The Army roller coaster of emotions...

I debated a while on whether or not to actually post this. But I feel it is necessary. I created this blog for a way for my family and friends back home to keep up with Christopher and I and our journeys through different states and countries that the Army sends us to and our times while we are there. But I want everyone to also know a little of what happens in our "Army life" and the sometimes, roller coaster of emotions that we have to deal with. The Army is always taking us for a ride! :)

Since we have been in Oklahoma, where we were going to be PCSed (Permanent Change of Station = where we will be living) has changed three different times. I thought about blogging about it a while back, but we told our families and then it just kept changing so we just decided to kind of stop talking about it until we knew for sure. (which I'm not positive you ever know with the Army until you are actually there) :) When we first got Chris' orders they said Vilseck, which is in Germany. Then right after that email we got another email saying, no, that of the 4 guys on the email - we were headed to Vicenza, Italy. We went back and forth with that idea - but finally were told if we didn't do Italy we would be sent to Bamberg, Germany. Well, that's where our hearts were set anyways...so we took it. There were a lot of emotions and thoughts that went into Italy. That died down for a little while and once we were told Bamberg, Chris has been in constant contact with the admin. guy in Bamberg who has been a huge help to us already.

A few weeks ago Chris went and had his medical screening done. He got the paperwork necessary for me to go get mine done. We just had to go and make sure that we were both cleared to go overseas. He had to get one shot and told me I would probably have to get some as well. Trying to get my medical records was a MESS!!! I called my pediatrician to which they are moving offices and all old patients are in a storage somewhere and told me at the earliest December would be when they could get me something, I called my family doctor but I never moved my shot records there. I called my high school and they never returned my call. Then my best friend said what about your college, you had to give it to them. I called UNF and for ONCE they were AMAZING! They gave me all the information I needed and got it in the mail the next day and it made it before I had to go to the doctor! When I got my records, I haven't had any shots since 1991!!! So Chris was like, you probably are going to have to get a bunch. After he said that, I was a mess! I had serious anxiety thinking about having to get shots and going to the hospital. But Christopher thankfully got out of work to go with me, he was an amazing husband and let me cry and squeeze him while I got my shot (I only had to get one and I go back for a TB test later). It was Chris' first experience with me - it's always been my mother. I called her before I went telling her I wished she was there! :) But Chris passed the first test of my crazy anxiety issues with shots and doctors and hospitals. He's just lucky I didn't have to have blood drawn. :) He was very good with trying to calm me down. He was so sweet.

We were kind of in a hurry that day - I got off two hours early from work to go make my appointment, but that night was the Commandants reception. As soon as I saw the doctor, we went to the clinic to get my shot and Chris wanted to go ahead and take the paperwork to the lady that was writing his orders because she was waiting on that paperwork to finish up his orders. And we really wanted our orders so we could get things started with this move because it's coming quickly. We took the papers quickly to the lady that was writing Chris' orders, well she told us she didn't need them, that we needed to take them to the travel office. So we did. There were two ladies there that were very helpful, took our medical screenings and said they could now "update the Germany web site" so while Chris was asking a bunch of questions, the other lady was updating the web site. A few minutes later she then told us that we have "deferred travel" to Germany. After explaining to us what that meant, I was a little bummed. She told us there is no housing available in Bamberg right now so that Chris will leave to go to Germany without me. And I cannot go until they call me and tell me there is housing available. We asked a few more questions and left. I was a little upset, but I tried not to think too much about it because we had a fun night ahead of us and I didn't want that to put a damper on it. So we went to the Commandants reception. I went in to work the next day. My phone rings with an Oklahoma area code. Not knowing who in the world it would be, I answered. It was one of the ladies we had spoken with at the travel office. She informed me that Chris needed to go in as soon as possible and get a memorandum and take it to the lady that was writing his orders to take me OFF his orders since we had deferred travel. Immediately I got upset. It hit me that it was real. He would be going without me. The reason this effects me so much is Chris is deploying quickly when he gets to Germany. Therefore, there is a chance that I could have to make the move to Germany alone. If he deploys and then they call and tell me there is housing.

