For those of you that have been following us, remember I told you about watching movies on military instillations? Before the movie starts the national anthem is played - all soldiers stand at attention and the civilians in the theatre put their hand over their hearts? (And remember I told you I always CRY before the movie.) Here is another one of those moments that puts a tear in my eye, a lump in my throat and makes my heart swell with pride. Every day at 5PM here on Ft. Hood (except Thursdays when it happens at 3PM) the bugle starts playing and traffic stops all over post. Everyone gets out of their car and stands at attention while facing the sound of the bugle. This is the time of day when the flag is being lowered. I am proud to be an American and I am proud to be a spouse of a soldier.  I know you can't see it well, but if you look closely you will see a street full of soldiers standing by their cars saluting as the flag is being lowered.
Last night I planned to make cilantro-lime chicken for dinner, however I had just skimmed over the the recipe not realizing it needed to marinate for 4-8 hours and since I had been at the dentist office all afternoon I didn't really didn't want to cook anyway so we loaded the kids in the minivan (yes, I said minivan) & headed to Mel's Burger Joint, a cute little place here in Copperas Cove. The decor is adorable & the people are great! I love reading all the signs hanging on the wall, my favorite one said "Be nice or go away", another cute one said "In God we trust, all others must pay cash". And it is true, you must pay cash at Mel's, they take no other form of payment, I even offered up one of my cute kids for payment, but they still said "cash only". They even have these little triangle peg games on each table to keep the children (and adults) entertained, or in our case, keep them fighting. Luckily Mel’s was not that busy when we were there so we were able to take the games off other tables so each of our children could have their own and we could have dinner in peace. This is a large basket of fries; it was more than enough for our family. All six of us rank the type of fries we like in order, this type of fry is 2nd to bottom on most everyone's list (with the BIG FAT steak fry being at the bottom), however, these fries were pretty good for being ranked toward the bottom on our favorite fry list. We would order them again, but if we do, next time we will order them with CHEESE! I'm the onion ring fan, I LOVE o’rings. These, I liked & would order them again, but I would give them 3.5 out of 5 stars. Not the best o'rings I've ever had, but not the worst either. Two of the kids ordered grilled cheese sandwiches, I am assuming they were good since both kids gobbled them up. I ordered the mushroom swiss burger. It was good, but I'm guess I'm not as big a fan of Mel’s burgers as others that wrote reviews. I didn't really think this burger was much to write home about. Plus they charged extra for lettuce, tomato & onion. Really? Aren't burgers supposed to come with veggies on them? Don’t get me wrong, they were good, just not “great” like I was expecting. So, in review, Hubby and I are torn, would we go back? Maybe, but in our opinion, it was a bit to pricy, and the fact that they charged us $1.00 for TAP WATER kind of threw us for a loop. So if you go be prepared to pay extra for everything, including mustard and mayo, an extra .25 cents for both of these items. Ketchup is free. For the six of us, our bill totaled $62.00 for 4 burgers, 2 grilled cheese sandwiches, fries, o'rings 4 drinks & 2 waters. The atmosphere was great, and the people were friendly, but I would have rather had that top at Dillard’s I saw the other day....
Girl was invited to a birthday party 2 weekends ago and even though our schedule was booked to the max, I felt it was my responsibility as her mom to somehow fit this party into our crazy day especially since she is the new kid in town. So, I did. I planned to go, sit in a corner and read a book. I was dressed to go out for the evening, because right after this party we were heading to Austin for our next event.
Circumstances arose and they needed help at the party, so guess who pitched into help? You guessed it. I was told I am the first person to climb at Boulders in high heels.
