We're on the front page!

Our family was pictured on the front page of the local paper with a story about our transition from military to civilian life here in Halfmound...

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Thomas family adjusting to life at Half Mound
by Sara Peterson-Davis, The Vindicator

Living in Half Mound is a bit of an adjustment for Clinton and Erin Thomas after living at Fort Knox, Ky. The couple and their three daughters — Caitlyn, 5, Allison, 3, and Lauren, 7 months—were used to life in the military where everything they needed was within the fort’s gates and life orbited around the U.S. Army.

“They (their daughters) grew up where the PX and commissary is normal and they’d have an Apache helicopter land near the playground and they could climb on tanks,” said Erin Thomas, who served as an Army surgical technician at Fort Knox until October 2006. But while Army life was something the Thomases loved, it wasn’t always the best for their family. Deployments were beginning to take a toll. “I’d still be in if it wasn’t for the hardship,” said Clinton Thomas. This fall Clinton Thomas left the Army and moved his family back home to Half Mound, five miles northwest of Valley Falls. The family lives in his grandparents’ old house on the Half Mound Road.

Thomas now works as a licensed practical nurse at one of the clinics on Fort Leavenworth. “He’s a civilian but he works for the Army,” Erin Thomas said. “He gets his Army fix with no attachment.” Thomas joined the Army after graduating from Valley Falls High School in 1998 and spending a year studying pre-med at Washburn University. He had worked as a phlebotomist and a nurse’s assistant at Holton Community Hospital throughout high school, so joining the Army to become a nurse seemed like a logical step. “I kind of fell into it (nursing),” Thomas said. “It chose me more than I chose the profession.”

A native of Osh Kosh, Wis., Erin Thomas joined the U.S. Army Reserve while still in high school with plans to train as a surgical technician. “I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do after high school, but I thought the reserve was a step in the right direction,” she said.

The couple met in San Antonio in 1999 as they were waiting for a plane to take them home for Christmas leave from Fort Sam Houston, where they were both receiving medical training. On the way home, they were booked on the same flight out of Kansas City International Airport back to Texas. They met again a few days later in the mess hall and started dating. Thomas proposed at the Alamo in February and the couple was married in August 2000. As Thomas put it, “the military doesn’t issue orders to the whole family.” So when he received orders to Fort Lewis, Wash. Erin Thomas had to decide whether to leave the reserve, go active military and hope they were stationed in the same place. “It really took weighing her options,” Thomas said. She had to go through the entire recruiting process again, but Erin Thomas went on active duty and was stationed at Fort Lewis with her husband. But just because they were stationed at the same fort, didn’t mean they couldn’t be sent off for training or deployed anywhere in the world. At one point Thomas served in Louisiana and Erin Thomas was in California. As a member of a combat field hospital, Thomas was constantly gone for training. He was gone two out of the three years the couple was stationed at Fort Lewis. The last six months he was deployed to Kuwait and Iraq. “Those last six months were a crazy time,” Erin Thomas remembered. “Caitlyn was born two weeks after he left.

Next, orders came down to move to Fort Knox. Erin Thomas worked as a surgical coordinator at the fort’s hospital. Clinton Thomas worked at the hospital too, but his deployments continued. “The very day we found out I was pregnant with Lauren was the day he got orders to go to Africa. We got a lot of news that day,” Erin Thomas laughed. “The only time he came down on orders for deployment was when I was pregnant.” In Africa Thomas was assigned to a U.S. Navy civil affairs team. The team toured several countries, including Somalia and Ethiopia, assessing medical facilities. Thomas served as the team’s medical professional, caring for the health needs of the team’s members. Meanwhile, Erin Thomas and her daughters followed where Thomas was on a map. This time the deployment was hard on the girls, especially Caitlyn. Once Thomas decided to leave the service, the Army didn’t make it easy for him to leave. He was offered a $20,000 bonus and a chance to spend three years in Germany if he re-enlisted. While the offer would have given the family a chance to travel throughout Europe, the Thomases decided against it. “They deploy from Germany,” Thomas said. “I could have been deployed and Erin and the girls would have been there alone.”

