Oh my what a slacker!!!

Ok, so I apologize for not posting in such a long time!! I didn't realize it had been since school started in August! We have a lot to catch up on!

I started Grad school and have been very busy taking classes in order to get my Masters of Arts in Teaching. I go to school twice a week for 5 hours each day. I have also been teaching in a 2nd grade classroom full time up to this point as a long-term substitute. It has been VERRRRY crazy for me!

The kids are great. Everyone is doing well in school and John has been getting ready for another deployment. We don't look forward to another year without him, but that's his job and we support him in it.

I had a gastric bypass on December 9th. Most of my life right now is centered on watching weight fall off of my body. Everyone has been super supportive! I am still on a liquid diet and am moving to soft foods for a month, but it is so worth the end result. The pictures that show up on this blog will hopefully show a transformation.

Today John and I went riding at Kyle Lake. We have never been out together with the horses because he usually takes the girls, well Cecilia really, when he goes and when I go it's with one of my friends. So it was a nice fun date today to go riding. We wanted to be careful since my surgery was less than two weeks ago, but it was such a beautiful day (60 degrees!) that I couldn't resist going. I haven't ridden in quite awhile because I have been so self-conscious of my weight. I felt bad getting on my horse as big as I was. Well, I have lost 20 pounds so I decided to go ahead and get back in the saddle. I love riding Ellie, she's a good girl and isn't spooky at all. John and Charlie ride flawlessly, too, so it was a nice ride. John took us into some brush off the trail and we picked our way through, but Ellie got tired of the bramble, trees, and thorny bushes and finally just turned around and headed out! She wasn't responding to me so I told John we were headed out to the open and he and Charlie reluctantly followed!

It was a beautiful day and a wonderful date with my hubby! I had minimal discomfort and I know it will only get better from here on out! Here are some photos of recent activities, including the Nashville Zoo trip in November (Keegan, Sammi, and Cili went with me), and today's horseback riding adventure.

First Day of School

Can you even believe that I have 2 more in high school?? (The PC answer is, "absolutely not, Alesia, there is no way you are old enough to have kids that old!")

Well, thanks for the compliment, but I do, in fact, have 2 more in high school this year. And quite the crazy lot they are, too!

The twins were up an at 'em, ready to go bright an early Thursday morning. Keegan was loving his green shoes and Connor felt cool that his friends and he had all decided to wear black shirts and khaki pants. Silly boys. Their friends came to meet up with them and off they skipped to the bus stop. Don't tell them I told you about the skipping, they'll deny it, but I promise I saw skipping. Oh, wait. Maybe that was me!

Samantha is in 7th grade this year. Geez. Such a fabulous little teenager. Not technically but she will be at the end of September and she's practicing to be perfect at it now. She's excited to be alone in middle school without her brothers there to overshadow her. It's so great to see the kids become their own people and make their own reputation.

John started 4th grade this year. Or maybe that was Cili but John sure looked lovely in the pink backpack...Cili was excited and really loves her teacher.

The kids came home from school and we spent about 2 hours listening as one-by-one they told their stories of the day. It's funny because Cili will tell us all the great things about her class and the stuff her teacher did last year and will hopefully do this year. Sammi talks about how her teachers look. Keegan can't even tell me some of his classes, he's apparently happy he stayed awake. He remembered every silly, stupid thing that his PE coach said, though. Oh, and he got put in one of his alternate classes, piano, and seriously hates it. Something about his mom playing and teaching piano (but not my own kids!) should make him want to learn a bit but he doesn't want to. I told him he had signed up for his alternates and I wanted him to stay in the class. He is also looking forward to JROTC.

Connor has a very social school year starting. One of his teachers said (according to him, anyway) that she was glad to have him in her class because he'd bring a lot of interesting arguments. Does that tell you how he started that class? Yeah, me too. But really, he told more stories of people than school so hopefully everything went well.

