Hey all, I just got word on Tyler’s flight home!  I’m not going to post specifics on here.  I do want him to come home safe you know :)  I can tell you that it is within the next week or so.  Wish us luck that it doesn’t get pushed back!  This last month has been very crazy busy, then all of a sudden very boring for him!  He and his team worked very hard with the 82nd Airborne (out of Fort Bragg, NC) to get all of their trucks switched out,  and to make sure communications always stayed up and running.  Then there was the cleaning of the trucks.  That’s never fun!  Now they are completely finished with everything.  He told me they have started a sort of Olympic games type of thing.  To kill the time!  Yesterday they ran 3 miles and did all sorts of pull ups, sit ups, push ups, and things like that.  Tyler is the team leader, and he said his team KILLED the rest, haha!  The rest of the time he’s in Afghanistan, they will be playing football and have a weight lifting contest.  I think there were a few more things, I just can’t remember them all.  But, it does sound like fun, sort of :)  Of course I’ll post pictures of his homecoming and all that fun stuff.  I bought stuff to make signs today, and balloons!  All sorts of things he doesn’t really care for!  Sorry, but we have to do it!  We are just too dang excited for him to come home, finally!  If all goes well, he’ll just be a couple days shy of 15 month deployment.  Hey, the sooner the better!

This picture is from way back in August, but I just love it!!

I love Fort Campbell!  This whole area, they are always doing something to honor our Soldiers and their families!  I’ve never lived anywhere where they show so much respect to the Men and Women who serve!  This week was just another example of Clarksville showing how much they care!  This whole last week was Military Appreciation Week.  Or Warrior Week, honestly I don’t know the exact name :)  I’m not even sure of all the activities that went on, but this last Saturday they held a huge BBQ for Military families.  You even had to show your ID to get in, it was that tight!  They had bouncies and pony rides, and a petting zoo, and rides in construction equipment!  Tons of food, giveaways, local bands, the works.  Oh, and it was all free :)  My favorite!  After a long morning of soccer games, we went over to the fairgrounds park.  It was an incredibly windy day!  As we were trying to decide what bouncy to go on, the wind knocked one over, ripped it out of the ground, and just about squished Logan!  He yelled “OH CRAP!”  just in time to get out of the way!  It was hilarious!  Don’t worry, no one was in it and no one was hurt, that’s why I can say that!  The firefighters brought their “smokehouse”.  It’s what they use to simulate a burning room, and it teaches you how to navigate around beds and things like that.  The kids loved that, and they did exactly what you should do, crawl on the ground.  Evan freaked out, he wouldn’t step foot in there!  I guess I don’t blame the kid, smoke was spilling out everywhere.  It was a very fun day!  In about two more weeks, we can actually start having fun with Tyler again!

So many choices!

This was a worm, you went in it's mouth and came out, um, the other end

Evan and Jared racing!

Evan actually won!

Why Jared, why?!?

Ah, he really is a normal human boy!

Future construction worker?

He wanted to feed the ducks!

I turned 31 the other day, so here are some pictures of the fun we had!  On Friday I invited some friends over for pizza (yes, I threw myself a birthday party, I’m not ashamed and it was FUN!)  Thanks to Mariah for so graciously volunteering to have it at her house so I didn’t have to clean!  Of course I took my camera, only to remember that after I got home.  So no pictures from that!  Saturday (my actual birthday) we had soccer games in the morning, then we went to O’Charley’s for dinner.  That’s my favorite restaurant, and we all filled up on delicious  hot buttery rolls before our meals were even out!  The kids argued over who would have to tell the waiter it was my birthday.  I said….um, don’t!  But Emma won, and she kept yelling and pointing to me “It’s her birthday, hehe!”  Side note to my friend Clair, you want a good free birthday dessert, go there!!  A huge piece of carmel pie, yowza!  After that, we headed over to my super sweet friend Heidi’s house to roast marshmallows and have a sleep over.  Thanks to her husband for putting up with 6 kids jumping up and down on the blow up  mattress at 7am on a Sunday :)   The only thing missing was Tyler.  That’s always very hard, but he called me at midnight and then again later that day, so what more can I ask from such a wonderful, sweet husband!  Thanks to everyone who made it such a special day, my last birthday here in Tennessee too!

Heidi and sweet little Maddy!

I just practiced my flowers and leaves, because I'm so bad at those!

Happy Easter everyone!  Easter is not quite the same when Tyler’s not home!  But, I do what I can :)  These are just a few pictures of us out in our swamp of a back yard.  We’re still feeling the wet and squishy effects of the tornadoes the other day.  So that means egg hunt inside, whooo!  I hope that you all have a terrific day!  We love you and miss you!

What a cutie!

I just realized that I don’t really post a whole lot of pictures of the kids!  Horrible mother!  Here are just a few of them being all goofy and what not.  So pretty much a normal day in the Hardy house!

Jared, um, loving his car, I guess....

Fake sad faces

Sweet skills! Move ref, jeez!

As I mentioned in my last post, I won a free make over at a very cool local salon here in town.  Well, today was the big day!  I actually had no idea how involved it would be.  So I showed up in my black shirt like I was told and held my breath, waiting to see what was in store!  I was told by Tyler that I’d better not cover my gray hair,  upon penalty of death.  He’s so weird!  I guess that’s good I married a man who loves my gray hair!  So I told her that, and we decided to go with some low lights, that would “bring another dimension” to my hair, but still let Tyler enjoy his old lady.  Unfortunatly for me, I had gotten all my hair chopped off the day before winning this contest, so there wasn’t a whole lot for the stylist to work with.  No fun!  She still managed to clean me up a little bit, lighten the top up and hopefully when I leave it curly, it will look good!  I did buy a blow dryer to see if  maybe one day when I’m feeling creative I might possibly be able to copy the style she did on me.  Hahaha…..we’ll see!  Aside from my hair, she did my make up and even waxed my eye brows.  I had no idea I even needed it, until I saw my friend Ashley and she said “Oh, she did your eye brows too!”  GAH, yes…was it really that noticeable?  There were also before and after pictures taken, with the threat of putting them in the local paper.  Oh boy, I guess I’ll have to keep my eyes out for that!  But it was a fun morning, and the fact that it was free made it all even better!

The best "before" picture I have....

At the salon, looking slightly "helmety" still

At home, now it's a little more relaxed!