Thursday, July 18, 2013

Travels and First Day back to Texas

While I loved stopping off at the City Museum on our way back "home", Derek and I quickly realized why we usually travel at night. Actually the first day was pretty good......it was Day 2 that wasn't so great. After the City Museum we continued on to Oklahoma City to stop for the night (a little over half way). We all went right to bed with no fussing which was really nice. We had plans for a stop at Dinosaur Valley State Park the next day near Dallas but we decided to sleep in some and take our time getting on the road. (which meant we wouldn't be going to the park anymore) That was probably our biggest mistake because I think the stops a few hours down the road are what makes for a more enjoyable trip. Oh well. You would think we would be expert travelers by now...........It really wasn't that bad though. The girls traveled really well. I think Blake was just tired of being strapped down for hours upon hours.
First day of traveling -- he did so well this day. Loved playing with his cars!

Allie was constantly listening to her MP3 player

We're staying in Temporary Housing on the Air Force base here at Lackland. We stayed in it when we first moved here....it's pretty gross and really tiny for all 5 of us (one bedroom and a living/kitchen area). Luckily we don't plan on spending a whole lot of time in the room but we're all pretty sleep deprived because no one can go to sleep when there are others awake and then as soon as the first person wakes up before it's even light out.........everyone else has to get up.

We set the girls bed up in the breakfast bar/kitchen area. It's the mattress from the pullout couch. That way we still have a couch to sit on and don't have to fold up the bed every day.

The first full day back we went to the storage unit to unload our utility trailer. We're trying to sell it and had several interested but didn't have any pictures. Of course, once we uploaded the pictures no one wanted it!

We found this guy in our storage unit! Allie says she learned about it in one of her classes and that it's a Rhinoceros Beetle.

 
We were doing all of this during the hottest part of the day and we were all drenched in sweat, miserable, and just hot. We did have our swimsuits in the car so we drove over to our community pool where we own our home and had the whole pool to ourselves!!!

As far as everything else goes........Derek and I have been going through the storage unit -- organizing everything into different piles. (things that will be shipped to England {Household Goods}, things that will stay here in storage, things that will be sent to England via Cargo plane {Unaccompanied Baggage}, things that can be counted as Professional Gear, things we want to take with us in our luggage right away, etc). We have been blessed with some pretty nice weather these past couple of days...........overcast, a few sprinkles, a constant light breeze, and not too incredibly hot like most Texas summer days! We also have some amazing friends who have kept the kids at their house to play so we can get more done!!! We've been told I don't know how many dates for when the packers will be here to load up our stuff but I think this newest date we've been told is pretty legit since we have it in writing. If all goes as planned everything will be done next Thursday and Friday, July 25th & 26th. We also got the call this morning saying our No Fee passports are in!! Now we can finally apply for our VISAS and hope and pray it gets here in 3 weeks or less!!!

Dinner @ Tiago's!!

Monday, July 15, 2013

City Museum

We decided to take a different route back to Texas this time around so we could take the kids to one of our very favorite museums.........the City Museum in St Louis. Derek and I had so much fun there back when we were stationed at Scott AFB. This was back before we had kids so we were a bit worried they might be too young. There are a lot of crazy things to do there......crazy heights, tight spaces, dark caves, tons of climbing and sliding and I could go on and on. On one of our trips back in the day our friend almost ripped his finger off! Needless to say, we were very cautious and kept the kids very close!! All three kids had a lot of fun. Allie impressed us with all that she did. Blake had no fear whatsoever and wanted to do more than what we would allow him to. Avery was the most nervous of all three but she still did a lot.
Now for the pictures.....
in the cockpit of the airplane
 
Allie climbing off of the wing of the airplane
Blake in one of the airplanes
Allie crawling underneath us (from the previous pic)
On the rooftop (this wasn't open when we were there last)
In the driver's seat of the bus
We slid down this 10 story curly slide from the rooftop to get back down to the bottom floor!

Friday, July 12, 2013