A little insight

Seriously???

2008-09-23T08:00:00.004+09:00

OK, so it just kind of hit me like a ton of bricks. I was checking my email and I got on e from the school to "all parents of junior and senior students" The rep from Jostens will be here to order class rings and letterman jackets. Are you serious? I keep saying "WOW!! I cant believe he is already a junior!" Well he really is....am I prepared for this? I thought I was, now I'm not so sure! I tried to upload a video, not sure if it worked or not. Seems like he has two emotions these days....super cranky or super happy. Happy is mainly when he wants something-like money!

Olympics

2008-08-23T09:24:00.003+09:00

Me and Corri were watching the Olympics last night and started talking about the athletes and the different games and just the Olympics in general. At the time we watching speed walking or something. The announcer came on and said next would be handball and she hadnt ever heard of that before. Then some other game came on, I have no idea what it was and I said it is probably made up. Corri looked at me with all seriousness and said "Yeah I think so". I just looked at her and giggled-arent all games made up? So anyway they were flashed over to water polo and she said "they are playing Marco Polo???"

Thats my girl!!!

Surrounded

2008-07-14T06:59:00.003+09:00

Do you ever notice silly little things that people say that make absultley NO sense what so ever. Sometimes we just say things before we think and hope the other person either just didnt hear or that at the very least they just wont say anything.

I was walking out to the car last weekend and my neighbor was walking from his car back into his house. I really like these neighbors but we hardly ever see each other, so when we do we will talk for just a second. I saw him and said "Hey, how have you guys been?" He said they were fine, just doing the same old thing. We talked for a minute and I said "Well I never see you guys anymore." His response was "Well we are always either here or we are gone." Really?? Thanks for clafiying that for me. I just went oh, ok well I will talk to you later. Now you know I am usually pretty quick with my own tongue and I couldn't even say anything to we are here or we are gone.

Another lady that lived behind me was full of them. So much that I avoided her as much as possible. She was good to talk to if you needed to back into the house and talk about someone or just have a good laugh tho. I know that's kind of mean right? Right off the bat when I met her she told me she hated it here as soon as they got off the plane and she was so depressed that she had gained 70 pounds in two months!! WOW!!! That is depressed, or you just make crap up, or there is something wrong with you! They left last month (thank goodness!) and she was telling me about their van in storage that they were going to pick up. They have 4 kids and his dad also lives with them. They are going to Texas, I think near ElPaso. The van is in storage in California so she was telling me about picking up the van in CA and driving to TX. They will deliver your vehicle to the nearest port of your next duty station so there is no reason to drive half way across the country for no reason. But miss brainiack told me that it is the same distance from CA to ElPaso as it is from Dallas to ElPaso, so they might as well just pick it up in CA. Alrighty then...but I know that after we leave here and we havent been in a car for longer than an hour for 3 or 4 years, I WILL NOT be driving to pick up our car in staroge. Oh wait....it's not my car is it? :)

Saturday I was at the base beauty shop getting my eyebrows waxed and there is one girl that works in there who is quite obvisouly from the south. So while I am laying there I can hear her talking to her customer. They werent talking about anything interesting she just happened to be the loudest person talking and I could hear her. They were talking about weddings. She was telling her customer that when her and her husband got married they went to visit family (I think they got married just before coming over here) They got married in TX near his family then went down to Arkansas to see her family. I am by no means a geography bee winner, but I do know that you dont go DOWN to Arkansas from Texas.

Then there are things that 75% of the population say and everybody just accepts to the point that nobody even realizes that it is not correct. My brother was nice enought to point this word out to me about 10 years ago and it still drives me crazy. Have you noticed how people say hisself all the time? HiSself....pretty sure its not a word, that would be hiMself. Now you will notice people say that daily. So thanks big brother for pointing hisself out to me!

I'm not crancky by the way. I just dont like stupid people.

Caught smokin'

2008-07-01T19:55:00.002+09:00

Ok, so get this!! I was giving Cheara and Landon a shower when something crazy happened. Well, not really..... It takes forever for our shower water to get hot so I turned on Landon's water then went to the other bathroom to turn on Cheara's. When I came back to Landon he had already taken his clothes off and got in the shower. He was standing in the corner of the shower to stay out of the water and when I walked in he said "Momma the water is smokin!!" I looked in the shower and it was so hot that the water was steaming. Dont worry, he didnt get hurt, and I really didnt think he was going to get in the shower that quickly. I started laughing when he said that and he had this look on his face, like what is so funny? He put his hands in the air and said "Seriously!!!"

In the rain

2008-06-27T08:03:00.002+09:00

Cowboy Landon in the rain

We went to Hawaii the end of April for a week and it was awsome!! I will try to blog about that a little later. The only thing Landon wanted was a pair of cowboy boots. Do you know how hard it is to find cowboy boots in Hawaii, I dont think there are to many cowboys there. We found a western store in the mall and that was the only place we could find boots so we had to get them there. We found him a hat and a belt to go with it. He is to freakin cute when he wears it. He wears the boots and the hat all the time and you have to call him cowboy Landon. So the other day he had it on and was going to go outside when he realized it was raining so he took an umbrella with him and just stood there for several minutes before he decided to come back in.

A few things

2008-06-27T06:23:00.003+09:00

So school is out, pretty much. We got a letter in the mail a couple of weeks before school was out saying Congratulations! your daughter Corrial has been accepted to the summer enrichment program. HMMM...I dont remember signing up for that but now she has something to do YEAH!!! I think her dad signed her up. Now why on earth did I NOT sign Cheara up? If anybody needs to get out of my hair and have something to do for the summer it would be Cheara....never fear, Mom is here. I called up there and they had one spot left!! Hip hip hooray!!! So they go Monday-Friday 9-12. It is four weeks long and really just keeps them reading and keeps their math skills sharp. So far they are having fun. Neither one of them knew anybody in their class, but thats ok now they can meet new people.

