HOLDIAYS and WEBSITES.

So today marks the first day of our team's transition into our new website. We also are having a thanksgiving meal for all single soldiers this Saturday there is one at every post except for fort Stewart. We still need someone to man a team there at Stewart if you are interested contact us.

We are also giving back to the community this Christmas. This is only for civilians and we are calling it army wives give back. We are still taking donations of things like socks, hats, gloves, clothing in all sizes and toys. we have had so many donations that each post is now renting a storage unit to hold it all. If you know a civilian family that could use some help during the holidays let us know there is an application on the website and we will then contact the family and bring wrapped presents to their family. We also will provide a gift card to a local grocery store.

In other news we all here at operation support the family are praying for the woodall's. Megan's grandmother recently passed, and their son is needing a surgery soon. They also just found out that their little girl has crone's. All of our prayers are with them at this time.

Please go check us out on the website there are many uses full links for each post, and many useful links to things off post as well as some childcare help and so forth.

Sincerely,
operation support the family team.

Can you save a life?

Hello everything this is Heather, Today on post I saw something that just amazed me, and not in a good way. I am currently an EMT and I know how to save a life. Today on post someone got hurt, I don't know how or why, but I do knwo he was a civilan, most likely a contract worker. I heard sirens outside my house, As I was getting 2 of my children into the car to pick up the 3rd from pre school I looked to the road, a man was on the ground, there was about 5 or 6 MP cars and the fire rescuse truck was there. No one looked to be doing anything, I later learned that the MP's were useing the defibulator. This really caught my attention.
Did no one on scene know how to give that man CPR before the MP's arrived? Could it have saved that mans life? These questions ran throuogh my head. I called my local housing office and asked that we set up a post wide CPR class. We are looking into everything and calls are beign made to set this up! If you are in teh Fort Campbell area and you want more information about it please leave a comment or emial me at michaelswifey51@yahoo.com I will help answer any questions you have on where to get more information about the up coming classes!

Communication is key!!!!!

Hey all it is Carol here today. I wanted to post a few good sources on communication in marriage. I know in all the years of my marriage my husband and I have failed at communication at some point. I found a lot of help from sources other than the military that I would like to share. I understand that yes it is your husband's job to pass along information to you but sometimes even he or his chain of command  do not have the proper information to put out. Considering my husband's rank and years in service even he is not completely knowledgeable about everything the army can offer to a spouse. He will tell you this himself. I still work on communication with him daily and during a deployment it does get rough sometimes. I am thankful for the technology we have now to communicate but nothing beats those face to face conversations.

here are a few good sources on books and so on some are written by christian authors but you do not have to be a christian to take something away from them.

http://www.familydynamics.net/Communication.htm

http://www.harvesthousepublishers.com/books_nonfictionbook.cfm?productID=6911677

http://www.marriagemissions.com/the-power-of-a-praying-wife/

http://www.focusonthefamily.com/

I realize some of these things if not all of them have been heard of before but some of you may not know about them. Focus on the family has a good resource for marriage counselor and counseling in general.

Introductions

You all know megan but let us introduce the rest of us on here.

Carli- I am carli and I do not know megan personally but I do know maredith. I have been an army wife for a little over 10 years I am the mother of 7 children ages 5 months to 13. Army life is all we have known and I am an avid sports fan along with being a very active member in my frg. I also am a very very proud spouse and so are the other fine ladies who write on here.

Maredith- I am maredith and I have been an army wife for a little over 7 years. I am mom to 3 children ages 3 months to 5 years. I take pride in my husbands selfless service and I love to be outside. We are stationed at fort bragg and I have had the honor of knowing the woodall's.

Sabrina- I am sabrina and I loooooooove to bake, I also love to write, I have been an army wife for almost 9 years and I have no children yet. I am however trying to concieve. My husband has been in the army for almost 14 years. I do not personally know megan but I was one of thosw who was gulity of forwarding her blog. I have since had the honor to speak to her and she is much more educated than you give her credit for.

Carol- Hey all it is Carol and I have been an army spouse for 17 years. Wow seems crazy it has been that long. I am a mom to 1 child philip who is 15. I love crocheting in my spare time and I like to go to zumba classes. I did used to work for ACS and I am very aquainted with their programs. I am also an active member of my FRG..

Jessica- It's me jessica I am the one who loves numbers. I deal with finace everyday. I am an accountant and I love my job. Myhubby has been in the army for almost 13 years and we are the prents of jake who is now 11.

Sara- Oh I am Sara and i am also an army wife. I have been an army wife for 6 years and been through three deplyments with my husband. I also used to be military myself. I am now expecting my first child in december. I do know Megan and I also forwarded her blog. I found it intresting seeing things from her point of view and now I am glad to see her trying to turn things around. I love to do crossword puzzles, I hate grammar, I love to run in the mornings and I love to shop.

