Did ya miss me?

This is what has happened since February 1, 2013:

- Jeremy left for Basic Training at Fort Jackson. He was in Fort Jackson for 10 weeks; I received a total of three short phone calls from him while he was gone. We wrote each other letters every single day. I learned a lot while Jeremy was gone: that dishes don't magically wash themselves, how long I can actually go without doing laundry (2 weeks), that dogs are truly angels on earth, that no matter how much you try to prepare to be an Army wife... you'll never be prepared, and that I can handle a heck of lot more than I ever thought possible.

- Bella's pancreas tried to kill her. Bella actually started getting sick before Jeremy left for basic training. We took her to the vet, they diagnosed her with Acute Pancreatitis. So she was hospitalized for two days. We thought that was the end of it. However even after the hospitalization she was still having some weird eating, drinking and *ahem* bathroom problems. So the week before Jeremy left he ended up taking care of sweet baby Bella instead of all of the activities he had planned for his farewell from Maryland and DC. We weren't discouraged; we figured it would be all worthwhile because Bella would be all better before Jeremy actually left. For a couple of days she was great, then the day Jeremy left she got sick again. We both played it down, but I think we both knew it was serious. Very long story short, Bella went back to the vet 5 different times in February alone, one of which I had a nervous breakdown in front of the vet (not my finest hour). She lost over 10 lbs and was losing a ton of hair. On vet trip 4 we did a ultra-sound which showed nothing. On vet visit number 5 the vet decided that we needed to do exploratory surgery to check Bella's pancreases, stomach, and intestines and to look for cancer. So Bella got the exploratory surgery, and they found nothing. At this point I was pretty much running on no sleep and pure, stress; the vet finally said well let's try steroids and a special diet. And bing-go-bang-go Bella was good as new after about 2 weeks. To date the vet isn't really sure what went wrong with Bella, was it residual problems from her pancreatitis, was it the dog food, or was it stress from having her daddy gone? Who knows. To date Bella has gained back all of her weight and is healthy has ever. She is off the steroids and is slowly being moved off the prescription dog food.

- I sold my beufitul Jeep Libery. It was a sad day but we have saved a lot of money on payments, gas, maintance and insurance becoming a one car family.

- Jeremy graduated Basic Training. After going through everything with Bella there was no way I was going to leave the dogs at home; so they traveled with me to Fort Jackson, SC. Jeremy's parents were also able to make the trip. I thought I was going to cry like a baby when I saw Jeremy, but instead I was more in a silent kind of awe. He is such a good man and to see him in uniform just solidified how proud I was of him.

- We celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary eating steak in a park. Jeremy's graduation landed right on the weekend of our wedding anniversary. After he graduated I was able to drive him to Ft Lee for his AIT. We had one night of being a normal family and then we checked Jeremy in at Ft Lee. We then learned that Jeremy couldn't leave post the rest of that day. So we hung around and decided that it would probably be best that I just go home, even if that meant we would have to spend our anniversary apart. There were a lot of tears, but we sucked it up and parted ways. Then we learned our first lesson on how the Army can change in a moment’s notice, and sometimes if you're lucky to our advantage. Jeremy was granted a off post pass the next day for our anniversary. We of course had the two dogs with us (they were ecstatic to have Dad back again) so we went for a hike and then needed a creative way to have an anniversary dinner with the dogs and not in a hotel room. Thank goodness for Texas Roadhouse take-out. We had a lovely diner in a park straight out of the take-out containers; and you know what it was probably the best anniversary dinner we've ever had.

- Everything broke: Cabinent doors, closet doors, DVD Players, AC units, Showers, Toliets, headlight, kitchen lights, even Buddy the Subaru Forester tried to stop working. With a little enquinity, google.com, my brother, my dad and my local subaru dealership everything got fixed.

- We learned that the Army can change at a moment’s notice, and sometimes it is to our disadvantage. Upon arriving to Ft Lee Jeremy learned that he wasn't actually in his training school, he was in the selection process for this training school and that only 15% of the people get selected. Long story short he didn't pass the test to be selected and we were stuck in limbo. He had to be given a new MOS (or job). The Army calls this process reclassification, pretty much soldiers are volun-told a new job by the Army. The process usually takes about 2-4 weeks. In our case it took 13 weeks; which is a long time to be apart due to paperwork. I was able to make one trip down to see Jeremy without the dogs and one trip to see Jeremy with the dogs while he was at Ft Lee waiting to be reclassed. It was stressful to not have control over our next steps were going to be and when they were going to happen; BUT it taught us both a lot about how the Army operates and being patient and positive. Jeremy now has a great, new MOS and will be at Ft Sill for about 10 weeks. After that we will finally get to live together again after over a half of a year.

Congratulations, you've made it to the end of the longest post ever! Thank you if you have read this far. I will try to update this blog more moving forward.