After living in Korea for 2 years, I forgot about some of the simple pleasures of life. The one thing I discovered is that I really missed is the drive-thru ATM! Are you kidding me? Drive-thru ATM, I totally forgot about these! Normally I would park at the 'gas station' gate walk out to Iteawon, cross a busy street praying the whole time that I would not get hit by a bus, cross another super busy street, walk 2 miles up hill in the snow before I could make it to my bank to get won out. (Yeah there we ATM's on post that I had to walk to as well, but the Iteawon bank sounded so much more dramatic and exotic!) Anyway, back to the point, the first time I saw the drive-thru ATM I about wet my pants! I had to drive through just to do it! I can't tell you the sheer joy that was flowing through me as I was punching the pin number in while sitting in my car! Now, it that wasn't exciting enough, when I drove out of the drive-thru ATM, you won't believe what I saw, now this nearly brought me to tears... Chick-fil-A is a place I really missed. Sometimes I would wake up at night in tears because I missed the Chick-fil-A sandwich. (OK, not really, but is sounded good) I ate at Chick-fil-A 5 times in 36 hours after arriving to the state of Texas (seriously). Oh, and I forgot to mention I used the drive-thru at Chick-fil-A! I'm in drive-thru heaven! I can even drive-thru my kid’s school! Seriously, I don't even have to get out of the car when taking my kids to and from school! There are fantastic volunteers that open the car door and let my children out of the car in the morning, and then after school they bring my children back to the car!
If you followed Six in Seoul, you know there was tons of shopping to be done in Korea. The one thing I did miss was the American malls. Yes, there are malls in Korea, and most of them are much nicer than those here in the US, however, much nicer equals MUCH MORE EXPENSIVE! Items in the malls in Korea were at least 3x's the price than in the states, so normally the only time I went to the mall was when I was giving a tour of Korea to guest visiting us. Needless to say I was more than excited when I went shopping with friends this past weekend.  Oh Ann, I've missed you so. There is one more thing I missed while living in Korea, MEXICAN FOOD!! You can get all sorts of great food in Korea, but we NEVER found a good Mexican restaurant. We have been back in the states about 6 weeks & I have to say if one could OD on Mexican food, Hubby and I would be about there.
You would think since we have moved more than a dozen times in 15 years we would have it down to a science. I thought so too. This move has proved to be our most challenging move of all time. We hit walls every time we turned around once arriving on Texas soil. First, our rental car was too small (and it was UGLY), Hubby had to make two trips to the hotel, one with luggage, and then one with passengers. Next, Ft. Hood did not have a house for us even though we had been in contact with them at least 3 months out & were assured we should be able to get right in. OK, that stuff happens, I can understand that, people don't move out when they say they are going to, we can live in a hotel for a couple of weeks, no big deal as we are number 1 on the waiting list.
Next thing, I went to enroll the kids in school, only to be told by someone (I won't mention any names here) that my kids could not go to the school where we are going to live because we do not have a house assigned to us. I was told I would need to enroll the children in the school district of our hotel, and then move them once we got into housing. ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?!?! This unnamed person wanted me to move my children 3 times in one school year because he didn't want to fill out a letter of intent for me? Then he blamed it on the KISD. Whatever. He messed with the wrong Army Wife. After asking 3 times for the letter and being told no, I started making noise and went over his head because I knew this is not right and it seemed to me someone was on a power trip. To make a long story short, a new policy was written because I could not & would not let this one go for the sake of all children moving to Ft. Hood. This should not happen again, and if it does, just leave a message on here for me. Finally, (after 5 wasted school days) the kids are in school. Next, around day 12, we find out housing gave our house to SOMEONE ELSE!! WHAT!?!?! Again, long story short, things got mixed up....we had to find temporary housing. We are now living in a 'beautiful' (Did you sense the sarcasm?) 3 bedroom apartment (remember, there are 6 of us) on air mattresses on loan from friends. Our friends have also loaned us a coffee machine, microwave, lamps, sheets, TV, can opener and much more). Thank God for friends.
As of yesterday we got word we will be moving into our house on post on 6 May. Thank the Lord! I'm not sure how much more of this I can take. We have been living out of suitcases for 6 weeks now. By the time it is all said and done we will have been living out of suitcases for 8 weeks. However I am very thankful we have a roof over our head, cars to drive and food to eat. It could be much worse. I think God must have big plans for our family here.
I'm a Texas girl, born & raised. I left the state of Texas in the summer of 1990 and started sewing my oats as ‘they’ say. I met my future husband in the winter of 92 & at that point I wasn't sure I would ever return to Texas. Well, as Texas would have it, this is my 4th time back. You see, I married a military man, a 'tanker' who seems to be drawn to the 1st Calvary Division and as luck would have it the 1st Calvary Division is located in the heart of Central Texas. And this is where the newest chapter of our lives begin, Six in the Hood, Ft. Hood that is.
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