Nine months and counting!

Well I have officially hit the 9 month mark! For those of you who have not had children or just don't know how it "works" this does not necessarily mean I am going to be popping out a baby at any second. The truth is the due date is actually set for 10 months or 40 weeks. I am now at 36 weeks, do the math that equals 9 months. I am considered full term so if she does come before the due date it is OK as long as she is ready to come on her own. In any case I saw the doctor this week and everything looks good. No major changes but we now begin our weekly checks. BIG step!
In other baby news mom made very adorable bumpers and curtains for Zoey's room. There is a slight snafu due to the fact that the measurements of the pattern and the inside of the crib don't match but it is minor and my fabulous neighbor has a sewing machine I can use to refit them. I am very excited! However, now I feel like I need to go by all plain white sheets so that they don't clash with the awesome fabric and work my mom did! Don't worry I won't. :-(
I had another accomplishment in her room this week! I put together her dresser! All by myself, I am becoming very handy I must say! haha With this HUGE task out of the way I was finally able to get all of the piles of things put away and get her crib clear of most extra things other than the stuffed animals that will obviously be moved before she needs it.
Backing up a bit to Easter. We didn't do much as no one else is here but it was not a waste of a day. We wen to church as usual and had a great service and then came home to make our own little Easter meal. Now due to the lack of pay check I didn't go by a ham so lunch ended up being more like fourth of July with hamburgers and chips BUT I DID make Grandmom's deviled eggs and egg shaped Rice Krispie treats! What really made it a great day though was our neighbor who came home from her family Easter a little early and brought us each a plate of food, rolls and dessert. We got our ham and turkey after all. She also bought us another orchid. I really must do something for her for mother's day. She takes good care of us.
Wyatt finished up zero week this week and is now officially in the holding company to await our little girls arrival. It was a big change from Thursday morning to Friday morning. Thursday he got up at 4:30 as usual for his last day with Delta Co but Friday he he didn't have to be there until 7:00 and then after he met with his XO and then moved his stuff to his new room. This was about 3 hours total and then they were done. So I went and met him on base to get our new IDs, finally, eat lunch. I must say my ID may mysteriously disappear after the baby comes and I can get back into Zumba. Not pretty, but Wyatt being the great husband he is says it looks great. Gotta love him.
This may be one of the more random posts I have made but I am having a problem coming up with much to talk about. I will make this week interesting some how.
Love ya and God bless

It begins!