Here is something that really gets my goat. Corri has a friend who lives just around the corner. She called her the other day to see if she could bowling and told her that Dustin would drive them up there. Isnt this fairly black and white? Two teenage girls want to go bowling on base for a couple of hours. This one simple question turned into a two hour discusion and caused my phone to ring about 20 times. This girls parents have to both say yes,(meaning she is going to call her dad at work just to ask if she can go bowling????) She could not ride with Dustin, she couldnt spend the night either because Corri has an older brother and her parents saw Juno! WHAT?!?!?! I saw Juno also and the girl did not get pregnant from her friends brother after she spent the night, I have NO idea what one had to do with the other. Anyway back to bowling....now if we were in a city or even a town, I could understand them not wanting her to ride with another teenager, but we are on base, they are going less than 2 miles and the fastest they can go is 50 KPH... kilometers people!!!! They really pissed me off. This is only the begining of that whole thing but I wont go into all of the ridiculous things this poor girl had to go thru just to go bowling, like having to get off the phone and apologize like crazy because she was rude when she asked a question. So I ended up giving them a ride AFTER her mom met me. The next day Corri called her to ask if she could walk up to Burger King and they could go have lunch. OMG this set off a whole other whirlwind of events. Her mom said that her dad would not be happy about her walking that far...Yes it is like a whole mile, we let Cheara walk there with Corri before. You only cross one road and you cross at a stoplight, and it is sidewalk the entire way what is the big deal????? Then she called back and asked who was buying, I heard Corri say "who's buying??? your buying your own, i'm not buying it!!" So after they hung up from that call, this girl had to call back after she talked to her parents again, I told Corri to forget it and find something else to do. So she called homegirl back and told her never mind she was going to the pool. These are not life decisions we are making here. It is summer, they have free passes to go bowling make a freakin decision for crying out loud!!! BTW, I gave them a ride to the bowling alley, her mom was home and she was the one with the issue, so why didnt she take them, she didnt even offer!

K I feel better now that I got that off my chest.

I was grilling ribs the other day and went in to answer the phone, I figured it was spouse since he is gone again and I knew he was calling me back. It was, so I stood in the kitchen and talked to him for about 3-4 minutes. Well...I forgot to turn down the flames on the grill so they were still a little high from when I turned it on. Now we were going to have flame-grilled ribs......IF the fire would go out. I had a BIG fire going. I turned the burners off and the gas off and figured it would burn itself out, not so much. At first I told Corri to just grab a little cup of water but when I got over there I could see flames shooting out the back, that is when I decided a cup of water was not going to do it and I would just turn everything off. So after several minutes of watching it burn (I didnt even open the lid cause I didnt feel like having my eyebrows singed off at that particular moment) and wondering if it was ever going to go out and what we were going to eat for dinner other than the rice I had made for a side, my neighbor was just coming home from work and he walked over and asked if I was ok. I said yes I was fine, just waiting for the fire to go out. He was like uh I dont think its going to go out, you have a grease fire. So he opened it and took it off the grill, by this time it was pretty much just bones but the ones on the other side of the grill were ok. This has been my excitment WHOOPIE right? A pretty typical day, there was actually three things that tickled my fancy but I cannot remeber what the other thing was. It wasnt about school it was something that Cheara said that totally craked me up and now I forgot.

Still Around

2008-06-02T11:23:00.002+09:00

So five months later here we are. Still living the Okinawa life. Not to much has changed. Cheara has lost her first tooth, and second,third and fourth by now. She was less than thrilled with what the tooth fairy brought. She brought her a couple of dollars and a little bit of yen. Maybe she didnt know if Cheara was Japanese or American....well just let me say that Cheara was not impressed!

We had a visitor!!!! My dad came to visit in November. Will this be our only visitor? HMMMMM only time will tell..... While he was here visiting Landon had a modeling job that we had to turn down. It was for a stroller add and we would have gone off island. It sounded like a blast for the sole purpose of getting off island! They were even going to let Dad go, but after thinking about it a little we decided it was best to stay here and spend as much time together as possible. We had a lot of fun in the week that he was here visiting. The kids were in school the whole time so we did some sight seeing while they were in school and tried to do stuff with them in the evenings.

Now to catch you up on our other fun adventures. I will try to do that within the next five months! Until then...... Happy Valentines Day, Easter, Birthday, Mothers Day and anything else I may have missed. And why not just throw in Happy Fathers Day while I'm at it?

Remember us?

2008-01-14T08:18:00.000+09:00

I know everyone probably thinks that I have given up on blogging, but rest assured I have not. Now that it has been three months, there is so much to catch up on. We have been through loosing first teeth, lost jobs, visitors and Christmas. I will be updating soon. We are all doing well and I will try to get you all caught up b weeks end. I have added some new picture to "my picture", but that is as far as I have gone. Update is coming soon!! I know you are just on the edge of your seat.

Happy Birthday!!!

2007-10-05T09:06:00.000+09:00

You have to guess what it is first!

new stereo, just what he wanted
My camera battery was dying and I kept missing him blow out the candles so he had to "pretend" that he was blowing them out.

Little brother had to have a turn blowing out the candles to!

WOW!!! Here we are with a 16 year old! Dustin was going to have a party at the bowling alley. Not much else to do, or really any other place to have one. He decided against that about two days later, I never even had a chance to call up there and get the available dates. This would have been a perfect opportunity for us to meet Chelsea. Yup, thats her name. I knew this would happen!! Corri is the only one that has seen her. She sees her after school when Dustin walks her to her bus. Corri says she is pretty so I guess he has sis's approval!! Now for Mom and Dad's. He is taking her to Homecoming in a couple of weeks but I would really like to meet her before that. So for his birthday, I picked him up from football practice and we headed home for dinner and cake and presents. Chelsea couldnt come since he didnt ask her over until that day at school. He asked for homemade pizza and dirtcake. That was easy enough. After dinner, he opened his gifts and we had dirtcake. The only time I ever make that is for his birthday, it is so yummy maybe I should make it more. He got a game for xbox, and a new stereo for his room and a pretty cool chess set. He has been asking for that chess set forever. We made him keep it downstairs tho since we dont want it broken or chipped. His birthday was on Monday and he was getting his drivers permit first thing on Tuesday morning. He does OK driving, he makes me nervous. He doesnt like to slow down when he turns a corner!!! And when he was going to change lanes, (without looking and with no blinker) there was a car there, thank goodness they slowed down. I kept saying, Dustin there is a car there, there is a car there! He has to take drivers ed still and that is a three month waiting list. His father can take him out this weekend and let him drive cause I am done with that for now. He makes me nervous. I only let him drive thru housing where there is little traffic.

New Hobbies

2007-09-12T14:58:00.001+09:00

I realize most people dont consider mowing a hobby. One day after Dustin had finished mowing, I was telling him how good it looked and that he had done a good job. Well Corri was sitting there and of course she had to start running her mouth. She said well I could have done it better. So I told her Good, next week you can mow! That was not what she wanted to hear!! So now she mows and Dustin weed eats and edges. She looks like she is really enjoying herself huh?

Her dad took her a couple of weeks ago to get contacts. Poor thing has been wearing glasses since she was 5, so she has been wanting contacts for awhile. She did great, put them right in and was able to take them out with no problems. We are still trying to get the prescription just right. We may have to rethink this seeing how she has already torn one and I just found one on the floor! I really dont want to watch her put them in and take them out everyday. She really likes them and looks pretty cute so I hope she gets it together. I took her to the orthodontist last month and we will go back in January to try get braces on. The doc said she was a very good candidate, we are just waiting for her to loose more teeth.

