Its Official

I love the part in "The Incredibles" where Helen calls Bob at work to let him know they are officially moved in after three years because she finally unpacked the last box. Well, as of yesterday, we are officially moved in, and it only took us three months! It was the box of pictures, decor, etc. so we also finally hung a few things on our bare white walls. It looks so much better!

Also, in the middle of the box we found the cord that lets us download pictures from our camera. No idea why it was there, but we can finally post pictures again!!

Damon loves to wear his daddy's shoes

This is Damon and "meme." The baby is wearing some of Damon's old clothes which fit surprisingly well.

Damon pulled the lampshade off the lamp in his room and wore it all day long. He's pretty proud of himself.

In addition to shoes, Damon also loves hats and gloves.

I forgot to flip this one, and I'm too lazy to fix it now. This is Joel playing guitar with a bit of help from Damon. Damon's cousin Joey is dancing to the music.

In the Army Now

So it's completely official: I'm in the Army. Not Julie, Joel. On Thursday night my recruiter took me down and dropped me at a hotel. On Friday morning I went to the MEPS, which is the Military Entrance Processing Station, and had a full physical and then after hours of waiting I did all my paper work, took the oath to defend all enemies, foreign and domestic and then I signed my contract. So it's official. I'm going to ship out on April 14th and will do my basic training at Fort Knox, Kentucky and then Advanced Individual Training (AIT) at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. I'll be gone about 4 1/2 months. When I get back I'll be attached to the 405 CA BN in Pleasant Grove where I'll serve for one weekend a month, two weeks a year for the next six years. I'll be a human resources Specialist (that's an E-4 rank which is better than starting as a private, thank you college education) I'll be getting the Montgomery GI Bill, the GI Bill kicker, which is an extra $350 bucks each month while I'm a full time student, and up to $20,000 student loan reimbursement. I got all of that in my contract. Did I mention a $20,000 signing bonus?
I think I just want to take a minute to explain why I decided to do this. All the bonus money and tuition benefits are a big part of it. I do intend to go back to school so I plan on taking advantage of all the tuition help. The extra paycheck every month will also be helpful. But money isn't the only reason that I'm doing this. As my very wise brother-in-law DJ told me once there are other ways to get extra money to support my family with (No, he wasn't suggesting that I hire myself out as a hitman). Needing extra money is one of the reasons that I joined but not the only reason. One reason is the job training. For a long time I've been really frustrated that the only thing I have to put on my resume is janitorial experience. The few times I've interviewed for other jobs it's painfully clear that I don't have any experience. Even though I can learn a new job really quickly (at least I like to think so) it doesn't matter and I can't get a better job. With the Army I get to keep the job I have, and all its benefits while at the same time I get trained in another (better) job and I get work experience. So that's cool for me. Another reason is that when I go back to school I'll be getting a Masters in Public Administration. One of the emphases of this major is Human Resources Managment. There's also Local government and Non-profit organizations. So I figure some work experience in one of these areas won't hurt me at all. Plus if it turns out that I hate human resources (I really doubt that it will be worse than scrubbing toilets) I can always focus on something else is school, right?
The last reasons for choosing to enlist in the Army Reserve is that I've always felt patriotic but never done anything extremely patriotic so I figure serving my country is a good way of saying thank you America for being so awesome. Also, my Dad was in the Marines, his dad was a Marine and mom's Dad was in the Navy and my brother is in the Army now, serving in Iraq. Would it sound stupid to say that I respect them for their service and want to be like them?
Anyway, those are the reasons that I'm joining the Army Reserve. Sorry this was such a long post. I guess if you're interested in our family enough to read this whole thing then you're a really good friend or faithful family.

PS I've been told that the 405th will be deploying in a few months so by the time I get done with all my training I'll have missed them and be part of the rear attachment. Then it will be another 5 years or so before they get deployed again. (No promises on that of course but it sounds pretty good.)

Babies

The last few times Damon has seen his 3 1/2 month old cousin Chloe, he has been so excited. He wants to hold and hug her, then he touches her face and gets a big grin on his. I've been impressed with how soft he is to her (especially since no matter what we do, I don't think he knows how to be soft to anyone else).

Anyway, I figured since he's just starting to show interest in babies, maybe we could do a little big brother training. Yesterday I dug out a life-like baby doll from under my bed and let Damon hold it. Within 5 minutes, he was saying baby (sounds like meme) and signing it too. He is not quite as soft to plastic baby. He likes to poke his eyes and carry him around. He also sets him on the exercise ball and tries to bounce him like we do for him, but the baby just falls on its head. Oh well, so much for training. But it sure is cute to hear him say baby!

