And the next assignment is...

Fort Polk!

As of the beginning of July, we will once again be Louisianians.

Bataan Memorial Death March

Last weekend, Ray marched in the Bataan Memorial Death March. It's a 26 mile march in the desert near White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. He went with three of the other residents that are graduating with him this year, and some other colleagues from the Darnall Family Practice clinic. You have to have a group of five and all have to finish within 20 seconds of each other. If one gets injured or disqualified or can't make it, you all get disqualified. A quarter of those who start don't finish. They finished it in 8 hours and 40 minutes. Ray said his feet never hurt that bad in his life. A lot of the march was uphill, and some through sand. The scenerty was beautiful though. This is Dave's back, by the end his entire heels were blisters and bleeding. He's still recovering.
The two in front here with linked arms are married, she's one of the other residents, Katie. Mike got back from Iraq a few months ago. She had to have two toenails removed afterwards.

The guys taking a rest and changing socks. Since it's a march, they all had to be in combat boots.
They had a flag made up with the Darnall Family Practice crest on it, and took turns carrying it.

There were over 4000 participants. There were heavy and light divisions, the group did the light. In the heavy, you bring a 35 lb. pack. There were some of the survivors of the Bataan Death March there and they were able to meet them and shake hands. Ray's there on the bottom right. We're very proud of them!

Earl is a patient cat

...and this is how I found Earl a few days ago

Evidentally he doesn't mind much, he just lays there and purrs

Earl is a patient cat

So what's up with us?

I have not been keeping up with the blog that well. But I've got good excuses. We have been busy! Ray got back from Miami two weeks ago. He was doing a trauma rotation there. Evidentally the Army sends their doctors there to train for how to take care of gun shot wounds, etc. and they have a lot of that in Miami. He has some very interesting stories to tell, but he's very glad to be back home. While Ray was gone we went to Louisiana for a bit.

Now that we're all back in Texas, we have been working on getting the house ready to sell. I'm going to try to do "for sale by owner," I cringe to think of a realtor taking 5-6%, but if we can't sell it, we'll have to do that. And where are we going? That's a good question. We wish we knew too. We should find out any day. Fort Polk is very likely, but it still could be Europe, or anywhere else in the world.

Gideon turned two in February and we had a Cars birthday party. He has gotten to like Cars a lot. He call Lightning McQueen "Ca Chow." Of course I think it's adorable, as is everything he does. :)

Juliette has fallen in love, with a small fuzzy creature with wiskers. His name is Earl and we brought him back here from Louisiana. He was Ben's (my brother's) cat, but Ben started to have a lot of allergy problems with him, so we inherited him. He is just about the best cat ever. Juliette drags him out from under beds, and various other hiding places, carries him around sometimes by his arms, and makes beds for him, all the while almost smothering him by pushing a pillow over his head, and he just takes it. He doesn't try to scratch. He even tries to sweep the cat litter that has fallen onto the floor back to the litter box or into a little pile. I'll have to get pictures of him. It's pretty amazing since he was a wild cat. He's still a kitten but he's getting pretty big.

Ray has been extremely busy working on his research project. When he hasn't been doing that he has been preparing for the Battan Death March. He and 4 of other third year residents, as well as a staff are going to New Mexico for it. It's a 26 mile march, so they're wearing their BDU's complete with combat boots. Being in the desert, parts of it are through sand. He's been looking forward to this for quite a while and spent a lot of time on the treadmill lately.

When I'm not repainting a deck, doing yardwork or orgainizing closets, I've been selling some stuff on eBay. It's amazing what people will spend on children's clothing...$70 on one dress! It makes me not feel so bad about by own splurges. I'm trying to make money towards getting a new camera. If I succeed, you might be getting a lot more pictures and some video on here. woohoo!

So that's life right now. I'll leave you with a Julie-ism. She wraps up all sorts of things in papers and dish towels. She brought me something yesterday wrapped in a dish cloth. She said she wanted to bring it to her friends at the church. Inside she had a cookie with a glob of ice cream on top. Needless to say, we did not bring it to church that night. Hope all of you friends and readers out there are doing well! I would love to hear how y'all are doing too. You can email us at delightnjc@hotmail.com or I'm on Myspace too. (That has been fun.) I will try to post some new pictures soon, so keep checking for them.

Snow and ice

This was taken Monday morning, it was really cool because when the wind blew, the branches would make this tinkling sound.

