Living it up at the pool!

 It is hotter than Hades around these parts.  Last week we were over 100, averaging between 104-106.  It was crazy!  Luckily we have a pool open at our complex and when I take the girls during the weekdays we are always the only ones there.  Plus our rent includes our electricity so I have been whooping it up with the AC.  (Seriously I don't know how people live in this climate without AC.  Like I know people do it, but I just can't wrap my brain around it.)

 I normally run at least three days a week as my workouts, plus in CA I was always taking the girls out for walks in the double jogger to the park or just around the neighborhoods.  With all the hills I was able to stay in pretty good shape.  Running here?  Not so much.  Walking around?  No way.  There are no sidewalks and we don't have our stroller here and the kids about get heat stroke just walking to the pool.  There is a park we play at that has a lot of trees so it stays a little cooler, but just going for a walk isn't an option.

So I have had to get a little more creative with how I get my exercising in.  My solution?  Water aerobics! I looked up some exercises that I can do online and when we go to the pool I try to work out continuously the whole time we are there.  The girls float around beside me while I go through all my workouts and then I finish with swimming back and forth using a ball to support my upper body and just use my legs to kick.  It is KILLER on my whole legs and I do laps until my legs burn the entire length of the pool and they feel like jello.

The pool isn't heated so normally it feels so cold when I first get in and it takes me a bit to get into the water, but not last week.  It was so freaking hot that we all jumped right in and even with the really cold water I was still felt like I was roasting with all the hot air on my face.  The girls really love their floaties and they love "helping" me with my workouts.  It has been a great way to get in my workouts and not feel like I was dying of heat exhaustion.

Did I mention that it is only APRIL??  I can't imagine what it will be like when it is actually summer time.  Technically we are still enjoying the mild spring weather!

Snuggle Bugs

 These little gals share a bed now that we are here.  To get them down to sleep at a reasonable hour we always start Bianca off in our bed and Olivia in their bed and then transfer Konks when it is time for us to go to bed.  I love checking on them in the middle of the night and seeing what crazy positions they are in, all snuggled up together.  It is SO cute!

 We were going to go on base and get all our healthcare switched to this area and the girls got all dolled up for the occasion.  We even had lunch with Marcus at the DFAC, which was super fun.  Such good food and such cheap prices!

The girls each have a purse that they got from Auntie Helen and they pack them up with their treasures to play with when we run errands.  Bianca's purse is packed to the brim with the "Blue Baby" which is her most favorite, favorite possession.  It is almost too big to fit in her purse but she jams that sucker in there anyway!

Everything is Bigger in Texas

I am learning that everything is bigger in Texas.  Hospitality is bigger, smiles everywhere you go.  Everyone is so helpful and kind.  The Sun is bigger... at least that is how it feels.  It is 90 degrees this week and we are only in April.   The stores are bigger (HEB is now my most favorite grocery to shop in EVER.  So big, HUGE selection, tons of workers, great prices.  I love it!).  The insects are bigger, holy beetles batman!  Under any rock you can find jumbo sized black beetles.  And not to be outdone by the beetles, I must say that the spiders here are the biggest.  

 First day of taking the kids to the park we come across this sucker.  A TARANTULA.  Just waltzing about the playground like no big deal.  I about crapped my pants.  Talk about Texas welcoming us warmly!

 It kept rearing up like this to make itself bigger, probably as a defense tactic.  The kids were loving it.  I wanted to run home and take a shower.    When I tell this story in years to come I am going to say it also hissed.  Not entirely sure if this is accurate for tarantula behavior, but I swear that sucker hissed.

 It was our ward playgroup that we went to and the other two Mom's assured me that they had been here for 2 years and 3 years respectively and this was the first time they had seen one.  Well count my lucky stars!  I haven't even been here a week and we get the fire ants and the tarantulas.

Besides wanting to barf all over the place ( I have a terrible fear of spiders, and that is just regular ones, not jumbo meat eating ones.... just kidding about the meat eating part.  Well actually I don't know what they eat, so they could very well eat meat.  Note to self: research dietary needs of the Texas tarantula.).  I was also kinda in awe about it.  We are here for such a short time and it is not a normal thing for me to see things like this, so it was one of those "Wow, I really live in Texas" moments.

Then the little girl on orange declared that she was going to take the little big guy home in her satchel because her Grammy is WILD about spiders.  She picked it up and stored it in her bag.  I gave the Pappy a look to total shock to which he assured me that his wife did love spiders and they were in town visiting and it would make her day to play with the little fella.  Then I felt the bile starting to rise and my pulse race so I quietly separated myself from them until the left and took him home to Grammy.

