Hamlett News

Okay-so I stink at this blog thing!! I say I will update and I think about it and then when it actually comes time to do it I don’t. I have good reasons though. I should actually be cleaning the kitchen and well normally I do the sensible thing and you guessed it-clean the kitchen! But tonight I don’t care about the kitchen, okay so really I do care but I am trying to get this blog train back on track.  So let me start with the good stuff first. 

 Analysse is doing great in school. I can’t believe how much she is learning. Sometimes I don’t see how with some of the craziness that goes on in her classroom, but somehow she manages to pull it off. She is reading. Can you believe it?!  She is really reading and writing. Yesterday she got in big trouble(I say big but I can’t really remember what it was for now-all moms know this syndrome) and she wrote me a note saying she was sorry and she loved me. It was very sweet. She is still enjoying her Daisy Girl Scouts. This last week we went to a big annual scout event called Thinking Day. The girls get to go around to other troop’s displays and learn about different countries around the world. In Analysse’s case she “ate” her way around the world. As thin as she is, that girl can put away some food. I do have to toot my own horn a bit(persistence in the food trying department has finally paid off), she was one of the only girls who would try the dried fish from the country Iceland. Not only did she try it but she had 3 servings. General tidbits-she has lost 5 teeth so far and she claims to have several other wiggly ones. She is getting very tall and has also decided to grow her bangs out (as she says like mine) and I have to say she is getting prettier and prettier all the time.  I can’t believe how much she has grown up. She is a wonderful help with Benjamin. She just adores him and she can hardly keep her hands off of him. She thinks it is so cool that I let her pick him up and carry him sometimes.

 Our little Kennedy isn’t so little any more either. She is really blossoming. Putting her in pre-school has been such a blessing and has really helped her to grow.  She is now writing her name. Before preschool it was a hopeless battle with getting her to write anything. She started out writing the craziest K’s I have ever seen but here recently she has really come around and is writing beautiful K’s. She is so proud of herself too and that has made all the difference. Tomorrow she is having a PJ party at school. She has been looking forward to this all month and I know she will have a blast. Between preschool and her Friday playgroup she has her own little set of friends and isn’t just a tag-a-long with her big sister anymore. She really enjoys having her own special friends and it has really helped build her confidence. She is also riding a big girl bike. Analysse gave her the “rainbow racer” bike that she had gotten too big for and now Kennedy is riding great. We ride to school with Analysse a couple of times a week and really enjoy the time together. Kennedy is also a big help with Benjamin, although she is still pretty rough(she is completely oblivious to this fact). Never the less Ben loves the attention he gets from her anyway. 

 Benjamin, Benjamin, Benjamin! He is growing up so fast. First it was sitting, then crawling and now he is starting to pull up on everything and is trying to cruise. His first word was Mama and he has three teeth. He is the happiest baby ever and we are so blessed but he still isn’t a good sleeper. I have given up on him sleeping through the night while I am nursing him. I thought about giving it up but with Kenny gone on so many trips and now for 5 weeks to SOS I decided that nursing was a whole lot easier than fixing bottles in the middle of the night. Plus he doesn’t really care too much for the bottle anyway. Only a little more than 3 months left to my goal of one year. I have made it this long without sleep, what’s 3 more months?! Also his hair is coming in the most gorgeous shade of red. He really is a beautiful baby. I met a mother of two red-headed children and she asked me if it took me longer to get through the grocery store or Wal-mart than it did before. Now that I think of it, it does. When you have a red-headed child everyone wants to look at and unfortunately touch your baby. Benjamin used to eat it up and smile at everyone, but here recently he has started to be a “mama’s boy” and isn’t so fond of strangers, but hey, it makes me feel loved.  One last thing-I didn’t believe it possible until I had my very own little boy-Benjamin already knows how to drive cars and trains and anything with wheels for that fact around on the ground. Eight months old and pushing cars and making noises-it is so a boy thing and I love it! It is so adorable. 

 So I said good stuff first, now for not so great news. Many of you know that for months now our family has endured many a sickness. Myself especially has been sick off and mostly on for a while now. I was trying to avoid a trip to the doctor for many reasons but a few weeks ago I surrendered to sever ear pain and went to the doctor. It seems that I have severe allergies. So sadly we had to give our family cat, Lizzie, (really she was my cat for nearly 10 good years) away. I have to say that it was gut wrenching and heartbreaking for me. I love that cat dearly but I can’t live like this anymore. The girls have been great about the whole thing and have actually been a big comfort to me. They know how much I love Lizzie.  Kenny had to leave right after we gave her away and so I have been pretty sad and lonely. I miss my cat.  Kennedy has also been having some issues with her ears and hasn’t been hearing well for sometime. We are going to the doctor yet again on Friday. I hope we don’t have to have tubes put in, but if they say she needs them then we will. I thought for a while that she was just ignoring me and it was actually infuriating me. I felt terrible when I figured out she wasn’t hearing. The test that I did was pretty funny. She had her back to me and I told her in a normal volume level that she could go get some chocolate to eat and she just sat there. I knew immediately that she couldn’t hear me. She has actually gotten pretty good at reading lips, funny, huh?!

 Well I think I have gotten up to speed and I am going to try to do very short blogs from now on. I think I will be able to manage that better than these massive updates anyway. We miss you all and think of you more than you know!   

Our Christmas Letter (2007) to bring everyone up to speed since our last Hamlett News Update...

Aloha friends and family! Mele Kalikimaka! Once again the year is coming to an end and I can hardly believe how quickly it has past. This year has been a very exciting year for our family with many changes and I am very eager to share our fondest memories of the year with all of you. 

Here are the Hamlett Highlights of 2007:

We started the 2007 year in Altus, Oklahoma. Kenny was sent to Altus to do his final training for the C-17 and so we decided to make it a family trip. We spent four chilly and at times very snowy months in OK.  The girls absolutely loved the snow-it was probably their favorite thing about OK. It definitely wasn’t the most exciting place we have ever lived, but as always we did meet some really wonderful people while we were there. 

In April we left OK and headed for our new home sweet home-Hawaii. Of course like any Hamlett adventure the trip had it’s “moments”. The short version-we almost missed our flight because our vehicle almost didn’t get shipped, I had a pregnant melt down, Analysse’s hand got smashed in the taxi cab’s door and then that same cab ride cost us $80.00 only to find out our flight had been delayed for two hours.  The flight itself was 8 hours long and the airline decided that it wasn’t going to serve any food that day. Good thing I threw in a box of granola bars and a bag of goldfish for good measure before we left! All in all we did finally make it to Hawaii, Kenny, me (eight months pregnant), the two kids and our family cat I insisted on dragging halfway across the world.

A few days after arriving in HI, Kenny had to leave us to finish one last course he needed to complete-survival training. While he was in Washington State learning to live in the woods we did our own survival here on the island. Kenny and I had tried to plan ahead as much as we could before the move, but with any military move and especially one that is considered overseas many things are left a mystery until you actually reach your destination. I spent the next few weeks with the kids trying to get us housing and all the other moving details taken care of-it was no easy task especially being so pregnant but with the Lord’s help we were finally blessed with a wonderful home. Kenny was able to come home and we started to set up house. We were able to get everything unpacked; the girls’ room and the nursery decorated, and feel very settled before the baby was born. 

In fact, the Lord really knows what we need, because our bouncing baby boy decided to make his first appearance into this world a week later than expected. Looking back it is such a relief, many nights I thought the stress of the move would bring him early and I would have no one to help me. Instead everything was just as it should have been. Our son, Benjamin Will Hamlett was born on June 9, 2007 at 6:37am. He weighed 8 lb. and 1 oz. and was 19 inches long. The delivery was very easy and smooth, a wonderful reward for such a hard pregnancy. 

As far as the rest of the year, everything has just been falling into place for us and we have been establishing our everyday rhythms. Kenny is working hard and has been flying many missions. He loves flying and I love supporting him while he is doing such a great service to our country. He is also finishing up his last two courses for his Master’s Degree. The Lord has truly blessed him and we are so proud of him for all that he has been able to accomplish with the Lord’s help over this past year. 

Analysse is growing up right before our eyes. In just a few short weeks she will be turning six years old. She is such a wonderful big sister to Kennedy and now to Benjamin as well. She is so helpful and has such a loving and giving heart. She started Kindergarten this year and is proving to be an excellent student. She was just given the Student of the Quarter award; we are so proud of her. She is also our budding artist. When ever she is inside she is either writing a story (with my help of course) or drawing a picture for someone. Just two months ago she joined the Daisy Girl Scouts and is working hard to earn all of her patches. She is already able to recite the Girl Scout promise and has become a junior rescuer.  Her latest accomplishment has been to ride her bicycle without the training wheels. Watch out world here she comes!

What can I say about Kennedy; well she is definitely not the baby anymore! She has started to attend a local Christian preschool two days a week and she is so excited. She loves her teacher and is doing very well. She is beginning to write and be very creative. I am so thrilled for her. Of course she is still our little comedian and loves to amuse us with her silly stories. One of her favorite past times is to catch all of the geckos in our back yard and she is very quick and good at it too. She has also really taken to the role of being a big sister. She is very helpful and Benjamin just adores her even when she “loves” him a little too rough. She is also turned into a Star Wars junkie thanks to Kenny. At four years old she can tell you the entire story line with details! She is really something! 

Benjamin has been such a wonderful blessing to our family. He really is a great baby. He is always happy and let’s not forget hungry-he’s a growing boy!  When he was born the first thing the doctor asked was “who in the family has red hair?” So Benjamin was born with a head full of red hair. Most of his hair fell out but it is coming back in and yes, it is still red. We all think he’s the cutest little man you ever did see! He is growing so fast and is doing everything a six month old should be doing.  He loves to be tickled and he has a very infectious laugh. When you hear him, you can’t help but to smile.

As for me I am busy as usual but enjoying my life as a wife and a mom of three wonderful children.  I am making new friends daily and beginning to feel settled in our community as well as our new church home. I still enjoy reading a good book now and then and over this past year have really taken up a passion for cooking. I also just got a bicycle for my birthday and look forward to riding with the kids. Who knows what other new adventures this next year has in store me?! Could it be surfing?!!

As a family we have really tried to acquaint ourselves with the beautiful island of Oahu and all of the wonders it has to offer. We are making our way through a very long list of “things to do”.  We also want welcome anyone who would like to come visit us with open arms and an open house. If you ever thought you might want to vacation in Hawaii then the next two and a half years is the time to do it! 