Samantha went on about which of her girlfriends were in her class and which teachers are fruitcakes and how much her teachers from last year were happy to see her. She's fabulous. She can't believe that I am not substituting her Geography class because she hates the long-term sub in that class. She said since I love geography so much I should go threaten to punch them in the face if they don't let me teach it. Silly girl. Love her.

Cili is the lucky one (in my opinion) who gets to have her mom and dad take her in to class. I guess I only get to do that for a couple more years and then they won't need me anymore for that. Boo. But it's fun to go in and watch her interact with the kids in class as she's getting settled. I know a lot of the kids in her class from teaching at the school for the last couple of years. It's great. She is looking forward to the year and she has a great teacher!

After we got the kids dropped off we went to eat and then, well, the car fire blog explains it all.

Have a great year kiddoes!!!

One HOTTTT August!

Today was the first day of school for the kids. I'll post pics of that later. The craziness that happened today was 3 short hours after I got Cili off to start 4th grade.

My friend, Marie, and her baby Preston, and I went to breakfast at IHOP to celebrate all the kids going to school. It was lovely. I miss IHOP. That was mine and Jenn's spot to eat and study...sigh...OK, enough of memory lane.

I took our van in to get a tune up last week. It was sputtering and I wanted to know why. Also it had a squealing sound and we wanted that looked at, too. The shop called me the following day to say the squeal was a belt and they'd replaced it. They then called back and said the squeal was the A/C compressor and it neeed replacing. Cost for replacing that and the receiver dryer (dunno, just a part that they need for the A/C) was going to be about $729. After I choked and regained my composure (and John told me to just suck it up and let them do the work that needed to be done) we gave them the authorization. That was like...Wednesday the 29th. On Friday the 31st I called them and asked for an update. I was on my way to Kansas (pics of that to follow later...cut me some slack) with a friend and needed to know if I'd have a car when I got back. He said they got the A/C fixed up and it was charging and should be done Monday morning. Then they'd drive it and see if they could figure out the sputtering. He said it hadn't done it at all since they'd had it there. I found that hard to believe since it was doing it all the time, dying at stops and everything. But, OK, I will trust the mechanics.

Well, Monday came and went with nothing. Same with Tuesday. Finally, I called them on Wednesday, August 5th first thing in the morning and asked for an update. They said they thought it just needed a tune-up. I asked how much. They said the total was going to be $1100!!! I asked them what the hell they could be doing with a tune-up for $400. I let John talk to them. They told him that it was getting all new stuff because the parts in the car were original and it's 10 years old. Rotor, distributor cap, wires, etc. John was satisfied with their answer and we really thought if we put the money into it we'd be able to drive the car for a couple more years. John told them that we needed the car back by the end of the day because we had kids starting school and we needed to drive them. They called him at 4:20 and told him he could pick up the car.

We left the auto shop about 4:45 PM on Wednesday $1100 lighter. As soon as John got to the house and the car was idling it started to sputter and it died. I was already really mad about the pricing for some of the work they did ($89.70 for spark plugs and $56.25 for labor!!) so I was pretty torqued that they hadn't even fixed what we took it in for! John said he'd call in the morning. He called me while I was having breakfast with my friend to tell me that he'd called the shop and said he wanted the fuel injectors cleaned and asked how much it would cost and they said just to bring the car in.

That would have been lovely. The problem is that the car was choking so bad that after I put gas in it (filled it up, $40) I couldn't go faster than 20 mph and she died at every traffic signal. By the time we got to the entry gate nearest our home there was smoke pouring in the car. I called John and said I was just going straight home and he could sort it out when he got home. I told him about the smoke and he agreed that I just needed to try to get home.

We coasted to my little parking spot in front of my house. I tried to get into the driveway but my car wouldn't have it, she kept dying as I tried to drive. Marie told me it wasn't gonna happen so we just let her coast into her regular spot. I popped the hood to see if I could see where the smoke was coming from and I couldn't tell. The engine looked ok! Then I shut the hood and the mailman walked by. He asked where the smoke was coming from and I told him I didn't know. He asked me to pop the hood again.

