A Much Needed Update

This update has been a long time coming. A lot has gone on since the last time I updated you. Brandon finally made it home for his leave on October 8th. We had a really great time together. We did a little remodeling/updating to the house, carved pumpkins for Halloween, ate A LOT, saw all of our family, and so much more. Sadly the time passed way to quickly, but luckily we are on the downhill slide. He should be home around the first of April.

On the plus side, time has really been flying since he left. The holidays are always a busy time, especially in the grocery business. I've been putting in a lot of hours at the store which has kept me extremely busy. I also received a new calling in the ward as the Young Women's Secretary. It has been a good undertaking, and although I'm only 22, being around those girls is starting to make me feel a little old. (I know, I know, crazy huh.)

I included a bunch of pictures to get everyone caught up as to what's been going on. Hope you enjoy!

Christmas Decorations on the entertainment center/fireplace
My "Huge" Christmas tree this year. (I couldn't justify putting up the full size tree just for me, so this is plenty)
A beautiful wreath my parents gave me last year. (I made a new bow so that it would compliment my decorations)
One of my side tables in the living room

My table centerpiece

Brandon carving his pumpkin. Sadly I'm allergic to the pumpkin guts so I wasn't able to partake in the excitement. But he sure had a good time.

The final product!

All lit up

The Living Room Before

The Bare Mantel

The start of the entertainment center (we were making sure the shelves weren't too tall)

The Final Product

A Close-up of the New Entertainment Center

The Dining Room Before

The Carpet All Removed (The Original Hardwood Floor Had Nails All Over It, So Needless To Say We Had To Change Our Plan and Go With Laminate Flooring Instead) The Start of The Laminate

The Laminate Almost Installed

The Final Product (Well minus the transition strip and the floor molding, which are now in place)

Counting Down The Minutes...

Well we have finally made it to the half-way point of the deployment. And with the halfway point comes Brandon's R&R leave. We have both been anxiously awaiting this leave. It has been a whirlwind trying to get ready for him to come home. Since he has been gone I have kept myself busy doing little "projects" around the house. The fun part of my projects, though nothing extravagant, is the fact that Brandon doesn't know what I've been up to. (I will post a list/pictures of my projects after he has seen them) So not only have I been putting finishing touches on my projects I have been scrubbing down the house from top to bottom and trying to keep my head on strait.
Now any of you who have had the WONDERFUL opportunity to work with the military you know how unorganized they can be. The lack of planning in the military doesn't really coincide with my preference of having things planned out and organized. You may wonder what I'm talking about, Brandon is due home within the next couple of days. Most people would think that we would know when he would be coming home so we could make travel arrangements and be able to let our friends and family know when to expect him home. On the contrary, I have no idea what time Brandon is flying in, let alone what day. I do, however, know what airport he will be flying in to. I will pick him up in Billings either Wednesday evening or sometime Thursday morning. So all of you who are anxious to see him please bear with us while we wait for more concrete plans from the military. (The news will probably come only hours before his plane is to land in Billings.)
So for now I feel like I'm pregnant and just waiting for the baby to come. The car is gassed up, the bags are packed, and I'm ready to leave at a moments notice. I'll let everyone know when my "bundle of joy" finally makes it home. Thanks for being patient.

An Unexpected Gift

While I was on my way home from work today I got a call from my dad at the store letting me know that someone would be stopping by the house in the next few minutes. I had no idea who would be coming over and I was also worried because I knew my house wasn't very clean. Once I got home the doorbell rang and when I opened the door I saw this...
Needless to say they were from Brandon just wishing me a good day. (And to tell you the truth, it really did). Little surprises like this are so nice to get. So THANK YOU HUNNY!

Just a Little Update

It's been a while since I last blogged, so I'm a little behind. Not much has been going on lately. Brandon has now been over in Kuwait for about 2 months. They are finally getting settled in and getting a routine down. He goes on missions up to Southern Iraq as part of a convoy security team. They are traveling at night which ends up making it so that he is sleeping while we are all sleeping and he is up while we are all up. And compared to the last deployment it really does make talking a lot easier. He has been able to purchase personal internet from the guys they were replacing which means that he is able to have much more reliable internet and it also allows us to talk via Yahoo Messenger and Skype.
We also found out that he will be getting a two week leave sometime in October. We are all anxious to have him home for a little while, although it won't be long enough. After his leave he will have approximately 6 more months left of his tour and should be home sometime in April.
Well that's all I have for now, I haven't been able to receive any pictures to post, but as soon as I do I will post them for everyone to see.