For about two weeks now, we have talked about it, I have cried every day about it, we have processed every little situation in our heads as we possibly can from me just staying in Florida with my family until after he gets back from deployment - to just going around it and paying my way to Germany and staying with a friend I have there until we get housing. To us asking a million questions like, why us! We know so many people who have moved to Germany, so many people in the Army who have never even heard of this! It's not fair!!! But life's not fair. Chris has been so awesome through all of this. And he has done everything he possibly can to see if we could work our way around it and asking a million questions as to why.

It's now official, we got his orders on Monday. I am not on them and he is going alone (as of now). The movers will come and take his things the day after Thanksgiving. They will come to move my "unaccompanied baggage" - which is immediate things I will need once I get to Germany like bed, linens, towels, kitchen items - on Dec. 14th and the rest of my household goods (including everything else) on Dec. 16th. They will move them to "non-temporary storage" here in Oklahoma until I get word housing has opened up and I can move to Germany. Chris' things will go ahead so that he will hopefully have them when he gets to Germany or soon after.

It's been rough. I have met two girls who are in Bamberg right now who had my current situation. I have been talking to them and getting as much advice as possible. They have both told me the whole process will be awful and stressful as ever, but it's worth it! We had come to the conclusion that we would just pay my way over there and I would go with him and we would get off-post housing. It has been so much trouble. Finally Chris said the other day, "you know Court, we have never had to work at getting something" he said "everything has always pretty much been smooth sailing, there must be a reason God doesn't want you going with me because we just have to keep pushing down door after door to try to make this work". After he said that I sat back and realized, you know, he is right. Even though we don't understand and it stinks SOOOO much to think I could have to tell my husband goodbye two months earlier than I would have to if I went with him, ON TOP OF deployment and that I may just have to move to Germany, another country, ALONE and for my husband who would have to go to Germany alone and deploy and us not be together - I just started saying I need to let this go. And I did. I started praying. I truly told God I am letting this go, it is out of my control and there is NOTHING we can do about it to just please give me us both a peace that He will take care of us. I kept telling myself, God won't give us anything we can't handle, but I wonder sometimes! :) But I just kept praying. I am not even praying anything specific. Just whatever HIS WILL is for us. If that is to be able to go with Chris, then I will be able to go. If not, to just give me an overwhelming peace about this situation that He has a plan. Wouldn't you know, after crying about it for TWO weeks - I woke up the next day and I just feel SO much better. I have a peace that I cannot explain. Now I will tell you, I am still scared to death, it isn't necessarily what I want - but it isn't always! I'm just praying God takes care of me and my husband no matter what. And that we just become two stronger individuals through GOD'S HELP after this situation is over and done with.

We talked to the housing office in Germany and they told us to call back Dec. 10th or 12th to see if housing has opened up, if it has, then they will change his orders for me to go with him. All I ask is that for you, our friends and family to just pray for us. Chris has enough going on with his school, November is supposively the hardest part - and he has a huge test the DAY BEFORE THANKSGIVING. This is all such bad timing because he doesn't even have time to think about Germany! Much less a crazy emotional wife who just needs to figure things out. Pray for Christopher as he is facing a very hard and busy next three weeks. Pray for him as he is thinking and dealing with going to Germany alone and facing deployment without me even being there to experience going to Germany and to see him off. He is having a hard time as well. And for me, that I would remain peaceful no matter what the situation is and that God would give me strength to do whatever is sent my way. Also pray for both of us as deployment is quickly upon us. With Chris only being graduated a good 8 months and us being married right about 7. That He would give us an awesome two months left together and start preparing us for this next journey that we never imagined would be upon us so quickly. We knew the day would come, but not quite this soon. Pray that God will give Christopher a peace and myself for us to both be strong. To pray that God will prepare us to deal with the next year of being apart. God is faithful, and I am so thankful his mercies are new every morning.

My life verse, that I am clinging to..."Trust in the LORD, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the LORD, and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD; trust in Him, and He will act." -Psalm 37:3-5

We love you all and would appreciate your prayers!!!

Christopher and Courtney

Ah! I thought I was catching up, but October is almost over!!!

So, just as the title states...I thought I was catching up. But I am posting October almost as a whole on the 30th! Every time I update this blog with what has been happening and with pictures I have taken - I realize how much fun Christopher and I have and all the places I have already been just in the past 5 months since we got married. I sit back and cannot imagine what it will be like once we get to Germany! I am so excited.