Dustin and Corri got dive certified last week. I hope they enjoy it, I will NOT be going with. Corri was trying to talk me into it the other day and finally she said "are you scared?" Yep, as a matter of fact I kind of am. I can see enough of the ocean from the beach, thanks. They are really excited, this will give them some good bonding time with their dad I guess. This is a really good place to dive and what an opportunity for them. Of course the first thing they said was that needed an underwater camera. Yeah, I dont think so!! Dustin loves it and had no problems doing everything to get certified. The class was during the week and went from 5-9pm, football is not over until 530 so he went to dive directly from ball. Needless to say, he was a little tired that week. I told him before it started to tell the coach that he needed to leave 30 minutes early those three days. That didnt fly, coach told him go to dive and quite football or come to football and dont dive. So he was just late to dive every day.

Dustin was quick to point out that they are not holding hands when they got out of the water. Corri had a hard time getting out. All of that gear is fairly heavy and it is very slippery! Notice that they are out of the water and Corri still has her snorkel IN her mouth!! Too funny.

I also added more pictures to the "my pictures"

Bac 2 skool

2007-09-12T14:02:00.000+09:00

That is a 2 for second grade, not peace :)

A little nervous, but she did good

Doesn't he look happy to be going back to school?

The kiddos started back a couple of weeks ago. So far everything is going well. Corri is adjusting well to middle school. Got lost one day, but that is ok. She already had to have her schedule changed. She is in a class called AVID, basically a college prep thing. She had to be in a different elective to meet AVID requirements and she chose Spanish. The first day she came home and said "I didnt understand anything my Spanish teacher said today!" They can always make me smile..... or scream, but lets focus on the smiling shall we?

Dustin doesnt say a whole lot. His main concern is football. He told me the other day, he is excited for the pep rally because at the first one they announce all of the players. He is in jazz band too, so he is pretty excited about that. He has been waiting and waiting to get to play the drum set, not just the drums but the sit down play your little heart out drum set. They got a new band teacher this year and they are forming a drum line and will hopefully get to play more than just two concerts like last year.

Cheara is a big second grader now. The first week she got to go to her old first grade class and help the teacher teach the new kids their cheers and "how to do things" He was a very rigid first grade teacher, a good teacher just a little different. It is so much easier getting her ready for school this year being the only one here. You would not believe how peaceful the mornings are with only one girl here getting ready. Corri is already gone when Cheara gets up.

I had to take Dustin and Corri's picture from the house so nobody saw me. They didnt even know that I took it. I was across the street at home and I was trying to hide behind the door, that is why they are not the good.

Are you ready?

2007-09-12T13:08:00.000+09:00

Are you ready for some FOOTBALL?!?!?! I still cannot believe that I am actually watching my oldest son play football. When we lived in OK, I tried to get him to play thru the city once and he said he didnt want to. Why? Because the ground is too hard! Legit answer I guess, the ground is pretty hard! So he has been going to practice and conditing since July, they had cuts and he made the team. We are so proud of him and sooo excited. We stil dont know if he is on JV or Varsity, but I think we will find out next week. I have never heard of this before; they split the kids into two groups, the gold team and the black team (school colors). They played against each other and cuts were made after that. Then the following week the played another school, or should I say the ONLY other school, and they all played against each other. This week they play that school again, go figure, and they are playing the gold team against the white team and the black team against the green team. Why not just say who is who? I dont understand. So last week they assigned him another postion and he plays offense AND defense, yesterday when I picked him up he said he is now playing a third postion. Go Dustin!! I cant really remember what he plays, I know bad mom, right? I think one of them is defensive tackle, maybe. He has told me about 20 times, I just cant remember. He plays on the end I know that. I will have to figure it out and let you know. Now I am not so sure I want to play, let me give you my selfish reasons.
A: chances are he is going go get a girlfriend now

B: refer back to A!!!

This whole letting them grow up thing is hard! He is getting ready to turn 16, will get his permit and in January he will go to drivers ed and get his license. This is crazy, where does the time go? I am going to try and get some better pictures this week and maybe a couple of little video clips. He is number 99 but in the pictures you can tell who he is just by looking to see who is the tallest. By the way, he really needs to stop growing, he is about 2 inches taller than his father now!

OH No he did not!!!!!!

2007-08-23T07:32:00.000+09:00

Cheara came downstairs a couple of days ago and told me all of her shoes were to small. I havent bought her shoes for awhile, so I guessed that could be possible. Yesterday we went thru all of her shoes and they were all to small. Some of them were like brand new. So I was trying to figure out what to do with them, or who I could give them to. Corri and I finally thought of the little girl across the street who they started playing with all the time. Corri went over there and asked her what size she wore; 2.5, perfect these are all size 3. OK so Corri took them all over there and I ran to the commissary. I got home and Corri came to the door and said you are not going to believe this, her dad made her throw them away!!! What a freakin jerk!!! I was soooo pissed!! Well Corri had already gone back over there and got them all back, I think there were 10 pair there, mostly name brand. So I walked over there to say something to him, when I turned around all the kids were standing there watching like I was going to go over there and punch him in the face or something. I didnt say anything about him throwing them away, although I should told him what an ass he is! Can you believe that?

Another month

2007-08-23T07:04:00.000+09:00

So another month has come and gone. We have had birthdays, anniversary's, lots of football and a little volleyball.

Landon had a real small birthday, just at home. He got a Lighting McQueen powerwheels and he LOVES it!!! He saw a boy at the park with one about a month before his birthday and he was set that was what he wanted. We lucked out and found one in the paper someone was selling. They only had them in at Christmas time, not that I would have paid $300 for it anyway. Well maybe, it is for the baby after all!! I need to get a picture of him riding it around. We stayed home, I just made him a little cheesy box cake mix and put three new hotwheels on there for him. He was happy and that is all that matters. Maybe next year he will have a party, he doesnt need one yet.

Cheara had a party this year. I must admit this is the first "real" party she has had. I should have had a couple of weeks earlier tho. By the time we had it, school had been out for a week or so and not to many kids showed up. She invited all of the girls from her class and a couple of neighborhood girls. When we were writing invites, she was telling me that she didnt want three or four of the girls there. So we had to have the conversation about how she cant be like that, and she had to invite all the girls, how would you feel if everyone else got invited and you didnt. BLAH BLAH BLAH Well she told me, she didnt care! And she wouldnt care if she didnt get invited, she doesnt like those girls and didnt want them there. Later she told me that she forgot to give them the invition!! I guess that would explain the shortage of girls at the party huh? It turned out to be good anyway. She loved it and had a blast.