Once he made his decision to leave the Army, Thomas began hunting for jobs online. It was a scary process after 10 years in the Army where many things from housing and health care to discounted groceries were among the benefits. “My last day, I couldn’t sleep because I thought the world would end,” Thomas said. “In the Army you’re so sheltered.” Now the family is adjusting to civilian life. Caitlyn is learning that her dad’s first name is Clinton not Sergeant. “The girls have figured out what a grocery store is,” said Erin Thomas.

The purple room

The girls room is finally ready for them to move in! It's not completely done yet, but the only thing left to do is the trim. That is going to be a long process since we are going to use the old trim, but modify it a little so it will look a little more modern and fit in with the room better. The old trim around the floor boards was really wide, so we are going to cut them in half, and possibly router a simple detail on the top edge, and try to find a stain to match the original color. The fan looks awesome installed! Bear did a great job on that. And the carpet is wonderful!!! The girls were so excited after the carpet got installed that they couldn't wait to move in, and actually slept on the floor for a couple nights while Bear and I were deciding what to do about the trim. We probably won't get to do any of the trim work til spring when it gets a little warmer out, so we figured we might as well let them move in right now. Only Caitlyn and Allison ended up in the new room. They originally wanted all 3 girls in there, but this way, they actually have some room to play on the floor instead of bumping into beds and dressers all over the place. They love their new room! And now Lauren is in her own room, which also means that we finally have our room to ourselves too! So now we can start getting rid of some more boxes and put a few more things where they need to belong.

I can't wait til we are ready to put carpet back in the rest of the rooms upstairs! It will be so much warmer up there! On to the next project...

There goes another one!

Caitlyn's other super loose tooth finally fell out with the aid of her Mamaw's magic fingers. I love this smile...if only it was a little before Christmas so she could get her wish! She already has 2 more loose on the bottom, so she could have a real hard time eating in the near future!

T

A warm January day

This has been a very odd January with temperatures fluxuating constantly between near zero up to over 60 degrees. And because of that, the girls haven't been able to use their new sleds they got for Christmas. So, their dad, being a good sport, and clearly enjoying getting to play with his toys too, agreed to give them a sled ride in a different way. Yes, he was towing them all over the yard behind the lawn tractor! I'm not sure who was having more fun...Bear or the girls!

It finally came out!!!

Caitlyn's 3rd loose tooth has finally fallen out tonight! The past couple days, her tooth has been poking out so funny, but it wasn't quite ready to come out. At dinner, she was going to get a drink, and I don't know if she hit her tooth on her cup or what, but her tooth fell out onto her chair, and she spilled her milk all over the floor. She was so excited that it came out on it's own, and that it didn't hurt at all! She quickly put her tooth in an envelope, sealed it, and put her name on it so she could put it under her pillow. She's still too stinkin cute...even with her missing teeth! Love you Caitlyn!!!

Happy New Year!!!

So this year, one of my resolutions is to quit using our slow-as-pond-water dial-up internet as an excuse to not update this blog, and just keep up with it! We'll see how it goes. Since the last update, my Allison turned 3 years old!!! It doesn't seem possible that she is 3 already, but she certainly thinks she is big. She has finally made it over 30 pounds. I thought she was going to stay 28 pounds forever, but at her yearly check up, she was a whopping 30 1/2 pounds and 37 inches tall. By that standard, she should be around 5'4" as an adult, which kind of suits my Tiny. I wasn't sure when we were going to be able to celebrate her birthday, because the night before, she was up throwing up with diarrhea and was completely not feeling good. Thankfully she recovered quickly and was able to celebrate her birthday on the actually day! For her birthday dinner, she asked to have hot dogs, ketchup, mustard, chips, and beans and cake, but no ice cream. Goofy kid, but that's what she wanted. We had a small crew come over to help celebrate the day with us, and she had all kinds of fun!

It had been a while since I took a picture with the 3 girls, so I had them all lay down together on the couch...I love this picture of my girls!!!

Bear was going out hunting one day and Caitlyn really wanted to go along, so she got suited up in blaze orange with some binoculars, and was ready to go. She had all kinds of fun out with all the guys in the cold until she needed to go potty and was nearly refusing to potty out in the woods and freeze her little tush. Of course, she went, and was fine, but she was not happy about it!

I finally captured a picture of all the varieties of our chickens we have. We get brown and white eggs from them, and have been lucky enough to not have to buy eggs since the day we got them! They are so fun to watch wandering around the yard and pasture. Unfortunately, Maggie has already eaten one of them, but she is learning the hard way that our chickens are not her dinner!

Allison's job every day is to give the chickens their food and water, and open their door, so they can come out if they want to. She loves to take care of her animals. She seems so big sometimes going out to do chores, but also so little, as Elmo frequently has to help her do chores (or one of her blankies).

We got a few inches of snow, and the kids got sent home early from school. The good thing about Bear's job is that when the post closes due to inclement weather, he gets a paid day off too! So, he got home a little after Caitlyn did. He borrowed his dad's truck and took all the kids up to Sweeny's hill and we went sledding for a while. Allison enjoyed herself much more this time, but still prefers to have a big person go down with her. Caitlyn on the other hand was doing just fine by herself. Bear was even having fun going down the really steep side, until he went through the brush a few times and decided he had better quit before he went head first into a tree. Anybody know anyone who would do something like that? I don't remember...I gave Elijah's snowboard a try and didn't get too far because my boots were too big to fit in the straps, and it was rather difficult to control one-footed. We had a blast anyways!

Lauren is still my chunkabuns! She is much more mobile now though. She can go from sitting on her own to playing on her belly, and rolling around. She gets up on her hands and knees and makes like she is going to crawl, but usually ends up going backwards. I'm sure she is going to take off one of these days! She has 2 teeth already, and 2 more are pushing their way up. She hasn't been too terribly cranky, and only spiked a fever once.

We got a little bit of an ice storm, but nothing like what it was last year, thank God!!! It was still pretty though. I managed to fall down our back steps and bruise/scrape up my legs, but nothing real serious.

I have been terrible about not having my camera with me when I really needed it. Not that I would have taken pictures from the front of the church, but I could have passed the camera to someone else to take pics for me. For the Christmas Eve service at the Coal Creek United Methodist Church, my whole family was involved! Since we have the youngest baby at church, even though she is a girl, she got to be baby Jesus in the nativity scene. That also meant that Bear was Joseph, and I was Mary. Caitlyn and Allison were both angels. But, Allison totally stole the show. She had to bring one of her stuffed bears with her, which she was pretending to give a piggy back ride to, and was pretty much petting the 2 year old boy's hair that was standing next to her, on top of constantly adjusting her halo to make sure it was perfect. Too funny! Through it all, Lauren just laid in the manger trying to chew on the hay. We had such a wonderful Christmas with the extra company of my parents for about a week. Despite a few obstacles while traveling, they made it safely here and back home again! New exhaust anyone?!?!

Our family is going to be growing again...but not because of me this time. Maggie is pregnant! She should have her pups towards the end of February. Hopefully she will be a really good mom! I plan on taking her to the vet in a couple weeks to see if we can have an ultrasound to find out how many puppies to expect. That will be an awesome picture to post if I can get one!

Caitlyn had her first holiday concert, and I forgot my camera then too. I don't know what I was thinking to not bring it. It was so cute and she did such a wonderful job! She stood up there and sang her little heart out without waving to everyone she knew, despite the efforts of her silly, arms flailing all over trying to embarrass his granddaughter, papaw. It was funny to watch anyways. We should have some more toothless pictures coming soon as Caitlyn has 4 loose teeth right now.

We were truly blessed with a wonderful year in 2008 and are looking forward to what the Lord has in store for us in the new year. May all of you be blessed in the year to come...our Saviour reigns!