Happy 7th Anniversary

This past week, Jaynee and I celebrated our 7th Anniversary (the girls came to dinner with us too). Looking back it has been a fun ride. Who would have thought 7 years ago I would be in the Army, we would have 2 nearly twin girls, I would have served 2 tours in Iraq, and we would be living in Georgia for all but one year of our marriage. We have lots of fun times to look back on. In fact for our anniversary I got off work early and we went out to dinner (to a buffet because of the speed in which the girls can get their food). After that I wanted to get Jaynee a nicer camera to take action photos of the girls with. Our current camera worked just great as long as the girls held still while the camera processed the picture. After that we came home and put the girls down. Jaynee and I stayed up and talked for a while about the past seven years. We would ask a general question and we would both have to answer the question. The questions were general in nature but required a specific answer. It was fun to talk about how much has change and in some instances the lack of change over our time as a couple.

This holiday weekend will be the last free one I have for a while. I begin work on another semester Tuesday towards completing my Master's in Telecommunications Management. I should be complete with my degree next April. It will be a wonderful celebration once I get to the point. But with this being my last full weekend to work on house projects, there is not enough time in the day to complete them all. Friday it began with lawn care. Mowing the lawn to all low as possible then trimming the edges. This was prep work for the project on Saturday. When that was done, I needed to finish work on a drain pipe from the house. I needed to install an on/off valve in case of any type of flood waters and to finish work on the drain area by clearing it out and placing rocks in the drain area. Saturday, I spent 9 hours painting our fence. I still have one gate to take the boards off and paint, but with the storms going through this weekend. I will have to do that later this week or next week. Today, I was supposed to install new shelves in Jaynee's pantry, but that will be held to next week so that Jaynee can help me. Next weekend we are putting the girls in day care so we can enjoy "Parent's Day Out". This is a program for the military that allows parents to drop kids off at day care for up to 5 hours so that the parents can have time to do things they need to. It should be a fun filled day of projects and then a trip to Atlanta to pick up Jaynee's parents who will be in the area for the next month. Until next week.

Family Pictures

Here are a couple more family pictures. The girls did not want to cooperate with taking pictures but we got a couple cute ones. I hope that you enjoy them.

Below is the cutest pictures of the girls that we got.




Sofi was not wanting to sit by herself to get her picture taken.


Emma just likes to ham it up for the camera.

A Very Busy Month

To begin with, I need to apologize for not keeping this blog current. It has been rather busy for us lately. Some of the latest adventures have included Jaynee's day as a Soldier, my parents spending 2 weeks with us and major work on the house, sealing Sofia to our family, the zoo, Sofia's 2nd birthday, and surgery for Emma. To quickly sum up some of the above listed events, I will quickly write short paragraphs to describe them, and when then post pictures showing those particular events.

The first event that I forgot to cover was Jaynee's day as a Soldier. I started writing the blog the day after the event, but never finished it because of issues with the internet, and time. I even had a title which was called "G.I. Jaynee". In a nutshell, Jaynee got all dressed up and played Soldier until a thunderstorm arrived which caused the afternoon's activities to be canceled for safety. In the morning Jaynee learned about the communications equipment that a headquarters would have deployed, saw what living quarters look like when training in the field, practiced close quarters firing drills with blanks, and then practiced clearing rooms. She was on her lunch break when the announcement came that thunderstorms were approaching. She missed out on a simulation of a vehicle roll-over, paint ball shooting at pop up targets, and weapon qualification on the electronic version of a weapons range. Jaynee looked the Soldier by wearing a set of my combat uniform, and then she was issued as part of the activity a Kevlar helmet, an armor vest, knee and elbow pads, and a rubber mold version of an M-4 rifle.






My parents made their way from Missouri to spend 2 weeks with us. They were able to participate in some of the activities for both Sofia and Emma. While my dad was here Jaynee put the two of us to work. We were assigned to install a ceiling fan in our loft which required a complete rewiring of the upstairs electrical outlets for all the lights and to install a garbage disposal under her kitchen sink. As part of the kitchen sink we also installed a new faucet. Jaynee wanted us to do more, but I think my dad appreciated just having time to read and play with the girls.

After visiting with the judge, the next big step was have Sofia sealed to us in the temple. That occurred with my parents present in Columbia, South Carolina. Sofia is now ours for all time and eternity.




On the way home from the temple, Jaynee saw a sign for the Columbia Zoo, so for Sofia's 2nd birthday we returned to Columbia to visit the zoo. The girls loved the animals. The only negative thing was our timing. We happened to be at the zoo when lots of school age children were attending. It made it a little crowded. Besides the crowds, the girls loved all the animals, especially the elephants, tigers, and monkeys. Sofia loved the gorilla exhibit, but the gorillas were not out at the time we visited.

For Sofia's birthday party, we just had a simple party with my parents. We had tacos which recently is a favorite meal of Sofia. After dinner we had cake, rather an ice cream cake that we picked up after returning from the zoo. Sofia's gifts were a whole different story. How do you give gifts to a 2 year old, but not to her younger sister? So we picked up things that they could both play with but which Sofia would have more interest. She got some building blocks, a wagon, a flashlight, an old fashion wood game, a bike helmet, a sprinkler head to run through, Mr. Potato Head, and some clothes. It seemed like Sofia and Emma enjoyed this day.


Emma did have a day in the spotlight. Unfortunately for her, it required surgery for her to have 15 minutes of attention. We have tubes placed in her ears to help drain liquid that has been having problems draining. A few months ago as part of a hearing test she could not hear due to fluid in her ears. The surgery was a success, and the results are coming in. The afternoon of the surgery, Emma was able to actually say Sofia's name and it sounded like Sofia, not "Soso". Each day since her surgery she has been saying words clearer. Now all we got to do is get her to participate in speech therapy so she doesn't have to attend any more.

Well, I guess that is all from Georgia. I will do better over the next couple of weeks. Here are a couple of pics of the girls being themselves.