Happy Birthday to my oldest...

Happy Birthday, Jamie! I hope you have an absolutely wonderful day. I wish I could be there. Although, this birthday means you are getting your driver's permit and for that I'm grateful I live 6 states away. I'll never forget the day you were born and my first thought when I saw you was that your full head of hair certainly explained the problems I'd had with heartburn! You were so tiny, so beautiful, so perfect. What happened? Ha ha, just kidding! One of my first thoughts when I found out we were moving to Tampa was that I'd actually get to see you more. For that, I'm grateful and excited.

Happy birthday, kiddo. I love you.

I love this!

I'm really loving this blog! This is a lot of fun!!! Anyway, another day in the Anderson household brings a little more disappointment on the house-hunting front. I got a list back from our realtor that I had sent her with different houses on it and asked her to identify the short sales. Well, of over 30 I sent to her, only 4 are still on the list for us to possibly look at next weekend when we're down there. UGH! The rest are either short sales, just went under contract, or are too far for Randy's commute. So, now we're expanding our criteria and see if that brings about more results.

In the meantime, Grace has been quite the little handful today. She is usually really good, usually self-entertaining and content to play by herself or watch tv. Not today though! She's been under my feet all day, every 5 seconds it seems she's asking me for something, she keeps disappearing into her bedroom only for me to find out that she's taken something in there she shouldn't have (the baby powder, the band-aids, the gatorade jug, etc!). Fortunately she's going to Katie's this afternoon and will be able to play with Lily while I take Emily to a doctor appointment. I hope she's not a handful for Katie though, she's had her own hands full with Liliana who broke the top of their coffee table yesterday and laughs at Katie when she tries to discipline her. Sounds like the terrible-twos are alive and kicking in the Gonzalez household!

I still haven't finished our laundry yet and have a sinkful of dishes that need to be washed. The excitement in my life never ends...

SHE'S A STAR STUDENT!!!

Well, she did it! Emily is a Star Student at Lake Joy Primary School! YEAH! When the bus pulled up in front of the house after school today, I saw the sign before I saw her and my first thought was 'Oh no, another Star Student among her friends but not her.' Emily has not had the best week at school having had her behavior card pulled to orange on Monday. She was grounded by daddy for two days with no tv or friends and told that if her card gets pulled again this week, even to yellow (which is the first color) then she doesn't get to go trick-or-treating on Friday. Apparently he made quite the impression on her because she's been great the past couple of days and the smile on her face when she got off the bus was priceless! When she saw me she started yelling 'mama! mama! I was on green today!' Now we have a sign in our front yard next to the oak tree that says a Star Student lives here! I have to admit, I'm pretty proud! We just got off the phone from calling daddy - he's in Tampa - and I must say, it was nice to be able to call him at work and tell him something positive for a change!!!

House-hunting sucks!

Yep, that's my attitude today about the whole thing. I am so frustrated right now I could spit wooden nickels! The 'C' school house? Not a worry anymore because the house is a short sale! UUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!! So are 3 more of our top 5 so there goes 4 houses I wasted my time on with research. I'm waiting for our realtor to send me a listing that does not include short sales so I don't waste anymore time. Our realtor is great though and I know when she has it done she'll send it - no worries with her - I'm just frustrated that I wasted my time looking up boo-koo information on 4 houses we won't even consider for purchase because they are short sales. I did speak with her this morning though and she told me one good bit of information I had not found out on my own - that Florida DOES have pre-K for all 4-year-olds and it is free for the first 4 hours. Basically that means Grace will get to go to school in the fall 5 days a week, half days unless we want to pay the difference for her to go all day. I'd better end this blog before I vent too much more, I do have other things to do besides researching houses. It's addictive though and once I start I tend to do it all day. I can't today though - Grace and I went to Publix earlier and I still have groceries to put away not to mention loading and unloading the dishwasher, 4 loads of laundry that need to be washed, dried, folded and put away...and the myriad of other things I haven't even started to get us ready to move in approximately (*hopefully*) 6 weeks!

My girls have a twang...

Yep, one of the best things about moving from Georgia is that hopefully both of them will lose the drawl they've grown up with since moving here (or in Grace's case, being born here) almost 4 years ago. I read an old blog I'd started earlier in the year - yes V, I did start one, I just never published it! - and laughed out loud while I remembered the story I wrote about. That night Grace had asked her daddy to 'swang' her and it came out as 'soo-wang me di-ya-dee, soo-wang me!' She's had this drawl since being born, I think it was issued to her in the form of a vaccine or something that didn't work because she even cries with a southern drawl! My mom says that apples don't fall far from the tree and that Randy has a pronounced drawl of his own - I guess I don't notice it as much with him but it is unmistakable in Emily and Grace both. I've been telling Randy since we first noticed it in Emily several years ago that it was time to move, time to get out of here before the damage is irreversible! Maybe we're getting out of here just in time...