As exciting as this year has been for us we do want all of you to know how much we miss you. This is the first year we have truly been away from home or as they say here the “mainland” and so this holiday will be a little different. Just know that each and every one of you hold a special place in our hearts and we wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a blessed year in 2008!

•      Love,
• Kenny, Amanda, Analysse, Kennedy, & Benjamin

With all of the changes over the past year we weren’t able to keep up with our website like we had hoped but we plan on reorganizing it and keeping it current at the first of the year now that we are settled. Mahalo for you patience and understanding!

5/27/07

This was a partial update from Amanda before arriving in HI...

Surprise! I am actually updating this page in a timely manner. Ok, so I started this update over a month ago. As usual I started the update and then got side tracked with something else. As you know we are here in Altus, OK and everything is going very well. It was starting to feel like “home” as much as our apartment possible could and now I can hardly believe that we are about to be leaving in 2 weeks. The girls and I have been filling our days with school, trips to the park (when the weather isn’t so crazy), appointments, and shopping for stuff for the baby, and traveling. Unlike most people who come to Altus, I can not say that I am bored. There is always something for me to be doing with the girls or around the apartment and I believe that I will feel that way no matter where I am in this world. With two children with you 24 hours a day there is never a dull moment. 

My Feb. Doctors Appointments

I had a very good doctor’s visit a few weeks back. I got to see the nurse practitioner this time and she was very nice and took her time at answering all of my questions. She said it looked like I had my blood sugar under control but that we would check it again at my next appointment. My weight looked good and of course the baby’s heart beat sounded great. She told me not to stress myself out about exercise so much and to just rest when I felt tired. That is a hard concept for me to grasp-rest that is, but I have been taking it easy and I have honestly been feeling great. It was so nice to leave the office with a smile on my face instead of a handful of prescriptions! I also had my teeth cleaned a few days ago. I used the hygienist at Dr. Goodman’s office right down from our apartment complex. It was extremely clean, the staff was very friendly as well as the doctor himself, and I thought they just all around did a good job. I highly recommend that dental practice to anyone coming into the Altus area that needs dental care. 

Valentine’s Day

On February 14^th we all woke up to a white snow covered world. The girls are just so amazed with the snow. We have been told that the weather has been somewhat out of the ordinary since we have been here. “It doesn’t usually snow so much” is what everyone has been telling us. I don’t particularly care about getting out and going places when it is so snowy/icy but it has been nice for the girls. They won’t get to see snow like this for many years and so we have tried our best to let them enjoy it as much as possible. Valentine’s Day was great! Kenny and I surprised the each of the girls with a giant Hershey’s kiss and a little silver heart shaped locket. Then Kenny also surprised them each with a balloon and a rose. He surprised me with a dozen red roses and a wonderful card. He had hid them in his car the night before and so he had to go out in the snow first thing in the morning to get the flowers. Of course the girls watched from the window and gave me a play by play update about what Daddy was carrying to the door. I thought it was very sweet of him to surprise me. He is so good at doing that. I didn’t surprise him with flowers or candy but I did sit down and write him a long love letter like I used to do when we were dating. I know he enjoyed it very much. Later that evening he took us out to an Italian restaurant that I had been wanting to try-Roma’s. I thought it was very good and it reminded me of a place I used to work at when I first started college. It was really the first restaurant that I have enjoyed going to while we have been in Altus. We have gone to several different places and well, the food just hasn’t been that good. I really love to cook and so when I go out I like to get things that I wouldn’t normally fix at home. When the food is less than average or if I know that I could have made it better myself I always feel like it is such a waste. Since then I have also had lunch at a small place down town called the Grapevine Café. It was excellent! I didn’t feel like I was in Altus, OK. It is only open for lunch and serves soup and sandwich type stuff. The food and atmosphere were great and recommend it to anyone coming to Altus. 

The Girl’s

The girls have been getting very excited about the move, the baby and everything that is to come in the next month and a half. Actually we all are. Time has really gone by fast for us while we have been here. Kenny has stayed busy with his schooling as well as SOS and his master’s course. The girls have been helping me to pick out things for Benjamin and they have a great time doing it. He is going to be so spoiled by his big sisters.  I feel much better now that we have some baby things and won’t have to go out and search at the last minute when I know I won’t exactly feel like it.

As you know I always like to tell a few funny stories that happen through out the month and well once again Kennedy is quite our little comedian. Kenny didn’t really want me to share this story but I got so tickled when it happened I couldn’t resist.  For all of you who know her personality she is incredibly sweet but she is also my more negative child. She has always been a hard cookie to crack in this area, even as an infant. Mostly we just try to encourage her often; Analysse is a very good encourager to her too. All of the encouraging has helped and now she is becoming quite the encourager herself. One day I was fixing dinner and the girls were playing. Kenny came home just before we were all about to sit down. As soon as dinner was on the table, the girls were washed up and everyone was sitting to say the prayer, Kennedy announces she has to go to the bathroom. This is very typical for her and is one of the things that she does that absolutely drives me nuts. So we all sat patiently waiting for Kennedy and sure enough she yells for help. So I slowly start to get up and say that I will be there in just a minute. Very nonchalantly she yells back “you know Mom, you are the best cooker and well Daddy, he’s the best wiper, so could you ask him to come and help me!” As a mother that stays home and deals with potty issues all day I was just ecstatic. I looked at Kenny and said “well you heard it straight from the horses mouth” and so now when he is home he is on potty duty (no pun intended, ha ha!!). It is so funny what comes out of our children’s mouths sometimes. I have a second funny story about Kennedy for this update. Last Sunday we went to church and it was extremely hot in the auditorium. I really started to feel bad due to the heat and so I decided to go outside and sit in the car and get some fresh air. While I was in the car Kennedy of course announces she has to go to the bathroom-surprise, surprise. Kenny decided to let Analysse stay in her seat because she was coloring quietly. He took Kennedy downstairs to where the ladies bathroom was and told her to go in and do her business. He was standing outside the door waiting for her when several other ladies came down to use the restroom. He didn’t want to make any of the ladies uncomfortable by standing around the bathroom door so he moved over by the stairs. While Kenny was waiting for Kennedy to come out of the bathroom a visiting couple came downstairs and asked him where the nursery was. After the couple left and all of the ladies had come out of the bathroom Kenny went back to the door and called for Kennedy. All he heard was silence. He called again, this time stating he was very serious; still no Kennedy. Finally he decided to go in the ladies bathroom and check for her. He checked all the stalls and no Kennedy. At this point he said he knew he was in trouble; in his own words “only this would happen on my watch.” So he decided to go back upstairs and see if she was back in the auditorium. When he went upstairs sure enough she was sitting there with Analysse as well as another family that we have befriended while we have been here in Altus. Come to find out, Kennedy had snuck upstairs while Kenny was talking with the visiting couple and instead of going directly back to her seat to sit with Analysse she ran all the way to the front of the auditorium right in the middle of the sermon. Our friends (as well as everyone else) noticed her and went up front to get her and brought her back to sit with Analysse and wait for Kenny to return. After church began to let out our friend saw me in the car and told me to ask Kenny about how he lost our child. I couldn’t help but laugh. It’s true stuff like that only happens to Kenny. 

Surprise trip to GA

At the end of February I decide to make a trip home to Georgia. I was finally starting to feel better and felt confident that I could make the trip with the girls. I set out and took three days to get there. We stayed at Barksdale AFB in LA the first night. It wasn’t the best experience I have ever had. We had booked a room that had a pull out couch and a full size bed for me. The first room they tried to put me in had one tiny bed and so they had to change my room. The next room they put us in was an upstairs room. I toted all of the bags up the steps and coaxed two tired children all the way. We got in the room and realized that it wasn’t clean. Back downstairs with all the bags and the kids to get another room. The third room they put us in was, you guessed it, back upstairs. We got in that room and well it was clean but it was literally 85 degrees. The air conditioners were not turned on (they are on a system that runs from May-Sept) and the windows in our room had been painted shut. Having already been moved so many times I tried to stick it out, but at 1:00am when we were all soaked with sweat and Kennedy began to cry I had had enough. I checked the thermostat and literally it was 90 degrees in our room. I called back down to the front desk and they told me that they didn’t have any more rooms but that a single woman had just checked and they had put her in a suite and that they would call her and see if she would be willing to change to a single room.  

30 Jan 07

Well most everyone probably thinks that I have fell off of the earth or something by now. At times it felt as if I might any second but no, I am still here. The past couple of months have been very busy, very crazy and just down right hectic. Several times I have thought about doing my update. I even started it a couple of times and then just abandoned it. Some times I really wanted to write one but then just didn’t actually want to sit down and do it. Needless to say I have a lot to catch up on. I am going to break this update down into sections for easier reading. It probably won’t be as detailed as some of my past updates but hopefully it will give some insights and be entertaining at times too.

Kenny’s Graduation (Nov 17 2006)

I could hardly believe it was really time. The whole week before graduation was jam packed with stuff to do (non related to graduation) and with me still not feeling so well I barely had time to think about it until that Thursday when family was supposed to arrive. I actually wasn’t too worried about family coming because I didn’t have to do any cooking and so it was a pretty stress free time as far as graduation goes. Many student spouses are worried about all the graduation events and decorations and such but all the students in the class took care of everything and all I had to do was help Kenny with his duty and that was to get the shadow boxes taken care of so it was a piece of cake. It is very unusual for any of the students to take charge and deal with graduation stuff but I thought it was great! Less work and stress for all of the spouses and we got to enjoy the day rather than run around and do things when there was a small break in between activities.  All of Kenny’s family got to our house right after dinner time on Thursday and so we got to visit a little before bedtime. The next morning we all got ready and headed out to the graduation breakfast. Breakfast was good and then there were some briefs. Kenny and I kept the girls outside in the lobby area because I knew they would get bored and I didn’t want them to be frustrated with having to be quiet even before the actual graduation ceremony began. This worked out great. Kenny and I had already heard the same briefs before and that way his family could enjoy them without the distraction of the girls. After the breakfast a bus came to take us to the theater where we had the actual graduation ceremony. The bus ride was the most anticipated thing of the day for the girls. It was a short trip but they enjoyed it no less and once the ceremony actually began they were super.  We were thrilled and very proud of Kenny when he was awarded the Commander’s Trophy during the ceremony. It was a really funny feeling, almost like a dream, when Kenny’s name was called. I knew he had studied hard, prepared daily, done well on tests but it was kind of a surprise when they called his name because everyone worked so hard and everyone in the class had really done great. Needless to say we felt very blessed and honored for him to receive such honors. After the ceremony we did the various red carpet activities: breaking of the wings, static displays, seeing the flight room, sim time, ect.  After all the activities the rest of the family went back to our house and Kenny and I with the help of a few other students got the shadow boxes and set them up for display at the Officer’s Club for the graduation dinner.  Then Kenny and I went home and got ready for the dinner. I have to say that the dinner was the most fun part of the entire day. I was really excited about getting all dressed up and had been waiting to wear my dress for a very long time. I actually bought it for the cruise Kenny and I took on our honeymoon and never wore it. Luckily it was a loose flowing kind of dress and it still fit even with my changing pregnant body. Actually it showed my little “baby bump” off quite well, but I felt great standing next to Kenny. It was a lot of fun and we had a good time sitting with Vic and his family during the dinner. The dinner was actually my first formal military event and I look forward to many more to come over the years. 

