We've got our orders

Well, it is as officially as ut gets. We got our orders yesterday and we leave Ft Irwin on October 16th! Our things get picked up on the 9th and 10th so we will be a few days without our things, but we are driving up to Oregon so we will be able to keep the air mattress and a few things to cook with. It will be interesting to travel with our dog and cat but we will make it work. We tease Modoc our cat whenever he starts acting up by saying, "You know cat, we are leaving soon and you might not make the trip" Of course everyone who knows me and if you don't, it's quite obvious by the fact that I talk to my cat, that I could never do that. For the moment I am feeling a little overwhelmed by all that needs to get done in such a short period of time, but as Ben is constantly reminding me, everything will be fine. Well, I need to go and clean up and organize a few rooms while I have a day off!

What... How long?

Well, it is official. Ben's med board came through and we are moving forward. It just needs to make it through Walter Reed and then we will have our clearing orders to leave the post. They told him it should take 3 to 5 weeks. That is a lot shorter than what I was told to expect by pretty much everyone I talked to, so needless to say I almost started to hyperventilate when I got the news. I am excited but I just thought we would have some time to prepare. I guess this is what is suppose to happen.

Let there be cake!

Well, it's not perfect but at least there will be cake. My cake crumbled when I was trying to frost it (even with it being cold from the fridge) and left me with a pretty lumpy cake but at least my friend will have a baby shower cake. I really hope I get better at this before I am supposed to do a wedding cake for my brother. If any of you do cakes and have some tips for me that would be great. I try and use cake mixes out of the box because they are moist and yummy, but they always seem to be lumpy and not uniform enough. I tried fondant this time. The one below I did a few months back and I tried just frosting it. I hope I am not scaring my brother and Johnna with these pictures. I'll be better I promise!

I would be Sleepy... for sure

So, to play off my seven dwarfs title a few days ago I thought I would post what is not new to most of you, but it would sure make me feel better to find someone out there who is the same as me!
Once upon a time.....
I had all intentions of waking up this morning at 6:45 and heading to the pool to swim for some exercises. 6:45 came and went and I stayed in bed. Then at 9:00 (yes 9:00) I woke to someone knocking on my door. I ran down to check who it was and it was just the water tester guy who had already headed across the street. So you would think that I stayed up and got started with my day right? Nope. I went back up stairs and went right back to bed! I slept until 11:00!!!!! How can someone sleep that late? And this is not the first time! Granted I worked all day and went to bed around 1:00am. However, that is 10 hours of sleep! What is wrong with me?
My family all knows this about me because they have had to live with my crankiness and sleepiness. I would like to say that I am no longer rude or mean when woken up. Which I know my family still wont believe because of how awful I was while growing up. But I promise I have changed in that regard. Grumpy has moved. For good :)
My mom's recent medical problems have made me think though. I know that her anemia is not genetic, but I just feel so tired all the time and I wonder if there could be something to that. I had surgery about a year ago and I would think that they would have caught it then if was anemia.
Well, I just thought I would check with some family and friends and get your thoughts. Am I normal? I know it is different when you have children cause you can't sleep till 11:00 but some of you have to have some stories like mine. Right?!?

~The end~

(Happily ever after yet to be determined)

James Taylor

So I was checking out my good friend Lori's blog and I thought that mine was pretty crappy in comparison and I decided to finally take on the task of committing to making mine cute, gosh darn it!!!! I think I did ok. I decided to add some music seeing as how "everyone is doing it!" and then came the task of deciding what music would represent me the best. I went through and browsed a little. I thought of my best friend Kenna and how she got me to listen Tom Petty and I knew I had to add him on there. Then that led me to some Steve Miller band and then I came to James Taylor, who I forgot how much I love! Every single song reminds me of my dad and I know that Nickleback is his favorite band now, but I can't help but think of snuggling up with him on the water bed in our old house in Estacada while he reads a National Geographic and having James Taylor playing softly in the background. It made me wish that I would have played Only One for our father daughter dance at my reception. Then I remembered how much I cried when I danced with dad and I knew that this song would have sent me over the edge. So maybe it was a good thing we kept it to Butterfly Kisses.
After all was said and done and I felt like I had enough songs on my list I took a look at it and realized what a strange soon to be 23 year old I am! My tastes in music certainly don't fit my age with the acception of maybe Cold Play and The Killers. It was at that point that I was ok with not adding Starland Vocal Band to my list as that would have been just the icing on the cake. ( afternoon delight!)
So I hope you enjoy my crazy collection of songs! And who knows maybe you will remember just how much you too love Jimmy Buffett and Rilo Kiley.

