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...