Thanksgiving

Right after graduation Kenny and I started to prepare for the move and also get ready for our holiday travel plans.  Kenny’s parents volunteered to take the girls to GA with them on their way home and so Kenny and I had a few days to ourselves. This made things much easier. We had put up our Christmas decorations right after assignment night and so all of that had to be taken down, sorted and put away. Kenny and I also decided to have an impromptu yard sale too in the midst of everything else that was going on so we started our usual purging effort that we do before every move. Every cabinet, drawer, closet, storage tub, and of course nook and cranny had to be gone through and sorted. I try to do this a couple of time a year anyway so it wasn’t really so bad. About a month prior we had donated a whole bunch of stuff to the thrift shop on base and also the Ukraine ministry at our church but we still ended up with a fair share of things to get rid of. Our neighbors also decided to join in the effort as well as a few of Kenny’s class mates. Of course the weather was absolutely terrible the Saturday we had the yard sale, but that didn’t stop the masses from coming. We had ladies trying to get in our garage at 5:00am (although the ad said it wasn’t supposed to start until 7:00am, but who reads that part right?) and when I wouldn’t sell them anything they left in a tizzy saying “well fine I guess we won’t come back!” I honestly don’t remember if they came back or not but it didn’t matter, like I said the masses just kept coming and coming. Everyone did surprisingly well as far as selling stuff. We sold nearly everything! It was well worth the chaos. Kenny and I also got to go on a date before traveling to GA, our third date in well I guess you could say 2 years or so--sad I know. We went to a nice restaurant and a movie. It really felt strange not having the girls around. I was tempted to call and check on them a few times but I refrained and I think I only called once. Then that Tuesday before Thanksgiving I had a check up and then we would be off to GA for the holiday. The trip was fine although being pregnant made the car ride far more uncomfortable than past trips. I think an hour into the drive I was ready to be there. The big Hamlett Thanksgiving for the extended family was to be at Kenny’s parents’ house this year so it was nice only to have to travel once. I got to help with the cooking (something that I don’t normally do) so it was nice. I cooked the ham and made a cranberry and apple stuffing side dish and both were quite tasty if you ask me and then later that night we went over to my mom’s house for another Thanksgiving meal with my family. The day was relaxing and we got to see a bunch of people the only thing that wasn’t great was that half of all of the people were sick! I am not normally a freak about these type things but having just gotten past most of my morning sickness/ metal taste in the mouth stuff I was not wanting to partake of anyone’s cold germs. We had planned a family vacation to take right after Thanksgiving-Santa Claus had brought us tickets to go to Disney World (a few weeks early of course) and so I was hoping that everyone would be healthy for the trip. 

Disney World and Sea World

We were supposed to leave GA on Monday morning and get to Disney World that afternoon. Everything went according to schedule, the drive wasn’t bad, the kids were great and well of course my sniffles arrived somewhere in between GA and FL right on cue just as I suspected they would. At least it wasn’t the full blown thing, only the sniffles and at least I had come prepared-I think I brought the entire medicine cabinet from home. We settled into our room and it really nice. We stayed in the Disney All Star Movie resort. I thought it would be neat for the girls to see all of the character decorations around the buildings. We had a huge Jack-in the-Box outside our building as well as a ballerina and some toy soldiers. I think the decorations were characters from Mickey’s Fantasia (which we haven’t really watched before) but the girls quickly named the ballerina and soldiers as characters from the Nutcracker and so nutcrackers they were! We had dinner that night in the food court and then went to bed kind of early so we could get a jump start and the next day. We woke up Tuesday and started to get ready and low and behold it was raining. We took our time finishing up and by a little after 9:00 am it had pretty much passed. We headed towards the buses and grabbed the first bus to the Magic Kingdom and we were off and running. Once again the girls enjoyed the bus ride but we even more amazed when we got to the Magic Kingdom. It truly was magic for them both. There was so much to look at and things to do. Of course they both wanted to see Cinderella’s castle so we made our way to the back of the park. After seeing the castle we went on the Carousel and the Dumbo ride. They especially liked the Dumbo ride because you get to control how high or low your elephant gets to go. Of course both of the girls wanted to go as high as they could almost the entire time. After we got done with the Dumbo ride we started to make our way back to the Crystal Palace restaurant where we had reservations to eat with Pooh and Friends. While we were on our way we got to meet Sleeping Beauty, which happens to be Kennedy’s favorite princess. The girls got to have their picture made with her and Prince Philip and they both thought that was great. While they were standing with her I told Kennedy to tell Sleeping Beauty her special secret and so she whispered (well ok, a pretty loud 3 year old’s whisper) into Sleeping Beauty’s ear “You’re my favorite princess” and then Sleeping Beauty said “Well that deserves a special kiss” and she kissed Kennedy’s cheek. Kennedy was so proud and we let her walk around the rest of the day with Sleeping Beauty’s lip print on her cheek! Then we were off to have lunch with Pooh. We got to the Crystal Palace and right before we were taken to our table Kennedy had a little melt down about something. The lady taking us to our table wasn’t fazed a bit and as a matter of fact had probably taken the class Kranky Kids 101 and therefore she quickly whipped out a handful of Mickey Mouse confetti. Of course it was the cure for whatever was bothering Kennedy and so Kennedy asked the lady “what is this stuff?” and the lady answered “well Pixie dust of course” and from that time on it was known as in the words of Kennedy as “picky dust.” Although Kennedy is my more difficult child sometimes I am never left with out a smile on my face from the cute faces she makes and the cute things she says. Once we were sat at our table we were told to wait for the characters to come to us (they have a specific pattern they go by so they do not miss any table) but we were free to help ourselves to the buffet. The food was great and shortly after we were seated we were greeted by Tigger. Both girls are very intrigued by the characters, but in very different ways. Analysse is at an age where she wants to know everything and so the questions began “is that the real Tigger mommy?” “Is there a person inside?” “How come they don’t say anything?” and so on and so on... In spite of all of Analysse’s questions I still managed to convince her that they were “real”. I asked her if she wanted them to be real and she said yes. So I told her that if she believed that they were real then they were. She went along with it, but she is very quick to say “they are the real characters”. In Kennedy’s mind there is no question-it’s the real thing and that is all there is too it. Now you know that I always have to have some kind of a funny little part to my update and this one is now exception. Just thinking about it makes me chuckle as I am writing. We were all finishing up our lunch. Kennedy and Analysse were getting anxious to see Pooh Bear who had not made his appearance yet. Finally we saw him enter our side of the restaurant and so I told the girls it would not be long before he came to see them. Suddenly I turned my head and Kennedy was gone. I looked at Kenny and he shrugged his shoulders and had that “I don’t know look” so I looked towards the front of the restaurant which just so happened to also be where Pooh Bear was and of course there she was. As you remember me saying, we were given strict rules to stay at our table until the characters came to us. I quickly jumped up and ran towards her only to find her hanging on to Pooh’s leg for dear life and Pooh looking quite confused. As I reached the table I also saw a little boy with a party hat on, a birthday cake and one very irritated father with a video camera in his hand saying “who the heck is that?” Of course I apologized immediately to the people at the table and tried to get Kennedy away from Pooh-which wasn’t that easy by the way-and as suspected it all happened to be on video. At the time I did feel kind of bad but also at the same time I couldn’t help but laugh once I was back at our table. Kennedy was just so excited she couldn’t contain herself and hey, that little boy will never forget that birthday! After our crazy character lunch we spent most of our time on rides until the parade at 3:00pm. The girls loved the rides and couldn’t take their eyes off of the floats during the parade. It was so great getting to experience the magic of Disney World with the girls; I felt just like a child myself and the more excited they got the more excited I became as well. After the parade I changed the girls into their princess costumes. Analysse was Cinderella and Kennedy was Snow White. They looked very cute and were so proud of their dresses. I should have let them wear the costumes all day but I wasn’t sure how well the costumes would actually hold up the entire day, but everything worked out fine. The girls definitely got a lot more attention from the park cast members while they were wearing them and they seem to eat it up. We finished our day by riding yet more rides, having dinner in the park and watching the evening firework show. By the time we reached the bus to go back to our resort the girls were zonked out! Surprise, surprise!!   The next day we had big plans. We were going to eat breakfast with Lilo and Stitch, and then do some park hopping and ending up back at the magic kingdom to have dinner with Cinderella in the castle. Well we had big plans is the key. We woke up to rain, which it was not supposed to do the week we were there, and a Hamlett adventure couldn’t be complete with out the stomach virus. Poor Analysse was so sick and I felt terrible for her. She couldn’t keep anything down and I was starting to get desperate, luckily for us I brought our entire medicine cabinet including all the anti-nausea meds known to man. I gave her a small dose and prayed it would work. She and Kennedy desperately wanted to eat at the castle, it was practically the only thing they really wanted to do. So at about 5:00pm Analysse appeared to be much better and we decided to take our chances and head out to the magic kingdom for a parade and dinner with Cinderella. We watched the evening parade which was beautiful. The girls had a front row seat and could see everything. I let them wear their princess dresses again and of course they got a lot of attention. When Snow White came by she saw Kennedy in her costume and said “oh look a little me” and she gave Kennedy a hug. Kennedy was just thrilled and thank goodness we got it on video before we dropped the camera and it broke. After the parade we raced to the castle to make our reservation time of 8:00pm. Just a side note for those interested in ever dining at Cinderella’s castle: reservations are very hard to get. When you call the people tell you that reservations are booked up at least 6 months in advance and at times are not really very nice about it. We finally got some useful advice from one cast member. Most reservations to the castle are not cancelled because if you cancel within 24 hours you are still charged for everyone in your party so it is very costly (it was about $160 for a family of 4). If the reservations are cancelled they are made available at 7:00am the morning of the next day. That is how we got our reservation. We called first thing in the morning (before we knew Analysse was sick) and made them for 8:00pm that evening and it was the only reservation available. I thought it was a little strange since the park actually closed at 8:00pm but they take reservations at the castle right up until closing.  So anyway, we raced to the castle for our reservation and checked in about 15 minutes early. Once we were checked in we got the girls’ picture taken with Cinderella (a 5x7 and 4 4x6 pictures are included in the dinner package). Cinderella was very sweet to the girls and especially to Analysse because she was wearing her cinderella dress. Analysse whispered to Cinderella that she was her favorite princess and of course Cinderella hugged her extra tight. Then we were off to be seated upstairs in the dining room.  We were seated at a great table right next to the window. Just after we received our drinks and ordered our food the fireworks show outside started. We were able to see it all right from our table out the window. The girls thought it was great and I have to admit it was amazing. During our dinner the Fairy Godmother and two of Cinderella’s mouse friends put on a show for us. The girls had a great time dancing with the two mice, although Kennedy kept asking where Jaq and Gus-Gus were. I think we told her that it was their bedtime and they were sleeping.  Dinner was pretty good. I had the pork tenderloin and Kenny had prime rib. Mine was the better of the two. I wouldn’t say that the food was worth the money but the experience definitely was. The girls will never forget it and we have wonderful pictures to show them over the years. After dinner we left the park and it was truly magical. I didn’t think about it when we made the reservations but we couldn’t have picked a better time. Analysse was over her sickness, we got to see the fireworks from inside the castle, the girls got to meet Cinderella, the Fairy Godmother, and the mice and lastly we got to walk through Walt Disney World at night with all the lights and music going but with no one else around! What a day, I can’t express how magical it all felt. The girls were amazed and so were we at how the place looked in all its splendor, Christmas decorations everywhere, and we were the only ones walking through, free to see it all and take everything in. I know I keep saying this but, it was amazing.