Well it has begun! Here I sit all alone for day 2. I don't say that to make anyone feel sad for me but with relief that we will be getting a pay check again! ha ha. Anyway, For obvious reasons Wyatt won't be able to write much until this week end so I will give you a quick run down of the last few days and what may be to come.
Monday, our last day, we journeyed to IKEA to get some final furniture pieces for miss Zoey's room. We decided not to go with the dresser/changer we had registered for because of cost and instead were able to get a dresser, that of course will be used as a changer, and cubby-like shelf that will hold bins and be used for storage in her closet. Let's face it the spare bedrooms here are small and the closet it waisted space when a newborns close only take up 1/5 of the vertical space. I will get pictures up once we get all the furniture put together. To go along with her new storage we also got a bouncing chair for us to sit in and some very cute wall lights. Again not hung but there will be pictures once they are hung.
Tuesday was the first day of many weeks of watching my neighbors 8 yr old in the morning until she gets on the bus. It is very easy since she just goes back to sleep especially since she is at the house by 5. Yes I did mean 5 o'clock in the morning. But hopefully it won't be that way after this week. Next week she is on spring break and then her dad will be back in town and he doesn't have to be at work until 6:30 so she won't come over until about 6. Yay!
Alright I guess you really just want to know about Wyatt's Tuesday. Well...... He had all day to report so he went about 1:00 to get a hair cut and then straight to check in. He had been told by some of the guys were hung out with Friday night not to go in the morning because they would give them a job moving furniture or something. Turns out that all the people that went in the morning just basically had to sit and wait until 5 pm when they started the role call. BORING!!! Wyatt still had to wait but said he was happy he went when he did because he got all of his first day paperwork done where as his friend that went later did not. He was assigned a room and linens for those nights and weeks that he has to stay on base. I will let him explain the "condition" of these dorms. Let's just say there is a reason they don't have room inspections in this building. Now for the answer to big question, is he going to stay in Delta Co and continue with the current training schedule or will he join Mike Co (a holding company) and delay the actual training until after Zoey arrives. The answer kind of both at the moment. Apparently everyone is in the holding company (Mike Co) for the first two weeks until they are deemed healthy and pass all physical requirements. Aside from that Wyatt talked to the Captain in charge of Mike co and was told that he would be called in sometime today to determine when would be the best time to start training. Unfortunately my late May due date will probably set him back at least two groups. Meaning at the earliest he may start in July if there is a group then otherwise it will be August or later. I will know more when he comes home tonight. Thankfully though they seem more than willing to work with him so he can be home for me and little Zoey.
With all of that said I don't have much more to talk about. I am feeling well most of the time. I am still having a good amount of Braxton-Hicks contractions but none have them more than superficial discomfort. I will see the doctor on Tuesday and begin my weekly visits after that. I am getting excited until I realize how much I still need to read and get finished before she comes! Ahhhhh! Wyatt and I have our childbirthing class this weekend so hopefully we will both feel alittle more confident after that. I'll be sure to let you know how that goes.
Finally I would like to say a big Congratulations to Brian and Beth Kelly and big brother Max who welcomed Camryn Presley into the world yesterday. She was 7 lbs 15oz and 19 3/4 in long! They are all so excited for them!

Dentists and other totally awesome Brainfreezes!

So really this will only take a small part of this post but i have to talk about the lack of dentists around here. Actually, I almost wish there was a lack of dentists. I think I can count with both hands and no toes the number of strip shopping areas that DON'T have a dentist. (for those of you who didn't understand that I mean I think I have seen less than 10) To add to the amusement is the way that they advertise their business.

