Rascal Flatts

This weekend Nathan and I had the opportunity to go up to Dallas and see Rascal Flatts in concert at Pizza Hut Park. We didn't even know about the concert until Friday morning when Nathan got an email on post about free tickets to the concert. He decided that he should jump on the opportunity to get the tickets even though we were already planning on going to Fredericksburg, TX to check out the town and pick peaches. Luckily when he got down to the ticket place they still had plenty of tickets. After he picked up the tickets he called and told me about it, and asked if I wanted to go. Of course, I wanted to go. I like Rascal Flatts' music and Maria and Skyler told me that they put on a really good show in concert. Since Dallas is over 3 hours away we decided that we would need to spend the night up there since the concert wouldn't be over until after 2300. We had a little trouble finding a hotel since it was so last minute but we were finally able to book a room at the Holiday Inn in Frisco which is the town in which the concert was held. Saturday morning we went running and then headed up to Dallas. We tried to check into our hotel early 2:40 but they said we had to wait until after 3pm. We headed off to the Stonebriar Mall to do some window shopping and just check out the mall. This mall is huge and then there is like a huge shopping area that surrounds it with tons of strip mall type shops. Nathan and I mainly just walked around the mall and then hit up the Cheesecake Factory for dinner. It was about 1800 when we headed back to our hotel to check in. Unfortunately, when we got there they told us that they had over booked the hotel and we would have to stay somewhere else on them. Wait. Did I say unfortunately? I meant fortunately their mistake meant we got free tickets to the concert and a free hotel room. SWEET! Okay, so the hotel we had to stay at was a little bit further away and not as nice but hey it was FREE. After checking in to our hotel we headed off to the concert. It was an outside concert in a soccer stadium, which sounds nice until you factor in how stinking hot it was and how humid it was. Nathan and I were pretty sweaty but once the sun went down and we got some Gatorade at the concession stand we were pretty comfortable. Chris Young, Kellie Pickler, and John Rich opened for Rascal Flatts, but their performances didn't hold a candle to Rascal Flatts. I really enjoyed the entire show and loved that I knew all the songs Rascal Flatts sang except for one new single they haven't released yet. I think next time I go to a concert I might bring some earplugs though because our ears were hurting by the end of the four hour concert. All in all for my first big concert experience I was really happy. It is so nice to be able to do something so spontaneous with Nathan and It's even nicer to be able to do it essentially for free.

1-82 FA Organizational Day

For the last 6 weeks, Nathan has been in charge of planning the battalion organizational day. For those of you unfamiliar with this term, it is basically a day for the soldiers and their families to come together and enjoy sports, fun activities, food and some friendly competition. Nathan was tasked with this job while he was still in Bravo Battery. While doing his normal platoon leader duties, as well as filling in for the XO and 2nd PL, he had to weed through all the extravagant ideas that the colonel threw at him to make $7,000 work for a 700 person catered event. Nathan raised $2,200 of that money by auctioning off prime parking passes, days off, staff duty exemptions and pies to the face. Nathan has been working really hard to make sure that everything ran smoothly. Even though Nathan just started his FDO job on Monday, this was his first real tasking in his new position and he wanted to make a good impression. I must say he impressed me. Every one showed up at the Belton Lake Recreation Area (BLORA) at 0830 for the start of the festivities. After a battalion formation and a briefing by Nathan and the colonel, the battery and spouse competitions began. The Battery competitions consisted of volleyball, basketball, dragonball, tug of war, projectile relay and child soldier competitions. The spouse competitions consisted of timed unit patch identification, 3 legged race, wheelbarrow race and tug of war. There were only about 12 spouses who chose to compete. I did okay on the unit identification, with 5 0r 6 out of 9 identified. My partner and I dominated the 3 legged race. We were first by a good 10 meters (it was a 50m race). We got second in the wheelbarrow race, and we lost the tug of war ( the teams were quite lopsided). Overall, I placed 2nd in the spouse competition which I was pretty happy about. After we were done competing my partner and I headed up to the dunk tank to watch people get dunked and then over to the snow cone machine and pavilion to cool off. Once we were cool and rehydrated we headed down to watch the dragonball finals. Once the battery competitions were over we tried to dunk the battalion commander in the dunk tank and then headed up to eat a yummy lunch of hamburgers, hot dogs, BBQ chicken, smoked sausage, baked beans, coleslaw, potato salad, and pasta salad. After lunch we headed down by one of the large shade trees where they awarded trophies for the competitions, raffled off door prizes, Toyota raffled off a GPS, farewelled the Command Sargent Major, and the colonel cut the cake with a sword. I was very impressed with how smoothly everything went. We stayed on schedule almost to the minute and everyone really enjoyed themselves. LTC Brown was so happy with how the whole day went he gave Nathan a battalion coin for excellence. I really enjoyed myself but I didn't get to spend much time with Nathan because he was so busy making sure everything went as planned. Luckily, my 3 legged race partner's husband was just as busy as Nathan, other wise I would have been either really bored or in Nathan's way.