The next day we headed off to Sea World. We all enjoyed Sea World. We watched the Shamu show, the dolphin show, and also a cirque du soleil type circus show and we all agreed that the dolphin show was our fav. Just as we were getting ready to leave the park the dreaded stomach virus attacked Kenny. I had brought the meds with us to the park just in case and so I did my best to doctor him up and get us back to the resort. I became the hand washing/sanitizing Nazi the rest of the trip and it did pay off. Kennedy and I escaped the awful virus and made it home germ free. Our ride home felt like the never ending drive but we made it safely.    

Analysse’s 5^th Birthday

We got home from our vacation on a Friday. Analysse’s birthday party was planned for Sunday, so that meant I had Saturday to make the cake. I was going to just go the easy way out and buy a cake, but store cakes aren’t really that good and I really wanted her to have a special cake. Normally I like to have birthday parties at our home but with the movers possibly coming on Monday and the place already halfway in boxes I thought we would try something different. I didn’t want anything too extravagant because we just took that huge vacation to Disney so I asked Analysse how she felt about having her party at McDonald’s. Her answer was “I guess that would be pretty fun!” I guess this was kind of a double treat for her because we don’t normally go to McDonald’s. I checked into it and the price seemed right and I thought it would be really neat for her to have a “hamburger” cake. If you read the Aug update, you may remember that I made Kenny a “hot dog and fries” cake and the girls thought it was so cool. Everyone on Kenny’s side of the family has had a hamburger cake at some point (I thought this was a little strange at first but when I was looking through pics of Kenny as a kid all of the relatives have had one even his Granny) so I thought this would be the perfect time for Analysse to have her hamburger cake and eat it too-at McDonald’s of all places. Plus Kenny thinks all kids should have at least one birthday at McDonald’s in his words “it’s classic!” So the cake turned out great and by Sat. night I was exhausted. We woke up and went to church and since it was also going to be our last Sunday at church we went out to eat with a bunch of friends. The girls and I laid down for a nap and Kenny was doing some work on the computer and was supposed to wake us up to get ready to go to the party at 3:00pm. The party was to start at 4:00pm. I woke up at 3:40pm and started freaking out. Kenny had gotten so busy that he forgot to wake us up and so I had to race to get everyone to the party. We got there right at 4:00pm and luckily no one had gotten there yet. I decided to have her party at McDonald’s because I thought it would be super easy and a piece of cake-wrong!! It was the craziest thing. Once we got there it was like pulling teeth to get the right number of treat bags. The kids could only get a hamburger or a cheeseburger-no nuggets allowed. We were told that it no longer came with fries. The person who brought the drinks out started to sing happy birthday in a very half heartedly kind of way and all of the kids just looked at him very confused-who sings happy birthday while serving orange soda? Then the lady told us we would have to leave because our hour was up and she wanted to clean up so she could go home. It was so weird, luckily the 4 and 5 year olds had no real clue what was really happening. As far as Analysse was concerned she got to sit on the birthday throne, play with her friends, open presents, eat a really cool cake and have all the people she love the most sing “Happy Birthday” to her.  Overall it was a great birthday party for her but I have to say I don’t highly recommend a McDonald’s party unless you know the management!

Our Move

Well like anything that we Hamletts do our move was no different-always something crazy happens. So Analysse’s party was Sunday, we had dinner with some friends from church on Monday, we finally got orders on Tuesday and had dinner with more friends and the packers got to our house on Wednesday. I felt pretty good about the whole thing-at first. I promised myself I would not stress out about “stuff” meaning all of our material possessions. I had enough on my mind trying to get the things that we might need over the next 5 months packed and out of the way. I had to get winter clothes packed for Altus. I had to have summer clothes packed for Hawaii. I needed to have essential living items such as kitchen items, linens and towels, entertainment for the kids and even stuff for our baby in case anything was to happen and the baby was to come early or we were stuck somewhere longer than expected or if worse case scenario they lost all of our stuff. This was no easy task and I had very little time to accomplish it. Kenny’s job was to get all of the necessary paper work taken care of. I knew this was going to be a big move and that it wasn’t going to be easy. I didn’t want to stress especially being pregnant and so I really had to sike myself up for everything. So Wed. the movers packed a good bit of our stuff. I really didn’t want to get in the way too much so I just watched and tried to be as nice about particular things as possible. The packers really do not like too much instruction. They take it very offensive. Because we have had previous moves I felt like I kind of knew what was going to happen but moving to Hawaii (which is considered an overseas move) has proven me wrong. Overseas moves are much and let me stress much harder than state side moves. The little things inside the house are done pretty much the same so I didn’t worry too much and I tried to have the attitude of “if it breaks, it breaks and the military will pay to replace it” attitude.  Big items like furniture and a lot of stuff out in our garage was done very differently. Instead of being wrapped in blankets, which is nice and padded, it was wrapped in brown paper.  I was still ok with everything going on until Thursday. Kenny was taking care of yet more paper work for the move and so I was left to watch all three packers, wrap and do our inventory. It was impossible to watch everyone wrap and watch the inventory guy all at the same time. It is very important to make sure that you have a good inventory because they can list whatever damage they want to each piece of your furniture and they do it with codes so it is very hard to get things replaced if they list something as already “damaged”. It is also important that everything is on the inventory or you can not prove that the item actually belongs to you if it doesn’t have an inventory sticker on it or if it “goes missing” for it to be replaced.  At the same time it is important for you to watch your items go on the truck, in our case since this is an overseas move into the wooden crates, so that they are not too rough with your stuff. I chose to watch our stuff going into the crate because I didn’t want them being rough and as I say “rammy” with our stuff and I checked on the inventory guy ever so often. With Kenny gone, at this point I started to stress out a bit, well ok- A LOT! Once our stuff was wrapped in brown paper it was impossible to tell what each item was going into the crate. Rough doesn’t even begin to describe how our things were handled. I tried several times very nicely by the way to get the guys to be less rough and I think it just made the situation worse. I know that the crates need to be packed tightly so things don’t shift and break while on the boat, but I will truly be surprised if our stuff wasn’t broken by the packers. Finally I called Kenny and told him to come home right away. The packers seemed to listen to him much better than me, but I could tell the attitude was there to stay. Kenny told me to go back to TLF (temporary lodging facilities) and take a nap and then get the kids and he would finish up. I don’t think I could have taken one more second there. I know it is just stuff, but come on, be respectful.  Friday the packers were to finish up and we would be on our way to GA for the holiday break. Then Friday morning I woke up feeling very strange. I was dizzy and somewhat nauseas. At this point I had just really gotten over the whole morning sickness thing so I thought maybe I was just a little hungry. I got up and ate some cereal and got the girls clothes laid out. Kenny got ready and left to go to the house and meet the packers and told me to take my time and drop the girls off at the CDC and then I could meet him at the house. I tried to take a shower and started to feel even dizzier so I got out and laid down. By this time the girls were up and so I told them to get dressed and I called Kenny. I told him that I still felt strange and that I would call the doctor because I didn’t feel like I could drive at this point. Kenny couldn’t leave the packers by themselves so I told him I would figure something out. I called the doctor and as I was on the phone with the nurse I began to get extremely sick. Every time I moved my head I would vomit. I know the girls were a little scared but I just said “mommy is going to be fine, sometimes mommy gets sick when there is a baby in my tummy” and they were fine with that. The nurse told me to go to the emergency room immediately so I called my friend Julie desperate for help. She called her husband to come and get the girls and take them to the CDC and she came and got me and took me to the hospital. She had 3 of her children with her so I had her just drop me off. Of course she went back to our house and politely ordered Kenny go to the hospital to be with me while she stayed with the movers. When it rains it definitely pours and well it just so happened that while Julie and I were on the way to the hospital several cops passed us going about 80mph through town. Evidently there were 4 ambulances on their way to the hospital at the same time with gun shot wounds and so the poor sick pregnant girl had to wait, and wait and wait for a room. I spent almost the entire day in the hospital. I sent Kenny back to the house because there was nothing he could do. I finally got a room and the doctor said I most definitely had vertigo. A very common thing that affects the inner ear and that will make you very dizzy and nauseas.  He loaded me down with pills and sent me on my dizzy way. Kenny finished up with the move and all of the paperwork just as I was being released from the hospital. The meds they gave me did nothing for me and so I had to lie on my back completely still with my head looking toward the ceiling and then I wouldn’t be sick.  To make matters more complicated we were told that we couldn’t stay an extra day in TLF because someone else had made reservations and they didn’t have anymore rooms. Our neighbors had to go out of town suddenly because of a death in the family so they gave us a key to their house, but we were really hoping to get to GA for the Hamlett Christmas the next day and so the race to get there began.  Kenny dropped me off at the neighbors to rest while he picked the kids up from daycare, got a tow dolly to pull our car behind the van (no driving for me), picked up pizza to feed the kids, and then had to do a complete cleaning on our house. While Kenny was running around I was resting on the neighbor’s sofa. My neighbor, Barbara didn’t tell her mom and dad that she gave us a key. Her parents came over to check on the cat and she freaked out when she saw me. She thought I was a burglar and at one point I didn’t know if she was going to hurt me or not. I tried to explain that I was the neighbor and that Barbara gave us a key but I guess because I looked so terrible and it was dark in the room she didn’t recognize me. Finally I convinced them of my story and they left. After Kenny finished cleaning the house he asked if I wanted to take a look around and tell it good bye, but I was so sick I said no. I think about it now and it makes me a little sad. I really miss that house and our neighbors and just the feeling of “settledness” and the kids miss it too, especially Kennedy. It is the first home that she truly remembers and she still asks daily when we are going home. It really breaks my heart. I didn’t let the girls see the house once it was in boxes because with our last move they really freaked out and thought that they would never see their stuff again. It was a good idea and it worked out because we haven’t had an issue with them feeling like someone took their toys away but this move just made me realize how hard it is going to be over the years for them every time we move. We left MS that Friday night, car in tow and everything we thought we would need for 5 months with us but we didn’t get far before I couldn’t stand it anymore. Only and hour and a half into the trip I really needed to lay down and so we stopped at a hotel for the night. The next morning we got up and managed to finally get to the Hamlett Family Christmas about 3 hours late. I just laid on one of the sofas and rested while Kenny and the girls visited with some of the extended family. I know it is crazy that we went to the Christmas thing but I really wanted Kenny to be able to see some of his family before we left. We may not get to come to a large family gathering for the next 3-4 years. Later that evening we traveled another hour and a half to WR where we would stay for the next 3 ½ weeks during Christmas before we traveled to Altus, OK. 

