It's D Day (Year) Again.

So I really did mean to write more often on this blog then I have lately. But things just got so hectic with my husbands deployment. He flew over seas a couple of weeks ago and we have now begun our next deployment together. Something I have been dreading, but honestly I can't complain too much because we did get over a year together between deployments. And he was able to be here for the whole first year of our daughters life. We were very blessed for that.

Now I am just trying to get into the swing of deployment again. Even though we did get so much time together it just seems that it's come too soon again. And while I was hoping that maybe this deployment would be a little easier for me because it's not our first together and I have our daughter to keep me busy and so many great friends here and family we will be going back to visit, I really think this one is going to be harder just in the sense that over the past year and a half we have grown so much together and so much closer together. We were only married for a few days before last deployment and had only been a couple for about four months. And while I loved him very much we were still new to each other and hadn't grown as close as we are now.

And even though deployments are the worst part of Army life I am so very proud of him. And I love that he loves his job so much. Sometimes I think about what it would be like for him to just have a normal 9 to 5 job and not have to be away from him for years at a time. But I know that he wouldn't be as happy in that type of job as he is being a soldier. And I would rather have to deal with deployments and him love his work, then for him to be miserable in his job. And I really do enjoy the Army life. I love the community, the pride, the ability we have to travel. And I like that in my own way I can be involved too, as part of the FRG and volunteer positions.

I am as prepared as I can be for this deployment and all I can do is wait, and pray, and do my part from home to let him know that we are here for him till he is home to us. We have already sent him letters and a care package. =) And our daughter loves to color pictures for him. In between tasting the crayons of course. So hopefully this deployment goes quickly and safely for him and all the men over there. So for now I'll just try and stay busy and try not to watch the calendar too much. Even though I know every day how many, months, weeks, and days we have left.

This is the life.

From here to there and back again. Baby G's on the move!

So we have made it to a huge milestone in our Baby G's life. She is crawling now! Not just crawling but also pulling her self up on anything and everything she can! It seems to have started so fast. It feels like just yesterday she was learning to sit up on her own, or to hold her little head up. But now, now that little girl is into everything! I knew it would be like this so even though I was excited seeing her learn to sit, and hold herself up on hands and knees I was also in no rush for her to actually start crawling around. =) But it is very exciting and lots of fun! She is right at that age where everyday is seems that she learns something new.
Yesterday we went by the PX waiting on my husband to get off work and I found that they had all those Zhu-zhu pets that I have always thought were so cute in the ads. So of course I bought one for G. And let me just say that was the best 7 dollars I have ever spent! She thinks it is just hilarious! She'll follow him around on the carpet and then laugh and laugh when he turns around and rolls over her little hand or bumps her in the leg. It's really one of the cutest things I've ever seen!

So I only have a couple of weeks left before I head back to my parents for the holidays while my husband is away at Sniper school. I really am looking forward to it! And for a change in the weather, and a chance to spend some quality time with our families. Hopefully my husband will be able to come up and join us for a week or two at Christmas! (Oh I really really hope so!)
Deployment is creeping up way too fast. The times with him home, the days seem to just fly by. But deployments drag on so that it feels like a lifetime of waiting. (Of course I would wait 2 lifetimes for him!) I feel like I just can't seem to cram enough hours in the day to spend with him!

Nothing else too new or exciting to report. =) Spending lots of time with my family of course. And preparing for G and I going to IL for a visit and my husband heading off for school. Making the most of every single day with him in the meantime.

All bets are in and the winner is...

