Oh the Times, They Are A-Changin'

Well, there is quite a bit to share about the last few months, complete with a forecast for days to come in the near future.

Since the last time Lisa wrote, we have been traveling quite a bit. We traveled down to Florida for Thanksgiving for a few days. It was a nice little visit. We made a trip to the beach and went to a park with some of the nieces and nephews. Other than that, we mostly just stayed around Mom and Dad Hellum's place. It was a nice, relaxing few days off. That was until we made the drive that should have been five or six hours but ended up being eight. Cursed Thanksgiving traffic!

My BOLC (Basic Officer Leader's Course-please forgive the Army acronyms) class has been on the wind down since. We had our field time, which was a good experience (minus not getting to sleep at home in my nice, warm, comfy bed with Lisa.) Of course, we did have the great fortune to have our field days during a cold snap where the morning temperatures were in the teens. What can I say? My blood has thinned with spending so much time in the south. I had the privilege of giving my brief to a one-star general. I didn't trip on my tongue too much during that brief, but the general did tell me that I need to learn to talk a little less. The captain that was there for my brief confirmed that by telling me that she could tell that I knew my stuff, but that I just talked myself into a corner. She said I would have been better off to just say what I had to and leave it, rather than continuing to explain the same thing over an over. Still struggling with that one, I guess.

Not too terribly long after our field week, we wrapped up class for a few weeks while everyone went on Holiday Exodus. "Holiday Exodus" is the Army's equivalent of "Christmas Break" from back when we were in elementary school. This was, by far, the best break I had during my time at Fort Jackson. We had quite a number of four day weekends during the course and a fair number of them didn't feel like long weekends at all...especially when the work days before and after felt like they were extra long. This break, however, felt very sufficient! It was a whirlwind of travel during the first few days. Lisa and I traveled down to Burmingham, Alabama to attend my old college buddy/roommate, Sean's wedding. It was very lovely! Sean was very happy to see me and Lisa there. From there, we drove down to Daytona to spend the night at Mom and Dad Hellums' place. The next morning we were up at 5:00 and off to the Orlando airport, where we caught our flight with the ultimate destination of Milwaukee. That afternoon, we were in Mom and Dad Nigh's new minivan headed for Sun Prairie. I will admit that while I knew that the frozen tundra would be blanketed in snow, it was still a little surprising having come from an area of the country where it would be amazing to see so much as a snowflake!

Our time in Wisconsin was very enjoyable! We went shooting at the indoor range where Mom and Dad are members. That was fun. I was able to pass on a few pointers to help Dad tighten up his shot group a little. I was able to display a little bit of marksmanship as well, accumulating a decent 5" diameter grouping at 10, 20, 30 and 40 yards. On Christmas eve, we went down to Fon du Lac to attend mass and partake in the year's white elephant gift exchange with the Kath family. It was a good time! Good food and plenty of laughs with the maternal side of the family. The coveted item of the year was Inception on DVD. I wish I could say that Lisa and I were able to snatch it up, but we did not. Oh well, the gifts were only a footnote for the visit. It was good to be with family. The following day, we were over in Campbellsport to spend Christmas day with Dad's side of the family. I had a lot of fun talking with my cousins, Chris and Doug, about my adventures in the Army. The white elephant gifts were, of course, entertaining and everyone seemed very happy just to be together, which is, of course, one of the best things about Christmas!

One of the highlights of our visit was being able to get up and do some exercise with Mom! I'm not entirely sure Mom would agree...but, I had fun and I felt great after our workouts! Dad had given Mom a Wii for Christmas, along with Wii Fit Plus. Even Dad got into some of the exercises on the Wii. We went to Best Buy and got Wii Active for Mom. The workouts on that are a little more intense than those available on Wii Fit Plus. After Lisa and I had left for Florida, Mom told me that Dad agreed to get up and do Wii Active with her. That was great news for me to hear! I'm excited that Mom and Dad are getting themselves in shape!

