Picture of Geoff

The captain's wife passed this picture along. Apparently the guys were waiting to go to the range in Kuwait....

One Month vs. One Year

When I took this picture yesterday it automatically reminded me of his one month picture.... I guess he has shaken his fists in excitment for a year now!

BIRTHDAY BOY!

I can't believe its even true but GRANT IS ONE YEAR OLD TODAY! I tell you, if this next year goes by as quickly as the last one had Geoff and I will be golden. I've snapped a few pictures and videos to commemorate the day but a quick recap is a web-cam chat with Daddy, a crown, a kazoo, a balloon, a pop and my first ice cream.

(Two side notes: 1) This is the 200th post... wow! 2) Grant is not in his pen all day everyday, though between the army stuff a few weeks ago and all of the moving boxes sometimes it feels that way. Mostly I just feel more comfortable putting two hands on a camera if I know he can't get into anything)

Backtracking

(shutterfly went and changed on me so it'll take me a while to figure out some of their new formatting)

I was looking over the blog and noticed that I never posted the pictures from "Family Day" and our weekend in Austin. Family day was a huge day of mandatory fun for the whole squadron before the guys left. I know it was well entended and they people spent a lot of hard work, time and money on it but to be honest, everyone just wanted to spend time with their families as they saw fit... so that was that.

The weekend in Austin was nice. We enjoyed the hotel pool (rooftop) and Grant got a kick out of his Rocket float. Saturday we went to the Childrens Museum and that ended up being a lot of fun. Grant got really excited and was happy to do some of the things that the "big kids" were doing but we quickly learned that big kids don't always look out for little kids, especially when there are toys and caios all around.
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8BZMmzJw5aNyY&emid=sharshar&linkid=link5

A Lebanon Laugh

I chuckled a bit when our "visitor map" on the right side of the page registered Geoff's first visit to the blog. It showed up as Lebanon... he has been to quite a few countries in the past few days but that certainly isn't one of them~

Rory Withdrawal

I've sat down four times now to write the "Operation Cheer Up" post about Rory's visit but somehow I just can't seem to find the words sincere or witty enough to capture her visit or everything that it meant to me. Rarely in life do you find friends who would drop their lives at a moments notice to fly to be with you just because you "need somebody". All throughout the visit and even after we kept on saying that it sucked that it took Geoff going for it to happen. As she wrote "I wish Geoff didn't have to leave to give us a good reason to spend a few days together.... next time he can stay! ;)"
Our timing was perfect, I had said "Goodbye for now" to Geoff tuesday morning, passed out Tuesday afternoon, had dinner with other wives in the Squadron that night then first thing Wednesday morning it was off to the airport to pick Rory up. We engaged in fair amount of Retail Therapy at the Outlets, complained about our bodies, complemented each others taste and shopped some more. Wednesday was some errands around Killeen and a major nap session, great conversation, both lighthearted and deep, at dinner and then a dessert get together with someother wives whose husbands had just left.
Now for the good stuff, or not so good stuff as the case may be. Friday. Friday the 13th. The day started off great. We went to the Army museum, took Grant to the park, were just enjoying our few remaining hours then decided to go to the historic town of Salado on the way to the airport. Long story short over the course of three hours we had a bottle burst all over Grant, tried to find a replacement outfit that wouldn't cost us $40, a vase was knocked off a shelf and broken (not by Grant either) and my camera was deamed dead. Top it off with a melt down at the airport because Rory's visit had kindof put me in denial about the fact that Geoff was gone and you have one heck of an emotional day.
I was kindof off of my game and didn't take as many pictures as I would have liked (I need to shake that, its happening more and more) but here are the ones I did get and then a link to Rory's. -whew
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8BZMmzJw5aNx2&notag=1
http://picasaweb.google.com/Richardson.Rory/OperationCheerUpEllie

Beautiful Baby Take 2

I checked the mail for the first time since Geoff left and passed an hour or so catching up with the new Parents Magazine. Wouldn't you know they are doing a cover model search so I decided to enter (minus any pictures that could be mistaken as professional of course). The editors and photographers do all of the actual voting but here is the link to the pictures I submitted...


