Louisiana Living

Wow, I don't even know where to begin! We have been in transition with packing, moving, traveling, unpacking, organizing and exploring since the end of March! I feel like I could probably write a novel on all the adventures we've done in these past couple months but then I'd be on this computer forever typing and won't get anything done in the house, haha! So I will give you some mini travel updates, pictures and everything currently going on in our life.

After Forrest's EOD graduation, we visited with Forrest's parents and great-grandmother in Montgomery, AL, for about a week; headed to Orlando, FL to visit with our good friends, the Griffins; went back up to Montgomery for about 2 weeks to visit with his parents and grandparents and then finally made our grand adventure to Louisiana!

Easter pics with cousin Dalton.

Gabbi & grand babies

Easter eggs!

Visiting Nannie :).

Giving her great-great-grandma a big hug!

Camylle & the Griffin boys

Being silly at Legoland

The Griffin family :)

Lego go-carts!

Smoochie boochies for cousin Dalton :).

Dalton and G'daddy

Camylle's first baseball game.

The fishing queen!

Eskimo kisses for MeMe!

The day we arrived to Louisiana was about 85 degrees and SUPER humid! Such a lovely welcome to have wild untamable hair and a once stylish shirt full of sweat....welcome to Louisiana, haha! Luckily, I have had some training in getting my body acclimated to hot weather. Alaska to west dry hot Texas, then to hot humid Florida and now to hot and mega humid Louisiana. Thankfully, I will be long down with the pregnancy for the hottest most humid months of the year. Anyways, enough of my version of the weather channel....so we arrived and went straight into the Army hotel for a few weeks. It was definitely itty bitty living space but that just meant lots of snuggle time with our little cuddle bug :)!

We made it!!!

We got here just in time for the Cajun Festival at Fort Polk! I think festival exploring is going to one of best family past times :). We try to go to every festival we can in every place we've been so far. This one was a lot of fun, as usual. They had great Cajun food, vendors, bounce houses for the kids, helicopter  tours, cars and music. Classic festival stuff :). We also have been able to go to May Fest, which is central Louisiana's longest running festivals, and then we also went to Treasure Fest, which is a bargain hunter's dream where locals come together and basically have the mother of all yard sales in one spot! Hopefully by the end of assignment time in LA, we will have a mile long list of adventurous festival memories :)! Below are pictures from the festivals as well as pictures in our new backyard!

Cajun Festival at Ft Polk

Bring on the crawfish!

Our beautiful magnolia tree!

Getting the 4-1-1 on the game of softball.

Cooky little girl wanted to catch the "wizard".

Chalk people!

"...they see my ridin', theeeey hatin'.."

Our cool $5 find :).

May Fest 2013!

Found this little beauty on the side of the road on the drive home....

Crazy kids!

Taking a break from unpacking to make banana chips

One of my favorite animals to see in the yard, a red cardinal!

Mr Squirrel, eating all of the bird's food.

A rabbit in our backyard.

Booty girl, looking for the rabbit :).

A stick bug on the side of the house!

We finally were able to boot scoot out of the hotel and into our new abode the last couple days in April. We are renting a cute old school 1960's brick home that I have been assured will keep me in one piece if a hurricane decides to rock our world. Lets hope this is the case, cause you know my Alaska little booty is going to hiding in the tub with my little fam bam praying up a storm if any kind of natural disaster hits our way! Our house has a lot of character and it is slowly growing from a house to a home. It's a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, kitchen, dining room, living room, huge front and backyard home with a huge magnolia tree in the backyard! We decided to have the girls share a room and so far their new room is adorable. Camylle is super excited be in her big girl twin bed and can't wait for Baby Sister to sleep in her crib and share all her toys with her! One thing we still need to get is a phone land line. The reception in the house is terrible so we barely get incoming cell phone calls. I will keep you posted with our new number once we get one! When we finally get the house completely decorated then I will post pics :)

Camylle updates:
Talk about a little firecracker! She is constantly amazing me with how smart she is and all the words and phrase she says. She has been saying her ABC's, shapes, colors and numbers for some time now but her new thing is comparing things like "Mom the shirt is purple like my pony", "This is my bracelet just like Mommy's", "Look, Dora pjs just like my Dora book", "Mommy watch me, I can jump high to the sky like Daddy jumps". It's so cute to see her associate and compare things and know that she totally understands the concept. She is also the singing queen. She will bust out a tune at any time, which is then followed by a crazy little skip and run around the house!