Dustin is still hanging in with football. I will be glad when school starts just to make getting to practice easier. I am sick of two a days, but it keeps him busy gives him something to do. He will find out in a couple of weeks which team he made. He still is really hoping for varsity, I dont know. I told him it is better to make JV and get to play than to make Varsity and warm the bench. I dont know if he agrees with me on that or not.

Corri kind of started volleyball. They dont have all the teams divided up yet. They are so short on coaches there will only be 4 teams. Right now they are doing Saturday optional practices. She is going and really likes it. She was a little nervous at first since she had only played in PE at school, but now that she realizes there isnt anybody who is a superstar or anything she feels a lot better.

I guess that is about it for now. School starts on Monday so I will let you know how that goes. Last year I was so sad, I cried my eyes out after they left. This year I think I will be sad at first, But I will get over it. I can hardly wait to see Corri getting up 6 to be on that bus by 650! Her and Dustin will go together so I suppose they will start fighting over the bathroom. Dustin thinks it is his own personal dressing room!

OK Bye for now. Asta pasta

Oh yeah, forgot our anniversary. We didnt really do anything. The kids made us cards. I didnt feel well, so we didnt even go out to dinner. Maybe this weekend we can do that. This was our 14th!! I had to add to make sure that was right, and it is :)

Sitting around eating Bon-Bons

2007-07-16T08:33:00.000+09:00

Well, everyone probably thinks that I have fallen off of the face of earth! NOPE, I am still here. Just sitting around eating bon-bons all day. Yeah right!!! I guess when you work 52-60 hours a week, you just dont feel like sitting down blogging about your day.

We have been staying pretty busy since my last entry in April. I cant believe I have negleted you in my boring little life since then. Of course the kids are out of school now. Every year I saw that I cant believe how big they are getting and they are going into whatever grade. Well this year I will have three kids in three different schools. I can hardly wait to deal with three totally different sets of idiots! I hate dealing with the office workers here. So far the high school hasnt been bad, but I havent really had to deal with them. The elementary school drives me crazy! When I went to go register the girls for next year the lady couldnt find their paperwork. Well instead of looking up our last name, she was looking under "C" for Corri! HELLO!!! idiot

Dustin is in football conditioning camp over the summer. We will see how long this lasts. I cannot imagine him playing football. Over here it is very low key, they only play one other school. He is not really the rough and tough kind of guy tho, you know.? He was going out for cross country. The last he told me was that if he didnt make the football team, he would do cross country. I hope he makes the team, that would be fun. Plus, they get to go to cool places for tourney's. He hasnt played anything, other than drums, for about three years. He has a bunch of friends on the teams, so maybe this will work out. He is really hoping to get his drivers license in October. I cannot beieve I have a kid almost old enough to drive! I hope he keeps all of his grades up so that he can get a license. If he doesnt stop growing, we will have to have a car specially made for him. We measured him the other day and he stood at 6'4". When do they stop growing? His shoes are a 14, so it doesnt matter if he likes the shoes or not. If they fit, he is going to wear them!

Corri, Corri. Anybody who knows her, knows that she is just beyond words! We got her projected schedule for 7th grade in the mail. She chose band as her elective, but I dont think she is that thrilled with the whole idea. She just signed up for volleyball. Remember how badly she wanted to play last year and I dropped the ball? Her dad got her signed up the first day. But her physical is going to expire so I have to wait for the clinic to do their whole day physical thing again and take them all down there. She went to the pool last week and FRIED herself! This was the worst sunburn I have ever seen. Huge blisters, probably the size of the top of a pop can. That was last week and they have already popped and she is peeling, so she healed very quickly. I took her to the doctor just because I had never seen blisters like that before, and of course there was nothing he could really do. He did say that he wanted a picture to use as a demo.

Cheara has just been Cheara. Worried if her clothes match, or if her hair looks ok. She wont hardly let me put it up anymore, she wants her hair down! She really thinks that she wants to play soccer. Yuck! Dustin played soccer once and we were done with that. Neither one of us know anything about soccer other than you kick the ball and run. I do know that you play on a soccer field, and you make a goal. :) I am glad I made them quite everything over the summer. Looks like the sports break was short lived.

My little man is just as cute as ever! He still totally melts my heart. He loves to play with my hair and "make me pretty", or get in my face and say "you my momma!" and "me your Landon". His new favorite is "whats that?" He says it to everything!!! I would say that 9 out 10 times he already knows what it is, car, nose, tree....etc. One of my daycare kids, who is only a week older then Landon likes to ask why. Between the two of them I hear why and whats that all day. He also likes to "tell jokes". here is his favorite, what has four wheels and goes vroom vroom? Then I get to say, a rabbit, Cheara, anything I think of, then about the fifth time I say, Lightning McQueen? he will tell my, yep!, then be on his merry way.

How about the leaders of this pack? We are hanging in there. Half of us is gone, all the time!!!! Wouldn't it suck to be "stuck" in Hawaii or "stuck" in Guam? I will give you one guess as to the spouse in this house who is pretty well gone all summer. We wont have a chance to go anyplace this summer, not even for a weekend. That is ok, we will just go in the fall. I am sure the kids wont mind missing a day or two of school. We bedded down during Typhoon Man-Yi. That was crazy! The water sloshing around in the toilet was a little over the top for me. My biggest concern was the dog. There was finally a small break around 1 o'clock and I let her out. Poor doggy didnt eat or drink anything all day long. We were locked down for 17 hours. You would think that I would have got stuff done around the house, but not so much! I did take a nap, and watch a movie. The kids were happy they got to play playstation. That is a big luxury around here, they dont just get to sit in front of a game all day long whenever they want to.

I have a few other things to share, but that will have to wait. If you made it thru this whole thing.... you must really miss me!! :)

Up to no good

2007-04-18T10:55:00.000+09:00

I should know better than this! I do know better, but I thought I could multi-task; guess not! The kids were painting, supposed to be painting with a brush. The baby woke up so I went to get her and change her diaper. Pretty soon I hear Landon say "UH-OH!" Now we all know what it means when a two year old says uh-oh. Then he tells me to take his picture, so I knew he had done something wonderful. I walked in there and had decided to take finger painting to a new level. He was rubbing all over his arms like it was lotion or something. He sure had fun though!