Izzy and Frizzy playing in the snow.

View from the deck

Snow pictures!

The kids were very excited this morning to go out and play in the snow, it may not be much, but they've never seen any, at least that they were old enough to remember. Gideon was crying when I had to take him back in the house. They didn't even have hats or gloves, so I had to improvise. Juliette loves Ray's hunting cap anyway, and I put socks on her hands. Gideon didn't want the socks, but he has his fleece bee suit from Halloween on, with camo sweat pants and the big jacket...very stylish.

Ben and Susie

Ok, this is a lovely picture, I know, I just thought it was very like Ben, so there it is. I shamelessly stole these from Susie's facebook album, so thanks Susie. Thought I would introduce her to everyone.

So this is obviously not Susie, you'll have to scroll down some more. This is one of the foxes Ben saved. He gave one of them CPR. If you know Ben, you should not be shocked. Cute fox.

OK, that's Susie, the girl, not the deer. She will be the newest addition to the family come May 19.





Susie and the rock. Ben just about designed it himself. He found one he liked on the internet, brought it to a friend of the family who is a jeweler (my paw-paw's ex-girlfriend's son, haha) and changed the things he didn't like about it, the guy made a mold, Ben approved, picked out the diamond, and a few days later, it's on Susie's hand! He proposed somewhere in that time. :)


..And it's another picture of Ben and a bloody dead deer. That's a huge smile.

Happy Holidays

I think most of our family has seen these pictures, but I wanted to practice getting stuff off of a website, to the blog, and it works! haha Our friend Kris took these pictures too. Our whole family has come down with a nasty cold and it seems like everyone else is coming down with it too. It seems like all we hear lately are coughs and sneezes and all the other lovely noises that accompany kids and colds. So, if you don't mind, pray that we get over this soon! We're sick and tired of being sick and tired.

What Christmas is Really About

Thanks to troops

A friend of mine forwarded this website, and I think it's great. Xerox is sending "Thank You" postcards to troops overseas. There's not a lot of support for our troops these days and I so appreciate a company taking initiative to honor the military. It's a great opportunity to say thanks for what they do, and it's quick and easy. Just go to: www.letssaythanks.com. You get to choose from several different postcards made by kids around the country. You can select a message or write your own. As Christians, this is a wonderful way to let someone know they are loved and prayed for. I hope you are blessed in blessing others!

I needed to hear this

Even more zoo pics

More zoo pics

We went to the Waco Zoo last weekend. I've been telling our neighborhood girls we would go for a while now, so this was their payment for babysitting! It was really nice not to have to push a stroller and our kids had a lot more fun with them there. They are so good with our kids and we all love them.

Zoo trip

Juliette's Art

Juliette was just drawing, so I thought I would share some pictures. She amazes me. So, when I asked her what the green one was, she said mad. It really does look mad. The purple one is supposed to be me. What a little artist she is!

So, on another note, we've found out some information about our next PCS (permanent change of station), in non-Army terms, that means where we will go in July. There are no spots open for family practitioners in Turkey. God opens and closes doors, and I guess that wasn't meant to be, at least for now. So, our rankings are Europe, Fort Drum in New York, Fort Polk (Louisiana), then and operational position in Europe. I can't remember the rest, Kentucky, Missouri, and Georgia are in there somewhere. Every graduating resident in the army has to put Fort Polk as a choice, and since we have it as third when everyone else probably has it as eighth, seems to mean we're a shoe in to the powers that be. Ray had an interview with the Colonel in charge of placement yesterday, and the whole conversation was him talking about Fort Polk. It seems they have already made up their minds. All we were praying for was God's will in the situation. It will be nice to be near family, especially since we were also informed that Ray will probably be deployed within a year after graduating residency. Ray already knew this, but it seems much more final with a Colonel saying it. God has all of this in control. We have faith that he is good and will work all things for our good and His glory.

We will be back home Thanksgiving week!! It will be great to see everyone!

Family pictures

Our friend Kris took these this weekend at the retreat.

Daddy and Gideon



















Juju riding along on the safari

Fun with Zebras

We had the family practice residency retreat this weekend. We went to a wildlife ranch while we were there. I think Ray and I had more fun than the kids. The zebras were particularly friendly.















I didn't really kiss this zebra.














This one was getting fresh with Ray, but he was more skiddish than me














Good ole Texas Hill Country