I was supposed to fly to Indiana one week from today to meet Joel at the airport. We planned on spending one week together while he made preparations for his soldiers to return.

Plans have changed. His replacement didn’t work out so he has to stay a little longer.

I should still see him soon, just not as soon as I had hoped… and the fun-filled kid-free week has been canceled.

I’m disappointed, of course… and hoping we get our money back on my plane tickets.

Ah well, such is the Army. I’ll hold him when I hold him.

And here it is, almost two weeks late…. my Fourth of July post!

Oh and it was a day to remember.

Rachel picked me up at the airport on the 3rd, we stayed up too late talking and yet somehow she got herself, me and three kids on the road by 5:30am. I was impressed. We attended the CHBOLC picnic which was everything I had hoped for. As I was talking to a few new friends I heard two chaplains yell, “MAXWELL!” I had looked forward to meeting my blogging buddies, but I hadn’t expected to see any of my former classmates. Surprise! It was great catching up with Chris and ‘The Next General Lee.’ I also got to meet CH Bong’s sister… CH Bong. Chaplain Bong was in my platoon and often spoke highly of his sister, it was an honor to get to meet her.

I had a blast getting to meet CH Kay, CH Ken,
CH Ham, LT Dave and LT Chester Olson. Unfortunately, I missed out on meeting CH Mark Olson.

I also had the somewhat odd experience of just having random guys greet me by yelling, “Hey GentleWhisper!” Somehow I think that’ll follow me around for my whole career.

I didn’t just get to meet the chaplains, I also got to meet some of their families. I talked to CH Ken’s family for a long time and loved that. I’ll have to post the photo of me and his daughter later. She totally rocks.

I briefly met Laura and Heather on the Fourth and thankfully got to spend more time with them the following day. Which of course, I’ll blog about later. Meanwhile, you can check out all the links I listed above. Most of them will lead you to that person’s account of July 4th at Jackson. Don’t misss Laura’s photos. I plan on stealing them later.

That evening, I got to hang out with a fellow AGTS student and stay the night at her parent’s house. Her dad is an Army Chaplain stationed at Jackson. They very graciously allowed me to invite myself over with only a few days of notice. Hey, we’re family. Right?

I think that’s what I loved most of all about that day. Family. No I wasn’t with my husband, and I didn’t get to watch fireworks with my children… But I did spend the whole day with family at a place I call home. I love the Chaplain Corp and I love Fort Jackson.

We’re still not in Texas.  We were supposed to leave on Saturday, then Sunday… Then Monday.  We plan to leave in the morning.  Hopefully my family isn’t too disappointed.  We had so much to do before we could leave and I still don’t have half of it done.

The kids have been more distracting than usual.  Jeremiah is sick.  I took him to the doctor today.  He has an ear infection.  Poor little guy.  Hopefully he’ll be well enough to travel in the morning.

I wanted to stay in Springfield until I heard the results of my lab work and Cat scan.  But the nurse didn’t call back today so I assume they didn’t figure out what’s wrong with me yet.  Guess I’ll just take extra Advil on the trip with me.  And water.  Of course, because in the Army,  ibuprofen, water and 100 mile hour tape will fix anything.

A few highlights for the day:
My bedroom is clean!!!!
We finally are on the right Tricare plan.  The doctor’s visit cost us… NOTHING.
We have another care package sealed and ready to mail to Joel. It weighs 7.5 lbs.  Most of that is sugar.
We ate green eggs tonight… the Dr. Seuss obsession continues.
Jeremiah and I got birthday cards from Joel’s mom!  Woohoo!  Thanks!  Oh, and I guess inexpensive or pre-purchased birthday cards are OK.  I’ll make an exception for mother-in-laws who include gift cards!

I finally went to the doctor. Blood drawn. Doctor poked my abdomen and ordered a CT Scan for tomorrow. Hope they figure something out quick, cause this really hurts.

Breaking my ‘dollar menu’ rule, I ate a Philly Beef Flatbread Melt from Arby’s. Definitely worth the three bucks.

Next I enjoyed some coffee and conversation at Kuhlman’s Koffee in Nixa. If you live in Southwest Missouri, you should definitely go meet Ed and try a cup of his coffee. He roasts it in the back of the cafe. You can get a cup there then buy a bag to brew at home. Not a coffee lover? He has smoothies too. Oh, and he still sells the Ready-Set-Joe there too. Tell him I sent you.

I bought a new coffee grinder at Target. Mine finally died. This one had a sticker on it that wouldn’t come off… I used a little Goof Off to remove the sticker… it also removed the markings that tell you if you’re grinding for espresso or drip coffee or a coarse grind. My shiny new grinder which I’ve wanted to buy for years is now written on with a Sharpie marker. Nice!

Dinner at Chick-fil-A with our friend Joy. Hillery had given me a coupon for a free sandwich. Then we discovered that Thursday is Kid’s Night! The kids got to plant flowers and make their own sundaes for free.

Joel got a medal today. For setting a record while moving tons and tons of mail yesterday. None of it was for him. Maybe we should all mail him something!

Somewhere in all of that I read more for my online class. I’m not quite sure I’m going to survive this semester. Guess we’ll wait and see.

Once again, I’ve neglected to write about life. Here’s a quick roundup for people who actually read this site because they want to know.

Sunday:
Joel got home at 4:30 in the morning. I don’t remember much about our day. I’m sure televised sports were somehow involved.