DENTIST
Yep that about sums it up. I have no idea the name of any of the practitioners only that they are DENTISTS and have a shop somewhere in that strip mall we just drove past. So f you feel like getting a second or maybe even third or forth opinion on that tooth pain you have been having for the last few weeks just wait until you come see us!
Off my soap box let's move on to other things.
Today was an eventful day in many ways. To begin the dogs woke us up promptly at 7:10 as they have since we got here. After letting them out and catching up on a little more sleep we got up and began getting ready for the handyman/painters (hired by the owners) and our trip to Quantico's TMO office. (slightly redundant in name but it works) Finally, our "day" began about 12:15. We got everything set in the house, locked the dogs in the bed room so workers could get in to rinse out their paint brushes without listening to Roxy growl and run away, and then headed out the door with our receipts and folder in hand. However, plans never go as planned and as we drove onto base we realized there were no orders in our folder of preplanned organization. Oops! The decision was made to go ahead to the meeting and see if they had a computer and printer we could use. There was a printer and a computer but do to the fact that Wyatt is not fully active we did not have the CAC card (think also redundant name but I don't know for sure what it means.....yet) required to use the computer. What does this mean? That Katie gets to drive around and find a public computer and printer to finish the paperwork that Wyatt would be working on while I was gone. We were told by the man in the office that there was a library and an Internet cafe we could use. Wyatt knew about the cafe so after driving down the main street of Q-town 3 times looking fr the library that was not there I went to the cafe and found that their printer wasn't working AND the little Asian lady had no idea where the library or a public computer/printer were! By this point I was getting a little frustrated.
Reminder! You cannot talk on your phone while driving on base! This makes directions a little difficult especially when you have no idea where you are going to begin with or really are scared of ending up somewhere you SHOULDN'T be!
Back on subject, I went into the Marine shop (the fabulous place we ordered Wyatt's uniform from in case anyone is interested) Thankfully they were able to give me directions that I was able to understand to the library. I found it without any more problems and after a little struggle with the computer itself I was able to get Wyatt's orders and was made it back to the office without any other problems. Of course it was not quite smooth sailing from there. It turns out that the man at the front desk did not realize that we already had all of our paperwork and just needed help getting it together to be scanned and sent to Georgia. That being said we didn't actually need an appointment and we could have turned in all of our information last week or even the week before. The joys of dealing with two different branches of the military that do the same job in two very different ways. One good thing that came from our delay in were some of the people Wyatt met and the wife of a Major that I meant who was waiting to leave for Japan. They were both very nice and made Wyatt and I feel much more comfortable about the whole military thing. If they have been able to go through 15 years of this life and still gladly talk to a lowly 2nd Lt and his wife and discuss the ins and outs of what we are doing with a smile on their face I think we will be able to make it!
Thank you Lord for that reassurance!
They also mentioned a restaurant that is near the apts they lived in while at TBS so we were on the hunt. This little dive may be my new favorite place! It is called Bella Cafe, not to be confused with Cafe Bella from home. Sitting on the side on busy hwy 1 is a little house that has been added onto and converted to a small coffee shop like restaurant that services everyone that likes hamburgers, gyros, wraps, and live music on Thursday nights. Believe me if you come see us we will take you there! Today's special a cup of Lobster bisque or House Chili added to any sandwich or wrap. Naturally we got one of each. Don't worry I ate the chili, which was very good, but Wyatt was very impressed by the Lobster. What this place is really known for however is their Brainfreeze, a 21 oz custard shake made to order in about 100 different flavors. SOOOOOOO amazing and I'm not just saying that because I'm pregnant even Wyatt had a hard time putting it down. I got the Mallow pie, a delicious combination of tiny marshmallows, cookie dough, and chocolate chips. Wyatt's got the Leprechaun, mint chocolate chip, chocolate and something else that he cannot at this point recall but knows it was delectable. If either of these sound good wait until you see the other 199 flavors. OK so maybe I keep going up on the number of flavors but I'm sure by the time we go back there will be more.
To end this fabulous day of true excitement We received another package from home, thank you Grandmom and Papa John, and one from Alaska. Everyone quick you need to run out and get Karen's new book! I think it is quite cute and I know Zoey will love it!
I do believe it is time for me to wrap this up and get ready to hit the hay and welcome the ever looming dreams of future Brainfreeze flavors.
Good night to you and God Bless!

