Off to Walter Reed

21 years ago Richard was a Private brand new to the Army and he got sent off to fight in Desert Storm, about 18 years later we started seeing some weird things happening to him, when we were still in Colorado he started breaking out in these huge hives, there was no reason for them, over the last 4 years we have seen numerous doctors, had all the allergy tests and found out he is not allergic to anything, what it comes down to is for some reason his body is reacting to and fighting itself.  I started to do some research a few years ago when we were not getting any answers and determined that I am convinced he has Gulf War syndrome, he has all the symptoms I read about(not just hives), but like Agent Orange years ago Gulf War syndrome was very controversial, no one was really ready to admit it existed, even now that they know it does it is really just a name to give numerous different things that have happened to out veterans from the Persian Gulf that no one can explain.
Now on top of the hives the Dr's have found some abnormalities in Richards chest x ray, they think it is caused from the sand he breathed in there, he thinks it may have more to do with the fact that they did PT out in the open while all the oil fields were burning so they were breathing in all the chemicals.
So now that his retirement is getting closer he is in the midst of many physicals etc so that his medical profile will be complete when it is time to retire, they have decided now to send him for an evaluation at Walter Reed, we will be there for a week while he is checked out by the doctors there, then if they will decide if he should come back and be part of a study they are doing, if he is put in that he will be there for 3 weeks.  Nothing he has right now is life threatening just annoying and hard to live with, so we are hopeful we will get some answers, some new ideas about how to treat things and medical documentation so that any treatment he needs will continue once he does retire.
We are off next week, with my flight benefits I am lucky enough to be able to afford to go with him, I am grateful for that as I want to hear what the doctors have to say.

Who knew being a Mom would break my heart

Of all my children Levi is the one who had NEVER given me any trouble, he has always been sweet, respectful, lovable, and so on, that being said I now have to wonder who or what has invaded my sweet boy and left this monster!
We have been having a few problems getting Levi to come home, do his chores etc. he had taken to staying at a friends as often as he could get away with, literally coming home from school and then out the door to Trevors house, gone all weekend, not doing his chores, and his chores consist of taking out the trash, cleaning up after the dog, and feeding the dogs by 5pm, he started lyeing saying he had fed the dogs when he had not, Daniel had to start taking out the trash because it would be over flowing and then the final straw came when I saw on the parents portal that Levi was missing math class and failing, so when I talked to him about it and told him he needed to stay home until his grade was up he went nuts and told me he is 18 he can do whatever he wants and he is moving out with Trevor and he left.  I gave him and me 24 hours to calm down and tried calling him, he would not take my calls so told him he needed to bring us back his military ID, Richard should not have to be responsible for him if he is not here, and he had the privileges that come with the ID because of Richard, well he told me he had already been to JAG I can not make him give me his ID, I cannot make him come home, he can do what he wants when he wants and the worst part is I can hear this other kids mom in the background telling him "you tell her she cannot do anything so she needs to stay out of it, we have talked to legal and you can live here etc etc"  who does this women think she is...I told Levi he needs to come here and talk to me about this like an adult and he said not unless she comes with him, because she knows all the legal rights, I told him if she steps foot in my house I will have her arrested.  She has half the neighborhood boys fighting with their parents and living there shortly after they turn 18, it is weird.
I was so upset after all this that I talked to his Dad, Steve somehow got ahold of Levi and talked to him, so Levi came home, gave us his ID (I had told him he could have it back if and when he showed me he could be responsible) and apologized but then he left said he would rather live over there and off he went then he went to the school made it so we can no longer check his progress on line or at the school and we have not seen or heard from him since.  Even in Stevie's worse teenage years I have never been talked to as disrepectfuly as he was to me, I was shocked, hurt and had no idea how to react.  This is my kid, I raised him, I sacrificed for him, and I loved him and some other women walks in and takes him from me and turns him against his whole family, I don't even know how to process that.  What I do know is I feel I have failed as a mother, I want to curl up in my bed and stay there until this nightmare is over, but I have other kids I have to worry about so I get up try my hardest not to spend the day crying and trying to figure out where I went to wrong with a kid I thought I had such a good close relationship with.  I go to bed at night and pray he will be okay, and that it wont hurt so bad tomorow.

