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.