Blog Changes

Hey All...I changed the setup of the blog so that it will send you each an email every time there's a new post or comment on the blog. I figured this might be easier than having to check the blog all the time; however, if it's annoying and you'd rather not receive the emails...just let me know, I can easily make the change :)

Also, you can send an email or text directly to this address: audrijo.publish@blogger.com and it will automatically make a new post on the blog! Milinda, I was thinking this might be helpful for Kelly. On my phone I can send a text to an email address, if his phone has that capability then he could send texts straight to the blog!

Sarah, when is Brandon's birthday? For some reason I don't have it.

August Family Vacation

So, I never received confirmation from anyone on whether they could go to the cabin or not. I paid for a portion of time at the Bear Lake House during the Christmas Auction this year, so I decided because of the price of staying at the cabin, the price of gas to drive there, the price of activities while we were there, that it would be cheaper to go to Bear Lake.

Sarah had a great suggestion, that we go to the cabin for Zach's Birthday! If we wait until September, the fireplace will be finished and there would be carpet on the floor. It is beautiful up there in the Fall.

Karen was able to schedule us at the Bear Lake House from August 13th - 19th. This way people can run up for the weekend, or come stay the whole time, whichever you choose.

It would be nice for scheduling and meals to know who is going to come and what days you will be there.

PLEASE let me know what your plans are :) THANK YOU!
I LOVE YOU ALL - MUM

Graduation Trip

Well here they are, pictures from Kelly's graduation. It was so great to see him and the weekend was over much too quickly. He's in AIT now, and he thinks that he'll graduate from that on September 16th. He's not sure when he'll be home.

He does get to use his cell phone now, not a whole lot but some. He does a little bit of texting too, we got him a plan with Verizon while I was out there becuase its about the only provider that has service on the base. So he has unlimited text in Verizon and around 200 a month out, but at least he has a phone now.

This is his new Address:
PFC Weeks, Kelly
B BTRY 1st BN 78th FA
6204 NE Rothwell St.
Fort Sill, Oklahoma 73503

The Cabin!

I spent last weekend in Jackson Hole with some of my best friends from college. Tiana and I left Thursday afternoon and spent Thursday night at the cabin by ourselves talking, laughing, playing the guitar, and singing. The rest of the girls showed up Friday morning and we decided to attempt taking grandpa's canoes out. We ended up tying one of the canoes on top of my little Mazda...which required tying the back doors shut, so then people had to crawl through the windows to get in...it was ridiculous, but awesome!


After jumping out of the canoes to swim around we ALMOST lost one of the canoes...lets just not tell Gpa this part ;) Totally my fault, I'm a fatty and I got in the same side of the canoe as Tiana and was laughing too hard to move. The canoe quickly filled with water and tipped Tiana, Holly, and myself out. The girls in the other canoe quickly came to our rescue and bailed all the water out of our canoe before it sank completely...WHEW!


Friday night we made cookies and stayed up late playing games and laughing. On Saturday we went to Jackson Hole: we drove up to the Grand Tetons, hit up the Grand Teton County Fair, had a fabulous picnic & nap in the park and then went rafting down the Snake River! (As most of you know, it's my favorite thing to do in Jackson!)



We packed up and left Sunday morning...but only after a visit from a momma and baby moose having a little breakfast right outside the cabin!

Not too bad with a bow, but still really short!!!!

A DAY ON THE BEACH

Cute babies!

Truck

Ryan bought the kids this huge truck at the DI. They love it and fight over who gets to play with it. This is the truck he was talking about on the phone Audri. It is used to have a remote but they just push it around and ride it.

Mommy! I cut my hair

I thought Tori was going to the bathroom with the door shut, but when she came out she had bald spots all over her head. She was so proud that she had cut her own hair. I freaked out. I ended up having to buzz it. It doesn't look too bad when I spike it and put a head band in it. We both cried!!!!!! Everyone in my ward keeps asking me if I had to do it or if I did it by choice:(

Excitement!

