The Range

Wayne put this in the letter I received yesterday. He said he went to the range to group and zero his weapon. He said his groups were really good, that means he is a real good shot with his rifle. He said his goal is 40 out of 40, but he at least wants to get expert which is 36 out of 40. If he gets that it will be another medal he puts on his ACU's. They will be out at the range for most of the next 2 weeks shooting. When I talked to him on the phone the other day he was ecstatic about this!!



This is the target that he shot at (they are both the same target, I was trying to emphasize the holes). He told me that his Drill Sergent even complimented him!! Most people only got to shoot 30 rounds, while Wayne was one of the lucky ones who got to shoot 75 rounds. He said it was a blast!! I am extremely proud of him for doing such a great job (and enjoying it as much as he does)!! I never had any doubts he would be awesome!!



On a sad note...my tomato plant is no longer around. We had a terrible storm last week and were in a tornado warning for more than an hour. The winds were excessive and proved to be too much for my poor little tomato plant. It is a little disappointing especially with how much time I devoted to that thing. Oh well, I guess it wasn't meant to be. Maybe I'll try again next year, depending on where we get stationed at.

Taylor started school on Wednesday. She is loving being an upper-classman this year. She has not been as excited about school starting this year as she has been in the past, but I think this will change as she gets settled into her "school" routine. Back to school can be difficult because it brings an end to all the summer fun, and boy has she had some fun!

Silas had some difficulty understanding why sissy had to go back to school. After some coaxing, slight bribery and long hugs and kisses he was fine with the idea. But he gave her one big hug and kiss when she came home! Gotta love the brother-sister love, especially times like these because they are not fighting!! You can always tell when it is about time for school to start because the fighting reaches insane levels.

Silas got a wonderful surprise in the mail yesterday...a letter from Ra!! He was tickled pink. He opened it all by himself and didn't have time to actually "read" it because there were stickers inside! What a great idea Ra! I had to read the letter as fast as I possibly could because he had stickers to play with--Thanks Ra for the stickers (and the letter)! By the way, he even wanted to sleep with them last night!

Taylor wanted me to dye a red stripe in her hair. I guess this is the newest "cool" thing?! The actual color was bright red and I was afraid of what the results would be. Well...It turned out really cute! If I knew what it would look like with curly hair I might do it myself! Now, she is on the lookout for different colors.

The other day Silas and I went to St. Joe and got my military ID card. He was happy he didn't have to get one because he didn't want to have his picture taken. He was so good that on the way home we stopped by Target and he got a car transporter truck! He was so excited (we have been looking for one for a while now)! This is what I was left with after a long day of running around

Wayne is doing good. He said their platoon has won a couple of streamers to put on their banner. I guess the better the platoon, the more streamers they have. He even scored 100% on his Combat Life Savers test. He said there were about 10 of them in the platoon who got 100% so that is good news! He did say the gas chamber was awful..."the worst thing I have ever done". He said he thought he was going to get sick but managed not to, "burns all exposed skin, your mouth, nose and eyes". Poor thing, I am glad he is done with that! I can't even begin to imagine what that must have been like. I am soo very proud of him...my soldier!!

What a GRAND Saturday!

Ok, so before I get into my little rant let me say I hope everyone had a wonderful Saturday!! So with that being said, prepare yourself for the usage of A LOT of caps. I can't yell at the kids, so this is my attempt at hopefully getting it off my chest and letting it go. Good thing it is just a computer and you can turn it off if you don't want to hear (or read) about it! ;)

This great day started with me sleeping in a bit. Woke up around 8:15 and got my coffee. The coffee wasn't good, I think I put an extra scoop in there last night before bed. Note to self: Don't get coffee ready when you are distracted by a 3 year old who is screaming and throwing a HUGE fit because they don't want to go to bed. Ok, lesson learned. While taking a shower, shampoo procedes to ever so slowly drip into my eyes (yes, BOTH of them). For a split second I think I am going to die. It takes me, what seemed like FOREVER, a moment to realize what had happened and wash my eyes out.