Lynn- I am Lynn and I have been a very proud rmy wife for 15 years. I have 8 children ranging in age from 2 years to 15 years. I have been through 6 deployments with my husband. I do know megan and I currently work at ACS.

Megan- ehhh everyone knows me now. I have been an army wife for 5 years and I have five wonderul kids rangin in age from 3 months to 8 years. I like to write, I like to swim, crochet and read. I also love zumba and long walk with my husband. I am currently in school 3 days a week for mathmatics and I love it. I am an avid football fan (go colts) and I love reading the bible to my kids and taking them for icecream the shea joy on their faces is awesome. I have a love for babies and kids alike I think they are all precious and a gift from god even though sometimes you have to remind yourself of that. I love my husband and can honestly say for as much as I complain I really do love the life we live and am thnkful for a husband who is willing to work. We have lived in the ivilian world and yes it was hard but just as fufilling.

Amy- I am Amy I have been married to my husband christian for 10 wonderful sometimes hard years. I have also been an army wife for 10 years. My husband is currently getting ready to ETS. I am a mom of 4 I am also the mother of twin girls. I am like to scrapbook, read and am a big big WOW fan. I know megan very well and I know her children very well.

Heather- Yup I am heather I am the mother of 4 children have been married to my husband for 5 years and have been an army wife for 5 years. I am an EMT and I lived next door to megan at fort campbell. I miss her dearly and I can't wait to come visit her there in the wonderful colorado springs area.

BIG finaces and so little MONEY!!!

So today I will cover the topic of fiances. This is a big one and I found myself in some debt about a year ago. Debt that kept me up at night. I then had an awesome friend tell me about Dave Ramsey's financial peace university. I went online and spent the 109 dollars to get it. Let me tell you what each lesson was hard but made me face the truth about money and how I was using it. I finished the course which by the way was also humorous. I finished it and then started applying all these new things I had learned about myself and how I was using money and wa la. I was on my way to saving, investing, and using money the way it was meant to be used.

In the military we all face financial challenges at least once weather it be you don't have enough for your car payment or just can't cover soccer expenses for the kids. Some of us have faced the challenge of not having the proper POA or faced the challenges that sometimes the bank faces you with. It is harder for a military family to budget money because we move, switch banks, set up allotments, and face unusual expenses sometimes.

I urge any of you who might be facing these same issues or just want to save more money to spend the time and money to invest in this seminar. Dave Ramsey himself said that 70 percent of Americans live paycheck to pay check and only 55 percent worry about it. Out of that 70 percent some of those are military families and spouses. Go ahead take the challenge it brought me closer to my self and to my husband and it sure did bring us closer to having the money for that home we have always wanted to buy and are now on the hunt for.

I am posting the link to the website you can watch the video and order there too it also offers valuable information on things like taxes and saving and investing go ahead give it a try especially if you are in the 70 percent living paycheck to paycheck.

http://www.daveramsey.com/


sincerely,
operation support the family team

help and resources?

Finding anything true in the news about military spouses is hard everyone has a personal opinion on the war a personal opinion on the wives who back them up.

We have seen those personal opinions shine the last few days weather it be negative or not. We all do have our own personal blogs and yes for those of us who forwarded Megan's maybe we were wrong. She had no intent of her blog ever going that far. Some of us thought it was great and wanted to share that so we did. Now it seems everyone is bashing her when she isn't the only one in this. She complained like many of us do but her complaints hit close to home for me and many others. I thought it would be nice to forward those to others and well then the passed them on and so on.

Megan saw the positive in passing them along once they were spread out. She thought that perhaps letting other women know that their quest for information on resources and ways they can help was not fought alone. Her personal blog should never have been forwarded and all of us are guilty for it.

She in no way shape of form is mad or disappointed. She got you talking you just told in all your negative comments how proud you are to be a military spouse maybe you just changed one woman's mind who was not. Maybe you changed a lot of minds. We are all partially guilty of those complaints to they are things that we had shared with her and never did she use our names. She respected our privacy and her only real question was why if there are so many things out there to help us why oh why do we not know about it.

So here is the new blog that we will list information on those things feel free to vent your frustrations after all that is what started this.

We do apologize to Megan for passing things along with out her permission she was put in a bad position due to our lack of thought.

Sincerely,
operation support the family team

Army wives stick together

You know as all of this is going down and poor Megan has had to do interviews alone, and Amy setting up everything for us. People have been asking , "if we pass out these ribons, can we get in touble" Well plain and simple If one of us goes down we all go down, Megan, Amy and myself are all in this together!
You take one day of us 3 having enough of the problems day in and out and we decided to make a change!
Help us get the word out! Send letters let us know how you feel!