Let's Pretend!

"I go bye-bye. Got my purse and my bible, all ready go"

Where was she going? "Don' know, jus' bye-bye"

"AYYYE MATEY!! Guess who I am Momma!" - As a hint, he had just been watching Peter Pan. By the way, that's the dough hook to my electric mixer that he has in his hand.

I had a friend tell me the other day that she met a child who literally could not "play pretend" and I was astounded. I thought that was someting all kids did all the time like ours do! It's kind of sad to think of all of the fun that that child was missing out on, not to mention that it is probably developmentally concerning if a child can't take what he or she sees in the world around them and learn from it through play. How else do you figure out what a mommy is and does or what a vetrinarian does?

Some days the most enjoyable part of my day is watching these two pretend to care for the "really, really sick Komodo Dragon" with my stethoscope and a wooden spoon (turns out he needed surgery "'cause hurt back like momma"); or seeing them working side by side at the toy kitchen to prepare a "meal" for me (it was "apple soup with lots of salt" and "butter" - SSG AJ thinks butter is one of the four food groups).

It is amazing the way God has made their minds to work and learn from such a young age!

"We came, we saw, we returned."

All,

I returned yesterday evening from being on deployment for Hurricane Humberto for the last 28 hours. We had got the notification the day before (Wednesday, 9/12) that we were to send a boat squad from my department to join 5 other squads from across the state. After marshaling up in Austin, we headed out to College Station to Texas Task Force One's headquarters for in-processing and further tasking. After completing our in-processing the entire team of 6 boat squads (twelve separate boats) and 51 personnel headed out to our forward base of operations (called the "BOO") in Houston.<

The word was that they were expecting heavy rains across Houston, Galveston, Beaumont and Port Arthur as Tropical Storm (soon to be Hurricane) Humberto moved inland from the Gulf. Our BOO happened to be in the cavernous Reliant Center (next to Reliant Stadium- home to the NFL's Houston Texans) which is where they hold the Houston Stock show and Rodeo each year.

This place is humongous to say the least! We were kept to one section (please look at the photos) and there are two other equally big sections on each side of ours. The entire place was air conditioned (yay!) but it is always a bit hard to sleep in the equivalent of a convention center.

The vehicle in the distance is a 30ft logistics trailer. We set our cots up in that area.

That night and the next day was simply a "wait and see" time for the Water Strike Team. As Humberto crossed the coast at High Island it caused quite a bit of wind and storm damage to Beaumont, Port Arthur and the surrounding counties, but the flooding was not as extensive as they expected.

My squad checking out equipment on Wednesday night.

The next day was more of a "wait and see" sort of day- with my squad spending the time with the STAR Flight helo squad playing a new game called "PT Poker". The basic jist is playing Texas Hold-em poker but betting with rep's of various physical fitness calisthenics (push-ups, sit-ups, flutter kicks, etc...). It certainly helped pass the time and was better that sitting around napping or waiting for more Whattaburger for meals (ask me sometime why I refuse to eat Whattaburger any other time).

Around 1pm yesterday we got the orders from the state EOC that we were not needed by any of the local jurisdictions and that we were to be demobilized. The A/TCEMS boat team and helo squads were allowed to out-process in Houston so we did not have to head back to College Station before heading home to Austin. This saved us about 3-4 hours of time. After an uneventful trip back to Austin we put all of our equipment and boat back in one of our stations and headed home.

That's about it for an "uneventful deployment". Lots of Whattaburger and extra time spent hoping that you get an assignment but praying that you really don't since that means that someones life has been turned totally upside down.

XO

"Why Daddy Go Bye Bye?"

http://usar.tamu.edu/

Check out this website to find the answer to Ana's very astute question. They should have updates on the deployment throughout the next couple of days, complete with pictures.

All I know at this point is that they are headed to Galveston, and will be back sometime on Sunday...

The XO will be the squad leader for a boat rescue team. Pray for safety for his entire team.

The Bill

MRI - $900
Hospital fees - $21,000
Neurosurgeon - $12,000
Anesthesiologist - $5,000
OR Nurse Assistant - $1,200
Neurologic Monitoring in the OR - $3,000
Titanium Hardware - $18,000

Getting your spine fixed - PRICELESS!

I know it's a shameless plagarism of a major credit card company, but it seemed to fit. :-)
I promise once life has returned to some kind of normalcy this blog will stop being neglected like it has been in the last month. I like to think I have had a good excuse...

A Little Girl on a Mission

SSG AJ got up the other morning and was coming down the hall toward our room when I tried to stop her and give her a hug, saying "Good morning! How did you sleep last night?". She put up her hand and said "No talk momma! Got go pee!"

Guess I'll have to give her that promotion soon since she's almost potty trained! LOL

A Little Boy's Prayers

The setting: We're driving home from the grocery store and Ana is making noises and generally trying to annoy her brother.

CJ - "Mom, God always hears me when I pray right?"
Mom - "Yep, He'll always hear you no matter where you are"
CJ - "OK. God, please take away that little sister right now! Amen."
Pause......
"God, I said take away that sister right now!"
Another pause....
"Mom, He didn't listen to me!"
Mom - "Well, sometimes God says 'no' to our prayers because sometimes we pray for things that wouldn't really be good for us"
CJ - "But mom, it would be REALLY good if God took away my noisy sister!"

I just had to smile and suggest that maybe he could pray that she would be more quiet instead of praying for her to disappear!

Beekeeper isn't in my job description

This is a picture of the top of one of the 10 foot tall columns that support our front porch. Silly us, we thought they were covered over on the top. That is, until we noticed literally hundreds of bees flying in and out and around the top of this column. The XO climbed up on a ladder and reached over with the camera to get a pic to assess the situation. He wisely chose not to get too close!
I'm all for having bees around to pollinate our landscape (especially since our yard is a National Wildlife Federation Certified Wildscape Backyard), but when there are this many bees right outside your front door, you have small children, and there have been africanized (or "killer") honey bees found within a few miles of you you're kind of forced to do something about the situation. We called a local exterminator who showed up in a full bee suit and took care of the bees for us. He said that they had probably been in there for years and that there was "a ton" of honeycomb in that column. I asked him to guess how many bees were in that colony and his answer shocked me - "several hundred thousand". Wow!
Oh, the joys of home ownership!