Another Update

George is doing very well in Basic and Graduation/Family Day for that is April 10th, so we are going to go and see him. Jacob hopes to be able to go with us and surprise him. We will go pick him up at Ft. Bragg and go straight to Ft. Knox from there. It will be nice to have both the boys together for Easter. Especially since we know Jacob won't be home for it next year...he deploys in Aug. for 1 year. The following week George will start his Armor Tank Crewman training, also in Ft. Knox. This week is their 10-mile ruck march, overnight campout until Wed. evening and then they march back and get ready for Friday. Unfortunately, George can't go more than 50 mi. from base so we will be unable to go visit Roxie, Ken, and Jake ;-(. Hopefully we can see them in May when we go back for his graduation from Armor Training.

Update on the Boys

Just wanted to let family and friends know that the boys are doing well.

Jacob should be in his new living qtrs. by now and we plan to call him tomorrow and hopefully obtain an address for him, so look for an e-mail soon with that.

George is doing very well. He has been made Squad Leader now and is happy about that. They are in White Phase, which means they have a few more priviledges and don't have the drill sergeants in their face all the time now. His group won the Rifle Marksmanship Competition. He qualified as a Sharpshooter. He said he was only 1 point away from expert, but his gun jammed or something and messed up one of his shots, but he is happy he qualified as Sharpshooter as he didn't think he would. He is looking forward to us coming next month for Family Day. It is over Easter weekend, so we will get to spend Easter with him before he has to report back that afternoon. He will then start his Armor tank training and graduation is scheduled for that on May 29th, so we will go again to see him then. He called on Tues. and said that he should be finding out this week where he will be stationed after he graduates, so we hope to hear from him this weekend about that. Well, please keep writing him as he is very homesick and cards and letters help a great deal - no care packages please. He does like getting clipping of comic strips that you might think he would enjoy or cross word puzzles, word puzzles, word searches from the newspaper if you don't do them.

Easter Cards made by Sr. Ctr. Ladies

Here are a few of the cards that some of my ladies at the Sr. Center made (I had another picture of others, but I forgot to save it onto my cellphone, forgot my camera again) I took several stamp sets and demoed one similar to the Chick-in-egg one and they went from their to create their own. I also had some flowers, brads and foam shapes that they also used on the cards (as you can see). They had a great time. The center card with the cross was actually made to be a Happy Birthday card and since I did not have a HB stamp she had me handwrite it in for her on the inside. She wanted something that was somewhat masculine, and with what I had with me, this is what we came up with. The card you can barely see in the back in pink was also done as a birthday card, you can kinds see where I had handwritten "Happy Birthday" on it as well. She need one for a woman and one for a man. They had a blast creating their own Easter cards and each made about 4-5 cards - each one a little different.

Swap card

Another local demonstrator got several other demos and some of her customers together to do a local swap and this is the card I created for that. I used markers to ink up the stamp with all the colors and then stamped it...the colors used are Stampin' Up!'s YoYo Yellow, Pumpkin Pie, Creamy Caramel and Garden Green. The image is stamped on Very Vanilla and the edges of the Very Vanilla and the Pumpkin Pie card stock were distressed using the distressing tool. I chose not to put on a sentiment, but there is room in the upper left corner to put either Happy Easter, Happy Birthday, Thinking of You or Thank You or anything else you would like. Also, no sentiment on the inside so that they could customize it to what ever use they wanted or just use as a note card. I like the way it turned out....I will take a picture of the swap cards I received later and post them.

We've got SNOW!!!!

Well, I guess I spoke to soon the other day. Sunday it started snowing and by 6:30 pm Jacob took this picture with my camera.

Backyard from upper sliding glass door - glow is streetlight.