In other news, Joel is being taken to Salt Lake tonight for a full day of physicals tomorrow (sounds fun, right?). If he passes, he will sign papers, be sworn in, and get ready to go to Kentucky on April 14th. I'll have him let you all know how it goes when he gets back.

Baby signs (Attempt #2)

I did it again: I typed in a title and then pushed enter. Go ahead and mock. Whatever. Now I will go ahead with the post that I was going to write. Baby Signs.
Julie has been teaching Damon baby signs for quite a while now. Occasionally I try to help too, but it's mostly Julie. Yesterday in church Damon really showed off for daddy. We pulled out a book and Damon immediately started making the sign for fish. So we opened the book to that page he smiled and signed it again. Then as I started flipping through the pages he kept signing one or two of the things on each page. He can sign: fish, hat, bird, duck, water, milk, cat, more, daddy, banana and ball. He also has sounds associated with trains, dogs, cows and sheep. Last Friday he was babysat at a family's house where they have a little two year old girl. She must had spent all day telling Damon to "stop it!" because he came home like a little parrot saying "stop it! stop it! Damon stop it!" We're really proud of our little boy.

Baby Signs

We're back!

So we're finally updating the blog. We haven't written since October. I realize that makes us pretty bad bloggers. Sorry about that. But the good news is that we just got the internet in our new house so it'll be a lot easier to stay up-to-date. Here's news since last we posted:
1) Our new house. We moved in back in November after a few weeks of living in limbo and not having a clue as to what was going on. They kept telling us to work hard and we could get in sooner but when we finally finished we had to sit around for a couple of weeks just waiting for contractors to finish up their jobs. But we're in and we love it! Damon loves the space and likes to run around the house back and forth. One of his favorite games is hide and seek where we'll hide around corners and he'll come looking for us. He tries to do it too but mostly just takes a few steps away and then comes running back like he just found us. Moving into the house went pretty quick thanks to Julie's family and my family coming down to help. It took about 4 trips in Julie's parents' 15 passenger van. And while I was taking trips back and forth with my Dad, brother and brother-in-law Julie was at our old apartment with her mother and some of her sisters cleaning up. What saints! We really appreciated their help. It didn't take us long to get all settled into the house except we still need to hang pictures and things up on the walls. Eventually we'll paint and stuff. We also have a fence going all around our back yard which makes our yard seem really big and we're trying to figure out where we want to put the garden.

2) My play. It's over. It was pretty good. I think it could have been better. I think there was still a lot of improving that I could have done as a writer and maybe someday I'll revisit the script but for now I'm just glad it's over. Don't get me wrong, it was a great experience and really cool to hear audience people laugh at jokes I wrote and see something I made up on stage but I think I still have a long way to go as a writer.

3) The baby. We're having another baby! Julie is pregnant and due at the end of July. We don't know if it's a boy or a girl yet but either way we're ready with names. If its a girl her name will be Emma Ray Bree. We've always liked that name and it's on the top of our long girl-name list. If it's a boy his name will be Riley Stephen Bree. We went back and forth for a long time on boy names and could never agree on one we both liked. Then one night I had a dream where we had had the baby, it was a boy and we named him Riley. I told Julie and she liked the name. So I think it was probably Riley coming to me in my sleep to make sure that I got his name right. But boy or girl we're really excited to welcome another little soul into this Bree clan.

4) Damon is still the cutest thing in the world. He likes to Dance when there's music on. He likes to talk on the phone, or rather hold it and smile really big. He's also become a pro at speed-dialing Julie's sisters. He absolutely loves to climb on stuff. If we're not careful we'll find him standing in the middle of the kitchen table just smiling away. He also has a little step stool he likes to climb up (it's like 8 inches off the ground) and then he just stands there with his arms raised up waiting for one of us to pick him up. In association with his climbing he's discovered a stepping system to get to the top of the couch. First his little rocking chair, then the end table, then the couch. And from there he tumbles down to the floor, laughs and starts back up again. He prefers to do this when someone is on the couch to tumble down onto but he'll still have fun if no one is there. Other exciting skills: He can blow kisses before bed, he knows the sign for "Daddy" and (according to Julie) asks about me all day when I'm at work and he can read books. Actually he likes to hold them open to a page and babble as if he's reading the story to us. It's really cute.

5)We could update you on what our Christmas and Thanksgiving we're like but it seems weird to do talk about those things in February. Plus this blog is probably too long anway.

6) Lastly, it looks like I'm going to join the United States Army Reserve. More on that as the story develops.

We love you all and we're glad to be back. Hope you're all well.