So we finally got our orders! I add an exclamation point to the end of the sentence because normally it's exciting to find out where we will be living for the next three years. It's like roulette you place your bets and the ball falls where it will. And in our case the ball fell in the exact same spot as it's fallen the past two reenlistments. That's right ladies and gentleman, we are staying in Hawaii... again. But honestly I can't complain too much, it is Hawaii after all. =)
Anyway heres our story, my husband has been stationed here for awhile now, it would have been six years if we hadn't gotten orders for here again. But he likes it here, he likes the island, he likes the unit, he likes who he works with and for. And don't get me wrong, I like it here too and I like that he likes his job. I just hate that it is so far from family with us just having a new baby. And since we both have little brothers still living at home it's just too difficult and expensive to have them fly all the way out here. Anyway that's pretty much the only downside.
So he decided quite a few months ago that he would like to put in an IPCOT to extend his time on the island (since he loves this unit) and I was okay with that too because more then living on a post location we like I want him to like the post he works on. Well just a month ago or so he decided maybe he'd like to change units, for a break from deployments mostly (this upcoming one will be #4, and #2 for both of us). His IPCOT was too far along to stop it, but he really didn't think it would be approved since he had already been here so long. So we weren't too worried about it. Then surprise surprise he gets his orders for Hawaii yesterday! But it's not all bad, we do like it here. And our daughter and I will be spending almost all 12 months of this upcoming deployment with our families in IL anyway so that'll be nice.
And we finally get to get me command sponsored. That's a long messy story but basically we were married 2 days before he deployed and we weren't really able to do what needed to be done with him in Iraq and me in IL (and with me also being new at the Army lingo) and by the time he was home and we were back in HI together he was just shy of a year left on the island so ergo no command sponsorship, and no cola collecting for us. =( But now that we have more time here, we can have me and G command sponsored which just means a little more pay for living expenses. (yay)
Anyway it has been a long busy day with all that paperwork, and unexpected plans for us.
Also another bit of fun news, Baby G is 6 months old as of the 5th! She is 15.4lbs, 26in long and a perfectly happy healthy baby. She is just growing so fast! Every day she seems to know how to do something new. =)
This sure is the life!!

Deployment training, and future plans.

Well here I am going through another week of my husband being at the field. And my days are as backwards as ever! For some reason the Army has decided to start their work weeks on Saturday or Sunday, and send them home on Wednesdays or Thursdays. So we have been feeling a day or two off around here this month. Thankfully it should slow down a little bit next month and there wont be quite so many weeks out at the field... for a little while anyway. But September and October should be the last of our slow months. (at least I hope there slow!) In November I'll be headed home for a visit, and my Darling Husband will be on his way to Sniper school. Then we have the holidays and starting January deployment training will be in full swing!
I can't believe how fast this one is sneaking up on us, it seems like he just got home from the last! But that's the Army for you I suppose they give you about a month then they'll be reminding you every day just how close the next deployment is. At least they do in the Infantry. And as always I am certainly full of mixed feelings. Since our daughter and I will be spending almost all of this 12 month deployment in Illinois with family that makes me happy. Living so far away from then we don't get much of a chance for her to be around them so that part I am looking forward to. But of course my husband having to be gone and in Afghanistan I am NOT at all looking forward to at all! Though I am thankful every day he has gotten this entire 1st year at home to spend with our baby girl. And we have lots of plans on things to do to help her remember and be able to see and hear her daddy every day despite the miles between us.
Anyway Baby G is getting fussy (it's about her bedtime) so I'm going to try and get her to bed now.
This is the life! =)

Home for the Holidays!

So my husband should be home from the range tomorrow. I will be really happy once this month is over. Not that their training will slow down at all but at least next month he wont be out at the range quite as often in September.
But on the upside I do finally have my dates, and plane ticket to Illinois! I'll be going mid November! I am so excited to finally get back for a visit and for our families to meet our daughter. So far my mom is the only one who has since she flew out here when she was born.
Unfortunately my husband wont be coming with us because he will be in Sniper School, but hopefully if things work out well he will be coming up to IL to spend Christmas with us. This will be the first time in over a year that I have been back to see our families. And even though I am so going to miss my husband like crazy I am looking forward to some time with my parents and brothers. And for Baby G to meet her grandparents and uncles. I am glad that our families live all within about 45 minutes of each other. It will make getting enough time with everyone allot easier.
I'm going to have to find out what I am going to do about clothes though. I don't have any warm clothes here except a couple of sweatshirts and there really isn't any place to buy them either. I must say I am happy to be going back for a visit but I wish it didn't have to be in the dead of winter. =) At least I'll have an excuse to buy some new jeans and boots!
I do hope it snows for Christmas though so that G can see some snow. We don't get to much of that here in Hawaii. =)
And hopefully her first plane ride goes smoothly as well, I'm not looking forward to doing it on my own so some helpful stewardesses would be great too.
Well I better get off here and finish getting the house cleaned up before Baby G wakes up from her afternoon nap.

