Georgia on my mind...

We had a busy Thanksgiving week! We enjoyed having multiple meals, seeing our friends and family, and getting our haircut. My dear friend Bethany gave Mollie her very first haircut. She sat still but cried the whole time. On Friday my sister and I continued our new Black Friday shopping tradition and got up at the crack of dawn to fight the crowds. This year we were joined by my mom and dear sweet neice, Camryn. We don't really do it for the deals. We do it for the pure fun of it. We topped off the morning with breakfast from Wade's. Mmmmmm, donuts and biscuits (my mouth is watering just thinking about it). After some much needed rest (and a shower) we had Mollie's birthday party. We had a great time and she got lots of great gifts.

Well Thanksgiving is long gone and we have moved on to our final predeployment destination, Savannah, GA. We are staying in a vacation condo downtown and having a great time. Mollie and I enjoy walking around the city while Troy goes to post and does his thing. Not too much to add at this point. Troy is supposed to be deployed sometime around January 15th. I'll try to keep everyone updated and post his address as soon as possible.

Sweet Home Alabama

After our Disney trip we were able to swing back through Virginia before heading to Alabama. Originally we were supposed to embark on this adventure with no trips home so we were glad we were able to catch up with everyone for a few days. We arrived in Alabama on Sunday October 4th for a 6 week stay. We were prepared for the worst as we drove onto Ft. Rucker to check into our hotel. We have stayed in post housing before and it's not always the best. We were told we would be staying in the guest house where all of the families stay. Wow, a house really?? No, not really, just a room but it was nice to think about for a split second. We were so excited to see that the hotel was surrounded by grass (not a parking lot and highway like in San Antonio) and it had a playground. YAY, something to do during the day. We were pretty disappointed when we actually opened our room door. Two double beds, a small kitchenette, and a bathroom. SWEEEEET. Oh well, what can we do? Mollie discovered the dorm-sized mini fridge first thing. It's been quite a chore to keep her out of it.

We only have 3 more days in Alabama and we've had a great time. We've made several friends out on the playground and had the opportunity to do lots of fun things. Mollie was able to go trick or treating for the first time and had a blast. She was so excited to dress up as Minnie Mouse. She would say, "I Minnie, I pitty". So cute!! We were also here for the National Peanut Festival. Apparently, over half of the nation's peanuts are grown here. We actually went to the festival twice. It was so much fun. Mollie and I rode all of the kiddie rides together and some of them were actually pretty wild. We all got a kick out of the pig, goat, and duck races. Each racer would be assigned a Nascar driver/number and a kid to cheer them on. Of course the kids would go crazy in order to get picked as the driver. Mollie had caught on to this by the time the ducks were ready to race. The man said "I need some drivers" so Mollie raised both her arms in the air and yelled "YAY, YAY" and what do you know the man picked her and her duck won. It was so funny. Mollie kept saying "more piggies mama". Do I have the cutest kid or what? Oh and we got to try elephant ears for the first time. They are delicious!!

We will be headed back to San Antonio on Friday the 13th (yikes) until the following Friday. Then we'll make our way back to Virginia for Thanksgiving. See you all then!!

Disney World

As you all know, Mollie has an extreme love for Mickey Mouse and all of his friends. We decided to make time during our cross country adventure to go to Disney World. Troy had never been to Disney World so we were super excited that we got to fit the trip in. We were so happy that our good friends Chris, Sara, Grant, and Mason Worley drove from Jacksonville to meet us. It seemed like we hadn't seen them in forever but we just picked up right where we left off. Since they had visited Disney World earlier in the summer we relied on them to point us to all of the best attractions.

The night we got to Disney we went to Downtown Disney. Downtown Disney was new to all of us (it wasn't there 15 years ago on my last visit). It's a great place to shop, eat and hang out (especially if you're single). We ended up eating at McDonalds because it was so late and we knew all the kids would eat something there. We ended up at a water play area. Mollie is a pretty cautious kid so I was so surprised when she took Sara's hand and walked right up to the water. Grant, Mollie and Mason had a blast running through the water. I think this was the start of Mollie and "Drant's" friendship. Mollie thought Grant was just hilarious.

