Amy left town early Monday morning leaving the kids and me to fend for ourselves until her return Saturday…and we are having a great week! Jeremiah lost his first tooth on Monday at lunch, even though he promised his mom he wouldn’t lose it until she got back. Here is the picture for Mommy.

The kids go to sleep without argument every night at 9 and they need every last minute of sleep they get. At 5:30 each morning I go in and wake them up then get in the shower. On Monday and Tuesday mornings I exited the shower a few minutes later only to discover lifeless bodies spread across the house…but not this morning. As soon as I shut the water off I could hear the kids knocking on the bathroom door; by the time I was dressed and opened the door they were both ready to go, jackets and back packs in tote. They didn’t want to be late to Primetime, the YMCA before and after school program.

This is our dry run for when Mommy gets mobilized…as much as we don’t look forward to that day, we are prepared!

I didn’t find the person I was looking for here, so if you meet all the qualifications except for the basic law enforcement knowledge and/or knowledge concerning Missouri POST let me know. I am willing to help the right candidate learn everything they will need to know in order to be successful so long as they bring the other skills.

I will take more names throughout this week. Email me at  if you are interested or know someone who may be.

Jeremiah would like to let everyone know this was his 6th time going across…with a little more rest he could have turned around without putting his feet down

Today Amy and I have been married for 13 years (Jami and Kurt too; happy anniversary guys!); while I was in Afghanistan the kids and Amy decided to call this our family birthday instead of our wedding anniversary. This year we decided to keep with the theme and go on a family date.

The kids are huge CS Lewis fans, so we spent way too much money and watched Prince Caspian. We all loved it; lots of teaching opportunities for a suddenly curious Jeremiah (I don’t want to say he is agnostic yet, but he sure has lots of questions lately about Jesus and God). There is a lot of violence in the movie, but most is shielded compared to what you see on television. Don’t worry; the kids know it isn’t real

I will end this short post saying I am so fortunate to be married to the love of my life and to my best friend. I love you Amy!

Thursday night after the kids took off to their friend’s house for the weekend, me and Amy headed to our apartment to finish cleaning everything out. Having grossly under estimated the amount of work remaining we were stuck until 2 am before leaving our place for the last time. Once the work was done we quickly packed our bags, sneaked in an hour nap and headed to the airport for our flight to South Padre Island.

Amy and I have thoroughly enjoyed our better than all expense paid trip this weekend. It is better than because the Army not only paid all the expenses but also paid us to attend this weekends strong bonds marriage retreat. This is an excellent program for Soldiers who have previously mobilized or who are preparing to go.

Here are some photos from our fabulous weekend:

Me and Amy sleep deprived at the Springfield Airport…

Still sleep deprived on the balcony at our hotel…

Well rested on the beach…

Sunset on the beach…

One eyed crab on the beach…

On the beach after our marriage vow renewal this morning…

One last view from our balcony…

This is the original Iwo Jima monument used to cast the bronze one in DC; it is located just outside the Valley International Airport…