Update....

Wow I can't believe that I have not updated this in a whole month. I have been semi-busy and have not had a chance to update or post anything. Sorry guys. Anyways this being the last day of February I will say how fast this month has gone by. YAHOO for that since it is one month closer to Morgan coming home.

Well sadly our family suffered yet another loss. Morgans grandpa passed away a week ago. Not unexpected but still very hard on the entire family. He will truly be missed. But on a lighter note I am sure he has already found a crowd of people to tell all of his war stories too. :)

Morgan has been on nights this month. While I hate barely getting to talk to him I have been getting a lot more done since he is not on the computer all morning with me. HA HA! I am very ready for him to go back to days so we can talk more though. He seems to be doing pretty well and will hopefully have an update for you guys soon.

Well I am now 23 weeks pregnant and getting anxious to have the baby. I don't know if I am excited or terrified. I have all of his diapers ready, well bought but not washed. His grandma Kaye bought a lot of them so thank you Kaye.:) I will share a picture of his diaper stash in this update. I have been getting the room ready for him as well. He will be sharing a room with Ryan since Morgan and I are too selfish to give up the office/spare room. I mean the kids don't spend any time in there rooms anyways. I got him a new bed as well. It is a round crib and will be saving a TON of space in the room since the room is fairly small. I have sent his bedding off to be altered to match Ryan's bedding. I cant wait. It should be done next week. I now have to start buying the dreaded baby gear that cost way too much money but you have to have. HA HA!

The kids are all doing well. Ryan is still doing great using the potty. Emily is learning how to read and is very excited about it. Jordyn will be 9 years old on the 11th of march and her mouth might be 14. LOL But they are doing well and staying adjusted pretty well to daddy being gone. He has been calling them before school and that has helped a lot. We miss him so much.:(

Well I am off to learn how to stop time since I refuse to have another Birthday tomorrow. Question?? How can I stop time, get Morgan home, and have this baby so I can see his sweet little face all at the same time? Dang just what I though, impossible. O well maybe next year.

Excuse the picture quality. I took them on my phone. I was too lazy to get the camera from downstairs. :) The Helicopter diaper is my FAVORITE!!!

My Educational Plans

Hello everybody, I felt that I needed to make this post so that what I say here can help stay accountable for my aggressive plans for my advanced education. As well as giving a brief explanation of how I can afford these plans. First of all I will let everybody know that I am currently enrolled at American Military University working towards my bachelors in Psychology. I have already completed 60 credit hours towards this degree. The military has a program called Tuition Assistance. Basically, this program gives every service member $4,500.00 every fiscal year to go to college, currently this covers about 6 classes a year. Which in most circumstances is fine because it is normally hard for me to do more than 6 classes a year, mainly because of my family, and work commitments. AMU has a cool program for its military students, because they have a book grant that provides all my books to me for free. I can keep them throw them away or sell them back when I am finished with the class. It also is completely web based. I can log in at anytime and check my classes or look at my academic plan to see what classes I have left. I currently have a 3.6 GPA, so I feel pretty smart right now.
My longterm plan is to apply for the Army's Physicians Assistant Program. If I am accepted to this program I will go to school in San Antonio for one year, and then I will do one year of clinicals at an Army post of my choosing. After graduation I will recieve a Bachelors and a Masters Degree from the University of Arizona. I will be a 1st Luitenant and have a rapid promotion to Captain in 18 months. My service commitment after graduation will be 4 years. So it should line right up with my 20 years of service. To apply for this program I have to have a couple of prerequisites. These are Chemistry 1 & 2, Anatomy and Physiology 1 & 2, 60 credit hours at an accredited college, and finally an SAT score of 1450, with a math and reading comprehinsion score greater that 1000 and a score of 450 or higher in each group. So my plan is to complete the SAT before I leave Afghanistan, the Army will pay for one SAT test, so I want to get it right the first time, so there will be no money out of pocket if possible. Then when I get back to Campbell I will enroll at Austin Peay University and take the Chem. 1 & 2, as well as the Anatomy and Physiology classes.
My super long term plan is once I am about 2 years from retirement I will begin my doctorate in Clinical Psychology. I won't go into detail on that one yet because it is pretty far away for now. So now everyone should know what my intentions are for my education, short and long term. Things that I think I will need to be successful are patience, determination, support from loved ones, an SAT study book for 2009, and a pinch of luck.

