Pictures taken while Dustin was home....

Here is a picture of him trying on a pair of his old shorts. These are some he wore before he left for boot camp. At that time he was wearing 38 inch waist and XL shirts. Now he wears a 30 to 32 inch waist and a med or lg. shirt. I personally think he is to skinny.



Well, we took Dustin to his first duty station yesterday. He is stationed at Fort Hood, TX. God is so good to me. I wish I could be as good to him as he is to me and my family. Fort Hood is only 150 miles from my front door. It took us 2 hours and 15 minutes to get home last night. Which is much better than him living in Georgia! Anyway, I thought you might like to see some pictures from his first trip home in over 6 months.

I told his Granny to meet me at my mothers in Houston, that I had something for her. She was so surprised when she found out it was Dustin. She cried and cried and cried some more. Here is a couple of pictures of Dustin relaxing at Aunt Chris's get together in his honor. We had such a great time as a family.

Look at the right hand column on my blog, you will find a list of my other blogs along with some of my families blogs.

Bravo Company

Hello, I found out this was on youtube just this morning. WARNING!!!! You may want to watch it without sound. WARNING!!!! The guys in Dustins class and room have/had potty mouths. Dustin is in several shots. Play wheres waldo with Dustin.

Just thinking....

It has been so much fun having Dustin home. We have really enjoyed ourselves. Monday we went bowling, which was lots of fun. Yesterday we just basically hung out together. Monday night we all went to a park in Sealy and walked/ran and played at the play ground. Each night we play Xbox or Xbox 360 and then watch movies. I really miss just hanging out with him. Everyone makes fun of how much Dustin and I talk on the phone. However, one day I finally figured out why we do. He is one of my best friends. We have been through so much together. We have grown in Christ together. I think him being in the Army has showed us or at least me alot about our relationship. One night before Dustin came home, Douglas asked me why we talk so much. That is when I said it out loud, "Next to you he is my next best friend." (The whole time I was crying). Doug thought that was a little strange, I think because he and his mother dont have this kind of relationship. At the same time we were talking Miami Ink was coming on. Chris Nunez is one of the artist, he talks alot about his relationship with his mother. Well, that night a big tough looking guy came in and wanted his mothers name put over his heart (and no she is not deceased). He just wanted to show his love for his mother and thank her for staying strong with him. Chris tells him how cool that is because his best friend is his mother. The big guy proceeds to tell Chris the same thing. That made me feel so great. I said "See Doug it is okay." Well this brought up a great but tearful conversation (not about Dustin). It was just very cool.
Back to my stroy. Last friday I went to the Woodlands with Dustin. After he was done at the office we went shopping for him a few things. As we walked about we had person after person stop him and tell him thank you for serving our country. One older man stopped him and asked he(Dustin) was a real solider. Dustin said "yes" and the man said thank you and shock his hand. Dustins head was thinking "No, I just like playing dress up!" Funny! Glad he didn't say it out loud (not that he would have). I thought it was so nice of these people to be brave enough to talk to someone they dont know. Very cool! Each time I thought it was cool but each time it brought a lump to my throat and a tear came to my eye. It was cool to little kids point and say "Mommy there is a real Army guy." The reality of it all is setting in more and more each day. I am proud but scared all at the same time. I am glad he will be stationed at Fort Hood, we will get to see him often. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers.
Thank you for reading my rambling. Have a great day.

Surprise Mom!

I had decided to stay home all day yesterday. I was going to go get groceries since we are so out of food. Then my husband called and asked if I would like to met him for dinner. I was going to say no and even Corbin didn't want to go. He knew we were going to the cigar shop and eat. Doug purchased food from Hasta La Pasta.

While having dinner with Carol, Mike, Doug, and the kids,I decided to text Dustin. I had not talked to him in 2 days. Which was okay because I knew he was staying busy. (He was driving people around base or where ever they needed to go). Well at least I thought he was. Now I am not real sure what he was doing. So my text message said "I miss you alot today. Luv Mom". Then he texts me right back saying "I can't talk right now I am picking someone up at the airport. Call you later". I texts message back saying "Okay : ( ". During this whole time Doug was getting phone call after phone call. When we went to get our food the girl at Hasta La Pasta said "Bye Doug, dont forget to call me." I didn't think anything about it.

After we done eating, Douglas got another call. Then he told me to come into the humidor with him. I was thinking I dont want to go in there. As a good wife should, I went in to show interest in what he wanted to show me. He said he wanted to show me a cigar Dustin was just telling him about. We were in there a little while. Then, Mike came to the door and waved. I thought he was leaving so I waved back, but then so did Doug. I came out and turned the corner. I saw Wes and my Mom sitting there. I went to ask them what they were doing there and then I noticed Dustin sitting in one of the big black leather chairs. (Okay give me a break, he was in his ACU's. He was camouflaged). I didn't scream or cry. I think I was to shocked and to happy to do either.

When I cam out of the humidor, Bailey was saying something but I thought she was talking about Grandma and Grandpa, I was only half listening. What she was saying was "Dustin! Dustin!" What a bad Mommy! Not listening! Sorry Bailey.

Everyone had managed to keep a secret! Good job guys. What a great surprise!!!! Thank you all for being part of it.

