A brief History

Paul and I married in 1993, we lived in Idaho for a few years and had our oldest 2 girls there. Paul joined the Army and early in the following year we found ourselves in Heidelberg, Germany. Emma and Brooklyn came along during the 3 years we spent there. I can't believe I still toured as much as I did since I spent 16 months prego.

Hawaii was next, we took the PRIDE classes here for the first time and became foster parents. Our Hawaii stay was brief; however we saw and explored to our hearts content. Brooklyn our youngest was diagnosed with Juvenile diabetes when she was 2 1/2 here. A life changing event for us, but we found comfort in working with JDRF. It gave us an outlet for the stress of constantly monitoring her diet and insulin. Brooklyn was on shots at this time and in the first year she dropped so low that she went into seizures twice.

Texas was next. I did not like Texas in the beginning. I knew the Army had cut our Hawaii tour short to send us to Texas so that they could deploy my hubby. Although we did put Brooklyn on the pump right after we got here, that helped lessen the burden for me, especially since Paul would be gone. Paul moved us home to Idaho just before he deployed. When we thought he'd be coming home soon I packed up my family and we moved back to Texas to wait for his return. His tour got extended. And then extended again. And yet again. He was to return home at Thanksgiving and ultimately he came home the last week of February. I was not very happy - so we put in to be moved to Washington.

Not such a good idea - Washington was closer to home (as close as we could get and still stay in the Army). But the weather got to me, the dreary rain and I didn't get along so well. So I thought long and hard about moving my family yet again. I decided that Texas wasn't so bad at least it would be sunny most of the time. Before we left though Brooklyn was diagnosed with Celiac. So not only do we watch her diet for too much sugar and carbs, she now can not have anything with Gluten in it. Bread and pasta are no longer staples in her diet, and the rest of us have lessened our dependence on wheat and flour also. It's easier to just fix one meal everyone can eat, not two.

So here we are, in Texas again. Paul has now been in the military for 11 years and if we go for the retirement we have 9 years left. I say ' IF ' because deployments put a big damper in the whole idea of staying in. We have gone through the PRIDE training again to be foster parents. I enjoy being a mom and I'm at home anyway with my own kids. It's really not a big deal to take care of a few more.