We woke up to rain the next day but caught the bus and met the Worleys at Magic Kingdom anyway. The rain wasn't actually too bad (except for my hair). We rode several rides, watched the parade and went to Mickey's house to finally meet him face to face. Troy and I were so excited see Mollie's reaction to the "real" Mickey. Unfortunately Mollie fell asleep about 5 minutes before it was our turn to meet Mickey. It turned out that we had quite a few opportunities to meet Mickey and his friends. We saw Mollie's favorite show, Mickey's Philharmagic 3-D. She loved every bit of it. She still talks about the show at least once a day.

We spent Sunday at Hollywood Studios with the Worley's. We had a great time seeing the sights and riding the rides. We experienced quite the downpour as we were finishing lunch. So once again we got a little wet but didn't let it get us down. Unfortunately this was our last day with our friends. So we said goodbye and turned in early.

We had a great time on the rest of our trip doing a lot of the same things. We rode all of Mollie's favorite rides as many times as she wanted and of course saw Mickey's Philharmagic show several more times. We had an awesome time and look forward to going again when Troy returns from Afghanistan next year.

San Antonio Zoo and Sea World

Before we left Texas we visited the Zoo and Sea World. The zoo was so nice. There were probably about 20 people in the entire place so Mollie got to walk around and not be confined to her stroller. She loved it. We were a little disappointed that her favortie animals were the fish and birds. We can visit these animals for free any day of the week at PetSmart. Oh well, Troy and I enjoyed seeing some animals that we had never seen before. The grizzly bear was quite entertaining as were the hyenas.

Troy and I, being the intelligent people that we are, chose to go to Sea World on Labor Day weekend (living in a hotel fries your brain). Not a good idea. It was so busy that we didn't get to do too many things. I had been telling Mollie about Shamu for several weeks and we watched videos on the computer nearly every day. Our first stop was the "neighs" as Mollie calls them (also known as the Clydesdales). We then moved on to the "Viva" show. On the way we experience our first full on public melt down. Mollie threw herself down on the pavement and screamed her heart out. WOW. I'm still not sure the reason behind the fit but I picked her up and kept moving. Once we got to the show she was fine. It was an awesome show with Baluga whales, dolphins and acrobatic type divers. Mollie spent most of the show with her eyes covered because the music was so loud. After a little penguin ride and lunch it was Shamu time. We attempted to see Shamu earlier in the day but it was completely full so this time we got to the arena really early. Mollie was so excited to see "Amu". She loved the whole show and was out cold as soon as it was over.

Troy's Birthday

Well, it's been awhile but you know, living in a hotel just isn't that exciting. Troy's birthday happened to fall on his last day "in the field" so I knew he would be starving and ready for something good to eat. My friend Michelle lives about 20 mintues away from our hotel and was nice enough to let me use her kitchen to make an apple pie. Unfortunately, it was a rough week for Mollie. She was grumpy and whiney all week long. She behaved long enough to get the pie made and put in the oven. She fell asleep on the way back to the hotel so at least I got about 20 mintues of peace. When we got back to the room we started blowing up some balloons. Mollie threw a complete fit when she couldn't hold all 6 balloons at one time. She then got to get in her bed and cry herself to sleep. It was so awesome once the crying finally stopped. I knew I needed to get the decorations up quick while I had some peace. Of course I didn't have any tape so I had to use band-aids. Everything was going great until the chair flipped over on me and then I thought I was going to die. My whole body was hurting. I finally got up enough strength to crawl over to the couch to recover. WOW, that was bad. Eventually I talked myself into getting back on the chair to finish hanging up the decorations. A couple hours later Troy finally got home for his "surprise" party. He was super excited about the pie and ate it as an appetizer and then after a pizza he had it for dessert.

Craziness

We've had a crazy couple of weeks. Three weeks ago we left San Antonio to visit family in Eldorado, TX. We finally got to meet the newest addtion to this side of the family; Addison 20 months, Chandler 18 months and Garrett 3 months (check out Facebook for pictures). My mom, grandparents and nieces also made the trip so my aunt Debbie had quite a full house. Troy stayed for the weekend but then had to leave on Sunday to go back to work on Monday. On 7/30 the VA crew headed home and I headed back to San Antonio to surprise Troy (I know, I'm so sweet). Aunt Debbie let me take her Suburban back so that Troy wouldn't have to come and get me. We made it back without getting lost and no help from a GPS. If you ask me that's pretty impressive! We spent the next couple of days getting Troy ready to go out in the field.