Once the mailman looked under the hood the first thing he said is, "This is coming from your A/C!" I couldn't believe what he had just said! He didn't know what work I'd just had done! Then he said, "Ma'am you need to call the fire department, this car is on fire." Very calm. Me? Not so much. I called 911 and told them what was up. It seemed to take forever for them to get to our house. Within a few minutes the whole car was engulfed in flames. We hadn't been out of that car for 10 minutes when it was totally engulfed. Within a few minutes the windows were exploding and I was freaking out!

I called John and told him the car was on fire and he said he was on his way home. When he got there the whole street was blocked off.

Crazy!!

Meanwhile, the car was burnt to a crisp and John called the shop that had done the work and told them. He told them to come pick up the car. After I called the insurance company I called the shop to say that the insurance company would be picking up the vehicle. John got on the phone and asked if we would have to pay for towing. The auto shop advised John we owed them $50 for towing the burnt up car! Yes! Can you believe this?!?!?

Here's what the car looked like when it was all over...this is my seat! Notice no steering wheel? Yeah, my iPod is melted in somewhere too....Looking in from the rear you see the bench seat frame, the captain's chairs in the middle...and the front dash.

So, while the kids were having a lovely day at school I was darkening the skies of Fort Campbell with smoke from my burning vehicle. The auto shop will not be off the hook. I will not back down from this fight. But...for this moment, what's done is done. I have a rental, everyone in the car was safe, our home is safe. It could have been worse and I'm thankful for the miracles that saved us from that!

Needless to say, it was super HOT at our house today!!

Beautiful scenery

So I finally gave in and went to the lake where John has been taking the kids fishing for the last 6 weeks or so. I was so glad I did. It's really beautiful! I don't know why I am so stubborn...I usually find out after that I have been missing out...argh! First they go to a little pond and catch a bunch of very small bass that they then run to the Jeep, put in a bucket of water, and rush to Kyle Lake on Fort Campbell to stock it with bass. John is thinking that if he stocks it with nice small bass now, when he returns from his next deployment he'll have a lake full of whoppers! The first pic is bye Kyle Lake and the other 2 are the little pond. I wish you could see how beautiful it really was with the sun setting. The water was like glass. I sat listening to (and reading to follow along) the audiobook version of Les Miserables and could hear Cili and John as they made their way around the pond - stopping to fish for a few minutes and then moving to another spot. Cecilia, of course, is adorable as she hollers from the opposite side, "Mom! This is my lucky spot! I have caught 3 already here!" John had not had his hook in the water 3 minutes when he pulled out his first fish. This is something the two of them enjoy doing together and I felt privileged to be able to witness that bond they share.

This video is Cili running up with the string of fish. She is bringing them from the last spot they fished and wants to put them in the water really quick while John gets the bucket ready for them.


The absolute joys of motherhood!!

Family visit! Yay!

I have to admit, we don't get much family up this way. We aren't too far away, but it's just far enough that it's kind of a pain in the rump to get anyone here. Well, that all changed this weekend! John's nephew, Brian, lives near Knoxville. His wife, Lori, emailed one day and said she thought it would be neat if we could surprise the guys and get Brian and John together before everyone went back to school in August.

It was really the coolest thing to have John FINALLY not know about a surprise!! Brian and Lori showed up at the barn and I said, "Hey, there are some people here I think you should meet." John looked over and it took him about a second and a half to realize who he was looking at.

Brian is, seriously, like John's twin. It's amazing how much they look alike.

Well, anyway, they came with their beautiful son, Aidan, who is 21 months old. It's been fun to have a baby in the house, but he talks like a 6 year old! What a smart little guy he is! He repeats every word and has a vocabulary that rivals my kids! What does that say for our school system? Eek!

Brian used to have horses so I got Ellie saddled first thing so Brian could ride. He rode Aidan around on her in the arena at the barn. Aidan was having so much fun. It was fun to watch.







