It's Been Awhile...

Hi everyone, I know it's been a very long time since Karrie has posted, so I figured I would give it a shot.  If you haven't figured it out yet, this is Jeremy writing.  She is been really busy and I have a little more extra time, so I am going to try and keep up with it. 

Since the last post a lot has changed and when I say a lot, I mean ALOT.  I will try keep it all in order and try to remember everything and bring you up to speed.  This will be long so just bare with me.

In June and July I flew back to Great Falls from Korea on my mid-tour.  We took a week vacation and went to Wichita and Colton was baptized by Farther Pat, the same priest that married Karrie and I and in the same church.  It was really good to see all the family and friends that traveled to see us and enjoyed spending some time with everyone.  Just wish we would have had more time because it was pretty short.  We also went on a few other trips over the weekends while we had time.  We made our way up to Whitefish MT for a weekend with our good friends the Booher's and went mining for sapphire's and explored Butte MT with Tom and Ginny on another weekend.  In between all the trips we went through a lot of our stuff and made a garage sale pile and packed the rest into a storage shed.  The month went by really fast and didn't want to say goodbye.  Saying goodbye is never easy and it was especially hard saying goodbye to the lil man.  But he did a great job taking care of his mom. 

 

From our day hike in Glacier.  He looks worried but he loved it

 

 

This was from his baptism at The Church of the Magdalen in Wichita

 

Before the mine we went into in Butte, MT, it was pretty cool!

 

I dressed Mr. Colton this morning, it's the day I left back to Korea!

 

 

Karrie and Colton at the Montana State Fair Rodeo

 

Colton having fun with the A/C vent.  He sure is a happy and fun little boy!

Once I got back from mid-tour I was able start working my join spouse assignment so we could be stationed together again.  At first the system didn't reflect that Karrie was selected for  the 576th test squadron and was going to Vandenberg AFB in California.  I applied for my assignment and guess where they sent me?  Yeah you guessed it, back to Malmstrom.  It took a few weeks to get that all sorted out, but we were able to change it and I got orders to California.  My old deputy fire chief was pretty excited that I was coming back, but that didn't last long.  With Colton's eye issue I had to get approval to move to California.  In the system he falls under me as a dependent and not Karrie.  They said there were no doctors in the local area that specialized in pediatric ophthalmology and they denied it.  I had to submit a rebuttal and fight for us to move.  I was able to find a doctor in Santa Maria, only 15 minutes from the base and was finally able to get approved.

In September Karrie and Alicia were busy planning Wyatt and Colton's birthday party.  I was unable to attend of course, but from what I hear it went really great.  Mike and Katie were able to fly out for a few days as well as a lot of other friends and family that attended.  Just wish I was there, but Karrie did surprise me and I did receive a care package with a lot of candy that didn't get consumed.  Needless to say the 5lb bag of runts didn't take long to eat and didn't help with my work out plan.  Karrie also was able to get the rest of the house packed up into the storage shed and then closed on the house at the end of the month.  I don't know how she did it, taking care of Colton, packing and cleaning the house, working on her masters degree and her job.  I don't think I could have done it and that's why I married a SUPER women. 

 

What an awesome family I have!

 

Happy Birthday!

 

What decorating skills

Some of this candy made it my way

 

Guess the term "smash cake" really didn't apply to him.  This was the extent of the damage.

So Karrie and Colton moved into billeting on base, the base hotel the end of September and that's where they remained until the end of October when they made a road trip to Oklahoma.  Karrie had to attend a class (SOS, Squadron Officers School) at Maxwell AFB in Montgomery Alabama and the Horton's were so very kind enough to watch Colton while Karrie was in Alabama and until I got back to this great country.  She said it was very hard to leave him, but we knew that he was in great hands.

 

Oh my oh my, look at all the toys I can play with!!!!

 

I found the perfect one, my wipes!!!!!

 

I think Colton was sad to leave the house.  This was after Karrie had moved everything out.

He loves the carousel, can you tell?

Once November rolled around I made that horrible but amazing 12 hour flight from Korea to Seattle and then on to Great Falls.  I spend 2 days after arriving packing a 28 foot ABF trailer with all our belongings.  I honestly didn't know how Karrie was able to pack and move all of that.  It took me 3 hours one day, with some help, to move the big stuff and then another 12 hours the second day to finish it.  It got so late that a few friends (Thank you Dan and Erin) came after they got off of work to help out.  We were using the headlights from my car to finish the packing job.  But we got it all loaded and next time I think I will let the Air Force move me.  They may break more things, but that was a lot of work!!!  Once I got the trailer loaded the next day I picked up the dogs from Jon and Erin's, they were watching them for us after Karrie sold the house, and then started my travels to California.  Traveling with the two girls was pretty easy.  I think I needed to stop more then they did, but they enjoyed running around when I did stop.  Thank you Jon and Erin for watching them.  I know they miss you guys.

 

The Bass Pro Santa and Colton loved him

 

I love my new moose antlers

This is the tree that Karrie and I put a lock on from Seoul Tower.  It took me a few minutes to find it since there is so many locks and about 6 different trees, but I found it.

 



 

This place was so good, it's called the Bulgogi House just outside the gate at Osan.  In front of me is pork bulgogi and what else you see on the table is what comes with it.  I don't know what some of it was, but it was all really good.

