Pics/Weeked Recap

Grace before her yellow belt test. Man, she looks fierce, doesn't she? Believe me, when the testing started, she was NOT smiling like this. She was all business!


Davis + cap + tools = Handy Manny!

Jasen and the kids in front a tank on Military Appreciation Day at The Citadel

Grace and Davis in front of the new bulldog statue at Johnson Hagood Stadium
Davis pretends to be Simba, learning how to pounce. Too funny!


We had a good weekend. Let's see, Friday, we just hung out at home. Jasen and I were both dog-tired from the week. Three out of five workdays, Jasen leaves the house by 5:15 a.m. to get to campus to work out. Then, we see him in time for dinner. By Friday, he's smoked. So we just chilled at home which is always nice.

Saturday morning, Jasen went to play football with some guys from church. This time, he was happy with his performance and was quite sad that he had to leave early. We had to get to The Citadel to participate in the ROTC tailgate (I brought the chili). We had an okay time there. I just don't feel the camraderie that we've experienced in units in the past. Which is fine because I have enough family and friends! We went into the game for just a quarter. It was a little warm and our kids are still too little to really enjoy a game. Or leave us alone to enjoy it! We got to see the most exciting part, which was three of the Army's Golden Knights parachuting in with the game ball. Pretty cool!!

We left the game, went back to the tailgate for a little while, then headed home for Family Movie Night. We watched one of Jasen's childhood favorites "Darby O'Gill and the Little People." At first, I was less than impressed, but it got better as it went along. The kids liked it, of course.

Yesterday was church in the morning, brunch at Three Little Birds (new place, pretty good), then Grace had Awana and I had my ladies' small group Bible study. We are all meeting more people at church and becoming better connected. That's what church is all about. During his sermon, our pastor, Paul, made Jasen and I both cry. He just continues to hit home for us, either nudging us to do better or reminding us of things that have hurt in the past. But he always points us toward the Truth. What a blessing!

This week is going to be a barn-burner. Today isn't too bad. But tomorrow begins a lot of fun. I'll be blogging more about what is going on.

Yellow Belt!!

Grace had her belt test today in Tae Kwon Do and I am pleased to announce that she is now a yellow belt! I was able to sit in on her test and was so proud of her. They lined the six of them up to do the test and they all went at the same time. She got confused at one point, but she just paused, thought about it, then continued in the "routine." She was so excited when the guy announced that they had all passed. I was so proud!

We've been experiencing fall here in the South Carolina low country. The high the past two days has been in the mid-70s. Grace has been saying it's wintertime and I've been telling her no, but now, I am not so sure. I think this might be what winter will feel like! We've been total wienies, too, wearing jackets and long pants.

Where does it go?

The time that is. Where does it go? Has it really been almost a week since I last blogged? I am sure there have been big things that have happened, but I can't remember them! Jasen returned home from VA on Saturday, although a little later than he was supposed to. When he arranged for his shuttle to the airport, he arranged for the time he needed to be there for the connecting flight from Charlotte to Charleston, not the first flight, from Norfolk to Charlotte. Duh!! The kids were good, though, so I wasn't as mad as I could have been!

Sunday, we went to church, then brunch at Hominy Grill. Oh wow!! It was too delicious. This town has way too many good places to eat! Jasen had homemade biscuits with poached eggs and a special brown gravy on top. I had a "tomato pudding" omelet with goat cheese sauce. Both came with a side of home fries which were amazing. The kids shared scrambled eggs, toast, and the best bacon I've ever eaten. Oh, and there was homemade strawberry jam on the table. Yes, we love all the food here! And Grace has decided she likes grits!

We also hung up the valances I had made for our living room. They look so good! Once our bedroom is finished, I'll post pictures of our house.

Monday, can't think of anything special that day. And I think Tuesday was the same. I did have a doctor's appointment that day and it looks like I might need to have some surgery. It's a long story and a little personal. I'd just ask you all to pray for wisdom for the doctors, Jasen and me.

Last night, I had an evening out with the other spouses of the ROTC cadre at The Citadel. We had a good dinner of tapas and pizza and flights of wine. Good times!

Grandparents Day Redux

Davis gets a little fill-in grandparent time with Barbara Chapman


Grace Magnolia Graham and Grace Elizabeth Graham. Two Grace Grahams!!


Grace and her new best friend, Brianna, who is so precious. And her mom is from Texas!!!


Grace shows her journal to Mrs. Chapman


Grace and Mrs. Branch read about why she loves her grandparents.


Today was the Grandparents Day celebration at Grace's school. Our friend, Barbara was able to go with us. When Grace woke up, sat straight up in bed, and said "Today is Grandparent's Day. Mrs. Chapman can be my fake grandparent!" I told her that "fake" grandparent wasn't exactly right; we decided to go with "fill in." That girl!