Ok, out of shower and dressed, so now I'm thinking the day can't get any worse, can it? It has been a LONG time since I have had this kind of start to my day, surely it will get better....WRONG!! Taylor comes home from her friends house, Silas wakes up and we procede to head out to pay some bills and get groceries from Wal-Mart. We go out to get in the van. Taylor gets into the passenger seat, Silas is all buckeled in his seat and I get behind the wheel. Mind you, the heat wave doesn't want to leave my house (or anywhere I go for that matter). Put key in ignition...CLICK, CLICK, CLICK. This startles me and I hurry to turn it off. Wait a couple of seconds and try again...CLICK, CLICK, CLICK.
WHAT THE H#!L? What is that noise? Everyone gets BACK out of the van and goes back inside. I think maybe it's because the van was running on fumes so I call my friend Shane over to bring some gas. Shane comes over, puts gas in it and listens to it. He thinks it could be the starter. WONDERFUL! I ask if he can fix it, he says no but does give me the number for someone who can. Great, I go back inside and make the call...NO ANSWER(I am still waiting for a call back)! I leave a message and try to calm Silas down. Silas thought this was the END of the world. In tears he says "Mommy, what are we gonna do? Now we will NEVER be able to go to Wal-Mart ever agin"! I say it is fine, we will get it fixed and then go to Wal-Mart. I warm him up a hotdog and all is fine.

Meanwhile, Taylor is on her phone calling her friends to see if they know what to do or how to get it running. One guy comes over, Buster. He tries everything he knows to do, but still NOTHING. He did tell me that someone has left me a note on the undercarriage of the van, "J. W. was here" and "I was here too". What the...? I think Shane was the "I was here too", but as for J. W.? Who are you and what are you doing under MY van? Are you the one who jacked it up and left me with the clicking noise? Well J. W., you can take that click and SHOVE IT!

I call my sister and ask what my brother-in-law is doing today and if he could come and look at it. Sure thing, Jonathon is here in an hour with his Dad and Mom AND Dylan! YAY, Silas has someone to play with (Taylor has already left with her friend)! After I let them hear the click, they both have one word BATTERY! Shoo, at least it's not the starter. They try to take the old battery out BUT the cable connecting it to the van pulls off the knob from the actual battery. They both said they have NEVER seen this happen before. Finally, they get the knob thing out of the cable thing and off they go to O'Riellys. I stay at home with Silas and Dylan, and $100.00 later they are back with a new battery! It gets installed and THE VAN IS HEALED!!!! Praise God!! THANK YOU Jonathon and Johnny!! I don't know what I would have done without your help today!!

So Silas and I get in the van and go to the gas station on our way to Wal-Mart. We see Jonathon there and guess what happens next...He gets BACKED INTO by some girl who just drove her brand new car off the lot!! What, is this the way things happen to good people? Luckily, no damage was done to either vehicle (good thing Jonathon has a truck). Off to Wal-Mart we go.

We get what we need at Wal-Mart and head to the check-out. I get all done and start to head out the doors when, low and behold, I forget there is a plastic tub on the bottom of the cart I forgot to pay for. GREAT! This place is not only busy, but now I am one of THOSE people who have to hold the line up! I pay for my $5.00 bucket and go out to the van. It is HOT and we both are crabby so I am in a hurry to load everything up. We get home and I start to put stuff away when I realize...I forgot the plant prop thing! WHAT, ARE YOU KIDDING? Silas and I go back to Wal-Mart with our receipt (because I bought one and left it in the cart). We get the plant prop and go home AGAIN.

I needed the prop because of the 75+ mph winds from the storm last night. They about snapped that poor plant in half. I get the prop home and realize that I need to jerry-rig it somehow (almost snapping the thing in half myself). Seriously, today is the day if anything else bad wants to happen to me...BRING IT! AND today was my 15 year high school reunion. Good thing I couldn't make it, can you imagine what it would have been like to get stranded two hours away from home with two kids in tow?

On a brighter note, here is Silas and Dylan playing together

Here is my poor tomato plant last night during the storm. I had to "hide" and "prop" it up in the corner Here is my jerry-rig

Greetings From The Surface Of The Sun!

Not too much happened around the Yancey house this week. Due to the excessive heat warning, we have stayed in the house and haven't gotten out to do anything fun. I am hoping this weekend will cool off a bit and at least allow for a little fun outside. Yesterday Silas and I made a quick trip to Wal-Mart and the temperature in the van said 105...105! I didn't even think the van would register anything above 99!

We are taking a break from the library this week as Silas ripped a page in one of his books. The little stinker even tried to "hide" it from me! Just by accident I saw it was ripped... Me--"How did the page get ripped?", Silas--"I don't know Mommy, maybe Sissy did it", Me--"Sissy wasn't here", Silas--"Did the puppy do it?", Me--"I don't think so, how did it get ripped? Did you do it on accident?", Silas--"Yes, I am afraid so", Me--"When did you rip it?", Silas--"Yesterday". So I put tape on it and took them back, after I told him once again that we have to treat our library books very nice.

Silas has become quite the little Picasso. Here are some of his latest drawings This one is a car and a truck and this one he added a motorcycle. I noticed he was using his right hand while drawing this time (hopefully he will go back to using the left one!).