October has been busy. I actually got a job. I started Monday, October 5th. I got to the point where I could not sit at home anymore. I was going crazy! I never in my life thought that I would want to work. I could not wait to be done with my job back home - looking forward to being a housewife. But I am used to my life being insane, and there is only so much cleaning, and cooking and chasing the dog around the house you can do! :) So the job hunt started. I went all around Lawton putting my resume out and filled out applications to - no lie - about 25 places. I heard back from ONE! I went for the interview, loved the lady and was really happy about it. I work in the mall here in Lawton at a kiosk. Christopher really didn't want me to take it, he really doesn't like me working at the mall and also he thinks it's beneath me. But it's ok. It was funny because when I went for the interview, I had already sent her a copy of my resume and she asked me why in the world I wanted this job. Because I was clearly overqualified. I really love the lady I work for. She is another Army wife who is selling kids things. I work Monday through Friday from 10-3. I was very limited to what I could do being that we only have one car. It has worked out very nice. I can still get Chris to work in plenty of time and get to work myself. And I am usually always off before he is. The lady is very pleasant, laid back and lots of fun which makes my job that much more enjoyable. It was also good because she only has the kiosk through the holidays. So I didn't have to worry about trying to find someone who would only use me for 3 months. The job has been very boring. October supposively is a very slow month, which I have definitely experienced. So basically I just sit all day and search the internet. :) Which to most you would think would be the "ideal" job, but for 5 straight hours, my eyes hurt! But we are just waiting for the holiday crowd. And hoping it will get busy.
This is just a random picture of Mayva I took. She was trying to learn how to cook Colombian food. :)

Another random of the Naughty Mayva Jade. She likes to crawl in the bottom of my dirty clothes thing. Well she ran out when I called her but her collar got stuck. She pulled the whole thing over and couldn't go anywhere. She's a MESS!

On Saturday, October 3rd we took Mayva to the park. The poor dog has nowhere to run. She is always stuck in our little apartment. So we have a really nice park right up the road that we took her to and threw the ball and let her run around until she wouldn't anymore! :)

Mayva Jade and her father playing ball. Christopher thought that dogs were supposed to come out knowing how to catch a ball. But he quickly learned they have to be taught. He hates it when she doesn't catch it. But she's learning! :)

Being crazy with her daddy!

That night we went to dinner at Chili's with two other couples that their husbands are in Christopher's BOLCIII class. We are always looking for something to do in Lawton and Christopher had seen an ad for wrestling. So, we went to check it out. It was interesting to say the least. But so funny at the same time because the people there were SO serious about it. I have to say that while one of the wrestling matches was going on - I had flashbacks of me and my brother back in the day. TJ used to LOVE wrestling and he would always try the moves on me. They did one move and I told Christopher - my brother used to do that to me all the time. It made me smile. Good times.

The hubs and I waiting for the wrestling match to start.

One of the wrestlers. He lost. ha

The other wrestler. SCARY!!!!! This guy scared me!

The match taking place.

This is after one day I came home from work a mess that I found from Mayva. Before she was potty trained we had to block off the cage and not give her all of it so we put boxes to block off enough space for her. Well she found a shoe box and destroyed the tissue paper in it and the shoes laces. NAUGHTY!!! :) She was dancing around in the picture because she was scared - she knew she was bad.

On Saturday, October 10th we decided we finally just needed to get out of Lawton for a little while. We went to Oklahoma City and went to Bricktown. It was an absolutely gorgeous day - cold - but beautiful! It only takes about an hour and 15 minutes to drive from Lawton. Not bad at all. It was so nice to be in a "bigger" city! :) We immediately had lunch when we got there because it was later about 2 or so. We ate at a Mexican restaurant. It was so yummy! Best Mexican we've had in a while. We walked around Bricktown a few times. There was a Bass Pro Shop and Christopher has not stopped talking about one since we got Mayva, and how he wanted to get her a duck to teach her to duck hunt. He doesn't hunt, and we didn't end up getting her the duck. :) But I did get a North Face jacket! :) We even got military discount on it - which was super nice. Being from Florida I don't have much winter wear. I did accumulate a lot going up to West Point but I don't have a good jacket. So now Christopher and I both have a North Face. It is super windy here and it's getting colder. Plus we will certainly need one in Germany because it is already snowing there. While we were walking around Bricktown I spotted a Marble Slab!!! Even though it was freezing cold outside - we went an ate ice cream anyways. Made me miss home! I got to do a little shopping in some of the shops around Bricktown, which made me super happy. I bought a dress at this store that we do not have in Jacksonville. We ended up eating dinner at a place called Spaghetti House - it was Italian. Super yummy, but we weren't too hungry, I felt like all we did all day was eat! :) We then went to this piano lounge place. And just relaxed. It was such a nice time. And it was just me and Christopher. It was so nice to finally get away and just spend some much needed quality time together away from all his field artillery school. We had a blast.