Thanks for reading our blog


Morgan

Morgan and I on our Anniversary..

This is crappy quality but I wanted to share. I had to take a picture of a picture because my scanner is not working. This is us right before mogan deployed and on our 7 year anniversary. I love this picture.

My Little Fish..

I just wanted to share a picture or two of Ryan Chillin out in the bath tub today. He thinks he can really swim. LOL

Ryan's New Bed

Well after searching for a BIG BOY bed for Ryan I have finally found one. I have over time been buying pieces of a bedding set that I LOVED. It matches what Ryan had on his crib as a baby. Now all of my searching is over and his bed and bedding looks great. Here is my babys new bed. He is getting so big. O and he will be sleeping in the crib tonight. I want him to get used to it being in the room before putting him in it. He is not good with change.

Fallen Hero

A 101st Airborne Division Soldier died Dec. 24 when his Combat Outpost came under enemy attack in Patkia, Afghanistan. Corporal Charles P. Gaffney, 42, of Phoenix, Ariz. was an infantryman assigned to Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault). Gaffney entered the Army August 2006 and arrived at Fort Campbell November 2007. Gaffney’s awards and decorations include: Army Commendation Medal; Army Achievement Medal; National Defense Service Medal; Global War on Terrorism Service Medal; Overseas Service Ribbon; Armed Forces Reserve Medal; Combat Infantry Badge and Weapons Qualification: M4-rifle, expert. He is survived by his wife, Latticia, and daughters Cara and Mia, all of Caldwell, Idaho; and father Charles Gaffney, of Phoenix, Ariz. A memorial service for the fallen Soldier will be held in Afghanistan. Fort Campbell holds an Eagle Remembrance Ceremony the second Wednesday of each month.

This is the soldier that we couldn't help, everyone put his family in your prayers.

Lost but not forgotten

Morgan

January 9th Black Friday

Well everybody, so far in my flying career I have been relativly blessed. I've never had to fly in really crapy weather, I've never been shot at, and I have never had to experience any major emergencies while flying. On black Friday the majority of that all changed, luckly I wasn't shot at and I think that was because the weather was so bad no one wanted to leave their caves and houses to shoot at anything. We got called on a priority medivac because a first sergeant in Gardez dropped a seventy pound weight on his foot, so he had a torn metatarcel extreme swelling, and a bottle of pills to kill the pain. We were supposed to pick him up and bring him back here to get an x-ray. Well we started up and got clearance to take the active runway for take off. As we picked up to a forward hover at ten feet we were turning on to the active, and I immediatley got a Master Caution followed by the engine out tone in my helmet. It took about 3 seconds to figure out what was going on and I simply landed the aircraft on the active and taxied it out of the way so other planes could land. The engine stopped because it wasn't getting any fuel. I even had the boost pumps on luckly our Maintenance Test Pilot finally declared the aircraft unsafe and told sikorsky that they owed us a new aircraft. We immediatly switched to another aircraft and departed to pick up the patient. By the time we picked him up and got fuel the weather had deteriorated greatly. We couldn't get back of the mountains where we came through earlier so we went south still no joy. As we were landing back at the FOB where we picked up the patient it began to snow. So we turned on our Engine Anti-Ice and pitot heat. We took off again hoping to find a break in the weather, but we were turned around by HQ because they said we didn't have approval to fly anymore based on the weather. So we turned around to head back, about half way back it began snow heavily and visibility came down to about a half mile. In the process we lost sight of themedivac bird, because we turned to avoid some really bad visibility. I turned on our rotor de-ice and got a T/R de-ice fail caution, which means that the deice capability wasn't working on our tail rotor. The deice system on a black hawk basically works like this. It picks up unusual vibrations from the blades, this vibration is caused by ice forming on the surface. When it reaches a certain vibration it heats up the blades, and melts the ice enough to where the ice is thrown off of the blade from the motion of the blades. It repeats this process as necessary. If iced had formed on my tail rotor, I could have possibly lost directional control of the aircraft. With this being said I was a little worried, and I think I had a piece of the seat cushion sucked into my butt crack, because it was puckering. Luckly, we made it back to the FOB without incident and immediatly shut down. We ended up spending the night and returned the next day. All in all it was a pretty crappy day, it just goes to show that you never know whats going to happen the next day, and that weather in Afghanistan is very volatile. I love all you guys and miss you, stay safe I know I am trying to.

Morgan