Brian and John took the horses out to ride at Kyle Lake on Fort Campbell. It was the first time John had Charlie out on the trail and I was looking forward to him going with his nephew. We haven't seen Brian since 2003, this was quite a treat.

While the guys were gone, Lori, the girls, and I walked Aidan to the little playground by our house. He had a blast going down the slide and swinging!



The guys came back and drove by the playground. Aidan was so excited to see his daddy, and almost just as excited to get to ride in the "Jeepers!"

We grilled out and then had a lovely visit. It has been so nice to have them here! I suppose I need to get pictures of John and Brian posted here...more to follow!

The ultimate sacrifice and the love of friends

On a sad note...I traveled to Georgia last week for a quick overnight trip to pay my respects to a soldier who was killed in Afghanistan. This was the husband of a good friend of mine during John's first deployment. These kinds of things make the war a very real thing and I struggle with it on a regular basis. My love and support to Donna and to 1SG John D. Blair, thank you for your sacrifice and may you rest in peace.

I was able, while I was there, to connect with some friends that shared John's last deployment with me. Cathey, Michelle, Rhonda, Dee, Larry...it was so good to see them all. The Georgia Guard is in Afghanistan now and I know they are missing their soldiers. Everyone was so supportive of our guys during that first trip to Iraq, but I miss being able to share that sisterhood with these women this time around. Thank you for all that you have done for me and given me, I cannot express my love enough.

I was also able to see Lynn, Mark, and Claire Patterson, Nancy Bauer, and my sister-at-heart Jenn and her three girls, Morgan, Sophia, and Kate. I miss you guys so much!! Honestly it makes me cry to think about you all and how much I miss you!

I've posted a couple of pics to share these very important people in my life.

Ketchup, Catsup, no...Catch-Up!

Yep, I'm a slacker!!! As if you didn't know...ha!

I will just have to give a quick update and then I promise to be much more consistent.

For starters, Cili was baptized on the 26th of June. That is such a great moment for me but also a little sad. Every first thing, major milestone, or learned thing for Cili will be the last first time for our family. Someday my kids will have kids of their own and they'll get to have those "firsts" too, but for now it's the end of an era. It's sad for me. Honestly, she is such a good girl that I have really enjoyed every moment of her and I hate to see those fleeting moments pass. They don't realize what the moments mean, how important they really are, but I sure do!

John had a little surprise from his head injury in March. He apparently suffered a couple of small seizures! We didn't know that's what they were, he was having some issues with his face going numb so we went to the ER. There they found that he had a subdural hematoma (bleeding on his brain) and the pressure of the fluid there was causing these seizures. They rushed him to the CCU at Skyline Medical Center and he stayed for a couple of days. As you can tell by this picture, he was really not concerned about his health! He felt fine! They let him go but we went back for a CT a week later and were relieved to hear the hematoma was absorbing and had gotten smaller. We head back to the neurosurgeon tomorrow to have another look.

It was very scary for me, though, they had him hooked up to every monitor imaginable. My dumb brain kept thinking "what if" instead of "whew we caught it" so I was really distracted by the whole mess. We are all glad he's on the mend!


I have been enjoying taking Ellie out to ride. My friend Carol and I recently went to Land Between the Lakes (www.lbl.org) to ride our horses and just had a great time.

It's so beautiful and peaceful. I let Ellie stop to get a little drink and she walked right in the lake. If I hadn't pulled on her rope I swear she'd have kept going! She was pawing at the water and finally buckled both front knees to lay down!! I had to pull her back up since she was saddled and I still needed to get back on her to ride the last 2 miles of the trail back to the truck!

John and the kids painted the trailer we bought. It's bright (as one person said it looks liked Rainbow Brite exploded all over it) but they love it. We are happy to have our own trailer and maybe someday I'll actually be able to back the Jeep up to it and hook it up...

Why I love spring!

