Megan's visit

We just took Megan back to the airport after a 10 day visit. Shortest one yet, which was probably easier on her, but harder on the little kids. She has always been good at being patient and loving with them. Having her around made me pay a little more attention to how I speak to them too.

We tried to find fun stuff to do, close to home since Cory couldn't take any leave and has a crazy work schedule right now. We saw some historical sights and went to a local Ren. Festival. It was strange to hear Don Juan and Miguel tell the same jokes in such a different setting. Oh, and if you notice that there's no pics, Meg and I both forgot the cameras. We went to the Hill Cumorah pageant and saw Niagra falls and took Megan to her first drive in movie. The van pretended to break down at the hotel outside of Buffalo, and we got to have a little miracle.

Riverfest

Yesterday was Riverfest, which is a big thing around here I guess. We took a bus up to Alexandria Bay and then took a boat cruise around the 1000 lake area and looked at where all the rich folk used to live. The tour ended at Boldt Castle. Which was started by a guy named Boldt (duh) as a gift for his wife, but about 2 yrs before it was scheduled to be finished, she died and he abandoned the castle. For years it sat alone and untended and eventually wound up as part of parks and recreation as a tourist attraction. They are putting tons into it to fix up what time and vandals have ruined. Part of me wanted a castle of my own, all huge and spread out and fun, with crazy separate rooms for whatever you might want to do. The other part of me thought about having to sweep the place and decided it wouldn't be that fun after all. They had a lunch for us and back at the dock there were jumpies and a climbing wall and balloons. Fun stuff, good day.

Paddle boats

There is a small lake here on post, Remington Lake, and they rent paddle boats. So, one day after school we took the kids down and rented two boats (have to have a grown up on each boat) and took an hour to paddle around the lake. We started out with Cory and Simon in one and everyone else with me, but we swapped around so everyone got turns with mom and dad. Heidi was a paddling fool!! She paddled almost the whole time and never got tired. We picked lillies off the lily pads and saw a blue heron and some turtles and fish.

Yeah for Max!!

Max also had am amazing day today. I wanted to blog it separately because I thought it deserved its own spotlight. Every month at Calcium Elementary they have a different attribute they work on, to become Peacemakers. For May it was courage - the courage to do what was right no matter what. Heidi and Simon had received a peacemaker award the two previous months, and I am so proud of them for that but understanding the struggles Max has, I was not expecting the same from him. But he did it. He was so well behaved that he was nominated for the courage award for doing something that is hard for him - having a positive attitude at school. So today at the Peacemaker assembly Max got to go up and get a certificate ( and a coupon for free ice cream in the cafeteria - the real prize for him). Yeah for Max, and yeah for Calcium for helping my baby succeed.

Flag Day

Today was Flag Day and the kids school put on a little assembly to celebrate. Simon said he was holding a flag and wanted me to come, so I loaded up Spencer and went - sure it would be another boring school assembly (great mom, I know). So we went to the front of the school and listened to the Bell band (yep, they played the bells) and then some kids read essays about what the flag meant to them. The whole time, this crazy helicopter kept flying over the school. Being close to the airfield, we are pretty used to it, and I just figured it was a bored pilot checking out what was going on. Then the principal says, "if you'll all just turn around where you are, our special guests will be joining us." A black hawk and an Apache then proceed to land on the other side of the parking lot. The kids were going crazy!! Spencer has never held so still - totally in awe. Then one of the pilots hops out and looking completely "Top Gun"-ish runs over and takes off his flight helmet and gives the principal and school a flag that he flew on 9-11-09 in a combat mission over Iraq. By which time I was crying, overcome by the awesomeness of the American soldier I guess. They stayed all day and the classes took turns going out and meeting the pilots and climbing all over the helicopters. Very good Flag Day!

Hey Look, NY can be pretty

The weather is so nice today!!! Poor Cory had to do a 24 hour shift and didn't get home till 11am, but he didn't want to waste such a nice day just sleeping so we headed out to find an adventure. There was a little car show down in Watertown, and we went to a part while we were there. Stopped by the Commisary for Pizza and ice cream. Now he's taking a nap so later we can go hit one of the awesome trails we've found (which there would already be pics of if someone could remember her camera). Still not sure about winter up here, but so far we are loving the spring!!

Other peoples children

Why is it that every time I spend time with kids from other families, I love my kids all the more?? Don't get me wrong, my kids are (often!!) pains in the fanny, and it's not that the other kids are even bad. Heidi had her friends over this weekend for a sleep over. Five girls, all around 8 yrs old, but the levels of maturity were so different. Some couldn't get drinks of water for themselves, others wanted to borrow the car (jk). I overheard several tiffs, but only one girl kept asking me to fix the problem. Some did what I asked the first time, others had to be hovered over and forced into action. By the time I got them all to go to sleep it was 1 am. I hope that it was a little easier for my mom to have all us girls, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't. Maybe because we were around a little more she knew what to expect from us. And I will never know how teachers don't go crazy ever single day. The one good thing about having alot of extra kids in the house is how quiet it seems when they all leave again.

Worlds worst blogger

Yeah, that'd be me. I never write on here, just spy on everyone else. Sorry!! We are in NY now, stationed at Ft. Drum. When I say NY people get excited about NY city, but I have to say that it is in no way related to the rest of the state. If you look at a map (which I never did till we moved here) you can see that it just hangs off one corner, rather like a booger. Where we live is very rural. All cows and corn farms and stuff like that. We are living on post - a new adventure for us, but an okay place to be. And as of this week, I think warmness has finally found us. By warm I mean all of 80, but it feels so nice after the crazy coldness that we moved into.

Cory finally got his schooling scheduled for October. He's happy about changing jobs, but is now kind of on everyones poop list because they are deploying in Oct. So he's had every crappy shift that needed to be pulled, but he's home most nights and that's a step up from the last few years.

We just picked up about 100 brochures on all the fun stuff to do and see around here, so hopefully I'll be blogging about the wonders on Northern New York soon.

The Army is driving me crazy

In Korea the man says he can't help Cory because he already has orders for NY. At Ft Hood the man says he can't help Cory but that as soon as Cory gets to NY they can help him and if not he can always re-enlist for guaranteed duty station (ft hood) and come back. The man in NY tells Cory he can't help him until he's been in NY for at least a year and he should have done all this in Korea. Also the unit he is attached to will be deploying in Oct. So, if Cory stays in NY for a year he will deploy and his contract will come up while he is down range and he'll actually come home from the deployment early because he'll run out of time. There is no way my husband will re up while he's away from home - he's already had two shots at it.
So, do I put my house up for rent and move my family to NY to live with my hubby for 8 months and then turn around and come home alone? Do I stay in NY alone for a year, knowing my husband will be unemployed again when he gets back? Do I make my husband miss another two years of his childrens lives and just stay here? Most importantly, does the army offer disability payments to spouses when they've gone crazy from dealing with all this junk?

We were all at Simons pack meeting and we were playing "stink eye" (a currant favorite of Spencers) and I asked Max to show me love eyes instead of stink eye. So, in about 12 yrs when I see this look on his face again, I'll know he's found the right girl, or he's high and watching the colors spin.