We got there a few minutes late, but that was okay. We missed them singing the grandparent song, but I was kind of glad because I would have cried because neither of Grace's grandparents who really fit the song were there.

We were there when Mrs. Branch called the kids up to read about why they love their grandparents. Most kids said the canned stuff, you know, I love them because they love me. I love them because they are nice to me. Grace? Nothing canned with that girl. She said she loves her grandparents because they "take her to the store and buy her whatever she wants." Oh, the mortification!!!!! All the other parents/grandparents laughed and laughed; I wanted to find a hole and crawl in! Then I took heart that at least she didn't say I bought her whatever she wanted!

Have I mentioned that I love Mrs. Branch? Oh, I really, really do.

Overheard

Some random things overheard in the Graham house today:

"Mom, you need to watch more Diego," says Grace when I can't tell her whether the whale on Finding Nemo is an Orca or a humpback. Um, thanks, but no thanks!

"I need to go to fweep," says Davis after a fun time at school with Mrs. "Wester" a.k.a. Mrs. Lester.

"I wuv you," says Davis while Grace kisses his hand after school.

Jasen is gone this week to Virginia to be certified to teach cadets. Funny, he's already been doing that! Let's hope he passes the certification process! The time he has been gone has been much better than the last time he left. I think it's because #1 he's not in Texas whooping it up with our family and friends #2 I am not cooped up with both kids alone all day and #3 we actually know some people!

I went to volunteer at Grace's school for the first time today. Every other Thursday, I am going to go in and check the kids on their vocabulary words. It's awesome because I do it while Mrs. Branch leads them in other activities, which means I get to be a fly on the wall. I can't tell you all how much I love Mrs. Branch. On days that the kids don't have P.E., she makes sure they get a walk after lunch and they also do some things in class, like running in place while spelling words, jumping up and down, etc. I just think it's awesome. She's one of the teachers at school who is on the "Healthy School" committee. I am proud to say that Grace's school, Drayton Hall, just got the South Carolina "Healthy School" award. Pretty awesome, huh?

Oh, and remember the girl who was mean to Grace? I got to spend some one-on-one time with her today. Something inside me tells me she needs prayer. So I am going to pray for Miss Skyler. As long as she's nice to my girl.... Just kidding!

Tomorrow is the Grandparent Day celebration for Grace's class. I think I will probably cry. Our friend, Barbara Chapman is going to go with us, which is good. Grace will have someone special there. But Grace sang to me some of one of the songs they will sing tomorrow and it was all about what our grandparents do for us. I wish one of her grandparents were going to be there!! Oh well. It's times like these that I have to remind myself that the Army has opened up the world to me and our kids. I just wish it wasn't at the expense of time with our extended family. Then I have to remind myself that we make up for the lost time whenever we get to see our extended family!

Please continue to pray for people in Houston. My sister, Amy, and her family in Kingwood are still without power and, last I knew, they had not seen one single truck out in their neighborhood. Pray for restored power!

Growing Girl

Grace hit a milestone this week: she started riding her bike without training wheels. For some reason, we decided to go for a walk after dinner and she wanted the trainers off. She really started to get the hang of it. I think part of the reason she had an easier time (we've taken them off before) was that we borrowed the Kazors Skoot (sp??) before we left Kansas. She really figured out the whole balancing thing.

On 9/11, she said they assembled around the flagpole at her school and sang songs to the flag. One of the songs they sang was "You're a Grand Old Flag." When she sang it passionately, Jasen and I couldn't control our giggles when she belted out "And forever in a piece may you wade." Too funny!

Starting next week, I am going to go in every other Thursday to Grace's classroom to check their vocabulary words. Yea!! Mrs. Branch told me the other day that Grace is a delight, always ready to learn something, very attentive. That's our girl. Grace has always been ready to learn.

I had a great phone conversation with Sarah Kyle today. Oh how I miss her. Another friend that holds a very special, very dear place in my heart.

We are praying for our family in Houston.

Where were you?

It's hard, with it being 9/11, not to look backward and consider where we were on that day. I was already working either part-time or consolidated work week, so I had to be at work early. I was watching the Today show before I left the house and saw that they thought a private plane had hit one of the towers. By the time I got to work, they were sure it was no accident and that it was a jet. I called Jasen after I knew he'd be home from PT and asked him if he had seen what was going on. He said he was watching it on TV. That's when they announced the Pentagon had been hit. Jasen said an expletive and hung up on me. I got scared then.

