Goldstein Family: January and February, where did you go?

Since I posted a post covering September through December what seems like just a few weeks ago, I find it crazy that January is already gone and February is on it's way out the door! It has been a couple of great months, busy as usual, with both of my children growing like weeds. Let's start at the beginning, shall we?

New Years Eve and day was pretty tame this year. Usually our dear friends, the Rendells, are in town and we celebrate together but, this year they stayed in Florida and we stayed here. We went to my mom's house for a little while and then came home to put the kids to bed and watch the ball drop. We barely made it past midnight before we were conked out, cozy in our bed. Not too exciting yet strangely relaxing.

On January 2nd, Texas Tech played Michigan State at the Alamobowl here in town. So, being the true Tech fan and alumnus that I am, we decided to go. We invited some dear friends to go with us who are die hard Aggies and they said they would go and support Tech incognito. Tech won 41-31 and I went home a happy Red Raider!

We celebrated my Dad's birthday a couple days later at Gatlin's favorite restaurant, Peter Piper Pizza. It was a great time and Gatlin thoroughly loves playing games with his "Hojo". Gracyn likes it there too because she can look at all the flashing lights. We are very blessed to live so close to our family and be able to celebrate birthdays together.

Gracyn getting loved on by her Hojo. Happy birthday, Dad!

Next up was the much anticipated National Championship game featuring none other than Kyle's beloved alma mater The University of Texas squaring off against our neighbor (and great friend's) beloved team, Alabama. Boy, could you feel the tension in the air as game time approached. Kyle even drew with sidewalk chalk all over our driveway to support the Longhorns and taunt our neighbors. Graciously, they invited us over (in spite of ourselves) to watch the game and eat wings. Here are Kyle and Gracyn getting into the spirit and anxiously awaiting kick off...

As most of you know, Texas' quarterback, Colt McCoy, got hurt on or around the 4th play of the game and did not return to the game. Without him playing, Texas suffered an agonizing defeat to Alabama (much to the joy of our neighbors). To this day, Bobo still taunts Kyle with the score of 37-21. He even put notes in Kyle's jacket pockets for Kyle to find at a later date. Kyle's retaliation?...

He knew that crossbow would come in handy someday!

Also in January, one of Kyle's high school friends came in town for an incentive ride in the T-38. Ceb is the lead guitarist for Blue October and his band did a concert for the military over in Germany. As a thank you, Kyle was able to arrange a ride in his jet for Ceb. That's a pretty big deal considering I've never been up in the jet and will never get to. The ride was a lot of fun for both of them and Ceb is now considered an honorary Black Eagle! He even came back a few weeks later and attended a roll call (yet another thing I've never gotten to do or will ever do). No, I'm not jealous! :)

Doing a pre-flight check around the jet

Getting ready to go..

Back on the ground after a fun ride!

February has been a bit less eventful but I've been able to get some cute pics of the kids. Gatlin had two weeks of "themed weeks", one week being "Bear week" and another being "Cowboy week". Anything you could ever want to know about either one, Gatlin learned at school. He took a teddy bear to school with him two days and came home with the most adorable ears...

The next week, he had to dress like a cowboy...

Cutest cowboy I've ever seen! :)

One of my mom's sisters (Bonnie) and her husband Ralph have been in town since mid January. While they've been down here, Bonnie celebrated her 70th birthday. Unbeknownst to her, her two daughters and their families planned a surprise visit to help her celebrate. We all met at Olive Garden for the big surprise and boy, was she ever surprised!! It was so much fun to see the look on her face and we were all so relieved that we didn't have to keep the secret any longer. We all almost slipped several times!!

On Valentine's Day weekend, we went to Lorena to see Kyle's brother and family and his parents. This was the same weekend when Dallas got six inches of snow. Being the clever mom/Gigi she is, Billie brought down two big coolers full of snow and we all had a snowball fight! The kids even made a small snowman!

We also celebrated both Doc's birthday and the twins' birthdays while we were there. It was great to be together and thank you Brandt and Christi for hosting all of us. What a fun weekend!
Here are all the kids, minus Gracyn, piling on Doc!

Gigi and Gracyn dolled up for Valentine's Day!

February 16th was a big day in our house as Gracyn rolled over for the first time on her own!
Watch..

On Friday, Feb 19th, we got the best news of all... Kyle got hired for an AGR position! What does that mean? Warning: Long explanation to follow...
Ever since Kyle separated from Active Duty, he has had a part time reservist position. He was still flying the T-38 but was not guaranteed to ever have enough hours of flying and working to make up a 40 hour work week. So, in order to keep the bills paid, he has been "troughing" (flying as many hours as he could), in addition to working other jobs around the base. For a year, he was on the Inspector General team that goes around to other bases doing inspections. That required him to be gone about one week a month, sometimes more. When we got pregnant, we both agreed that being on the IG team wasn't ideal. Without a job to fall back on, we put our faith in God and decided to quit the IG team for a year. God was faithful and provided another job for Kyle taking bids from companies to build the new T-38. Since that job wasn't supposed to start until January and the IG job ended in September, we again put our faith in God that he would provide enough hours to keep the bills paid. He did and also orchestrated an AGR position opening up in the squadron that shouldn't have been. Kyle applied about three weeks ago and praise God, he got the job.

What this means is we are now back on Active Duty status, flying the T-38 here, at Randolph, indefinitely. We are on military health care again and will receive an active duty retirement when he retires. It is truly the best case scenario for us. God is so faithful and we praise him daily for his goodness and mercy. It still feels like a dream and I don't think it's fully sunk in for either of us yet!

Just two days ago, San Antonio got a little snow. Not much to write home about but, in this town, it's a big deal! Gatlin got to go outside and catch snowflakes on his tongue while he was at school and I purposely woke Gracyn up so she wouldn't miss the snow. Believe it or not, it's the second time she's seen it in her short little 5 month life! Once in Dallas over Christmas and once here!

Look very closely at the fence and you can see flakes and on the ground, the tiniest amount of accumulation! :) I know, pathetic, right?

To end this post, I thought it would be fun just to post some cute pics we've gotten over the past couple of months. I will try to post them chronologically so you can see how Gracyn has changed. We love our lives and couldn't be more blessed!