You have been invited to view my Cover Model Search photo gallery on Parents.com. Please use the link below to view, rate, and recommend my photos! Gallery Link: http://www.parents.com/app/sharemy/photoDetails.jsp?photoId=206600952

Phone calls

Grant got a phone call while we were shopping at Old Navy, apparently he had a great conversation with Daddy.

I have gotten a couple, he sounds okay just tried of the inbetween stuff and ready to get to where there going to be and unpack...

And They're Off

It has officially been 12 hours since we headed to Troop with Geoff to begin the "see you later" process. We got there at 2am, Geoff had a formation while I stenciled his information onto one of his duffle bags (nothing like last minute). They dropped bags at 3am, pulled their weapons from the arms room and then we waited. We hung around until 6:30 when the guys were going to load onto the busses and head towards the gym. Geoff decided he wanted to sent us away in the car so we did our goodbyes in the parking lot and didn't actually see the bus loading and all.

They then went to the gym where they manifested, got last minute shots and waited some more and I got the call at 11:45 that they were boarding the plane. Funny enough its actually a Ryan Air plane and the first flight was to Maine by way of Illinios to change crews, then on to Iceland and Hungary, hopefully to be in Kuwait sometime tomorrow...

Light A Candle

Friends of Geoff's at St Thomas Moore have started a candle page at gratefulness.org The group name is GC&F and here is the link: http://www.gratefulness.org/candles/candles.cfm?l=eng&gi=GC%26F I just showed it to Geoff and he said "put it on the blog, maybe I'd get lots of candlage, that'd be pretty cool" so here goes. Keep these guys and their families on your mind and light a candle if you'd like!

Pack it up, Pack it in

FORT HOOD – Four days after the first of its soldiers left Central Texas for Iraq, the 1st Cavalry Division's 4th Brigade Combat Team cased its colors. "We are ready – physically, mentally and emotionally," said Col. Philip F. Battaglia, the brigade's commander.
This deployment comes after the brigade's soldiers spent 18 months at home, including rotations to the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., in November 2007 and the Joint Readiness Training Center in March 2008. Battaglia was in command for five months before leading the brigade to its first training center rotation.
The "Long Knife" brigade was part of the 4th Infantry Division and deployed with it to Iraq in late 2005. The soldiers received orders to return to Iraq in July 2006, according to information from the brigade. As part of a reorganization between Fort Hood, Fort Bliss and Fort Carson, the brigade re-flagged as a 1st Cavalry unit on March 7. The former 4th Infantry soldiers stayed at Fort Hood, but adopted the unit designations of the 1st Cavalry brigade, which transferred its colors from Fort Bliss. The unit flags that were cased during Wednesday's ceremony will be unfurled in Iraq when the unit officially assumes responsibility for the 82nd Airborne brigade.
"The next time our colors fly, we will be in combat," Battaglia said. The colonel then addressed the soldiers' loved ones, saying he knew they would endure difficult days during the deployment, and he tried to reassure them. "Your soldiers in this brigade are deploying with the best equipment, training and most knowledgeable leaders in today's Army," he said. He gave his absolute assurance that Fort Hood's partners in the local communities would take care of things at home. Maj. Gen. Daniel P. Bolger also paid tribute to the families during the ceremony, saying they were "truly the most distinguished guests." "You families are who we fight for," he said.

Its really real

I know there haven't been any posts for a while and this is fair warning that there won't be many more over the next week or so... This is all really happening and unforunately its not really something that I want to immortalize in words.
Today is the casing of the colors, basically they box up the flags and guidons of the squadron to send with the first people heading over "torch party". Tomorrow is family day and then the guys have a 3 day weekend. We don't really know what we're going to do except for stare at eachother, laugh, hug and cry. As of right now the guys report to Squadron at 3am monday night/tuesday morning. I don't know much more than that other than we are saying goodbye there and aren't allowed to go to the gym with them. (The gym is where they really get their stuff together and load vans to the airfield, they are usually there for 6 hours or so, so I'm not sure how I feel knowing that hell be on base but we just can't see him) Please keep us all -our family plus the 1-9 family- in your thoughts, send warm fuzzy vibes our way and I'll get back to you after Rory's Operation Cheer Up Ellie has been completed!