Regan is in the Pflugerville Pflag!

Well, we are officially one week into cookie selling, and we've sold over 1/3 of our goal and made the local paper! Regan would love to make it to 1500 but I really don't! I'm tired of lugging cookies around already! But, this year she is doing WAY more than in previous years. She sets up the table, she makes all the sales, makes the change, talks to the customers, it really is her show. I just sit there and make sure no one steals the money. It's easier this year since the price went up from $3.50 to $4.00, a lot less change to deal with!

He's Growing!

We got Hunter a crate to sleep in, although he hasn't slept in it yet, he's been sleeping with me and David. But we put him in it when we leave and during the day he will go and take a nap in it with the door open. I think he likes the Tempurpedic bed, he's given up on sleeping with the kids and comes to our bed in the middle of the night. I get up and take him out once or twice, and he crawls back to the middle and falls asleep again. He just can't look at Princess, or she growls at him, she doesn't want to share her mom and dad!

The cookies are here!

We had a busy Saturday. Up bright and early (and nasty and rainy) to get 250 cases of Girl Scout cookies! It was different this year, we had to line up at the Dell Diamond parking lot where they had a row of 6 or 7 18 wheelers all packed with cookies. You pull up to each 18 wheeler and they load whatever you need in the back of your truck, you didn't even need to get out of your truck this year!


Then back to my house where the rest of the troop came and picked up their cookies. Sales don't start until Wednesday, booth sales on Saturday, but I didn't want to have to try to find room in my house for all those boxes and try to keep a chewy puppy away from them all!

So, Regan has her initial order of 540 boxes to sell. She wants to sell 1500 this year, but I'm not up for that. I told her we would do 1000, and then think about it. She said Dad should do the last 500 with her, and I'm ALL about that!

Then, in the afternoon, Regan and David had the annual Father/Daughter Girl Scout event. This year it was "Minute to Win It" games. They had fun, it was hot and muggy so they were wearing shorts, in mid-January!

Meet Hunter (maybe)

David and Regan, but mostly David, have been wanting a German Shepherd for so long. I've been looking at shelters and have found a few options, but one had heartworms, one was too old, etc. David really wanted a puppy, so every few days or so I would check on the websites and see if I could find anything. Well, this guy popped up, and we went and got him almost immediately! We didn't tell the kids, just in case, but you should have seen their face when we walked in the door with him! He's super cute, around 8-10 weeks old, and his name was Heath, but Regan has always wanted to name her German Shepherd "Hunter". So, we're seeing if that fits him. He's about the same size as Princess right now, and he wants to play, and sometimes she does too, but for the most part she's just wondering where in the world this young whipper-snapper came from! Monty is not impressed. He just stands his ground and fluffs out his tail and opens his eyes as wide as they go, going for that "don't mess with a crazy cat" look. He slept all night with Riley, so tonight Regan says it's her turn. He's a cuddle bug. And he's passed out now cause I took him for a walk. As a friend told me, a tired puppy is a well behaved puppy!

New Pictures

They posted more pictures of Riley's Recruit Training, so I added them to the album. There are some really good ones of him holding the flag! He looks so grown up and handsome.

Here's a link to the album again:

Recruit Training

Recruit Training

Recruit Training

He's home, he's home!

That was the longest 10 days of my life. And probably his. But, he stuck it out and did well and does not in fact want to quit Sea Cadets afterall.  I've been enjoying hearing his stories about everything. He said on the first day there they started yelling at them. They had a taped off area in the barracks that was the "highway" and they were supposed to stay off the highway. Well, he was inside of it and they were yelling at him to "GET OFF MY HIGHWAY" but he didn't know what they meant so he kept running around in it. He said "I was so confused!".

The first morning there, they woke him up at 4:30am and he thought it was a prank so he laid back down and went to sleep. As you can imagine, that didn't go over well! More yelling. They had 40 seconds to take a shower every day, but on the last day they got a couple of minutes. He said the food was really bad, except for the French toast and pancakes.