Troy was scheduled to be out in the field for the next 3 weeks coming home only on the weekends so Mollie and I stayed in San Angelo with my cousin Amanda. I had decided to leave on Tuesday morning to make the trip to San Angelo. Of course Mollie woke up grouchy that morning so I was doing anything and everything to make her happy. We had taken one load of luggage to the car and had gone back in to get the remaining bags. Mollie grabbed the keys off of the counter and was so happy so I just let her carry them. I got the bags in the car and buckled Mollie into her carseat. I grabbed the keys and tossed them up on the console. I got out of the car and shut the door. As soon as the door shut I heard "CLICK". I knew exactly what had happened. Mollie had clicked the remote and the doors were locked. I checked every door twice. All of them were locked. The keys, my purse, my phone, everything locked inside the car along with Mollie. GREAT!! I ran into the hotel and told the front desk then ran outside to wait for the police. A few minutes later two police officers showed up and took me to jail. HAHA Just kidding. They actually said they had no way to open the doors so we would have to wait for the Pop a Lock. After what seemed like hours the Pop a Lock guy showed up and opened the door in about 3 1/2 seconds. Poor little Mollie was soaked in sweat but not too upset. She had cried a little but was very calm overall. Can you believe the lock man didn't charge me a penny? Thank you Pop a Lock man.

We finally got on the road headed to Eldorado and then San Angelo. Of course the GPS was still not working so we followed old school mapquest directions. Of course I missed the turn to Eldorado and ended up going all the way to Ozona which was probably about 40 miles past my turn. Luckily we had been to Ozona the week before and I knew how to get to Eldorado from there. We eventually made it to Eldorado and San Angelo. Wow, what a long day!!

Our new "Baby"

Here she is, our newest addition. We hope to have her for longer than a month:)

Our home

Here are some pictures of our mansion. We rearranged some of the furniture in the living room so Mollie would have more room to play.

Our first week in Texas

Our first week was pretty uneventful. We got settled and tried to figure out how to live in a hotel with 100 or so of our "closest" non-English speaking friends. We were so happy to have a suite with 2 queen beds so we wouldn't have to pull out the sleeper sofa for Mollie every night. On Tuesday, Mollie and I met a nice lady with a granddaughter Mollie's age. We went swimming with them the next day and were so happy to be entertained for a couple hours. Then on Thursday (I think, all the days run together) Troy came home and got on Kelly Blue book to see how much the van's trade in value was. We found out that the trade in is more than we paid. Huh...now what should we do? Go look at new cars of course! haha We went to dinner and then to the Chevy lot to look at Tahoes. I was just going along for the ride and to get out of the hotel. Afterall, we just bought a new car and why would we want to go through that again? I drove a couple of Tahoes and was ready to go but instead we went inside with the salesman. Yes, I think we are losing our minds. It was getting close to Mollie's bath/bedtime so we told the man to get the numbers together and we would comeback on Saturday.

On Friday night we had dinner with some Ft Gordon friends. It was so good to see some familiar faces and Mollie had a great time playing with Danny and Luke. We all decided to go to lunch on the River the next day. On the way back from lunch we decided to stop by the GMC lot to see what they had. I drove the Yukon and Yukon XL, both were very nice. We were there for awhile and were offered a really good deal on a demo. I pointed out a few spots on the carpet to Troy so he asked the salesman if they would clean it up. That joker's response was "yeah we'll clean it up but it's just going to get dirty again". Really? Are you kidding me? All I could do was laugh, and laugh, and laugh. We told the GMC guy up front that we had an appointment with the Chevy guy at 6 but when we tried to leave he got pretty mad. They offered us a great deal on a Yukon XL so we told them that we were still going to go to the Chevy lot and that we would come back if they couldn't give us a better deal. So we went to the Chevy lot and met with Terry. We decided that the Tahoe didn't have enough space so we drove the Suburban. We went inside and started wheeling and dealing. Troy knew what he wanted and he wasn't settling for anything less. The offices inside were all open kind of like cubicles so you could hear everything that was going on. So the second time our salesman went back to his manager we could hear everything including the manager getting upset and raising his voice. Not a good idea! Troy looked at me and said, "we're done, let's go". So I got my purse and diaper bag together while Troy marched right over to the manager's office and set him straight. I went outside to the van and waited and waited. Then finally Troy came out with a big smile on his face. I rolled down the window and he said "I got what I wanted so I'm going back inside to sign the papers". WHAT!!?? I definitely didn't think we were actually going to trade the van in. I guess I was wrong. The whole process was pretty humorous. Needless to say we are now the PROUD owners of a black Chevy Suburban that we will have until it blows up.

