More Catching Up

Another crazy thing that has happened since I've been gone.

• I had an unexpected visitor show up on my doorstep last Tuesday night.  At 10pm.  

Here's the story:

I hadn't been feeling good the few days prior to that.  I suspect I had the early stages of an ear infection that has since thankfully cured itself.  I was planning on getting a little bit of work done on a paper and going to bed by 10:30 that night.

The dog starts barking outrageously crazy around 10 o'clock.  He has been doing this more and more recently (Which is super annoying when you have three kids sleeping!) and generally for no good reason what-so-ever.  Normally it's a dog walking down the street or some kid on a skate board or sometimes I think maybe just a leaf flying by.  Who knows.  The point is, I've either been ignoring him lately or calling him downstairs to get him to shut up.

That night though, something told me to get up and see what he was barking at.  Under normal circumstances, I use the window upstairs to look out and see what is going on.  See I'm short - and the peep hole isn't always the easiest for me to reach.  However, again that night for some reason I was inclined to stop on the landing and use the peep hole.

I stand on my tip-toes and peer out the peep hole and Oh.My.God. there is someone there!  I had a thousand thoughts run through my head as I came down off my tip-toes.  (Of course as a military spouse of a deployed soldier, you always have a fear of your worse nightmare coming true with that unexpected knock at the door.)

Within a split second I'm back on my tip-toes looking out.

And within the next second I'm throwing the door open.

Open to my big sis!

Who was supposedly in New Zealand.  On the other side of the world!

See my sister left last October for a round the world trip.  She was not due to be back in the States until late September/early October.  (You can read all about her adventure here.)

After ten months of traveling she was tired of being on the go, homesick and running low on funds.  So she came home early.  But conveniently failed to mention it to anyone in the family. 

It was definitely a nice surprise that brought a rush of emotions and tears to my eyes!

She ended up spending the next four days with us hanging out.  It was as if she never left and we picked right back up where we left off.  I couldn't mention it earlier because I'm not sure who reads my blog these days and she still had more people to surprise.  The surprises are finally all done though and you can read the story from her perspective here.  

 I'm so, so glad to have my sis back home.  Now if only I could hurry up and get that damn husband of mine home too!

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all the mother's out there but most importantly to my mom.

My mom is:

Strong
Kind
Intelligent
Compassionate
Talented
Giving
Hilarious
Loving
Patient
And best of all, she is my MOM!

While we may have gotten off to a rough start all those years ago, you are now one of my closest friends. I love you with all my heart Mom.

Happy Mother's Day!

Medicine Recall

Just wanted to make sure that everyone is aware of the recall on Children's Tylenol, Motrin, Benadryl and Zyrtec products. I had seen this a couple times within the past few weeks but it wasn't until today that I actually made time to pull everything out of the medicine cabinet and check.

While we have mostly generic medicines in our cabinet (that's what our self-help on post gives), I did actually find a couple of affected products - one of them even from the army clinic.

So please check the medicines if you have them! Through this website, you can either request a high value coupon or a refund of the product to have it replaced.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to my Big Sis, Sha-Sha! She turns **OLD** today!

(That's her on the left and me on the right)

Love ya and hope you have a great day!

Memories

April 2, 1912 - November 14, 2008

That's my Pop - Clair (Pete) Leroy Hallock.
Sadly after 96 wonderful years - Pop passed on.
(Obituary)

Pop lived an awesome life and had many, many stories that he shared with us on many occasions. Like the story of his first car. He bought it from a friend who had gotten some girl pregnant and needed money. It was a Ford Model T that he bought for $20! Could you imagine?

My sister and I went to Clearfield to visit just 2 days before he passed and while he was not doing well he was still telling stories. He was still telling stories with his hands and doing his classic tapping of his hand. (It's very hard to explain but it is something I will never forget.) He was very hard to understand but I still sat there and listened. I thought I could understand words here and there but at one point I know I was able to understand him saying "and you cried and cried and wanted to go home". At that instance I knew exactly what story he was telling and I cried and laughed all over again.

When I was about 7 or 8 Dad took Shannon and I up to stay with Granny and Pop for a week. I cried the entire week because I was home sick and wanted Dad to come and get me. I didn't care that Dad had to work - I wanted to be picked up! I did eventually make it through that week and by the time Dad came to pick us up; I of course didn't want to leave!

Grandma also shared a story with us that day that I had not heard before:

When Pop was a young boy (he doesn't remember how old) he was taking the cow out to the pasture and had just staked the cow when he heard this rumbling that he had never heard before. He didn't know who was more scared - him or the cow.


Over head he saw the noise - it was a plane! The first plane that he'd ever seen. In fact it was one of the first planes ever! And it was landing in his field! Come to find out the pilot had run out of gas. He got out of the plane and asked Pop where the closest gas station was.


Pop was old enough to be able to tell him how to get there and gave him directions. The pilot picked him up and sat him on the wing of the plane and told him not to let anyone touch his plane and he was off.


Pop says there were many people that came from all over to get a look at this plane. And he sat there on the wing of the plane and shouted, "Don't touch the plane" "Stay away from the plane".


The pilot returned some time later, filled the plane with gas, sat Pop back on the ground and had a few men help him spin the propeller and he was off again.


How awesome would that have been to have lived through. He definately saw many awesome things during his lifetime and he will be greatly missed. I am thankful that I have his many stories to be able to pass on down to my kids.

If you would like to read more you can here.

(**On a side note - we asked my Grandmother (his daughter) where he got the nickname "Pete" and even she didn't know. She knew who called him that and who started it but didn't know a reason behind it.)