Izabella Laynn

We spent the day at the Lake yesterday, we had been planning it all week, but once we were there Stevie told me she had been having labor pains all night.  She decided to hang out at the lake rather than rush to the hospital, so we spent a few hours watching the kids swim and trying to relax, we headed off to the hospital when she was having contractions at 6min apart, made it to the hospital fine and Bella was born less than two hours later.  Stevie did great!Sienna has been so excited to be a big sister, she was very happy when she got to come in a meet her new baby sister.

here she is just moments after she was born, you cannot see all her black hair with her little hat on, but she has a head full.  She weighed 7lbs 12.5oz and is 20 inches long.

deployment when and where

We have been planing for deployment for some time now, it looked like Richards battalion would deploy in November to Baghdad, then he was told to plan on being gone by Halloween, but no one ever had orders, just speculation, then a few months ago we started to hear rumors, well the first thing I learned being an army wife was you can NEVER listen to rumors, by the time you hear them any truth there was will be long gone, so we just continued to plan for October.  In July while Richard was gone we were called to a steering committee meeting to discuss the upcoming deployment and we were told that 1st Brigade would indeed not be deploying to Baghdad this year, the reasons are all the same ones Richard kept bringing up when he would tell me deployment there did not make much sense to him (though he will willing go wherever they tell him) they are a field artillery brigade with his company providing support, there is not a lot of call for that in Baghdad right now, since we really are pulling our troops out and turning it back over to the Iraqi, so the official word is a different battalion is going in our place and their mission is indeed to provide support and training to the Iraqi Army, so they are better suited for this particular mission.  For about 10 seconds that was the best news I could of received, but then we got the rest...we are still set for deployment, we just do not know when and where yet, training will continue as planned and they will go as soon as they get orders, my first thought is that will mean they will go to Afghanistan, that is where we need troops right now, especially field artillery, infantry and support.  Right now Baghdad is relatively safe, but Afghanistan is still very much a war torn country with lots of stuff going on, scary!!! 
I think the hardest part for me is just not knowing, I can deal with most anything if I have the information, so when I could plan for October I was doing OK, not thrilled by any means but I understand this is his job, I understand he loves what he does, and I understand they are very well trained to do what they do.   I hate not being able to plan, having to just wait and see what happens, I guess the one plus to this is he is not one of those units that can be anywhere in the world in 48hrs, we will have a could months notice at least when the time comes, they have equipment that has to be shipped so it takes a little time, but all the same I wish I had more information to get prepared with, a year is a long time, and that is how long they deploy for now (better than the 15 to 18 mo is used to be I guess) so for now we are trying to make the most of all our time, continuing to live like deployment is just around the corner and doing all the things we were before.  An upcoming deployment makes you realize how very important family is and how precious time together is, rather than focusing on what will happen when he is not here we are trying hard to enjoy our time while he is.

summer so far

I have been working lots of crazy hours the last couple weeks with almost no time to do much of anything, but I did get some of the pictures of our summer so far loaded up so I could put on here.We went to our little zoo one afternoon, it is small but nice and we had a fun time

Levi turned 18 I cannot belieive how quick that went byThe three younger kids went to Utah to visit family and while they were there they took a trip to San Fransico with Grandma Bonnie and Uncle Robert, they had a ball, they took the train there and then saw all the sights.I got them home just in time for the fourth, our town puts on one of the biggest 4th celebrations I have ever seen with concerts, booths, art shows, car shows a petting zoo and so on, it was fun, then we came home and let the kids play with fireworks here before they headed out to the see the ones in townWe had a family day for Richards Company one afternoon, he got in and played volley ball I wartched and took pictures, it was fun.

I hope to take the kids on a couple little day trips and maybe a quick vacation before school, I cannot believe summer is almost over already!!!

Fallen soldiers

Since our airport is so close to the Army Post here I see lots of "moments" in the lives of soldier and their families.  I am always so sad when the families come in and you know their soldier is going back from R&R, you can tell how hard it is for them to say goodbye and it always tugs at my heart strings to watch them in their final moments before they leave.  I try to let the soldiers go through security very last so they can have as long as possible with their loved ones and then per our company policy they are always invited to board the plane with our Premium passengers.  I love the days when soldiers come home for R&R and the waiting room is full of families with flowers, ballons, signs, and anxious wives, I cannot tell you how many times I have reassured a wife that she looks perfect and showed her where to stand so she will see her husband as soon as he gets off the plane, it is really such a heart warming experience to see them reunited and happy.