LC on slide

2007-04-18T08:48:00.001+09:00

The right picture

2007-04-17T14:57:00.000+09:00

This is the other picture that was supposed to be on the Easter post

Easter/Spring Break

2007-04-17T13:37:00.000+09:00

Last week was Spring Break so we both took the week off of work. It was so nice. Originally we had planned on trying to go to Korea or Guam but it just didnt work out. I am not really a planner, just a doer. (is that even a word?) We spent the week just hanging out around here and trying to hit some sites that we cant seem to find the time do otherwise. We went to a couple of parks, the kids are happy to just go to the parks. Even the two big ones. The slides are soooo much fun! and most of the parks have walking trails so Dustin usually takes off and explores. I started calling him Dustin the Explorer, you know after the Dora cartoon. He is not that much fun and didnt think it was funny.

I wish I knew how to put video clips on here, other than putting it on you tube first. I dont want to do that. If anybody knows how to do video clips, please let me know. We went to the Botanical Gardens one day. That was nice, except it bothered my allergies a little and hubby kept on saying "quite rubbing your nose" That always makes for a pleasurable trip. We went to the dam one day. Not that exciting, but we can check that off now. It was quiet out there though. You could hear the little birdies chirpping and the water, but it was dam boring (hehe). There was still a lot of stuff that we wanted to do, just didnt get around to it. We didnt venture very far either. The dam and gardens are both about a ten minute drive and we had never been there before. The parks were about a 10 or 15 minute drive. We didnt leave the house before lunch on any day and we slept in. That was awsome, if you consider sleeping until 7 sleeping in. That is about all we did. It was probably the most relaxed and one of the most enjoyable vacations I have ever had. Any time we asked the kids what they wanted to do Cheara said go to Disney. I think I said a hundred times we are not going to Disney. Corri spent the night with her friends 3 times and had someone spend the night here, so she was happy.

We didnt do much for Easter. We went to the club for brunch, hubby went to work. I did take a nap that day, kind of. I got to lay down, I cant remember the last time I layed down. We colored eggs, and the Easter Bunny came. He was a big fuddy dud this year! I never got any plastic eggs for him to fill, or baskets. The BX didnt have either one! They did have those stupid pre filled ones, but no. Cheara ended up getting a basket from her teacher so she used that and I "made" one for Landon. I got a little plastic storage basket thing and decorated it. How freakin ghetto is that? All the EB brought was a little candy and put it plastic eggs that the girls got at school. whoopy! Cheara and Landon are the only ones who got a basket and they werent even hidden, they were just sitting on the table. I guess the EB is not a planner either.

OOPS, I guess I got the same picture in there twice. I will add more pictures to the my pictures page also.

Kids say...

2007-04-17T12:43:00.000+09:00

My kids, all kids, crack me up. They say some of the funniest, (and dumbest) things ever! I have to share a couple.

The other night I went into the kitchen to get a glass of water. I opened the freezer and realized that we were out of ice. We buy ice, I dont even have trays to make any so that was not an option. I think out loud all the time. So if you ever hear me barely talking, dont ask me "what?", chances are I was talking to myself. Hubby (remember I cant use his name anymore :)) and Dustin were in the living room. Which is right next to the kitchen and they could hear me. Anyway, once I realized there was no ice, I started talking to myself, went a little like this. "oh there is no ice, I should have got some. I will have to get some tomorrow. Now my water is going to be yucky, I know I could just put some water in the pitcher and stick that in the fridge until I get some." Next thing I know, I hear Dustin say "why would you want to do that?" I say, do what? "Well why would you just want one big block of ice?" What a dork, put the water in the fridge, not the freezer!

Corri has had a duh moment also within the last couple of days. When you drive on base there is a big counter telling how many days it has been since the last DUI. Pretty pathetic that we have to count, dont ya think? If we make it to 60 days there is a down day, everybody gets the day off. Well we havent hit 60 days since we have been here and I dont how long it was before that that we got to 60. So two weeks ago we were up to something like 55 and everybody is getting excited. Well wouldnt you know the next time we drive through the gate it is back down to 3 days! GRRRR! Well Corri was with me and saw the sign and she said, "I bet that guy is happy" Well, yes Corri I am sure he is really happy since he just screwed it up for everyone! She said no, I mean while he was drunk. I told her no, actually alcohol is a depressant. Of course I know nothing so she had to go on and argue with me about it. So she tells me, well yeah, but while he was drinking I bet he was happy.
me:"no Corri, depressed is the opposite of happy"
C:"well I bet he was sad the next day then" OK, now she is irritating me
me:" Why would he be sad the next day?"
C:"because he ruined it for everyone"
me:"you are sad the next day because you dont feel good, your head hurts, your dizzy, you have dry mouth" I was really trying to make it sound as bad as I could
C:"oh.......well I am never going to drink then cause I hate it when I have dry mouth"
That is as good a reason as any I guess

Cheara doesnt always say stuff that is that funny. She sometimes says stuff that makes you want to crawl in a hole! We went to brunch at the club for Easter and what is her 6 yr old view on it...."there's alot of brown people here" I could have died!!!!!!
We have noticed that she is defiantly a leader. At everything! If you are going to play a game with her, you do it her way. Want to watch a movie, she picks it out. How about getting dressed for school? every morning I have to hear, I do not want to wear that!! I need a skirt or a dress! And probably 5 nights a week at dinner, it is EWWW Gross, I dont want that! that one is fun, cause now when I call her for dinner, I say outloud what I know she is going to say, it fun! Then I can laugh about it, tell her, Yeah I know go eat or go take a shower. Then I get to watch her stomp her feet, throw her head around, growl and say FINE! I love her, she is so much fun :) She really keeps life exciting. I took Landon in the stroller one night, Corri took her heely's and Cheara rode her bike and we went for a walk/heely/bike ride. One of Cheara's friends wanted to ride her bike with us to, ok fine, no big deal. We had gone about 5 or 6 blocks when I hear cheara tell her friend "no Katie, remember I am first you need to get behind me" and so Katie lets Cheara go with nothing said and they continue to ride their bikes. I guess that is just the way it is with her. If we go somewhere, she will always walk in the front, has to get in the car first, out of the car first, everything. I guess that is a good thing?