This is where you can take a little boat ride around Bricktown.

Entering Bricktown.

Chelino's - the Mexican restaurant where we ate lunch.

So funny story. When we first were walking around - we heard this countdown by this man's voice. It caught us off guard at first. He was counting down...10, 9, 8, 7...and so on. So we kind of stood there waiting for something to happen. We weren't really sure what to expect. Ha. Well then it would start all over. Come to find out it's the walking signs ha. And it counts down letting you know how long you have to cross the street. May not be funny, you might have had to be there, but we don't have things like that in Jacksonville. So we were like what in the world is happening...at first! :) So of course I had to take a picture. It makes me laugh.

Christopher with the UPS buffalo.

He made me get my picture taken too! :)

Haha. Christopher in front of the baseball stadium pretending he is about to get hit.

Walking around Bricktown.

On Monday, October 12th Christopher had off from work for Columbus Day but I had to work. He actually stayed at home with Mayva. :) I kept texting him to make sure he had taken her out and to make sure he was paying attention to her and wasn't destroying everything. He would just tell me he had no idea where she was! I was super bummed that I didn't have the day off with him! One of the downfalls to me working. But I get off at 3 so I got to spend the rest of the afternoon with him. I had planned on going home to cook us dinner. When I got home and started walking up the stairs, I smelled food. It smelled so wonderful. But I just figured it was from Christopher cooking himself some lunch. But the smell was way too great. Little did I know, he had cooked CHILI for us for dinner!!! And cleaned up the house! All while I was gone! :) It was such a nice surprise. Now Christopher has never cooked a day in his life. I might have mentioned before that he used to not be able to toast a piece of toast. But he helps me every once in a while. And he is really good at it. I was a little nervous, not going to lie, to eat the chili just because it was his first meal he ever cooked alone - much less meat! :) But I was starving when I got home so we ate it because it was ready. It was DELICIOUS! I was SO proud! :) AND he cleaned up the kitchen and all the dishes. Which made it even better. I wondered if he left a mess, he said he thought about it, but he didn't! :) He is such an awesome hubby!!!

Putting the final touches on our chili so we could eat.

His yummy pot of chili.

Uumm...so Mayva destroyed a dollar while I was gone. She's always taking our money. This time she actually took it and ate it.

The final product. My chili!

The cook of this entire meal all by himself! I am so proud!!!

Then he had to do homework. Back to reality. His life...ALL the time!

Mayva got put in her bed because she was being naughty and trying to mess up his homework...surprise! surprise! :)

This is just one afternoon Christopher had come home from work. He and Mayva play rough. We were scared that she was going to be the runt of the litter because she was the only one left. You should see how strong this dog is and how mean she plays for a girl puppy! Her growl sounds like she is going to kill you! These two roll around all over the floor. I love it.

Mayva thinks she is a cat! She likes to walk on the back of the couches. :) I had to get a a picture of it. Because she's not small! :)

