a bit of house keeping

so we have made contact with the rest of the world!! how fun! i hope you all enjoy reading about the craziness here. with this update i intend to answer the many questions that have flooded my inbox.

where is eric?: who? haha. eric is gone - again. being nice here, he is doing a year in south korea. after returning from a short trip to Iraq (sept '07 thru feb '08), we came state side to georgia for warrant officer school (april '08 thru oct '08), came back to us here in clarksville for a month then left to korea until nov '09. this trip to korea was an attempt, more a sacrifice on his part, that his family could stay here and not have to move. so he is at camp hovey in south korea, doing well, just missing us as much as we are missing him.

who is jude?: one of those silly little nicknames that actually stick (plus it is one syllable vs two when rounding up the kids). kambel jude gray is her full name, but jude or jude-jude or jude-a-roo have become more popular that kambel.

what do i do with your blog?: you can just read and enjoy the funny little things that we deal with daily, you can post by becoming a follower and i am working on making it more kid friendly so that you can post a comment on the site instead of emailing... that may take me some quiet time without the kids telling me how to get the grapes out of the fridge....but it will come. probably a setting i have to trigger to 'on'.

anymore questions...keep 'em coming! keep checking in when ya can and we will have updates often.

okay, okay, okay

i am under fire!! i have been found on facebook by all of you searching fools! don't know whether or not to feel honored that i have people looking for me (didn't know i was lost) or to be frightened that i can be found that easily. so before all this gets out of control i have to direct y'all to the blog instead of FB. in order to entice my readers i have to get bloggin'!! i am in the process of uploading a million pictures to my pc and will post some here.

for the most part the kids and myself have been busy running back and forth to the doctor - when did the common cold start lasting so long? heck, i remember having sore throats when i was little, but nothing like 10 days long. well, i think i remember. anyway, we actually went on a little expedition to elizabethtown, ky to visit aunt catie!! she was there doing some good ole army round up (recruiting for a military academy), so we went to visit. the drive there was great. kambel and ty slept most of the way and kadence made sure i knew how to drive. we got to the hotel and went shopping, saw a few ducks, and swam in the bath tub (the girls did anyway). way better fun than hanging out at home! we love our aunt catie and can't wait til she lives closer to us.

we really miss eric. kambel was crying so hard she could not catch her breath last night, so we had to call him and i am sure terrify him with the way she was acting. we eventually bribed her with a chocolate (my girl!) and she was good for awhile. kadence called daddy from the doctors office hardly able to talk because they poked too hard in her ear. as heart breakingly hard as it is for me to be on this end and hear the kids cry for their daddy, i know it is 10 times harder for dad to be so far away and not be able to hug his children, to wipe their tears, to see their smiles, to smell their skin.... we miss ya baby.

sooo, now that we are all wiping a tear here are some pictures from over this past month! (or so)

kambel cutting kadences hair (that IS a toy saw)

my little rock stars, dressin' up in Hannah's wig...

all bundled up for the massive snow/play day. didn't know what to do in all the snow

ty having a blast with the bucket - not the blocks!

now i know why i had girls first - he is gonna give me a heart attack before he is 2

me and my girlfriend before my very fist 10k two weeks ago. i was so proud!! theresa is

training for the boston marathon!

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: kadence asked me "who is God's daddy?"

LAUGH FOR THE DAY: kambel pulled quite a bit of her hair out and said "look mom, i pulled my hair out." of course i said "jude don't do that." she responds with "oh, sorry. [pause] do you want me to put it back?"

it happens...

so i remember asking eric back in the day "what is blog?" dumbfounded he said i have heard of it but can't tell ya what it means.

when did this happen? when did the world pass us up? when did we become out of the loop? i may be speaking mostly for myself here, but come on, does this officially make us old? so we made the leap. out from behind the cobwebs and from under the piles of kids toys, we are now cool. i have a touch screen cell phone (with internet access) and am now making a blog to share with all our family and friends.

for the record, eric is way cooler than i am (when it comes to computer stuff of course), but i know how to type so i get the blogging 'duties'. i am so excited to keep you all updated this way. part of our family has a family web page, but doesn't seem appropriate to ramble on just about our lives, but that leaves out the other side of the family - then what about our friends. of course if you are really in you have facebook or myspace, but no thanks, it bugs me that people can look me up, plus i can't figure it out... too distracting to see all these faces of people i don't even know, but because i know sue who knows joe who knows bob, i see all their faces (hence facebook right?), too distracting for me... so a blog is the best way. when eric first arrived in korea, we blogged (too coooool!!) for awhile so i think i got the in's and out's of it.

now that you all know the history of how we both fell thru the crack (happens to the best of us), lets start bloggin'! i plan on updating weekly, kid permitting of course. feel free to comment or not, or just be those sneeky people who read about us and just keep us in your prayers.

pictures will soon follow and possibly even videos!! love to all - the gray's