Magda, Monday, and Million Dollar Baby

So Magda is definitely not the only person we met at church on Sunday but she has the most interesting name. To start from the beginning.... After a Sunday of not feeling well we made it out for our first time at church hunting. We have started with North Stafford Church of Christ which according to their website boasts about 250 members but I would say it is probably closer to size Perkins was about 2 years ago. We later found out that there are a good number of TBS and newer Marine families that come through often and then move soon just as we will be doing.
At this point I would like to insert my own opinion and say how happy I am that Perkins did NOT build a metal building! Don't get me wrong it is quite nice inside but not the most inviting facade. Now then off my soap box and moving on.
The auditorium is set up almost in the round which is a little uncomfortable when you come in after announcements have started and everyone KNOWs that you are new. Next was the involvement of the female ministers they did the announcements and a high school girl led a prayer for communion. Non of these are bad things just not what we are use to. After church I was pleased to see Wyatt moving slowly toward the door to allow others to introduce themselves, and did they. We were quickly stopped by a late 20's young lady from across the room and then by and early 30's girl named Angie who is in the Marine Corps band. As we talked Magda and her husband and Angie's husband Brian all came to talk. (Magda is pronounced Mogda, she's Polish!) Everyone was VERY nice and we were quickly invited to lunch at the small Poncho Villa which apparently is much better than the big one further down the road. We had a great time and I found out a lot about where to go for good shopping movies and hopefully some good resale stores for baby furniture. I'll get back to you on that one.
After a rewarding Sunday of church and meeting new people Monday was hopeful as it was to be our first experience at couponing! The new show on TLC has pushed the subject more into the forefront of my mind but it is something that is a necessity at this time. The thing with couponing though is that you still need to have a good amount of money at first because you're not going to walk in for the first time and walk out with $200 worth of groceries for on;y $5. However, I think we did very well for our first time! We went through the Bloom weekly sales and compared it to the coupons we picked up from the circulars. Next we decided what we needed and what we were just going to look at. There is no reason to by something just because you have a coupon especially if it isn't on sale as well. Once we arrived we printed off a few more instore coupons and began our new adventure. The one thing we realized was that we needed to go through sooner because there are many more couponers here and the stores may not be able to keep up with us all. We learned this the hard way as some of the really good deals were all gone. For instance we had a coupon for $1 off a 24 pack of water that had already been marked down by $1 but when we got there..... they were all gone :-( By the time we had finished walking around the store we had a cart that vaguly reminded me of trips to Sam's with mom. Next the check out. She scanned everything and the total was in the lower $200s, a little nervous I must say but then you scan your rewards card and watched the instore deals drop the price, a little more relief. Finally you hand over the stack of coupons and down the price comes! By the end we had saved $75 got a free bag of shrimp and came home with 3 more coupons from the store which included $10 dollars off our next purchase!!! Needless to say we were very proud of our first trip and we have enough food to hold us for quite a long time.
Million Dollar Baby. The parent company of Davinci the maker of our baby Zoey's crib. We had a little situation pop up last week that prevented us from being able to put together her soon to be resting place. Wyatt sent them a message and they said they would take care of it within 7 days but we had not given them any information other than our address and they did not send a tracking number or explanation of WHAT they were doing so when 7 days came and went we were a little nervous but after returning from our boring doctors appointment we were pleasantly surprised to hear the door bell ring a long box sitting on the porch! Yay we can finally finish here bed!
It was a little more difficult this time as I have now unpacked her room and the items are in piles around the room awaiting a storage unit to place them in. The other difficulty.... we lost the instructions.... I was starting to think we weren't meant to have this crib. We finally found the instructions online and were able to put the rest of it together without too many issues. We have to work on the drawer because the screws they sent are not flat head and therefore the wheels keep catching but overall it is put together and awaiting the bedding from my loving mother and it's furture occupant.
Speaking of little occupants I would like to say congratulations to Stacey, Dusty and big brother Landon as they welcomed Logan Lee into the world yesterday! He's a handsome one and I wish I could be there to see him in person.
I know I have to get better at putting this info in more often so these aren't so long but I have to let you know what's going on! I hope all is well with everyone and I will write again soon. We plan to get pictures of Zoey's room soon but until this afternoon there wasn't anything to see.
Love you all!

This week in a bottle(ish)

After a few busy days Wyatt and I decided to take it easy today. It was much needed to cut back on those pesky  Braxton-Hicks contractions. Not that I really have strong ones, actually they feel more like that feeling you get right after doing 50 crunches or sit ups. Anyway, here is a quick run down of the last few days.
Tuesday we went to IKEA an absolutely fabulous place! Very large but good stuff and good prices!. We were looking for a bed for all of our soon to be Zoey visitors to sleep on but did not come home with one. Hopefully we will start getting pay checks, government willing, before she comes and we can go get it then. We did however come home with some pretty good deals. A new hanging pot rack, two cool wine racks, finally a matching top sheet for our bed, and two very cool lamps. We are slowly making our bedroom match. Wyatt now has a REAL bed side table that matches our bed and holds one of the very cool lamps. We'll get one for me to match once he starts working. It's all coming together now.
Wednesday was pretty low key. We went to Quantico to pick up Wyatt's camis and try to get new IDs or at least make sure that I was enrolled in the correct program to get insurance. Unfortunately thanks to the pending government shutdown we can't get an appointment for move reimbursement until the 18th. Hopefully the "smart" ones on capital hill will come to an agreement and we can move that appt up to next week. The money would be helpful to pay those moving bills. Thanks mom and dad!
Thursday was another big day for sightseeing. Thanks to our neighbor we are able to leave the dogs in her back yard whenever we need to but Roxy has decided she wants to ruin that by digging under her back fence. She isn't even a digger! I feel really bad but the lady isn't here so we tried to patch it and decided not to put that dogs back there for a while.