The van

About a month ago we made our last trip to Georgia for Troy's intern graduation. We noticed that the Jeep was running really loud and and acting funny. We were really frustrated considering we were about to embark on an adventure around the country. When we got back to Virginia we took it to two mechanics. The first one said it needed a new transmission. The second one said there was nothing wrong with it. Great, now what do we do. We decided to start looking at new cars. We knew we wanted something that would give us more room when we travel. We looked at Tahoes and Suburbans. Then Troy (yes Troy) decided we should look at vans. We drove a couple different models but finally decided on the Honda Odyssey. It was nice and had lots of room. I knew that it was probably the best option but still wasn't happy about driving a minivan.

The home stretch

Our final leg from Round Rock, TX to San Antonio was supposed to be our easiest leg. Mollie didn't sleep at all the night before so we were relieved when she went to sleep shortly after we started driving. The traffic here is the craziest I've ever seen. I'm glad I wasn't driving! We had to stop by Ft Sam Houston to check in. The exit we needed to take was closed so we took the next one and ended up in the ghetto. Way scary but it took us right to Ft Sam. We got everything settled with the Army and headed to the hotel. However, TomTom then decided we should take a 45 minute detour. When we got to the hotel they said they needed 2 1/2 more hours to get our room ready (grrrrr) so we had dinner and went to Wal-Mart. Of course the room still wasn't ready when we got back so they actually put us in a slightly bigger room.

Thank goodness...WE MADE IT!!!

Home Sweet Home

Day Two

We left Memphis around 9:30 headed to Round Rock, TX. We stopped to fill up for gas and get some breakfast. Troy found out from a nice lady at the gas pump that Memphis and some parts of Arkansas were supposed to get heavy storms that morning. As we road down the interstate the sky became darker and darker. It was super scary. Then it started pouring. It was hard to see anything as we crossed the Arkansas state line. Lots of cars pulled off of the road and stopped under old gas station coverings. The lightning was crazy. I've never seen anything like it. The only welcome sign we got as we crossed into Texas was one that read 7-13-09 and 109 degrees. Sweeet. Thank goodness for A/C. Sometime after lunch I started to smell something and knew that it was time for a pit stop. We stopped at a rest area outside of Waco, TX for the diaper and clothes change. The rest area wasn't climate controlled and hotter than a hot tamale (as Mickey would say). That's the first time I've ever broken a sweat changing a diaper. We loaded back up and headed to Round Rock, stopping at Cracker Barrell on the way. Mollie ate entirely too much corn which we found out the next day. YIKES!!

Mollie emptied a juice box in her carseat.

Let the adventure begin...

A couple months ago we found out that we would soon be traveling across the country in order for Troy to do some Army training. Our first road trip would be to San Antonio, TX. We started our trip on 7-12 around 9:30 with our eyes set on Memphis, TN. We were packed tight into TROY's new Honda Odyssey minivan (I so did not want a minivan). We had our Mickey Mouse DVDs, snacks and a cooler ready to hit the road. About two hours into the trip it seemed as though Mollie was over traveling. UGH Thank goodness for potato chips! She was satisfied until lunch where we stopped for one of her new favorites, Arby's (definitely moma's girl). Of course they wouldn't honor our free roast beef coupons so Troy stashed them in his wallet for a later stop. We walked around the parking lot for a few minutes to stretch our legs and then it was on to Memphis. We only had to make one more pit stop at a rest area before we reached Memphis. There are always such "interesting" people at rest areas. I followed what I thought was a man into the woman's restroom. She was most definitely headed for the "change". We arrived in Memphis at dinner time so we stopped at Texas Roadhouse. I think it was a little too distracting for Mollie. We went swimming and had a nice stay at a NEW Holiday Inn and Suites.