I have been told in September there is the great Tarantula migration.  If you go out past the city in the night time and flash your lights into the fields, you can see a sea of tarantula doing their migration.  They give the guys on base a safety briefing about it when it hits that time of year.  PRAISE the heavens we will be long gone by then.  You would have to lock me away in a mental facility if I still lived here for that.  Seriously.

I also can't get enough of the southern accents.  Whenever we are in the store we just walk really slowly trying to overhear anything that we can.  If I miss a particularly magical discussion Marcus is sure to quietly repeat it back to me.  It is was easier to talk like them right after you have just heard it.  "I told Pappy if that y'all didn't hafta bring the steaks.  We was already grillin' and had enough for y'all."   It is seriously the coolest.  The gal at chick-fil-a couldn't believe I had never eaten at one before.  "I am SURE y'all have to have a chick-fil-AY over theYer.  Y'all have seriously neva eaten at a chick-fil-AY before?".    I love it!

Radder Living, Texas Style

It was a very crazy first 48 hours when we pulled into San Angelo.  We had an apartment lined up but it wasn't available until May 7th.  We had a temporary place lined up but that wasn't really going to work out once we got here.  (Think general dirtiness and ginormous cockroaches).  So we were scrambling to find a place.  One of the apartment complexes we went to didn't have any availability but the Manager got on the horn and dialed up all the other landlords to see if she could help us.  She spent a good 40 minutes trying every contact she could think of.  

Once she knew there was NOTHING available ASAP she told us of one of her fully furnished apartments that had just become available.  Someone had already called about it but they hand't called back and she said it was ours if we wanted it.  It was more than the other apartment but it was available THAT day (she actually went out and picked up her cleaning lady to get a rush clean on it for us).   

Once we crunched the numbers we realized this place, that has everything included (TV, internet, utilities,  our own washer and dryer etc) was a really good deal.  We would have ended up paying about the same amount once we got into the other cheaper apartment probably just with the AC bill alone (it is only April and it was 85 degrees today).  

It was such a blessing to get this place.  Plus it has a POOL!  Plus my neighbors above us are LDS and she brought me a casserole our second night staying here.  I am loving having all my creature comforts and being able to do laundry whenever the heck I feel like it.  I sold our washer and dryer three weeks before we moved and having to wait and take everything to a laundry mat was SO frustrating.  

 So let us take a tour of our little abode.  I am standing at the front door and here is the view into the eating area. And right next to that is the.....

 ....living area.   The wall to the left of me has a table with a flat screen TV on it.

 Then to the right of the living area is our teeny tiny teensy weensy kitchen.  See that case of water in the hallway?  That is our back up case for the one in the fridge.  The water here is the WORST.  Like it is seriously the nastiest water I have ever put into my mouth.  BLAH.  The first night in town we went to a restaurant and I ordered lemon water with extra lemons and I took one swig and just about spit it all out all over the table.  And that is with TONS of lemons in it.  At the grocery store everyone is walking out carrying jugs and bottles of water.  The Culigan man makes a KILLING in this community!

 I thought Marcus had packed these away in the Korea boxes but as I pulled out my little bag of kitchen essentials I had packed, I saw these two coasters at the bottom.  It made my heart so happy!  Helen made these coasters of the Radder homestead for the Radder Christmas exchange this past year and I adore them.  Having that little piece of our old home here was so touching to me!

 Here is our room ( It has it's own TV too!! Eeeek!).  Plus a big walk in closet.  Not that I need to store that much stuff, but a lot of the road trip stuff and luggage we threw in there so everything else looks more organized.

This is the girls room.  They share this queen sized bed.  The lump in the middle of the bed is Bianca taking her nap.  She totally cocooned herself under all the blankets.  I kind of unearthed her a little so she wouldn't suffocate after I took this picture.

We haven't had cable for over three years now and I am LOVING watching my fav channels again.  Food Network and HGTV. sigh.  I also am shocked how much trash is on the TV again.  Just flipping through the channels in the day time I don't feel safe.  There are so many crazy things that have popped up just trying to find the Food Network for pete's sake!  Now that I know what the safe channels are I just manually enter in those numbers.  And this is just on basic cable!  One channel as I was flipping through someone said the B word and the girls were in the room.  I about died!