Well the big news for this blog is not that I get to go and see Kelly in a few days, although that is very exciting, but that Kelly's "Battle Buddy" Robert Welch is getting baptized! I'm pretty sure that it is set for next Saturday, might be Sunday- can't remember, but I get to be there and I am ecstatic. I know that the Holy Ghost is what brought, "Welch," as Kelly calls him to the gospel- but I'm pretty dang proud of Kelly anyway!

Drum and Bugle Corp.

The Blue Knights- Knight Rein, The Phantom Regiment- SPARTACUS, The Casper Troopers- Iorn Horse

Last Thursday my aunt invited me to go to the Drum & Bugle Corp. Competition at Weber State and I just have to say it was awesome! The Big name Corps were there including the Blue Devils of Concord CA , the Santa Clara Vanguard of Santa Clara CA, the Phantom Regiment of BlackHills IL, the Blue Knights of denver CO, and the Casper Troopers of Casper WY. There were a few other Crops there as well but the these we my favorites. all of the performances were amazing! My favorite was Spartacus by The Phantom Regiment. Their routine was more than just cool music and dancing- it told the story of Spartacus, it kind of felt like a ballet- it was Awesome! The real reason I'm posting it here is because Denny asked from Pictures- Enjoy!

The Santa Clara Vanguard

The Blue Devils

The Overall Placing was:
1st- The Blue Devils- Constantly Risking Absurdity
2nd- The Phantom Regiment- SPARTACUS (my very favorite!)
3rd- The Santa Clara Vanguard- "3HREE" Mind - Body - Soul

Sarah and Brandon came out to Kaysville for the weekend, bringing with them 3 of my absolute favorite people in the world. Zachy, Tori, and Corbin. This picture cracks me up...especially Corbin picking his nose!






Sam and Carrie came over and we all went swimming for a few hours. Zach and Tori loved jumping off the diving board. Greg came up for the evening and we all stayed up until midnight playing cards with Grandma and Grandpa. Grandpa was hilarious! I was sitting right next to him and every once in a while I would glance over at his hand and tell him I thought he should play a card and he'd say "I know, I know." I wasn't really sure if he did...his "strategy" didn't make any sense to me :) In the end, he won several hands in a row and he gave me a hard time for trying to help him. Denny told him that having a stroke was no longer and excuse :) Overall, it was a Fabulous Day!

fff

fyi if you would like to participate in fff this month it will be at starvation reservoir not this saturday, but the next which is the 19th, the halls and us will be camping friday night and saturday night but if you just want to come on saturday that will be fine too. hope you can make it- i think audri was planning on being here anyways that weekend

PUPPY

This is my little puppy that i have wanted since i was ten and i finally got him, he is so cute.

FORCED FAMILY FUN NOTIFICATION :)

Greetings from the old man. First post and I am already exercising my new found authority ( actually it is Jamie's and I am just using it, I am a wimp ) . Announcing CABIN DAYS . Yes we are going to brave the wild and go to the cabin. Dates are August 13 - 17 . We are planning to leave the Wed morning and come back sometime Sunday. This really needs to be a much needed vacation for everyone and a time for us to just chill together. I hope everyone ( yes Ryan I have checked your work schedule ) will come. It will be nice to have no alarms for a few days. Please make plans now to attend so we can enjoy each other over these days. Thanks much " The Old Man " Denny

4th of July...Kenny Rodgers...and ROCKBAND!

Greg's younger sister, Tiffannie, is here from Georgia for the week. The last time she was in Utah was for our wedding three years ago. We spent a week in Florida with her last summer, but other than that, we don't get to see her much so we've been soaking up all the time we can get with her this week.

Here's Greg & Tiff getting ready for our big 4th of July BBQ at my mother-in-law's (Greg was making hamburger patties when his dad called so Tiff had to hold the phone for him...and help him with his perspiration problem!)
After the BBQ we went to a friend's house to light our own fireworks, it's Greg's favorite part of the 4th (I'm married to a fireworks/explosion-loving pyromaniac)! We ended up watching the Murray Fireworks from our car on the top of a bridge, Greg provided our own personal soundtrack.

