Reintegration Update

I have been getting emails this week about Paul coming home. It seems like it is going to be an even bigger mess than when he left. I should know 8-10 days out when to "expect" him back at Ft. Campbell, however, that does not mean that he will be here at that time. Then 24-48 hours out, I will receive another email/phone call letting me know the details of when he should arrive. I will have to be there 2 hrs before the projected time because there is always a chance that he could arrive sooner. I am supposed to drive to hangar 6 or 7, and then catch a bus over to hangar 3. This is where the Welcome Home ceremony will take place. After everyone gets done talking, we get to meet our soldiers and spend some time with them (approximately 15-20 mins.) Then, they will be called back into a formation and will have to go turn in all of their sensitive items. I guess during this time, they will brief the families on signs that we need to keep an eye out for, and how we should not let our soldiers drive, and all the other stuff along those lines. After all of this, we have to get back on the bus and go back to hangar 6 to meet our soldiers again. At this point, I think I get to bring him home.
Starting the day after he gets home, he has to go to his Reintegration meetings. These classes are 7 straight days (even on the weekends) where they will do a medical check and basically counsel the soldiers. Apparently these meetings are only supposed to be half days.
According to these emails, Paul should not be back to Ft. Campbell until December 12th. This is likely to change a couple of times before then. Also, there is a chance that he will come in before the Army predicts. It is because of this that Paul will be getting his cell phone mailed out to him so he can call and keep me updated. I will be sure to keep this updated to let everyone know what is going on.

Paul has switched to days so has more to do at work. He has been keeping pretty busy, which I hope means that time is going by faster for him. He got his flu shot yesterday, which he does not react well with, and was starting to feel the effects when I talked to him last night. His day off is tomorrow, so he will get some time to recover from that. Other than that, he is just counting down the days until he gets to come home.

I started work this last week and I am enjoying it. I have very sweet kids and look forward to the time I will get to spend with them over the next 8 weeks. I have been working on organizing the house in my spare time and am starting to see a huge improvement. Im sure it will go back to chaos when Paul gets home, so I guess as long as the existing stuff is put away, we should be fine! =)

Wow.. it's been a while! =/

Ok.. So I feel terrible about not updating. I fuss at Paul for not updating his and then I don't do much better. At least it hasn't been 8 months! =)

Nothing much has changed here in Tennessee. They have been doing field artillery drills for the past week/week and a half and it sounds like the base is being bombed. It is just lovely! I have been busy with school work and training for my job. Im not quite sure about school.. I guess I will get in the habit of things at some point in time. The job seems like it is going to be a lot of fun! It is a bunch of emailing back and forth right now, but once I get to work with the kids, I think it will be worth it.

I have been walking with a neighbor down the street and it has been a lot of fun. It is something to keep me active and it gets me out of the house. It's nice having a friend two houses down! We signed up at the local rec center and go there on the crappy days to walk around in the gym. They have a weight room, but it all seems like it is from the 1980s so Im kinda afraid to use it. We are going there tonight, so maybe I will be brave!

Last weekend, we added a new member to our family! We found a free kitten and thought it would be something to keep Kahlua occupied. Her name is Reis (named after Reisling, the white wine).



Kahlua and her have soo much fun together. When I first brought her home, Kahlua was giving her kisses, so now Reis thinks Kahlua is her mommy. They are adorable!!



My friend, Amy, came to visit this past weekend, which was a lot of fun! It was nice to have someone else here. She helped me shop for some fall decorations, which was awesome!! I got a lot of cute, inexpensive decorations to make the house feel more like a home. However, the only thing I really wanted to buy was Christmas decorations. I am really excited for Christmas this year.. mainly because a certain someone will be home!!



Parry and Cindy (Paul's Dad and Stepmom) are coming out this weekend and then I will be riding back to Delaware with them. It will be nice for Cindy to actually see the place, and for Parry to see all of the decorating that has happened since he left. We will probably do some sightseeing around the area, and they are bringing some yummy scrapple to enjoy!!

Paul is doing great.. He is supposed to be reenlisting today. So more Army time for us!! We are pretty satisfied with this decision. He has found something that he truly enjoys and that means a lot when we are talking about Paul. He got to meet some celebrities this past week, which I am super jealous about. However, now I have a picture of my two loves... the love of my life and my celebrity crush, Major Frank Sherwood (from Army Wives)!



