What's there to say about Del Rio

Sadly, now that we are settled in here, I'm finding that life is pretty, well, dull. How do you beat an assignment like Aviano (Italy)? Every post was about the new and exciting things we were seeing and doing, the awesome new places we visited, and so on. Then we arrive in Del Rio. The highlight of our week was seventh grade orientation!
Okay - so it's not really that dull. We have met a great family from Jordan who treated the kids and I to a lovely afternoon on a boat at Lake Amistad. I'm sure that will be mentioned repeatedly during our stay here, as it is the main attraction. Maybe I'll take up fishing, and perhaps even get a tan. That's just wishful thinking on my part.
Ethan did make us laugh till I was almost in tears on the way out to the lake. Caitlyn had a little gas in the car and we were driving along and I hear Ethan say "ewwww. That's a disgusting toot!" In the middle of his movie. Caitlyn, didn't even try to deny it. We laughed so hard at the way he said it that Alisea started doing this funny little fake laugh to mimic us. It was a funny moment!
We are finding that the house we bought is literally surrounded by other military members, mostly from Casey's squadron. It's like off base, base housing! The house across the street was just bought by a family with two boys. They are 11 and 13. Caitlyn is 12. And..... they have a pool. Need I say more. More grey hair, that's for sure.
Well, I'll get the camera dug out for some updates soon.

Whew!!

I think we set a record for getting moved in. Every box was unpacked in a week. This never happens! I have to say having Casey home to help with it all was a tremendous help and the kids were pretty cooperative, considering. Granted, we did get a shipment on Wed. from our storage in Phoenix with about 15 more boxes, mostly tools, that I haven't bothered with yet, but I'm not counting that! Except for putting up a few more pictures the house is ready for game night! Now if only we had someone to invite!! We sure miss all of our friends and family.
We are slowly meeting people, but haven't been outside of the house socially enough yet.
Caitlyn is participating in the Missoula Children's theater - presenting The Little Mermaid, tonight and tomorrow. I'll take pics and post that later. She's anxious to start the 7th grade on the 25th and make some new friends.
Ethan started preschool two weeks ago. It's been good for him. The only program around here that was only part day was on base, so I drive him 20 min. each way for that, but everywhere else had long days - 7:30 to 3 ish. I'm not trying to get rid of him all day, just a few hours (hee-hee). He's meeting lots of friends.
Alisea is getting bigger and starting to say more words. She loves to point out all the dogs on our evening walks, but freaks out when we get close to one. She is learning to be pretty tough, having big brother Ethan to fend off all day, so we are having some minor (so far) issues with her biting and hitting. She's getting a little more hair, which is much lighter than I expected!
Life is good.

Celery?

Yep, the paint Caitlyn chose was called Celery. I must say, I am so proud of us for starting and FINISHING the paint project we planned for Caitlyn's room, and in one day! Oh to be young, and bold again. We did that faux painting technique with a lighter color that toned it down a bit, thankfully.
Ethan enjoyed putting some paint on the walls. We kinda had to include him. Who doesn't love to paint when they are little??? It was fun, and tiring, and we didn't get any on the floor!

SOLD!

Whoo Hoo!!! We closed on our house on Friday!! I'm so relieved that when we actually got the keys I still really liked the house. I was so worried that after seeing so many and having to choose between them, that I'd wonder if I should have picked a different one. Anyway - We had a mix-up with our household goods delivery date, so we won't have anything for yet another week! So now, instead of camping out in San Antonio, we are camping here. We've had a good first few days back in Del Rio and are looking forward to making the most of our time here.Ali tripped over the door jam on day 2 and now has a doozy of a fat lip. She's otherwise really enjoyed all the wide open space to run around in. She opens the empty cabinets and puts things in, crawls in, etc. Ethan is just anxious to get his garbage truck back, and Caitlyn is going to paint her room while we wait. I'll do a before and after pic. of that.

"I'm your son!"

A couple evenings ago, we were babysitting for our neighbors kids. During dinner, Casey turned to the little boy and said, "Son, you need to eat if you want to get strong....." or something like that. And Ethan pipes up immediately with - "He's not your son, I'm your son!" Casey was caught a little off guard, but we had a good laugh about it. I guess Casey will have to use names.

The Movies and more.

We saw "Hancock" this weekend. I kinda had to, since that is my maiden name. We'd heard it wasn't very good, but I must say I was entertained. The next day I went to "Journey to the Center of the Earth" with Caitlyn and that was fun. We don't get to spend nearly enough time together without the monkeys along, so it was very nice. I am not too picky with movies, and I liked it, even as far fetched as it all was. Caitlyn loved it. Then, we were off to Cold Stone for some very yummy, and very very expensive ice-cream. We plan to make our mother-daughter time a more regular, once a month, and probably standard movie night. The options for a m/d date in Del Rio are seriously limited, so this should work out great! She's starting to like the more chick flicky stuff, so Casey gets off the hook this way!

We also spent a few hours at the zoo, and I am happy to report super behavior from the kids, and my foot and knee problems did not slow me down (well, not very much). The darn lions were sleeping again. The coolest thing was the hippo exhibit. They have a little pond that is visible through a glass enclosure. Both hippos were underwater, and we could see all of them. It was cool to see them swimming and floating around. Ethan's favorite thing was the black goat he got to feed. Alisea freaked out when they got anywhere near her. She cracked me up when she locked her little legs around my torso when I tried to stoop over for her to see them up close! The camera battery was dead, so I have to get the pictures from my phone. I'll add them later.

Grrrrrrrrr! Need to vent.

Just got back from the doctor- again - with news that explains why my foot has been hurting so badly for the past 5 weeks. Apparently - I have a stress fracture on the calcaneous (heel) that is in the healing stage (thankfully, I'm past the most painful part) AND I apparently have another stress fracture in the 3-4 metatarsals which are currently causing me much pain and swelling. I probably should have been in a boot, and definitely not using my foot so much. I now have to wait a week so another x-ray can determine whether the metatarsals are in fact fractured. This is all very irratating, since I did absolutely nothing to injure them but walk. It seems that because I was completely non weight bearing for so long, that the bones thinned and weakened (a common side effect), and I just happened to fracture mine in multiple places. These usually occur after a fall off of something high (a roof or bleachers) or after hard running with pounding - neither of which I came anywhere close to. Grrrrrrr!!! I almost cried when he recommended I use the crutches for a couple of weeks, at least partially. Knee is doing pretty darn good though, considering. It's also good to have verification that I wasn't just being a baby!

I just hope it doesn't get any worse and that I can walk somewhat normally when we get to move into the house. Okay - thanks for listening.