He passed his PT test, made presidential on most of it. He became the "Guidon" for his company, which is the person who is up front and holds the flag, and he got a special pin for that. He was also nominated for Honor Cadet. We got a nice company photo but he's not in it because he was getting his dress blue pants hemmed. We couldn't find any here before he left so they had some to lend him, but since they had to alter them, they let him keep them. Yay, those things are expensive!

Now he wants to go back and be a staff cadet, and become Chief Petty Officer! He said he's ready to be the one doing the yelling. He called us as soon as he got his phone back, and he got to hang out in the USO office in LA for a while, play some video games, eat some food, hang with the soldiers, etc. He had a layover in Las Vegas and didn't get home until around 1am. It was a late night catching up and hugging my boy!

I'm happy he's home safe and sound! And so proud of him for doing this. I know he's growing into such a great young man, and I'm just so happy for him and I can't wait to see what adventures his future holds.

Letters...

Well, the new year is off to a bang. I made chicken and dumplings for dinner, a new recipe, and then David and Regan spent the night throwing up. They were convinced I had poisoned them. I was fine until morning and by then I figured it was a stomach virus. I have had a bad cough for a few days, and then the stomach thing hit, then fever, chills, it's been fun around here. I don't think any of us ate anything for the last 24 hours. Regan ate a bite of banana and couldn't even keep that down.

And to top it off, David managed to practically crawl down to the mailbox to see if we had a letter from Riley yet, and we did, there were 2 of them, from day 2 and 3 of training. If possible, I felt worse after reading them! He said he hated it, he had been throwing up too cause the food was so bad, he cried on the plane, he sprained his wrist (the medic said so, he wasn't making it up), the bed was uncomfortable, he wanted us to call them and let him leave early, he would pay us back for all the money we spent on Sea Cadets, he didn't want to even be in Sea Cadets anymore! It was 4 pages front and back of pure misery. I almost cried. I felt so bad, and there's nothing we can do at this point! They told us to expect the first letter or two to be that way but they will get better. I wasn't sure. He sounded terrible and unhappy and I was thinking I'm the worst mom in the world for letting him go, I should know better, my poor baby bird!

But then today, David checked the mail again (we're feeling marginally better, able to eat again at least and no more fever, so thankfully it must have just been a 24 hour thing, although I still have a nasty cough). We got another letter, this time it was MUCH better! He wrote it at 4:30am California time, from class, so he's getting up bright and early! He said the food was getting better "You know you've been here too long when the eggs taste good"! and his company won the ribbon for most improvement! He said he misses his bed and his heated blanket, but he is still wanting to do SEAL and JSOC training, so he hasn't given up! I feel much better. And he will be home tomorrow, before we know it. I can't wait, I've really missed him!

Happy New Year

We found ourselves kidless on New Year's Eve, for the first time probably since we've had kids! Regan had a dentist appointment (another good report for her!) and a friend called to see if we wanted to go get Princess micro-chipped for free at the animal shelter with them, so we went and did that. Then they asked if Regan could just hang out with them, and then, if she could spend the night. I was home waiting for the plumber who never came, so I brought her a bag and she spent the night.

So David and I went to one of our favorite sushi places. After 9 it's half price so we had a cheap, no-kid date! We came home, watched TV and vegged. I twas nice because it was cold and rainy and nasty out.

The next day, we made a nice breakfast, got Regan and then headed over to Pam and Dave's for the traditional cabbage and black eyed peas. Regan said she doesn't like those, but she ate like 3 helpings of each!

Everybody was there, except Riley, which really made me miss him. But we had lunch and played Scattergories and had a lot of fun. We sat around for so long, we all got hungry again and the guys made a pizza run. It was a fun day until we realized everyone had to be at work the next morning so we had to pack it up. We decided we need regular game nights though!

So here's a few pictures of the girls, Makayla wouldn't let me take her picture, so I kept trying to take one when she wasn't looking, which didn't work very well, but Georgia was pretty photogenic! And I just love her pouffy hair! And Regan had fun being the big cousin, they had a blast playing with her. And we brought Princess with us and she got spoiled, her Mimi made her a runny egg, she was in heaven!