Good ol' Landon. Everything he says is still funny. I like listening to his race car sounds. He hates everything! Especially if he is in a pissy mood. I can ask him if he wants to go outside, his response will be "i hate outside" he does this with everything, if he doesnt want to do it,then he hates it. When he first started going potty he wanted Blues Clues underwear. I looked everywhere I could think of online, of course the BX doesnt have it. So one day when I talked to Michelle I asked her to look for them. She looked everywhere to and could never find any. So one day I told Landon Aunt Michelle cant find Blues Clues underwear. What does he tell me, I hate blues clues. What a brat. They are all brats, thats ok. I still love 'em, and they are all mine! I guess I kinda made them that way. :) Except Cheara, she came that way :)

I guess I will share my blonde moment from the other day. It really isnt that funny tho. We took the kids to the park and I asked the daddy type person in the house what time it was. He pulled out his phone and said it was 5 o'clock. Well we got there at like 2. I went Holy cow it is? and said yeah see and showed me the time. I looked at for a second and went no its not it is 3. He just rolled his eyes and put the phone back in his pocket. I guess I should say the time is in 24 hr time so it said 15:00. See, not that funny. I am sure I will have another moment that will be pretty funny though within the next few days!

Chickenpox?

2007-03-27T12:19:00.000+09:00

OK, I think it was the chicken pox that Cheara had. Although she feels fine, she is itchy and some of the "red bumps" have scabbed over! Thank goodness she had the vaccine. Dustin and Corri never had the chicken pox and now I am trying to remember if they had the vaccine. I think they did, but I cant remember for sure. Anywho, nothing else exciting for now!

Highs and lows

2007-03-26T13:40:00.000+09:00

I know it has been a while since I have posted anything, I am so busy all the time, and really there is nothing that interesting to blog about. I will give you all a little recap of stuff that I can think of that has been going on.

First thing first, I have hit my 10 pound mark. I have officially lost 10 pounds WOO-HOO!!! yeah for me. Really about 5 of those are ones that found me after I got here. I can really tell in my legs, hubby can tell other places :) so that is definitely a high!

Cheara had her first basketball game Saturday. I forgot the camera and haven't taken it to any practices yet either, so I will try to remember that on Saturday. For awhile all I heard was that she did NOT want to play bball. Now she loves it!! She is cute running around out there. I hope she stays with it, her daddy would be so happy. She is very focused on getting that ball. Even after a basket has been made, she knows her job is to REBOUND!! seeing how she is the biggest one by a whole head, she does pretty good. She does not run down the court after a play has been made, she skips! It is adorable, if I do say so myself. so that is another high
I am team mom, I thought all I would being doing is getting a snack schedule together, boy was I wrong! That's OK tho, it makes me feel important.

This is a hard one. Dustin has been "trying" to get a job for awhile now. He has been trying to be a bagger at the commissary, but he doesn't understand that going in there once or twice is not going to get him the job. We have told him a hundred times to go up there every week when I do my shopping, but he knows more than we do! Then he decided being a lifeguard would be fun. It would be an excellent job for him. Hours are good, pay is very good, and who wouldn't want to sit at the pool all day? First all they kids who are applying have to go take a pretest. This involves swimming 250 meters which ends up being 11 laps in the pool. Then, if they complete that portion, they have to dive to the bottom of the pool, pick up a brick, and bring to the side of the pool. If both of those are completed, they take the lifeguard course over spring break. Once you complete both of those, you are hired, that is all there is to it. This Saturday was the last pretest of the season so we took him up there. There were several kids there and Dustin was in the second group to go. Lots of kids quite after a few laps, and even half way through. We were watching and could see him getting tired (who wouldn't be?) he had one lap left and quite!!!! Really, by the time he swam to the steps, he only had 1/2 lap left. I could not believe it. Everybody was yelling at all the people swimming, cheering them on. Even the lifeguards were telling them towards the end, "you are almost done, only X laps left" Well D was the last one in the pool, the last kid before him to get out was only 1 lap ahead of him, and it is not timed or anything, you just have to do it. The lifeguard even walked over to him and said "dude, why are you quitting with one lap to go? cause you cant breathe? you're almost done!" He got out anyway. He told us the next day he got out because he was the last one in the pool. I hope he learned a lesson from that experience! That was the biggest low all week!! :(

Now how about Corri? She hasn't done anything new, really or exciting. Still loving tennis and not so patiently waiting for volleyball to start. We missed it last year. I wasn't really into the groove here and wasn't sure about when sign ups were. I already know when it will be this year, so I wont miss it! I have had to hear about since September. She is getting ready to take the red cross babysitting class. The next one they have is over Spring Break and it is all afternoon, so she will have to take the next one. Hubby and I both took that week off of work so she is not spending it sitting in a babysitting class.

Last, but not least, Landon. He is finally getting his front two teeth in, next to the middle ones. I am going to miss that little Sponge bob smile. He is all about singing songs, doing finger plays, and reading stories, his favorite is "The wheels on the bus".

Daycare is also going well. As of 1 April rates are going up up up so I have 35 more reasons per kiddo to love my job! At this rate, I will not be quitting any time soon. Big high!!

Saturday we went to the marina, after you know whose episode. He sulked the whole time we were there, but that was better for him than just coming home. We had fun, for awhile. It was so nice outside, perfect weather for just playing in the sand. The kids got in the water, but us parents just smiled and waved from the warm sand. They loved it, I couldn't believe all the people that were there. I saw some moron take off his shirt and jeans and get in the water with just his boxers on. That was a sight that I could have passed on! Thank goodness he didn't have on stained tighty whities!! To bad it wasn't some 20 something guy who hits the gym, then I wouldn't be complaining :) All was well until Cheara decided that she didn't feel well, next paragraph, that is a story in itself.

Friday evening Cheara shows me a little rash on her wrists and inside both elbows. Big deal right, kids get rashes all the time. Saturday after basketball she says, "Mom, my bumps are growing" Well crap, now this could be something totally different since within the last week I heard chickenpox are going around really bad! So I looked at them again, and still I thought it was ok until I saw them on her neck and tummy. I saw my neighbor at the pool, who just happens to be a nurse, and she said that looks like chicken pox. I went to the BX and got calamine lotion just in case and I watch her. Still she feels ok and there is no fever or anything, until we were at the beach for about an hour and a half and all of a sudden she tells me she is going to puke! I took her up to the bathroom and she stared getting whiny and just about when we started back, I see the butt go out and the head go forward! (good visual huh?) Corri went and told the rest of the family to pack it up, we were leaving. Good thing we were playing in the sand, we had pails with us! She did it all the way home. She kept saying she just wanted to shower and go to bed. Well she went and layed down after her bath and she was up in about an hour, she never did go to sleep and never got sick again. The red bumps fade and come back so I am not to worried about it anymore! She did have the vaccine so even if she were to get it, it wouldn't be a bad case.

OK, well this is REALLY REALLY long. If you made it this far, you should be pretty caught up on our boring lives. I will try and get some more pictures posted also!

No Shower????

2007-03-02T20:43:00.000+09:00

Cheara and I are watching Survivor and the weather report came on. Pretty soon I hear Cheara say " hey they said we cant take a shower tommorow!" What they said was, "Japan will have snow showers tommorow."