After our time in Wisconsin drew to a close, we flew back down to Orlando. Mom and Dad Hellums had rented a vacation house that was able to comfortably accommodate all of the Hellums clan. It was really nice and it didn't feel crowded at all. It was a very relaxing few days. We had Christmas number two. Dad Hellums got me an Aaron Rogers jersey. It is very nice and I wore it on Sunday during our drive back. We took a trip to Sea World, which was a lot of fun. We went to quite a few shows and I was able to go on one of the park's roller coasters (Lisa couldn't go...well, I guess I should say Eliana couldn't go.) Aside from the trip to Sea World, we mostly stayed around the house. We had a miniature pool table, bean bag toss and a number of other activities that made even just staying at the house very entertaining. Saturday the grandkids (and most of the adults) swam all day. We left for Daytona that evening. The following morning, Lisa and I left to head back to Columbia.

The following days at class went quickly. We did our FM 1-0 briefing for the commandant and we took our final exams. The weekend that followed ended up being a four day weekend thanks to a freak snowstorm that rocked the south. It was only 3" of snow, but...when the state you live in lacks a sizeable plow system and mother nature then coats that snow with a layer of ice, everything shuts down. Of course, this meant that our movers were unable to come on Monday. So, they came early in the afternoon on Tuesday. They were there at about 1430 and gone by about 1730. It was amazingly fast!

The following day, we had our graduation. I was fortunate enough to have made the commandant's list (the graduates in the top 20%.) I was fourth in my class of thirty-five. The graduation ceremony went pretty well for only having rehearsed it that day. It was mostly nice to just finally be finished with class.

So, after graduating and cleaning up our apartment, we turned our backs to Columbia and drove two days to Leesville, Louisana. In the not too distant future, I will begin my new assignment at Fort Polk. I'm ready to start my new adventure!

I'm craving...

My cravings are all about the power of suggestion. I see a picture or commercial or Dave says something and suddenly I can't get it out of my head.

So the other weekend I was looking through the ads and there was a picture of a spinach salad with strawberries, nuts, and cottage cheese...that's what I wanted. Dave laughed at me a just shook his head at me, but as we were about to go grocery shopping I won and got all kinds of yummy salad ingredients. Dave thought my salad was so pretty he decided to take a picture.


Last week, I wanted meatballs and crescent rolls (after watching food network where these ingredients were in 2 completely different shows). I decided to create my own little recipe, for what I'm now calling meatball sub bites. I had frozen meatballs that I just cooked up in pasta sauce. I unrolled the rolls and put 1 meatball with whatever sauce stuck to it and I meant to put some cheese in, but I forgot. Rolled it up into a little bundle and cooked in it the oven following the directions on the crescent roll tube. They were super yummy and I dipped them in the leftover sauce that I cooked the meatballs in. Dave liked them too, so I'm sure I'll make them again.

Our little princess!

On Wed we had our second ultrasound here in SC. This time baby was cooperating with the Dr and we were able to see it's a girl! We've thought it was a girl from the beginning, but it was wonderful to confirm that. The Dr made sure her brain, heart, and spine were developed properly, which they are, and then started looking for a gender indicator. Right away we were able to see between her legs and there was of course nothing there. This of course doesn't mean it's for sure a girl, so he kept searching and finally got a perfect shot saying "Oh that is a classic girl." The Dr said that everything looks good and she is very active. As for my health, everything is good there too. Over the past month I've gained 5 pounds, that puts me about 3-5 pounds shy of what I should be at. As the nurse said , not really sure where even the 5 pounds is though. We are so excited to be having a little girl and already can't wait for her to get here....it's going to be a long wait to March. Here's a few pics from the past few weeks

Dave got a new dress shirt and tie, he looks so snazzy.

20 weeks! Half way there!

And here she is! Eliana Elisabeth Nigh

A little update

I know I haven't written in awhile, and I have no excuse as to why I haven't written, so sorry. I realized today we have been in Columbia for nearly 2 months already. That's how long I lived in Phenix City total. The time has really flown by. I think it's because Dave and I are back together, no more living in the barracks for him. We are really enjoying our time together again.

We went to the zoo a few weeks ago. I'm sure Dave suggested it just to make me happy. When we drove into Columbia, I saw a billboard advertising for the zoo and said I wanted to go. It was the perfect day for the zoo, not too hot at all. It was so nice to get out of the house and do something different. We saw lots of animals and took a lot of pictures (they are all on facebook), but forgot to take a picture of the two of us together, oh well.