Hi Ho! Hi Ho! ...

Well there you have it! If you look closely you can see at the top where it says, YOUR CASHIER TODAY IS Hannah A. And that is that. I have started working at the Commissary and it has been good so far. Actually I was surprised at how easy it is. Right now I am a cashier. There is the possibility that I might become a teller which means I would have more responsibility and what not. Mostly it fills up my time here and that is a good thing. Ben can tell what happens when I have nothing to do. You'd think my house would be spotless and dinner ready at five everyday, but it's the opposite. If I have all day to do something then I take all day to do it and then it usually doesn't get done. Instead, if I keep myself busy then I come home and actually get things done. So I think keeping my days full is a good thing.

Next Update

Well time for an update. I didn't post this earlier because I didn't want to jinx anything, but the process has started so I thought it safe to post. Ben is going through the medical boarding process. We figure it will take at the very least a year or so to complete if he is medically released from the Army. This is actually ok since we will be wanting to go right to school and the new awesome GI bill will not take until August '09. Also I will have completed my Associate and then some. I contacted OSU and they said that my credits will transfer which is a huge relief. Keeps us in your prayers as we start this process. For those who have been praying for my mom and her surgery I just wanted to say thanks! Things went as well as they possible could. She is home now and doing really well.

Diaper Dog Days of Summer

Well, It is that time of the six months again for Ory. I know that is a little too much info for most of you and kinda weird to post about. But she looks so funny in her depends diapers that I had to post.

She looks so embarrassed in this one.

Ben Update

So do you want and update on Ben? Here it is anyways. He went in this last Thursday and was given a shot of steroids and other stuff as a way to make sure they know where the pain is and what is causing it. The doctor said that since the shoulder has sat in the wrong position for so long, his bones have adjusted to that position and now that it is sitting in the right position, he is rubbing bone together. So he needs a surgery to go in and shave some bone. The doctor here has done this surgery 5 times and 2 of the times the person came out of it with no pain and the other people 3 came out with the same or worse pain. I think Ben wants to do the surgery. One, to see if it will help and two, because he thinks that if he was to go to the med board to get out then they would ask if everything that could be done was done and the doctor would say that there is still this surgery that could be done. My feeling is that I want to get out and I am afraid that this will only make it worse. However, Ben is right in that, even if we did try to med board out now they would want him to do the surgery anyways. So either he will come out of it fixed and we stay in till 2011 or still in pain or possible more pain and we get out. It has been no secret that I want to get out but not at the cost of him in pain his whole life so we are hoping it works. He goes in on the 1st of August to set up the surgery and we don't know what the recovery time will be this time. Since it isn't dealing with muscle and more with bone Ben hopes it will be shorter this time. But he will still get one month off for leave to recover.

Family Reunions

The Cox and Brown family Reunions were a ton of fun this year and I got just a few photos because my camera ran out of batteries. I wish I could have gotten some of the Brown family reunion. Well, I learned my lesson. At both reunions we had pork sandwiches which were good but I was glad to have something else after I got back home. All the salads were delicious and I could not decide so I ending up with a plate full of salads and not much room for anything else. At the Brown family reunion we play a game of baseball with the older cousin's verses the younger cousins. The older cousins won, of course. It really was no contest, but Joel did hit both Isaac and I for outs that stung quite a bit. We each got a turn at revenge. Then a game of croquette started up and I was called over to look at some of Grandma's old cake decorating stuff. I took home a few things and some pictures and am excited to have a little bit of Grandma Brown in my home. It was a lot of fun and even though it was short, it was so good to see both sides of the family. The pictures below are what I was able to take at the Cox family reunion.

Candy Game

This is the candy game for the little ones. There was candy buried under the sawdust and one kid from each team had 30 seconds to try and get as much candy as they could. The team with the most candy in the end won! Johnny and the rest of the yellow team took the approach of scooping up as much as their arms could hold including saw dust .In the picture below we see him there with Emma in the background casually picking out what she wanted while resting her head on her hand.