Christmas

Well I have to say that having vertigo really slowed me down not too mention that the cold I got over Thanksgiving was still hanging around and developing into the major crud. I was hoping to see a lot of people and spend time with friends that I may not see for many years while we were in GA. I didn’t do much of anything for the first week we were there. I stayed very still on Kenny’s parents’ couch so that I wouldn’t feel sick and watched TV (something I rarely do). As a matter of fact I got hooked on the Food Network. Kenny had to go to water survival training that week and so it was just me the girls and as they call it “the cooking show.” While Kenny was gone I decided to call my doc in MS and see if I could get some meds for my crud. The doc said he would call in a prescription for some stuff and I could pick it up the next day. I normally use the Walgreens but because of the vertigo I was having a hard time reading the words on the page of the phone book so when I saw the Wal-mart number I just gave him that number. Word of warning: Do not use the Wal-mart Pharmacy unless absolutely necessary. You know what comes next right-a crazy story of course. The doc called in the meds that night; I called Wal-mart the next day. They said that they had a small problem with the prescription and would have to call the doctor to confirm something before it could be filled and that it should be ready that afternoon. OKAY. I called back that afternoon to check and it was still not ready. HUH? So I asked if they had gotten in touch with the doc and they said “yes” so I asked what the problem was. They said that they didn’t know one of the medicines he was actually prescribing for me, but that the other prescription was ready for me to pick up. WELL. So I call my doc to tell them what the problem was and asked if they could please call the pharmacy again so I could get my medicine. They called Wal-mart back and so did I just to confirm everything and boy did I get an ear full. The pharmacist was just short of cussing me out-I guess I was being too pesky. Evidently the problem was that the doc and the nurse from my doc’s office both spelled the medicine wrong by one letter and the Wal-mart was thrown for a loop. The pharmacist said that they had no idea what medicine it was supposed to be and couldn’t find it anywhere in the system and blah, blah blah. I find this a little hard to believe because you can type just about anything in Google and most everything will pop up including: did you mean... with alternate spellings. When I kindly asked the lady to stop shouting at me she got even madder and what was so crazy was that I never once raised my voice or accused anyone of anything she just automatically went on the defensive. So finally I just asked “well when will it be ready once everything was all said and done?” She told me that they would have to special order it and that they didn’t use that crazy medicine in these parts so it would be two more days. JUST GREAT and real professional. So I told her that I would send my father-in-law to pick it up because of I was not able to drive at this time and so she said fine and she would make a note of it. Progress finally. Well two days later I was feeling a little better and decided to have Kenny’s mom take me to the Wal-mart. I went to pick up my meds which I called to confirm if they were in fact ready and eventually that afternoon they were. I went to pay for them and the tech charged me for both. Okay that’s right. I looked in the bag and there was only one prescription. When I asked where the other one was the tech looked kind of confused.  The tech asked the pharmacist and she came over to me (it was the same one that I had talked to on the phone) and she said I couldn’t have the other one. WHAT? She said that there was a note on it that my father-in-law would pick it up and that I couldn’t have it. I told her the med was for me and that I was the one who had said that he would pick it up but I was here now and I wanted the medicine because the tech already charged me for it. She refused to give it to me. She insisted that my father-in-law would have to pick it up. Ridiculous!! Well I refused to leave until I got it and the battle began and I wasn’t backing down. Finally the pharmacist asked to look at my ID again and then when she gave it back to me she asked me how old I was. What? Do I look like a kid? At this point I was thinking “and this lady gives drugs or I guess in my case doesn’t give drugs to people every day?” I wanted to say quite a mouthful but I restrained and I simply told the lady that I was 31 years old, pregnant and it was just some stupid cough syrup so give me the medicine already. I won the battle of the cough syrup but it was not easy. The whole thing was absurd and so back to my original statement-don’t use the Wal-mart pharmacy unless it is absolutely necessary. Why do these things always happen when Kenny is gone? This is going to be the story of my life I fear, but at least it makes for good writing, right?  When Kenny came home I was feeling better, well enough to walk around without getting sick but the dizziness was still there. I think I just kind of got used to it. As a matter of fact it persisted for over 5 weeks. It was one of the strangest sensations I had ever felt, I felt as if I were in the twilight zone or something. I really feel bad for anyone who says they have had or are experiencing vertigo, it is really bad stuff.  Once Kenny was back from training he helped his dad with various projects and I had to finish Christmas shopping. With all that was going on, the move, being sick, feeling unsettled, ect. I guess you could say I felt kind of “grinchy.” This wasn’t how Christmas was supposed to feel. I had a really hard time and what made it harder was that I didn’t want the girls to know how I truly felt so I had to do a lot of acting happy for them which was not always easy to do. Everyone except Kenny had the crud of some kind and sickness tends to make it harder for me to deal with in a positive manner. This was also our third Christmas in a row away from our home and what made this one so different was that we didn’t even have a home to go home to. Christmas with our family was good though. I am glad that we were able to be them this year because we do not know what the years to come will bring.  Richard, Jennifer and the kids got to come to WR and spend a few days for Christmas. The girls had a good time playing with their cousins and had a great time opening all of their presents. We had our annual Christmas Eve with Kenny’s Granny (this year the day before the 24^th since Christmas Eve fell on a Sunday). We spent Christmas morning with Kenny’s parents and then went to my mom’s house that afternoon and had Christmas with my side of the family. I got my first piece of real Christmas jewelry from Kenny. He really surprised me. He gave me a diamond journey necklace that is so beautiful. I was less creative than him and didn’t surprise him a bit; I just got him the new James Bond Ultimate DVD collection. I thought it was only appropriate since I insisted on him getting rid of the VHS recorded off of the TBS James Bond Marathon commercials included collection that he recorded the first year we got married.  Shortly after Christmas it was time for us to once again pack everything back in the van, or should I say stuff to the gills, and head off to our new 4 month home away from home-Altus, OK.

