Recalling 2001

2001 was kind of a crazy year for us. It started out with Joe joining the Army. I think he signed in February. We were told that he would have to report and be sworn in in March so, we decided that it would be nice to see family before he left. We went to Spokane to see my siblings. That was in early March. We were there for a week and that is when I decided that I would like to move home to be close to them while he was in boot camp and training. We came home from our trip to have enough time to get him ready to go.

He left the second week of March. It left me with a lot to do. We had given notice on our apartment so I had 2 weeks to get us packed and our stuff put into storage. It was hard not having him there with us. Cordin was about 10 months old when Joe left. Cordin had a really hard time. He used to wake up in the morning and sit on the end of the bed waiting for his daddy to come back from the bathroom. When Joe left, he didn't get to say goodbye because he had fallen asleep. Looking back I would have done it differently and woken him up to give Joe a hug and kiss goodbye.

Our plan was to go to Germany. (Boy, that is so not what happened)! I was able to get everything ready with lots of help from Joe's family. My grandma found us a little one bedroom furnished basement apartment in Cheney. It sucked, but it was a place over our heads for the 3 months that we had planned on being there. Everything was going pretty smoothly until Joe called me and said that there was a hiccup in his paper work. He was promised a certain type of job and because of an indiscretion in his past (won't go into that) they were not going to give him said job. They gave him three options, he could rejoin as...1. infantry man...2...calvary scout...3...he could make it so it was like he never joined the Army and could come home. That was easy for me...COME HOME. He wasn't sure what he wanted to do. I talked to his dad and a brother in law and we all fasted and prayed about it and the end result that we all got was that Joe should come home. So he did. It only took the military 4 weeks to send him home. He got home on April 30th which was nice, he was there for Cordins first birthday (May 1st).

The summer was pretty lame. We were now stuck in Cheney. Joe was out of work. We had a little in savings which is what we lived on. We weren't sure what we should do. At the end of the summer we moved into another one bedroom apartment. Joe enrolled in school at SFCC and started on his career path. I was able to be at home with Cordin. I babysat for a friend to earn a little extra income. That helped some. As the fall came I found out I was pregnant with Gabbie.


That fall the terribly sad event of 9/11 occurred. I know that the Lord was watching out for our family. I have no doubt that if Joe had stayed in the Army as a Calvary scout he would have been one of the first soldiers over seas. I am so grateful that Joe was able to come home. I really admire, respect and am eternally grateful for what our military does for us, but it was a blessing that Joe was with us, even if it didn't make sense at the time.


The end of the year was pretty quiet. We spent it with my family. The holidays were nice as I recall. Pretty laid back but very nice. I think that all of my siblings were there. That was the first time in several years that that happened. We were able to be together and make memories. Those first two years of marriage we not a walk in the park. There were some rough patches in there too. I just choose to look back on the more positive stuff.