The Stars at Night are Big and Bright...

Joelle enjoying the potato salad and green beans at Granzin's BBQ in New Braunfels.
No napkins here, but you get a roll of paper towels.
Daddy playing with Joelle.
My BBQ plate of smoked brisket and chicken breast at Granzin's.
Chase's plate of Pork ribs and brisket, I should have gotten the ribs, they were really good.
Gecko caught between screen and sliding glass door. It had a green body with yellow legs.
Pretty green gecko.
Brown gecko with blue green eyes on the deck railing.
Joelle crawling around Chase's apartment. She's been practicing crawling, but mostly does the army crawl and scoots around. She'll rock back and forth on her hands and knees and then does a 'guy' push-up on her toes. I tried to get a picture of her doing push ups, but she was too quick for the camera.
My favorite sign that I've seen here. It was getting dark, so if you can't tell, that's me 'hollering' in the corner.
Here the speed limit changes when it gets dark, pretty smart in my opinion.
While looking at houses this gigantic grasshopper decided to hitch a ride on the front of the car. It hung on for several miles.
Across the street from the Alamo at night.
Joelle, me, and Chase on the river walk boat cruise.
Joelle and Daddy waiting to get on the boat cruise.
Joelle getting some loves, she has been so happy to be with Daddy, just melts your heart :) .
Chase and Joelle on one of the bridges on the River Walk.
Joelle wearing her new fire fighter hat.
Chase doing the fire truck pull.
Still pulling...
Getting ready to pull again.
Chase walking back with other cadets after a pull.
Chase's team strategizing their next pull. The rusted out car and tanker below were among other cars, trucks, train cars, etc. that were scattered around campus that were staged to practice mock disasters and other accident similations the fire fighters might encounter.
Walking over to do the fire truck pull.
Chase and cadets helping another team pull. Chase is the 2nd from the end turned towards the camera a little.
Here is the tower that Chase has to run up at the academy. I believe there are 5 flights of stairs.
Joelle and I were some of the lucky few that got to sit in the brand new million dollar fire truck that will be sent to work at the airport. It was really cool, hydrolic stairs and everything.
Mommy and Joelle eating Bill Millers BBQ in Castroville. I had some yummy fried chicken and I think Chase had some brisket sandwiches.


...Deep in the Heart of Texas :)

So, I actually haven't really noticed much difference in the way the stars look. I didn't get to see the "basement" at the Alamo either, but I'll get to that later. I arrived in San Antonio late last Thurs., Oct. 7th, after 2 flights. My first flight was scary and I'd rather not have to do that ever again. The turbulance was horrible. The airplane was teetering side to side and up and down like an amusement park ride you wouldn't want to go on. My feet would fly out from under me and the flight attendants cut their drink service short for their safety. Luckily, nobody had made any objections to Joelle being in the front carrier, so she was strapped to me. I assumed it was only the other airline that made you take the baby out of the carrier. Some kid in the back kept laughing every time the airplane would do a "trick", not so funny kid. After finally landing and still being alive, I booked it over to my connecting flight which I made just barely. I had to walk out onto the tarmac to board the plane. This flight was much much better than the first. I also noted how friendly the people were from TX on this flight. The airplane was full of friendly conversation of people, not just sitting next to you but over the rows as well, it was very amusing. The flight attendant ended up asking me to take Joelle out of her carrier, so I guess it wasn't just the other airline. We also got really good chocolate chip cookies, I was shocked and thrilled to get cookies on a flight. I flew Frontier by the way, I highly recommend them. They were great! The seats are more comfortable and roomier, too, plus you get cookies : ) Did I mention I got a cookie? Ok, enough of that.

Getting out of the airport to Chase was crazy. It took me forever to get my bag and it was complete chaos getting out of the airport. The traffic was horrible, I ended up running across 2 lanes, throwing my stuff in the car and jumping in.

It's been awesome to be with Chase again, and Joelle remembered her dad, so that was a bonus. No screaming and crying because of the weird guy we were staying with. I've spent most of the days by myself in Chase's apartment while he's at work. So, I spend my days on the computer, taking care of the little booger, and cleaning Chase's apartment. He told me to relax, but I can't help it. In all fairness, his apartment was pretty good considering. It wasn't horrible, but it still needed cleaning, so that's what I did. Chase is now frustrated because he can't find anything now, which I can't understand because it's all organized now. All I did was put his food in the cupboards, apparently, there was an organized chaos I wasn't aware of. Also, a lot of what I cleaned was old, accumulated, filth that Chase hasn't had time to deep clean.