To Altus we will go, to Altus we will go, hi-ho the dairy-o to Altus we will go…

We left GA on Dec. 27^th with the first stop listed at Amory, MS so that I could have my monthly doctor’s visit. This was also the visit in which I would have my ultrasound that would tell if the baby was developing normally and the much anticipated gender of the baby. So we were on our way like I said, stuffed to the gills even more so than before Christmas (if that was even possible), and we were riding through Atlanta GA. Kenny was driving and we noticed at car approaching us from behind at an extremely fast speed. We didn’t really have time to get over or change lanes (for you all familiar with Atl traffic you understand) and so the car just whipped around us and nearly rear-ended another car in the lane next to us. It was really crazy and both Kenny and I were like “so where are the police when you need them?” Well just as we thought that we heard the siren and also the helicopters. It was a little scary but also intriguing all at the same time. Finally the car got off on an exit and the police car and the helicopter continued to follow it but it was out of our site. The next day when we were talking to Kenny’s Granny she asked if we had heard about the bank robbery and police chase that happened in Atl yesterday-heard about it?-well not really but we were right in the middle of it! Leave it to the Hamletts to always have something exciting going on even if we are unaware of it at the time. Of course we did get to Amory safely and we spent the night at a hotel right down the street from my doctor’s office. The next morning we woke up and went to the appointment all eager to see what was in store for our family. Well first we found out that we have a very healthy baby. Everything is developing normally and the baby was about 6 inches long and about 14 ounces. Next we found out that we are going to have a bouncing baby boy! Yes I said BOY! I am very excited and Kenny is overjoyed. Even the girls are ecstatic although every once in a while Kennedy will say she was hoping for a baby sister. After we left the doctor’s office with all of my prescriptions in hand (I think he wrote me 6 different ones and recommended that I pick up 4 other over the counter vitamin supplements) we were back on the road. That Saturday we arrived in Altus, Oklahoma. Kenny was hoping to go straight to the apartment and check it out but I really wanted to reward the girls for there excellent traveling behavior and so we stopped at the McDonalds on the way into town. It was the best McD’s I have ever been in as far as for kids goes. The girls had a great time and so I felt a little better knowing that they got to get some of their energy out before we had to start unloading the van. We had prearranged being able to get into the furnished apartment that we would be renting and so it made everything very convenient, especially with it being a holiday weekend. This apartment complex has been so nice to us. We called some other complexes and they weren’t even pleasant on the phone. God has really taken good care of us. We have a two bedroom/two bath, furnished and the furniture is pretty decent, with a washer and dryer and it even has a fireplace. We unloaded and unfortunately for Kenny because it is located on the second floor he had to do most of the work. It only took us one day and we were pretty much settled in. We went and got some food and then spent the New Years in our new temporary home. The only draw back so far is that because it is on the second floor, the kids have a hard time not jumping and running through the house. I went to the office and asked politely about our down stairs neighbor because I really didn’t want to bother anyone and the manager told me it was a single IP that was from NY and that he was gone a lot. Now I just look out of the window and if I see the car with a NY tag then I know he is home and we have a stricter “not so loud” policy. If he isn’t home well-no big deal! Altus is definitely not a very exciting place as far as things to do for most people but it suits us just fine. Right after we got here we had two big ice/snow storms here and the girls were so excited. Kenny took them out the first time and then the second time I went out too and we all made a big snowman. They were so proud of Frosty. He didn’t last long though. He didn’t melt, unfortunately some mean person kicked him over, but of course we didn’t tell the girls that. They think it was so windy that he just fell over and well that suits me just fine. We have been going to church here and the people are sooooo friendly. Kenny and I were not sure what we would encounter knowing that we would only be here for a little over 3 months and well those people have just taken us right in. I feel very at ease and right at home and so do the girls. It has really helped our transition, especially with Kennedy. Kennedy has had somewhat of a hard time adjusting to the move. Mississippi is the first place she really remembers and so she is constantly asking when we will be going home.  She really misses the people and her friends from church, well we all do. We also decided on a name for our new baby boy. We are about 99.9% sure that his name will be Benjamin Will Hamlett. We went through thousands of names and kept coming back to Benjamin. Will is also Kenny’s middle name so that is special and we just found out that Benjamin is a family name on Kenny’s side so I think it’s a keeper. The girls love to call him Baby Ben or Baby Benjamin. They are really excited and between his big sisters and his daddy he is going to be one spoiled little boy! I have also started to kind of go through the nesting phase (not so much cleaning because this isn’t where he will be born) just trying to feel prepared. Over the past few weeks I have been doing research on baby stuff and so we have picked out a nursery set and picked up a few things that we didn’t have. I am starting to feel better about things and really connect with this new baby. 

Funny Kid Stories

I always like to include a few things that the kids say or do to give everyone a good chuckle and also for me to be able to remember them. Kennedy usually gets most of the attention in this section but Analysse gets the top award this time. I mentioned that we have been going to church; well Analysse doesn’t know a stranger and makes herself right at home where ever she is. In bible class they were studying the story of Lazarus and when the teacher was saying that he came out of the tomb Analysse asked “well was he naked?’ I wasn’t there but I can imagine the other kids giggling at the mention of the word “naked” and the teacher somewhat shocked at first. The teacher told me that she then explained to them about the shroud he would have been wearing and everything was fine, but by that night when we went back to church I had a couple of people say “hello” and that they had heard about the “question” Analysse had asked in class. I guess we are already making a name for our selves. I also have just a short little tale of something Kennedy did that was very cute. As mentioned earlier, I have been watching the food network a lot lately and well Kennedy really enjoys watching it with me, especially Rachel Ray’s 30 minute meals. She can spot Rachel Ray anytime and she even knows her voice without actually seeing her on TV. If you have never watched Rachel Ray she likes to abbreviate Extra Virgin Olive Oil to just EVOO. She usually says EVOO at least a couple of times each program. Well one day Kennedy was walking through the apartment and was singing to herself. I stopped what I was doing and listened and discovered that she was singing E-V-O-O to the tune of Bingo. I just cracked up laughing. My three year old has been watching too much cooking show as she calls it! I wonder what Rachel Ray would say if she heard this story!

Pregnant Thoughts

 I have had a lot of people ask how I have been and I didn’t want to write about it too much through out the update because I didn’t really want to sound too negative. It hasn’t been all bad and I try to keep a positive outlook on things but this pregnancy has been really hard on me. I have been pretty sick through out most of the pregnancy. I was just getting over all of the first trimester junk and then the terrible never ending cold/sinus stuff hit me (I am still having issues and it has been literally since Thanksgiving) then the vertigo. I have had other female issues going on that I won’t go into detail with and now I am really beginning to hurt a lot. My hip really hurts by the end of the day and if I do any amount of walking/work it is almost unbearable as well as my sciatica.  I failed my glucose test and then they had to do a more extensive one and I passed that one so now I am in limbo. They will continue to watch me over then next few months. I had gestational diabetes with my first two pregnancies so I know this will probably be no different. My new doctor here is also recommending me to have a C-section which I do not really want to have at all. I also have low iron. So having said all of that at one point I was taking literally 15 pills a day and still feeling terrible. I felt and some days still do like a 90 year old woman. This pregnancy has definitely not been what I had envisioned. I had thought this was going to be my last pregnancy and so it was going to be great, by the way my first pregnancy was great so I have had both ends of the spectrum. I went into this thinking mind over matter and that it was going to be great and glamorous and that I was going to look so cute, ect., ect., blah, blah, blah. The move along with all the feelings of being unsettled and stress of the unknown hasn’t helped I’m sure. But there is a bright side to all of this madness. I truly believe God is in control. I am here in “Altus USA where everything closes and the sidewalks are rolled up at 6:00pm” (this is a quote from someone here in Altus when I asked where the 24 hour pharmacy was-true story) where I have very little responsibility other than taking care of myself and the girls and so I have really been able to take it easy. I don’t have any commitments or obligations that I feel like I need to fulfill. This is a blessing. Some days are better than others and I get more done, but I don’t feel bad when I don’t do so much.  I have really had time to concentrate on the girls and we have gone back to home schooling, which has been going great-even Kennedy has really taken to it. It has been easy to do with out a lot of outside distractions.  So on the days where we all have three healthy meals, do a little school, play and the laundry and dishes aren’t piled sky high I feel pretty good about the day. This is totally out of character for me.  Most people who know me would probably describe me as over organized and somewhat of a control freak. I wasn’t always like this but moving so much has made me this way. I haven’t been able to be for lack of a better word such a freak! I do have my moments when I do freak out and I am going to blame some of the “freakiness” on pregnancy hormones. Ultimately I will just have to trust in God with so many unknowns a head of me. When I say unknowns I mean how things will flow from being here in Altus to actually getting to HI. It is going to be very difficult and I wont’ know how many things will turn out until we are actually standing with two feet on the island. I feel like I have a lot on my plate with preparing for the move to HI but I am just trying to take things one day at a time. I know that we put HI down as our first choice, and I am still very glad that God answered our prayers, but like it has been said many times before sometimes we don’t always know what we are truly asking for. In the end I will look back at this time and probably chuckle, but if I am being honest this is and probably will be the hardest moves of our career. Going through this experience pregnant has really made things challenging. So pray for us especially for me. God hasn’t let us down yet and I don’t expect him too, I just hope that everything works out smoothly.

Closing

Well if you have read this far thanks for taking the time to read what I have written. All of this has been from my heart and I hope that it has benefited you in some way. I do apologize again for the delay in my update and hopefully now that we are settled I can do a better job at keeping up. I didn’t go into great detail about Altus because I know that I will probably have more to say in following updates but if anyone has any specific questions just send us an email. Thanks again for reading and God Bless!!

The Blessings Overflow….

