New Additions!

New additions to my life, that is. And no, I'm not referring to babies, so get your mind out of la-la land :)

This past week has had a lot of new additions for us! Last weekend Brian and I trekked over to Starkville because Clay PROPOSED! And is now ENGAGED! Lindsay said yes-whew ;) AC and I hosted the after-party at her house and we had such a great time catching up and doing what we do best: entertaining, "cooking", and laughing a lot! We got to see a lot of people including Emily, who drove in from Clemson, Erin, the brothers, Paige, and a lot of old friends! We even had time to visit my the Sherrards and their precious boys, which meant playing various games of baseball/tennis/soccer/football/trains. So addition #1: New sister-in-law! I have to admit it is sort of strange to think my little brother is getting married; I think most older siblings (or at least big sisters...) can agree that while it is totally fine for me to grow up, my little brother and sister must remain as I remember them...always living at home, cute as a button (they still are :), and not becoming adults! It is so weird to watch/experience...it still surprises me every time either Clay or Emily moves into adulthood a little more; it's like I don't expect it to happen, even though I was doing the same things at their age!
Pictures of the entire engagement night are on Facebook!

Onto new addition #2: Brian started Stryker Leader Course this week! A Stryker is a troop vehicle that is sort of like a tank on tires instead of tracks. Brian could potentially be in a unit one day that uses these, so we're glad he's getting the training! He's out on the range today learning how to manuever and direct them as well as use their firepower...something he loves doing.

Addition #3 to my life: I started my stint as a substitute teacher this past Friday. There is no high school on post, so my only options are either the one middle school or six or seven elementary schools. Take a guess at which one called me first...the elementary school. Now, I love darling, precious, small children. But I cannot, I repeat cannot, teach/manage/spend 8 hours with them continously. If they were my own children, I think I'd be ok. But I'm never going to have 23 children all of the same age at the same time...Let me just recap the day for you and show you exactly why I am not cut out to be an elementary school teacher--they have just become my heroes.
I got there around 8 (school starts at 8:45!) and got into my cute 1st grade classroom and read the super-detailed notes the teacher left me. (Which I totally appreciated). I quickly texted Lydia, one of my best friends from high school who teaches 4th grade, and frantically asked her what a number sentence was...yes, I had a brain failure...I remembered a few minutes later it was things such as 2 +3 =5... The teacher's outline was broken down to the minute, such as this example: 11:23, line up for lunch. Have "teacher's assistant" (a student) pass out lunch boxes. Have the "hand sanitizer" (a student) give everyone some Germ-x. 11:28-walk students to cafeteria.

One awesome thing: they have lunchroom supervisory staff, so I got to eat in my classroom! No teacher's table for me!

The kids started off behaving pretty well, but let's be honest--I'm a sub, there are 23 of them, and 4 of them I can already tell I have no patience for...At the end of the day, I think I had 5 different students cry (all for pretty random, unseen reasons, such as "my leg hurts right here...") and one of those students was a repeat offender. I had a boy get stuck in the bathroom (the door doesn't lock, but it does stick a little), twice...I also had a few "injuries" that I just told the kids to put a wet paper towel on, one girl told me she felt like throwing up (?!?!), and the class was overall pretty rowdy...I learned this lesson for about the ump-teenth time: I must be firmer from the start. I struggle with asserting firmness in the beginning of the class because I want the students to know that I care about them and that I'm a generally nice person (unless you have an inability to stay in your seat, as one of the students did...). But, this is a very, very, very fine line to walk. Because if you're too sugary sweet, you lose them--I teetered on this edge on Friday. I also have a very hard time making those kids pull keys...partly because I'm afraid they'll burst into tears and I'll never get them to regain composure. Again, I am not cut out for 1st graders.

I had some serious trouble with a few of them, and it was a little difficult to discipline them because their names were so crazy, I couldn't remember them/pronounce them without some trouble! I of all people should be able to pronounce names...it's not like I have a degree in language with a personal interest in phonetics...Thankfully some of the kids clued me into some of the ways that the teacher gets and keeps their attention...praise the Lord for sweet kids who have mercy on a floundering substitute!

I spent a lot of my day sorting through their folders, making sure I got their homework and lunch money out and putting announcements in them for them to take home. Thankfully my neighboring teacher came to check in on me and I quickly asked her the best classroom management techniques for 1st graders...she simply said to be firm and make them pull a key...it only sort of helped me!

I basically survived the day thanks to encouraging texts from Lydia and Paige, Eric's girlfriend, who has been subbing constantly this semester! While I am going to enjoy this small little sub-paycheck when it hits the bank account, I am constantly being reminded that I am not cut out to be an elementary school teacher! Give me high schoolers with their drama, drugs, pregnancies and love triangles...this is the world that I understand--not the highly-routinized world of 1st graders! They often reminded me that I was not doing it the way the teacher did...sorry, kiddos...the notes weren't that detailed. If they were, it probably would've been 10 pages long!Onto this week...this Friday I have 2nd graders...

