What an arrival!

Finally!!! We arrived at the Frankfort airport in Germany after spending 9 1/2 hours in the air. Tommy slept a good portion of the way. Many people didn't think that our son was going to behave so well but much to our pleasure he was amazing.

After meeting with the army in processing staff they took us to the busses that would be taking us to our respective basses. After 15 hours of being in an airport and 2 hours of processing and 3 hours of riding on a double decker bus be arrived at Warner Barracks.

now the fun really began when we were in-processing to the company and we were told I was DEPLOYING! and not just that but my unit is leaving at the end of the month! I have about as much time as a little 6 weeks before I'm expected to go to camp liberty, which is near Bagdad. Brittney and I haven't yet found out where we are going to live yet but that will be established in the next few days. In the meantime we're going to be very busy spending lots of time with Tommy.

Memphis Trip!

Saturday morning Justin and I decided to go to Memphis to eat at a famous BBQ restaurant. We saw it on the food channel and knew it would be awhile before we got the chance to go there. It's only a 4 hour drive, not too bad. The BBQ was really good! It was the best we've ever had. It was worth the trip. We ended up staying the night there, so we could see Graceland the next day. (It's Elvis' house)

So the next day we went, and it was really fun. I was a little disappointed though, it just seemed disrespectful to me that they have his personal life out for the world to see. To me it should be private. They had his wedding suit and his wife's wedding dress out for tourists to see, that kind of upset me. I know if it were me, I wouldn't want all my things being photographed like that. I didn't think I would react that way, it surprised me. But we did get to learn a lot about his life. I didn't know that he was drafted into the army for the war, and it was interesting seeing his interviews on tape. 

Tommy was really good the whole trip, and he got his first taste of yogurt and loved it. He also got a lot of attention from the other people there, and of course he loved that too! He is going to be walking really soon, he pulls himself up and stands on his own all the time now. He loves getting around on his own and grabbing anything in reach. He is such a sweetheart, and a really happy baby! Here are some pictures of Graceland.

Bath Time!

Tommy LOVES being in the bath tub. When we start getting him ready to get in, he gets so excited! So today Justin put him in and then blew bubbles for him to play with. He didn't really know what to think of them. He now says mama, dada, shakes his head no, clicks his tongue when we do, waves, and pulls himself up and stands, and dances. We just can't believe how fast he's learning things! It's really hard for me too, because now when I put him to bed, he says mama over and over. It just breaks my heart! He has 4 teeth in, and he's getting more so he has a hard time sleeping without a little infant's tylenol. But he's really interested in food, and he eats well. He wants to eat whatever we're eating, but his favorite thing is baby carrots. Here is a video of Tommy saying mama and climbing on a box!

Justin's Graduation

Justin graduated July 10th! The ceremony was really good. In the beginning they had a short movie play, with real clips of soldiers in Iraq and interviews. It was so good that I teared up. After that they had a guest speaker, I can't remember his name but he was of very high rank and very important here at Redstone Arsenal. Then they had the soldiers come up and get their diplomas. I have a video of it, but it's not loading right. So here are some pictures instead.

There wasn't a huge crowd there, but there were only 25 graduates so they weren't expecting a lot of people. It lasted about an hour, and during the whole thing Tommy was saying "dada". Afterwards we got a lot of people coming up to us and talking about it.

So Justin is done with training! It seemed like it would never end, his training was the longest training there is, which was 10 months. So we're all coming down to AZ on the 23rd to pick up furniture and see family, we get back to Alabama on the 28th, we have our things here being picked up on the 29th, and we leave for Germany on the 30th. So we're going to be pretty busy at the end of this month. Right now we're waiting for me and Tommy's passport. We're not sure if they will be here in time. If not, Justin will have to leave without us, and Tommy and I will leave as soon as our passports come in. We're really hoping that's not going to happen. But they should get here in time.

look at him dance

We have had this for a while. This is tommy dancing to the music on Brittney's phone.

He is so amazingly cute. 

It's official

Well today i had to take the AFPT (Army Fitness Physical Training) test. I had to run the 2 mile in less then 16:36, preform more then 40 push-ups, and more then 50 sit-ups. Well it took me a long time to pass it when i got here to Redstone but I was even more nervous about taking it now. I just had a recent knee injury and was not able to run. Well I passed it! YAY!! I couldn't believe it. I worked really had and now it means that i can graduate with my class and go to Germany with the rest of the family. Brittney was so excited to hear that I had passed. I can't wait to go with Tommy and Brittney to Europe. YAY I PASSED!

Life Before Crawling

Justin and I were wondering how Tommy was getting around, because he would somehow go from one side of the room to the other and we never saw how he did it! Well, Justin caught it on tape, it's really cute how he gets things. He's crawling around better now, this was about a month or so ago.