We have also had some crazy bug encounters (ginormous black beetles, fire ants etc).  We kept telling Olivia to stay to the sidewalk after our dinner at the Olive Garden and she wouldn't listen and ended up standing right on the opening to a fire ant nest.  She started hollering that they were getting her and we brushed the remainder of them off.  She had about 5-7 bites over both feet.  Those suckers are nasty!  She had big welts there for a few days.   Having all these different bugs outside is one thing, but I don't want them in my house!  The second day we were here a lady came to spray and she told me it is standing order that they spray all the units once a month and the residual of the spray lasts to 90 days.  I have yet to see a bug of any kind inside our apartment and that makes me feel so good!

Goodbye Monterey!

 The morning we left my two dear friends came by the house to help load up the last of our stuff.  I was insanely sleep deprived but could not miss up the opportunity for some group shots together.  We had packed up our house, sold off ALL of our furniture and cleaned all weekend long.

After the first big move day (moving the remainder of our wordly possessions into storage) I was exhausted and fell asleep almost instantly....only to wake up two hours later to a flat air mattress.  Every two hours we woke up and re-inflated our mattress.  It was NOT a very good nights sleep!  We had a different air mattress the next night and slept much better!
Our schedule left us packing and cleaning over Easter weekend.  Then we rolled out of town that Monday.

 I met Kristen through Nursery and so appreciated having her as a friend!  I was so lucky and blessed to make friends with a really amazing group of women.  It broke my heart to drive away from them but I KNOW we will stay in contact through our lives and I feel VERY confident that we will see each other again.  My group of gals there were my sanity during long weeks and not seeing Marcus very often.  Our girls nights were the highlight of my week!  Kristen always gave me more confidence about my abilities as a mother and just understood my little Konks so perfectly.  Bianca had an especially trying time that left me feeling really drained and that I was making wrong turns with her left and right.  I ALWAYS left Kristen feeling more uplifted and having more hope in my abilities.

 Christina, Me and Kristen.   Christina introduced me to the world of yoga and we would go to classes together.  Her daughters are ALMOST the exact ages my of girls and we had to much fun getting together and letting the girls play.  Christina is so selfless and was always there to offer help at any hint of trouble or stress.  I always knew I could turn to her for help and she would be there no matter what.  I had so many late night talks with this little lady and will cherish our friendship for life.
My other dear friends Sam and Dani were also SUCH lifesavers to me.  Each of these women brought something to my life that I was desperately in need of.  Their love and support was such an uplift for me.  

 Kristen is pretty much a rockstar and she sewed me this purse for a going away present for me.  It is a "Bowties are Cool" purse a la Dr. Who.  Unless you watch Dr. Who you will not understand.  If you don't watch Dr. Who, you need to drop everything and DO IT NOW.  They have through season 6 on instant watch on Netflix.  Dr. Who was also a wonderful distraction when Marcus was busy studying his brains out.  I LOVE DR. WHO.  I about died when she gave this purse to me.  I had Marcus take this picture before I headed out to my last girls night before we moved.  Rocking my Dr. Who purse and my Harry Potter shirt from woot.  Yes, I am that cool.

 Here is our little car packed to the MAX and ready to trek to Texas.  Marcus said he could gauge how ridiculous we looked by how many people did double takes when we drove by.  Sometimes no one would notice and other times people would just stare at us in disbelief.  Yes, that is a roof top bag for an SUV.  Yes, we put that jumbo bag on our hyundai accent.  Yes, we made it to Texas safely and with no incident even with this beast atop our car!

 This pretty much sums up our three day road trip to Texas.  We drove to Indio CA the first night, the second night we drove to Las Cruces NM and the third day we arrived in San Angelo TX!  We probably stopped a GAZILLION times for bathroom related emergencies.

They were not just for the kids either.  I had a particularly humbling experience on the side of the road in Texas.  Bathrooms are few and far between along our route once we hit Texas and there isn't much for vegetation for cover if  you HAVE to stop on the side of the road.  You are pretty much bearing all to every truck and car that passes by.    Let's just say I had a emergency of EXPLOSIVE proportions that resulted with me beside our car and Marcus holding up a princess blanket as a make shift privacy shield all while I was dying with embarrassment.  It was between a sob/laugh.  I wasn't feeling very well and the whole thing wanted to make me cry but the pure fact of what was happening was also incredibly hilarious and my body couldn't decide if it wanted to laugh or cry, so I did both.  All of this happened just 5 feet off the side of the freeway.  Talk about taking your relationship to a whole new level.

We also drove through a pretty crazy storm once we hit Texas.  It was all blue skies and white fluffy clouds and the next minute there were black clouds with thunder and lightening and hail the size of peas and marbles!  It was insane!  Marcus was feeling a little sleepy but that storm really woke us up!  We drove through it pretty quick and then after that it just rained off and on.  The storm followed us the rest of  the way to San Angelo.  We heard after the fact that there was a tornado warning for that storm, which is crazy because while we were driving through it I kept thinking that this is what tornado storms looked like when I would see them on TV.

One last picture of our little home from CA.  We loved our time there.  Being in that area was a wonderful blessing in our lives.  We were able to learn so much and grow so much together.  I really feel like this step of military life helped to prepare us for the next and I feel the same about this little stint that we will have here in Texas!  The next posts will be all about our new adventure in Texas!

Graduation Weekend!

 Marcus' family came into town for his graduation from DLI.  It was SUCH a wonderful weekend!  My Marcus worked so hard and was able to accomplish so much here!  I am so proud of him!  We had a lot of magical times in Monterey but it wasn't without stress.  Marcus had a lot of REALLY long days and had to juggle a lot just to pass, let alone maintaining a 4.0 through his course!  In addition to his long days of studying and learning, he also had all his Army guy stuff that he had to do....formations, PT, briefings, Military training days.
His alarm would go off at 3:46 AM and he would get home around 5:30.  He would play with the girls and help get them to bed and then would often have a couple hours of homework after that.  I could not be prouder of how he handled himself during that time while still seeing to the needs of our family AND making sure I had time to get out of the house and refresh my sanity.  I love this man SO MUCH.

 Once all the family rolled into town, we HAD to hit the beach.  The sun came out and we all felt so refreshed being by the crashing waves.

 Graduation morning was foggy and EARLY, but it was nice to get it over with first in the day and have the whole rest of the day to spend together.

 Everyone bought their own PT shirt at the PX on post.  (PX= Post Exchange.... think like a Target but for Military).  We weren't quite sure if we were allowed to buy the shirts for non-military use... but better to ask forgiveness than permission right??  So that night we all got our shirts on and had a photo session.  Marcus and Teri's shirts weren't as shiny as ours because theirs were the real McCoy and had been used in an officially capacity (Teri still has hers from her Army days).

 Then we started to get crazy with it.  I don't think I have laughed that hard in a REAL long time!

 After this we tried for like 10 min to get a shot of us all kicking the air Charlie's Angels style.  Sufficeth to say we did not do it very well or enough to get a decent picture.  Teri actually video taped it and I am sure that it will resurface again later in the future!

 The girls had SO much fun!  They played hard all day with each other and were loving all the family to cuddle with.

 We hit up the Aquarium one day and had a wonderful time seeing all the fish.  Through friends I have at church I was able to score almost every single person in our posse a ticket to get in.  Fun times and free, doesn't get much better than that!

I love this picture of Marcus and I.  He kept squinting because we were faced into the sun so this last one he made sure his eyes were all the way open.  He looks like he could be an extra in the Zoolander movie. Gotta love it!

Momma visits and Six Flags!

 The week before we moved my Momma came down for a visit.  We crammed in a ton of fun stuff!  The day after she arrived we drove two hours north to Six Flags and met up with Jayme and her kids!  Talk about a FUN day!

 There were animals, rides, crazy expensive food, orca whale show and the day ended with Jayme and I riding the Medusa roller coaster.  It was so crazy and fun!  We were really nervous to get on it so luckily there was no wait because we might (probably) would have chickened out if we had to stand in line waiting for it.

 This was the girls first time really riding rides and they had a BLAST.  Bianca couldn't get enough and would run from ride to ride.  This park has a TON of fun rides for little kids so my girls were in heaven!  Olivia especially loved getting her girl time in with her dear friends.  She was grinning ear to ear all day!

 Bianca didn't ever want to stop riding so often times we would turn to see her just standing there with her pants down around her ankles.  Pulling her pants down is her version of the peepee dance so she would do it when she felt like she had to go but didn't want to stop the fun.  Unfortunately half of the park got flashed by her bits during the day!

 Bianca was just a little too short to ride solo so Jayme and I took turns riding with her on the kid rides.

 It was SO fun to have my Momma come and see the magical place that we lived in before we had to move!  My girls were able to get lots of cuddles and one on one time with her.  They were in heaven!  Bianca also renamed her "Mena".  For whatever reason, that is my Mom's name now.  She talks about her all the time since my Mom left.  Everything is "Mena-this" or "Mena-that".  It is pretty dang cute.

My Mom would go outside to call my Dad (remember how our house is the black hole of cell reception??).  Bianca would just follow her around and hold her hand to her ear and "talk" on the phone too.  She had the little stance down perfect and everything!  So cute!
We had so much fun and I was so grateful to have my Momma come and spend some time with us before we moved!
Stay tuned for my catch up and the start of the Texas Chronicles.