Everytime I try to fight, I fall without my wings I feel so small..

"Everytime I see you in my dreams, I see your face. It's haunting me, I guess I need you baby...my weakness has caused you pain." Britney Spears

Wow! It has not taken us six months, but rather 3 to finally get everything done and together. I have not lost interest in this blog, but rather have been waiting for the end of this PCS move.

After a hectic week of inprocessing and house hunting (which will NEVER be done again if I have my way with our next move), we moved into our house January 14th. We spent a very long, and cold night together lighting cardboard in our fireplace to keep warm until the gas was turned on. We have a pretty view of the mountains from our 3 bed/2 bath duplex and better yet we are close to Biggs Airfield where John's unit is stationed.

John likes his new unit for the most part...but they have not been here for a year yet so it is still pretty chaotic at times. He went to the field for the first time since before Iraq in February which sucked, but was for the most part uneventful besides the fact that we both were sick. He leaves tomorrow for the field again, until next Thursday. In other Army news, he is getting ready to go before the board here in the next six months or so to determine if he gets promoted to E-5. He is already talking about dropping a Recruiters packet and a Drill Sergeant packet, since we only have to stay here for at least a year. I'm not sure whats in store for us past that year point. It really is up to the Army and him on this subject. His unit is slated to deploy in 2012, although the exact month is unknown.

In January, we adopted our first mutt. Darth Reven aka Dark Lord, Sith Lord, Revvers, Muttbag #1, or just Reven is now a 11 month old Chocolate Lab/Pit mix and he is about 70 lbs and still growing. He is as energetic as any lab, and the only pit in him is his over protectiveness of me and in his face. He loves snoring, shredding and chewing on things he's not supposed to, and the car.

We made a roadtrip the day after we adopted Reven to AZ to get John's stuff that he had left in his parents care while he was in Germany. I am pretty sure that now Deb needs to downsize with the amount of his stuff we took off her hands. Reven, Crystal, and Mo played nice for the most part...but we drove back the day after we got there which was tough on everyone.

About two weeks after John came back from the field, we received our stuff from Germany. His field stuff came about three weeks too late for him, but he managed without it. He now happily has Guitar Hero, XBox, and our huge TV/surround sound for the ultimate gamers experience.

About a month ago, we adopted our second mutt. Her name is Shadow aka Mutt #2 and girly girl. She is a 15 month mixed, and just as sweet as she can be. She loves to play fetch, snuggle, and wear Reven's ass out in the backyard by playing with him. She is pretty timid, whoever had her before beat the crap out of her. We are working on that, but she is so well behaved and sweet that its kinda hard not to love her.

Oh....and we have 2 rats. Between the 5 of them...mutts, rats, and husband included it gets pretty chaotic here in the Morales household and there are never ending amounts of doggie hair and dirt.

I survived my first dust storm, and there are tumble weeds as big as me out here. I definately am not in North Texas anymore.

I start volunteering at the Humane Society soon, and I start school June 1st at El Paso Community College. My days will get busier, and it will be hard to not bring home every single puppy at the shelter. I am looking forward to classes, although I have absolutely no idea what I want to major in.

We are going to be Uncle and Aunt come June 20th to what I believe will be a beautiful baby boy. My sister is pregnant and we are all looking forward to the arrival of grandson and nephew. Mommy and baby are both healthy and everything is going well with her pregnancy.

I have started to collect money for the Relay for Life in which I will participate in memory of my grandmothers and grandfather who had various forms of cancer. I am looking forward to the event as it will be taking place on my grandmothers on my moms side birthday.

This next weekend, both sets of parents are coming down to El Paso to finally meet each other. We both are excited to see our parents, and just get to spend some quality time with them. It will definately be a fun weekend for sure. I can't wait for it to get here so I can hug my parents again.

We are adjusting to El Paso pretty well. It definately is a different experience for us. I think I was in more of a culture shock coming back to the US then going to Germany. I am NOT looking forward to the hot Texas summers, which can be brutal in West Texas. I don't like heat...and I especially don't like super heat. The people freak out when it rains here for crying out loud. I for sure am not in Kansas anymore.

Theres nothing here for me on this barren road..

"A lonely road, crossed another cold state line. Miles away from those I love, purpose hard to find." -Avenged Sevenfold

Since December 20th, it was almost like a game to ask where in the world are the Morales's now. I am so sick and burned out on travel that it is ridiculous.

Myself and John stayed up all night leading up to our flight, and departed for Frankfurt International about 4:45 am. It was -2 F and it was snowing. When I stepped out to help John clean off our windshield before we got onto the Autobahn my wet hair...froze. After a rather uneventful trip and turning in our rent car we breezed through customs and boarded our first flight of the day. Which turned out to be delayed. Which made it our most peaceful flight and airport experience.

Oh yes. We had 2 layovers..one in Dublin, the other in Chicago with Chicago being the longest at 1.5 hours. Can we detect an issue here already? We ran through Dublin and customs, and barely made our second flight of the day. Which..turned out to be delayed as well. We almost didn't make our last flight of the day except for the kindness (yes, TSA can be kind) of a TSA screeners heart. She had seen our assault packs and made a call in that screening checkpoint (the line was literally an hour long) for all active duty military to come up to the front. It was just us, and another Morales (unrelated) that came forward and were sent on our happy way. After running for our flight, we sat back in relative satisfaction until Denver.

In Denver we reclaimed our luggage, met up with Deb and John Sr and began the long trek and drive to Mesa, AZ. In those few days myself and John switched countless timezones, traveled 40+ hours, and got varying levels of sleep.

Christmas with the Morales's was awesome. Thank you guys for your hospitality again, and it was so fun to just chill with his parents. We flew out December 28th for my hometown, and spent a few days there before flying back on the 31st. I enjoyed getting to spend time with my parents and family although there is so much to get done in moving of my stuff to El Paso.

It was another long drive to El Paso on the 1st. It took us about 6-7 hours (we caught the wrong highway at first) to drive through pure desert. There were even signs warning of possible dust storms up ahead!

Our first weekend here we got American cell phones (yipee!) and kind of explored around El Paso. The post...is huge. The city...is even more huge...and there is mountains surrounded by lots and lots of flatness so El Paso seems to sprawl out over the southwestern portion of Texas and into Mexico.

There is still so much that needs to be done. Housing, inprocessing, registering for school, doctors appointments for me, moving our stuff down here...that sometimes I wonder if we will be settled here soon...or if it will take half a year to get everything accomplished. My impatience to get things accomplished isn't even helping the situation very much either.