Whew! That's a lot...

Hello, my loves! I know you have all been patiently (eh-hem) waiting for this one. Well, wait no more! Ask and ye shall receive and yadda yadda.

Some of the questions I have been asked recently: "You still out there?" Yep, haven't gone anywhere, unfortunately. "How's school going?" Eh. Slowly but surely. "HOW ARE MY BOYS?!" Um, just like little angels, of course. Ha! "Where in the world is Jessica Dawn?!?!" Still living life out here in our very own purgatory. Sigh..

Moving on....

I realized I haven't posted any pictures of Alex's birthday! We didn't do much, but he was pretty happy with the cake and ice cream, as I am sure you can tell!

His cake, obviously..

 

 Cheesin' for his cake and ice cream!

 

A while back, Trey, Adam, and I finally made it up Mount Blackie, which we have been told is some sort of ancient volcano, but I can't find anything that confirms it. Most of you have probably already seen the pictures I posted onto Facebook, but for those of you that have not yet come into the 21st century, I hope you enjoy. ;)

 This was about halfway up.

 The boys didn't want to take the trail. I was doing the best I could to keep up... they were feeling pretty awesome. lol

 This is basically all there is to Fort Irwin. Our road is the one in the foreground.

 We can see this cross from our home, but the boys were so proud to have made it all the way up to it at the top. :)

 I just absolutely love this shot of them.

We don't always have a lot going on out here, but I have been trying to keep us busy. It makes the time go by faster, and I am okay with time here passing by as quickly as possible. 

 These pictures are from the Lt Dan Band Concert. The Gary Sinise Foundation works a lot with the USO to do things for the troops and their families. The Lt Dan Band came here and put on a fabulous show for us, free of charge! As you can see, that is Gary Sinise (or Lt Dan, if you wish) rocking the guitar. It was a chilly night, and Papa Shu had been on a 24-hour shift the night before, so he and Alex stayed home while I got to spend some good, quality time with my big boys.

 We got some Mama/Papa time the weekend before.

 Thanks to some wonderful people here at Fort Irwin, we were able to take a night to ourselves in Las Vegas! We had a blast, but, as they say, what happens in Vegas... stays in Vegas. :)

 So, back to the boys....

Every year, the schools celebrate Dr Seuss' birthday by doing silly stuff. One day they have "hat day" or "dress up like your favorite book character day" or "crazy sock day." This day... is my favorite. This day, obviously, is "crazy hair day"!

William wanted spikes, but I don't think it really came together until I colored his hair green. Ha! He loved it!

Trey, being in middle school now, didn't get to celebrate Dr Seuss' birthday. However, every Friday they special days where they get to do stuff they normally wouldn't. (i.e. hat day, crazy hair day, etc.) So, that following Friday was his crazy hair day! We had fun with this one!

 His hair was too dark for me to color, but he wanted chunks cut out of it.... Boom! lol

Don't worry, though. He is back to normal now and looks so grown up!

Speaking of looking grown up, look what the boys have been up to lately since the weather has been absolutely beautiful lately!

 Trey can ride a pretty good wheelie, and William has almost mastered his very first kite!

Alex has just been hanging out with me and his besties and just being as silly as ever.... I have no idea where he gets this stuff from! Ha!

 Here he is with Morgan, his third girlfriend as William puts it. lol

This picture Morgan's mom Kelly was trying to take of Morgan (she is behind Alex). Just before Kelly could snap the picture of Morgan, Alex jumps in the way, and this was the result. Silly kid. :) 

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I have taken up enough of your time for now. I hope you enjoyed seeing some of what we have been doing to stay busy lately. I will try to keep shorter yet more frequent from now on, but I can't promise anything. You all know me too well! :)

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Change of Plans...

I had originally started this post to show off some pictures of everyone, as usual. However, my heart won't let me celebrate at a time like this. We don't have much to give, but I am giving what I can. Through the Army, we have grown to love very few people. But, the true friendships we have made are near and dear to us. They are more than friends; they are family.

