Busy, Busy, Busy!!!

Hello, beautiful people!! I hope everyone is doing well! Life out here in the desert has taken a bit of a change for the House of Shu, but it is all for the good! 

Recently, the boys had their Spring Break, and, for the first time since joining the Army, Papa Shu got to take time off with them! I had all of them here with me for an entire week! How GREAT is that?! As some of you have heard, read, or seen, we actually got to get off the "rock", as some call this isolated base, and make some wonderful memories!

But, first things first, Alex got a new bike! I don't dare call it a bicycle. Apparently, that's just not cool. Ha! He can pedal it himself and even knows how to stop fast enough to make skid marks (on our linoleum inside)! Ah, they grow so fast!

 Ready to head outside with Dad!

 He went all the way around twice! Big boy!

As you can see, the weather has been gorgeous! We finally had a chance to do what we always used to when we lived back home over Spring Break, though.... Chuck E Cheese!! Alex is old enough now that he is really getting into it, and Trey and William still have a blast! Who wouldn't!?

I didn't get as many pictures with Trey. He was off on his own getting as many tickets as he could, and I was chasing around a very excited 3 year old! I think you can see that everyone had a fantastic time, though! Enough that they were all exhausted on the way home! Who am I kidding... WE were ALL exhausted! :)

I hope this holds you over for another day or two! I have many more pictures to put up in the next one from our trip to San Diego!!

Read more...

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! :)

Read more...

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!

Read more...

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. :)

Read more...

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!

----------------------------------------------------------------------

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.

Read more...

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. :)

Read more...