Magic Wheels Fundraiser

If you are a fan of this blog, you know that our family is a huge supporter of fundraisers, especially if they are for a great cause. When the Barkley Elementary School Parent Teacher Organization (PTO) hosted a fundraiser at our local roller rink, Magic Wheels Fun Center, you could absolutely bet that we were going to show our support. I mean, who in their right mind is going to turn down old-school roller skating, supporting your daughters’ school, AND seeing tough Army coworkers fall flat on their face while trying to skate? Well, should be no one, because as always, we had a blast at this event while supporting an amazing cause.

Elaina is 100% convinced this was her teacher under the suit

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4th Annual Halloween Cookie Decorating Party

While being deployed to Romania from October 2022 to April 2023, the girls and I were unable to partake in many of our annual holiday traditions. One that we missed the most was our annual Halloween Cookie Decorating Party; we also missed the Christmas-version, but you will not see the post for this year’s event for a couple more months. With the girls and I about to enjoy our first Halloween at Fort Campbell, it was also a great opportunity to invite some friends over for some fun with cookies, frosting, and sprinkles.

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Adventure Science Center

As we continue our search in concentric circles for our next adventure, we came across a children’s museum in Nashville, the Adventure Science Center. Aside from dropping the girls or Grandma off at the airport, the girls and I have not spent a lot of time in Nashville, so it was about time we dove into navigating the typical big city that is always about an hour away from Army posts (such as Seattle for Joint Base Lewis-McChord or Tucson for Fort Huachuca). The girls and I were all very excited to spend most of the day here, learning and interacting with science, biology, engineering, and the universe. If you have read this blog before, you probably think this is going to be another post where we all had a good time, the girls happily surprised me, and we all learned a valuable lesson along the way; unfortunately, this is not going to be one of those posts.

Adventure is Out There! Yep, it is literally on the sign.

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Discovery Park of America

Prior to the girls arriving at Fort Campbell following the year with their Mother, I conducted an extensive search on activities within a few hours of the post. I found a large selection of zoos, children’s museums, playgrounds, trampoline parks, and other activities to give them a large variety of things to do during our weekends. While trampolining in the backyard and going to the local pool have been fun, nothing in the area has been quite as amazing as visiting the Discovery Park of America in Union City, TN.

Looks like the girls are ready for some fun

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Back Together Again

About two months after completing my deployment to Romania, the girls were set to finish school and finally come back home. In the meantime, I visited them in Texas, moved houses during my reintegration leave, and took on additional responsibilities at my job. But like everything in the interim, it all just seemed like preparation for when they got back home. After a cross country car ride and two more weeks of leave, the girls and I are happily back together at Fort Campbell and ready to get back to being our awesome little family again.

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Visiting the Girls in Texas (Post-Deployment)

After my three-day mandatory reintegration period following my six-month deployment to Romania, I was going to drive down to Belton, Texas to visit my daughters. They had about two months left of school, but we all wanted to see one other before they came back to Kentucky permanently. I had the list of available activities, all the places we probably wanted to eat, and a clean car ready to receive them. Here is the post about my visit to Texas to see my daughters, an event six months in the making.

Not an optical illusion; they have definitely gotten taller.

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Welcome to Fort Campbell

Upon arriving at Fort Campbell, I expected to deploy immediately to Europe. As soon as I found out this was going to be delayed by two months, I communicated with the girls’ mother to have them visit the week before school started. Not only were they extremely happy to see their Dad again and setup their new rooms, but they were very excited to see the Fort Campbell area, where they would be living in a year’s time.

Gabriella did not want a giant cupcake… I will take her to the doctor to get checked out later…

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The Calkins Family’s Arizona Farewell Tour

“All good things must come to an end.” Unfortunate proverb, but so very true. Being in the military, it is only a matter of time before you have to move to a different duty station. Thankfully, through the Assignment Interactive Module (AIM) marketplace, we will always have choices in where we go next, but it still means that we have to leave Fort Huachuca. And, make no mistake, we have had a great time here. Before we left though, Elaina, Gabriella, and I wanted to make sure we did all the things that made our posting in Southeast Arizona so memorable.

Niñas. Niñas made it memorable. And giant, realistic dinosaurs.

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Playing a Little Baseball

Like many men out there, one of my fondest pastimes as a kid was playing catch with my Dad. Just a Father, Son, two mitts, a baseball, and a little conversation. No matter how busy we both were then and throughout our lives, there always seemed to be enough time to throw the ball around for a few minutes. Now that the girls and I are past that threshold, seemed like a good idea to get them started on hitting and fielding.

Ditch the unit hat and add some cleats, we may make a baseball player out of you yet.

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When Life Gives You a Yard Sale, Operate a Lemonade Stand

As we get ready for our big move to Fort Campbell, KY, one of the big things we still needed to do was get rid of some of our excess stuff. I mean, who would have thought that travelling every few years would lead to us accumulating junk at an alarming rate? Since the girls always wanted to operate a lemonade stand in front of the house, we figured this was the perfect opportunity to combine the two. Both ventures went better than any of us could have expected.

Free Lemonade? Seems like an unsustainable business model…

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