For Dave's birthday, we went to a corn maze, no pics of that, we went at night. That was another fun date.

We also had a ultrasound in the last couple weeks. We were hoping we might find out what the baby is, but no such luck. Baby had it's legs crossed and wasn't showing anything. Our next ultrasound is in 2 weeks and it will be a more detailed look. We did get a great picture anyway. It was so amazing to see our little one. Dave was so excited and happy, he looked like a kid on Christmas. I can feel it kick now, which is weird and very reassuring that everything is ok. We've also started looking at car seats and strollers and thinking about what else we will need. It's becoming more and more real.

Guess Who's Back...

Hello, everyone. Yes, it's me...the Nigh family soldier! I've returned to the lofty forefront of our tiny little corner of cyberspace. I don't know that I necessarily have a whole lot of news to share on here, so much as I have my own perspective to offer on some of the things that Lisa has already posted about my time in Basic Training and Officer Candidate School. But, it is a lot of time to cover in just one post. So, forgive the repeats.

So, going all the way back to March 9, the day that I left. At the MEPS in Milwaukee, while I was sitting and waiting for hours on end, my sweetheart came and tapped me on the shoulder. It was wonderful to see her and difficult at the same time, as I knew that I would not be seeing her again for a very long time. I was called back with a number of other people to receive our travel briefing, then we had to wait for the MEPS people to call us up to get on a shuttle for the airport. Then, I bid a tearful goodbye to my Lisa before leaving her for what would seem like a very long time. My flight got delayed a little and we got into Atlanta fairly late. They couldn't fit all of us onto the bus that was there to take us down to Fort Benning, and I ended up with the unfortunate lot who got to stay behind and wait for the next bus. We did finally make it to 30th AG, the reception battalion at Fort Benning, around midnight. But, rather than put us to bed when we got there, they took us to get our PT issue and fill out our first round of paperwork. It was a really late night. The next week or so would be very much the same, wake up early to screaming drill sergeants, go eat, then stand in line for shots, stand in line for paperwork, stand in line for haircuts, stand in line for eye exams, stand in line for clothing, stand in line for dental x-rays, I swear we sometimes stood in line just for the sake of standing in line. Then of course, we would eat lunch, followed by more standing in line, then eat dinner, followed by standing in formation (a nice change from standing in line...I guess) and finally going to bed. I'm fairly certain that one of the missions of the reception battalions is to make certain that the new soldiers are all familiarized with the Army's standing principle of "hurry up and wait" before they even get out into the regular Army. They did a good job. I got it.

Then, on a Tuesday afternoon, all of us who were lucky enough to be leaving 30th AG brought out our bags and threw them on trucks which drove off to be delivered to our new home for the next 10 weeks. We were not as fortunate as our bags. To the sound of our new Drill Sergeant's cadence, we marched over to the company area of Bravo Company 2nd Battalion 47th Infantry Regiment on Sand Hill. Over the next 10 weeks, we would crawl through dirt and mud, climb ropes, repel down ropes, throw grenades, go through a gas chamber, march many miles with heavy packs, practice room clearing, learn combatives, march more miles with heavy packs, shoot M-16s, shoot machine guns (including the 50 cal, ooooooh baby!) Of course, you mingle that with a good smoking from our Drill Sergeants from time to time. Every letter from friends or family was like manna from heaven! Every letter from Lisa was like pizza from heaven!! It was easily the hardest thing I had done in my life to that point. But, it was worth it. I would never want to do it again, but it was worth it.

After Family Day and Graduation, where I got to spend the better part of the day with my wife, as well as with my Mother and Father-in-law, including a visit from my brother-in-law and fellow soldier, Chris, I was shipped off to OCS. It seemed like a very long bus ride across post when it really wasn't. It probably felt like a long ride because I was under the impression that I would not get to spend the weekend with my wife as I had thought I would. The new area was an intimidating one, probably because it was new and unfamiliar. But, I would learn to enjoy the new freedoms that I would have as an officer candidate. Unlike Basic Training, we were permitted to have our cell phones, which allowed me to call Lisa every night! The barracks we stayed in were laid out like a dorm, so I didn't sleep in the same room with 60 other guys and get every cold or other upper respiratory infection that everyone else got. We got every weekend off, which was the best thing of all! I actually got to spend an occasional night with Lisa. This was all such a nice, pleasant change from Basic where I barely heard from Lisa, let alone saw her. Of course, one pleasant little surprise out of all that time with Lisa was that we would discover that we were expecting our first child!