Together Again...Well For A Few Days

It was a pretty exciting time for both Brandon and I. I was able to go down and visit Brandon in Texas for a few days the end of June before he deployed to Kuwait. I made the trip with a friend of mine who has a boyfriend serving with Brandon. So it was nice to have someone else to travel with.

It didn't take long for us to get back into our weird ways. We stayed in a town called Killeen which was about 20 minutes away from the base Brandon was on. All the locals said there wasn't anything to do in the town, that it was so small...but being from Wyoming we know our small towns, and this was not a small town.

I was lucky enough to get to celebrate my birthday while we were down visiting, so to celebrate we decided to go miniature golfing and ride go karts. It ended up being a really fun day topped off with Olive Garden for dinner and a cake purchased at Walmart.

We had rented a car when we got there and decided to take a road trip to San Antonio one day and visit a few places like Sea World, the Alamo, and the Guinness World Record Museum. These are a few pictures of what we saw/did while we were there.

Brandon left for Kuwait on June 29 and arrived there safely. Once he got there he called home to tell me some exciting news. He received a promotion to Sargent, which means he now has a pay raise (yay) but also a lot more responsibility. But he was fine with the news of the responsibility because he had been filling in for the job since it came available. He is no stranger to stepping up and going the extra mile. I'm glad that he does, because if it were me, I think it'd only be the bare minimum being done. Also, I'll include his new address to the end of this blog along with his email if anyone would like to keep in touch with him. He loves hearing news from home. Until next time!

Sgt Yule, Brandon

1stPlt

C-BTRY 2/300th FA BN

APO AE 09327

email: yulephoto@yahoo.com

Picture Update

Here are some recent pictures that Brandon has sent to me, hope you enjoy them!

Update From Texas

I thought it was time to update everyone on what's been going on with Brandon since he's been down in Texas. He is training at the Fort Hood military base where he says it is hot and cramped. Below is a picture of where the guys are living. There are 120 guys per building and things get a little cramped inside.

This is a picture of Brandon's Team, everyone is broken down into teams (which ends up being each truck). For his team Brandon is the driver (he was the driver on his last tour as well), Justin Pfeiffer is the navigator, and Kelly Queen as the gunner. Brandon was awfully surprised to find out that he had a girl on his team. One of the original members of their team was injured while they were in Guernsey training. They got the addition of Queen once they reached Texas. All Brandon could say is that he's having a hard time adjusting to having a girl on the team.

Here is Brandon all decked out in all of his gear, including his 80 pounds of body armor.

If anyone is interested in writing or sending packages I'll include Brandon's address at the bottom. We really want to thank everyone for your constant support and love!

Mail:

SPC Brandon Yule

2-300 FA C-BTRY

1st Platoon

North Fort Hood

Fort Hood, TX 76544

Shipping (FEDEX/UPS):

SPC Brandon Yule

Bldg 56422, 2-300 FA C-BTRY

1st Platoon

North Fort Hood

Gatesville, TX 76528

Scrapbooking Memories

This is the first of many scrapbook pages for Brandon's Deployement. It's going to be a bigger project than I anticipated, but it should be fun. I'll try to post my progress so everyone can see.