Happy Birthday Corri!!

2007-02-27T06:28:00.000+09:00

WOW!!! Corri turned 12 this month! You know by the time we leave here she will be High School! This is crazy. What is even more crazy is next year I will have two teenagers and one of them will be driving. I might need to start drinking or something. :)

We didn't do much, there are a few pictures on the pictures page. Her father was gone and we had planned on having a party when he got home. He has been back for two weeks and we still haven't had a party. She had a friend spend the night, so now I am off the hook. I made cupcakes for school, last time she will get to do that. While they were at school, I made a cake. It was kind of cheesy looking, but she loved it and it was fun. Maybe I will take the cake decorating class in my spare time. She got a game that she had been wanting and some other little game all the girls are into right now.
We had some coworkers of my hubby's over last weekend and the girls were playing their tamogotchi (its is some little key chain game). Anyway this guys wife is from here and she said that she remembered playing that when she was younger. Well, it is just now getting big in the states, this what Corri asked for, for her bday. She said she had hers 10 years ago! Japan is sooooo far advanced on their electronics.
We will have a big blowout next year though when she becomes a teenager. Lord help us all!! She may not see the teenage years. She really is a good kid, gets good grades, does what she is told (after the tenth time) and she is good with Landon, unless she is pestering him. So now there are two built in babysitters in the house YEAH! We just cant leave her with Cheara for to long, we cant leave Cheara with ANYONE for to long. I think it is funny to listen to her and Dustin now. They go around the corner and bicker with each other or wait until I leave the room. I can still hear them I just around the corner! The house isn't that big, just because you cant see me, doesn't mean that I cant hear you. She reminds me of a couple of sisters I have. She never has to go to the bathroom until it is time to put dishes away or set the table. Funny how that works, isn't it?

Whats up????

2007-02-26T13:56:00.000+09:00

What is up with this stupid blogger? It will not let me get to where I need to go to upload pictures. It's starting to piss me off!

I set up a new link on here. If you click on my pictures it will take you to another site with a slide show of pictures. Maybe I will just have to blog here and put pictures up on the other site. We figured out how to do video clips with the camera that I was going to put up here, but since I cant get to the right spot...makes it a little difficult.

Cheara had her last game on Saturday so we are done with cheer for now. She really, really liked cheering! She is getting ready to start basketball next week. She is not near as excited about that, so I hope she will at least give it a try.

Corri is still loving tennis. She really wants to start going twice a week, but it is kind of hard to get her there even once a week. All my daycare parents have to have their kids picked up by 3:45, or pick them up at the courts. So far it hasn't been a real big issue, but most people don't want you to drive their kids anywhere.

Dustin informed me the other day that he thinks he is getting fat! PULEASE!! If that kid doesn't stop growing pretty soon, he is going to grow right out of the house! Him and his friend down the street sit outside almost every day and play music. His friend takes guitar lessons and has a keyboard and amp. I swear they turn up the amp as loud as it will go and I can hear the buzz five doors away. He learned how to play something, I cant remember which song, on the guitar now. He found a place to take drum lessons, but until we see all A's and B's, there is no chance of that happening.

Landon is potty trained! YEAH!!!! I started about three weeks ago. The first day he did awesome! No accidents at all. I took him to the BX and to Todd and Kris's that night. Caden and Cam started wearing their underwear to and Kris got them the cutest cake to celebrate! She invited Landon over to and we had a potty party. OK, so anyway, he did great the first day, that was a Friday and that weekend we stayed home. The only accident he had all weekend was when he stayed at home with Dustin while I went to the commissary. For a week he did such a good job, then one day he decided that he was done with the whole potty thing. Peed in his flippin pants for two days straight! He had already gone a week with next to perfection so we were not turning back at this point. I made a "treasure box'' with candy, bubbles, a couple of toy trucks and that did it. About half of the time he wakes up dry, which really surprises me, but I am not concerned about night time. I have learned my lessons on the whole night thing with a couple of my other ones!

Daycare is going well. The twin boys ended up getting into the center right away, which was good. Apparently I cannot count to six! I would have been over my ratio by one. We have made a commitment to start eating better and get back into shape. It has already been two weeks and we doing really good. The first two days I thought my head was going to explode from sugar withdrawal! Once I got past that, it has been smooth sailing. I have already lost almost 5 pounds, although you cant tell.....yet. My husband (who gets pissy when I use his name here, so from now on he will just be referred to as my husband!:) ) has been getting to the gym on a pretty regular basis. He has gained 3 pounds but all of his pants are getting too big, so we are on the right track. I am excited! I hope I can stay with it now. The kids are doing well with it to. They eat lots more fresh fruit now and we got through soooo much water. I can now choke down at least my 64 oz a day. I feel so much better already!

What a day

2007-01-19T08:35:00.000+09:00

Wow!! What a day, I think this picture pretty much sums it up for me yesterday. This was Landon at 6:20 last night. He was in the kitchen asking for a pop tart since dinner wasn't quite ready. It was clear that he was not going to last 10 more minutes to eat with us so I gave him a pop tart. I went upstairs to get his jammies and talk to Jeff for a second while he changed and just as I walked around the corner to the living room, I saw him close his eyes and lay down like this and go to sleep. I hurried and changed him, he never woke up until 4:40 this morning. I am going to get a nap out of him today YEAH!!! I put him in our bed with us and he layed there while I took a shower and got ready. I guess since it was still dark out, he didn't think it was time to get up yet.
So our day yesterday was very busy. I normally only have Landon and one baby here all day, so my days are pretty quite and relaxing, nothing to get too excited about. Yesterday I watched my neighbors little girl for her while she went to the dentist with dry socket from getting her wisdom teeth out. OUCH, just another reason I now have to keep mine right where they are. Earlier I had my friends baby here for a couple of hours. He had never stayed with anyone so, of course momma was all nervous. Silly girl, I am a pro at this. Well the baby did fine only cried once when he saw me walk in front of him. I had two interviews yesterday for new clients and ended the day by signing four contracts. I don't know what I just got myself into. One is a 2 month old, only for about two months then his mom is getting out. A two year old little girl, who I thought was going to just be on hourly basis but ended up deciding to go full time and a set of four year old twin boys. The twins are on the waiting list at the center, so really they shouldn't be here for more than a month, I think. I went to bed exhausted last night just thinking about having to work so hard. I haven't worked like this in four years. That is OK, I can just be tired all the way to the bank! Now I need to get my stuff together so I can keep everyone busy all day and stay sane. I told Dustin last night that I may have to resort to drinking every night. I guess he thought that was pretty funny, but I was only half kidding.
How can I forget to mention AI! I love these first shows, I was laughing so I hard I had tears rolling down my face. What are some of these people thinking? Although, my prediction is they wont show these auditions to much longer because someone, after seeing themselves on there, and knowing that the whole country is laughing their butts off at them, is going to commit suicide because they were so humiliated, and the family is going to sue Simon. Sometimes he is a little cruel, but come on, these people know that before they go in that room and sing to him. I could watch auditions every night.