On Sunday, October 18th (the month and day I had waited for since we left Jacksonville) my brother and Mindy and her sister, Lacey came to visit us in Lawton!!!!!!!!!! :) They actually flew into Dallas on Wednesday night and went to see her family and best friend for a few days. They went back to Dallas for the OU/Texas game. And on Sunday drove out to visit us. I was SOOOOO excited. It was SO good to finally see some of my family since JUNE! They came in about lunch time, we took them to a place called Luigi's here that has pizza and gyro's. We came back to our place for a while and they brought out guitar hero (TJ now knows what he wants for Christmas). Christopher had been working on homework since super early that morning, stopped long enough to go to lunch and continued until about 5 or so. He had a JCATS presentation he had to give on Monday. After he was finished we took them on post to see what it looks like, where Christopher goes every day, what housing looks like and of course the beautiful scenery!!! I was so excited that at least a part of my family got to see where we are and what Christopher is doing out here. They thought it was absolutely amazing. We then took them to the Wildlife Refuge. I was a little nervous, because last time we took our friends out there - we saw nothing. We were SO excited because they got to see so much! There were so many buffalo and for the first time for us some baby buffalo, longhorn, we actually saw elk for the first time too! They got tons of pictures - even got out of the car and less than two feet away from these animals. They thought it was so cool! After we finally got done it was pretty late and we were all starving. Lacey, Mindy's sister lives in Oklahoma City. She has a best friend that lives here in Lawton that she comes to see quite often. She actually took us to this Mexican restaurant we haven't tried yet. It was pretty good! We had such a good time. I am so sad that we only had a day. They spent the night with us on Sunday night and didn't have to fly out until late on Monday, but I had to work. So they left Monday morning. I felt bad beacuse we haven't really had anyone stay with us yet. We had nothing for them to sleep on, we had to borrow a blow up mattress from our neighbor, and I had no extra sheets. I did have an extra blanket. Clearly I need to do some shopping for visitors! :) I am so thankful they came to see us. It was a lot out of their way. But I am glad they also got to see our place and our puppy before she is too big. We had an amazing time. I wish the rest of my family could come out here!!!

TJ and Mindy playing guitar hero! :)

More guitar hero. They had so much fun.

Bub with his upside down Longhorn with the Longhorn. They don't like Texas! :)

Mindy too.
Bub and Mindy with the buffalo.

Finally we had people to take pictures of us! :) Christopher and I with the buffalo.

Bub and I with the buffalo.

Bub with the buffalo that was on the side of the road. He was super close and the buffalo was looking at him out of the corner of his eye. Every time someone got out of the car to have their picture made, we were so scared when they were that close that they would charge ha. So Christopher made the "spoiler rule" that we would just take off and to grab on to the spoiler and hold on tight! :) We didn't have to do that, thankfully! :)

Bub, Mindy, Mayva and I trying to take a picture. It's a little blurry, Mayva is too quick! :) So thankful I was able to see them!

On Wednesday, Ocotber 21st Christopher went and finally got his medical screening done for Germany. He had to get a typhoid shot. When I picked him up from work, he didn't look good. He was cold and shivering and just didn't feel well at all. This is him curled up on the couch with his sweats with Mayva Jade. She knew daddy didn't feel well! :( She was trying to cuddle with him and make him feel better. He ended up sleeping until 8 when I woke up him because he had to do his homework! :(

I have a few more things in October, but I will post this for now.

All other pictures are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/chris.n.court.carnes

Love you all,

Christopher and Courtney

September as a whole.

So, I think I have mentioned this already. But Mayva, the naughty puppy monster, chewed my computer cord. Not in one spot, but in three. So I have not had a computer in almost two months. My most awesome sister in law bought me one off ebay (being that she had already had this experience several times) but it never came. The guy sent it to California. I'm certainly not there, I'm in Lawton, Oklahoma. Long story short about a month later...I FINALLY received my computer cord. I am trying to update quickly and as short as possible - being that I have a horrible memory I forget what has happened. Hopefully now, once I am all updated I will post more often.

I feel like September came and went. It flew by. I have posted based on pictures because if it was eventful enough I took pictures. Therefore I will remind myself what happened based on the pictures that I took. :) Just a picture of the hubby and our puppy girl relaxing after he got home from work. She is a SUCKER for her belly scratched! :)

We have waited for September since we got to Oklahoma. While at Christopher's graduation, everyone made plans to have a BBQ over Labor Day because there would be a bunch of Chris' buddies from West Point here. Finally, Labor Day came. Sarrah came a few days early and her husband was in the field so she hung out with me. It was awesome because she kept me company. We had a BLAST together - to say the least. She is the funniest thing ever. We did a lot of laughing, to the point of almost wetting our pants a few times, and it was so good to have someone around. I haven't laughed that hard and so much in a long time! :)


On Friday night, September 4th she finally got to see her husband and we all went to Kobe, a Japanese restaurant, for dinner and then went and played miniature golf. Christopher won, and I'm pretty sure Kyle and I tied for second. Sarrah would just hit the ball so many times until she just called it 5 on each hole. :) Then we went to Braum's - an ice cream place here and went back to the house to play guitar hero.