Taylor has been spending a lot of time with her friend Bri. I guess they are trying to end the summer with a bang! She has hardly been home. Last night they went to Liberty Today, they are going out to Wallace State Park for a day of swimming. Funny thing, I kind of miss her spending time with us at home! I guess I have forgotten what it is like to be a teenager! I can't understand why she wanted to get her belly-button pierced, but here is a picture of her new ring

I know it's probably not that interesting to everyone who is reading this, but I have to talk about my tomato plant for a quick second. It is really growing. I gave the first tomato to my friend Kayla and now there are 12 more growing! In case you haven't noticed, I am very impressed with myself for keeping it alive!

A Busy Weekend

I took Taylor to her school registration on Friday morning, and WOW she has a full schedule! Here is her schedule:

Black Days:: Astronomy-Klenk; Geometry-Garrison; World History-Wenk; Seminar-Curl; Art II-Huck.(:

Gold Days:: Language-Williams; Spanish I-Hensen; Team Sports-Nichols; Seminar-Curl; PSC-Bishop.

I wish I had the option to take an Astronomy class when I was in school! This is even a junior and senior class. After this year, she will have completed all of her science credits. I am very proud of her for taking some challenging classes this year (the PSC class is physics)!

She is still waiting to see if she is one of the lucky ones on the reserve list for a yearbook. Hopefully, sometime during the first week of school she will know. I really hope she gets one, because she worked really hard on the pages she had to do. She had a fun time in the yearbook class last year. She would have taken it again this year, but since we will be moving they would be one person short.

Taylor went shopping with Grandma Eichler yesterday. They left around 9:30am and got home around 3:00pm. They ended up going to St. Joe because of all the road construction on I-35, but she came back loaded! Grandma was even brave enough to let her drive the 30 minutes home! This was the first time she has driven outside of Cameron (and on the interstate)--and she did a great job! It won't be too much longer and she will be able to drive all by herself.

Silas missed her while she was gone and decided that he would wrestle with her to show his affection.


He also decided he would comb her hair and "fix it all pretty"

Taylor is going shopping again today with Nanny, so I am curious to see what will happen when she gets back today! Fingers crossed it will not be as "energetic" as it was last night! Of course, there were a few injuries along with all of the action last night, and they both slept in this morning (it was rowdy!).

We had a nice visit with Pops and Ra on Friday afternoon. They got here shortly after we got back from Taylor's school. The whole time we were at her school, Silas wanted to "go home so we don't miss them". On the way home I checked the mail, and in it--a letter from Daddy! So this made him very excited (of course, he thought the letter was only for him)! About 20 minutes later, Pops and Ra got here. We played at home for awhile and then went to lunch. After lunch it was time for them to leave, and Silas didn't want them to go.

Silas was telling them to stay and Ra was saying they had to golf tomorrow. Here, Silas is trying with all his might to convince them to stay..."please stay at my house Pops and Ra". And of course, he said this in his most pitiful voice and tried to pull out all the charm!

This week has been so hot outside! I have been trying to think of things to do with the kids that require as little as possible outside time, which proved to be a little tricky though. We went to the park one morning, but we could only stay for about 20 minutes. Taylor left early with one of her friends and Silas had sweat dripping off his head--it was HOT!!

I found the OLD Nintendo and hooked it up for Taylor to play. She instantly remembered all the secrets and played it so long that her fingers cramped. Silas enjoyed watching her play too, more than I thought he would!

One night I was picking up toys in the other room before bedtime, while Silas was picking up toys in the living room. He has been doing a very good job at picking up his toys, so I didn't think much about him being quiet. I came into the living room to see if he needed any help, and this is what I found....
He was reading a book! I have taken him to the library several times and let him pick out 3 books to borrow, and he LOVES it! Sometimes it takes him a long time to choose a book, while other times we are in and out in minutes. He has even told me that I can go look for books that I want, and he "will be right here with the GOOD books"! And every time we pass the general area that the library is in, somewhere in the back of the van someone screams "the library is over there"!!!! The first couple times he did this scared the living daylights out of me, but thankfully, I have gotten used to it.

Taylor starts school on the 18Th, and is more than ready to be an upper-classman this year! Silas doesn't understand why she has to go back, but he did say "I guess it's alright if she goes". This weekend is going to be a busy one. We have to go to Taylor's registration at school this morning, and Pops and Ra, (my in-laws) are coming for a visit this afternoon. School shopping Saturday with Grandma Eichler (my step-mom), and another busy shopping day with Nanny (my mom) Sunday. I just hope it not too hot this weekend (fingers crossed)!!