With change comes...

With change comes more and more things to do, I'm convinced, as if I don't already have enough on my plate! I've spent the past three days doing in-depth research online of houses in the Tampa area we are interested in. We've found several that appear to be great so I started doing a little more digging on each one to find our about property taxes, insurance and school ratings. Well, this particular little nugget we found is well-priced, even for the asking price and since it's been listed now for 214 days we're sure we can get it down. The taxes are another issue. I had my shock moment awile back when I looked up the taxes the first time on another property. Fortunately for us this one is a little lower - only a mere $6,000 per year! Yep, I said that right, hope you didn't choke on your cheerios. Now for the other clipper - insurance is only a mere $250 per month! And that does not include private mortgage insurance or flood insurance. That means that we'd be paying more a month in taxes and insurance than Katie and Efren pay for their duplex! YIKES! Surprisingly, these figures are on the low end of average for that area. So in comparison, this one looks great, right? Yeah, NOT! I pulled up the school info and found out the elementary school is a C school. NOOOO! The past ten years it has been A and B but for some reason this year it is a C. I'm tempted to contact the school and ask them about it - because we love this house! There are still several others to consider though so I'll keep you posted.

Emily spent the night Friday night with our neighbor's girls and a couple of other girls from the neighborhood. Daddy and I had Grace all to ourselves and it was precious. She was content to sit in the rocker and watch The Goodnight Show on PBS Sprout all night, all the while waiting for Caillou to come on. We thought by letting her stay up WAY late she'd at least sleep in a little but no, she was tapping my shoulder bright and early at 7am asking for gatorade. I took these pictures of Grace with Randy - she looks more and more like him every day. She's just too cute for words and has truly developed a great sense of humor. She's certainly defined herself as the baby of the family but is quick to point that she's not a baby since she wears panties now 'and only big girls wear panties so I'm a big girl except for at night when I wear a pull-up but I'm still a big girl because I wear panties during the day and I don't wet my panties because if Tinkerbell gets wet she can't fly and Tinkerbell has to fly because that's how she gets around but if her wings are wet she can't so I don't get her wet so at night I wear a pull-up because I still have accidents at night and at night she'd get wet and I don't want her to get wet....' Can you hear her saying that? Be sure to add in the Georgia drawl and you'll get it right!

I had a conference this week with Emily's teacher. Academically she's doing very well and is at or above average in all areas. Socially she seems to have a problem. Apparently she's a talker (no, really?) and likes to walk around socializing instead of sitting at her desk doing her classwork. She's also bossy (no, really?) and it tends to get her in trouble. So, we're working on that here at home. I worry about Emily. Grace is clearly the baby and always will be the baby but Emily's position in the family is less defined. She tries to be the oldest since she's Randy's and my oldest together, but she's not because Katie and Ryan are older. I think she gets lost sometimes in where she fits in. She is an oldest child, but she's not, she is a middle child, but she's not. She's been very patient with Grace this weekend - to the point where Randy and I have asked what happened to her! They usually fight like cats and dogs. I'm convinced she'll find her place and be just fine. I hope she adjusts well when she has to transition schools. Emily is the greatest follower even though she thinks she's a leader - she'll follow you straight off the bridge if you want her to. She wants to be the boss, she wants to be in charge, but she would rather not accept the responsibility. Gee, sounds like a lot of adults I've known over the years!

I was also told she's had a problem with being disrespectful and it took me everything I had to keep my not-so-little-butt in the little kindergarten chair! I was absolutely floored. The kids have colored cards for behavior and when they get in trouble, their green card gets pulled to the yellow card, then an orange card, then finally red, with various degrees of punishment. I told her teacher that first, Emily's never had her card pulled for being disrespectful so I was surprised to hear it, but that if it happens again, pull it to orange and do whatever is done at that level. I've already had a problem with this teacher. Emily colored with permanent marker on their carpet and then lied about it so when the teacher e-mailed me, I asked her to pull her card to orange if it had already been pulled to yellow (one color for each thing she'd done wrong). That's when I was told she never pulled her card, it was on green (good) all day. Yet this is the same teacher that has pulled it twice for Emily talking too loudly in the hallway and for not sitting at her desk doing her work. I'm sorry, but I think coloring on the carpet, lying about it and being disrespectful are much more severe 'crimes' than talking and not sitting in your chair. Randy and I dealt with it at home, of course, but it sent mixed messages to Emily about what is punishable at school and what apparently isn't. Deep breath - we're out of here in less than 2 months!