Our friends, Billy and Christie are back home in Florida right now. They were called to come down to say "goodbye" to Billy's mom. As some of you know, Billy had traveled home just a couple weeks ago while his mom was in ICU and his dad was also in the hospital. His dad, thankfully, was simply prescribed two medications that were causing more problems than helping. Once they figured out the issue, it was easily remedied. He has since been released and, last I heard, is doing well, health-wise.

However, Billy's mom is being taken off of life-support in the morning. I have not spoken to either Billy nor Christie in the last couple days (since they were on the road to FL). I do not feel that it is appropriate to call and bother them, asking for details during such a hard time. From what I have gathered, though, his mom's lungs will not hold oxygen, and they are giving her just a few hours once they take her off the ventilator (which she gave them seven days to put her on while trying to "fix" her) tomorrow. I ask that you all pray to whatever God you pray to that they all find peace as quickly and easily as possible. Things are not looking good for her, and they are not ready to let her go. She is the matriarch of so many around her, not just her children. We had the pleasure of spending time with her this past summer. I am deeply saddened by the hurt that her and the family are going through. I only ask that you keep them all in their thoughts as you go about your day tomorrow/today.

*To the entire Marchant family.... You have more support around you than you may realize, and if you need anything from anyone, do not hesitate to ask. I have no doubt in my mind that there are mounds of people willing to help you all with anything you need.

God bless you all!

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Family Pictures...

Hello, again, everyone! I figured I should probably take a break from my studies and everything else to update a little bit.

First of all, I have been pretty busy lately. I have been babysitting for a friend down the road when she needs me. They have three kids, so caring for six kids total, as I'm sure you can imagine, doesn't leave much computer time.

Also, I have begun my second semester of courses. In this semester, I have officially started my degree program. I have already completed one course but have about 6 more to go in this semester. This is a bit more time consuming due to the fact that I now have class "discussions" I have to enter each week as well as respond to my peers. As this is for my Associate degree, I am trying to focus more on my studies instead of "blowing it off" until last minute. I don't feel like I took my General Studies courses seriously enough. I refuse to feel that way about these courses when I finish them. So, with that being said, please bear with me in my blogging.

Now to the more fun part! PICTURES! As many of you have already seen, we had family pictures done last weekend. There are a few photographers here on post, but their packages start at $150, and I am cheap, I guess. So, I just asked my friend to snap a few of us and edited them myself. Considering none of us are professional photographers/editors, I am very pleased with how they turned out! Feel free to let me know which is your favorite! :)

 Just so you know, that is how tall Trey is... we have Alex standing on a rock, but Trey and Wil are au naturale!

 My handsome guys!!

 I absolutely love this one.... mom and her boys!

 Not trying to influence anyone, but I think this is my favorite of all of us.

 This is the House of Shu! :)

 I like this one quite a bit too, but I know it is hard to see the boys' faces.

Definitely one of my favorites of the two of us. I have others but may share those later. :)

With the holidays amongst us, missing family is always harder this time of year. So, we try to continue some traditions we were raised with. One of them that we haven't done in years, unfortunately, is making fried zucchini. We picked up some zucchini to have with out Thanksgiving dinner but forgot about it until a couple days later. Whoops! Luckily, it was still good! We decided to fry them up just like we used to! (A BIG thank you to Aunt Fred for reminding me how that was again!) 

Our finished product! 

The boys had either never had them or hadn't for so long that they had forgotten. But, they were a huge hit for everyone! Papa Shu is the one that did the actual frying. I tend to catch things on fire when I fry anything outside of our CoolDaddy. Ha! Therefore, he stepped in and saved the day once again! We are definitely going to be continuing this tradition! After eating a few slices myself, though, I couldn't help but have the sudden urge to visit Metamora. I suppose we'll just have to wait on that one. :)

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Air Show on a Beautiful Day...

Hey, everyone! We finally got to get off post for a while this past weekend! YAY!! As a lot of you know, it does not happen often, and it lifts our spirits every time. Being in the middle of nowhere has definitely taken a toll on us out here. I cannot wait for the day that I get to enjoy four different seasons instead of one really long one with a couple teaser days here and there.