The rest of that morning was spent in a daze. Having a sister who was/is a flight attendant made my family especially scared. I wonder how many messages/pages/beeps Katie had on her cell phone; we were all in a panic about her. I can't remember where she was flying to from DFW, but she ended up grounded in Louisiana. I'll never forget how I felt when I heard she was okay. I mean, at one point, we knew there were no more planes in the air, so I knew she was okay. But it was scary not knowing.

In the next two days, I spent over 8 hours in my car, just waiting to get back on Fort Sill to get home from work. I had one really serious breakdown on the phone with Jasen. I had been in line to get on post for over 2 hours. I'd eaten my lunch in the car, drank all my drink and had to pee badly. Truly, I ripped Jasen a new one because of the situation I was in. It was awful. Little did we know there was a reason I had to pee so badly and I was such a basketcase!

After that calmed down, we were scared about what it meant for Jasen. We seriously thought he would be sent somewhere immediately or relatively quickly. We were just waiting for a phone call. We had been trying to get pregnant for almost six months when this happened; we decided we better stop trying because who knew where Jasen would be. Little did we know that our little "peanut," Grace, was already cooking up inside me. What a treasure. When we found out I was pregnant, we knew it was a reminder from God that He is in control and knows better about when things should happen.

The next weekend provided visitors, Jen and Jason, and one of the scariest/funniest moments of my life. Because the Karnes hadn't visited Fort Sill before, we drove them around to show them post. We drove past the commanding general's house and stopped. I even rolled down the windows and pointed. Wrong answer! We were stopped a few blocks away where I was asked to get out of the car and seriously thought I might be arrested and I had no idea what for!! Evidently, driving by the general's house, stopping and pointing looks suspicious! Jen and Jason said they had seen enough of post after that. I was so giggly and sweaty, I was ready to go home, too.

Hanna Bust

Our first endeavor with a tropical storm was pretty mild. When I got out to go to the gym yesterday, the wind was blowing significantly and we had "spitting" rain, which is weird because usually when it rains down here, it rains. No mist. Anyway, those were the outer bands beginning to come ashore.

By three o'clock, it started raining steadily and continued all night long, with only a few minutes pause in between. Because of the trees behind our house, you can't really hear or feel the wind, but the upper limbs were blowing. Sometime after 10 (that's when I went to bed), Grace got up and told Jasen she was scared. In order to prevent her from waking me, Jasen slept with her. He said he didn't really hear anything, but Grace says the rain was really hard on her windows.

Being the sleeper that I am, I heard nothing!!

Our hurricane party wasn't much of one, either. We did nothing special and had no special movies to watch because the library was closed due to the weather. Darn! Oh well, today I will go get our movies that I have on hold. We did eat tacos, guacamole, chips, and hot sauce last night. Yum!!

We are saying of prayers of thanks that it looks like Ike won't be coming this way. And we are saying prayers of protection for whoever gets hit by that nasty one. We are glad that Hanna wasn't bad, but we did do some good preparation. We now have lots of bottled water and snacks. And we can fit both cars in the garage.

Hanna Approaches

So, at this point, we are NOT evacuating for Hanna. It's only a tropical storm right now and they are predicting it won't make a direct hit on Charleston. We talked to our friends, the Chapmans, tonight and Barbara said they are staying, too. But, she said if Ike continues on his track and is a category 3 hurricane or higher, they will leave. I told her we would too!! I asked her where they would go and, depending on Ike's path, either Atlanta or NW North Carolina. We'll probably follow their path. They were here for Hugo, which was a category 4 and Barbara said she wouldn't do that again.

As far as preparations at Casa Graham go, we are stocked up on food. You know I wouldn't let us starve! I don't know if I've gotten the right stuff, but most of it is non-perishable and we've got plenty of water. If it gets bad, I'll fill the tubs with water for baths/flushing toilets, etc.

Grace is starting to get anxious. School has been closed down for tomorrow and I think that doesn't help. She's not freaking out or anything, just anxious. It'll be fine. We told her that we'd have a hurricane party!

School Reports

We had two great reports from and about school yesterday. First off, Davis went to his first day of preschool. The night before, he cried when I left his bedroom after giving him his kisses. Of course, neither Jasen nor I wanted to ask Davis if he was nervous about school. The next morning, he was up a little early and ready to go! He was very excited to finally take his backpack to school and took this picture to show it off.
When we arrived at school, Davis said he was ready to go and walked like a big boy into Mrs. Lester's class. When I came back to pick him up, Mrs. Lester said he'd had a good day and Davis said he wanted to go back. Yea!! He said he played with Ryan and played on the slide during "recess." I was relieved he had such fun!