My Little Evening Soapbox.

So my darling little girl decided that it would be great if she woke mommy up at 0200 and stay up till 0500... So needless to say I did not get much sleep at all last night. But we did have a pretty wonderful day today anyway. My husband did have to work, the Army just never seems to get enough of him. But he did get home early and we spent the rest of the day together playing COD and watching Desperate Housewives. See we have this system worked out. He plays a game or two then I get to watch an episode of DH. It works well. =] The later he started picking on me, and that turned into a tickling war, which turned into him smearing ink from the ink-pad I had to put our daughter's footprints in her baby book all over me! And I attacked him with shaving cream until we called a truce so I could take a shower. Hahaha, it was hilarious. It makes me very happy that I have the kind of husband I can goof off with and act silly with!

I have also been working on some research the past few days. And it's coming along quite nicely. I'm researching the vaccines that they give baby's Because I don't like the idea of doctors pumping our little girl with over 50 live viruses before she even reaches 6 months of age. And to be honest I don't think I would have ever given this much thought if it weren't for my mom and some of our friends. My mother is a very healthy person with every aspect of her life. All natural is the way she likes to do things. Some of this started years ago when I was in grade school and my dad was into competitive body building. He had to stay on a strict diet. So that is when allot of the things we ate changed. Then just a few years ago my dad was diagnosed with an auto immune disease after receiving a Hepatitis vaccine. So even more things changed at home because my mom found that the more natural things she used in the home and fed our family, the better my dad did. And the less often the disease flared up. So that is what really got her and I into researching the things we put into our body.
And I know that doctors try to tell us that baby's suffering severe negative side affects are very rare I just can't believe that. My husband and I have two friends one who's son after getting the MMR vaccine developed a more severe autism, and our other friend who's baby sister died shortly after receiving the MMR vaccine. And I have read of many more cases of people going through the very same thing. So how can doctors tell us that they aren't linked, or that they are very rare when I alone can list 3 people I know of for sure that have a negative story to tell.
Anyway I am going to post some of the notes I have taken and a couple of the websites I have found if anyone is interested any further into this subject. I guess that's my soapbox rant for the day. =] But I am just too interested in our daughters safety and health not to look into these sort of things for myself.


Vaccine Facts:

1. Vaccine cultures are preserved with ingredients such as Mercury, Formaldehyde, Phenol, Aluminum and MSG. These toxic mixtures are directly injected into babies (children & adults) bypassing the body's built in filters (cilia, tonsils and skin).

--- cilium |ˈsilēəm| |ˈsɪliəm| |ˈsɪlɪəm|
noun (usu. in pl. cilia |ˈsilēə| |ˈsɪliə| |-lɪə|) Biology & Anatomy
a short, microscopic, hairlike vibrating structure. Cilia occur in large numbers on the surface of certain cells, either causing currents in the surrounding fluid, or, in some protozoans and other small organisms, providing propulsion.
• an eyelash, or a delicate hairlike structure that resembles one. ---------

2. Childhood vaccinations are the first assault on the normal functioning of the body, creating neurological damage and debilitating the immune system.

3. Children being routinely vaccinated by what is to be believed "preventive" medicine have by age 6 been exposed to more then 100 viral strains.

4. Vaccinations are frequently administered in combination and in nature itself one would never encounter this type of viral overload.

