Luke sent me picture's from Iraq. Luke went to the Iraqi Army special forces compound and went to the range with a few Iraqi Seargents. I'm sure it was a nice diversion from his typical 100 hours per week work schedule! He says they have been working a lot with the Iraqis helping them conduct operations and secure their own country again. And they are doing a good job. He says they are horrible with gun safety.

the one where he is shooting with the holster on, is an AK-47. the one where he is next to the guy is an M-4 and the one on the ground is called the Saw.

There are 2 pictures of a dust storm that he went through. Luke thought it was rain coming, but then the sky turned literally orange and he could hardly breath. It lasted for about 2 days. It just moved in and sat there, he said it wasn't particularly windy.

He is doing well out there and working hard!

Tee Ball

LJ started tee ball last night! I was so excited for him! He did a great job. He hit the ball really hard and also learned how to scoop the ball off the ground with his glove. On our drive home I asked him if he liked it. He said yes and he can't wait for next week to play. (it's only once a week). Kyle had a hard time with not playing with LJ and all the other kids. I had to work REALLY hard to keep Kyle from running out there to play. He was VERY unhappy that he couldn't play with the kids. He FINALLY calmed down enough that I could snap a couple pictures of LJ. It will be great when Kyle can get out there and play in a couple years, he's definitely anxious to!

Apple Picking

We went apple picking at Larriland Farms. Our friends, the Mahaffey's called us up a couple saturday's ago and asked if we wanted to meet up with them to pick some apples. It was a LOT of fun. We loved eating the apples after we brought them home. We liked them so much there wasn't enough left over to make a pie. Next time we'll have to pick more! Kyle really enjoyed pulling the apple's off of the trees, it was right up his alley! I had to slow his picking down a bit, it was getting a little carried away. I'm so glad they called, it was lots of fun!!

Going to visit Grandpa Schoeny!

We went for a long road trip for a short few days, but it was definitely worth it! My parents and myself and the boys all drove together to Evansville, Indiana to go see my grandpa who is 96 years old, born in 1912. LJ and Kyle got to meet him for the first time. On the way there LJ was saying to my dad, "I'm so excited to meet your dad, Opa!" (our kids call my parents Oma and Opa). So we drove for about 12 hours on Monday and spent 3 nights there. We drove home on Thursday. We got to eat breakfast with my grandpa a couple times and LJ really loved it! Kyle is still young so he was just going along with what we were all doing, not really quite old enough to understand why we were doing what we were doing. I got to spend some good time with Grandpa Schoeny which I'm grateful for. Grandpa Schoeny is such a good man. I can see a lot of why my dad is the way he is because of the way he was taught and shown how to live by my grandpa and of course my grandma (who is no longer with us) . Grandpa reminded me of what's important in life. I left feeling uplifted. He is a good example to me of how people really can choose to be good and to live honorable lifestyles. We left him feeling better than he was feeling when we came so that was a great feeling too!

We had a little unexpected stop on our journey home. We were enjoying listening to the satellite radio that was in the rental car. Along with the noise of the satellite radio was the computerized voice of the garmin, and of course the laughs, cries and random noises of LJ and Kyle. We were enjoying all the background noises so much that no one heard the gas light ding...so about 2 hours from my stop in Frederick we didn't quite make it up a hill when all of a sudden we realized the gas tank was empty! We had to quickly pull over on interstate 68 just inside the Maryland border. LJ was REALLY excited. He was cracking us up. When he found out we ran out of gas he excitedly said, "I've never ran out of gas before! This is my first time to run out of gas!" My dad said, this is my first time to run out of gas too! (Which is pretty good considering how many years he's been driving). Anyway fortunately I decided to join triple AAA a few months back. So I just called them up and didn't have to wait on the phone at all for them to pick up. Unfortunately the wait for them to bring the gas was a tad bit long. I think it was about an hour and a half later that we FINALLY got the 2 gallons of gas they put in for us. All in all it could have been MUCH worse. The kids did a pretty good job of waiting, especially considering how long our overall drive was. After he put the gas in the car we drove to the gas station and put some more in and went on our merry way. It was a great trip overall and I would do it all over again just to see Grandpa Schoeny!

Comments

I think i fixed the comments so that people can comment now...I'm still learning on here :)

Iraq

Luke is in Iraq again. We are counting down the days for when he gets home!! Less than 70 days left. This picture is actually from last summer when he went. It get's the idea across though and he is still just as handsome :) For all you BYUH people, don't you love the shirt?

Back in June Kyle went in for an MRI. He's becoming

a professional at them. It was his second time to

get one. He was diagnosed with something

called a Chiari. So far he really doesn't have a severe

problem with it. He just has to go in once a year for a

MRI and to be evaluated by the neurosurgeon at

children's national medical center in DC. I just

really wanted to post the picture because I think he

looks so cute in the little hospital gown.

It was LJ's first day of preschool last week.

He was really excited to go!

He seemed to of had a good first day when I picked him up. He went back to school the next day with no problem, so I'm thinking this is going pretty well! It's really crazy to see him growing up already. It's going by too fast! I'm glad that he's really enjoying it though!