surprise!

one last post for 2005...

rob has received some news from his detailer. he won't be going to iraq! yay! rob doesn't have official orders yet though, and he won't fully relax until he does have them in hand. (although even then, orders can be 'modified' without much notice.) according to the detailer, rob will be attending XO training in either april or july. the guy mentioned january, but i don't think they can get things together THAT fast. (january's and july's will be held in pearl harbor, april's session will be held locally in CT.)

the person who is replacing him is from the local base. rob's going to be in contact with him over the next few days. rob feels horribly guilty about this. i do too. i hope this guy's family can handle it.

so anyway, we've returned from iowa. we all survived and enjoyed a merry xmas. wasn't as merry as it should have been. a practical 'joke' on my mom at our xmas eve family gathering was more hurtful than funny. actually, considering it was all family attending, it was pretty damn discouraging. i still can't believe someone did that to her. it really makes me consider not coming back for next year. we've invited my parents to CT for next xmas...it would be nice to have them here and not have to travel. our poor xmas tree has never actually had presents under it. poor guy.

we had a decent xmas. spent too much $$$ and received a lot of stuff that i have no clue where to put it all. the kids have just way too much stuff. we could have gotten rid of all of their toys and just let them play with their xmas presents and they would be completely oblivious that they were even missing anything. i think i'll be cleaning out the toys soon. most of them are on our main floor, since that's where the kids spend the most time. i hate having toys in their rooms b/c then i find them playing with toys when they should be sleeping.

here's the big news: i finally got invited over to my brother's new house. they've been in it just over 8 months and it took 2 visits to iowa before i received an invitation. pooh on them. :/ and actually, if rob hadn't fixed their computer for them, i doubt we would have been invited.

it's a cute house...cozy. but you could really tell they're not very clean people. ugh. messy is ok. clean is not. and sharon (sis in law) had 5 candles burning and a febreeze scentstories thing going in her 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom house...maybe 1200 feet total. i'm wondering if she just really likes a smelly house or if she's just trying to cover up some totally horrible stench.

we did get to visit their dog, who has become an angel since i last saw him. his name is bear (he's a black lab mix, but looks 100% lab) and he visited about 6 months with my parents out in the country. sharon's sister was unable to care for him due to some reason and mom & dad had 4 acres going to waste...he was tied up with no kids around and not a lot of attention given to him. i never went near him when we visited b/c he was so wild i knew he would just knock the kids over if we got too close.

but now he's an inside dog with chris & sharon (in their tiny, candleful house) and he is the best behaved dog i've ever seen. he was so good around the kids. i can only hope that our dog-to-be is 1/2 that good.

time to go to sleep. how did i stay up this long?