Deeper Snow

Today was our first snow day! We have had about 35 inches of snow this season! Last night we got about 8 inches and it has snowed non stop today, adding 5-6 inches today. The kids went into the backyard to track around in the snow!

Mauryn is standing next to our 6 ft fence. The snow drifted to this side of the yard, and is about 2 1/2 feet deep.

Sadie making a snow angel

Mauryn's angel

Denver kind of just laying in the snow!

A Christmas Tradition

For as long as I can remember, my dad would put my sister and I on his shoulders and we would put the star on top of the tree. Jason and I have continued this with our kids and every year the star is put up by each one.

Mauryn

Sadie - she has come a long way! She is pretty scared of heights, and most years her picture is of her hanging on for dear life and crying! Looks like she is still hanging on with all her might, but we got a smile this year!

Denver's turn

Oh, I have to add... we got a fake tree this year! This is a major no-no in the Bruce household! Jason's dad has a tree farm, so our trees usually come from there, but before we lived in Tucumcari, the only option was a live tree for us!! We committed a major crime and got a fake one this year!! Mainly because next Christmas Jason most likely will be deployed, and we realized that it would be difficult for me to carry a live tree in by myself-where as this one is pretty light and easy to assemble! But we already decided, we will only use this one when he is gone, and a real one all the other years.

Sledding

Denver hiking back up the hill

Mauryn at the end of her run

Sadie sliding by

The community we live in on post has a sledding hill! They designed this hill for the purpose of sledding, which means that it is really smooth and you can get a pretty long run! We had a lot of fun on our first sledding adventure of the season!

The Making of a Snowman

Our first snow was Thanksgiving weekend. We had about 5-6 inches. The kids had fun making a snowman in the backyard. That snow melted...but then it all started! Since Thanksgiving, we've had about 35 inches of snow! Crazy New York weather!!

Posing for Christmas

This one didn't make the cut! Showing his true colors!

Oh Captain, My Captain

Jason was promoted yesterday to Captain! Such a sweet time of ceremony and then a reception!
The troops were brought to attention, and then the commander spoke. He then pulled Jason's LT bar off, and I put his Captain bars on. It was a special time for our family!

Lesson Learned

After living for 6 months with the bare necessities, we have realized what all you really DON"T need! As I unpack all our stuff, I think why do I need 12 mixing bowls of various sizes?? Really? In the hotel, and for the past week without our stuff, one plastic bowl was sufficient!

Jason and I have never been pack-rats before. In fact, I (not Jason) am one of the few people who actually loves having a garage sale so I can get rid of stuff. I definitely wouldn't say we have a lot of things, although the packers would probably disagree, but I do realize that we have excess.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not going to give everything away and live on the bare necessities - the extras are nice to have - but I may rethink the "wants" and simplify the "needs." And in the meantime, I may be making a few trips to the Salvation Army donation station!

The Goods Arrive

After about 6 months without our things, the movers arrived on Monday morning! It was basically birthday and Christmas all wrapped into one as we all opened boxes and were excited about the contents. So many things we had forgotten about!!

Normally, we wouldn't have had to wait so long to get our stuff, but we had some unusual circumstances. We sold our house in New Mexico back in April, so the Army came then and went ahead and shipped our HHG (house hold goods for you non-army speaking people) to NY. From there, we lived with my gracious in-laws for about 10 weeks, and then we moved to Fort Jackson for 2 months. Had this been a normal PCS (Permanent Change of Station), we most likely would have only been without our things for a few weeks. Although, the more I hear, there isn't really a "normal" in the Army!
The paper from one box of dishes!!! They used like 4 huge sheets of paper to wrap each item - including house shoes and toys!! Our goods weighed around 8,500 pounds - I'm pretty sure half of that was paper!!
Beginning to make progress....
Fewer and fewer boxes! Now is the fun part of trying to figure out ways to arrange the furniture!

To say the least, the task of unpacking and organizing is overwhelming, but completely worth it as it begins to help us all feel more settled. Tuesday morning, Mauryn walked down the stairs and said with a sigh," Ahhh, this looks like home."

Fall Fun

We spent the day at an apple orchard in Mexico, NY. It was a lot of fun!!

The kids got to go on a horse ride. Now of course this was not what they were used to, after taking horseback riding lessons for a couple of years - but it was just a little bit to satisfy their love of horses.

Picking out pumpkins was fun too!

But the apples were the best part!! They had all different kinds of apples, many that we had never even heard of. In fact, Jason asked a guy if they had brayburn apples, and he acted like he had never heard of them. I never thought that even types of apples would be different across the country! We chose some Shy, Rome, Yellow Delicous, Macoun, and Macintosh.

They were yummy! Now we need to bake some pies!
Of course, Daddy's shoulders were the best place to be to reach the top!
Sadie kept saying that she wanted to find a "honkin'" one! I think she did!
The mums were beautiful!! And I finally got to get a few since I now have a front porch to put them on!
HAPPY FALL, Y'ALL!!!

Views from Upstate NY

It is beautiful up here! Tons of trees and they are changing colors. There are a lot of rivers around here. The other day we got rain all day long! In fact, the kids got a delayed start at school.
Here are some pics of the rivers running pretty full with all the rain!