Sarrah and I chilling watching the husbands play guitar hero. I miss her SO much and wish we were going to live closer to each other. Maybe one day. The Army is smaller than you think.

Kyle and Christopher tag-teaming on guitar hero. Christopher strumming while Kyle pressed the keys on hard. They made a pretty good team! :)

On Saturday, September 5th we went to the commissary and had lunch at Church's Chicken. Please believe they have the BEST fried chicken, fried okra, mashed potatoes and gravy and BISCUITS in the world. It's fast food...and WAY better than Popeye's, which I never thought was possible. It was the first Gator game of the season. So, after lunch we went home to watch the game. Christopher and I had to sport our Gator wear out in Oklahoma! :)

Christopher and I before lunch sporting the Gator wear in Oklahoma. Have to REPRESENT! :)

Kyle and Sarrah being good sports and chilling with us while we watched the football game that they could have cared less about! :) Great friends. We had Buffalo Wild Wings at the house for dinner and just hung out. Fun times. And let me not forget we went to the pet store and Kyle had to buy Mayva some toys. He bought her 5 or more. He loved Mayva, and Mayva loved him. He played with her EVERY time he came to the house for the entire time that he was there. She fell in love and misses him very much.

Mayva with her tongue toy that Uncle Kyle bought for her! :) Funny stuff!

On Sunday, September 6th Christopher actually got up with Mayva and let me sleep. It was AMAZING! And the FIRST time since we've had her. I normally don't mind. But it was so nice to sleep in. I was exhausted. So much so I woke up and found myself drooling! And I also woke up to the smell of something. I was scared. Christopher does not know how to cook worth anything. But somehow he figured it out on his own. And he made us breakfast!!! :) It put the biggest smile on my face. And it was amazing.

The chef himself. :)

The breakfast he made us. Strawberries. Jalapeno cheese. And bacon, egg and cheese sandwich on a bagel. Yum! :)

After breakfast I cleaned the house while Christopher went out hunting for bookshelves. He bought two to put in our upstairs bedroom for all of the books that we have. (side note: Christopher kept EVERY book he was ever issued at West Point! Mom, you thought I was a pack rat...I have met my match and worse. You should see the stuff this boy doesn't want to get rid of! - another reason why we are meant for each other - we are sentimental people) Kyle came over and helped him put the bookshelves together while Sarrah and I made our food for the BBQ. Brian's parents hosted the BBQ at their house. We ate, went swimming and just hung out with a bunch of Chris' buddies and their wives and girlfriends from West Point. It was a blast and so much fun to be with everyone again. I should have taken a picture of our dishes but I made my first dish as a wife to take to a dinner. I was proud. I made texas potatoes and Sarrah made green bean casserole and she doesn't normally cook. They both came out wonderful if I do say so myself! :)

Me and my puppy girl on the way to the BBQ.

The hubs and I chilling outside with our puppy!

Everyone at the BBQ. Such a fun time!!!

Christopher with Kyle and James. Miss these boys!

My BEAUTIFUL puppy girl laying in the grass. She doesn't have a yard. She was loving LIFE! :)

So I was an awesome mother and had Mayva's bag packed for while we were gone. I brought her a tupperware bowl so she could have some water. She LOVES flipping the bowls over. So, every time I filled it up she would dump it completely over. So Mr. Rulison was so concerned she get some water that he gave her this big aluminum foil pan! :) But she had to crawl and step in it. She is CRAZY! :)

First time in a pool and second time in the water. She LOVED IT! Swimming with Daddy!

Taking a break on the side of the pool with Mommy. She jumped right back in.

My super handsome hubby and I. Taking a break from the puppy monster in the pool.

Another one of Mayva's best friends, Drew. He loves her so much! :)

On Monday, September 7th, we went to lunch at Meers. It was quite a ridiculous wait. But the food was good regardless. After lunch we were driving headed towards the refuge with Kyle, Sarrah and James and we stumbled upon this place called the Holy City. We stopped. We walked around and took some pictures, but it seemed like a pretty creepy place.

CJC and I in front of the Holy City.

Sarrah, Christopher and Kyle. Great friends.

Christopher had off Tuesday, September 8th. I had to take Sarrah to the airport. She didn't want to leave and I didn't want her to. We had a nice relaxing day before Christopher had to go back to work.

