A Hole in One

Friday, April 9, 2010

Or one in a hole. A couple of weeks ago we went to a lake here on post and enjoyed some sun (which was followed by two weeks of rain). We just so happened to have a real shovel in the trunk of the van and so Manuel dug a big hole. While all the other kids on the beach came and gawked at the hole, we made comments about how we were all about to get some awesome Chinese food. Seriously, no, it wasn't that deep. But Boyce thought it was pretty awesome. In fact, he camped out in that hole for the rest of our time there. I have decided that whenever I need to occupy Boyce for a good 45 minutes that I will pull out the shovel and dig a hole...I hope people don't mind!

Life Lessons from a two year old.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

This week is the kids' spring break. Most people picture spending spring break somewhere warm like Mexico or California. We are having quite the opposite experience. We have had hail almost every day and temperatures dipping down into the thirties. (This just also happened to be while standing outside at one of many of Manuel's rained out baseball games)

I was determined to not let Mother Nature get in the way of our not so fun-filled week and decided we would go on a hike regardless of the few sprinkles that were falling from the sky. Long story short, the sprinkles became torrential downpours, which became hail...which combined with steep hills and a stroller filled with 50lbs of now cold, wet kids...well, you can only imagine. Once back in the car with heat blasting and little red hands tucked underneath coats to heat them up, Gage piped out enthusiastically. "That fun, Mom!" and this is why I love Gage. While all we "saw" was a hike turned disaster, Gage saw...

And to him, that was the best day ever! If only we could always see the little things that bring us joy regardless of our situation and declare life to be so fun!

Play Ball

Friday, March 26, 2010

Manuel has started playing baseball. As much as I complain about the numerous practices and huge chunk of time and effort it is for our family, I secretly love it. They had their first game tonight. Since the game started at 7:45 my neighbor graciously watched the kids and I got to actually watch Manuel play! Manuel started pitching then moved to second base. He played awesome. He also had two hits, one down third base and one to right field. His dad would have been so proud. Here are some pics. I need to do some research on how to take good night photos...anyone have good advice? I think it's going to be a good season.

Warming Up

The first pitch of the game!

Up to bat!

San Juans

Saturday, March 20, 2010

So on one of our times away we headed up to the tip of Washington to the San Juan islands for a couple of days. After we missed our first ferry I noticed that we weren't too far from Bellingham , which when we did the research a year ago, is the the home to the only Chic-Fil-A in the state of Washington. So we headed to Western Washington University with watering mouths and Jake walked a mile in the pouring rain to the student union to buy us these treats. We realized how far removed we are from college now and how silly we felt on a college campus, but it was worth the golden crispy chicken sandwich and waffle fries. Yum! We then headed back to our ferry where the rain decided to stop and we enjoyed our ride to Friday Harbor. We immediately went to the western coast of the island where during the summer killer whales are supposed to hang out. There was hardly another person around, let alone whales. We had fun taking pictures and taking in the scenery. We decided to look for a place to stay which took us driving on almost every road on the southern end of the island. We never could find anything and ended up staying at the Best Western instead! The next morning as we were driving to the northern part of the island we found all the hotels! Anyways, we loved our time on the island and can't wait to bring the family back in the summer to see if we can spot some whales. I've decided I'm pretty much obsessed with Flickr slideshows at the moment so here is our San Juan adventures...

The Fabulous Fortnight

So, what do you do when your husband comes home for only two weeks out of a year? Just about everything. I saved a few things for their own posts but instead of making a huge blog I put together a slideshow instead. So, here you see us...Meeting Jake at the airport, celebrating Boyce's bday, showing dad what gymnastics is all about, hanging out in Seattle, by the beach, and Tacoma. It was an amazing two weeks and we were all thrilled to have him around. I think Jake played trains every day. He also took Manuel to baseball practice and got to be a part of the beginning of his season. And probably the highlight was the ballet class that he was able to watch! We had a few chances to get away by ourselves thanks to some awesome friends and I'll be posting pictures soon. So, now we are back to reality. I'm trying to catch up on laundry, cleaning, and all the other things that I decided to stop doing while he was here. He has a good solid five months which can't come fast enough. We all miss him and the boys have been carrying around pictures of him ever since he has left. We love you Jake!

Making time fly

Thursday, February 25, 2010

With the time before Jake comes home quickly growing smaller, I have been doing as many things as possible to keep us all busy. I can't believe that it is already Friday and we are just one weekend away from Jake being here with us for two weeks. Now this being my first deployment I've found myself thinking about how weird it is that I haven't seen my husband for six months. I mean other than a fuzzy picture on skype. (huge plug for skype entered here)
So, what have I been doing?

Working on sewing projects, to be revealed at a later time...

Recovering our dining room chairs-I'm not sure who decided white would be a good seat color for chairs you eat on.

Taking some pictures with the camera

And enjoying our sunny days with some walks, practicing baseball with Manuel and working on some outside jobs.

Keeping the kids under control...sure my methods might be controversial...

Oh yeah, and cleaning the mess of a house in order to fool Jake into thinking that I can do it all AND keep the house clean!

You say Fat Tuesday...

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

We say PANCAKE TUESDAY!!!!

If you are really wanting to know the history of Pancake Tuesday you can check it out here . All I know is that as a kid we ate lots of pancakes and had pancake races during the morning. I had already planned on making pancakes for dinner but my sister convinced me that I should also have a pancake race for them. So, Annelorre...This one's for you.

You want us to do what?