New Job...New Adventure...

Hello blog friends!!
Boy oh boy how things have changed in the last month. First off, it’s been an amazing time. The holidays were amazing, our son was home, my husband was home and we did absolutely nothing! Part of the reason was because I started a new job!!!! Yes, on Dec 15th I started my first day as our battalions Family Readiness Officer. My dream job, a job I never thought would happen since it is a pretty elusive job too most. Not because there aren’t a lot of super candidates, well yes, that is part of it, but it’s just really hard to get a foot in the door. About a year and a half ago I thought maybe one way to actually do that was to volunteer to be our battalions Family Readiness Advisor, and I think it helped a great deal. I was able to see the inner workings of the job I may have missed had I not. Long story short, when our FRO (who I loved and was an amazing mentor) was served with orders via her husband I finally got the chance I was hoping for.
I have now been in the job for about 3 weeks. Luckily over the holidays I was afforded a lot of time to try to figure things out, feel my way around the office and try organize. Needless to say I was left an immaculate office so it didn’t take long to get all my ducks in a row.
So now the work starts. Hubs is leaving for a month for some Senior PME at Quantico and even though I hate he is leaving it will give me time to set up a cot in my office and get to work! Lots of training and lots of communication and hopefully I will be the type of FRO our amazing families deserve. Wish my luck everyone.....I am super excited!

Not So Wordless Wednesday

During this holiday season please take a moment to remember our wounded warriors. I am posting a photo of two of the several Wounded Warriors who are recovering from our last deployment. The courage these young men exhibit makes me want to be a better person. Although these are certainly not the first nor will they be the last, they are our bravest and still fighting their own fight..for recovery. Please do not forget them, please do not turn away from them. Instead of staring please go up and thank them and ask them what happened. I have been told they prefer that to the stares. So to The Darkside Families of our wounded, know we are thinking of you all and we are still here. And of course to our Darkside fallen, we are forever grateful and we will never forget....to all our Wounded and Fallen from every service across this nation...THANK YOU.

Please Read

My friend Mary who lost her husband on our last deployment is getting ready any second to deliver her and Lukes son. This is their third son. Please take a minute to go to her blog and read about what it is like for her to grieve at this time and read how beautifully she expresses something we should all remember...no one knows how it feels to go through this unless you have yourself. She is amazing...I had to share

http://mynewkindofpregnancy.blogspot.com/

Wordless Wednesday. I Miss This Face

Some Good and Surprising News to Share!

Well fellow bloggers. I know I have been off line a bit with my blogging. But as usual I promise I am keeping up with all of you and what you are up too. With homecoming, our trip to Slovenia (I promise to post pics soon) and our ball things have been crazy. Well I forgot I didn’t share some super exciting and unexpected news.
Last month we were up in Kingman preparing for our trip to Europe. My hubs and I were at a tattoo parlor (post for another day) when I see my hubs checking his phone for an email (I had heard the notification) . Well as usual I see my hubs looking with interest at the email and was waiting for him to share the email with me for what seemed like a long time. So I asked him, “what is it babe?” I was sure it was bad..he wasn’t sharing and he seemed incredibly pale so I was starting to worry. Again, I asked him, “What is it babe?”. After what seemed like an eternity my hubs came up besides me and laid the cell phone next to me on the bench and just pointed at it. I picked up the phone to see an email from SgtMaj Cochran, Gregs old SgtMaj from our last duty station. And I read the contents, “ Congratulations on your selection to SgtMaj” ........WOWSA.
Now I was in shock, surely this wasn’t right, a joke maybe? Someone with the same name? Just couldn’t be right. The reasons being a few. My hubs was in the below zone for SgtMaj, not just in below zone but way down buried in the below zone. So far down we weren’t even sure if he would be in zone next year. No one ever gets pulled out of the below zone for SgtMaj. at least not that we were aware of. It wasn’t even on our radar this year...we were so out of the loop with looking for this message to come out because we figured there was just no way. Those of you that read my blog and understand, above, zone and below will completely understand our shock.
It took about a whole day of not believing and about 100 congratulatory emails and text before we realized it was true. So I guess this may mean a possible PCS for us, and exciting new adventure. When I met my hubs he was getting ready to go in the Corps and I asked him what he wanted to be, he said he wanted to be a SgtMaj....well babe, you did it. And I could not be prouder.

Marine Corps Birthday Ball 2011

This year our son attended his first Marine Corps Birthday Ball with us. He has just attended his own at school for ROTC but this was his first with us. It was so nice, he came with a lovely young lady who dressed so nice and was so polite, our son has great taste. What I loved was how some of the Marine Corps Officers that were ROTC Midshipmen came up and introduced themselves to him and asked him about his program. Michael was feeling a bit out of place wearing a midshipmen uniform to a Marine Corps Ball but that quickly went away when he felt the camaraderie with other ROTC Alumnae.



This picture was taken at the Caesars bar the night before the ball, we had a great time just sitting there and as we did more and more people were coming to celebrate. Lets just say I drank a bit more then I would have liked but still had the best time.



more



more, me and my hubs...



This was taken at Shadow Bar after the ball, if you notice I have changed out of my fancy wear since my feet were killing me and I didn’t have any flip flops to put on or I would have, these ladies are the best!



Me, Dawn, and Michelle. These girls were my rock during deployment and well Dawn is being Dawn! LOL




Me and Dawn. Dawn is about 5ft Tall and well I am not..I look like an amazon next to her!



Me and my handsome hubs. He always looks so handsome and he always makes me feel like the prettiest girl in the room.



Some of the Lima ladies with Dawn.


The ball was amazing this year. The room was beautiful and the mood was awesome. We started off the ball with a montage of our fallen, it was a bit hard to swallow and I did my best to hold back the tears but it was hard not to think of those not with us that night. I felt like they were, and I wished more then ever my friend Mary could have been there. She was home awaiting the birth of her son but when Luke flashed on the screen I felt like she was there with us. We also were able to see some of our severely wounded Marines that were able to make it as well. It did my heart good to see the spirit of these young men was not left on a piece of ground in Afghanistan, but it was fully intact and evident in their smiles in that ball room. I know some of them have a long way to go but I have no doubt they will get there. What an amazing night, I love the Darkside and I love that we have these memories forever.

Veterans Day 2011

Happy Veterans Day to all of you that serve or who have served this great country of ours. And to a Veteran that never got the thanks deserved, R.I.P. dad and thank you for laying your life on the line for an ungrateful nation and to all his friends that came home to the U.S. of A. only to have backs turned to them, THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE. Let us hope that no other veteran ever knows the pain of our Vietnam Veterans and their families. My father was K.I.A. in Vietnam and I know today he would be proud to see how we honor our vets coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan. Let not another single vet ever be forgotten or rejected ..... THANK YOU.