A prayer request and another joke!

I would like to ask everyone to prayer for Dustin, that his orders come soon and that they are what he wants. Also, please prayer for Doug and his work relationship with Jack. Jack is a Christian and not doing as he said in the beginning. Pray that Doug does as God as instructed him.

Thank you all in advance for your prayers.

Here is another joke I found yesterday.

A large group of Taliban soldiers are moving down a road when they hear a voice call from behind a sand-dune. "One Marine is better than ten Taliban". The Taliban commander quickly sends 10 of his best soldiers over the dune whereupon a gun-battle breaks out and continues for a few minutes, then silence.
The voice then calls out "One Marine is better than one hundred Taliban". Furious, the Taliban commander sends his next best 100 troops over the dune and instantly a huge gun fight commences. After 10 minutes of battle, again silence.
The voice calls out again "One Marine is better than one thousand Taliban". The enraged Taliban Commander musters one thousand fighters and sends them across the dune. Cannon, rocket and machine gun fire ring out as a huge battle is fought. Then silence.
Eventually one wounded Taliban fighter crawls back over the dune and with his dying words tells his commander, "Don't send any more men, its a trap. There's actually two of them.

What am I doing today????

So far today, I have done the dishes and worked on logging in receipts for our budget. Both of which I hate doing but they both must get done at least once a month. Otherwise we wont have any dishes to eat off of (I could go get paper and not do my dishes) but then that would be 1 more receipt added to my pile. The receipts have to get off the top of my desk because I can't find the fun stuff on it.
As usual I have gotten derailed from what I was just doing and decided to work on my this blog. I was writing the soldiers that I send stuff to. I was writing and the letter got a little dull, so I decided to go hunt down a joke or two to add to the letter. That is how I got here (really it is). I found a funny joke to share with you all (yall).
I thought this was FUNNY! Maybe because we are retired Navy and our son is Army. I dont know, I just thought it was funny.

Having passed the enlistment physical, John was asked by the doctor, "Why do you want to join the Navy, son?"
"My father said it'd be a good idea, sir."
"Oh? And what does your father do?"
"He's in the Army, sir."

Here is another cute one..

While my son was on board the Navy carrier USS George Washington, the air wing was busy with training missions. After talking to a pilot, one air-traffic controller accidentally left his microphone on and remarked to a nearby buddy, "That guy sounded just like Elmer Fudd."
The airwaves got strangely quiet as everyone listened, realizing that the pilot had also heard the comment. After about ten seconds, the pilot broke the silence by announcing, "Be vewy, vewy quiet. We are hunting submawenes."

Okay, I am done with this for awhile. If I come with anything else I will be sure to let you know. Thank you!

FREEDOM

Today is July 4th...In America we are FREE to do whatever we want, worship who want, work where want, have as many kids or as few as we want, be whoever we want to be and the list goes on. I wanted to put fireworks on here but I could not figure out how (other than you tube), so I have taken a different route to getting my point across to you.
FREEDOM doesn't come FREE at all. Someones son/daughter, wife/husband, niece/nephew, Mom/Dad had to put there life on the line for you and for me. You may not believe in war, or agree with war but that is how you got where you are today. My personal thought on you not liking war is to tell you to move somewhere else. If you dont like America or what we stand for move somewhere else. Why live somewhere you dont want to be? This is what America is all about. You and I doing what we want to do. I know why you dont move though, it is easier to stay where your at and make everyone elses life hell than to change your location and then you live in hell.
Anyway, here is a video that shows you the people who lay their lives down for you and for me every day and the people waiting for them to return safely. I love this song it hits home for me so much. My husband is a retired submariner so I know he wasn't wishing on the same star but he was thinking about me all the time. He use to tell me that he focused on getting his job done as quickly but well so that he could return to me and our children as soon as possible.

July 4th is near

I was surfing the net this morning. (I thought it would be better than sitting around and eating bon bons and watching tv. Which is what alot of people think I do all day.) I was looking for one thing on Fort Hoods website and ending up with lots of information and cool ideas. I came across these websites you might be interested in. All of these websites have ways you can support our troops. Just hightlight and copy and paste the link you want to go to. For some reason they are not linked up.
http://www4.army.mil/outreach/support/
I thought this one sounded cool for all you readers out there. http://www.booksforsoldiers.com/index.php
http://www.navymoms.org/
http://www.goldstarfamilysupport.org/
http://www.militarymoms.net/
Be sure to come back tomorrow, I plan on doing something patriotic. I hope I can figure out how to do it.

I found this today and decided I would share it with yall. I know I put some funny videos on my blogg the other day. Dont get these men all wrong because they are very seriuos when it comes down to business.I hope you can click on this link. If not I will type it all up and post it soon.

http://www.jackson.army.mil/BCT/WarriorEthos.htm

Here is the Sailors Creed....

" I am a United States Sailor.

I will support and defend the constitution of the United States of a America and I will obey the orders of my superiors.

I represent the fighting spirit of Navy bluejackets who have gone before me to defend freedom and democracy around the world.

I proudly serve my country's navy combat team with honor, commitment and courage.

I am commited to excellence and the fair treatment of all."

Our men and women in uniform not only play hard they work hard too. Keep up the great job all of you! Thank you all!