This was sent to me by a fellow Army wife:

Here is combat footage from our side of the war on YouTube. The guys that I work with that put together the MNF-Iraq.com web came up with this idea and it’s taking off. If the insurgents can post their footage we can beat them at their own game. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=MNFIRAQ

Active Duty???

Well... as we look at all the options that lay ahead of us, one seems to stand out more than the others. That's the option to go Active Duty. Next weekend when Rick has Drill again in St Louis he will talk to his unit's Retention Officer about the possibility of going Active Duty with it IN HIS CONTRACT that Ft Leonard Wood would be his first duty station. If that happens, we would be here for aprox 3 years, at least. Then we'd be moving wherever else Uncle Sam wants to send us. That option sounds better and better every time I think of it. We would be able to live on Post which would take away the many fears and insecurities I have living here on Rt 66. And while the housing on post is old... I think the oldest housing there is STILL a good 50 years newer than the house we're in now! Plus it would help with our transportation issue (only having 1 car) if everything was close, as it is on Post. The possibility is REALLY excited and REALLY appealling to me... but we want to be sure it's what is in God's will. Please continue to pray for us as we search for the direction God wants us to go.

Good News / Bad News ?????????

Rick found out at Drill this weekend that his name is NOT on the current Battle Roster list ... meaning, as it stands right now... he is NOT deploying to Iraq this spring.

While this is obviously a HUGE blessing... it is also a HUGE prayer request! First, this IS the Army we're dealing with... so everything is subject to change. The last thing I want is to once again get my hopes up... only to be let down. Second, nobody from Rick's unit has a clue as to why he's no longer on the list to deploy... nor do they have any desire to help him figure it out. He's on his own. So, tomorrow he'll be making phone calls to find out more about why he's not on the list and what this really means for us. Third, if this really IS true and if Rick really ISN'T deploying, we need God to make it abundantly clear what it is that He wants us to do. Rick is not employed right now as most of you know and we've been waiting on deployment orders. So, if those orders aren't coming we need to figure out what God wants us to do for employment - civillian or military. There are lots of options - we just don't know which ones are open for us right now.

What we DO know is that God HAS made it extremely clear to us that this area is where we need to be right now. He's put alot of work to do in front of us and there's no place on earth we'd rather be during this season.

Please keep us in your prayers. Pray for Rick as he begins making phone calls tomorrow.

Meet BOUNCER

With Rick deploying soon we've thrown around the idea of getting a dog... something to make me feel a little more secure at night when Rick's gone. Saturday night we had more drunks in our yard at 1am and so I started REALLY thinking about the idea. Then yesterday this "little guy" just kinda fell into our laps. He's only six months old, he's a black lab, and he's really good with kids. He's going to be HUGE someday.

The Honeymoon's Over

Rick and I have enjoyed a WONDERFUL week together this past week while my parents were gracious enough to keep them in St Louis. Rick will be deploying next month... I can hardly believe that time is so close, now. So, we took a week all to ourselves. And it has been WONDERFUL!! We've slept in. We stayed out late. We felt like we were newlyweds all over again. Everyone teased us we were on our honeymoon. We enjoyed Valentine's Day all by ourselves... which we've NEVER done.

Friday night my wonderful husband took me to the Spouse Appreciation Valentine's Dinner for the St Robert Fire Dept. I really enjoyed meeting the guys that he works with, I learned how to play a new card game, and I even sang Karaoke!!! Earlier that day, Rick drug me along with him to the garage on post to help him install strobe lights into the van (so he can run code when there's a fire). I think that was paybacks because on Thursday night I drug him along with me to the Commissary's Moonlight Madness sale. Let's just say we're even! ha ha

Yesterday morning Rick left for a fire around 3am and didn't return home until 1130 am. Someone in Waynesville decided to keep their puppy warm by plugging in a space heater outside under their front porch... with a pile of straw. Needless to say, they lost the entire house. Rick drove me back by the house yesterday and the walls weren't even left. He drove me around to 2 other fires that he's been to this year and I was AMAZED at the man that I've married. He said, "See that hole in the roof? That's where I was. I chopped that hole into the roof and dropped water on the house from there." You have no idea how proud I was... and then the bottom of my stomach dropped out as I looked around that hole in the roof and saw that there wasnt much left to hold that roof up... and what WAS left was mostly burned up. It is an amazing mix of pride and terror that comes with being in love with a hero. I guess I should get used to this feeling because I know my husband was born to be a hero. Many more heroic acts will come from this man's life... and many of them will be happening soon as he deploys.

Tomorrow we will go to St Louis to get the kids... and the honeymoon will be over, as they say. That's ok. I have had enough wonderful memories made this week to push me forward as we face this deployment.

Rick's first fires

Here is a link to our newspaper's article about some of the recent fires we've had in the area following the ice storm. There's two pictures of house fires that Rick was at. I just don't know if he's one of the guys in the picture or not.

http://www.waynesvilledailyguide.com/articles/2007/01/18/news/news01.txt

On Wednesday he left at 4am and didn't make it back until almost 4pm. They went from one fire to the next to the next without even going back to the station in between calls. It was his first day actually fighting fires and they had him up on the ice-covered roof at one home with an axe, punching a hole in it and dropping the hose in.

Last night he responded to another call and this morning he is out again.

My husband, my soldier, my fire-fighter, my medic, my nurse, my hero!

Correction: Rick just got home and looked at these photos. In the top photo he's the man on the left, holding the hose! WOO HOO! GO RICK!

Our ICE STORM

This picture was taken out of Mira's bedroom window. You can't really tell from the photo... but those two branches are actually leaning up against the window. We're EXTREMELY greatful that these two branches didn't go THROUGH her window.... that window is already cracked from the fire we had almost a year ago. Since this picture was taken yesterday morning, we have had more limbs fall in the yard and our propane tank is completely covered by branches. They have crushed our neighbors new fence and landed on his new shed(from after the fire).