After a while they just decided to jump on in and really get into it

Soccer? (i don't know what it was called)

This game was a ton of fun. We basically had to play a game of soccer while in the crab position with a huge ball. It was hot and hard but there were a lot of laughs. Mom decided she would just hang out in the back when our team was up, but then the ball kept coming her way and she was the only thing between the ball and the goal. I almost wanted to get up and yell at her to stop playing since she had just gotten out of the hospital but she was fine and had fun.

The Rockets

The last competition was to build a rocket and see whose went the highest. It was a lot of fun. Ours did good but Joel's rocket won in the end. This is about the time my camera ran out of batteries.

China Town

These are not recent but I thought I should still post them. While visiting last summer I took a trip with Sadie and the kids to China town and the whole way Johnny thought we were going to actual China. He would look outside and say, " I can see it! I can see China!" They are pretty cute and I thought I would post them no matter my tardiness. And I know, I know what you all are thinking but no, I am not a professional photographer but they are pretty good.

Johnny looking in the water at the fishes

You can't see us very well and we wouldn't get Johnny and Emma to look up at the camera.

Johnny exploring in his own little world

I love this one! Look at how beautiful Mirium is!

My camera didn't work to well in this room, but I love the face Johnny is making and Emma with her monkey backpack that she fought us on the whole time. We had a really good time here and I thought the Sadie and mom and dad would like to see them. Sorry it took me so long to get them to you~ Love you all!

Ben's Birthday Cake

My friend Lori always does fun cakes for her families birthday's and she know how much I enjoy it too, so when I am at her house she shows me some ideas she gets out of a magazine she receives. She had this one (not knowing just how much Ben and I love sushi) and it was perfect! Ben really liked it and thought I put way too much effort into it as usual. It was so fun to make and way easy too! I thought it was a perfect amount of cake for just the two of us. Usually birthday cake ends up in the garbage because we can't eat it all. If you wanted it to feed more people, I am sure you could make the plate out of cake as well.

Kim's surprise!!

Mother and son

Yay!!!! we managed to pull off the 50th Birthday surprise!!! She had no idea. It was great and a lot of people were able to make it!

Mike, Rachel Jeanie and Jeff

Grandpa Guthrie. We were so happy they made the trip!!

Ben with Jackson and Steven. Too cute!
Look at that smile.

Ya, I can see why people say we look alike
Johnna and Isaac, the newly engaged couple!!!!
Everyone like to take a ride on Uncle Ben

Gone Fishin"

Johnny came to stay with us over at the Aeby's and we went fishing both days. Here he is reeling in a big one!
Ben taught he what he knows and Johnny was all ears. Every time he would start to real one in he would start yelling, "get the net!! Get the net!!" he also kept us entertained by singing, " you get a line, I'll get a pole, we'll go fishin in the crocadole (craw fish hole). He was a lot of fun.
He went shopping with Ben before fishing to get a new hat and you can't see the front but it says Fish R Die. You can kind of see it better in the nest picture.
Of course we had to start the day off with a big breakfast! It didn't stop Johnny from being "so hungry he could eat the whole outer space" though later on the boat.

Wow!!! This is one of Johnny's BIG catches. He caught two of the largest fish, one for each day.

Ory going down the big slide

This is for Kenna and her family that came to visit. We went to the park with her little niece and Kenna pushed Ory down the small slide and we have since upgraded to the big one. She loves it! Thanks guys, we have fun :)

Ory

We started out with all the intentions of having some fun in the back yard. Our tiny rectangle of grass can seem like an oasis in comparison to the dry landscape that surrounds us.

But all to soon Ory wears herself out and can't help but dose off to sleep. She is so sweet.

Tiny Jimmy

It's a tiny Jimmy Buffett! He came to California and we got to go to his concert. It was out doors and awesome. As you can see we didn't have the best seats, but we had a grand time anyways!

School

I know, I know, I am tooting my own horn here, but this class was probably the hardest I have had thus far and I managed with all my very hard work (which Ben can attest to) to get a 102.5 out of a 100 on my final. (there were three extra credit questions) I think this teacher couldn't bare to give anyone a perfect score but I will take my 102.5! I still have a 4.0 and hope to keep it there. I am taking a much needed summer off so we can travel up to Oregon and Utah for the family reunion. Ok ok enough with that. Thanks for listening :)