Fabulous Army Life

Greg and Lori are visiting this weekend and I'm so thrilled to have them here. We had a slight mishap on their first night here last night, but managed to overcome without anyone going to jail. ;) It turns out that they arrived while Nate and I were still at a farewell dinner. She texted me when they arrived and I let her know we were still in the speech-making part of the evening and would be along in a bit. She texted a few minutes later and said that the police were outside my house! Apparently, one of my neighbors had called the police when their truck sat in front of our house for 15 minutes. They had gotten out of the truck and walked the street to stretch their legs then got back into the truck when two police cars pulled up. They checked their IDs and their reasons for being here, and eventually decided they were no harm to society. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. So we got over that part of the trip pretty easily and spent today doing all kinds of fun stuff....

As I was cleaning out our home office today, I came across an old college notebook from a writing course I had taken at Baylor. Our assignment was to write a letter to someone filled with memories of time spent together. I had chosen to write to my cousin Lori and, although it was a rough draft, I just had to post it. I finished out the last part and laughed out loud at some of the superfun memories with Lori, my cousin and friend. Dear Lori, As I reflect on the time we have spent together, I remember so many wonderful memories with you. Laughter always comes first to mind because we have shared so much of it. We start out giggling over some trivial nothing and soon are rolling in teary-eyed, side-splitting, I-can’t-catch-my-breath laughter. Days later, we will laugh again when one thought triggers another and we think of the same funny thing. After all, we are ‘more funny repeated.’ Our memories together are vast and varied for they have been collecting since, well, basically fr...

Lori singing at Migs. Isn't it funny how locals will name their own establishments?  In my little hometown, there is a yummy Tex-Mex place called Miguelitos.  The locals call it "Migs."  They have a live band on Thursday and Friday nights and seating on the patio is premium.  After spending the day at the hospital with Dad (who was very loopy from his serious drugs after surgery), my sister and I headed to her house to spend the night.  On the way, I called my cousin-and-friend, Lori, to see if she wanted to meet us for dinner.  Turns out she and her sister were headed to Migs already!  So we called Mom who called our sister-in-law who brough her daughter ... and we ended up taking up most of the patio by the time we were done. Lori is a singer.  She has a beautiful voice and sings locally at fairs, events, and ceremonies all the time.  It's fun for her and we all enjoy listening.  At some point during the evening on the patio...

I was so excited when my cousin called this week and we worked out a time for her to come visit! We are a year-and-a-half apart in age and have been friends since childhood. We joke that we are "cousins and friends" because 'cousins' doesn't explain our relationship well enough. We live in different places and both lead busy lives so we don't always get to talk as much as we'd like. Fortunately, we have the kind of friendship that always feels like we just talked and are continuing an ongoing conversation. My favorite thing about her is how we laugh when we're together. We're totally silly and laugh continuously when we're together. We have tons of those kind of 'inside jokes' that nobody finds funny but completely crack us up.  So ... when she came to visit, we made the most of it!  She'd never been on an Army post so we had to show her around.  My hubby was a great guide for us, explaining all the equipment and pointing out ...