Sky's Classes

Skyeler has been in classes for about...... maybe 2 months. He has been doing photography classes and in August he will start doing his film classes. I am really excited for him to be able to start that portion. In all reality that is the whole reason why we are here in the first place.
Skyeler was able to get some photo's released. Basically since he doesn't own the camera he gets to use and it is the governments, the pictures that he takes with them are property of the government so he has to get them released before he can do anything with them.
Here are a few favorites...












There are quite a few others and I am hoping that as soon as Sky is able to live with me. (Hopefully Tuesday) that we can take more pictures of the area. It is amazing how much wildlife we see here on post. We have tons of squirrels (even black ones), gopher or ground hog things, and white tail deer, and by the lake are TONS of geese and ducks.
Last night I almost hit two deer in between taking Sky back to the detachment and home. They probably were not more than a couple weeks old. They were so small and had the spots on their back like Bambi. I do find it really weird that they have such long tails. But I am sure that once I get home I will find it weird that the deer there don't have such long tails.

Skyeler is doing well with his classes. The instructors have even told him that he would do well in this field. I would say he is in the top of his class but I can't say that for sure. I just know that he loves what he does and he is getting great scores on everything. I do feel bad that one individual in his class is not doing well and basically has to pick a new MOS and start AIT all over. It is really sad. But this individual wasn't performing as well as they wanted him/her to do. I am glad that it isn't Skyeler, especially since he loves it so much. I am also glad that with the photography classes that it is a backup career for him. I just don't think there would be a good job market in Utah.....

Baltimore/ Washington D.C. Temple

This weekend has been interesting so far.... On Friday night Skyeler went to the Baltimore Harbor with 2 of his battle buddies and the fiance/wife of one (they got married today so that is why I put fiance/wife). But back to my weekend. Out of the 5 of us Sky and I were the only ones that are members of the church and lets just say that Sky's battle buddies like their weekends. We were invited to go to dinner earlier this week by Sky's battle buddy that got married today as a celebration (I assume) and we went to this fancy-ish place that when we looked it up it was a Japanese steakhouse but it was the kind of restaurant that for a small sliver of meat was $14.00. After everyone's disappointment and realization that in order to get full at this place we would have to spend $1,000 so we decided that we would go to the Hard Rock Cafe that was on the other side of the parking lot. We told the server that we wouldn't be ordering anything else and we got our check... for the 5 of us it was $130.00 for maybe 6 slivers of meat, dumplings, a crab, and some other stuff that I couldn't describe to you of my life depended on it but it did have an egg on it. The funny thing about the whole fancy restaurant is that with the check was 5 fruit stripe pieces of gum.

I know this pic is a little dark but I didn't take it. Sky and I are in front of the Baltimore Harbor.


This is one of the ships in the harbor for the 200 anniversary of the war of 1812. There is a lot going on for the Sailabration.



Today we went to the Washington D.C. Temple. It was really cool. A lot different from any other temple that I have been to. The layout is crazy and it is just amazing. I love going to new temples even though it is kinda stressful because I don't know where I am going etc... But I really enjoyed going to this temple.









To bad there are not more temples that are open out this way. I know that there are two that are under construction but probably won't be ready until after our adventure our here. Again I am glad that I can spend some time with Skyeler. I really have enjoyed ever min that I get with him and I am glad that I am here. I haven't even been here a month and we have been to many places and there are still so much more to go see and experience. Hopefully we can experience everything we want to...

Ellicott City

On Saturday Skyeler took me to the historic Ellicott City here in Maryland. It is actually a really cool old town that has a lot of Historic sites. OK so Maryland in general has A LOT of really cool historic sites like battle fields and Annapolis is a short drive away as well. Anyway Ellicott city is a really old farming/milling city.


Above this bridge are railroad tracks!




The old buildings!




An old mill that obviously isn't still standing except for two walls.

Ellicott also has a B & O RR station!




Me in front of the B&O RR.


Skyeler in front of the B&O RR station.





Skyeler visited Ellicott City a couple weeks ago with his photography class and so he knew about the B&O RR. For some reason I didn't put it together that the B&O RR was one of the Rail Roads on Monopoly. CRAZY! So I kinda feel special that I have seen it. Eventually I will go and take the tour of the Rail Road station but it was $6.00 bucks a person. Ya it isn't that much but it didn't even take us 30 min to get there and it is worth it to go back again.

Some of the History of Ellicott City is that it has flooded many many times.


This is a history line showing the year and the height of the waters during each flood. For example at the top in the year 1868 it rose to 21.5 ft and fairly recently in 1972 it rose 14.5 ft.


This is where the levels were at last Saturday. It is actually really hard to believe that the water rose to those heights.

For lunch Skyeler and I packed our own. (Good thing we did because 1 scoop of ice cream was 2.00 bucks) Skyeler wanted to share with me the experience of an MRE! Sky had these while at basic and said they were good. So we picked a couple up at the Commonsary (grocery store on post) and took them with us. Skyeler and I we shared some chili and with it was m&m's, sugar cookies, pretzels, apple sauce, and powers for a cuppachino and coffee. Needless to say we didn't use those.


We did buy 2 but only ate one of them.




Chili was kinda spicy but good. I will admit that Skyeler can make a lot better chili and not to brag to much but I like my applesauce better. But the process of heating the chili is really cool. You put it in a bag and when you pour in the water there is a chemical reaction that basically boils the water and heats your food. It was really cool.

I really enjoyed my time in Ellicott City. I learned a lot and I think I will go back especially since there is tours of a haunted building! That will be going on in two parts until November if any of you are interested.
I am so excited to continue to explore the area and see more Historical cities/towns. It really makes you interested in our countries history. A lot better than reading it from a textbook in history class.