Monday:
Joel had the day off. Yea! Columbus. Actually, I’m not sure what I think about celebrating Old Chris, but I do appreciate having my husband home. Such a nice day. I took a nap while Joel took Sarah to speech therapy. As I rested, I heard Joel and Sarah talking in the living room. It was so nice to sleep peacefully knowing that he was watching her and she wasn’t plotting some evil scheme while I snoozed. Jeremiah looked so happy when the whole family came to pick him up from kindergarten. We surprised him with a trip to McAlistars Deli. At 4:30, Joel headed toward Oklahoma. A wonderful 36 hours.

Tuesday:
Fearing blisters, I decided to work on breaking in my Army boots by wearing them all day. I couldn’t help but notice them in class and wonder, “Where will these boots take me?”

Dr. Oss gave a great lecture in Communicating the Message. He taught about the Biblical Theology of preaching, personal preparation for preaching and preaching models. He also gave some encouraging words about being anointed to preach, and spoke about “Itching Ears” while asking the question, “Will you be a Hired Hand or Servant of God?”

Dr. Palm also gave a great lecture in Person of the Leader. Then we shared our life stories with our classmates. [That's the other blog I told you I was working on.]

I met Debbie at the Library Center to pick up the kids and somehow she ended up taking us out for Chinese to celebrate her birthday… I’m not sure how that happened but it was great.

Next we went to a women’s bible study led by the Assemblies of God Chaplain Endorser’s wife. There’s one other female chaplain candidate that comes, but the group is mostly made up of chaplain and chaplain candidate wives. They’re a great bunch of women. I’ve only been to the study twice, but I already know that it is THE highlight of my week.

Wednesday:
After meeting with my trainer on Monday, I started my revised workout routine on Wednesday… Ouch. She pointed out more muscles I didn’t know I had… and tortured them.

It took too long to drag the kids out of the YMCA gym, so I was running twenty minutes late for the New Community service at Central. Disappointed that I would probably miss the worship time [the music] I almost skipped church. I decided to go anyway and prayed that I’d get there for at least one song. Turns out they had planned a special night of worship, so the whole night was music. Awesome! Sidenote: I found that it is hard to kneel in combat boots.

Thursday!
I love Thursday. Debbie watches Sarah so that I can do homework. It must be part of the Keep Amy Sane Campaign. [An international organization which is still accepting volunteers and pizza donations...]

I had a productive day filled with anti-procrastination activities… That means I did a lot of avoided paperwork and ran a lot of errands. I also had lunch with a friend then ran and hiked at the Nature Center for an hour and a half.

That evening I had dinner with Christine, Judi and Sarah! So great to see all three of them together. This mini-reunion made up for missing Evangel’s Homecoming for the first time in eleven years.

It was a perfect day, even if I couldn’t walk well after working out on Wednesday and running up so many hills.

Friday:
Cleaned my insanely filthy apartment then drove to Ada, Oklahoma to see my man and work on Family Readiness stuff.

Saturday:
I worked at the Reserve Center and had lunch with family and friends. Then I left the kids with Joel and drove to Atoka, Oklahoma to meet Patti N for dinner.

How cool is that? I drove to some little Oklahoma town I’d never been to before to have dinner with someone I hadn’t met before. She turned out to be the wonderful woman that I already know from email and instant messages… and isn’t remotely an Internet Whacko Stalker. I didn’t have to use my police grade pepper spray even once.

Thanks Patti, see you in January!

Joel called me during dinner. We got an offer on our house. To some of you this phrase holds great meaning. Great ironic, can you believe there is Someone out there torturing me like this meaning… Perhaps I’ll write more about it later so the rest of my readers will know what I’m rambling on about.

On a sad note:
For 3 1/2 years I’ve been a part of a local email group. We’ve become good friends who get together occasionally and share our daily lives with each other. Saturday morning, 18 of our members went to a funeral together. One of our dear friends died while on vacation. Her husband emailed us from the Bahamas to tell us the terrible news. Sharon Daake will be terribly missed. I wish I could have been at the service. Guess I’ll have to hug everyone later.

But… I must tell you about my day.

Four hours of sleep.
Four shots for Jeremiah.
Need babysitter for tonight. Cry about how much I hate pretending to be a single mom.
Debbie says she’ll watch the kids.
Freaked out about paying for Seminary.
Patti told me to pray.
Peace.
Plan.
Perfect Timing.
Blessings from people I’ve never met in real life.
I love the Internet.
Dropped kids off at Debbie’s.
Car Collision. Got rear ended. Not my fault. Car’s a mess. I’m OK. Sore. Tired.
Met Jer’s kindergarten teacher.
Bought Jer school supplies.
Wrote this post.
Good Night. I’ll write more about stuff later.

We’ve returned from our trip to the Lone Star State. Or as Joel called it, “an awesome weekend in Dallas for less than $50.”

We met Joel’s brother downtown on Friday night and took the kids up in Reunion Tower. [aka "The Ball"]

On Saturday, we went to THE coolest Wal*Mart ever.

Coffee shop, sushi bar… mmm sushi samples. Well I liked them anyway. Jer tried some too…

Here’s the verdict:

Two Thumbs Down!

On Saturday night, we stayed at the Renaissance Dallas Richardson Hotel. A beautiful hotel. With the most comfortable bed ever with six amazing pillows. Great shampoo and soap, real half&half and real coffee mugs with the in-room coffee maker, fantastic workout room, friendly bellman named Christopher who has a five year old, 1 year old and baby on the way… and no free wi-fi. Argh.

Oh and this cute little sign near the ceiling in our room:
“Do not hang items from sprinkler head. This will cause flooding.”
When I see signs like this, I always wonder what disaster caused someone to put the sign up in the first place…

More photos after the jump: