Ft. Dix # 2 "Army Stuff"

After some troubleshooting - here are some photos of our training here at Dix. Most of the training areas won't allow cameras because they don't want the distraction, and generally enjoy other stupid rules here as well. However we were able to get some photos here at the base defense training. Basically there were targets that represented bad guys and good guys/civilians and we had to defend the "base" while artillery and grenade simulators were going off, loud "music", smoke, and other distractions. During the defense they would also have people become casualties and require first-aid and CASEVAC (Casualty Evacuation - getting them back to the base medical station). It was a pretty good exercise and thank goodness no one got hurt too bad. This was seriously a morning I was somewhat afraid to "go to work" since a number of our Navy and AF folks aren't exactly what I would classify as "proficient" with a long rifle.

Here below is my LT and myself doing our best to hold off the horde of invading green plastic men and trying to avoid killing (too many) civilians in the process.

Remember that part when I said no one got hurt "too bad"? Well there's this funny thing that happens when you have folks firing rifles in close vicinity to yourself. The brass tends to eject from the rifle and hit you. Sometimes it hits exposed skin. And sometimes it gets lodged between your neck and your protective collar. It happened when I was performing the role of a safety and leaned over to check one soldier's rifle to be sure it was on "safe". That's when the brass from the soldier next to him jumped into my collar and got lodged there for a good couple seconds before I could dig it out.

Now understand that if hot brass simply bounces off your skin without getting stuck/trapped - thereby meaning that it's only touched you for a split second - it will still leave a 1st degree burn. So when you consider that it was trapped in my collar for a full couple seconds you can easily understand why I ended up with 2nd degree burns and missing skin. These pictures were taken only a couple hours or so after the incident.

The good news is that with a little TLC, neosporin, and a week it's starting to finally turn pink and the exposed nerve endings are decreasing in number daily. Right now it's kind of like a spot of the most severe sunburn you've ever seen. Pink skin underneath thick peeling skin. YUM!!

OK - well that's about all the Army fun for tonight boys and girls. I'll try and get some more photos sooner rather than later. But for now it'll be 1am by the time I'm asleep and 6am is going to come quite early.

Take care for now - and if you haven't called your dear Mom it's just plain right down too late now.

SFC Hoyt - OUT.

Somehow Still Alive at Ft. Dix

Hi everyone. I know it's been quite a while since I've posted anything on here and I sincerely apologize. But really, how can you complain about pictures of my beautiful wife and my super awesome dogs? It's been super busy around here since about the moment I landed. This post will be short and hopefully I'll be able to toss in some more a little later. We have picked up our team members from the Air Force and the Navy and I'll try and introduce you to them all a little later. Each of our 10 teams got 2 members from each service to supplement the Army contingent. The AF and Navy folks are primarily tasked to run logistics and admin, but they are for the most part all very competent folks who seemed to be carefully selected by their respective branch for this assignment and I'm sure they'll get to do more than just office work in the next year or so.

All that being said, I think the first person I'll introduce you to isn't even from my team. He's from another team going to another part of the country. The significance is not only in the fact that he is a member of the Navy like my father once was. It's also not solely because he's a Yeoman like my father once was.

The significance is that he is also a HOYT!!! He's the white guy in the above photo, and the middle guy in the lower photo.

Sorry for the poor resolution. The connection here is pretty slow and a high resolution photo would take forever to upload. I'm going to try and get a side-by-side photo soon here and I'll get that published eventually. There must also be something to do with the whole "what's in a name" thing because Petty Officer Hoyt is a pretty darn high-speed sailor and is definitely one of the top Navy folks in the whole group. The two I picked up are good too - but Hoyt is definitely in the top of the group.

And since some of you like seeing photos of "Army Stuff" I will oblige with a couple photos from our couple days practicing base defense. However since the Army computer doesn't seem to like Google at all I'm going to have to do so in a different post since I can't seem to get the photos to upload correctly right now.

BRB

Happy Mother's Day

Moms Rock! I'm not a mom.

I have a lot of respect for moms though. It takes so much dedication and responsibility to be a mom.

I don't know that I would ever have the energy that it takes to chase after kids 24/7

Especially since I like to sleep in so much.

Those families that have 12, 18, 52 kids...I don't get them.

I would be ok with 12 dogs though. So seriously how angry do you think Jason would be if he comes home to a couple more dogs?

Really angry? Or just a little perturbed?

I love you mom. I love you mom-in-law.

I have great friends...

...they make sure I don't sit home every night desperately missing my husband

...What's that Anna?...You want me to go to a Reds game?...I'd love to!

It was an absolutly gorgeous day to spend at the ball park. I have to admit, I hate baseball. But it's super fun going to games. I get to sit outside in the sunshine and socialize with good friends. And enjoy ball park staples like hot dogs and lemon ice...oh wait...I didn't get any lemon ice...Curse you lemon ice man!

I wore my lucky pigtails. But apparently they were the Braves' lucky pigtails, because the Reds certainly were not having any luck, or hits, or runs.

We chilled on Fountain Square afterwards, and compared our farmers tans and racoon eyes.

I really wanted to be that kid jumping in the fountain. Did you know they don't put any chemicals in the fountain, so it's totally ok to drink? I don't know, it looks to me like that little kid on the left is about to do something fishy in that non-chlorinated water...I'll stick to the bottled water.

What's that Amanda?...There's a toga party?...I'm soooo there.

Here's Amanda and Jodie...it was Jodie's graduation/toga party. These guys love themed parties...and drinking.

My team won the flip cup competition, thank you very much. And even though Amanda may look only twelve all of us were well over the legal drinking age. I love you Manda!



