Spring Storms
The storm that brought down this tree at the White House last week:
Did this to our neighbors’ flag pole:
Notice how the flag pole is mounted below the gutter and is bent backwards over the roof.
Spring storms – not my favorite things.
Hooah
No doubt you’ve heard the Army word, “hooah.” It’s such a useful and diverse word, appropriate in any situation. It can indicate agreement, as in “Wow, what a hot and sticky day!” “Hooah!” It’s often used as a superlative, like “That’s one hooah car” or “That’s pretty hooah.” Or it can be used to emphasize the importance of the matter: “If you don’t hurry up, we’re leaving without you hooah.” Notice there is no punctuation before “hooah” in that last sentence. You say it without pausing.
So when my friend Tami suggested that we use “hooah” on Philip’s retirement cake, we knew that was exactly what we wanted.
Philip’s retirement ceremony was in a word – hooah. Lots of people came, including a friend from our Civil Air Patrol cadet days, our dear friends from our time in Korea and 3 of the 4 families that I desperately hope move to Colorado Springs when they retire. (The 4th family has already moved out of the area and could not make the ceremony.)
The official retirement orders were read, which really choked me up hooah. It read in part, “…You are retired from active duty, released from assignment and duty, and on the date following, place on the retired list.” Wow. It’s really all over. Hooah!
Philip was honored by letters appreciation from President Obama and former Presidents George W. Bush and Clinton. We’re still waiting to hear from President Bush the senior, who is busy jumping out of airplanes, because he’s such a hooah guy.
Philip’s boss and the guys in his office put together a hooah retirement gift- a shadow box containing all of his insignia and his medals. The flag was recently flown over the Pentagon.
I was honored with a certificate from the Department of the Army for being such a hooah Army spouse.
Philip gave a hooah speech, as expected.
Then we had some great chow (that would be “food” to you civilians) and celebrated Philip’s 20 hooah years of service.
Hooah!
Eureka!
On our second day of house hunting, Pike’s Peak was clearly visible, strong and silent and covered with snow. The rain was gone and the temperatures were mild and we were confident that God would reveal our new house to us, just as he had revealed the mountain.
We were right.
I’m reluctant to share too many pictures here because the house is still occupied and the pictures are full of their stuff.
But I will show you the kitchen.
And the view from the dining room into the backyard.
And check out the staircase –
And for good measure, this is the park directly across the street.
We close on June 30th.
As Boo used to say so often, “God has blessed us again!”
Colorado Springs
Our trip to Colorado got off to a rather inauspicious start. For some unknown reason that I’m sure made sense at the time, President Obama decided to embark on his trip to the Middle East from Dulles International Airport, instead of from Andrews AFB, like he’s supposed to. So instead of taking off on time, we sat on the tarmac and waited for the President to leave.
Finally he was gone and we were allowed to take off.  By the time we arrived in Colorado Springs it was 1:00 in the morning.
We spent all the next day looking at houses. It was rainy and cold, and of course we were wearing summer clothes. But we trudged on, trying to find the perfect house. But mid afternoon we were all tired and our real estate agent let us go while he took everything we’d said about the houses and put together a more precise list of homes that were what we wanted.
After a nap and a huge rainstorm, Pike’s Peak finally emerged from the clouds.
I’d been talking about wanting to see it all day, so when Philip came back to our room from getting groceries, he asked the children if they wanted to go outside and see “Mama’s Mountain.” And that’s what everyone calls it now.
I have to say that I’m enamored with Colorado Springs.  The area where we looked for homes was wonderfully suburban with every shop and restaurant you could want. They even have “Five Guys” – a burger place that started in DC and is one of our favorites. Everything was wide and spacious, which is a huge change from the overcrowding of the DC Metro area. Not that DC doesn’t have a lot to offer, I just love the mountains and I always have! The Rocky Mountains are visible from pretty much everywhere and during our house hunting we saw rabbits, deer and a fox.
We hit the local mall and let Bip work out some extra energy playing in the kids area called “Tyke’s Peak.” It was the first thing we saw in the mall and while he played I went to check the directory to see what kinds of stores they had. I was thinking to myself that if they had an Orange Julius, I’d be in heaven.
So do they? Of course they do! Not only that, but a store called “All Things Catholic.” A Catholic store! Right there in the mall! I have only ever seen one other Catholic store and that one is here in Old Town Alexandria and run by Pauline nuns.
So we were more than a little bit pleased with the mall. You can tell so much about a community by the quality of the local shopping.
When we left the mall it was 5pm. On a Friday. By all accounts, it should have been rush hour traffic at its worst. What we saw made us laugh so hard and was so unbelievable that we had to take a picture.. Ladies and gentlemen…Colorado Springs on a Friday at 5pm:
Go ahead and click on that picture to make it larger and enjoy the wide open highway. And the bird poop on our window.
As Little Orphan Annie once sang, “I think I’m gonna like here!”
Off We Go!
We’re off to Colorado today to go house hunting. It’s all very exciting and if I can get all the little people to stop saying, “uh…Mama?” every three minutes, I might actually be able to get us packed, deal with the moving guy coming to take inventory of our junk household goods and explain to Boo once again how I want him to pack five shirts, one of which needs to have a collar, not five shirts plus a collared shirt.
