First Toothfairy Visit to the Nielsen House

Tuesday Thor lost his first tooth. We were on our way back from Seaworld and he was wiggling it with his tongue and it got stuck sideways in his gums. He said that it hurt and wanted me to pull it out for him. I gave it one little tug and out it came. He was so excited he couldn't stop smiling the rest of the way home. That night he got his first visit from the tooth fairy. She is much more generous that when I was a kid. She left him a note about keeping his teeth clean and healthy and left him $1.

Less than a week!

Here we are just 4 days away from picking up the moving truck. I can not believe the time is gone and we are here. It is such a relief and a ton of stress at the same time. Leaving the Army is about 10 times more difficult than joining. I guess it is to deter those who don't really want to leave. Yeah right!

The house will be packed by Tuesday night and I am praying that I can snag a few guys from my shop to come by and help us pack truck on Wednesday afternoon. That would be great and take some of the physical strain off of Jake and I. We had originally thought that we would have two full days to pack the truck but due to some Army scheduling we now have all day on Wednesday and until 10 AM on Thursday morning. We will be "homeless" after our 11 AM housing inspection and will be at a hotel here in Killeen until Friday morning. I have go to one final meeting on Friday morning where I will receive my DD 214 ( piece of paper showing that I served in the military). After that I run (literally) down to the finance office and then I am cleared from the Army. I will then race (in the car) over to my unit and drop off copies of my paperwork. Then I am truly free to leave.

I will head back to the hotel and pick up Baleigh and Porkchop in the car and Jake and Thor will be taking the moving truck. Hopefully it will only be about 10 AM at this point and we can get the heck out of dodge.

The plan is to make it to Missouri by the time the sun sets and finish our trip to our new home on Saturday. Sunday we should be doing some unpacking and spending Sunday lunch with the family. Between now and then we have the potential for two new nieces to be born!!! We are looking forward to seeing family and friends and getting settled into our new fabulous life.

Just to catch you all up in case you missed it.

Tuesday Thor lost his first tooth on the way back from Sea World. It had been wiggly for some time so he was so happy for it to come out. The tooth fairy left him one whole dollar which he quickly spent at the thrift store the next day buying a Pug puppy (stuffed animal) that he named Mr Beefy (after a book of poems he got at the library called "I ate A Pie"- a little pug eats a pie in case you were wondering).

We had free passes to use at SeaWorld before the end of the year and since there are few places like this in the Midwest we couldn't pass up the opportunity to go one more time. The kids has  an awesome time and we even got to sit in the splash zone at he Orca show. That water is COLD and SALTY in case you were wondering. lol. One of the highlights was getting to feed the California Sea Lions some fish and squid. I hope this is an experience that the kids remember for a lifetime. I know that I will.

Lemonade Day!

 Last Saturday morning the kids participated in their first ever National Lemonade Day. They planned out what types of drinks they wanted to sell, and how they were going to buy their products. It was fun to put together a business plan with them and explain how to advertise and choose a location for their stand. We set up outside the community life office on Fort Hood and were out there for about 3 hours. They ended up with a good profit. They gave 20% to the Wounded Warrior Project, put 20% in savings and the other 60% they got to put in their spending piggy bank. I want to help them learn good money handling techniques while they are young so the grow up to be fiscally responsible adults.

Jake's Birthday

Jake's Birthday was on Wednesday but we celebrated a bit early this year. We have been looking forward to going to see the new Avengers movie for some time now and so on Tuesday I look an all afternoon lunch and the whole family headed to the theater. I can not even remember the last movie we went to since we have been on a rather strict budget for quite some time now. We got there only to find that Tuesdays are half off days. So we paid half the price we had planned on, allowing us to splurge and get SNACKS!!! Baleigh really wanted nachos and I got the boys a huge tub of popcorn and we shared 2 drinks. All in all it cost less than we had planned - Winning!!! The movie did not disappoint and we all had a blast.

Baleigh had the guy next to us laughing at some of her observations. At one point about 10 minutes into the film she said "I thought this was about the Avengers- why aren't they wearing their superhero costumes?" She is quite the big fan of Dr. Banner A.K.A. the Hulk. Her favorite part of the movie was when Hulk wakes up Iron man by roaring at him. It was pretty amusing.

Wednesday I had another rather short day at work so we decided to just hang out at home since it was raining. In the morning Baleigh remembered it was Jake' B-day and ran over and gave him a big hug and sang happy birthday.

I picked up a small Tiramisu Cake that he loves, and dinner was a big surprise from Grandma Diane. She had sent us a double order of Portillos Italian Beef Sandwiches!!! One order was for Jake's big day and the other was for Mother's Day. Best gift ever!!! 

I got Jake a special vegetable chopper for the kitchen that he has had his eye on for some time now. I actually had to talk him out of buying it last week because I had already gotten it for him. Unfortunately I left it in my desk at work on his actual birthday so he got it a day late.

He had a phone call from Diane first thing in the morning and then from Bill and Cori and my family later in the evening. All said a pretty decent birthday.