WOW!! I Need to Catch Up!

I am so sorry that I have been such a slacker on my posts. So many wonderful things have been happening and we have been very busy and yet I haven't shared any of them. So, starting right now I'm going to try to go back and catch you all up on the happenings of the Baumgart family.

Alabama was great. We made some wonderful, lifelong friends, Sophie had her first "boyfriend", we visited some of my family in GA, went to Florida for a weekend, and were we able to spend a ton of time together as a family.
The living situation in Alabama was pretty much one bedroom studio apartments right on top of each other with a park right in the middle of the housing. Sophie and I spent most mornings at the park with the other moms and kiddos and then ran around in the afternoon with our good friends: Ms. Mo, Kennedy, Reagan, and Hunter. They are a wonderful family from Utah that we absolutely adored. Monique and I had a ton of fun running around Montgomery and Prattville (running around being in Target and the Taylor Road shopping center and wherever else shopping was involved).

We also met Lacey,"Q", and Robert. Lacey and I decided one night, around 1000, to go run a race that next day so at 530 on a Saturday morning we jumped in her rental car and made our way to Wetumpka. Really that's the name of the city. It was really nice and the weather was great. Running in AL was a bit difficult, it was absolutely necessary to get up before 800 and go run if you didn't want to have a heat stroke. anyways. Lacey and I ran the 10k, had a great time, set some personal best record times and then went to get coffee afterwards, functioning that early without coffee...that was tough. Lacey and I have been trying to figure out races that we can get together and do, pushing for the Disney Princess Half-Marathon. Lacey's little guy "Q" became Sophie's boyfriend. They adored each other and when they weren't together would talk about each other constantly. Sophie played hard to get though most of the time, Q would try to hold Sophie's hand when they were in the strollers and she would pull away but then we'd be walking up to a restaurant for lunch there the two of them were holding hands and walking in together. We ended up putting Sophie and Q in Lacey's double stroller whenever we went anywhere and Robert in our single stroller. Sophie will still mention Q from time to time with a huge smile on her face. She says, "My Q!"

And then there's Travis, Amy, Isaiah, and Iris. Such a wonderful and very active family. Somehow I've committed myself to doing an Ironman Triathalon in Florida next year because of this family. It wasn't like they tried to talk me into it or anything, they just made it sound like so much fun and do-able. I've tried to talk Andy into it and he just says "Someone has to watch Sophie". I've already been chatting with Amy trying to get my hands on some triathalon training books and whatever gear I may need for this race. Ohgoodness!! All three of these ladies: Monique, Lacey, and Amy have said that they are going to come visit me in Korea so we are trying to plan the damage we can do here next.

While we were in Alabama we also went to Valdosta and visited some of my family: Uncle Jim, Aunt Rosalie, Christina and her new sweet hubby, Brittany and her husband, and James, and my Grandma who drove up from Jacksonville to visit with us. This was the first time any of them had met Sophie and the first time we had seen them since Andy went through some training in Georgia, 5 years ago. We had a great weekend. We wish we couldn've visited longer but we had to get Andy back to school in AL.
Finally, the last weekend we were at SOS we went down to Panama City with Mr. Gus, Ms. Mo, and their family. They had access to a condo right on the beach and invited us to go with them to relax for the weekend. Sophie is not a huge fan of the beach, something about all the sand really gets to her. So, Andy and Sophie didn't spend a long day at the beach, besides the fact that Sophie wasn't really liking it, the US World Cup game was on and Andy wanted to make sure he didn't miss it. As he kept reminding me, "it only happens once every four years". It was beautiful in Florida and very relaxing. It was great for Andy to be able to spend time with us without having to worry about work or school and just be able to relax and enjoy the beach, and Sophie. This wraps up our time at SOS in Alabama. I've only listed a few of the wonderful people that we met as well as only a handful of the things we were able to do. We had a great time and really enjoyed the family time we were able to spend together. The whole 9 to 5 job thing was a new experience for us and it was great. We look forward to seeing so many of these families again throughout our military career.