And remember to pack the checkbook.
What’s That Smell?
Our house developed an odor a few days ago. With a houseful of children and living downstream from what we affectionately refer to as the “poo poo plant”, unpleasant smells are not unusual. But they usually disappear after several minutes, so we ignore them and carry on.
This smell however, lingered.
I could best describe it as smelling like a litter box. Sort of like urine and plastic mixed together. It was confined to the upstairs, specifically the hallway.
We attempted to sniff out the culprit, with no luck. The likely suspect was the bathroom even though it is cleaned regularly.
Around bedtime, my husband finally decided that it was the children’s laundry. Nobody would admit to having an accident and throwing the soiled clothing into the hamper. We brought the hamper downstairs to be sorted and washed the next morning.
The smell was fainter upstairs but still there.
After breakfast the next morning, Boo got to work on the laundry. He called out, “Mama, I figured out what the smell is! It’s my socks!”
Now Boo is only 10 and he does not have smelly feet. I couldn’t imagine that his socks could possibly be the cause of the stink.
He dove back into the hamper and declared, “Oh yeah, it’s my socks!”
Now by this time it was no longer an unpleasant odor but an offensive stench.
“Dude,” I said. (I have found that boys respond best when addressed as “Dude”.) “Dude, what in the world did you do to your socks to make that smell?”
He knew exactly what he did – last weekend he’d had a water gun fight with his friends and had gotten soaked, his socks particularly. When he changed his clothes, he threw them all into the hamper where they fermented under more dirty clothes for a week.
I have to give the boy credit. He didn’t leave his wet socks on the floor of his room. No, he put them into the hamper like he’s supposed to. Sadly, had they ended up on the floor, they would have dried instead of stinking up the place.
You’ll be glad to know that all of the laundry is now clean and sweet smelling.
Life with boys – never a dull moment!
Thoughts
We’re busy getting ready to move. Not just move, but retire and buy a house, too. We’ve gotten rid of a lot of things and yet we still have a ton of stuff. I took down all the children’s drawings, awards and what-not they had taped to their walls, along with the Mickey Mouse Wall Stickers in the playroom.  I keep crossing things off the list, but it doesn’t seem to get any shorter.
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We’ve been going to family grief counseling for a few weeks. It’s been helpful for all us, even though poking at the hurty spot is never easy. The counselor is working with me for PTSD. It’s weird to think that I have that, I thought I was the healthy one in the family! But it does explain the strange anxieties that have been creeping into my head lately. In a way, it feels better to know that they are caused by the trauma of Becca’s death, rather than me starting to go crazy.
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We’re flying to Colorado next week to buy a house. The children are not as excited as I thought they would be. They told me that they don’t want to move. We’ve lived here for 4 years and while they do remember living other places, we’ve all put down some roots here. Maybe after we have a house, it’ll be easier.
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When I told Pumpkin Girl’s piano teacher that we are moving, he said, “Oh no, not my piano prodigy!” I’m not sure what to make of that. I had suspected that she is gifted in piano, but I wondered if I was just seeing what I wanted to see. But then again…she’s got me as her mother. (toot toot) (that was me, blowing my own horn). I told her teacher that when she plays Carnegie Hall, we’ll be sure to invite him.
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Philip’s retirement ceremony is June 10th. I’m quietly freaking out about it. We need to choose a design for a cake.  (Remember the cake at his last promotion?)We’re thinking about a big fish, with the words, “So long and thanks for all the fish”. But we’re not sure if enough people will get it. Another option is a thumbs up with the words “Well done”. Or a car driving away with “Outta here”. What do you think?
First Communion Banner
Pumpking Girl reminds me that I have been remiss in showing you all her First Communion banner. Bad mom!
She had her own ideas of what to include on her banner, but several of them were way beyond my drawing abilities or wouldn’t work well with felt. We took her basic idea, sketched some figures and while looking for a model of a dove, we found a sticker in her take-home pages from Religious Education that was what she wanted.
I cut, she glued.
We used the same foam letters that we used with Boo’s banner (I’ve blurred her real name out) and she was very pleased with the result.
Oh! I can’t forget – my mom brought me the class picture from my own First Communion. Check it out:
I took a picture through the frame instead of scanning it, thus the poor quality and the glare. But you get the point.
Pumpkin’s First Communion
Pumpkin Girl made her First Communion on the day before Mother’s Day. She and I attended a retreat the weekend before where she did several crafts and we made unleavened bread together. It was a special treat to spend the afternoon with her.
The big day rolled around and her class and their families gathered together for breakfast at the church and a brief rehearsal. Then home for several hours and back for mass in the evening.
Boo got to serve mass that day, at his request. Just between you and me, he really does love his sister!
Dream House
In a few weeks, we’re going to go house hunting. We’ll be buying a house for the very first time ever and God willing, it will be our only house. We have some definite ideas of what this dream house will have, even the children have their wish list.
Boo would like a garage.
Pumpkin Girl wants a finished attic.
Bip wants an alligator elevator in the living room.
I think someone is going to have to compromise.