That's about it. I will try to be better about updating more frequently!! =)

Kiowa Pilot in need of prayers

I got word yesterday from Paul that one of the kiowa pilots that he worked with at Ft. Campbell, but more closely when they were stationed at Kandahar, received a bullet to his head last week while providing surveillance for ground troops. He is currently at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland in ICU. His family has started a blog to keep everyone up to date on his status and they are doing a great job with keeping everyone informed. It seems that he is getting better but he and his family still need all of the prayers they can get. Please keep the Stead family in your prayers and pray for a quick recovery. You can follow Adam's story at www.caringbridge.org/visit/adamstead

Got the job

I heard from the Ft. Campebell YMCA on Friday evening and found out that I got the job. The lady who is in charge of this mentoring position seemed very shocked that I asked her if the position was mine. She sent me all of the information that I need to get to the schools as attachments and explained that I will be in charge of accepting children. I get to place the students in the 3 different sessions that will take place during the school year. Training starts on September 28th and I begin working with the children on October 19th. I am extremely excited and have a lot to plan in order to be ready for the children in a little more than a month. It seems as if this will definitely keep me busy until Paul comes home.

The latest news with Paul is the same as it has been. He is working the 9 hour shifts now but still works during the night. However, the last couple of times that I have talked to him, he has talked about being busy at work. We are still waiting on a definite date to expect him home, which we have not received. We thought November 21st but then I heard that his troop isn't coming home until December 12th. We will just wait until we hear an actual time before we get excited and start counting down days. We did hit the 9 month mark, which means that there are only 3 months left until we hit the year mark. It has gone by quickly, but I would love to take it up a couple of notches on the fast forward button.

Lake front property...?

We had a huge rain storm this afternoon and I made sure that I was snapping pictures during and after. At settlement on Friday, we signed a contract holding the builder to fixing the side yard. We have discussed putting a ditch down the side of the house to carry the water from the street to the ditch that runs behind our house. I wanted to take pictures just to show people what the water does when it rains. And here they are...


**The water coming off of the street and flowing between the house next door and ours**


**The other end of the pathway.. A huge mess and a bunch of chaos**


**Our flooded backyard due to the water having no where to go**




As if that mess isn't bad enough, you haven't even seen what happens when the "ditch" in the backyard gets full of water!


**Notice how there isn't any water in the back ditch**


**Now, less than 5 minutes later, the water floods the ditch**


**The part of the ditch behind our house has eroded so much that we now get this everytime it rains!**


**And it continues on**


**Then, 2 yards down, it goes back into a ditch where it belongs**

After I took all of these pictures, I called the builder and changed my tone with him. I told him that when he came to fix the side ditch that he would also be digging out the back ditch. Before today, I have been very friendly and I guess I wasn't intimidating enough. Well, that all changed today! He told me that he will be here later this week to start the work (depending on the weather) and that we can walk around the yard and discuss everything that I want done. I feel very accomplished!

Operation Hero

I had an interview this morning with the YMCA on Ft. Campbell. Last week I got an email about a program called Operation Hero Mentoring. It is an after school program for children who go to school on base, and is 2.5 hours after school on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. I met with the director this morning after dropping off my application at the end of last week. She told me that she was very impressed with my resume and told me that she wanted to place me with elementary age kids (YAY!) at a diverse Elementary School that pulls students from every housing development on base. We discussed the program and she told me as much as she could. I will be in charge of 8-10 students and they will work with me for a 9-10 week session. They come to me after school and have snack, complete their homework, and then we have a discussion/activity time about different topics in the cirriculum. These topics include bullying, deployments, peer interaction, etc. She told me that I will hear from her by Friday to let me know that I definitely got the position and to give me the curriculum guidelines.
I am really excited about this job opportunity. It is a way for me to continue working with children but should not be too overwhelming. I want to really focus on my Master's courses and this should provide me with a chance to keep myself busy, while bringing in some extra income.

It's ours!!

We settled on the house yesterday at 2 central time. After a hectic week of trying to get things done, it finally closed! We signed a contract with the builder to make sure that the backyard would be fixed in a timely manner. About 1 hour and 45 mins after we started, I had signed the book of papers. I, of course, couldn't just sign my name, I had to sign my hubby's name too. Which means that I had to sign my name twice plus his name. And I couldn't just sign "Paul Evans POA Amie Evans," I had to sign "Paul D. Evans by Amie C. Evans, his attorney-in-fact." Then sign my name. My hand had a HUGE cramp in it! It was a huge sigh of relief when I signed that last paper and when I knew that the house was ours!! It was also nice when I saw that the monthly payments are less than what we get for BAH. Thank goodness!!!
Now it's just waiting for Paul to get home so we can get to work on the little odds and ends around the house. We are going to put up a privacy fence in the backyard, so Kahlua can run around without being attached to a leash. Also, we are going to do some major landscaping out front. The builder put in the cheap ugly bushes and cheap mulch, so we are going to build up the flower beds, to create another wall to keep water away from the house, and put pretty flowers in them.
That's about it! Now it's just a waiting game... waiting on my amazing husband to get home!

Sgt. Evans is doing pretty good. He is bored at work, and doesn't really have much to keep him busy. Therefore, he is trying to help me out and it is not working out very well. But its the thought that counts! They cut the shifts down to 9 hours, instead of 12 hours, which is always better. He still does not have internet in his room, so he can only use internet when he goes to work. That's the newest update! I will try to keep updating as I find information out!