11/6/06

Wow! What a month. This past month has been somewhat of a whirlwind almost. We have been looking forward to this month since we moved here to Columbus in August 2005. At moments it felt as time was standing still and yet flying by all at the same time. Our first huge answered prayer was that we found out that our family is now expecting baby number 3! One morning I was dropping Analysse off at preschool and Kennedy and I were running around doing errands. We stopped at the Dollar Tree and while we were walking to check out I noticed that the dollar store had pregnancy tests so I bought one almost as a joke. When we got home and Kennedy was settled playing at the kitchen table I decided to take the test. I really didn’t think much of it. I actually didn’t think I was pregnant. I hadn’t been sick at all and as a matter of fact I had been feeling great. The month before I had taken 6 pregnancy tests (and no they weren’t the ones that only cost a dollar each!) and they all were negative. I would sit and watch each test and as they all said negative I slowly began to feel more and more disappointed, so I decided to take my dollar test and just walk away from it and that’s exactly what I did. I took the test and left the room and I got sidetracked and forgot all about the test. Sometime later, probably close to thirty minutes or so I walked by the bathroom and suddenly remembered the test. I was really expecting it to be negative, like I said I really wasn’t “feeling pregnant” at all and with the first two I knew right away that something was going on. Well of course it was positive. I was extremely excited but then I got to thinking “what if I waited too long to check it, what if it was just wrong because it was a dollar store test, what if…” so I called the base clinic and they said they would do a blood test. After picking up Analysse from school we went to the clinic and I had my blood tested and later that day they called to tell me congratulations. I wanted to try and surprise Kenny with the news but of course before I could even get the words out he said “Are you pregnant?” So much for surprise. The girls are thrilled about the new baby too. Analysse wants a brother very badly and when you ask Kennedy 90% of the time she says sister. I had a great first doctor’s visit and the ultrasound they did showed us a heartbeat and gave us a due date of June 4, 2007. June 4th is also Kennedy’s birthday. Right now she thinks that is pretty neat but I can see it not being as fun when she is a teenager. I suspect the baby will probably just come when ever he/she wants to, because Analysse and Kennedy both sure did. We are so very excited about this new baby.  We have been praying for this for some time and God has answered our prayers and truly blessed us.  As far as the feeling great part of the story goes, that ended shortly after finding out I was pregnant. The past month has been filled with the roller coaster of first trimester pregnancy ailments. To be honest this has probably been the worst sickness of all of my pregnancies. Of course I have had the all day “morning sickness”, the extremely sensitive nose to certain smells, cooking and eating are the biggest turnoffs ever, I am exhausted all of the time but yet I don’t sleep well, and this time I even have the horrible metal taste in my mouth that some women experience during pregnancy.  Of all of the things the horrible taste has been the worst. I feel like I brush my teeth a hundred times a day but nothing helps. My doctor assured me it was normal and that it would pass, “not quick enough” was my only thought. Through all of the sickness though Kenny and especially the girls have been great. Kenny has helped as often as possible with things that I normally am able to take care of by myself and the girls have been very sweet and let me rest when I am not feeling well. It is so funny to watch them play and they pick up on so much. They love to play baby dolls and so this past month I have heard them say “I am not feeling well right now because I have a baby growing in my tummy” while they are pretending to play baby dolls. Analysse especially, is very “in” to babies and already very mothering even to Kennedy who thinks she doesn’t need any mothering at all most of the time. This baby is probably going to think it has two moms. Analysse tells me she wants to help to do everything for the baby; she even wants to learn how to change diapers, but not the stinky ones of course. Besides baby fever we have just had a very busy month around here. Kennedy and I have continued to make our monthly nursing home visits (Analysse is in school now so she hasn’t been able to go and she terribly misses it). We had our life group over to the house for bible study at the beginning of the month and the following week we had the C4C Fall Festival at our house. Kenny and I are the leaders over the youngest age group of the C4C group-ages 3yrs through Kindergarten. We were going to do a little fall festival type of event for just our age group but when we started to plan it we decided to just invite the whole C4C group of kids ages 3yrs-6^th grade. The festival was a lot of fun for all ages. A friend from church let us borrow a whole bunch of fall decorations and so the backyard looked great. We had games, a bouncy house, crafts for the kids, face painting, a cookout dinner of hot dogs and chili, a camp fire singing and devotional and later we roasted marshmallows and Kenny gave the kids hayrides on his trailer. We had about 40 people sign up so we thought it was going to be a really good turn out. As a matter of fact it had a great turn out. At one point, we counted 63 people around the campfire devotional. Our friends who own the house we are renting were even able to come over for a quick visit and they got to visit with everyone at the Fall Festival too. It was a really fun time. After the Fall Festival Kenny’s schedule was in full swing. His class was behind as far as rides/check rides go so he pretty much flew everyday and studied like crazy for the last few weeks. The end was in site, but at the same time so much going on, it was a little stressful some days. The girls were getting excited about trick-or-treating but I felt terrible because my heart just wasn’t in it this year. The sickness from the pregnancy definitely wasn’t helping either. I didn’t do my usual baking or crafts with the girls. I bought all of the stuff to make candy apples with them like we did last year and it still hasn’t been used. After searching high and low for pumpkins that were decent (due to the drought this year it was slim pickin’s on the pumpkins) we didn’t even carve them. They are still sitting outside on the front porch. In the end they still had a good time trick-or-treating though. Analysse was the most beautiful Cinderella and Kennedy was the cute as a button Snow White. When they started to complain that their baskets of candy were too heavy to carry we called it quits. I don’t know how they will ever eat all that candy. This past month a hard lesson for me to learn has been: its okay to slow down a little every once in a while. Honestly it doesn’t take much to please 3 and 4 year olds and some times I forget that. Kenny has to remind me that I can’t be Super Mom all the time and that the girls love me and think I am the greatest no matter if don’t always do everything.  They are never going to think “I can’t believe we didn’t carve pumpkins that year.” My little girls really are amazing and I learn so much from them.  In the middle of those two weeks our washing machine suddenly broke too. Needless to say it only added to the craziness around the house. Once I surrendered to the madness everything was fine. For everyone that truly knows me, it is not a surprise that I am pretty particular about things around the house and “surrendering to the madness” was no easy task for me either. The girls are pretty good most of the time and some of my particulars have rubbed off on them too, but when the washing machine broke and it took a week and a half to fix(it would have taken much longer if I had not been so persistent) things around the house seemed to be a lost cause. It finally hit me when I told Kennedy to put her dirty clothes in the hamper and she said “Mommy I can’t there is no room, there are too many clothes in there.” All I could do was laugh and say “Yes Honey, you are exactly right.” I still haven’t caught up on the laundry but oh-well. The Thursday before assignment night I took Kennedy with me to a brunch in honor of all of those who serve in the Nursing Home ministry. Everything was going great, the food was good and we were visiting with the other ladies and all of the sudden Kennedy gave me the “look”. When I say the “look” I mean the “I’m not feeling so good and I need to get to the bathroom right away look.” I acted quickly just as any mom who has seen the look before would do. I scooped her up but, the bathroom was a long way away and I knew we wouldn’t make it so I did the next best thing. I covered mouth and ran to the kitchen sink. Of course one of the ladies had given her too much orange punch and it didn’t settle well on her little tummy. I was completely embarrassed but at least I saved the floor. What is funny is that, that is the second time that Kennedy has done that in the last month. The first time it happened at Wal-mart of all places. I was wearing the exact same outfit and she had drunk too much orange drink. At least at Wal-mart I didn’t have to clean it up. God knows what we can handle and I think on that day it would have been too much for my stomach to take. So I think I will retire the outfit and keep her away from the orange type drinks for a while. On a lighter note the girls also had their first real hair cut this past month. I cut Analysse’s hair into a short bob. Everyone says it’s the “school girl” hair cut. She is absolutely adorable although it does make her look older. Kennedy was next up but after she saw Analysse’s hair she took off running and hid from me so I wouldn’t cut her hair. It took me two weeks to convince her but she finally let me cut it. Her hair is a constant tangle and she cries every time she even looks at a brush. Not to mention all of the food she gets in her hair because she can’t stand to wear her hair back. I finally convinced her to let me trim it and so when she sat down and I made the first cut she said “Mommy I think I want my hair like Analysse’s” so before she could change her mind I snipped it right off. She too looks just adorable although now Kenny and I both have a hard time picking her out now that she has short hair because her hair has been so long, for so long.  Well with all of our crazy Hamlett happening going on it didn’t give me much time to worry too much about Kenny’s assignment night. Everyone would say “so are you nervous?” To be completely honest the answer was no. It was truly weird, I normally do stress out about things like that and especially since we have been looking forward to that day for so long but with everything going on around the house and me praying that God would lead us to where he thought would be best for our family I wasn’t nervous one bit. We had been doing research all month on all of the different C-17 bases because we knew that that was the plane Kenny wanted to fly when there were no C-130s in his class’s drop. God made that decision easy for us. After all of the research and all of our discussions I really felt that Hawaii would be a great place to live. Kenny and I both agreed and so he put Hickam AFB as his first choice on his dream sheet. I think this shocked some of our family but after talking with each one of them individually and explaining our choice everyone seemed to agree that it would be an opportunity of a life time. We even asked the girls what they thought about living where Lilo and Stitch live. They were very excited. So on assignment night our neighbors’ little boy was having a birthday party at the same time at Jumpers (the hottest place in town to have a kid party) so they took the girls to that and they had a great time there and I didn’t have to worry about keeping track of them and so I really enjoyed myself.  I sat with my friend Julie and some of the other spouses of the class. A few military couples from our church also came to support Kenny and me. When Kenny’s turn to sit on the throne came up I still wasn’t nervous really, I think I was more worried that the pictures I wanted to take of him would turn out. When his assignment was put up on the screen I was just thrilled. God really answered our prayers and truly do feel blessed that we were able to get our first choice. I feel such a calmness about me. I have always known that God will take care of us, He always has. Kenny and I and our family have come such a long way and we have grown so much over the years and especially in this past year. Before we came to Columbus we heard some encouraging stories about pilot training but we also heard many discouraging stories as well. Most of the discouraging stories being that students with a family usually wash out of pilot training or do not do very well. This year has been anything but discouraging for our family and I feel like it has been a true success.  I feel we are closer than ever as a family and have shown great ability to adapt to a changing lifestyle. There have been some trying moments but with the help of God those moments were just that-moments! This year has been an amazing adventure and truly the blessings are overflowing for our family! 

Hello Everyone!

