Fabulous Army Life

Our beloved Cairn Terrier passed away this morning after 17+ years with us. We were all with her when she stopped breathing. It seems she left this life the way she lived it ... on her own terms. She spent the previous 36 hours showing signs of her body breaking down as she wasn't able to stand or walk without assistance.  She's always been fiercely independent and highly energetic so the sudden change was very noticeable.  Once she hit this final stage, in my mind, she simply decided on her own to say goodbye, not willing to lead a life less than she was accustomed to.  She waited until all four of us were surrounding her and let us all say goodbye to her, then steadily breathed her last.  We will certainly grieve for her but are so grateful that she never suffered. She was full of energy to the very end. Nate, Trey, Joshua, and I spent some time today after she passed looking up photos of her and telling stories of how much she has impacted our lives. ...

We decided to try a new hiking trail today near Stillhouse Lake. The park is easily identified and the trail is great. We even got to cross over a suspension bridge.  The boys loved it and took turns re-enacting Shrek and Donkey's journey to the castle over a suspension bridge ... "Shrek! I'm looking down!!" Too funny. It turned out to be a really fun hike ... and only about an hour and a half longer than we'd anticipated. Because we were trying to locate a cave by way of grid coordinates (from a blog I found online), we weren't exactly staying on the pristine path created for hikers. One thing I learned about land navigation is that grid coordinates don't account for the actual topography of the land. Sure, it may be just to the right a few meters according to the GPS ... but you may have to cross a lake, a small mountain and a couple of barbed wire fences to get there. In the end, we made it to the cave and took a few photos for good measure. I...

My boys have loved the Mayborn Museum for years. Carter and Joshua at one of the new exhibits. Kitok's for lunch!  I was pretty jealous of this.  =) Wingspan of 7'1.5" ... wow. Watching the Baylor men beat the OSU men at basketball! Woot!  Woot! Waiting (patiently?) for the Baylor Football Celebration to begin. There they are!  The 2011 Baylor Bear Football Team! My boys with the Alamo Bowl trophy and RG3's HeIIIsman!! Granddad is ever the Baylor supporter. My handsome nephews with the Baylor trophies.  Sic 'Em! Joshua learned to play Chinese Checkers with his cousins. Some seriously tired boys after a super-fun weekend.

We hosted our final battalion-wide Family Night tonight with a potluck dinner, photos from redeployment, announcements from the rear detachment commander and battalion commander, then battery-level FRG break-out sessions. The kids had a great time with a "red dragon" theme, reading books about dragons, creating dragons from glittery red and gold play dough, paper plates, yarn, and crepe paper. It was a fun night and a great way to wrap up a deployment's worth of battalion FRG Meetings.