June post

Well, June is pretty much over, and half the year has gone by with it. It feels as if I just updated this thing a couple of days ago, but time is fleeting. The weather here in Virginia is H-O-T. The object of every day seems to be to keep the kids jugging down liquids so they don't konk out while they're playing.
Anyway, what's new? Grift's unit split in unequal parts to make two completely separate (although they share the same building) mortuary affair units. So he is now an ex 54th soldier, now in the 111th. I think that's it for the big stuff. Here is June in photos:



June 5, 2005
Remember those two week passes? We went back two more times before it expired and Tyree climbed to the top of the tallest wall there was. It is actually 54 feet up, not 50 like I wrote. Tyree loves this stuff.


Grift yelled up to him "turn around and look at mommy" so that I could get this shot. I'm so proud of my monkey boy.


June 11, 2005
Another T-Ball game. Sarah's just hit the ball in this one. She doesn't have the outfielding know how yet, but she makes up for it every time she's up at bat.


This was also picture day, but Coach Karen was out of town or something, so the team took pictures with the stand in parent coach. There were actually 12 kids on the team, but 3 were absent.



June 18, 2005
Grift was given free tickets to the "Ducks Unlimited Great Outdoors Festival" through work. It was all about hunting, fishing, ATVing, and everything that goes on with outdoor country stuff. Honestly, it was a lot of fun, except for it being so hot. Grift was tasked to take some pictures which could possibly make it into the Fort Lee "traveler" newspaper. Two actually made it in there - one was of one of his soldiers getting free gun locks (they love to showcase safety), and the other one was of Sarah and Tyree Fishing. And I was only mildly irritated that he got the photo credit for the latter, even though he and I (and now you all) know that I took it. But hey, our kids were in the paper, I'll let Grift take the credit (this time).


Here's Tyree with one of Daddy's soldiers. This gun could possibly be both taller and heavier than my son.


There were all sorts of things to try out, like kayaks, canoes, atv's, 4 x 4 trucks, guns, and more. We did the kayak thing in this pond/lake/swamp-like body of water. Really, people, how am I supposed to know which is which? They all seem to be greenish brown, murky and thick. And when we flicked water with the oars, you could smell it too. I really appreciated the beautiful, clear, clean ocean after this. But that's besides the point, because despite all that, we had fun. Here's Sarah and Grift returning to the dock.


Here's Tyree and I in our Kayak. Tyree being Tyree, he couldn't just sit still like everybody else. No, he needed to stand up and hang halfway out the boat, and what not. You know, it doesn't help that I am always laughing inside when I am trying to tell him not to do certain things.


June 23, 2005
One of Grift's co-workers was out of town for a bit, so we watered their plants. And in their neighborhood we met a family who owned two ball pythons, so we chatted a while and befriended their pets. I was very surprised Sarah held them.


I, on the other hand was VERY uncomfortable at first. It doesn't look like it in this picture, but when it was around my neck I was freaking out. I come from a place where there is only one snake in the whole state, and that one's in the zoo.


Oh, that family also had a pet tarantula. Needless to say, Tyree was in heaven.


June 24, 2005
On this particular Friday, all of the mortuary affairs soldiers were ordered to go to Busch Gardens amusement park for the day. Busch Gardens gave all armed forces personnel and their families free one day passes, so they made it a company outing. Here is Grift and others getting briefed at their 06:30 formation before we drove out there. I think this is funny. We're so used to seeing BDU's, that this seems comical.


Here's Sarah with one of the wolves outside the Dark Castle ride.


Tyree and Grift try on some crazy hats at one of the gift shops.


I never saw one of these before, but this is the kiddy version of those swing rides at all of the carnivals...without the lift, tilt, and swinging. They literally go around in slow motion, so very young toddlers can even get on this. But Sarah was actually tall enough for one of the major roller coasters, so she went with Grift and the bigger kids while I and another mom took the little ones to do little kids stuff. There really is a lot to do. I'm sure we didn't do even 1/4 of the things there are to do, and we were there from 9am to 9:30 at night.
While we were there Grift exchanged our free ticket stubs with other peoples' paid stubs so that we could get season passes by purchasing just the upgrade. A single day costs $50 and we now have 4 season passes for around 28 bucks each. Now we can do things at our leisure, instead of cramming everything in a day.


June 26, 2005
Here's Sarah at her last T-Ball Game. It was so hot that two of her team mates got sick and had to leave the game. The heat here is not a joke.


The "Good Game" shot.


Here's the team with Coach Karen. Her son is Jacob, right below her.


After the game they were presented with their trophies. She was very excited to put it next to her soccer one. She likes to tell Tyree to "only look at it, don't touch it." I wonder where she got that from?

That's it people. I'll post again in July. Have a great 4th of July weekend.