A tough day for me

Today, October 26, 2008, my youngest son, my baby will leave for Marine Boot Camp and I am soooo very sad but also very very proud of him.

This is so very hard for me to know that your child is leaving the nest for good, and placing himself in harms way for a cause. I can only pray that he keeps himself safe.

We need to bring him to the recruiting office this morning around 10 AM and he will head out for New Orleans around 12. He will spend the rest of the day in New Orleans today and then board a plane for Parris Island, South Carolina in the Morning. Thirteen weeks without any phone calls from my son is going to be tough and worse than that will be the quiet in this house.

Matt has been the epitome of perpetual motion. From the moment he opened his eyes to the moment he closed them each day, he was non-stop action. When I fall asleep each night it is to the rhymthic chant of "Momma, Momma, Momma" He has always been so inquisitive about everything and wanted to share his entire world with me. "Momma come see" "Momma come play with me", "Momma why..." Boy I'm going to miss those words.

Here are a few pictures of him as he is today. That mop of hair will be gone this morning before he leaves for the recruiting office, then will be even goner once he reaches his final destination.

This is from a photo shoot he did this summer for a local photographer. Some of these pictures are now part of thier advertising materials.

Above is a shot of him on his 18th Birthday which was in August. He turned 18 on the 18th, which was a Monday, and by that Friday, August 22nd, he had sworn in as a Marine Recruit.

This final picture of of Matt and his Marine Buddy Kenny. They joined as buddies and will hopefully spend all of boot camp as buddies. They will be bunk mates and pretty much do everything as a team. Hopefully they can remain together throughout the next 13 weeks. See that long piece of hair haning on the left of Matt's head, I will have the pleasure of buzzing that off later this morning. Not sure if you can see, but Kenny has piercing in his lower lip. I think they are called "snake bites" well that too will be gone by 10:00 am today. Kenny buzzed his hair a few weeks ago, said he needed the time to adjust. Anyway, I wish both of these young men the Best of Luck in this new chapter of their lives and hope and pray they remain safe for the next 4 years. I love you Matt

After effects of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike

Well its been a whirlwind month. Right on the heels of Hurricane Gustav came Hurricane Ike. We had wind and rain with Ike, but it was a bit too far west to do much damage. All the tree limbs that did drop to the ground were the ones broken by Gustav that were still hanging in the trees. We had evacuees from Bridge City, Texas come to stay with us. They went home 5 days later to 2.5 feet of water in their house. They lost everything. The insurance company wants them to itemize everything they lost. Can you believe this. They had to take pictures of everything and put a replacement value down. I'm talking about every book, knick knack, picture frame, piece of furniture, utensil, pot, lawn chair, every article of clothing, jewelry, make up, EVERYTHING!!! They did this without electricity, then had to worry about looters. What the insurance company wanted was for everything to be taken out of their home and place outside so they could look the items over. Well, wouldn't you know it, people would go by in the middle of the night and take your stuff. Thank goodness most had pictures of their stuff. We took pictures of our belongings before Gustav, just in case anything happened, and I can tell we DID NOT take pictures of everything. We took pictures of our big ticket items, outdoor workshops, the major woodworking tools, furniture, tv, large appliances, I took pictures of the contents of each room, but I did not take pictures of every item in my house. Well that's a lesson learned for us. Then to make matters worse for this couple, the company that T was working for, suffered too much damage from the storm surge and had to file bankruptcy, so the name lost his job. Lost his home and his job because of Hurricane Ike. That's a crushing blow to anyone and lest I forget, he is in remission for bladder cancer and had just had surgery on his shoulder three weeks before the storm. All I can say its there is now way but up for this couple. Through it all they both still have their sense of humor. Only good thing to come out of this mess was the fantastic deal we got on a generator. My husband's nephew works for an air conditioning company who also sells large back up generators. Right after Hurricane Gustav, several came in to their warehouse that were damaged. The company sold them at a fraction of the cost. We purhased a 3,600.00 generator for 1,500.00. We are talking big enought that I will not lose electricity as long as we have propane. The damage was really just cosmetic, a dent about 5 inches long and 1 inch wide to the exterior housing of the unit. I'm excited. Now its to get it hooked up before the next season begins in June. I will be very relieved when the 2008 Hurricane Season is finally over.