My mother-in-law loves Kenny Rodgers, so for her birthday we planned a trip to Wendover to see him in concert on Saturday (it worked out that it was when Tiff would be here). We ended up having 2 extra tickets, so mom and Denny came with us. We all had a great time, and I was actually pleasantly surprised at how entertaining the concert was.

The last exciting event of the weekend was that we finally got Rockband for our Wii! I'll be honest, I really struggle at the guitar (my conclusion...or excuse...is that if you actually play the guitar, it's harder to play guitar hero or rockband) but I totally ROCK at the drums and the vocals...I got a "serious skills" rating...WHOO!

Shower Pictures...Finally :)

Okay, here are the pictures...sorry for the delay! Milinda, they're a little small, but you should be able to click on it and view it larger...and also right-click and save the files so you can send to Kelly. Let me know if it doesn't work and I'll just email them to you :)

So Amazing!!!

Ok can I just say how much I love Kelly!

I don't know how he did it but I received some absolutely beautiful roses a few days ago- from Kelly! he just sent them to me because he knew that the week previous had been kinda hard on me and that I was feeling down. I'm sorry to be all bragging but how cute is that?!?!
He of course wouldn't tell me how he'd found the time or anything else to accomplish this, but just told me how much he loved me. Once again I'm getting all sappy about him, but it was so nice and I felt so loved.
He's completely awesome!

In other news- I've bought my airline ticket and reserved my rental car for the 23-28th of July- YAY!!! I am so excited to get to go out and see him! Kinda nervous to be flying and traveling by myself considereing I've never done it before, but I'm sure I'll figure it out. And yes I will be taking lots of pictures while I'm there- although I guess you kind of have to be careful about where you aim the camera or you might get tackled and sent to prison as a spy! Yes they actually talked about being careful about such things in a letter I got from the base about graduation- it kinda made me laugh.

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July, mine was laid back, and the highlight was getting to talk to Kelly. He says Hello to everyone and says to let you know he's doing fine. There isn't really any new information on what he's doing or whats going on, but he's excited for graduation!

Letters?

Ok this is actually a little bit out dated now, but I wanted to post it anyway- I thought His brothers would get a kick out of the shooting score.


Ok Kelly was able to call last night for about 10 min and he happened to mention that the only people who have written him letters are his mother, myself, and my little brother Bryce, and since he's still a little young to write that basically means that I wrote that letter too. So you should write to him!

In other news they have started night shooting which means that Kelly isn't getting back to his bunk until 1-2 a.m. and getting up at 4 a.m. He sounds exhausted. Apparently the scope on an M-16 is different than your average scope and he's had a little bit of trouble getting used to it. When he was first sighting it in he said that he would listen to what the Sergeants were telling him and it would just throw him off even more, so by the second round of shooting he was taking his own advice and just not telling anyone. doing that he ended up shooting 36 out of 40 at 1000 yards. A score like that will qualify him as an expert if he can repeat it on the test.



ok- all of that was written on about the 22nd of last month- as of now he's still tired, and still hoping to get some letters from his family. He says that they go on about a 10 K. march every other day or so, and its usually about 2-5 K. longer than they tell them it actually is. I'm kinda wondering how in the heck am I going to keep up with him when he comes home- It was hard enough before he left and I don't think I stand any sort of a chance now.

Oh Leadership has also been switched around a bit for him- he's no longer the Squad leader, which was actually a little bit of a relief to him, but less than a week later they offered the position back to him. Being Kelly he turned it down this time because he was sick of the drill Srgt.'s messing with everybody and playing games. "Let me take care of my guys, but don't put me in this position only to change it again tomorrow." Was what he told me he'd said, which he got reamed out for by his superior officer, but he didn't really care. Since the leadership was changed his previous position has been tossed around to at least a dozen different people. They said something about trying to give everyone a chance at leadership but I think they must have realized that Kelly was actually the best guy for the job since they offered it back to him.

He sends his love to everyone, and wants you all to know that he's doing well.

-Milinda