Isaac in Dad's Flight Gear

Just got my flight gear issue this morning. Isaac was the first to appear in a picture wearing the gear though :) Sadly, I had to tell Isaac that owing to the exorbitant amount that I would owe the government if something happened to the helmet, this was the only time he could touch the thing. We took a picture to mark the occasion.

Pix of Isaac

I just thought I'd add these photos that we took today. I saw Isaac sitting on the bathtub and everything about the situation screemed kodak moment for some reason. Maybe it was the light coming in through the window. Who knows? I'm not even a photographer.

New House

Just moved into our new house last week. We had the "Mormon Movers" (Elders Quorum) from our losing ward help us load the truck and the gaining ward helped us unload at our new house.

The house is a nice one with a few annoyances like cupboard space and a lack of a coat closet and a smallish master bed room. But they're all outweighed by what lay at the back of the house... and the overall niceness of the place. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. They're all taken from the deck in back.

At the Park

Here are some photos of us playing around at one of the many parks in the neighborhoods on Ft Rucker housing. There's one nice things about military housing. I could name a plethora more unpleasant things about military housing, however.

Panama City Beach, FL

These pictures were taken from one of our many recent trips to the beach. Here in lower AL, we're within 1.5 hours from the beach in Panama City, FL. Destin, FL is 2 hours and Pensacola is 2.5 hours.

Above is Lauren and Isaac is below. They both loved the beach at first and wouldn't stop asking to go nearly every day. But as kids do, they suddenly tired of the beach and now we can't get them out there with out them griping and wanting to go home as soon as we've arrived.

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.

Vacation

Amy, Isaac, Lauren and I flew out with Amy's dad in his new plane (Piper Malibu, six-seater) to Houston and from there caught a commercial flight the next day to Phoenix.

Mom's wedding-

Our first intentions were to be in Phoenix for my mom's wedding. But just before we were to leave, the wedding was postponed. At mom's encouragement, we decided to go anyway just for a week's vacation. Then just after we arrived, it somehow became back on for the original time, which was quite a blessing. I don't think my unit would have allowed me to go out again just two weeks after returning from the first trip. So we were able to attend after all.

My mom, Jana Lofgreen Allred was married to Dale Porter. I can't tell you too much about my new step dad except that he seems a very stalwart man, dedicated, and a good guy. He's the great uncle of my best friend Brandon Porter. He does cabinets for a living and he's mostly retired. He and my mom plan to live in Orem, UT for six months out of the year and in Mesa, AZ for the other six months. I hear they plan to go on a few missions as well.

Speedminton-

I was introduced to a cool new game that's picking up popularity these days. It's called Speedminton. It's similar to badminton except that it's not played with a net. Rather you set up two squares about ten feet squared in the grass and stand in it trying to hit the birdie into the opponent's square. He hits it back trying to get it to land in your square. You score points accordingly. It's really fun, but requires a lot of lawn area. If interested, I recommend looking it up online. Check out this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AwcmCOLgz0.