The pictures from below are from Saturday, September 12th. We had a rain storm, it rained ALL WEEKEND LONG!!! And didn't stop. Let's just say Lawton has the WORST drainage system EVER! It flooded in front of our apartment complex. Almost to the point of coming inside people's doors. It was AWFUL! At one point we were so stir crazy, Mayva needed to go potty and Christopher took her out and let her go. She had a BLAST in the lake in front of our house. And it was great entertainment for us! :)

The pond in front of our door. At one point it was over the sidewalk.

Mayva taking off from our front door to Christopher. It didn't take her long. He called her name and she took off running.

This picture is kind of blurry, but she was running around too fast. She was having SO much fun! :)

Christopher and Mayva playing in the rain.

Playing with Daddy.

Running back to come inside.

Her lovely father let her inside SOPPING WET! :)

Ever since we got Mayva, she has ALWAYS tried to get more than one toy in her mouth. Sometimes she succeeded, others she didn't. But now that she is getting bigger, her mouth is bigger, so she has NO problem fitting more than one thing in her mouth. She usually always has to have two at a time. Below are just a few pictures of her.

She's saying "look mom, I have two toys in my mouth" :)

and again. :)

I had to take this picture because number one, look how big she is! When she was a puppy, she just sat in the little corner. And number two, because it isn't often when Mayva is sleeping and quiet! :) This is when I love her most. :)

September was a lot of firsts for Mayva and one big one for us. Mayva lost her first puppy tooth. And since, has lost a lot more. She also learned how to jump on our bed by herself. Which was HUGE! She kind of did it on accident, and when it happened, she didn't even really know what had happened. There are pictures below of all these different events. And we had our first experience of tarantulas. There are also pictures below.

Terrible attempt at me trying to get pictures of Mayva's first tooth lost on Monday, September 14th.

Lesson learned: don't leave the toilet paper where Mayva can get it. She will destroy it! :)

Thursday, September 17th was my first look at a real, live tarantula. They are very big and disgusting!

Our neighbor trying to put it in the cup.

Its legs were bigger than the bottom of the cup!

It got away. What it looks like on concrete.

JP trying to throw it over the fence. We got rid of it. We have since seen two more.

Christopher's buddies, Kyle and James came by to say goodbye the night before they left.

Rare occassion when Mayva lays on her pillow while we eat dinner. I had to take a picture! :)

Mayva likes to sit on the couch in her daddy's room. She sits and waits for him sometimes. :)

Everyone always told me eventually Mayva would go in her bed by herself and sleep. I kept thinking YEAH RIGHT. This was one of the first times she did! :) Christopher hates it when she does this. He tells her "Mayva, you have a comfortable couch - get out of there!" :)

This was right after she jumped on the bed for the first time. She didn't even really know what had happened. :) This happened on Saturday, September 19th.

Mayva got into my eyeshadow. It was gold. Needless to say she was VERY glittery for a while. NAUGHTY PUPPY!!!

On Sunday, September 20th at the pet store where we get most of Mayva's stuff they had a photographer. So after church we took Mayva to get her picture taken. It was kind of ridiculous and we waited almost two hours. But she was such a good girl. There were a bunch of other dogs and mean ones, so we put her in the cart to keep her safe. :)

Cute puppy, waiting to get her picture taken.

Probably wanting to get out.

I had to take this picture, because I had called Mayva for a while. She just discovered on this day that she could crawl under the bed. Well, she THOUGHT she was hiding from me. But she wasn't. I walked in my room after she didn't come to me for a while and saw a black nose sticking out the bed skirt. My puppy girl is ridiculous!!! But she makes me laugh so much.

On Monday, September 21st I had asked Christopher what he wanted for dinner. He told me arepas. So, arepas it was. He actually helped me make them and they turned out AMAZING!!!!! We can't find any harina out here. We used the one bag and hopefully my mom will be sending us much more super soon.

Me rolling.

Christopher frying. Don't they look amazing.

He actually helped me cook! And did a GREAT job! :) I am teaching him. Slowly, but surely. He can probably make these by himself now. ALMOST.

Mayva was actually being a super good puppy girl FOR ONCE. Letting us cook. ;)

Finally, that's about it for September. Not too much else happened. As always, more pictures are on our web site. http://picasaweb.google.com/chris.n.court.carnes

Love,

Christopher and Courtney