I have finally succumbed...

Ok Vanessa, you should be happy. Thanks to my neighbor Angela finally starting her own blog, I've succumbed to the pressure you've put on me for MONTHS now to start my own family blog. So what's new with the Anderson family? Randy is already jumping in to his new position as Site Manager for Scientific Research Corporation's Tampa site. He spent Monday down there, coming home Tuesday after enjoying breakfast with our new realtor team, Ronnie and Ralph Evans. He spent yesterday in the office here in WR and is in Atlanta today. He'll be home tonight and back in the WR office tomorrow, Monday and Tuesday, before heading back to Tampa from Wednesday until Thursday or Friday. The week after that he'll head to Charleston, SC for a couple of days before we caravan down to Tampa for our 5 day house-hunting expedition. I say 'caravan-ing' because on Tuesday, 11 Nov, the girls and I will return home but he will stay there for a couple more days. After that it looks like he'll be in Tampa Mondays through Thursdays and then home Fridays and the weekends unless the girls and I drive down there. I know the drive is going to seem longer and longer for him. He already commented that the drive back Tuesday seemed to take forever, possibly because the prior Thursday we 'caravan'd' down to Fort Walton Beach for the Pave Low deactivation, retirement and reunion with him leaving Sunday for Tampa and me heading home.



As for our weekend in FWB? It was awesome and at times surreal. That is just my perspective. For Randy I don't think it can even be described. He saw men that he flew with in Germany in the mid-80s, he saw Lieutenant Colonels, Colonels and Generals that he new as baby pilots with their butter bars. He bid farewell to the helicopter he'd flown humanitarian missions in, he'd flown combat missions in, the helicopter that had caused the loss of life of 8 Green Hornets, as the members of the 20th Special Operations Squadron were called. Four of those Hornets were personal friends. He said goodbye to a later version of the same helicopter he was in and crashed in the mid-80s. He stood stoic and proud as we attended the deactivation ceremony in the Air Park on Hurlburt Field with the big beast behind the podium, remembering flights that were good and bad, remembering proud moments flying in multi-helicopter formations over places from the emerald coast of northwest Florida to the mountains of Albania and Afghanistan to the sands of Saudi Arabia and Iraq, remembering missions of ease and remembering missions he wasn't sure they'd make it home from and the sheer will, determination and defiance that brought them home and defines the Pave Low and everyone who flew her. There were over 500 people at the reunion that followed the deactivation and even after spending Friday and all day Saturday there, we still did not see everyone. I was able to reconnect with wives I had lost touch with after Randy retired and spent a couple of great days with my dear and close friend Tammy. For those of you who remember, Tammy's husband Tony was on the same crew with Randy in Afghanistan. Randy and I had married just before they left and I was new to the wives' group. Even though I was active duty and in reality knew more about what was going on with our husbands than most everyone else, the wives' group was new to me so Tony asked Tammy to take me under her wing and keep and eye on me to make sure I was ok while they were gone. She's been one of my closest friends ever since and Tony and Randy share a bond that none will ever break and most will not understand. The 20th's theme song has long been 'Dead or Alive' by Bon Jovi and even Lt Col Becker, the squadron's commander, incorporated the words of the song into his speach at the deactivation. He said 'It's all the same, only the names have changed,' to sum up the long legacy of the helicopter. Various Pave Lows are at museums around the country - Eglin AFB, the Air Park on Hurlburt Field, the museum at Robins AFB here in Georgia, and at the museum at Wright-Patterson AFB, in Dayton, OH. If you ever get a chance to go there, stop by and see the beautiful bird that was Randy's life for 22 years. The remaining 6 are still in the desert having retired in combat and are now waiting transport back to the US. The 41 birds that made up the Pave Low inventory and created a legacy that extends as far back as the Vietnam Conflict, along with the many men that flew them 'saw a million faces,' and she was the 'steal horse they rode.'

Randy took with him a bottle of red wine that had been part of Colonel Tommy Hull's (now retired) change of command in the late-90s. I opened the bottle and the cork disintegrated! Even so, Randy and Colonel Hull put on their bravest faces and drank the wine, walking around the reunion telling everyone how good it was. Stephanie Hull and I both thought it tasted like vinegar and I had to laugh when she commented that they were telling everyone how great it was yet they still had half of a bottle left! Check out the pictures!