Back to the grindstone ...and almost done!

This was the first week back to work after Exodus (the Army term for Christmas vacation). It was also the coldest week they have had since 1985. Normally not a huge deal to have a bad cold snap unless it is that time to head to the field. We were headed out Monday morning at 3:30 AM for three days. Thankfully the post deemed it to cold to do night training so we only had to go out during the day. Not to say that is was easy but it could have been much worse. Since we are no longer in that basic training phase of our education in the Army, we were allowed to wear whatever "snivel" (cold weather clothes) we had out there. Providing it was Army issue of course. Thank goodness Jake kept all his cool Army stuff so I was well prepared for the subzero temps we experienced. Wednesday was our last day out.

Thursday was a tough day. We went to CDTF (a special chemical training site) and donned our MOPP4 (suites and masks, complete with gloves and boots that protects against chemical agents) we tested our equipment and then completed several tasks while in our MOPP4. It was exhausting and very hot. One girl got so overheated that she unfortunately threw up in her mask. However since we were still in the room with the nerve agent she had to keep her mask on until they could remove her from the toxic environment. She was so calm about it. I would have been freaking out. : ]

Friday I was lucky enough to finally hear from the housing office at Ft Hood .... not good news unfortunately. The policy for on post housing in Texas is that we can not even get on the wait list for housing until I sign out of Ft Leonard Wood. That won't be until the 20th so we are just going to find a furnished apartment and move into it until our house is ready. I know people do this every day but it seems like a flawed system somehow. Oh well.

We got off work early on Friday and I spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out with Jake and the kids. I had to go back out later that evening to my very first Dining Out. This is a big military tradition where you get dressed up in your pretty uniform ( I was so excited to get to wear earrings- since we can't with our every day uniform) and go pretend you're having a fabulous time with the people you see every day at work. lol. It was fun to a point but the junior class who was in charge of it did a poor job planning and there were lots of hitches in the actual ceremony. Thankfully it was in no way our responsibility we won't get raked over the coals for it Monday morning.

Here it is Saturday already and in just two weeks time we will be in Texas at our new temporary house. I cant' tell you how much I am looking forward to being done with all the moving. Thor is gettting prepared. We told him that we are moving to texas and he goes around all the time now telling us about it. As well as when he sees an animal on discovery or animal planet that is native to Texas he will tell us all about it. Baleigh really doesn't get the whole thing yet.