I LOVE SNOW! I just don't care to be out in the cold anymore, so I just watch the snow fall thru the sliding glass door and windows and then enjoy the scenery from the warmth of my home. Harold and I were watching the new Jesse Stone movie on Sun. evening and just before 11pm and the ending at a very crutial point the power went out....talk about frustrating....I can only hope it replays sometime this week so we can see the ending. Anyway, it stayed off, so out came extra blankets during the night and it was still off when we got up. Harold and Jacob made a grocery run and decided to buy a Coleman Propane Heater they found at Walmart. As soon as they got home they got out the propane bottles we had stored and the Coleman stove for later and assembled the heater (very simple) and the instant (and I do mean the instant) that Harold lit the heater, the power came back on. It was sooo funny. We let it continue to run for awhile though to help heat the living room as it was quite cold by then. The power had been out for 16 hrs. I had already called my friend, Margarethe to see if we could borrow her shower if the power did not come back on by early evening, but thank goodness it did. Here are some pictures Jacob took at about 11am today. Isn't the snow beautiful...just enough to enjoy, but not too much to drive you crazy. Jacob, Harold and another neighbors son, Jonathan shoveled snow from our neighbor Alice's driveway after doing ours.

Front of our house.

View of backyard from upper sliding glass door.

House across the street. They just moved out this weekend - moving to Naples, FL - just in time to miss the snow.

UPDATES on Jacob and George

No pictures, just new info. Jacob has been having problems with his knee since he started basic and then during Airborne his shins started bothering him, so after talking to us and his sergeant he decide to opt out of his Ranger contract for now and pursue that later. The decision was made on Monday and by yesterday they had his orders and he was packing to come home to get his belongings together to move to his first duty station. The possible locations were Ft. Bragg, NC and Italy. He got Ft. Bragg (all of them that were not doing Ranger got Ft. Bragg) He is very excited, Italy would have been okay with him, but he is glad to get somewhere close to home for his first duty station. He hopped a bus late last night and got home this afternoon at 4:45pm. It is good to have him home. He reports to Ft. Bragg on Mar. 11th, so we will have to celebrate his 19th birthday early (which is on Mar. 16th). At this time the plan is for us to take him down for his report date. He will see the doc if his shins are still bothering him when he gets to his unit, but hopefully being able to relax for awhile will allow them to heal from whatever the problem is and he won't have to.

George is doing well. We got a letter yesterday. He did misunderstand and did not get Platoon Guide, but he was made Team Leader and is happy about that. There is the PG, Squad leaders (there are 4 squads in his Platoon) and then him. His job is to make sure his squad accomplishes their missions. The letter was dated Feb. 19th and he said they had an eventful day because they were in full ruck gear and all 33 of them were standing in a small hallway and his clumsy a-- hits the fire alarm with his ruck sack as he was trying to get it off his back. So, of course, he runs down the steps, cause they live on the 3rd floor and he had to tell the drill sergents what he had done, so they had to file outside and wait for the fire dept. to clear the whole building, which houses 2 companies. Surprisingly, he didn't get smoked (punished) for it at all. He is, however, the guy that now makes sure that people stay away from the fire alarm trigger. I almost peed my pants reading this letter. It was so funny - I could just envision it all happening and him running down the stairs in a panic.

My RHSS Mardi Gras Brunch and then a Baby Shower

My Red Hat Scarlet Sophisticates group had a brunch at the New Orleans Cafe here in Fredericksburg on Sunday. We had a great time and sang, Marie LaVeaux (if you could call it singing). The food was delicious. I had "Crabby Benedict". Which was Eggs Benedict on a flaky pastry, ham egg, and crab meat with homemade hollandaise sauce - Yummy!



Immediately, following that I had a baby shower to go to for a young lady that I use to keep after school when she was about 11 y.o. (now 28 y.o.). Well, she did not make it to the shower as on Fri. morning she had the baby. A boy (which we knew already)...Well after eating some wonderful food again (saved room as I knew I was going and the food would be irresistable (Greek). We loaded up my Explorer and a couple other vehicles with gifts to take to the house (she came home that morning), so I got to see the baby and ended up spending the evening visiting with them, taking pictures of her opening all of her gifts and eating more food for dinner. Again, Yummy! Got home and realized I forgot to find out what she named the baby. I do know he was 6 lbs. 9 ozs. He is adorable! I will advise of his name later. I am making her Baby Shower Thank You cards for her and gave her the first 20 of them and only have 80 to go. Plan to get them to her in a few days as things got crazy around here. I threw out my back (unknown how) and couldn't do too much on Tues., Wed. I had a doctors appt. and then Jacob called with good news - more on that next. I will also post a picture of the "Thank You" cards when I get some more made (forgot to take pics of the first batch).

Here are some of the pics I took of the baby, Irene opening presents and Grandma Sophia and new grandson.