summer begins to wind down

though neither of us is in school, we somehow managed to pull off a pretty nice summer break. josh had shoulder surgery the first week in july and continues to recover pretty well. we have an appt w/the dr this week, and we're hopin he'll release josh to go back to work! in light of his surgery, month-long inability to drive, and follow-up appointments, i delayed startin a new job...i'm plannin on turnin in an application at the hospital here in seymour this week... but all in all, we've had several weeks here of no work for either of us. we've rested and played and laughed and had a chance to reconnect after seven months apart. we're grateful...

the past couple months, we've spent an unusual amt of time on the road....almost entirely b/w seymour and lubbock or seymour and amarillo....though it's been tiring, we've been able to spend quite a bit of time w/our families, which has been good. lots of laughs, a couple projects, and plenty of piddlin around.... we also took a quick vacation to....drum roll, please...las vegas. yep...we ventured west for a couple days to be overwhelmed w/the sheer amt of over-stimulation....people, noise, lights...as josh said, everything's for sale in vegas. we had fun, though....saw some neat things and laughed a whole lot.

i also just found out i've been accepted into grad school at midwestern state university over in wichita falls. i'll be studyin to become a nurse practitioner. it was really late notice, so i'm scramblin to get things together in order to start in a couple days.... after adjustin a bit to the news, i told josh, w/some eagerness in my voice, "i love school!"

we're gettin to know seymour...little by little. as i recently wrote to some friends - the weather's hot, the pace is slow, and the people are wonderful. it's been dreadfully hot and dry here this summer, as we take our place among the many in texas suffering from drought. the pace is refreshingly slow....livin in a small town, you lose a lot of convenience...but i'm pretty sure convenience isn't all it's cracked up to be. and the people really are wonderful. they've been warm and sincere and friendly....folks in small towns innately take care of each other, and josh and i have been fortunate to be on the receiving end of that.

we've decided to go the methodist church here in town...the first chance we had to go was just a couple weeks after josh's surgery, so we were movin a little more slowly than normal. well, we ended up bein pretty late...really late, actually....we tried to sneak in and sit toward the back w/o drawin much attention to ourselves. then suddenly, right in the middle of the service, our sweet landlord stands up in the choir loft and announces, "i have a joy! i think i just saw josh and lindsey walk in. they're our new game wardens!" all of our sneaky efforts blasted out of the water..... the next week, we still couldn't manage to get to church on time....but we were only about 5 minutes late, so we thought we were safe....nope...this time, our landlord was the lay leader...so again, though not as far into the service, he announces (and in doin so, interrupts himself) our arrival. needless to say, we have not been late since then.... this mornin, when he stood up in the choir loft and began, "i have a joy," we both stared straight ahead thinkin, "but we were here on time!" and then breathed a sigh of relief when the folks he mentioned were not us....

so there you have it....w/the best of intentions, i'm hopin we can blog more regularly...now that we're livin together again and have internet access...now that we're not livin on the road or w/our parents....now that we're finally settlin into life in seymour....

a lot has happened

the last few weeks have been....busy, eventful, and filled w/transition. up until about a week ago, i had a legitimate excuse for not bloggin for a while, as we didn't have internet set up here at the house for a couple weeks. since then, though, i've just been a little short on words....

not b/c we haven't had anything happenin since our last post. actually, several significant things have happened - josh graduated! i finished up at the va. we had a crazy week of travellin around the state. we've moved to seymour. we have the most wonderful landlords for our little while farm house that sits in the middle of a wheat field. in a matter of just a few days down here, we had numerous stories to tell about livin in an old house and the first official days of josh bein a game warden....

it's just that josh has been really busy, and i've been really tired....

he's beamin all the time....excited to be a game warden and enthralled w/the adventure :)

i had three things i wanted to do once we moved:
1. sleep
2. read
3. unpack a little along the way

i've been fortunate enough to have had a couple weeks of just those three things. i'm feelin more rested than i have in months. i've read or finished several books. and all the functional things in the house are set up and operational...w/only pictures and decorations remaining.

once we have some time, we'll post some pictures....from graduation and the surrounding festivities, of our house, and of our new life here. hopefully that will happen in the next day or two. and now that we have internet and seem to be settlin into life in the hottest part of texas, we'll get back on the bloggin wagon.

weekend in seymore

josh and i will both be in seymore this weekend...though not together really.

josh is headed north tomorrow. he'll spend the next 5 days w/his new captain and future-fellow wardens. they'll work the lake there (lake kemp)...and josh will begin meetin a whole bunch of folks he'll be workin alongside. just talked to him this evenin, and i could hear some relief in his voice at havin a few days away from the academy on the horizon.