Home sweet empty Home

I know that a select few of you wanted to see some pictures of my place. So I figured I would stop being super lazy and actually do that.


This is what you see as you open the door. The stairs are directly to your left and after to pass the stairs you can either go into the kitchen or open the hall closet.


Sky and I went to Wal Mart the other day and picked up a card table and 4 folding chairs! YAY no more eating on the floor and using the mattress as a table.


The kitchen. I also had to do dishes before I took a picture of it!


The living room. This mattress was serving as a table but now we just use it as a couch.


This hallway leads to a half bathroom (door at the very end) the washer and dryer will go on the left and a door going to the back yard on the right!



This is upstairs. You can go straight into the bathroom, the linen closet is left of the bathroom. On the right is another closet and on the left are 2 bedrooms!

That is basically it for my little place. Right now it is just me and the dog so it can get kinda lonely at times. Especially right after I have to take Skyeler back to the detachment for the night. As of now I only get to see him between 5 and maybe 8:50ish... He also can't come into the housing area.. It is against the rules for him to even step inside the house. (LAME) So we have gone to the lake a lot and I will try to have dinner ready and take with me when I go pick him up. If not we tend to brake the rules a bit and we will come have dinner at the house. Sky also had to come to the house to set up the internet and and help me bring in groceries etc. Hopefully they will never know that Sky comes to the house but I wouldn't put it pass the government to have some kind of GPS tracker on his level tag or something.
I hope the next couple weeks will fly by so Sky can come live with me. It is kinda ridiculous everything we have to do in order to get him to be able to live with me. I even had to take a financial budgeting class. Today Sergeant Bennett has to check out my car and make sure it wont explode or something like that. (he he kidding of course about the exploding) but he does have to look over the car in order for Sky to be able to finish his packet...

Tornadoes in Maryland

Yup, we had some Tornadoes in the area last week. It was kinda frustrating because it was on a Friday and Sky and I made a date to go watch the fireflies. But the tornado warnings made it so I wasn't able to see Sky at all until it was over so for the majority of the time I was home alone. As for us on Fort Meade, we didn't experience anything too drastic. There was a lot of wind and rain. More than what I have ever seen in Utah. Because of the rain we also had an extra flash flood warning as well. Any time we heard the sirens we had to take cover. (I ended up just looking out my window) I think we ended up with a couple of tornadoes but it wasn't anything extremely serious. Some areas north of us reported damages and also in Virgina. Many many people lost power but again as for those on Fort Meade it wasn't anything drastic. Eventually I was able to go pick up Skyeler and he was very worried about me being alone during that time but I lived! During the rest of the evening we had the sirens go off a couple more times. Oh when the sirens go off it means that there IS a tornado. Not just the possibility of a tornado but that there has been one spotted! Here are a few pics and I do have a video but probably won't put it on. These pics obviously don't do justice but the rain puddles you see formed on a relatively small amount of time. Do you think it is Maryland's way of saying hello to me? **~*~**UPDATE**~*~** Every Thursday we get a Fort Meade newspaper and of course today it had information about the Tornadoes that we had last Friday. According to the paper it was indicated that Fort Meade had two very weak tornadoes touch down on the instillation. That was 2 of 10 confirmed Tornadoes in Maryland alone. I think the news this morning (I was watching while getting my car serviced) said that there was a total of 12. That is a record for the amount in one day as well as within the month of June. There was no serious damage just a few fallen trees and some signs tipped over. The newspaper then has a what to do section as well as the difference between a Tornado Watch and Warning. Again all in all it was an interesting experience and I am glad there were no serious injuries. I did find it funny though that my dog had to either be right next to me or hiding in his crate. I think he has small dog syndrome.

Short D.C. Trip

During Memorial Day weekend Skyeler and I went with my cousin into the D.C. area. We took the subway called the Metro and it was kinda fun! We didn't get to really do all that much because I had to have Skyeler back to his Detachment area at a certain time and because I was so new to the area I was stressing. But here are a few pics... We went into the Museum of Natural History and boy is that place big. We spend a lot of time just because we wanted to see everything but alas we didn't. We had to leave because we were hungry... Kinda what happens when you spend hours in one place. But it was a lot of fun and I can't wait to go back when I have more time with Skyeler and we leave early enough to take advantage of the time and area.

City Museum- St. Louis Missouri

Oh my heavens if you ever get a chance to go to the City Museum in St. Louis...... DO IT! I had so much fun and I want to go back again and again. Here are some of my pics. So if you were thinking this is a walk-around and see what is in here kind of museum you are totally WRONG! The city museum is basically a huge jungle gym for adults. (There are kid sections to) but basically the whole point of this place is to explore and crawl through tunnels and go down slides. There are so many slides and if you want to get some speed you have to wear basketball shorts. Miranda and I would have competitions to see who could go the farthest when coming off of a slide and I won hands down every time. I even ran into a couple walls because I was going so fast! There was so much to go do and see. But one of my favorites was the 10-Story slide. I was going so fast down that and of course it just circles the whole time that when I got to the bottom I was so dizzy. It was a lot of fun. The climb up the 160+ stairs is the real but kicker though. But as you can see there is a lot an outdoor section and a ball pit. There are more and more slides and overall it is just an amazing place. If I remember my info correctly it was a project of a bunch of architect students. But basically it is this huge warehouse looking building but they really made it into something. I do have to mention this.. When my friend Miranda comes with her husband Trevor to the City Museum they like to hide in certain spots and scare people as they are walking by. So we had to do that. I think I really need to work on my scare techniques because well I scared them but they though I sounded like a dog..... Quite comical! These pics are only a fraction of what you can see and climb on at the city museum. Please go if you ever get the chance!