Catch Up

It's time to add a little meat to our blog. It has been looking rather miserable for the last year. If you had made attempts to catch up on the Andy Allred family news, I apologize for disappointing.

So let's sum up the highlights of last year for the Allred family, shall we?

May '08- We bought a house in Grovetown, GA just outside gate 2 of Ft Gordon. Nice place, not bad for a starter home.

December '08- Lauren began going to Nursery at church, a very blessed occasion for Amy and me. We had been awaiting this day for 18 months!

February '09- Amy and I won a free trip to an all inclusive resort at Cancun, Mexico. We won it by getting our Realtor the most referral dollars in 2008. It was an awesome trip, lots of fun.

March '09- Our little family made the 6-hour journey to our new home in Alabama. In November I was selected to become a warrant officer and go to flight school to fly helicopters in the Army. Our move day finally arrived.

April '09- Amy, Isaac and Lauren went out to Houston to stay at her parents for a few weeks while I went off to Warrant Officer Candidate School. They had a blast eating out all the time, swimming in her parents' pool and spa, and doing whatever they wanted whenever they wanted. I, on the other hand, got to experience Basic Training all over again, or at least WOCS felt that way in some respects. Those who have been to WOCS or OCS will say that I'm exaggerating, and I probably am. But the school was more or less an unpleasant four weeks that serve more of a right of passage into the Warrant Officer Corps rather than actually preparing one to become a warrant officer. Either way, come May 12th, I was happy to graduate, get my freedom back, and pin on WO1 rank.

I want to add, however, that to date, I still have yet to be saluted. I figured out that being in a training company of literally hundreds of other warrant officers provides little opportunity to see Enlisted folks to receive that first salute. I'm still carrying around my silver dollar to hand out to that first person.

Lately- We've been hanging out at home a lot. I'm in a hold before starting flight school. I'll be doing a phase here and a phase there with holds in between, they call those "bubbles." They're not as long as they have been, so I should be grateful. But with little to do, Amy, the kids and I have been taking day trips all around just to get out of the house.

On June 18th, we close on our second home purchase. This one is a little bigger, a little nicer, and has a spa. It also has one of the best views in the back yard that I've ever seen from anyone's back yard. We're excited.