We started out the day with a similar drive to the Sprinfield-Franconia station to hop on the metro-rail and head to the city. Our first stop was the White House. Things are a bit different from the last time I was there. You can't drive in front of it like you could before and you can't even walk up to the fence. While standing in front of the barrier we noticed a segway tour that had been stopped due to an injury. Slightly amusing I must say. I'm not sure if one of the riders hit someone or if they fell off but it could make for an interesting story for those involved. Once we crossed the use-to-be street to check out the park we could hear the days protesters shouting their feelings into the air. As we stood there trying to figure out what they protesting a young man stepped up to talk and began his "speech" with "We are here because we are all angry!" and used the phrase "I am here because I am mad!" Wyatt and I had a hard time containing our laughter as the movie Planet 51 replayed in our heads. To tell you the truth I have no idea what he was "mad" about; his speech didn't make sense.

Next we headed down 17th street but didn't make it far before our bellies told us to stop. We stop at a nice place called Cosi. Good food. After filling our bellies we headed down to the World War II memorial. I must say it is a very nice tribute to those who served. I will get pictures of all our adventures put up on my other site, http://www.wilsonfamilyadventures4.shutterfly.com/ as soon as I can find the camera! haha.

The next logical place for us to visit would have been the reflecting pool except wait... the ENTIRE thing is torn up! They started work in October but of course don't have a projected end date and with the looming shutdown won't be finishing that anytime soon. Instead we continued on our way to the Korean War Memorial. Thank you to both my wonderful grandfathers for all your service. Without you I wouldn't be here! I love you very much.

The Lincoln Memorial fell in line next. so many stairs but it surprisingly didn't bother me too much. I am however very surprised by the umber of school aged kids that were out in tours. Maybe for Spring break. We headed to the Vietnam wall on our way back to the Washington Monument and then the metro. We had one more stop on the list before heading back to the car and the traffic... Arlington. Thanks to our one day metro pass we could get on and off when and where we needed which meant if our screaming feet told us we couldn't do it then we could get right back on. Thankfully our feet had one more stop in them. We headed up to the Tomb of the Unknowns. I must say I didn't remember there being so many hills. After a very slow trek up the many inclined slopes we made it to the tomb just as the changing of the guard began. Wyatt had never been to Arlington let alone seen the changing of the guard so I was very glad he was able to see it.

Finally, we headed back down the slopes and to the metro where we were greeted by full cars and 5:00 commuters. Thankfully they were not all going as far as we were but it did not look good for our drive home. Something I found interesting is that traffic is worse on Thursdays. I'm not entirely sure why but there wa definitly an ncrease from Monday. We made it home safe however and are adapting little by little. I think we will try to take the train from Quantico to the metro from now on because it was not easy to find a parking spot.
I think I will wrap it up there for now one because this is getting long and two because the bed is only comfortable for so long when you use it as a desk. Love you all and talk to you soon.

Week 1 in Virginia

Well here we are a little over one week in the new house and a lot has happened. To begin we made to LONG journey in 3 days. Most make it in 2 but when driving a Uhaul, carting 2 dogs and 31 week prego things slow down a bit. At least Wyatt wasn't too uncomfortable; he may not have been able to here the music or the phone but the seats were doable for 7+ hours of driving a day.

The house is MUCH larger than our old one. We moved from roughly 850-900 sqft to 2100 sqft! Needless to say we don't have enough furniture to fill it but do NOT plan one getting enough. Actually other than the kitchen and dining/living area the rooms are a bit small. I think a good amount of that space is taken up by the 4 flights of stairs. At least we know I will get my exercise after Zoey is born.