Living the Japan way

2007-01-10T11:59:00.000+09:00

So it took me awhile to get to this post, but finally it is here. I have had several people ask for pictures of vehichles mostly, but a few for the house. How could we forget the potties here! Corri and I took this picture at the Botanical Gardens. It was late and they were about close so there wasnt anyone else in the bathroom. They only had one Western style toilet in there and Cheara didnt see it. She was spinning around looking at all the holes in the floor and she said "Mom where is the human bathroom at?" That kid comes up with some crazy stuff. It is just like it looks, flush with the floor. I have not attempted to use these out, I just wait! If you had on a dress it wouldnt be that bad, but I would pee on my pants unless there was somewhere there to hold me up like when I was little ;)

Then is my lovely van that I drive. This isnt a very good picture but I guess you can tell where the steering wheel is. The back has curtains in all of the windows and the middle seats turn around so they can see the people in the backseat.

The house. Ahhhh home sweet home, for another 28 months anyway. We live in 4-plex but are lucky enough to be on the end. I will try and get some pictures of the inside. It really isnt that bad, the layout is pretty good so we have enough room. We could use more, but we will manage. That just gives us something to look forward to when we go back I guess. The house is about 1600 SF with 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. All the bedrooms are upstairs with two full baths and there is a half bath downstairs (thank goodness!) The downstairs is just the living/dining room, kitchen and a room in the front that is another dining room but we have it turned into a toy room. We have lots of light from two sets of sliding glass doors and I think that helps it to not feel so small. We have a good size kitchen, biggest one I have ever had. It is quite outdated with the stainless counters and I am not really sure what the cabinets are made of. They are yellow with air holes in the top and peach colored tile. It is a gem, but it is really not to bad.

Pictures

2007-01-10T11:41:00.000+09:00

They have the coolest parks here. This is a roller slide. The next park we went to, we took an old cardboard box with us and slid down on that.
Feeding the fish at the Botanical Gardens
Here we all are with Santa! Merry Christmas
This is one of the swings. This is so much fun! You sit on a little thing and hold on up top. Then you slide down the cable and hit another tire at the other end and bounce about half way back.
I am not really sure what a red bumblebee has to do with Christmas, but we thought he was kinda cute.

a few more pictures

2007-01-10T10:57:00.000+09:00

Corri got lots of perfume this year

tracking Santa on Christmas Eve

Thank you

Checking out their loot

More pictures

2007-01-10T10:46:00.000+09:00

I know it is sideways, I dont know how to flip it around but you get the idea!
Landon just knew Dustin would love it!

Pictures

2007-01-10T10:34:00.000+09:00

WOW Thanks Santa!!

Look at that loot
HMMM, what is this?
Cool shirt, drums of course
I have to get this open

playing catch-up

2007-01-10T10:07:00.000+09:00

I think I will just do one big blog and try to get caught up on everything at once. Catch-up reminds me of my favorite joke, are you ready for this?
Momma tomato, daddy tomato and baby tomato are walking down the street. The baby tomato keep falling behind so the daddy tomato turns to him, squashes him and says "catchup"
I love it!! You know I cant tell that stupid joke without tears rolling down my cheeks laughing so hard. I watch Pulp Fiction just to hear my joke. OK, anyway.....

The kids were out of school for 2 1/2 weeks and we got to get out and about quite a bit. Their last day was my birthday but by the time I took Cheara to cheer practice and Corri to tennis we just had some dinner opened bday presents and that was about it. They were so sweet though. Jeff took them out to get me something and the decided I needed a new robe, and then he took them to get a cake and ice cream and candles. They were so excited. The rest of that week, Jeff and I both worked but then it was a four day weekend. Christmas Eve the kids exchanged gifts and we went to candle light service at church, which Landon slept through then thought he should be up until 11. Christmas day we stayed home, it was so nice. I forgot to make half the food I had bought for dinner, but that just made it that much easier for dinner for the rest of the week. I still haven't made the pumpkin pie, they finally quite asking for it. We spent about two hours opening gifts, a little crazy but the two little ones are soooo much fun to buy for. Landon got a Buzz Lightyear and didn't want to open anything else after that. We finally got done opening gifts and had to get everything carried up to their rooms right away. These little houses were not made for big families and Christmas! We were opening packages for a week. They only opened stuff as they were going to play with it for the first time. Cheara might even still have something that isn't opened. Santa brought the oldest three an MP3 player and Landon a scooter. Stockings were overflowing and there was stuff everywhere!! I love it.

We made it to the Botanical Gardens where they had a Christmas light show. They had lights on everything and a laser show at the end. Until this point Landon did not want to see Santa, but he decided that he would go sit with him.

We did a lot of getting out over the last week. Everyone was home, no work, no school and no sports to hurry and get to. We went to 2 different parks and back to the aquarium. Jeff and I went to see a movie one night. While we were in line, some kid behind us started puking so that was really nice. For New Years we, again, stayed at home. We all played games, snacked and watched a movie. Precisely at 12:01 it was time for bed! I have to take a nap if I am expected to stay up that late. So now it is the second week of January, everything is back to normal. No more Christmas music or lights, no more worrying if I got everybody a gift, for a few more months anyway. Now I just have to figure out a birthday.

First Game

2007-01-10T09:49:00.000+09:00

Cheara started cheerleading for youth football. She has had two games and is loving it! I wasnt really sure if she would get out there and actually do it or not but she informed me that she was a little shy at first, but would just have to get over it. She cheers her little heart out. This week is basketball signups. She had a hard time deciding if she was going to play ball or cheer for basketball. With a little pushing from her dad, she decided to play basketball. She went with me to one of Corri's tennis lessons and has decided that she would like tennis to. One thing at a time tho, tennis will have to wait until after cheer and ball. I am really kind of dreading basketball, just because I know how somebody can get :)

Thanksgiving play

2006-12-19T09:53:00.000+09:00

Landon does not want his picture taken!

Cheara had a small Thanksgiving play at school and then a huge feast. There was so much food there, I couldnt believe it. It was all so good. All of the first grade classes came together and sang a few songs and then each class sang their own song. They just stood on the floor with no risers so it was a little hard to see all the kids. