Holloween in El Paso

This was our Holloween fun.
Kierra was a soldier and Brookelynn was a doctor. Kierra went to school and Will took her in his uniform. It was really sweet.

Will starts school on Monday and Kierra started last week, so we are in the full swing of things here. Things are going well, and we are still looking for a chruch. Please pray for us that God would direct us to one. We are enjoying El Paso much more than Lawton forsure. It's hard to believe that the holidays are rolling around with the weather here still in the 80's during the day. They say it will start to cool off but I just don't see that happening and I am not complaining. We love and miss you all. We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Danae

We made it to El Paso

So we made it to El Paso and we moved into our new apartment. Our living conditions are much better here, which is great for Danae and the girls. We will be here for 5 months while I attend Air Defense Artillery Officer Basic Course. I will be learning the technical aspects of my branch (and there are a lot of aspects!) which means there will be a ton of information shoved at us...I pray that I will be a good sponge.

The environment of this course is much different than the others I have been to. It is much more focused on the technical portion of being an officer. I'm looking forward to learning the different aspects of my career field and then moving on to the next stage of this process.

The pictures you see above were taken in Oklahoma at a pumpkin patch that we took the girls to. We tried to get us all together, but it didn't work out so well. The trip down to El Paso went pretty well as the girls were very good travelers this time. We visited with Danae's Aunts (Hazel and Carla) and Hazel and TW (her husband) let us stay in their cabin in Ruidoso, NM. It is in the mountains and it was fun for the girls to have a place they could run around in. Unpacking was not that fun, but it never really is...is it? At least we only have to do the pack and unpack thing one more time (even though we have one more stop before we get to Fort Campbell).

We live less than 4 miles from post which is great because I can come home after PT and see the girls before we all start our day. I also get to live with them full-time as opposed to what we were doing in Oklahoma.

Well that's all for now, we'll post some other pictures of our travels soon...we love and miss you guys and look forward to hearing from you soon.
Will

Just a few days left....

I would have some pictures to post of all our traveling we have done whild in OK, but we can't find our camera cords....or charger for that matter. That would be a sign we have moved to much already. I do have some pictures from my phone though of the game. But I am in the process of packing up our small apartment for our move to Ft Bliss TX. We will leave Friday morning just as soon as Will gets released. We are anxious to get out of this area.

We had a very exciting weekend though. Dru, Will's best friend flew in for the weekend, and our Sunday school teacher gave us his season tickets to the OU (Oklahoma University) football game vs Kansas. And we got wrist bands to go the the OU club tailgate party before the game and eat...or should I say pig out. It was such a fun experience.

We will post more when we get to TX and know what will be going on there. For now we have not a clue really what will be happening. But for now we miss you all back home.

Danae

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Two Weeks left of BOLC II

Hey everyone,

I'm writing this message from Tulsa, OK...where we are spending a long weekend with Levi, Shannon, and Hannah. We finished up combatives and convoy operations last week. We go out to the field on Tuesday for continuous operations with a 10 mile road march completing the week early Friday morning. We are all excited to almost be done with this phase of training and ready to move on to El Paso.

This weekend has been a blast hanging out with my girls and with Levi and Shannon...I'll save the rest of this weekend for Danae who will post something else tomorrow when we get back to Lawton.

An exciting thing for next weekend is that my best friend Dru is coming in from PA to go to the Oklahoma game with me and Danae...our Sunday School has graciously given us his tickets since he and his family will be gone...extremely nice guy!!!

I look forward to hearing from you guys soon.

In Christ,
Will

Week 4 complete with BOLC 2

Happy Friday! Sorry for not posting anything for a while...I was out in the field all this week doing a lot of urban operations training. It was pretty fun and I learned some valuable things. Danae and the girls are in Amarillo visiting family; I am headed down to see them today as soon as we get released.

We have less than 3 weeks here in Oklahoma now and we are all excited to move on to El Paso for our next adventure.

This week was particularly awesome because I was able to witness to one of my friends that I made here for quite a while. The Holy Spirit is working on his heart so please keep Steve in your prayers...I am thankful to be able to spread the Gospel to our future leaders of the Army.

We will post something more after we get back from Amarillo; I hope that you are all well...feel free to call me or email me anytime!

In Christ,
Will

First week and a half of BOLC II

Sorry for not posting something sooner about my current training, but last week was basically inprocessing so I didn't feel that you would be interested in how long I stood in line to get told that I didn't need any more shots or dental work. :)

This class is going very well to say the least. Our cadre are extremely professional and all about training to standard and not time. So when we are done with our training they release us...which is great for me because that means I get to spend more time with my girls. I do have to stay in the barracks five nights a week, but it isn't that bad because I don't have to be back until 2300 every night. So I get to hang out with the girls until then. There will be few weeks when I have stay out in the field, but Danae is planning on visiting family in Texas during that time.

We have found a good Southern Baptist Church that has tons of options for kids ministries. They have a preschool that we are starting Kierra in tomorrow...she had a good time tonight during the STOMP (similar to CVBC's LEAP program) it is where the kids learn to praise God in different ways. Brookelynn likes her class as well. The church is much more traditional in worship style than we are used to, but they are super friendly and they preach the Word so that is what is important to us.

Danae is staying busy taking care of all our moving arrangements for the next move to El Paso and taking care of the girls. I have taken a physical fitness test and completed my land navigation course as well. Next week we qualify with M4 rifles...that will be fun.

By the way, if any of you miss seeing us/the girls we do have Skype and a webcam so that we can communicate that way. The kids really enjoy seeing their old friends and family so I encourage you to download the program (it's free just google Skype) and buy a webcam (you can get one for less than $35) it is a great tool to stay in touch with...especially the kids.

Love you all and God Bless,

Will

Oklahoma is our new home......for now.

We arrived here in Lawton, OK mid-day yesterday, and we're pretty much unpacked today. We had to drive clear across the country to get some warm weather. It is beautiful here. Will needs to report tomorrow, so we had to get all our shopping and last minute stuff done before he has to be on post. He will most likely have to stay in the barracks while here at Ft Sill but I think he is somewhat looking forward to that. I will start potty training Brookelynn on Monday, we just moved her to a big girl bed as we didn't want to move the crib. I think I will move to the barracks next week too :-). Lol.

The drive went well. Great for me. I was in the car all alone. The girls actually did very well - till the last day when they screamed and fought from Kansas to our apartment. I thought Will was going to throw one or both out of the window a few times but we are still a family of four. We stopped at the Denver Zoo one afternoon and we all enjoyed that.

Our apartment is small but nice. Well, I am afraid to take a bath or walk barefoot, but I think we will live. We are excited to be on with our new journey of life, but we already miss our old friends and family back home. It was hard to leave, but we know this is the time and place God would have for us now.

In Him
Danae