Army Achievement Medal

Today was Nathan's first day at his new job as the Battalion Fire Direction Officer (FDO). Being a part of battalion staff means that he gets to do PT with the colonel. The thing about LTC Brown is he loves to run and thinks nothing of running 8 miles or more for PT. Today He decided to do a combination of running and calisthenics. The exercises were really hard and the colonel was running really fast and yelling at everyone to keep up. Nathan was able to keep up the whole time and finished with the colonel. Everyone who was able to keep up was told to line up in front of batalion headquarters and were surprised when the colonel came out carrying a board of Army Achievement Medals. After the orders were read, the colonel pinned the medals on and shook everyones hand. I am so proud of Nathan and all that he does. I know it must suck to get up every morning to go to PT while I am still laying in bed all snuggly and comfy in our air conditioned place.

Deception at Deception Pass

This past week Nathan and I were able to head back to Washington for a surprise Perez Family reunion and a day in Seattle with his parents. On Wednesday the 7th we flew into Seattle and Nathan's parents picked us up from the airport and we headed down to the waterfront for some yummy lunch at Ivar's. We had a ton of fun talking, feeding the seagulls and looking out on the water. After lunch we headed up to the Woodland Park Zoo to enjoy the gorgeous weather and check out all the animals. I haven't been to that zoo since the third grade and it's probably been just as long for Nathan. We were able to see almost all the animals. I think the only ones we didn't see were a few snakes and the Ocelot. The best part was most were awake and enjoying the sun that is so rare in Seattle. After spending about 5 hours roaming the zoo we headed back down to the waterfront to have dinner at Anthony's on Pier 66 with Nathan's Aunt Judy and Uncle Michael. The food was delicious and we had an amazing view. We could see Mt. Rainer nestled between the sports stadiums and the ferries shuttling passengers across the sound. It was so nice to be able to spend time with Nathan's family we were just sad it was only for the day.
The next day, after some last minute shopping, we headed north to Deception Pass State Park. We arrived at the campground with enough time to set up all the tents and plan out the surprise. Everyone hid in this huge tent that my parents had gone in on with my sister and her husband. My sister was worried about making my dad suspicious by trying to get him to check out the tent but the instant my dad got out of the car he was headed strait for the tent to check it out and see the boys and Skyler who were "taking a nap." When he pulled back the flap we all yelled surprise. The look on his face was priceless as he saw his kids and grand kids sitting there in the tent. This is the first time ever that anyone has been able to surprise my dad. He always has some way of finding out what's going on or what present he is getting. After the surprise, we had so much fun spending the weekend hanging out at the beach with our niece and nephews, checking out the tide poles, playing catch with Tanner, eating yummy camp food, making s'mores, and just hanging out with everyone. It was so nice to be able to camp and enjoy the 70 degree weather. Nathan and I were especially excited to wear our sweatshirts at night when it cooled down into the 50s. After two nights of camping we headed back down to Seattle and after dropping the kids off with a sitter, all the adults had a great night hanging out talking and enjoying a yummy dinner at Elliot's. After dinner, Nathan and I had to head off to catch a red eye flight back to Texas and the heat and humidity. We had a great time visiting with our families and spending quality time together.