The first steps on a new path

Our first week at Fort Leonard Wood - BEAUTIFUL!

October

I certainly have a LOT to catch up on!!  :-)  The last bits of October we had lots of fun with friends and Trick or Treating.  Since Nick was clearing he got out of his last Field.  Thank goodness!!  We did lots of packing and cleaning and we also got a visit from my mom!  Click HERE for all of the October pictures.

Grandma Parker with Walker and Jocelyn

Trick or Treating with Christy and her family

Ryder was Superman, Walker was a Ninja Skeleton, and Jocelyn was a Pirate Princess

 November

We had the twins 4th birthday party a little early so we could celebrate with our El Paso friends and also made it a going away party for us also.  It was so much fun and we hated to say good-bye to such wonderful friends but we hope to see them again and I think almost everyone (we know anyway) can't wait to leave El Paso!!  LOL  Click HERE for all of November's pictures.

Miss these girls!!   Our names are all Lisa!  :-)

The kids playing in our backyard at the party.  I kind of miss that mountain but I still love it here WAY more LOL

Ryder and his Mr. Smith

Birthday cake time!

Present time!

Jocelyn and Walker blowing out candles

Walker just chillin' at the top of the slide

Jocelyn going down the slide

Daddy helping put together one of Walker's toys

Our little Princess

Soon after the party we loaded up our truck and said good-bye to the only house the kids knew/remembered.  The real beginning of our new adventure!!!

Our giant truck that still didn't fit everything LOL

Since everyone was in the field we got the "broken" guys that were on Rear D - Smith just had surgery on his hand and Gault had surgery on his foot.  LOL  Poor guys!  They were troopers though and we got everything loaded (that we could fit anyway LOL)

Smith took the kids for a walk to keep them out of the way here and there.  :-)

 

 

I think this was the 2nd to last night in our house.  All the bedrooms were cleared out and shut off since the carpets had been professionally cleaned so Nick and I slept in the dining room on an air mattress and the kids slept on the other side of the wall in the living room on their crib mattresses.  It was definitely a little crazy but we made it work.  Unfortunately Miss Bailey was very upset because all of her couches were in the truck and she was going where the heck do I sleep??  LOL

 After a VERY quick housing inspection that we passed (thank goodness!!) we said our final good-byes and hit the road!!  Let the adventure begin!!  :-)

In the Explorer - Bailey and Walker in the 3rd row (with one seat down) and Jocelyn and Ryder in the 2nd row (and me LOL)

Ryder passed out pretty quickly

If I ever have to see this view again it better be from just passing through - NOT LIVING THERE!!!  LOL  Good-bye desert!!  ;-)

We arranged our route so that exactly half way we could stop in Arlington, TX and visit my sister, Angelina, and her wonderful family.  We were only there for 2 nights and one full day but we made the most of it.  She was SUCH a big help watching the kids for us for awhile so we could re-organize the moving truck (my mom was amazing and got us mattresses for all of the kids and they were waiting at her house...where we stayed).  Unfortunately since the moving truck was plumb full we didn't have the extra space for the mattresses that we anticipated.  SO we had to do some last minute re-organizing.  Without Ang watching the kids it would have been very difficult so a great big THANK YOU!!  Then we were super lucky and Angelina had gotten 2 fantastic babysitters to watch our 6 children so we could go out!!  :-)  Nick, Angelina, and I had an amazing dinner at Joe's Crab Shack!!  :-)  Bright and early the next morning we headed out for our final stretch and got to see some beautiful views as we headed more into the mid-west.  I was beyond excited to see trees and water!!

4 out of the 6 kids - Ryder, Walker, Colton, and Jocelyn

2 out of the 6  :-)  - Ella and Carly

My sister, Angelina, and me at Joe's Crab Shack

The 4 "older" kids  :-) - Walker, Ella, Colton, and Jocelyn

Awwww - sweet cousins!  Carly and Jocelyn

What's that!!!??  Oh it's real trees and grass!

Hello to our new state for a year!!  :-)

Love the scenery here!

FINALLY almost home!

We got checked into our hotel room (pet cottage that was wonderful!) and fell blissfully to sleep.  The next day we were lucky enough to meet up with a new friend, April, who let us store our trailer at her house off post so we went over to her house.  It is just SO gorgeous here!!  Love all the trees and the curvy, hilly roads!

Playing at April's house

Our Pet Cottage - our own (very) little house but it had 2 bedrooms, a small kitchen, a living room, and a bathroom.  AND plenty of room to park the truck right outside and a nice place for Bailey to get some fresh air.

Bailey "Dad where the heck are we!!??  I kind of like all these new smells but the shouts at 5am from the new people at boot camp over the hill kind of freak me out"  LOL

Nick's school for the next year!  :-)

We found this dirt road that led to a little parking spot and a trail for fishing.  It is just gorgeous and this is all ON Fort Leonard Wood.  (After 3 1/2 months of living here I still am amazed I live somewhere so pretty!)

So peaceful.  Love this picture

Nick showing the kids the wonders of nature

So pretty - and we got here before all the fall leaves were gone.  Yay!!!  :-)

Showing the kids how to skip rocks

Me and Jocelyn getting ready to go to Thanksgiving at April's house.  We have been SO lucky to meet so many amazing people here!  What a great start to this new journey we are on!

Ryder didn't quite make it to Thanksgiving dinner.  LOL

We were very surprised the next morning when housing called us and told us the house we were supposed to be getting in 4 days was "overlooked" on the cleaning list and wouldn't be ready.  Grrr.  HOWEVER they had a house that was almost the exact same that we could move into that day if we wanted it.  Hmmm.  Deal.  LOL  We went and looked at it and I liked it better than the one we were supposed to get.  It had 2 extra storage sheds in the back but it didn't have a fence.  In the end we decided to take it and moved in that day.  Once again April came through for us and between her family, some other guys in the senior Prime Power class, and a friend that Nick knows from Basic that lives here we got our entire moving truck unpacked in about 2 hours!!  They were amazing!  We were so happy to finally be in our new home!!  :-)  View all of the pictures of our new house HERE

The kids haven't had stairs in the house for as long as they can remember and they were amazed at 4 sets of stairs!!  LOL

Exploring the house

The back  (we have 4 sheds altogether - the long skinny one is actually 2)

We got the truck unloaded in 2 hours but this is what my front room looked like.  LOL  That's ok though.  We got it sorted out pretty quickly and I was just so thankful the truck was unloaded!!  LOL

We tried to get things unpacked as quickly as we can and we were able to celebrate the twins 4th birthday with a low-key present opening and a nice dinner at Colton's Steakhouse.

Since this is so incredibly long I'm going to make a part 2  :-)  I'll post that soon with December - now  :-)