Here's Amanda chugging, and apparently me taking pictures of Chase and Jodie taking pictures of me taking pictures...



Hmm What excatly is Chase doing back there behind Chad? Hi Chad!




So, I have absolutley no idea who these two wonderful gentleman are. But they were drinking the spiked kool-aid and showing off their toned calves, so I took a picture.

It was a really fun party, and I actually had a number of other pictures, like with me and my toga...but when I downloaded the pictures onto my computer it deleted a bunch of them! I'm still a little upset about that. I've never claimed to be computer savvy, but that darn thing has really been giving me some headaches. Why do I need to reconnect to the internet everytime you go into sleep mode! I don't understand!

Ode to the Rain

Since Jason will be spending the next twelve months in the desert where he will see little to no rain, I thought it would be fitting to share with everyone what he will be missing.



This is our mud pit, otherwise known as our backyard. This spring has been particularly moist and our sloping yard loves to create puddles and lakes for the dogs to play in.



Last year Jason dug this trench to get water to flow away from the house. Honestly I think it's more like a canal now, or maybe a tributary...because it flows here



This is Hoyt's marsh. Or maybe Hoyt's bog. Hoyt's swamp? Anyway, this is basically our entire backyard. With three dogs who love to play and romp you just know that Hoyt's swamp won't stay in one place.



I give you our back porch. The carpet used to be one solid color. Oh, and of course it doesn't help that the roof leaks either.



That bucket is doing a great job though!



Less than 24 hours ago this floor was spotless. I was so sick and tired of the mud being tracked in that I scrubbed every last puppy paw and swept up every single fluffy hair. And this is what I came home to today



AAARRRRGGGHHHHH!!!!

Nothing is sacred from the rain and mud. Not even my cute Puma's



That's a tiny pug paw on my once clean black sock.

Fluffy Edgar is the worst offender



Those muddy paws are post-wipe down. His fluffiness absorbs the muddy mushy wet stuff like a freakin' sponge. Not only that, but Edgar LOVES mud. He finds the largest, deepest puddle and then stands right in the middle. And sometimes rolls around in it. Or sometimes just sticks his face in it.



That's right Edgar, hang your head in shame. We can all see the mud stuck on your nose.

And honestly it would almost be bearable if it weren't for this little guy



Yeah I know what you're thinking, that innocent little face, what could he possibly be doing wrong. That would be pooping in the house! He hates the rain. He hates the mud. He won't go out in it. He'll wait until I've turned my back or stepped out of the room and then he'll go potty in the house. And no, not on the tile floor, it has to be on the carpet.

I'm sick of the rain, I'm sick of the mud, I'm sick of the paw prints. I'm moving...tomorrow...someplace very, very dry.



Don't fret Sammy, you can come with me, you're the good dog.


In non rain/dog related news. Jason is officially at Fort Dix and doing well. Cross your fingers that we'll get to see each other one more time before he heads overseas.

Our Three Dogs

Gus, "Nom, nom, nom, I love chewing on squeaky toys"



Sammy, "Hey wait a minute that's my squeaky toy!"



Gus, "You wanna start something, punk?"



Sammy, "Mom, Gus stole my squeaky toy. Make him give it back!"



Gus, wiggling butt in the air, "Nah, nah, nah, nah, you can't have it."



Edgar, "Dude, is someone going to pet me or what? I'm so fluffy...you can't resist my fluff!"



Mom, "Alright everyone, time to play nice."



They're best friends...minus the squeaky toys of course

Even Edgar is getting used to the pug. He doesn't let just anyone in his private Edgar cage.



In non-dog news. Jason is back in town for a couple days. He's in between training, returning from Fort McCoy, WI and heading to Fort Dix, NJ tomorrow. Of course I'm overjoyed to be able to see my hubby again before he's shipped thousands of miles away from me. But it's always an adjustment when Jason comes back from any Army exercise. It usually takes him a day or two to get out of Sgt Hoyt mode. But once I finished following my commands we had lots of fun.


We went to a movie at the drive-in and saw Knowing. Really great movie up until the last fifteen minutes. I won't give the ending away to anyone who wants to see it, but it was very disappointing. We went and saw Cirque Dreams at the Aronoff. It's not related to Cirque du Sole, but it has the same idea. Really cool acrobatics and contortionists. It was incredibly entertaining and we were super lucky to get free tickets and they were in the third freakin' row! And I forced Jason to do a little shopping with me too. We've been in our house for almost two years now and all our walls are still bare. I fell in love with these paintings when Pioneer Woman featured them. Apparently a whole lot of other people fell in love with them as well, because she recently blogged about where to buy them. So of course I promptly went out and bought them, and then made Jason hang them for me.

Do we like them? It kind of makes me want to go out and buy all new furniture for the living room as well.

While Jason is away...

...Natalie will dress up her dog



Awww doesn't he look cute! He's supporting his daddy!


...Natalie will karaoke





Ok, so I didn't actually sing...but I was there to support Bethany, Amanda, Chad and Drew!




See there I am.


...Natalie will take Gus to the Cincinnati Pug Meetup



Holy Smooshed Face, Batman...that's a lot of pugs!

And one super fat pug in particular caught my eye. This is Pugsley



He has fat rolls on his legs! Fat Roll Enhance!



I really had a hard time not chasing this pug around the park pinching his fat rolls.

...And Natalie will pamper herself just a little



I got my nails done



And of course my toenails too.

Puggy Gus says, "what else is Natalie going to do while Jason is away???"


I dont know Mr. Gus

What else should I do?