One Day Closer to "Welcome Home"

This weekend has been a roller coaster of emotions, one that we have been dreading since Brandon received his orders to deploy to Kuwait. We started out with a ceremony here in Worland on Saturday. After the ceremony Brandon and I decided to make the trip to Casper a day early. Mostly to get away from the lingering stress at home.
We were joined Sunday morning by my parents for lunch before yet another ceremony. After we ate we made our way to the Casper Events Center where we met up with Brandon's family. Once again we sat through an emotional ceremony barely being able to keep our composure.
After we were finished with the ceremony we wen to the hotel that the guard had arranged for us to stay. We were a little skeptical when we entered the lobby and saw wild floral patterns, a pink metal staircase, and an odd smell. We brushed it off and got the key to our room and made our way upstairs. Once we got to our room we opened the door to find one of the scariest rooms either of us has ever seen. There were two tiny beds with old dusty comforters, yellowed headboards, (I'm assuming they were probably white when the hotel first opened like a hundred years ago) and a tiny yellowed sink surrounded by dark rock. We put our bag on the bed and rested our leg on the edge, the mattress almost flipped on top of us. So needless to say we made a phone call and got a different hotel room in a more comfortable hotel. We really weren't looking to catch any disease.

After we got our lodging situation under control we met up with both of our parents for a delicious dinner at Outback.

We all met up bright and early this morning (before 7:00) at the hotel we were supposed to stay the night at, and got Brandon ready to leave. We decided to say our goodbyes at the hotel instead of trying to find each other at the airport and have the possibility of not getting to say goodbye. It was really tough to say goodbye to each other for another year. For me the second time was a little easier because we know what to expect, but Brandon told me it was harder the second time around.

So I guess it's time to use our blog for it's original intended use, to keep all of you updated on Brandon and what he's doing. Thanks everyone for all of your love and support, it has really been a blessing to us as we have prepared for this huge adjustment in our lives!

One Last Hurrah

Last Wednesday I finally pulled it off. I had been planning a surprise birthday/going away party for Brandon for over a month and it went over pretty good.
I had been stressing over all the details for quite a while like how many people will actually show up, how much food am I going to need, is anyone going to blow it. Needless to say, I was glad when it was all over.

My biggest challenge was trying to figure out how to get Brandon to the party. I decided to hold it at the fire hall since that is Brandon's home-away-from -home and I would be able to set up the party without him really knowing about it. I had everything all planned out when I got a phone call from one of his good friends who is also on the fire department. He told me there was a huge tanker spill in Manderson (which is 20 miles away) and Brandon went on the call (which was only 2 hours before the party was supposed to start). So I started to panic trying to figure out what to do now. Do I cancel the party or do I still have it and not know when the guest of honor will arrive.

Needless to say, I went with the latter. Everyone showed up and were really understanding about the situation. (It really helped that the majority of the guests were fellow fire fighters and their families). We cooked up hamburgers and hot dogs to feed everyone while they waited.

Finally, over an hour and a half after everyone had shown up Brandon drove up to the fire hall with tons of people waiting outside to wish him a happy birthday and good luck.

Needless to say he was super surprised. It was a real challenge for me to keep everything a secret from him. We tell eachother everying, Christmas is almost non-existant in our house because we can't keep anything a secret. But everyone pulled together and we had a good time in the end.








Brandon when he arrived at the fire hall. Still in shock














The cake that the store decorated for Brandon. It turned out GREAT!

The Boredom Sets In

Brandon had 2 1/2 weeks of training in Guernsey which left me home alone the whole time. Needless to say I got a little stir crazy while he was away. I have little projects around the house that I have been saving up to do when the deployment begins but I couldn't contain myself. I had to start now.

I haven't been completely satisfied with our bathroom since we moved in so i decided to take off the cupboard doors and paint the shelves along with our vanity. Here are some pictures of what the semi-finished product looks like. (I still have to buy the new shower curtain, bath mats, and bath accessories, but it's better than it was before.)

I decided that this little wall was too blank by itself so I decorated it with a cute vinyl saying I made.

Here Goes...

I never thought that I would ever have a blog because my life is just that boring, but I figured because my husbad is getting deployed to Kuwait in another month that this would be a good way to keep everyone informed.
Brandon and I were high school sweethearts and have been married for almost 2 years now. This is Brandon's second deployment through the Army National Guard. The first was to Iraq for 15 months while we were engaged. This second deployment is to Kuwait. He will be doing 3 months of training in Texas before moving on to serve 9 months in Kuwait. I will do my best to keep everyone informed while Brandon is away. I'll put updates and pictures that Brandon sends me on here so that all of our family and friends will be up to date on recent events.