Krystae and Jacob on their first day of the 2011-2012 school year! Krystae was entering 2nd grade and Jacob 1st! 

Way too long....

I can't believe that it has been nearly 4 years since I have posted on here. To be honest with you and myself, I completely forgot that I created a blog! Oops! There have been so many changes in our family over the last several years! So, what I am going to do is give a soap box rendition of what life has been like over the last few years!

While at Ft Irwin, Mat was med boarded out of the Army due to irreparable damage done to his knees. So, we moved home to Oregon where both of our families reside. That was in 2009. Mat became an employee for the Oregon State Police, where he is now the supervisor for the criminal fingerprinting and firearms divisions. I completed my Associates of Science for Medical Assisting in August of 2009, and am now working as a certified Medical Assistant in one of our local Urgent Care centers.

Currently Mat is working on obtaining his bachelors degree in business and I will be starting an LPN program in a couple weeks! Life has gotten crazy for us! As for the kids... Krystae is almost 9 now and Jacob is 7. I have no idea where the time has gone to! School starts next week for the kids! Krystae is entering the 3rd grade and Jacob is heading into 2nd!

I have also become part of an organization called Battling Bare. Right now I am the lone admin for the state of Oregon. The main goal and purpose behind this organization is to bring awareness, resources and support to the families of soldiers that are dealing with PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) and TBI (traumatic brain injury). This is something that is really close to home for us as Mat served 2 tours in Iraq and suffers from PTSD. While it is mild compared to a lot of the stories that I have heard, it has still changed the dynamic of our home.

I think that that catches us up to date at this point in time. I will make it a point to update this more often and get some new photos up of the family! :)

+Our New Home+

Well, we finally made it!!! Ft. Irwin, California is our official new home! We made it into housing relatively fast! We stayed with our sponsor and his wife for a week, then we were into our house (I might add that our sponsor is also my husband's best friend! :) ).

Our new place is incredible! And not only for on base housing, but it is awesome in general!!! We have a stand alone house, which means that we are not connected to ANYONE else! It is our very own house! It is 3 bedrooms, 1 1/2 bath, fenced in back yard, garage, covered patio... and lots of storage space!!!! Our living room is HUGE!!!! There is a separate dining room. I mean it is just incredible! Once I finally find our camera (it is mixed in with all of the boxes... ) I will post some pics. So needless to say, I am LOVING our new base! I have already met most of the wives from the JAG office, they seem really nice! I think that the next 3 years are going to be great!

Also, on a major side note... My little girl started Kindergarten yesterday!!! I can't believe that it is that time already! I am pretty sure that it was just yesterday when the doctor was telling me that I was pregnant with her... yikes! She LOVES her new teacher and really likes the fact that mommy makes her lunch for her to take to school.

We also promised the kids that once we got our new place to live that they could have a puppy... that's right folks... we went to the vet clinic here on base and adopted a puppy. She is an adorable one year old mutt! She is very child friendly. I mean Jacob has yanked on her tail like there is no tomorrow and she has not even shown her teeth, let alone growled at him!

So, once again life is hectic in the Oeder household, but we are getting everything taken care of one day at a time...

~Home Sweet Home~

Ahhhh.... it feels sooooooo good to be back home in Lebanon! It feels so great! It seems that every time that we make it home it is at the beginning of the month. Which is really neither here nor there, except when I go to my home ward. I ALWAYS make it home for fast and testimony Sunday. You never really realize just how much you miss home until you go to your home ward. It is such an incredible feeling to be with the people who have been there with me from the beginning. I LOVE being home!!

I never really realize just how important home is to me until I get here and realize everything that I have missed out on and wish that I could do everyday. The family dinners, the laughs, hugs, the smells and yes, even the rain/hail! I love it all. That is why Friday will be bitter sweet for me. While I love being home, it isn't MY house, with MY things. So, I am kinda excited to get down to our new place so we can get a place to live and get out household goods delivered and start getting our new life off to a start.

