A litte weekend recap

This weekend was pretty average. Jeff golfed Saturday morning, I had training. That was really exciting. Cheara had a birthday party to go to. They went and had their toes done and had a sleepover. I was a little nervous about the sleepover part. She has spent the night before different places but when I found out the other girls that would be staying the night, I tried thinking of excuses why she couldnt stay. I never thought of a "good, believable lie" so I let her stay and everything worked out ok. I had already expressed my concerns to the little girls mom, and they live across the street so that may have had a little to do with it. Dustin and his buddy went to the haunted house. Jeff called him about 2 1/2 hours after he left to find out what they were doing now, blah, blah, and Dustin tells him they are still standing in line just about to go in. Glad I didnt go, I do not stand in line for 2 hours. When he got home he was telling us about a 15 year old kid that was there and passed out inside the haunted house because he was drunk. That was great, it was a good little teachable moment though. Saturday night it was just Jeff, me, Corri and Landon. That NEVER happens around here. So we went out to eat and did a little Christmas shopping and went to the 100 yen store. Man I love that place!! They have the coolest stuff, and fun stuff. Corri and I should have went there alone though. Jeff kept coming over asking if we were ready, of course we weren't ready what a silly question. We left anyway, we will have to go back alone! Sunday was a nice lazy day. Jeff got caught up on his class. This is his last class and I will be so glad when he is finished. Then it will just be onto something else I guess. My neighbor came over after church Sunday and handed me a piece of paper. She said, "they were saying at church today that this lady is going to be here speaking tonight." When I looked at it, it said Deanna McClary. I was so excited. Jeff heard her husband speak at SOS in April. He is a Vietnam vet who is wounded. He had his eye blown out, lost an arm and only has two functioning fingers on the other hand. Him and his wife have both written books and now do alot of traveling speaking at different places. I read both of their books on the way here and shortly after getting here. It has to be good if I can read both of them, I am not really a reader. I didnt know at first if I was more excited to hear her speak or to put on "real clothes, real shoes" and go somewhere. It was so worth going to. Her husband is speaking at several other places and I would really like to go hear him to, but I cant find their schedule. Now we are getting ready for halloween. One more quick trip to the post office to see if Landon's costume made here in time or we will have to go with plan B.

Our Fallen Hero

SSG Kevin Witte
KIA 20 October, 2006




We have lost one of our own. It is one of the things that you think will never happen to you. I was telling a friend that I havent even known someone, who has known someone that has died "over there". It is always on the news, always in the newspaper and in our way of life.... always on our minds. Everywhere you turn, you hear about the war in Iraq. Everybody has their own opinions about what we should do, I am not interested in your opinions. The fact is, the war is happening, we have thousands of brave men and women all over the world defending our rights to be free. Some give the ultimate sacrifice. This month has now turned to the deadliest one yet. My wonderful sister, whom I love dearly, has lost her son. Only a few short months ago I was there with her while she buried her husband. Now here I am, half a world away and cannot even hold her hand. This is so unfair!!! I am really pissed that I cannot be there, but I can't so I just need to press on I guess. How much should one family have to endure in less than a year? I am looking for some sort of charity for the families of our fallen soldiers. I have found several but nothing so far that I am jumping at the chance to get involved with. My neighbor, who is Army, is checking into it a little bit for me. If anyone knows of some wonderful organization that I am just not finding, please please let me know. There are a few places I will have links to shortly. The Patriot Guard, for one. They contacted her within days and I found a page dedicated to Kevin on their site. I feel so guilty for not being there. Kevin loved what he did, he is now safe in the arms of our Father. We salute you Kev!! Kevin was 27 years old, has a wife and a son.

Churaumi Aquarium

A little family pose.
At the entry way they have the fountains that shoot up out of the ground and Landon found them on our way out. He loved it! He was having so much fun playing in that water, we just had to let him play. Here he is standing in the middle of some of the fountains thinking he is really cool. He was soaked when we left there but he had a blast.















touch and feel pool
















So I am finally getting around to posting about the aguarium. We had a really good time that day. The aquarium is huge, there is so much to see and do, that it is impossible to do all in one day. In the back ground of the picture on top, you can see the building which houses the aquarium part. They have a touch and feel pool, where you can pick up starfish, and other sea creatures. The kids thought that was pretty neat, we had to tell them "lets go see what else is here." The touch and feel is the first thing you come to when you walk in. The even had running water and soap so you could wash after touching all that nastieness. First we walked around outside were they have pools of manatees, dolphins, sea turtles and a nursery with baby sea life. We saw the dolphin show. Dont know what they were telling us but we did get, "Good Afternoon", and "Thank you very much" out of the whole 15 minute show. I am assuming thank you very much for coming. It was a pretty good show, they rode the dolphin around the pool and made them do little tricks.

some pictures

The fall carnival was at the girls' school on Friday, so I was a good mom and volunteered for a little while and then took the kids around to the booths. Dustin asked if he had to go, so no he did not join in on the fun. One of the booths was face painting. Corri and Cheara think they look so hot!

OH MY GOSH!!!! Cheara was getting ready for school the other day and when she saw the hair bows that I had out for her she said "OH My gosh, those are sooo cute!!" so i told her to stand over there and since that was such a cute outfit I would take her picture. She ate it up. Look at that pose.

I was trying to take Landons picture and he did not want me to. So I took it anyway :) He was yelling at me no picture momma!

Happy Birthday D!

I was making breakfast and the girls always want to put the biscuits on the pan. Since it was Dustin's birthday they decided the biscuits should be in the shape of a D. How funny is that. Only a girl would think like that.




Can you believe that Dustin has turned 15! Where did the time go? He wanted a bike for his birthday so that is what he shall have. Now lets just see how often he rides it. His friend down at the end of the street has a little ramp that they jump, that is pretty interesting to watch. (not really) He wanted me to make dirt cake so no cheesy picture of him blowing out candles. He also chose for us to go to the aquarium. That was a lot of fun. We ended up getting season passes for that so we will definatley be back. More about that later.

Here he is opening up what Corri made him. She got up at 6:30 Sunday morning just to get that done for him. She made little coupons and put inside an envelope that she made out of paper, that were for his chores that she would do for him. (I hope that makes sense) One was for taking out the trash, one for doing dishes on his day, etc.