 We just enrolled her for preschool at our new church, which she will attend in the fall for the school year. She is already talking about how she wants to go to school and play with her friends :). I hope this learning spirit continues into her teen years (hopeful!). We were looking at putting her in VBS but the youngest age group starts at 4 years so I think instead we may be putting her in swimming lessons which is also that same week of VBS, the 2nd week in June, and it's super close to the house. She LOVES the water so I know she would probably love lessons. Until then she has been enjoying the splash park and other local parks as well as spotting out and catching lizards in the backyard. Forrest has already taken her fishing a few times and is teaching her shoot squirrels.....meanwhile I've been teaching her more important things like killing bugs :D! I may be responsible for getting her obsessed with killing bugs, haha! I bought her a fly swatter and she is hilarious with it. She'll grab is and say all matter of fact "Ok mom, I go kills bugs! You stay there, I be right back!!", then she'll walk outside and start furiously starts swatting the back patio floor, haha it's the cutest thing!

She is probably the most excited about Baby Sister though :). She has a few "sister" books that we've been reading her at night. She'll sing songs to my belly and grab the baby toys and baby outfits and put them on my tummy and say "Here baby sister this one's yours. You like it?". She's going to be the best big sister! I love it when she puts her little hands on my tummy to feel the baby kick and then she says "Shhh Mommy, ya gotta wait", then she'll hold her hands there and waits for her to kick. Precious! I could gush about my smart little cookie all day!

Baby Sister updates:
The baby is is good health and growing right on track. They said she is about 7 lbs right now and that she may be a little smaller than Camylle was when she was born, Lord willing! She wiggles and kicks allllll day long. I'm wondering if all her movement is already shedding light on her personality, I know it was the case with Camylle. Maybe they're energy will even each other out :). She is positioned head down and has dropped this past week which means she's getting ready to come into this world, very soon! She still has no name, which is ok cause she's not born yet! Forrest and I have our top picks but are having a hard time agreeing on "the one". But no worries, she'll have a name soon enough...unless we just call her baby sister the rest of her life, haha! We just got her carseat in the mail the other day and  Forrest's parents gifted a double stroller for us :)! Camylle is has been so cute about it all, "This is baby sister's carseat Mommy! I buckle her, see?!". Thankfully, we were blessed abundantly the first time around with baby things and adorable girl clothes and I made sure to keep them all. One thing we are doing new this time around is cloth diapers. I'm pretty excited about it! We have been having people ask if we are registered anywhere so I decided to make a Baby Registry on Amazon. But this baby has been blessed with so much love from family and friends that she really doesn't need anything else :).

Forrest & Krista updates:
Forrest feels like he's back to his roots in the great outdoors. He has been enjoying fishing and shooting squirrels. He also has been having a lot of fun doing "man" things in the backyard, like clearing bushes and mowing the lawn. We bought some seeds the other week to start up our garden and we've both been enjoying watching our garden grow. Forrest is loving his new job so far. He said it's so different and laid back compared to the infantry life. All the guys he works with seem like great people and he likes his commander.

It's still not 100% yet but it is looking like Forrest will probably be deploying in September. Please be praying with us about this deployment and that God's will be done. I selfishly, of course, want him to stay here but I know God's plans for our lives are bigger than us and that there is a beautiful big picture that only He can see right now. So if oversees is where he is being called then we are both ok with it because it will be for His glory. This would be Forrest's 3rd deployment and he is actually excited to possibly go oversees as an EOD Technician. It would be a great growing experience for his job and be beneficial for his career. Deployment would only be 9 months, Sept-June, and would not include a R&R. We should find out soon and I will keep you all posted. Until then they are starting to do field training and preparing for deployment.

