy Campbell played a birthday game with him, went to dinner with him, and shared a bunk with him that night.

Happy 26th Birthday my love...Too bad I didn't get to see ya in your birthday suit :-)