Probably the funniest thing of the day happened in the beginning. Only some of you will get this, simply because it's Army-related...so we did the Pledge of Allegiance and the kids informed me that I needed to turn the TV on. So I did. We missed one song, but we made it in time for the last song...it was definitely the Army song, and the kids had motions. They marched in place for the entire song, and during the line "and the Army/goes rolling...along", the kids rolled their arms and they saluted! It was hilarious--it took all self-control to not burst out laughing!

Well, that's the end of my additions for the week! Unrelated to additions, me and 3 of my friends here went to FDR's state park yesterday and went hiking! The park is about 40 minutes away and we had a great time! We took 2 of the girls' dogs and hiked for about 6 miles. The weather was chilly but once you got on the trails it was perfect. The leaves have finally begun to change so it was beautiful to walk through the woods. Pictures to come!

The Best Army Installation in the World !!

So I stole my title from the sign that greets you at one of the entrance gates at Ft. Benning. It exclaims that Ft. Benning is "The Best Army Installation in the World !!"; and yes, with two exclamation points and an inaccurate spacing job...but other than that minor grammatical error, I love it here! We've met some of our neighbors, all who are very nice, and we even made some friends last night! Hooray for friends!

Before I get into Ft. Benning life though I'll update you on the last fews days in Starkville. I managed to fill my last few days in beloved Starkville with all my favorite people at all my favorite places! I got to hang out a lot with the girls, my youth group, and Joey, Kate and the boys. Joseph and I managed to have a lot of fun on our last play date--the good news is, I've found him a reason to come visit-there's a very cute two year old girl who lives below us...maybe she can be his girlfriend :) ha!

The girls helped me visit all of my favorite places before I left town. On my last night, we headed to Bop's for ice cream, and that morning they saw me off after a delicious breakfast at City Bagel! I already miss them so much.


After breakfast with the girls last Thursday, I packed up the rest of the Starkville house and headed home! Here's a picture of the empty living room--it feels weird to know that we'll never go back to this house! The boys lived in it for 3 years before Brian and I got married and it's strange to think it won't always be there for us to come crash in!



The Starkville house--one last time!

My dad and Mr. Page both were in packing industries at one time; Dad worked for U-haul back in his younger days and Mr. Page put in 20 years in the freight industry. Needless to say, I just hauled the boxes...they packed them.

Our living room in Madison-an aerial view. We had furniture/boxes going into the dining room and they were stacked taller than me! No picture can really do it justice!

Packing away! The Pages came over Friday to help us pack up the U-Haul. Thank goodness for parents!

Some how I managed to not take any pictures of us unloading the truck. Probably because it was done in record time! Mom, Dad, Emily, Mr. Page, Mrs. Page, Brian Sells, and two MSU ROTC cadets who are at Ft. Benning in Airborne school came to help unload, so we pretty much had the massive U-haul empty in about an hour! It was awesome. Mom and Mrs. Cindy set up most of the kitchen and dining room while Emily and I worked on the bedrooms/bathrooms/linen closet. By the close of Saturday night, our house was functional!

Here's me and Em on our front porch-306 D!

Brian and I out front of our 1/4 of the building. I think the housing office at Benning must've read my mind...I've been in love with these houses/apartments ever since I saw them at Brian's Airborne graduation back in 2007. They're called the "White Elephants", and are white stucco with Mexican tile roofs. Hello, I fell in love at first sight! I can't believe we actually live here!

This is us--go in the bottom right door, up the stairs, and we inhabit the upper right hand side of the building! Three other families live in this building with us.

The whole 306 building. It's impossible to get into one picture--it's huge!

My neighborhood! We have this fun little half-circle in front of our house where we can park our cars.

There are also tons of tall trees and the landscaping here is also pretty good! There's some sparse-looking areas around, but for the most part the residential areas are full of old trees and crepe myrtles! The weather has been great here too--it's hot (90's and up) but the humidity has been about 0%...praying that sticks around! Another thing I love is that while we're now in Eastern time (still trying to get used to that...), we get sunlight for longer during the day! For example, it's 8:32 PM and we've still got almost an hour of sunlight left! It's awesome. You should visit. :)

Now I can't take you inside yet...still have a lot of cleaning left to do! I have about 3 boxes left to unpack and then I'm off to Swiffering and sweeping the floors! I should have another post up soon about the interior of the house--Brian has some really long days ahead so I'll be looking for something to do! He left this morning around 4 AM and just got back around 7 PM...looong day. But he says it was a good one and not too much happened!

One last note that doesn't really pertain to me...Clay got a dog. A super, duper, duper cute dog that I already miss and that needs to see Aunt Becca as soon as possible. His name is Eli, and he's half lab, half Rottweiler. And he's precious. Blue eyes, all black coat. I think I need one. And as it turns out, the weight limit on dogs for on-post is 100 lbs! That is super great news, considering I love big dogs! But that won't be happening for some time, so meanwhile, enjoy Clay's bundle of cuteness.

Miss you all already--it's weird having to figure out a new town again, but it's been fun so far! If you're bored during the day, feel free to call! I have my first official Army social gathering tomorrow morning--"Newcomers Orientation". Should be exciting. We're pretty sure they're putting us on a bus and giving us a driving tour. A herald back to RoadRunner days...I'll let you know how it goes!