This river is about a mile from Sadie and Denver's school. We are so wanting to raft down it before we leave here!!

Sadie is Seven!

Time flies! Earlier this week, our sweet Sadie turned 7! We celebrated by bringing a cake to school. Her classmates were so sweet, we sang and they all wore party hats! That night she wanted to go to Red Lobster (she is a sea food lover!) Sadie loved the Lobster tail and crab legs the best!

We are also going to go apple and pumpkin picking to celebrate as a family!

Our First Great Lake: Lake Ontario

Our first weekend here, we went to Syracuse for a Chaplain marriage retreat training. It was a lot of fun! On our way back, we stopped at Lake Ontario. (Syracuse is about an hour from us, and the lake is maybe 20 miles.)
Notice we are in our fallish clothes, while the native New Yorkers in the background are in the bathing suits!!! LOL! We thought they were crazy!

The Bruce Boys

Mauryn looking for cool rocks. If you notice, the entire beach area is made up of river rock. It was beautiful! All the stones were so smooth!

Denver thought this was a cool.


Our Sadie-bug found ladybugs!

Lots of Ladybugs!

A view of the Lake...we were overwhelmed at the size of it!

We made it!

After nine months of knowing where we were headed, researching, and anticipating - we finally made it! Fort Drum is beautiful! Most of it is forested, so you see turkeys, deer, chipmunks, etc. all over the place! We arrived in the Fall, so the leaves on the trees have been breathtaking! It is pretty big and spread out, so I spent most of the first week getting lost - usually looking for a gate to get out of!

When we got here, we didn't have a home, so we stayed at a hotel for 17 days! That's right a hotel room with 2 queen beds, a chair that pulled out to a twin bed and that's it! So, we rented a storage unit for the little bit of our belongings that we had kept with us and lived in tight quarters! We were blessed that we only were there for 17 days! It wouldn't have been too bad, but it rained so much that the kids really couldn't go outside to play. So, we would usually go explore in Watertown and go out to dinner to pass the time in the evenings.

Well, after the longest summer of their lives (May 20 - Sept. 9) the kids had to start school!

Here are their first day of school pictures:

Denver going into Kindergarten!

Sadie going into First Grade!

Mauryn going into 4th grade!

Sadie and Denver go to a primary school (K - 3rd grade), and Mauryn has to go to an Intermediate School (4-5 grades). They have done well, but it has been an adjustment. We were used to Tucumcari Elementary, where I had taught for 3 years and we were all in the same building, and had a ton of familiar faces! But as the weeks go on (they've been in school for about 3 weeks now) they are feeling pretty comfortable with it. But I must say, many times a week our sweet Tucumcari Elementary is mentioned by one of us and how much we miss it and all our sweet friends. But what a blessing to have such great memories and a wonderful place to call "home."

And it has been fun to tell people we are from Tucumcari, New Mexico and hear their reactions..."You are from where????" or "How do you say that????"

New York Bound

Once again, we were on the road. It took us about 9 hours to get from SC to DC, and then another 7 to get to NY. (We went through Maryland also, but the road sign was on a very busy highway!) We decided at one point that there were more people on a mile or two section of highway in Maryland than in Tucumcari! It was crazy!! Once we got out of that horrible traffic, it was gorgeous! Pennsylvania was very pretty and pretty chilly after our hot summer!

Just thought this was a pretty cool looking pic in Pennsylvania.

And we made it! I must admit that Upstate NY is beautiful! When we were in this Visitor's Center, there was a huge US map on the wall. Jason pointed out where we were - way up there, right by the Great Lakes in NY and all of a sudden the distance we had traveled hit me! I literally got sick to my stomach! For a girl that had never lived anywhere but San Antonio, TX until college, this is VERY far from home! Once I took a few deep breaths - I remembered that even here, in this very foreign place from what we've known, God is with us and guiding us! So, we are embracing our Army adventure in this new land!

(This picture was probably the last time my kids wore shorts this summer! Since we have arrived, it has rained and been chilly - we are experiencing a true Fall this year!)

So all in all - we went through 3 time zones, 2500 miles and 15 states!!!!

On the Road Again

Well, after some hard good-byes, we were on the road again...but this time Dad was with us! We traveled from SC to Washington, D.C. to do some sight seeing - stopping at state lines across the way!







One of the greatest parts of DC was the Smithsonian Museums. This is one picture of the kids inside a shark mouth! They had so many amazing things to see - we really needed a week just for the museums. And I didn't know this, but everything in DC is FREE! Makes for an even better vacation!



The Bruce's in front of the Capital 0r is it Capitol?? I can never remember! We must admit that we were very disappointed in the grounds on the Mall. They didn't take care of the grass! I guess I should write a letter to someone!

An amazing thing - we watched the Changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns.

We had a huge blessing in DC. On our first morning, we took a cab to the Metro, and I guess my camera slipped out of my pocket in the cab, so we only had our phones for pictures that first day. Besides the camera, our card had all our pictures from the formal, graduation, etc. I was devastated! The next morning, the cab driver came to our hotel and returned our camera that was found in his cab! We were so excited!