Aside from the obvious reasons of warmer climate, I love to be able to get outside and enjoy the day. Summer gets so hot and humid that it's impossible to enjoy yourself unless you are at a pool or by a lake. Winter is just cold and icky. Spring is the most amazing thing. The grass goes from a miserable brownish tinged, crunchy, tundra-like wasteland to - and this is especially amazing in Kentucky - a beautiful, bright, fresh, aromatic green. Here the green is nearly flourescent. It's like neon green and just grows so quickly. It's fabulous!

I watch for the robins. There are some birds that stick around all winter. You know it's springtime, however, when you see robins. The red-breasted birds come out as the weather turns warmer and you know it's going to continue with that trend. I get excited, giddy even!

Another bonus is the time change. I hate losing an hour when it first gets snatched away, but the sunset at 7:30 PM is wonderful! It's allowed us to spend more time actually working with the horses. I have been training Ellie and every nice day (that is sans rain or snow or, as in this past Saturday, hail and tornadoes!) I spend a couple of hours in the round pen giving her some lessons and tuning her so she's easier to control and ride. I've added some pictures here of us tonight. The girl on Ellie is Morgan Bailey. Morgan is Cili's friend. Her mom, Merideth, and I are close friends and Morgan comes over every morning when Merideth goes to work. She and Cili walk to school together or I drive them if I'm working. She comes after school until her mom gets home from work so she spends lots of afternoons at the barn with us. In one photo is John leaning on Lady. It's hard because she's too young to ride so she just needs ground training, but when the pen is muddy it's difficult. There's been a lot of rain this week so the ground is just muck and yuck right now!!

The ups...and downs of horses

Today we went to the barn to feed the horses, as is our usual routine. All was fine. The girl who manages everything there, Aubree, is one of 14 people in the world trained by and working with the renowned Monty Robers, "The Man Who Listens to Horses." She's fabulous. She was getting her Percheron ready for some work. His name is Patrone and he stands 18 hands high and weighs about 1400 pounds. He's a big boy! He's basically a draft horse, like a Clydesdale, just huge really. Anyway, John asked her what she was going to work on with him and Aubree told him she was going to do some ground driving and asked if John had ever done any ground driving. He said no and she asked if he wanted to help her and she'd show him some techniques. He asked if he could ride Patrone sometime and she said that he could ride after they'd worked with him a bit.

They worked for 20 minutes or so and then John went to get on Patrone. Apparently, when he was getting on he nicked Patrone in the flank (very sensitive) with the toe of his boot and Patrone responded by bucking. That threw John off balance and he landed on Patrone's rump instead of in the saddle. That kept Patrone bucking and John tried to stay on and pull himself into the saddle. After 3 bucks John couldn't hold on any longer and he flew up in the air and down onto the ground. Aubree and I ran to him to see if he was okay. He was laying face down on the ground and not responsive at all. We rolled him over and his eyes were open but he was snoring. It was the most freaky thing I have ever seen. He was unconscious for a couple of minutes and then started coming to.

He tried to stand up and was pushing us off him because we were trying to keep him still on the ground. I had called 911 and an ambulance was on the way. He finally stood up and the EMTs arrived. They let him walk into the ambulance, which proved to be quite a feat in itself as he was falling backwards and really struggling with the steps. They were first just going to look at him because he kept saying he was fine. However, when they asked him who the President was and he said Bush or Clinton, they decided he probably had a moderate concussion and needed to go to the ER. I told him I was going to take the girls home and meet him there. He asked me what girls were there with us. He didn't remember we'd brought Cili and her friend Chastity. I was freaking out but just wanted to get to the hospital with John.

When I got to the ER they brought me in to his room and asked him a few more questions. He couldn't remember our phone number, how old he was, or the President, still. They took John in for a CT scan which showed nothing serious had happened to his noggin. That was a relief! They said John would continue to ask the same questions over and over as he tried to regain his memory. They said he could sleep but to wake him every 20 to 30 minutes to make sure he was coherent. We were there for about 2 hours and they let us go. Seriously, the shortest trip to the ER I've ever made!

