Six months old and counting. Real Food. Promotions and Summer!

Great things are going on around here!

On 30 May the babies turned 6 months. To celebrate we gave them their first solid foods. Rice cereal mixed with formula. We've also since then tried homemade applesauce and they seem to like eating real foods, but they still prefer Mom. William's "baby talk" is getting very impressive and has passed up his sister's. He actually has something that he says that sounds so like "I want my mommy" that it is creepy. I'm sure he isn't saying that, but it fits with the context and it really does sound like it! I'm not crazy! The are both getting bigger and bigger and developing more personality. Neither is crawling yet, but it can't be much longer, especially for William who is still bigger by about two pounds. We still can't sleep through the night, but we get by and it is still so very worth it.

William trying out solid foods for his first time. Not bad he thinks...

Mom thinks feeding her babies from a spoon is pretty fun also!

Dad and Eleanor enjoying a meal together

Going for a walk (and a nap) in the chariot - the throw is a DeWeese family tradition

Melody is putting on Geoff's new rank insignia - this used to be called "pinning" on rank, but now the rank is attached with velcro on the chest. But don't expect Soldiers to start talking about "velcroing" in the future! We did the ceremony in the courtroom as seemed appropriate given what I do and love.

My boss, Lietuenat Colonel Kraus, helps out with the ceremony. He's been a great supporter and leader for the past year. Leaders like him, and my past two bosses, LTC Wells and LTC Corn are part of why I'm still in uniform today.

As I gave my promotion speech William wanted to be held and I thought it was pretty fitting to hold one of my babies as I talked about my promotion. I've been blessed with an amazing family and I could not have made it over 11 years in the Army without the support of an amazing wife like Melody. It is hard to believe I've been in this long. I've gone from private DeWeese to Major DeWeese!

Melody putting some of the final touches on a great promotion bar-b-que party we had. She is amazing and the party was a lot of fun in no small part to her hard work.

Now this is the strangest thing. The morning after our party I was up and went to throw a bag of garbage into the can outside our backdoor. There is a small porch there and the cans are next to it, so you can see into the cans from the porch as you are above them. As I began to toss the bag in something caught my eye. I looked closer and at first throught there was a dead cat or dog in our garbage, but then on closer look I realized it was something else. I gave the can a slight kick and the thing moved. It turns out it was a opossum and it had given birth (and maybe was still givnig birth). At first it actually had its head in an old garbage bag in the can wich is why it looked so strange. We ended up just leaving it there all day and by the afternoon we counted seven babies. A little after midnight I heard it outside and indeed it had moved all its babies somewhere else. Very fun and very strange!

Megan and her little Brother and Sister!

Dustin the pirate, wearing his light saber!

Mom and her youngest daughter hang out....

and William and mommy nap together!

As we move into Summer, it seemed a good time to get a new and improved swimming pool. The kids love this one! Here Megan is sliding on in as Dustin stays out of the way.

It sure looks like a huge danger, doesn't it! But no, they are fine and have great fun doing crazy slides into the pool!

Dustin checks things out on top of the slide before going in as Megan heads back for a huge running start on her next dip in the pool!

Megan on her way down...

and making a big splash as she lands!

Dustin just enjoying life

We'll that is it for now. I have one more week of work (including a trial) and next friday is my last day here. I start leave on Monday the 25th. After a little climb up Mt. Rainier, we'll have a lot of activity as the movers come and then we'll start the drive to Virginia. Hard to believe this latest chapter in our life is nearly at an end...