But, enough whining. Who wants to see some pictures?! I, much like things my mother has been known for, forgot to get batteries for my camera. The camera itself made the trip to the air show with us but had to stay in the car. Some things, strange as they are, have got to be genetic. That being said, I love my mom very much! ;)

 Wil (left) and Trey (right) "squishing the hot air balloon.

Our boys... please ignore Alex's "Bubba J" look. Ha!

 Enjoying the air show...

 ...could not care less. LOL!

 Cheesin' for lunch time!

All the other pictures were of the planes and not really that good. I figured you would rather see the boys instead of the planes anyway. It was a good day, not too hot and not too cold. It was very clear, though, as you could see. So, we couldn't stay long because we didn't bring sunscreen. Guess that's something I don't think about since I generally stay inside the house. Whoops! It was a good day of family time, though. I will take that any day!

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Something else the boys and I did was A Walk to Remember. It is a remembrance walk for families who have lost babies or toddlers due to a miscarriage or illness or any other causes. Their slogan is "We walk for the steps they'll never take." A friend of mine that just recently moved here lost her baby girl to SIDS just over a year ago. She saw it and invited us to walk with her. We agreed, obviously, and decided to walk for Jamie, my baby sister that was only able to grace us with her physical presence for thirty short days.

William (top left) is holding a lit candle that we kept lit throughout the walk. Alex (bottom left) is holding a balloon that he later let go of on accident. Trey then said that he released it for the miscarriage we had in 2008. Such a sweet boy. Trey (right) is releasing the balloon with a message up to Jamie in heaven. The message I signed from "Mommy, Jen, & Jess" and said, simply, "We love and miss you every day." I am so thankful the boys got to be there with me. Robert said he would like to go next year. For those of you that know him, I was a little surprised by this, and it made my heart melt.

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This One's For the Boys...

Happy Sunday to all! I hope all is well with everyone! We are just sitting around enjoying football season, as per every Sunday. It is finally starting to cool off some out here. We have had highs in the 80s, which is fabulous! We'll be wearing hoodies before we know it!

Trey had his final cross-country meet yesterday! He said he doesn't know what place he got because they only announced the top ten, which he was not in. But, he said he did his best and had a great time, so placement doesn't really matter!

William is doing his own thing, which has gotten him in trouble a couple times. He is "taking his time" getting to class from breakfast causing him to have NINE tardy marks this year already. Apparently, I need to start taking him to school. (He rides the bus) Also, he has more than a little bit of a temper, so he is going to start talking to the school counselor about ways that he can calm down before doing/saying something that can get him in trouble or hurt someone. We'll get it worked out! He is a good kid, and we just need to focus on that!

Alex went to the doctor last week for his legs. It was a waste of a trip, though, because he wouldn't let the doctor examine him. Shocking, I know. This doctor seemed nice enough but clearly didn't have time to deal with Alex's issues with doctors. So, we have to take Alex to get more x-rays done of his hips and legs so the doctor can examine those instead. Yeah. That should be a good time. Alex hates x-ray machines too. Wish us luck!

So, I gave you a collage of Alex last time. How about one of William today? He was so funny making these faces. You can look at each and caption them yourself. Too funny!

Also, I took a couple today since the boys all wanted to wear their Colts jerseys. I just love these boys, and I hope you enjoy the pictures as much as I do!

They are pretending to love each other. :)

Our very own little offensive line. :)

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Happy October!!!

Hello, everyone, and welcome to October! Has this year gone by quickly for anyone else?! It seems to have just blown by out here! I suppose that is what happens when you look at time in terms of rotations and block leaves as opposed to by months! Well, whatever works, because I cannot wait to get out of the desert! And I know a few family members that wouldn't mind us getting out of it too!