10/2/06

Hello everyone! It’s about that time again so I will start off by saying that this past month has been pretty low key, well at least until this last week. The month started out with us traveling to GA for the annual Fish Fry. We had a lot of fun, but it was a really quick trip. We arrived Friday night and the next morning I was able to squeeze in a quick hair appointment. After all of my time away from WR I still haven’t been able to sike myself up enough to find a local hair stylist. I don’t know what I will do if we move out west somewhere. So far we have been “home” at least once every 3-4 months so I scoot over to see Heather my stylist and I have no worries about getting a bad cut or color. It’s silly but it is such a relief! Later that evening we had a cookout to celebrate my birthday at Kenny’s parents’ house. Then Sunday we got to go to church and see quite a few people and then for lunch we went to my mom’s for another cookout to celebrate my birthday with her. My brother got to come and the girls always enjoy seeing him. Finally on Monday we went to the Fish Fry. Kenny got up early with his dad so they could go clean and fry up the fish and I was left to pack up. I don’t mind trips but I do have to say that I think packing to go and come home are my least favorite parts. I always over or under pack (usually it’s over) and then I usually forget one or two things when we come home. You would think with all of the traveling we do I would be really good at it with so much practice but I guess my heart’s just not in to the whole packing thing-oh well I guess it’s just a minor character flaw. The Fish Fry was fun. I got to visit with several people that I don’t normally get to spend too much time with. Richard, Jennifer, Maelee, Max and Robby got to come. It was good to see them and to especially meet Robby. He seemed very nice and also very quite. The girls had a great time and I am so relieved that I finally do not have to watch them every second. They were able to go out to the play ground and play with some of their friends so I was really able to socialize myself. In the past few months we have really come a long way with the girls. It seems like they get more and more independent literally every day. It’s great and I really love it. Especially now that Analysse is in Pre-school she wants to be so independent. She has even made up a secret hand shake that means “I love you and will miss you” so she doesn’t have to give me a hug and kiss in front of everyone at school. We also moved her up to “big girl” booster seat and so she can even get herself in and out of the van with out much help. It has really made things a lot easier for me to take them places. I know that when we do have a third child they are going to be a great help with a new baby and it won’t be so difficult. Well, back to our monthly happenings. Once we got back to MS it was pretty much business as usual. Later that week Kenny and I got to go out on a real date to celebrate my birthday, just the two of us. This year has been the most I have ever celebrated one birthday! The date was really great. Some friends of ours, Julie and Jim, offered to watch the girls and so we said sure. We went to a nice restaurant in town and then to see a movie. We both enjoyed the date very much-it’s only the second one we have been on in the past year-yeah pretty sad, huh?! Well that was about the most exciting things that had gone on until last week. Last week was pretty crazy and it was one of those “if I can just make it through the day everything will be okay” kind of weeks. Last Tuesday I took Analysse to school an I saw my friend Julie again who did I mention was very pregnant and I asked her how she had been because I hadn’t really seen her since my birthday when she watched the girls. She said she was tired and cranky and just ready to have the baby and that she was on her way to the doctor’s office for her weekly check up. Julie and her husband Jim already have three children and so Kenny and I had offered to keep her two youngest children, Emily and Jimmy, for her while she was in the hospital if her parents were not able to come to MS for the birth. So jokingly I said “Well just don’t have the baby tomorrow okay, because I have to take Analysse to the dentist”. If you are any good at figuring out how most of my stories usually go you know what happened next. I got home and sure enough Julie called and said that the doctor was going to admit her into the hospital later that night because her blood pressure was high. So we had 4 kids on Tues. night, Wed. and also on Thursday. Needless to say it was a little crazy around the house. Before the kids came to say we had already told Analysse and Kennedy that we would take them to the local fair that night so at 7:00pm Tues. Kenny and I took all four kids to the Columbus Fair. It wasn’t a very big fair but it was just the right size for the kids. It had a lot of rides for their age group so we bought them each a hand stamp so they could ride as many rides as they wanted and the kids had a blast. The ride operator would ask to see their stamp and so they got very good at holding up their hand stamp. At one point Analysse and Emily went up to the lady selling funnel cakes and just whipped their hand stamps out and stood there like “I have a stamp so let us have some food”. They were very disappointed that the hand stamp didn’t get them a funnel cake but it was soon forgotten when they were back on the rides. Later that night we did let them get their very first taste of some cotton candy and they all seemed to enjoy it quite a bit. We put some really good pics of our trip to the fair in the family pic section for all of those who want to seem them riding the rides. Then we came home and I put them all to bed because Kenny and his partner had to do some mission planning for their ride the next day. It was a lot different putting 4 kids to bed verses 2; actually it was quite exhausting in itself. After those few days Kenny and I definitely decided that we are definitely a three kid kind of family max! Then later that night I had a hard time sleeping. I was a little nervous about taking all of the kids to the dentist office. I think I was a little nervous about getting all 4 kids out of the house so early in the morning. We are not early risers here at this house.  Needless to say I didn’t sleep well and I heard a lot of noises all night long. I got up three times to check on the kids and thought that it was Emily falling out of bed. The next morning when Kenny got up to go to work (I had asked him to wake me so I could start getting ready to go to the dentist) he said “Amanda, a wild animal got into our garage last night.” I said “So what.” I was a little tired and cranky from not sleeping well, but he repeated himself and asked me to come look and so I got out of bed to look. I went out to the garage but it didn’t look too bad but of course I hadn’t put my glasses on either. He saw I wasn’t wearing my glasses and so he told me to put my glasses on and come back. I put the glasses on and I almost didn’t believe what I saw. A raccoon had gotten trapped inside the garage all night long and he wrecked the whole place, it was an absolute disaster! He had knocked over all of the kids bikes and toys, he had pulled out all of the drawers on a dresser we have stored outside, he tore open a bag of cat food we have out there for a little black stray kitten we have recently kind of adopted named Winn-Dixie, and he completely ripped the plastic window panes right off of the door trying to get out. But as if all of that wasn’t enough, the raccoon got into a plastic container of old motor oil Kenny was saving to recycle. He poked holes all in the container and then eventually knocked the container over and the lid came off. There was used motor oil all over the floor and the raccoon then proceeded to what I call wallow-preferably pronounced “waller”a good southern way to say rolled all around in it- and then he decided to use our van as a slip-n-slide. There were oily, hairy raccoon streaks all over the van as well as the walls of the garage and half of the stuff we have stored out there (including my nice double jogging stroller I use to take the girls on walks). I was extremely upset when I saw all of the mess but Kenny and I were even more mad when we realized that the crazy coon thought that the oil wasn’t enough either. That crazy coon pooped, yes I said pooped all over our van, Kenny’s wheel barrow, in the middle of the girls’ toys and also behind some of the stored furniture! All I could think was what a mess Satan is really trying to bring me down today and then I prayed that the kids would all sleep long enough for me to clean up some of the mess.  As the saying goes “when it rains it pours.” To complicate matters my next door neighbor had asked me the day before if she could borrow the van after my dentist appointment so I really needed to get it cleaned before I could let her use it. My first thought usually would have been to panic but then I thought just take things one at a time. I cleaned up as much oil as I could so the “troops” could all get in the van with out slipping and sliding. I cleaned up as much poop as I could and also straighten as much as I could before the kids got up 30 min later. After everyone was awake the rat race of trying to get out of the house and to the dentist office began. We were out of the door by 9:00am and off to the automatic car wash. I know Kenny can’t stand automatic car washes but I was desperate. I even let it clean that nasty old coon poop right off the top of the van and I have to say that the car wash was the highlight of the kids’ day. They are still talking about it and asking to do it again. Then we raced to the dentist office only to find out that they were a solid hour behind schedule. UUGGHH!!!! I’ll just say the equation of a doctor’s waiting room + 4 kids + one hour wait time = one crazy mom!! I finally politely said something to the lady at the front desk, I don’t know if she saw the crazy part in my eyes or what but Analysse was called right back to have her tooth filled. While we were waiting for her to finish the dental assistant came out to ask me what color filling I wanted Analysse to have. When I had made the appointment they told me that their office only did the tooth colored fillings so I thought this question was a little strange. So I asked her what she meant and she said “oh we do all kinds of colors, red, orange, yellow, green, blue , purple, pink or sparkly silver” in a way too perky kind of voice for me. Can you believe that?! I told her to “please put the white one in because if I wanted for her filling to be noticed I would have taken her somewhere where they did metal fillings and my insurance would pay for it.” Boy, some of the crazy things we have in this world! Then we raced home and played pass the van and had a “numb mouth friendly” lunch. While the kids were eating Jim called and said that Julie was going to have a C-section shortly so the kids were all very excited that the baby was going to be here soon. After lunch I was beat from all of the day’s activities so I put them all to bed for a nap and surprisingly with very little resistance. After nap we went to the hospital to see the baby and then I had to rush off to a C4C meeting. It was one crazy day! Needless to say things have been much calmer since last week. I switched out summer and fall clothes which took a day to do. I also found a new project to help out with at church so I have been doing some light sewing for the Ukraine mission. Kenny and I finally watched the Lord of the Rings DVD set over the weekend. And we are beginning to prepare for a busy October. I am getting really excited about Kenny’s assignment night and graduation. I can hardly believe that it is only about 4 weeks away. I remember back to when we first moved here thinking about the time frame of things and here we are almost to the end. It is a great feeling. A lot of people said it was going to be so hard going through pilot school with a family and I think it had been difficult at times but over all it hasn’t been too bad for me and the kids. Kenny has had to really balance his time and prioritize his schedule but he is really great at that already. The master’s courses he was taking prior to pilot school really helped to prepare him and me both for this past year. I’m so excited and anxious to know where we will be headed off to next. It will be so nice to finally get somewhere and be there for 3 years. But, I will miss Columbus. This has been a really good place for us. I will miss our church and our neighbors the most though. I will also miss this house. It has been a good place to live and our family has had some good times here. I feel like this is the place where my babies really started to grow up into little girls. We will all miss Winn-Dixie. I will close this month’s entry with his story. So here’s Winn-Dixie’s story. I think I have mentioned before that I like to check out movies for the girls to watch from the base library. Well we checked out the movie “Because of Winn-Dixie”. It’s a great kid’s movie by the way. The movie is about a girl who finds a dog in a grocery store (the Winn-Dixie) and names it Winn-Dixie and all of their adventures that summer. The girls loved the movie and wanted to watch it over and over. Well one night shortly after they had saw the movie we were all on a walk around the neighborhood and we saw a little skinny black kitten. He followed us home and Kenny said we should keep him. I told him I didn’t want any more cats, pets, etc. Especially since I am the one who would have to take care of it-you know the speech everyone’s mom has said or now that you’re a mom you say “pet speech”. So I didn’t feed him for a week and he was still hanging around. Come to find out our neighbors were feeding him so he was still hanging around but for some reason he has kind of taken up home at our house so now we feed him too. The girls adore him and proceeded to name him Winn-Dixie after the movie, but mostly we have just shortened it to Dixie. He acts more like a puppy most of the time, following them around the yard or where ever they go. They think he is great and we will all miss him when we eventually move, but we have decided it is best for him to stay here with the neighbors who also adore him. Well that’s about it for now, but I’ll keep you posted. God Bless!  

Hamlett Weekend and the ending of summer

8/21/06

Well another month has gone by for the Hamlett family and as usual it has had a lot of happenings. This past month has gone by so fast. I didn’t really talk about the fourth of July in my last update (considering that it was over five pages long already and Kenny always makes fun of me for my lengthy updates-he thinks no one reads them). Well he is wrong about the no one reading them. I have gotten many nice emails from a lot of people and I would like to just take a minute to say thanks for all of the encouragement. So back to the fourth of July… we (the girls and I) were actually in GA for the end part of June and then Kenny drove over to spend the 4^th with us in GA. It was a really nice visit and I actually got to spend time with many of my friends. The girls were able to attend the VBS at our old home church and they had an absolute blast. It was by far probably the best VBS I have ever been too. I had a great time just being able to jump right in and help in the kitchen with snacks. At the end of the week Analysse said she wished we could have VBS every night-so what more can you ask for! As far as the 4^th of July it was pretty low key. We just spent a lot of time traveling that weekend to see family in GA. On the 3^rd we went to Thomaston to visit with both Great Gran and Great Grandmother and also check out the land that Kenny’s parents are going to be building their home on over the next few years. Looking at the property was fun and Kenny has wanted to do it for some time now, but it sure was hot! Not to mention that I got bit by a tick-YIKES! Kenny had also brought some fire works over from Mississippi and we going to light them at Great Gran’s house. Everything was going really well and everyone was enjoying the show, especially Great Gran (which really surprised me by the way) and then of course it wouldn’t be a Hamlett story without something exciting, right? Well, we had a run away roman candle. Kenny stuck it into the ground and lit it and the first couple of fire balls went up in the air and then it fell over and started going crazy. No one seemed bothered by this but me (why I don’t know or understand). I of course being an overprotective mother and wife made a big spectacle of myself by screaming like a crazy woman. I think the screaming scared everyone more than the roman candle. Luckily the water hose was near by and Kenny put it out. I was later informed that you are supposed to hold the roman candles in your hand and light them. Are people crazy or what! A majority of the instructions on the other fireworks stated and I quote “light and get away” so I can safely say I don’t feel too bad about not knowing you are supposed to hold those things. After all of the fireworks excitement was over we had to get ready to co