Captain Carr!!

That's right, it's Captain Carr now!  What a huge milestone for Garrett and this family :).  It's crazy the paths God will take you down.  11 years ago when Garrett enlisted in the Army as a Private First Class he was single and planning on just completing the standard 4 years and moving on with his life.  The next thing you know we’re dating …. engaged ……married…..and having a great time at our first duty station in Hawaii.  We decided to reenlist at the end of those 4 years because we were bit by the travel bug and we were excited to see where God (and the Army) would send us next.  Denver, Colorado.  (Which for reasons best for a different posting, I believe was 100% Gods hand, not the Army that sent us to CO.)  About mid way through that duty station we began to think family.  It was time to make big decisions for the two of us and our future children.  I was pregnant with Kayla and desired nothing more than to quit my job as an investigator and be a full time stay at home mother to her from day 1.  Garrett agreed, but living on just a Staff Sergeant (his rank at the time) salary didn’t sound all that comfortable to us.  Garrett decided he was going to continue in the Army until retirement and since his income would be the only income for the foreseeable future we agreed we needed to jump over to the officer side of the house.  That involved several back to back schools and trainings for him; many of you remember when Kayla and I were living in San Diego for a year during this time.  He emerged as a Second Lieutenant, the first rank in the officer chain.  Starting back at the bottom, where most Lieutenants are fresh out of college.  Next came First Lieutenant, and now finally Captain!  WOOHOO!  It’s a personal achievement for our family because at the time when I quit my job and we went down to one income it was SCARY!  A big adjustment, one income and now 3 people to support and the littlest one in the family can really rack up the bills, you know?!  So when we did the math we thought, ‘OK if we can just suck it up and make it to Captain in one piece the pay will be about equal to our previous dual income’.  So of course that’s a blessing to us but more seriously it’s a blessing to see where God has taken us with this decision and how we’ve grown as a family.  It’s exciting to check another rank off Garrett’s career progression and I am SO very proud him!  He has made great sacrifices so that I can be home with the loves of our lives 100% of the time.  And for that I will always be eternally grateful.  Babe you rock!

And now onto the pics!  (They're a little grainy and not super sharp because we were in a rather dark, windowless room :(  )

3 other Soldiers were being promoted today as well.  Garrett's trying really hard not to smile!

The Colonel is saying (put down the camera) you should be the one pinning on his new rank :)

ohhhhh oh!....just can't hold the smile in any longer.  This is just after I put his new rank on (the little patch in the center of his chest.) 

There was a lot of people there!

I seriously think it's impossible to get a decent picture of ALL 4 of us at the same time!

 

Lunch time in Daddy's office :)