So, here's to new beginnings! :)

New Amendments

You know, every time we move I made amendments about what I need to do differently as a mother, wife and as myself. This move is no different. There are things that I want to change not only to help make things easier on myself, but also for the better of my family. Upon moving back here to Tacoma, I wanted the kids in their own bedrooms, their toys split up into their own rooms, to go back to Church and to keep my house up better (not that I don't anyways, but it can always be better). Well I accomplished a few of these with this move, but with us moving again I find myself thinking about what we need to do differently at our new place. Each move is like a new beginning and for this new beginning I am finding myself focusing more on being a better wife to my husband and better to myself. As I have been working on getting the house ready for the movers to come pack up our things, one thing that I have noticed, is that I suck at dusting! Lol. Thinking back to the six months that I have been living here I honestly can't remember dusting... YIKES! So, one of my many amendments for the new place is a better cleaning schedule, to include the tedious job of dusting... Some other points that are in progress of amending with our new beginning is below:

~ An important part of maintaining a healthy relationship with your spouse is to continue to date them, something Mat and I have not been doing. So, the first and most important amendment is for us to get back to the root of things, to start dating each other once again! :)

~ Keeping those dust bunnies under control... ugh

~ Continuing to teach my children the importance of faith and keeping ourselves close to God. While this is something that I am very focused on, there is ALWAYS room for improvement!

~ My own health and the health of my family. Making sure that we continue to eat right, stay active... and more for me... a regular exercise routine... it is important that I be a good example for my children. If I expect them to live healthy lives, I need to show them the right path

While there are several other things that I want to make sure we amend when we move these are just a few of them. No matter how together we think we have it, there is always room to make improvements for us and our families.

Ft. Irwin here we come!!!

YES!!!! We finally got our orders! Woo Hoo!!! It is now official that we are heading off to Ft. Irwin, CA. Mat will start out processing this next week, then we head off to Oregon to spend a week with family before heading off to our new accommodations, all thanks to the new Mrs. Daily and all her hard work in preparing us a place that we can call home until we get into post housing. While I have to admit that I say I hate moving, I am really excited. I am ready for a change, and even more ready to be close to the Daily's again. We haven't seen them since their wedding back in July. It feels like it has been forever! I can't wait! I am more ready now than I ever have been to move. I want to be close to true friends once again. We have been through so much together in Germany that I look forward to the relationships that we will form at this next base. As well as for my chidren to get to know their new "cousin" whom will hopefully be joing us this next year!

Irrational Irritation or Justified Anger?

As most everyone knows I am enrolled full time in college. This term has been and will continue to be a difficult one. It is the hardest of my core classes. It is taking up a lot of study time, which I have not been so good about setting enough time aside for and lots of homework. Well, one of my classes ended over the weekend while simultaneously another one started. It is Human Anatomy and Physiology. I am rather excited about this one. I took in in high school, so I am familiar with some of it already. Well, for each class, since it is online, we have mandatory class discussions that we have to participate in. I thought a bit on what I wanted to say and how to say it so that maybe I might sound like I know what I am talking about.

This particular post was in response to the professors question, of if we had to lose one of our senses for only a week, which one would we choose and why and how would it affect our everyday life. Easy topic, not a real lot of thought necessary. Well, I thought up what I would be willing to give up for a week and posted it. Rather happy with myself for what I said.

I logged on today, because we have a minimum number of responses that we have to make. I was reading through the other students posts because we have to respond to someone, and I wanted to pick one that I actually wanted to write about. As I was reading through the latest posts, I read one that sounded almost EXACTLY like mine. I thought I was just maybe imagining it, so I opened up my post. This girl took mine and literally sentence for sentence posted it as hers!!!! The only difference is that she took out about 40 words, which was 2 sentences, and posted it as hers! ALL of MY ideas that I came up with, right there under her name... I don't mind helping people out or even helping to give ideas... but come on... using my response as her own??? What is up with that!?

Maybe I am just exhausted from an unusually long work weekend, I on't know... but I am really irritated, almost borderline angry that she used my post as her own! UGH! What is with people that they can't think up just a few simple sentences of their own?