For those of you that are always asking about my schoolwork, I would first like to say thank you! You have all been such great motivators and supporters! Secondly, I want to update you and let you know that I completed my final exams yesterday afternoon for my General Studies program. I could not be happier about being done with the first semester! I do not yet have my grades for them, as they have to be mailed back to the school and graded there, but whichever way it goes, they are DONE! Once they are graded, I will be re-enrolling for semester two, which begins my core classes. Yay!

Not a lot has changed since the last time I wrote. Robert is still working a lot. Trey is finishing up his cross-country season this Saturday. Wil is getting taller but still skinny as a rail and acting just like me when I was a kid. (Oh, boy...) Alex is talking better, which is a good thing because he doesn't stop talking very often. We do have to go get more x-rays taken of his legs in the next two weeks, though, so the orthopedist can see if they need corrected. He was not so willing to allow the doctor to examine them yesterday, so we have to go with the x-rays. Wish us luck that he will allow them to be taken! 

Now, I leave you in good spirits with the many faces of Alex! He wanted to do a mini photo shoot with my phone, and I knew you would get as much of a kick out of it as I did!

 

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Just a Quickie...

Hello, again! We haven't been up to a whole lot with Papa Shu having been on rotation, and me working on my courses. BUT, I do have some quick updates for you!

First of all, I have to toot my own horn a little bit. I have FINALLY completed my English Composition course! Woohoo!! I have been working on it (and putting it off) for way longer than I should have! I submitted my final exam last week, but a couple days later, my last essay was returned for me to rewrite. Well, that was a blow to my self-esteem for sure! I rewrote it and got it turned in today. Hopefully, it will get a passing grade, and I can get to my next semester and core classes!! I got to a low point and wasn't sure I was ever going to get through this. Robert was nothing but supportive and pushed me to get it done, helping me by talking with me about my subjects I had to write about and giving me his opinion on things. I probably would have just given up on it if he wasn't here to build my confidence back up. Getting a passing grade on my last essay and the overall course would help a whole lot too, though. Just saying! Once the last two are graded, my final exams for Biology and Psychology will be sent out for me to do, and I will be DONE with my General Studies Certificate! YES!! So ready to get there!

Now onto Trey. We didn't think he was going to get to be in cross-country since he hadn't really shown much interest in it at the beginning of the school, but mostly because he hadn't turned in his sports physical and permission slip. After turning those things in this past Friday (since he wants to play basketball this fall), he was told he could go ahead and finish the cross-country season! (Meets just started a couple weeks ago.) He was super excited! His first practice was this morning. He ran 2 miles in 14 minutes, 9 seconds! That's faster than Robert did on his last PT test, and it's a heck of a lot faster than I can walk/jog it! He has his first meet this Thursday. I don't know yet what he will be doing (distance-wise), but I am sure he will be amazing at it!

William doesn't really have too much going on. But he says he has the best teacher in 3rd grade, and he tells me every week (if not almost every day) that his teacher "makes learning fun!" I am glad he likes her so much, because he tends to not like school sometimes. I think the majority of kids go through that, but he worries me with it being so young. I've said it before, but we are going to have our work cut out for us with him. Ha! He is so much like me in so many ways... it's almost scary! ;) I would like to think I turned out okay, though, so I am sure William will too... maybe even better!

Alex, for those of you that haven't heard, has caught up on his talking! He had his evaluation last Monday and is being released from the program (his in-home therapy)! They said he is no longer behind and in need of their services. Considering where he was in January (not talking at all) and where he is now (can't get a quiet moment when he's awake), I would have to agree with them! They are also putting in a referral with the preschool here on post. He will be given another evaluation by the preschool to see if he needs to be in the speech classes. If they say he still needs some work, they will accept him and put him in those classes. If they say he doesn't need those classes, he can still start preschool at the age of 3. So, it is a win/win I'd say!

That's about all I have for updates today! Besides, Peyton Manning is going to be taking the field shortly, so I need to get dinner going! (I miss seeing him in Blue and White, but I still love watching him play!)

Quote of the Day: "A little thought and a little kindness are often worth more than a great deal of money." --John Ruskin

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Sesame Street!

I should be writing my last essay of my English Composition course, but it is so much easier to talk about things I love instead. Lucky for you all, I'm a procrastinator! Ha!