San Antonio is absolutely beautiful! I was surprised at how green it was and there are a ton of trees everywhere. The sunsets here are amazing; the sun is huge and bright, and deep orange or pink and lights up the whole horizon. San Antonio is also huge! We've been driving around and looking at different potential areas to live. Our favorite places so far are on the outskirts or cities in farming communities surrounding San Antonio. We looked at a couple of houses, but they were gross, so we will probably just wait until Chase graduates and we can afford something that doesn't require a demolition team or extreme makeover edition. We also don't want to rush things and have found that our lending options will be quite better once he's had some consistent work history under his belt and is actually a graduated firefighter.

Normally, Chase has the whole weekend off, but last Sat. his academy hosted a Fire Truck Pull to help fund raise for the Special Olympics. It was kind of a long day, especially for Joelle, but she behaved rather well and it was a pretty fun event. It was neat to see where Chase worked and all his classmates and all of his instructors. They ended up raising $30,000. for the Special Olympics. All of the competing teams got 2 tries to pull the fire truck. There were 12 people to a team. One team was short 9 people so they'd call for cadets to come over and fill in, that happened a few times. So, Chase ended up pulling for another team as well as one of the cadet teams. After the first pull, Chase's team was in 3rd place. The reigning champions (Sherrif's Department) tied with another team, but eventually won in a tie breaker. Chase's team ended up in 5th after the final pulls, not shabby considering pulling a huge fire truck 50 ft. I was very impressed. There was food and drinks and I got to talk to the other cadets and their families. We were served Kilbassa(sp?) sausages wrapped in a tortilla, it was really good! There was also free ice cream and fun kid activities, so I'm a little sad the kids couldn't be there. Joelle got a free Junior fire fighter hat.

One night Chase took me to the San Antonio River Walk which was pretty cool. We ended up taking a River Boat Cruise Tour which was really neat. I also learned I don't ever want to fall into that river. It's mostly 3-4 ft deep with one area being the deepest around 20 ft. Our tour guide informed us that the river was also a thriving ecosystem in itself. It boasted having trout, bass, catfish, and water moccasins. Yes, you read that right, water moccasins, don't know if we'll be traveling down the river anytime soon, but it was a neat experience. It was really cool at night, but my pictures didn't turn out well because my camera is crappy.

After the river walk we headed on over to see the Alamo. Unfortunately, it was fenced off for a fancy black tie gala fundraiser for the Alamo. So, all we could do is view it from across the street and snap a picture over the fence and watch all the fancy people eat their yummy smelling food and listen to the auctioneer take bids. We'll have to go back some later date.

The weather here has been perfect with a little mugginess, but otherwise beautiful. I'm told I just missed the worst part of the hot and muggy summer weather. I love hearing the birds everyday from Chase's apartment, except when I'm trying to sleep at night. And I love watching all the geckos scurrying around on Chase's deck. I counted about 6 different ones today and took some pictures. I could tell they were different, because they all varied in colors and sizes. Some were bigger, some were green, one was green and brown, another was brown with really cool blue green eyes. One somehow got on the inside of the screen door caught between the sliding glass door and the screen door. I reached through a little and slid the screen open and closed the glass door in hopes it would find its way back out. I love geckos, I had one in my dorm room at BYU-Hawaii. They are always good to have around, especially if you have bugs around. On about the second night here I saw a huge cockroach on the deck where I had left a bag of Joelle's poopy diapers (won't be doing that again). It was about the size of a small mouse, it was huge. Sorry, no pics. So, I was thrilled to see all the geckos today.

Chase has been wining and dining me (well without the wine) and we've been able to eat at a variety of places. I have a picture of one place so far, probably some more before I head back. The food has been pretty good. I'm still holding out for some good BBQ though. We also ate at Cici's Pizza, and Kirby's Korner (a hamburger joint with yummy chocolate chip cookies and fries) located in Seguin. I also have taken a few pictures of some road signs I find humorous or interesting. I will try to post all of those eventually.

Also, I've posted 2 videos of Chase doing the fire truck pull at the end. I believe the first video is of Chase and his fellow cadets helping another team pull. I think the second video is of Chase's cadet team's second pull.

Well, I am so excited to be here and spend time with my bestest friend in the whole world. He is the most awesome, wonderful, husband in the universe! I am so thankful for him and his sacrifice for our family. I will really miss him and am NOT looking forward to having to leave him on Thursday. I will be glad to be with the other kids again, but will sorely miss my dear husband. I want to thank my parents for watching the other 4 boogers while I've been in TX, I hope they aren't going crazy. I am very excited to move to TX, being here has made me not as nervous about making the move. It seems like it is going to be a good place for our family.