Last night was Grace's open house. First we had a PTA meeting. It seems the parents of Drayton Hall have wanted the school to become a charter school for quite some time. The Charleston ISD (I don't think that's what they call it here, but you get my point) has so many schools, which causes a lot of delay in getting things done. Also, the district is given over $7000 per student; Drayton Hall only gets a little over $5000/student for expenses. Drayton Hall has always gotten the job done and in a great way. Now, the district says "keep doing what you are doing, with less money." Anyway, the principal wants to do it, the teachers want to do it (100% of them, no less) and now the parents have to vote. Guess I'll be voting yes.

Then we made our way to Grace's class. Mrs. Branch said she is doing really well. I discussed with her about Grace's writing skills, which are lacking and messy, but Mrs. Branch said she writes the kids to death, so by the end of the school year, it will be fine. Jasen and I were again very happy with Mrs. Branch. She is such a sweetheart, but she keeps those kids in line. I don't think I could have picked a better teacher for Grace. It's also a plus when you can tell a teacher cares about her job and is enthusiastic about it.

The best part of the night? I was talking to a mom whose son sits across the table from Grace. She said that Grace is very well-liked in the class, by both the boys and girls, that everyone wants to be her friend. I almost cried I was so relieved! I knew Grace would make friends, but there was so much anxiety on all of our parts about it. This move to SC had been much more difficult because it was the first time Grace knew she had no friends and would be all alone in that classroom. What a relief to know she's got friends and plenty of them!

The coolest part of the night? The little boy who sits across from Grace chose the seat next to her because she has his sister's name: Grace Graham!! I never in all my life thought we'd meet someone who named their daughter, Grace Graham! Isn't that funny?

The funniest part of the night? We got to see the family picture Grace colored on the first day. It showed our family with an older sister AND a dog! We have tried to explain to Grace that the older sister part is next to impossible but she still believes it could happen. And the dog thing is a distant, distant possibility!

Hurricane Prep

Yes, we are getting prepared for Hurricane Hanna. Of course, she's not a hurricane right now, but they are predicting she'll become one. I have heard and read in the paper how Charlestonians get sick of the media going ape when there appears to be a storm coming. I can attest that people are antsy down here. Not the natives, I guess, but everyone else. The Charleston schools canceled all after school activities for today (Wednesday) and will decide by noon today whether school will be canceled for the rest of the week. The Citadel already has all the cadets turning in their weapons and secure items.

Jasen and I talked last night and decided that we would stay put. Where would we go anyway? I told Jennifer Karnes today, we'd just head inland to a hotel and probably the storm would follow whichever way we went! So, I went to Wal-Mart today to get water and "rations." Never thought I'd say that! We have enough peanut butter, bread, applesauce, etc. to last us at least a few days. Oh, and plenty of batteries. Will they power the TV when we are in day, oh, two or three, and the kids are driving us crazy?? ha!

I will blog later about Davis' first day of school and Grace's open house last night. Two blogs in one day, I guess.

Pictures of the Heidgerkens

I lost power on the laptop yesterday before I could add pictures to the previous post. Here are some from our visit with Sean, Chris, Ellin, and Natalie:

Our kids altogether: Grace, Ellin, Natalie and Davis

The girls enjoying the aquarium


All of us before the underwater feeding show

Heidgerken visit

We had a great time with our friends, Sean, Chris, Ellin, and Natalie Heidgerken. They got here on Saturday right after lunch. They arrived earlier than they thought they would and stopped at the closest Chick-Fil-A to eat lunch because they had told us they would be after lunch. They called as they were getting ready to leave, only to find out that Jasen and the kids were headed there, too! So they ambushed my hubby and kids then followed them back to our house.

We spent a few hours visiting, then we had to leave to go to our first official function with the Army ROTC cadre: tailgating before the opening football game of the season. It was fun to meet the other wives and, amazingly, it wasn't too hot.

Sunday morning, we went to the 'Gerks hotel for a swim, then came back here for lunch. Then we headed downtown to the aquarium. We had a good time and it was nice to see what the aquarium had to offer. After that, we headed to Saffron Bakery for a little afternoon snack. Then we drove around downtown Charleston, the Citadel and back to our house.

Our next door neighbor, Sarah, babysat all the kids for us while we had an adult dinner. We went to Queen Anne's Revenge on Daniel Island (another place to cross off my list of places to try!) and had a really good visit. It's funny to think about our friendship with the Heidgerkens. When we met them, the hubbies were new LTs, having served as enlisted NCOs. I was WAY green at being an Army spouse, Chris was quite seasoned at it. Jasen and I were newly married, the 'Gerks had been married almost 7 years. It's funny because we've all aged, but I feel like, although we've been married almost 7 years less than they have, we've hit the same spot in life at the same time. We started out from very different places, but here we are. Living very similar lives, still enjoying each other. Older friendships are the best!

It reminds me of an old friend I need to call....