Sibling Love

Tonight we were doing our typical bedtime routine and I asked (the same as I do every night) Brian if he wanted to give his sister a hug. Well tonight he said yes, and he hugged her, tackled her, tickled her and made her giggle and laugh! Either he's finally learning how to be a little softer or Smantha's finally getting a little tougher but it just made my night.

Here's an awesome picture my brother took of Samantha and Brian on his big bike. I love my kids!

I debated whether to break this up into different posts but I'm just bad at posting regularly and I have some fun pictures I want to share so here it goes...


My latest creation... My sister, mom and I threw a baby shower for my cousin. I absolutely love decorating cakes (I don't mind eating them either)

This is a really bad picture, but the only one I could get of my new dog, "Pepper". It took Dusty and I almost a week to agree on a name for her. She's an Austrailian Shepherd and still only about 3-4 months old. Someone had abandoned her and siblings on the hwy and so I brought her home. Dusty was pretty shocked because I am not strictly speaking a "dog person" but she plays really well with our Ty and hopefully I'll figure out how to get her to sit and all that fun stuff.

Proof that big brother's really can be nice to their little sisters!

Our new-to-us trampoline! My sister sold their house and the renters didn't have room for it so now it's in our backyard. It's missing some springs but the kids LOVE it!

Travelin' Allens

We just had an awesome trip to visit Dusty's family! Here are some pictures!
Samantha swinging on one of our stops on the way down. The kids did really great in the car!

Dusty, Grandpa and Uncle Trevor went riding with Brian. They had a blast!

Pudding painting with Grandma!

Our trusty travelin truck and Dusty's new hot rod!

We stopped at Glen Canyon Dam (Lake Powell) for a break on the way home.

Dusty, you grew two arms and a really small head.

Another break, chillin with Ty.

ahhh, home sweet home. Grandma and I made this awesome bib while we were down for our visit.

Dusty had fun working on his new '77 Chevy Nova and the kids and I had a blast with Grandma and Grandpa. I helped Dusty's sister with my neice's 4th brithday party and we went on a couple of dates. Oh, and we went out to the lake (but forgot the camera). Probably more but it was lots of fun and good to relax.

1 week left!

Dusty comes home in 1 short week! I can't believe this long 4 months is actually almost over! I am SO excited but I've also been missing Dusty almost worse than at any other time since he's been gone. So, I read back through his letters to reflect and get some happy thoughts. Here are a few things that Dusty has written to me to bring smiles to my face and heart.

I love you good & plenty, but never enough to equal our symphony of dove, I mean love. Some might snicker at our milky way of almond joy but no butterfinger can lay a finger on our hot tamale love life. I’d bet my payday that ‘yorkooler’ than all the nerds, airheads, dumdums, and sour patch kids on the block. You shine like a starburst because you’re my sweetart. Just ask the swedish fish.

You are the coolest person in my mortal existence, you span beyond mortal.

I love you so much my left hand hurts from holding this pad for the last hour.

I guarantee you could beat the crap out of every female here.

I love your guts and the rest of you ain’t half bad either.

The nova definitely needs to be a bench seat in the front.

Sometimes time loses meaning for me, like eternity seems smaller somehow, as if things viewed in terms of events and sequences makes time irrelevant thus bringing new meaning to eternity- I feel that way about you. You mean so much to me that I don’t realize that 5 years have gone by. I don’t care about passing 10, 15, 20, 50 year anniversaries, I just want to be with you, live and experience more, be with you.

awww... all better. I just love this man!

A Meddled Mind

This is what having a husband gone for 4 months will do to you: Samantha was having a rough night and I just could NOT get her to settle down. I kept wishing Dusty were here so I could say, "okay, I tried everything I could think of, now it's your turn" so instead I wrote to him about my awful night/morning. Maybe I was missing him just a little too much, maybe I was just tired but this is the craziness that came out. hehehe. (Silver Fox is what all his army buddies are calling him because apparently he has lots of grey hair!)

Hey there silver fox! I’m just practicing your FTX schedule-ya know just for kicks. I went to bed at 0007 and woke up at 0253. I think I’ve finally completed my mission but I’m not quite out of danger so I decided to document my progress:
“The enemy” woke up at 0253 (actually probably before that but I was hoping it would just go away so I wouldn’t have to engage in battle). I went in and engaged in physical, silent combat to disarm the enemy. The enemy sounded the war cry. I retreated for 10 minutes. I crept back in to enemy territory and engaged again in physical, silent combat with the same results. I repeated this several times with zero success. I changed tactics. I entered the enemy zone at 0351 and engaged in physical restraint and vocal hypnosis. The physical restraint was successful but my attempt at vocal hypnosis was more like auditory torture at this hour. I also devised an attempt at disarming the enemy with sleeping poison. This worked for approximately 30 minutes but the enemy must have a developed immunity. I attempted further physical, silent combat and upon retreat, threw up large barriers in my path to discourage following. Reinforcement radioed in with a formula for a new sleeping poison. This was also successful for 30 minutes. At 0508 the enemy dropped a stink bomb and let out another war cry. At 0514 the enemy sounded a peace signal but I think it is a decoy. 0518,0524-more peace cries, then I attacked full force and SUCCESS. The enemy surrendered at 0610.

Only 5 weeks left!!

It's hard to believe Dusty will be home in 5 weeks. He is completely done with Basic Combat Training and graduated with flying colors. Now he is doing Advanced Individual Training to becomea combat engineer. That basically means he's blowing things up almost every day so he's having loads of fun. Last week he made a 15ft deep hole with C4-yep he was pretty stoaked about that. We're doing really well. We took a trip down to Utah and stayed with Deb for almost a week. Brian's doing Joy School and Samantha is trying to get brave enough to walk. She's taken lots of steps on her own but not toddling around on her own yet. Dusty gets to call us at least once a week and we get lots of letters. I'm keeping busy with doing some projects around the house like this bulletin board. Dusty's going to come home to a whole different house. :-P Thanks to everyone who calls and comes over and invites us to do things. Missing Dusty is much easier when we keep busy. And Happy 4th of July everyone!

Swimming is so much fun! Angie brought her kids, KimberLynn and Lucas over for a swim in Samantha's new pool. Happy Birthday Samantha!