But then there have been two times in the last month that were so hard.  the first was when a soldier escourted in a very distraught women and told me that she was the wife of a fallen soldier, she was on her way to escort her husbands body home, I did not know this women, I did not know her husband but my heart just broke to see her.  Today another set of officers walked up to my counter to tell me our plane had the sister of a fallen soldier on it, they had the parents there with them and were waiting to meet her, they asked if we could get her off the plane first so she could get to her family without having to wait in the crowd, so of course I notified the captain of the plane who then notified the flight attendant and I was able to meet her at the plane and escourt her to her family, I cannot tell you how hard it was to see her hug her Mom and just break down.  I do not know this soldier, I am not even sure of his name, but all the same I feel for his family, it brought tears to my eyes to see them, I had to take a minute prior to finishing the flight.

With deployment looming over us, having a husband and a brother and now numerous friends in the military seeing first hand the families of fallen soldiers makes you realize how easily it could be me, and makes you appriciate all the more the sacrifices our military and their families makes everyday.

I know I will say and extra prayer tonight for these families and I know they will be in my thoughts for a very long time.

Ireland

We went to Ireland to visit my brother and his wife a couple weeks ago, we had a wonderful time seeing everything, our first day there we wandered downtown and saw Saint Patricks Cathedrial, it was gorgeous and the grounds and flower gardens were so wonderful, I wish my yard looked like they do.

Later that night we went to the Ocean wandered out to the lighthouse and then had dinner at the cutest little place. On our second day we went to the "casino" it is really a house that was built on an estate to entertain guests, we learned about the history of the house and the owner as well as the man who designed and built it, it was pretty interesting.

 
 

 

From there we headed out the malachi castle, both Ty and I agreed the inside of this castle reminded us a lot of the Valley House (our Great Grandparents house), we were able to go inside as well as wander around the grounds.Later we had lunch at a cute authentic Irish Pub.On our way back to Dublin we stopped and spent a couple hours wandering through an old cemetary, I love to do that, I think old cemetaries are so peaceful and interesting.

we spent a lot of time in downtown Dublin, this street had all the great shops and street preformers, they were fun to stop and watch.

We took a day and went to see the Guiness factory, of course Dublin is famous for Guiness beer, the factory actually takes up a whole block with several buildings including it's own church on the grounds.After that is was off to see the old jail, that was pretty interesting, this is the new part, and considering it was a prison it was really very nice compaired to the old part.This is one of the cells, in this part of the prison they tried to only have one person to a cell, but there were times when that did not work, I cannot imagine living in this small space by myself and to share it with someone would have been horrible.

This same day we went to the museum and saw a lot of interesting things, among them the bog men, they were really neat, I had heard of them but had never seen one, it is amazing that they could stay so well preserved for 100's of years in those bogs.We bought lunch at a little fish and chips vendor one afternoon and then ate it on the grass at Christs church, this is the other big cathedral in Dublin, Saint Patricks is cathlic and Christ Church is Prodestant, Ty told me the way to tell the differenece is the Catholic churchs have crosses on top and the Prodestant have roosters, still not sure why roosters but it was interesting.

We went to Dublin Castle, Beth had been here numerous times and since each tour guide tells you different things, she was able to fill in with extra facts she had learned, that made it really interesting and many of the people on the tour ended up staying with us so they could also hear her tell us extra things.The castle is built over actual Vicking ruins and we were able to go down and see some of them as well as some of the original parts of the castle from medevil times.This is an original stairwell that deliveries would have been made at.

This is on the grounds of the castle, overlooking the Queens gardens and the stables.This shows the only remaining origianl tower of the castle (the castle burned down and was rebuilt many years ago) also this is the church on the castle grounds, this is also the church they use to film scenes in the series the Tudors.

We went out to Bray to the ocean and had wanted to hike to the top of this hill that looks over the whole town and ocean, but it was so cold and windy we only made it half way, it was still a very pretty view.

Richard and I wandered back down town our last day there and found Temple bar, several of his soldiers had told him about it, it is a pretty cool place, very old built sometime in the 1800, they had live music, great irish coffees and were just very nice, they let us behind the bar to have a picture taken, it was a really fun.

I should have all the rest of the pictures on our piccassa album by the end of the day if anyone wants to see the rest you can access that from here.