We're here!

Hey everyone, still no pix, but wanted to let everyone know we got here. We spent 3 VERY LONG days in the car, and are SO happy that part of this adventure is over. We are currently at Hampton Inns, after one night in the Sheraton. We stayed there b/c of Gus, but found out this morning that they'll only give breakfast to one person...the military member. So we decided to take Gus to a kennel and we're now staying somewhere where they're not picky about who they feed!

AJ signs into his squadron tomorrow morning, and we have our walk thru of the house tomorrow afternoon, and then closing on Thur. afternoon, and delivery of Household goods on Friday.
We spent this afternoon checking out appliances and stuff, and actually bought a vacuum cleaner. It's a kennmore, and is very quiet, supposed to be good at cleaning up animal hair, has a HEPA filter, and runs so light, it almost feels self-propelled. It was a little more than we were expecting to spend, but for a good vacuum, and a two year warranty that will take care of any problems, parts and labor seemed like a pretty good deal.

Anyway, that's about it for now. We hope to have pix and internet so we can post them this weekend, but we'll have to see about that. Hope everyone is well!
More later.

Sorry no pictures...

Hey everyone, just wanted to update everyone on our crazy crazy life.

AJ's finished two flights, and is now planning for his checkride scheduled for tomorrow. Meanwhile, I've been running errands and trying to pack up some stuff, to get us ready to leave SATURDAY!! We've borrowed a real vacuum from the apt. staff, and we're hoping to get enough stuff packed up by tomorrow, that we can do the walkthru with Linda. Then we can leave Sat. and she'll do the "official" walkthru on Monday and let us know if we have to fix anything.

Then we drive away from Altus on Saturday, stopping in Fort Smith (hopefully!) to visit with AJ's Grandmother, and then stopping for the night in Little Rock with some friends from Germany. Well, they're not really from Germany, but that's where we met them. Anyway, we're really excited to be able to see them, too!

Then we'll stop somewhere between Little Rock and Charleston for another night, and hopefully get to Charleston sometime on Mon. We'll stay in billeting on base while we wait for our closing date on Thur. Hopefully everything will go smoothly, and Friday we've got our TMO shipments coming to be delivered and we'll have the weekend to start getting settled in. We'll hopefully find a refrigerator to be delivered when we move in, so we can go ahead and go to the store and get food and be ready for living in our NEW HOUSE!!! I totally can't wait.

OK, well, hopefully when we get to Charleston we can update again. I'll let you know how things went on the drive and all when I can. Please pray everything goes well. THANKS!

I'm an Aunt!

Welcome, Baby Sophia Grace Elam!! We're so excited that she's here safely! Sophia was born by C-section around 1 am Wednesday, 13 August and both Mommy and Baby seem to be doing ok, considering. Jen was induced b/c of preeclampsia early yesterday morning, and seemed to do ok all day, but the baby's heartrate kept dropping occasionally, so they decided to do a C-sec late that night. Sophia spent a few hours in NICU for observation, but brought her to Jenny this morning around 4:30 am. I talked to Jen just a few min. ago, and she sounds tired, but says she's ok, and Sophia was having her hearing tested, and I heard her...strong lungs, too!!

Sophia Grace Elam: 7 lbs. 9 oz., 20.5 inches long...isn't she adorable! I can't wait to meet her!

Sophia with her daddy. I have a feeling she's already got him wrapped around her little finger!

I'll continue to update when I can...Josh and I are flying down there this weekend to meet little Sophia, so hopefully I'll get some more pix to put up...I'm so excited to have a new little niece!!

Congratulations to Jenny and Aaron!

Welcome, Baby Sophia!!

Explanation...

So if you didn't figure it out from the new ticker, we're now expecting our second little Lewton. Should be (from my calculations, not the dr's) about the 6th of April. We're so excited, and I'll post new news as it comes. I won't have a Dr. till after we move to Charleston, but am probably going tomorrow to the lab on base to confirm everything and get some vitamins and all. Josh seems to be excited about it, as much as we can tell. He knows there's a baby...he's still excited about babies in general, so I think he'll like him/her once s/he arrives. He's a good helper mostly right now, so hopefully that will continue and he won't be too jealous of him/her.

The Academy...

Duh-duh-duh...just kidding. But AJ wasn't always the happiest there, so he wasn't sure he wanted to go back to visit, especially since they've put this big fence around the cadet area up. He says it makes it look more like a prison...so dramatic! Anyway, we finally got a chance to go on Sunday afternoon while we were visiting his grandparents in Colorado. Apparently five years is the right space of time between visits for AJ...

We could only go to the Visitor's Center, the Chapel, and Arnold Hall, but it was fun, and Josh had a good time! Lots of good pix, which I'll post now.

Obviously the most famous part of the Academy is the chapel. When I was able to go before, while AJ was there, the chapel was under a lot of construction. So bear with me, there are a lot of pix, since I hadn't been able to see it before.
This one is from the walking path between the Visitor's Center and Chapel.

The infamous cadet area fence...
These are the Basics, just back from Jack's Valley, and getting ready for the Acceptance Parade. I forgot how early they start school there...
This is one of the dorms...Don't remember which one...but AJ lived here at some point, I think during the summer once or twice.
The view up the mountain from the area in front of the Chapel.
There's this wall between the chapel and the cadet area, and it's REALLY tall!! Josh LOVED to sit/stand on it. He kept asking to go down below, which of course, we couldn't. Scared me and AJ to death! He also dropped his sippy over the wall to the grass below. We had to flag down one of the boyscouts on their tour and get them to throw it back up to us. He nearly brained AJ with it...
While we were there, they played the Star Spangled Banner and took down the flag, which most bases (all??) do around 4:30 pm every day. It was kind of neat and there were still several squadrons of Basics down below. It was cool.
Josh in front of the Chapel...he had the best time running around in this big open area.

Another view of the Chapel
Inside the chapel. SO PRETTY!!

Josh was very interested in the pretty colored windows.

Josh and AJ coming down the stairs from the Chapel
Josh really got excited about the airplanes all over the place...this one's wing dipped low enough for Josh to touch it.
The Lewton Guys.
Josh with a statue of some pilot, don't remember who. He really liked this guy.

OK, that's pretty much it for the Academy trip. Josh and I both got sweatshirts in the gift store, as mine is now too small after 5-6 years (or longer?). I had fun!