5. With repeated injections the damage caused by vaccinations can lead to developmental problems, auto-immune disease, sudden infant death, autism and more.

6. Plagues such as smallpox, and polio were never eradicated by vaccines. Smallpox declined with improved sanitation, and polio persists under many new names.

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"My suspicion, which is shared by others in my profession, is that the nearly 10,000 SIDS deaths that occur in the United States each year are related to one or more of the vaccines that are routinely given children. The pertussis vaccine is the most likely villain, but it could also be one or more of the others." --Dr. Mendelsohn, M.D.
"There is no evidence whatsoever of the ability of vaccines to prevent any diseases. To the contrary, there is a great wealth of evidence that they cause serious side effects." -- Dr. Viera Scheibner
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Disease Control (CDC) produced an internal memo suggesting a "possible association between the vaccine and multiple sclerosis." AAPS calls for a moratorium on hepatitis B vaccination, pending proper clinical studies.
The MMR vaccine, given to children at age 18 months, is derived from aborted fetal cells. It is now definitively linked to America's explosive epidemic of autism by researchers at Utah State University. 3 Autism is a devastating condition involving brain damage, severe abdominal cramping and hyperactivity. During the 2001 congressional autism hearings, Congressman Dan Burton condemned U.S. health agencies for not withdrawing MMR vaccine from the market.
From 1750 to 1950, vast improvements in sanitation and the year around availability of nutrition occurred. Child mortality associated with scarlet fever, diphtheria, whooping cough and measles declined 90 percent between 1850 and 1940 in England and Wales. In 1940 vaccination against diphtheria became compulsory. Whooping cough and measles vaccinations came later. There is no vaccine for scarlet fever, yet scarlet fever seldom occurs today. Mortality associated with measles declined 98 percent before a measles vaccine was produced. The rate of decline in mortality associated with individual diseases did not change following the introduction of specific vaccines. Yet claims are made that vaccines eradicate disease in spite of the abundant counter evidence that vaccines did not save us from epidemics.

Reforms in sanitation and nutrition are responsible for vast declines in both mortality and disease incidence. Immunity occurs naturally when filthy conditions or malnutrition do not destroy immunity. Vaccinations do not increase the number of immune individuals. Healthy lifestyle practices alone result in immune populations.


http://www.vaclib.org/intro/vaccination101.htm
http://www.naturalnews.com/022400.html
http://www.vaclib.org/basic/caseagainst.htm

Life, Love, and Dog-tags.

Well there have certainly been allot of changes in my life. So many shiny new things happening. And with all these changes I thought that it was time for a new blog to go along with them. So, well, this is the beginning.
I guess maybe a little "get to know you" type post would be appropriate for my first post. So we'll start with the basics.

I'm Hannah, and I'm an Army Wife. (obviously)
I'm 22 years old and have been married for almost a year and a half now.
My husband is in the US Army Infantry, and we are stationed in (practically always) sunshiny Hawaii.
We just had our first baby. A beautiful little girl. Genesis Olivia, and she will be a month old on Friday.
She was our little R&R surprise!
My husband and I were married October 15th 2008. He was deployed to Iraq October 17th 2008. He came home for two weeks in June 2009. And a little over two weeks after he was back in Iraq I e-mailed him the news that we were going to have a baby! He came home to me in October 2009. We had our little girl March 5th 2010. And here we are today. Our little girl almost a month old. My husband and I just a few weeks away from being married a year and a half. My how time flies!
We are now spending as much time together as we possibly can because this time next year he will be leaving again for another tour, this time to Afghanistan. And before that he will be spending a few months this summer away from us at Ranger school.
I must say having him away from me just as much as he is with me has got to be the hardest thing about the military life.




Together again!


Well, that is up to now what is going on in my life. And as you can most likely tell my husband and our baby are my life! The Army life is what we live. And as hard as it all can sometimes be I wouldn't change being with him for the world. He is the forever love of my life.




Family Ever After