John's home now and sleeping in his chair. He's hurting pretty bad now, obviously he has a headache. He doesn't have any spot on his head where his head hit so I'm not sure what happened exactly to his head. He may have just jarred it pretty badly. His wrist is hurting him now and he thinks it's sprained. I may take him back for an x-ray if he'll let me, but we'll see. I'm just happy to have him safe and sound. It really was one of the scariest moments of my life.

I know it's going to happen, Aubree said it best when she said it was the first of many times to come. It's just hard to see your husband, who you view as the total tough guy, in such a vulnerable and fragile position. I'm so thankful he's safe at home!

Our usual weekends...

Usual, that is, if it's nice out. Lately it's been so cold that we have run out to the barn, grained the horses, and then jumped back into the warmth of the Jeep! I haven't ridden in 3 weeks because it's been cold, muddy, yucky, you name it!

Today was lovely! It was in the mid-70s. The wind was blowing, making my allergies act up something fierce, but not even 10-per-minute sneezes and itchy eyes could have kept me away form that barn!

John worked on Lady's feet and I had Connor on Ellie bareback working on the neck reining we started 3 weeks ago. I think she's getting better, I've been working on getting her back to basics. She's got some bad habits that someone else let her continue but it's not working for me!

John has started ground-work with Lady. She's a pretty girl and she's getting better, but she's got a long ways to go...the cuteness wears off and we need her to do what we ask her to do now.

I put a picture in here of Cili and her friend Morgan riding a few weeks ago. Cili is on a 25-year old named Khaliff and Morgan is on Ellie. The others are from today...

Again...O'Keefe Zoo

Because we simply do not have enough pets...HA! We wanted to get another horse that was older that the kids could ride. Lady won't be ready to ride for another couple of years and we didn't want the girls especially to lose interest. I knew I'd need to get another Tennessee Walking Horse so that when we ride together we'll be able to actually stay together. Walking Horses are gaited, they have a much longer and smoother stride. If I got a Quarter Horse like I wanted, I would be left in the dust.

Anyway, I also wanted a horse that was broke and a little bit more mature. After much looking, I found Ellie Mae. Her registered name is Paint's Little Red. She's 14.3 hands high and is a sorrell. She actually has the same color hair as Cecilia! We got her on the7th of February and she's 10 years old. She still isn't too sure about us but I'm working on getting her comfy around me so she'll come to me in the pasture. Today when we went to give the girls their grain, she actually RAN to the dry pen because she knew we'd have food for her. All of us have had a chance to ride her, if only in the dry pen (John, Connor, and I have all had her out in the large pasture). We got a saddle for the boys, John, and me, and a smaller one for the girls. Cili's legs are just a tad too short but we'll see if we can work with it for now.

We are also working on getting the mare and the filly to be nice to each other. Lady is the baby and Ellie lets her know that. It is to the point now where whenever Ellie walks near Lady she just scampers off. She doesn't wait to be told by Ellie! Yesterday we worked in the dry pen walking them around, as if on a trail, and then taking them in opposite directions and having them cross paths. We need them to be buddies. John wants to breed Ellie right away but I am thinkin we will wait until we know if we are going to get to move or not. It's easier to travel with a 2 horse trailer than having to buy a larger one for now.

On a completely separate note, Cass' cat had kittens on Valentine's Day. She was so funny. She came downstairs and just looked at us and started moaning this terrible meow. I knew she was getting ready to have the babies. I set up a little dark kennel in my closet and sat with her for awhile. I watched as she had 4 beautiful babies and then had to come down to make dinner. Not too long after John announced that baby number 5 had been born. After dinner we went back upstairs to find kitty number 6! I couldn't believe she had that many. Burrito (the cat) is not a big cat, she's petite and quite young still. I was impressed by how great she did and she is really being a great mommy now.

We also had 2 more cockatiels hatch this week for a grand total of 7 birds, 7 cats, 2 horses, 2 rabbits, 1 guinea pig, a tankful of fish, and 3 dogs. I'm going to start charging admission...sheesh!