the last couple days, i've been tryin to get a hold of some realtors there in seymore so that i could look at a few houses on saturday. this is proven to be a surprisingly....slow endeavor. nonetheless, the plan at the moment is for mama and i to drive down friday nite and spend saturday lookin at houses. we have no expectations of actually findin a place to live so soon....just hopin to get a general idea of the housing market and what some of our options might be come june.

in the meantime, we're countin down the days to graduation....

as a baby-side-note....i had the hsg test done last friday...it was less than comfortable, but the good news is that it was good news! for the first time in over 3 years, a test was run w/definitively positive results. such a relief.... playin phone tag w/the infertility specialist at the moment, as any next step is yet to be determined.

i'll try to post sometime early next week w/a seymore update....

p.s. congratulations to josh's sister and brother-in-law! mendi just officially finished her first year of law school-wife-motherhood....and bryan just graduated w/his doctorate. way to go, yall!

big news!

after a rather significant week and a trip to abilene and back this weekend, i'm zapped....so i don't have much descriptive capacity this evenin. nonetheless, we have some news....

josh passed the tclos exam! woo-hoo!!!

he was also given his first duty assignment -- baylor county. it's just sw of wichita falls....the town we'll live in is seymore....and it just so happens this was our number one choice on the 'wish list.' i think we're pretty fortunate...

more to say, but i'm out of words tonite.

the usual progress note

the past few days have been busy...the next few promise to be significant.

josh spent the last week in east texas, playin in the water, drivin boats, and eatin crawfish. they got back to the academy friday evenin, and he's spendin the weekend down there. he's got a big test comin up on wednesday, so he needed the weekend to study.

for any of you who know a nurse...or who were near to me about 3 years ago might be vaguely familiar w/the nclex. it's the state licensing exam required to become an rn. basically, a whole bunch of money, hundreds of hours studyin, years of strain on one's person and family...can all be spent in the name of nursing school....but if you don't pass the nclex, it was all for not. well, this test josh has comin up wednesday is the law enforcement equivelant. 'tclos' - though i'm not exactly sure what it stands for. anyway, all these guys at the academy can spend 6 months studyin, away from their families, pt-ing every morning, sharin bathrooms and bunks...and if they don't pass the tclos exam....sorry!

so josh will take this test on wednesday....he's understandably very nervous, but we have no doubt he'll do well. the next day, the cadets will be given their assignments...or duty stations...or station assignments....or whatever they're called....they'll be told the counties they've been assigned to. so in less than a week, we'll know where we're goin! for those of you who haven't heard, we already know we won't be stayin in the panhandle. we're sad to be leavin our families and friends....but like i told josh a couple weeks ago -- at this point, it's hard for me to care where we end up geographically, as long as we can be there together....

as is usual for my blogs....i gotta tell you a little about the academy stuff and a little about the baby stuff

about a week ago, i went to see the infertility specialist in lubbock. she wants to run a couple tests to see how things are workin in me.... blood's already been drawn...and this next week, i'll have a hysterosalpingogram (HSG) done. (i don't know how to give yall the link to find out more....). basically, it's a test to see if my tubes are open. seein as how we've never posted very detailed information about tests and such, i'll leave it at that for now :)

and that's about it....but i think that'll be more than enough to keep us occupied the next few days.

i'm afraid we haven't ever thanked yall....for keepin up w/us...for stayin connected...for offerin your prayers and encouragements and hopes....for wantin what's best. so thank you...though it's long overdue...and please know we appreciate you stickin w/us....

Mr. McCrary's Thoughts

Picture of the whole group, I am in the back far left.

Me and Royce being all serious.

Yes, that is me, in my dads old wetsuit, scary!!!