Conveniently :S , Forrest will be going to the field for training the week before the baby is due....classic Army. I did get the number to get a hold of Forrest in case I do go into labor early and they will send him back for the birth. Thankfully, the Monday he leaves is the same Monday that my Mom gets in (aaahhhh so excited)!!! So I won't be all by my tubby self going into labor early with a toddler running around, haha!

I am doing great for being 38 weeks pregnant! Like I said earlier, the baby has dropped so I am now noticing that a ounce of water goes down as fast as it comes out! The doctors say all my levels look good and that I am currently 3cm dilated! I guess it's pretty common to already be dilated this far if you're on your 2nd baby and if you had the first one naturally. They said it doesn't mean that the baby will come early, she said it's even possible that I could be late. There's really no way of telling. I have had no contractions so that's a good sign that maybe she'll stay inside till due date, hopefully. I'm ready to not be pregnant anymore and not worry about opening the fridge without hitting my belly, haha!

As I mentioned....my MOM gets here in 4 more DAYS!!!! I'm beyond excited and the house is just about all set up for her! It has been about a year since I've seen her and so I know this time spent with her is going to be so special and I'm just so happy she'll be here for the birth! Camylle is super excited about Grandma coming too :)!!

Forrest and I have been trying to get plugged into the community down here and meet new friends. We found a church, First Baptist Church of DeRidder, that we really like and it is also the church where Camylle will be attending Preschool. They have great ministry opportunities, a wonderful children's program and a solid young adults sunday school class that we've been enjoying. We are also going to our sunday school party this Sunday at the splash park. It will be a fun time to get to know people better and for our kids to play with each other. Yesterday we had the Pastor and Children's Pastor come over to the house for a little get-to-know-ya fellowship. We really like them both and are happy that we chose to attend this church!

Last night I attended the Ladies Coffee Break, where woman from the church and some from the community came together to have dinner, cake, coffee and fellowship. I met some amazing ladies and even exchanged a few numbers! I'm actually meeting one of the girls at the splash park today with Camylle :)! I am also planning on going to the woman's bible study that is starting up in June. They will be going over the book Captivating, which I do have but haven't read all the way through. I know its a great book and that I will be more amazing ladies! Oh aaaand I found out that Beth Moore will be in Shreveport, about 2 hours away, in August and the ladies from the church are doing a little road trip/retreat out of it! I definitely want to go :)!

 Another thing that I started going to is PWOC. It's the woman's bible study on Post. I went to PWOC at  Ft Wainwright, Ft Bliss, Eglin AFB and now here! It really is a great way to meet other Christian military wives and so far I've already met some awesome people there. The first week I went reassured me that I was suppose to be going, because the bible study group I chose happen to have another girl from my hometown and I just so happen to sit right next to her! God divine :)! I also met a few other ladies that live in the same area we do who also have kids around Camylle's age and who have just had newborns.

We are also getting more involved with Forrest's unit this time around since it's a tighter community.  They had an open house the other week that we went to and I met some of the other EOD wives. The neat thing is that the majority of the woman all have kids that are around 3-4 years so Camylle has plenty of little friends her age! Yesterday they had an EOD FRG (family readiness group) lunch for the wives, that Camylle and I went to and I was able to get to know some of the ladies a little more. They are all super nice and I really feel like I'm going to meet some great friends while stationed here :). Optimistic!

Well, I think I covered all the basics! We've had so much going on these past few months and it just feels so good to be settled and get in a routine and meet new friends! I know the next time I update the blog I'll have even more exciting news :)! We love and miss all our family and friends!

Mother's Day Adventures. 38 weeks pregnant :).