Graduation and commissioning was great! Lisa's parents were there, as well as our nephew, Lucas. My friend and former roommate, Sean, and his girlfriend (now, fiance), Heidi, were there. My parents were able to come! That was really nice as I had not seen them since I left for Basic. They were out in Utah so that they could attend my sister, Becky's, wedding which was the day after my graduation from Basic.

So, I was a newly commissioned 2nd Lieutenant. What was the first thing I did? Along with Lisa, I packed up all of our things at our apartment in Phenix City, AL and we drove the five hours up to Columbia, SC where we currently reside.

For the time being, I am snowbirding (which really only means working until my class starts.) I was able to go up to Fort Lee, VA and compete in a 5K run at the Sustainment Bowl. It was fun! I finished 7th out of 20 runners and my team took first! Other than that, my job here at Fort Jackson has me recording classes at the NCO academy on post. It's a pretty decent job that, if nothing else, keeps me from going stir crazy until my class starts. I look forward to moving on in my career, though.

So, there you have it. Not the glorious, trite, witty missive one might expect...but, hey...I've been out of it for awhile. Give me some time, it's just my first entry in awhile. Hopefully, I can muster some more...soon.

Another new apt

So just when I was feeling settled in Phenix City, we packed everything up and moved to South Carolina. We will be here for a little longer than our last residence, but not much longer. We've been here for 2 weeks and finally unpacked everything and cleaned so we could take pics. So here's the tour of our apt. We will start in the garage because we almost never use the front door.

Dave bought a shelf and set it up in the corner there to hold all the boxes we are saving for the next move, along with a few other things that didn't have a home inside. Walking in and to the left is the living room.

You can see the front and patio door and the office area.

Here's the office area/laundry room. The apt came with a built in desk, which we weren't expecting, but was really nice to not have to buy one. Behind the closet doors are the washer a dyer, they also came with the apt! We get to put off buying new ones a little longer. Dave didn't take a pic of them but they are nice. They are full sized which seems huge after the little ones we had in Phenix City.

Here's the other side if the living room. Now you can see the garage door and the dining room. We have another little bar area from the kitchen, but our stools are way to short. They sit there anyway and make a great horizontal surface to catch things when we come in.


Close up on the dining room, it's still empty.

Here's the kitchen. There isn't nearly as much cabinet space as Phenix City, but I fit everything in and I like it.

Here's the hallway as seen from the living room, by the office. The kitchen entrance is on the right, the bedroom straight ahead and the bathroom on the left.

Here's the bathroom, it's big which is new for us. Plenty of counter space for both of us.


It has a huge garden tube! Neither of us have taken a bath in it yet, but we've sat in it and discovered that we can both actually stretch out and the faucet is above the tube so that's not in the way either.

The bathroom has a door into the bedroom (as you could see in the first bathroom pic) and here is the view from there. The bedroom door is just to the right.

Here is the other side. You can see the door now and the closet.

The closet is bigger than the bathroom in Phenix City. Ok, that might be a stretch, but it is BIG and came with shelves for my shoes.

Well that's the apartment. And as a bonus for reading all about it....
You get to see the first baby bump picture. This is 13 weeks.

wishing for our scanner...

So we have a scanner in WI, but if I had it hear with me in GA/AL I would scan in the sonogram picture I got today. Yes! I'm pregnant. I've made it past the date of my previous miscarriages and today I got to see the baby and hear it's heartbeat, so I'm feeling very confident and ready to tell people. Honestly, you aren't missing much with the pic. I'm not very far along yet, due in March. As the ultrasound tech said right now our baby pretty much looks like a grain of rice in the pic. The other thing I wish was that I knew how to get a recording off my phone, then you could enjoy the muffled sound of the baby's heart. The Dr is very pleased with baby's heart rate and development thus far. He said everything is right on track and looking great. I go back in again in 3 weeks. I started another blog about the pregnancy. Dave and I are both very excited and hoping for the best.