 

I went on a wine tasting trip.  Notice the type of cheese the give you to go with your wine.  Yeah that is Korean Kraft slices.

 

This was from the lantern of lights in Seoul.  This was pretty cool and about 2 miles of the river in Seoul is all lights.  I forget how many people attend this each year, but there was a TON!

I arrived in California and started my work.  Right now I work in the logistics section and not on shift.  Currently I am in charge of our firefighting gear, or PPE (personal protective equipment) as we call it.  That is our bunker coats, pants, helmets, gloves, etc.  There are a lot of other things that I get wrapped up into that doesn't involve PPE and that is ok with me. 

Right before Thanksgiving I flew out to Tulsa to pick up Colton.  THANK YOU Heather, Michael and little Miss Harper for taking such good care of Colton, he sure misses his buddy.  Colton and I flew to Atlanta where Karrie meet us and we spent the weekend together as a family for Thanksgiving.  If you have never flew with a child for the first time by yourself and took a dozen doughnuts with you that says "We Love you," I don't recommend doing it on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.  We went to some cool places, like Coca Cola world and it was nice to finally be together.  After the short weekend Colton joined me in California.  It was some good quality father son time that I had missed.  After Karrie told me he could eat peanut butter and jelly sandwich's, it made my life A LOT more simple.  Last time I feed Colton he was eating baby food from a pouch and formula still.  At this point he was eating real food and I had no idea what or how to feed him.  He didn't like me much I have a feeling.  I asked Karrie and she said "you will figure it out."  WHAT!!!!  She then laughed and then told me some things that he liked and didn't like.  It took some time, but Colton and I finally got in a groove and got it all figured out.  I looked at houses in Orcutt and Santa Maria CA to purchase, but the market is so high here, we didn't want to take a chance and loose money.  So we opted into base housing.

Colton and I were able to move into our house on the 20th of December.  I had some guys from work come over and help unload the trailer.  What took me 15 hours took us 2 hours to unload.  Its crazy how fast it goes when you have help and when you are unloading.  Colton and I spend the weekend putting things where we thought they would go, but its harder to do that with a 1 year old then you think.  Karrie drove from Montgomery to Vandenberg and stopped a few places along the way.  She stopped in West Monroe LA to visit the Duck Dynasty shop, and picked Colton and I up a few things and then stopped at my family's in TorC, NM for a few hours to visit.  She was ready to be off the road by the time she got here.  We then spent the next week unpacking the house and celebrating Christmas.  Needless to say our house wasn't very decorated this year, but I was able to find a tree and put it up with some lights.

 

Someone likes the dogs and we are lucky that the dogs like him and let him do as he pleases

 

I was helping Colton paint his Christmas ornament at the CDC

 

Well he got a little on his mouth after trying to eat the paint brush.  So I got up to get him a paper towel...

 

...and someone didn't have adult supervision.  Fail as a dad.  But it makes a cute picture.

 

Hungry buddy?

 

Thank you Grandma and Grandpa for my new car.  I'm so smart I can push it backwards and crawl out the back to climb on the coffee table. 

 

Grandpa taught me to ride Dusty.  I did this all on my own!

For the New Year's we all celebrated in Edmond OK with Tom, Ginny, Mike and Katie.  It was a nice week off and good to be back.  We were there for Caroline's wedding and it went great.  It's always good to see family and enjoy their company.  Karrie and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary.  7 years, really!  It just seem possible that we have been married for that long.  We also celebrated my birthday.  Not everyone knows, but I don't like celebrating things about me.  After some careful convincing from my beautiful wife, we celebrated my birthday and had some of my grandma's world famous chocolate cake.  Karrie was busy so I made my birthday cake.  Not as good as Karrie would have made, but the frosting was nice and thick.  January was pretty boring around here.  Just working, unpacking the house and getting things where they belong, Karrie working on her masters degree,going to see Hottie (Karrie's horse) and playing with Colton, that's about all we did.  Oh and we started the series "Breaking Bad," it's very addictive.

Hopefully our first of many OKC Thunder games.

 
This month so far we went to LA Children's Hospital for Colton's eye.  The Dr. there was very nice and we are going back in a few weeks to get an MRI for the little man.  She wants to make sure that there isn't a mass behind his right eye maybe causing the issue.  She doesn't think so, but just wants to rule it out.  The little guy has been sick the last week and that's no fun for him at all.  He has come home a few times from the CDC (child development center, not the center for disease control) with a fever and not feeling good.  But hopefully he can kick the bug and start to feel better.  Karrie has been able to do some quilting and I have been doing a lot of cooking.  I have also been studying for my next rank advancement and hopefully will find out this summer the outcome.  I'm not getting my hopes up because they are kicking people out and might make this year a little tough.  But we will see and I'm hopeful.  This past weekend I picked up 20lbs of fresh tomatoes from the farmers market and made some stewed tomatoes and spaghetti sauce.  We will see how that turns out, but the taste testing went good.  That is a lot of work for little return. 

 

Look Sage and Tally, I have a Valentines card that plays Mickey Mouse Club house, isn't it so cool!

 
That's about it for now.  I will try to keep you posted and updated every few weeks, maybe even sooner, but we will see.  Hope you all are doing great and if you ever need anything, let us know.




 , Jeremy and Colton