Last week, the wonderful USO brought some of Sesame Street's finest out here to the desert to visit with us and put on a show! Naturally, I had to take Alex to see Elmo and Cookie Monster! We had so much fun, but I am thankful it was only a half an hour or so show. He got pretty tired of staying in one general area for too long. He did, however, get up and dance a little bit! His main concern was trying to figure out where Cookie Monster and Elmo went when they were hiding behind the curtain. So, when they weren't out there dancing and talking, he was constantly asking where they were. And, of course, when they came back out, he had to point and announce it to me. Whatever keeps him interested, right? 

I decided not to take my camera (it is about shot, to be honest), but I had my phone and took quite a few. If I were to share them all, this would be too long of a post. These are some of my favorites! Enjoy!

Alex and me before the show. He loves that toy! :)

 As I said, he loves that toy. I think his eye speak for themselves in the left picture.

 The girl's name was Katie, and she was sad that she had to move away (her dad is in the military).

 CM was busting a move. Too cool!

 I think they were doing the "Elmo Slide" in this one. 

 Dancing on the left... pointing out Elmo on the right. :)

And, he's done... 

We had such a fabulous time! Truth be told, I think I enjoyed it more than Alex, but he enjoyed it nonetheless.  :) Don't forget to click on the photos to enlarge them. They have more of an effect when you can see them better!

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Woah... Where Did Everybody Go?

I know. I know. It's only been seemingly forever since I have been here. So, is there anyone still out there listening? This should be a long post, but it is late(ish) here, and I get tired early. Whether I go to sleep when I am tired or not is a different story. But that's a story for another day.

Just a quick update to start with. Then I will add some new pictures for everyone to enjoy. Everyone is doing great. As you all know, school has started back, and the boys seem to love their new schools and teachers. I, for one, am just elated to be getting back to a routine. 

Trey is in middle school now and has a "schedule" of his own to follow, including a P.E. class in which he has to change into a uniform of sorts and has the option of showering afterward. None of the boys do, though, according to Trey. Ha! Basketball will be starting soon, and he is hoping to make the team. We got his physical done, and he had to get his shots updated. He was none too happy about that. He can split his head open enough to get 20 stitches without crying one tear but whines and moans and gets scared to death about a couple shots. These kids, I swear.

William likes his new teacher and new bus driver. He has already gotten into trouble a couple times this week for talking. I have NO idea where he gets that from, but it is completely unacceptable. Ok... enough laughing, people. I know! He is, thus far, the child I was always warned about. You know, the one that would "pay me back" for all the things I got in trouble for. I can't be too mad at him for that, though. I mean, it is my fault, right? 

Alex has been doing great! He is still doing in-home speech therapy, and he loves it. He is talking more than ever, as you know from our short but meaningful visit we were blessed to have had. He learns new words every day, even if they don't come out just right. We recently took him back to the doctor to ask about his legs again. The doctor that he saw previously had x-rays done that showed he was knock-kneed but not enough for braces. That doctor PCS'd (moved on military orders) to a different post, and I am not sad to have seen him go. The doctor he saw this last time made it known that he was no specialist on the matter and put in a referral for Alex to see one. I am so happy to hopefully get his legs straightened out. He has had one shot against him after another his whole life, and if we can mark one bad strike off his list, then, by God, we will! 

Well, that would be just about all the new stuff about the boys. We truly don't have a lot going on out here, but we are all happy and healthy. What more could we ask for?

Trey and his friends Jackie and Anna on the first day of school.

William David on his first day of 3rd grade.

 Alex was supposed to be in the picture with William, but at the last minute he got mad and decided he wanted no part of it seeing as how he didn't actually get to go to school. So I thought maybe going to the playground behind the house would cheer him up. It did!

Alex can climb up all by himself now!

I hope you have all enjoyed reading about the family! I promise to try harder about keeping up on this. This crazy/busy summer had gotten me so out of whack, but the plan is to get back into the swing of things better than before! Fingers crossed! :)

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