Well, I guess that you can imagine that this is Josh by now. I have alot that I want to share with everyone. I find myself torn between writing about the academy, my wife, and my future baby. Maybe I will try to talk about all of them. The last couple of weeks have been absolutely crazy down here at the academy. We have done everything from swift water rescue to standardized field sobriety testing. I have some pictures from swift water that I will try to share with everyone. I have had a good time with the training lately but the weeks are getting longer and the loneliness of not having my wife is growing more intense every hour. As some of you know my dad made a surprise visit to the academy a couple of weeks ago. Let me lay out the scene for you. The Lt. Colonel Craig Hunter was talking to the whole class and all of a sudden says, "Hi Mokey." I froze as everyone turned around to look at the back. Although I already knew what stood at the back. I kept thinking, "who else could I know that is a game warden that is named Mokey?" I couldn't come up with another.....Yes it was my dad. It turned out to be a great experience. Dad addressed the class and stayed around for a little while to answer some questions. The next week dad returned to teach a class that he has taught for almost 20 years. SFST (standardized field sobriety testing) basically a class to be able to tell when someone is intoxicated. It entailed three days of classroom mixed with 25 wardens drinking to the point of intoxication and then all of us cadets testing these wardens to determine level of intoxication. Needless to say it was an interesting couple of days. For one I have never really discussed the whole drinking idea with my parents, and all of a sudden I am in the middle of multiple drunks with my father teaching me things that he has been doing for several decades. Every day that I am here at the academy I am learning more and more about the life that my father had that me and my sister new very little about. At the same time everyone that I talk to has nothing but deep respect for my father and all of the things he has done for game wardens. It is an interesting and very confounding thing to walk through on a daily basis. To look at people and think, "I think in some ways you knew him more than I did." I want to strive for my kids to know all of me all the time. Not that the way my father did it was wrong, just different.

Also most of you know that we sold our house. Actually, my wife did it all. She is an amazing woman and has taken on so much in my absence that I can't even begin to tell everyone what an amazing woman she is. All of this is so hard because I feel so strongly that there are certain things that I am required to provide to/for my wife and I feel totally incapable here in Hamilton. I find myself listening to my bunkmate Johnson talking to his little boy on the phone (although talking is a loose term for the gibberish they do, but still amazing) and I get kinda down in the fact that when I call my wife I don't have a son or daughter to talk to. I lay in bed at nights thinking, "maybe if we just hold out for a couple of more months we will get pregnate and it will be a little Josh or a little Lens." But at the same time I am terrified that if I keep doing that 20 years will pass by and me and lens will still be without a child to raise as our own. So the more I think about it the best decision that I could make it to go ahead and lay down my inability to provide a child and venture out onto the limb of adoption. It saddens me terribly to think of being "incapable" and I think this is a huge emotional hurdle that I am going to have to get past. But I want to be a daddy, and I want to see Lens hold her baby. This seems like a place that I would normally throw in a funny saying or something that would make me feel better, but I have nothing tonight. I am longing for a baby, I am longing for my wife, I am really ready to be done with this damn academy. I think of all of these things and I know how strongly I feel about them. And throughout my marriage I have learned that lindseys feelings and emotions (although not always on the surface) are so very intracate and delicate and deep. So, I know she is struggling and is hurting terribly for all of the same things and more. And Lindsey, I couldn't have picked a woman in this whole world that I would rather walk through all of this crap with other than you.

I am tired and have to be up early for ATV training.

oh the time

i just realized it's been more than a month since our last post...and what a month it has been! we've packed our house and moved 98% of our personal belongings into a storage building. the house is officially sold. i can now be counted among those twenty-somethings that move back in w/their folks. and josh is trudgin thru the last few weeks of the academy.

honestly, i could write an entire blog about any one of the above happenings...but for this evenin, i just wanted to touch base...to see if i can get back in the swing of things. kinda like my new-found efforts to get a little more excercise.... had grand intentions of runnin and gettin a full-blown work out this afternoon...well, after wakin up from my post-work nap, i managed a 22 minute, moderately-paced, inclined walk on the treadmill. not exactly what i was shootin for, but at least i did a little.... so this blog, rather than bein a good couple mile run will most likely be a 20 minute inclined walk :)

academy briefing - just a hair over 2 months until that blessed day of june 9th! josh has completed his evoc training (not sure if that's how you spell it)...that's the training they go thru to teach them how to manuever their pickups at pretty high speeds. also, for any of you in the bigger cities, particularly around austin, there's a chance you might see him on the news this week...i think they're havin a big ground-breaking ceremony for all the work they're fixin to do at the academy to turn it into a top of the line facility. too bad josh was one of the scrubs stuck there before any of that :).

adoption briefing - really the only thing to report is that i finally made an appt w/the dr in lubbock. shortly after our last post, i realized the month of march would be full of packing and house stuff....so rather than stress about crammin in an important dr's appt, we opted to wait until house stuff was in the rear-view mirror. anyway...i go see this dr at the end of april. guess we'll go from there.

and that's really about it....unless, of course, it's worth mentioning amarillo has experienced a blizzard and a short-lived dust storm in the last 10 days...and i'm a bit anxious about what this weekend will bring :)

oh! this weekend! this comin sunday is our 6th anniversary....for those of you who wondered w/us whether we'd make it this far....here we are....and more in love than we've ever been.