To compensate we have turned the "formal living" into our dining room and left the actual dining area pretty open.

Zoey's room has been painted yellow lettuce (bright green) with the bottom pink. Unfortunately, that is where is stops for the moment because the crib was shipped with duplicate parts making it impossible to set it up. Plus we don't have a dresser yet.

Enough about the house for the moment lets talk about the other happenings around here.

We saw our new doctor last Tuesday, Dr. Shuman. She is originally from Muskogee and went to OU med school with my doctor from home but has been up here for 11 years and doesn't plan to head back. She visits home now and then but they are ciry folk and are more comfortable here among the other fast talkers. She is very nice and has a loud laugh. The visit was short but she did jump right in and decided we would start with the 2 week visits and quickly move to the weekly visits. Are we really that close!? I'm not ready in so many ways!

The rest of the week was spent unpacking, trying to hang pictures and making multiple trips to the grocery store where we have already signed up for their discount card and saved $31 in one trip! Now to work on becoming an extreme couponer! haha right
Monday was a very exciting day. We decided to take a trip to the BIG city for the Cherry Blossom festival. Thankfully we picked a fabulous day to do it. It has rained almost everyday we have been here but Monday was suppose to be windy and lower 70s. Apparently we brought a little Okie with us because it was sunny windy and 88. After that I decided it was worth buying one or two more pairs of maternity pants since all I have is one pair of jeans and one pair of dress pants.

ANYWAY, the trip was great. We decided to take the Metrorail from Springfield (about 20 miles away) instead of trying to risk our lives driving through the DC traffic. The metro was great and I actually feel rather comfortable riding them. We got off at the Smithsonians and started our walking tour with a trip to the Museum of Natural history. The dinosaurs were as big as expected but that giant ground sloth is a Monster!One of the coolest exhibits was in hall of minerals and gems where the Hope Diamond was on display! It is beautiful! The necklace the stone was set in was crazy as well. Along with that amazing stone we also saw a 432 carat saphire and a crown and necklace that was part of Nepoleon's collection. I didn't get pictures of those because of the people. Next we ventured across the mall to the Air and Space museum. Wyatt was quite fascinated by it all but do to the time and my slowing condition we didn't stay long. Finally, we walked the long distance of the mall to the Tidal Basin where we were welcomed the cool wind, that had been blocked by the buildings, and the shower of white cherry blossoms that were the main attraction for so many. It was very pretty. I sat on the edge of the rock wall and watched as the many brave souls who dare to tried to navigate the rough waters in their little paddle boats were continuously pushed toward the edge of the water and the wall. We were not there for any actual events but it was nice to see all the people and the trees during their peak.

We hope to go back tomorrow and make our way through some of the memorials.
After viewing the lovely sites we headed back to the metro to attempt to make it to our car and get on the road without having to fight the craziness that is I-95 at 5pm but we did not make it and it took us an hour to drive 20 miles. That's DC!
Yesterday was a big day of walking through IKEA in hopes of finding a bed so that our many guests will not have to sleep on the floor when they come! We also made it to Babies 'R' Us to check out the stiller and carseat that I do believe we are going to get. Thank goodness for workers that pay attention to their store business hours! Latasha and Carissa know what I mean.
Today was a take it easy day for me to try and recoup and prepare for our excursion tomorrow. Thanks to our neighbor Anne will may stay a little later in DC because she said we could leave Riley and Roxy in her yard instead of locked in the house with no one to let them out. Poor babies, I promise to get a house with a big fenced yard next time!
Now that I have bored you with my very long account of the last week I will conclude by saying I will make my next ones shorter and more often! I will also write it on my lap top since my Ipad is apparently not compatible with the picture loading program. Sorry not pics this time. BUT feel free to visit www.wilsonfamilyadventures4.shutter fly.com where I am posting most of our pictures.