Lucky Dog

Here is Lucky modeling her latest pink sweater courtesy of Walmart. Justin thinks it's ridiculous, but I just couldn't resist getting her a little sweater with the weather getting colder and all. I think she looks adorable. However, she has learned to take it off in under five minutes, so I guess she won't be wearing it that often. It does make a nice chew toy though :)

Maia Cynthia Stoker Greene

Well, she really did it! My wonderful, willful, workaholic, sister finally got married! We are so happy for her and her new husband Kendall. They were sealed in the temple on October 18th 2008, and are now living in Nashville, TN. We flew to her wedding in St. Louis just for the weekend and then the kids and I went down to Provo for one of the receptions last weekend. It was a lot of fun. I saw so many people that I had not seen in years! It was awesome. My friend Susie took us in and let us stay at her house. Her kids and my kids had a great time together and it was just nice to be with friends who are glad to see you and aren't worried about how your children are wrecking their house. Thanks Susie, we had a great time!

"It's called trick or treat dad, not Talk or treat!"

That is the quote of the night from John. We had a great time walking around the neighborhood, meeting new people and getting lots of candy. But of course as the line indicates Justin talked waaaaaaay too much at each house and the boys soon were two or three houses ahead of us. The weather was perfect for trick or treating tonight. Not to cold or too hot. Lots of the neighbors were out in front of their houses with a fire pit burning and just enjoying each others company. It was great!
On my camera there is a picture of everyone in their halloween costumes, but for some reason I couldn't get it to upload and then the battery died so I'll have to get it up later. Just in case I don't, Joey was a knight, John a ninja, Samantha a ballerina, Nathan a cat, and Michelle a dinosaur, Justin was high school graduate and I was an old lady trying to catch him.
In addition to Halloween, Justin was honored at a luncheon for being the best group leader something something in his squadron. Because of this he was nominated to be the best best bestest something on the base, but got beat out by the Chaplain. You can't really win against a man of God. It's not really fair, but we're proud of him anyway. Though he did miss out on a really cool trophy that looks like a superman crystal. Sorry I can't remember the names of the awards, but essentially he got an award for being the best company grade medical officer in his squadron which I think is all of the medical officers. He also took the boards this week so we are really excited to see more of him around the house again. No more tests for 7 more years!!!!! YAY!!!!!! Tomorrow he gets to tackle my honey do list:)

Nina Pretty Ballerina

Here are pictures of Samantha's ballet recital back in June. She was beautiful and loved every minute of her routine. Here in Mountain Home she is taking gymnastics which she also enjoys.

All right everyone who thought we fell off the face of the earth, we are finally settled into our permanent home (at least fo the next 3 years). Update for the last 3 months: We got a puppy named Lucky. She is a pointer mix and a lot of fun. We love her a lot. Samantha is still deathly afraid of dogs, but whenever the dog is in her crate she will go over to her and tell her that she loves her and always wants to do lots of things that include Lucky like take family pictures as long as the dog is on a short leash. Michelle on the other hand is not afraid of her at all. She is always chasing the dog and needs constant supervision so that they don't hurt each other. As you can tell from the picture Nathan is not afraid either.



As for the rest of us everyone is doing well making new friends and enjoying the brisk fall weather. We still miss our friends in San Antonio, but are adjusting well here. I'm just excited to be in my new home! The garage is still full of boxes, but it's thinning down out there. For those of you who don't know, our summer was kind of crazy. We stayed in the TLF for about 3 weeks (nice, but sooo boring)Then we were homeless for a few weeks (thanks Maia, Mike and Sarah, the Zaugg family and mom and dad who let us crash their homes for various periods of time.) It was a lot of fun to see everyone. Then we moved into the old officer housing in gunfighter manor for about 6 weeks and finally to our new home on Bear Loop. It's nice to be permanent.

MT. HOME!

We finally pulled into MT. Home AFB yesterday afternoon! We left Texas on the 2nd of July and drove to Carlsbad NM. The next day we went to the caves and explored for the entire morning. Even then we left a lot unseen. It was really fun! That cave was HUGE! I don't think we even saw half of it. After that we were trying to make it all the way to Shiprock, NM that day, but the black car broke down around Albuquerque. We found a mechanic who was willing to work on it the next day (the 4th of July. So at about noon on the 4th we took off only to break down again about 100 miles away. We got towed back to a town called Grants where we found another gracious mechanic who worked on the car on the 5th. Meanwhile we spent the 4th at a casino in the middle of nowhere, NM with a spectacular fireworks display. THere was also a band that was really loud. The fireworks really were some of the best I've ever seen. The 5th we made it up to Provo and spent the night with Tyson, Janae and baby Reid. It was fun to see them. We went to church with them and then zipped up to Logan to see Micheal and Sarah. We stayed there for a few days and let the kids play. It was a lot of fun. Then we finally made our way to Mt. Home. I have to say especially on the drive out to base it really appears to be the land Desolation. There is No visible life on that fifteen minute drive. Not even sagebrush, really just a bunch of dried up cheat grass. Ahhh, home sweet home!

NASA

Memorial day weekend I realized was the last day Justin had off that wasn't a Sunday preceded by a 24 hr shift or being spent in Idaho, so we just had to make a whirlwind trip to Houston to see NASA. It was definately worth it. We had a great time and made lots of fun memories. We went up Monday night (because Justin worked all Sunday until Monday morning so we had to get him a little bit of sleep.) stayed in a motel, and spent all day at NASA the next day. It was really fun, except the sleeping in a motel with 2 double beds and 7 people. It worked fine last year, but for some reason this time I could not get comfortable at all. I had to share my bed with Samantha and Nathan, and Nathan was soooo squirmy. We could not get him to be still unless he was lying across everyone's pillows. It was awful! At least Michelle went down in the crib peacefully. I guess we will just bring sleeping bags for the next motel stay. We'll be making a few here in a couple of weeks. I'm getting really excited to move to Idaho. I think we will make a few stops along the way at Carlsbad Caverns and Moab and then maybe at Mike and Sarah's. There's a small part of me that would like to camp our way up there, but then there is the other part of me that knows that setting up a tent, building a fire etc. can make the whole trip just seem really long. Also, I'm not sure Justin would be up for it. But we might. Especially in Moab. I've only been camping a few times in that country, but it was gorgeous, except when we went camping at Zions and John woke up screaming at 2 am and wouldnt fall back to sleep until I drove him around in the car for a few minutes. Isn't life with small children great! Anyway back to the post topic, NASA was great, I would reccommend it to everyone who lives nearby. You should take the time to visit. There are lots of very kid friendly parts and then some adult interesting things also. Definately take the tram tour if you go.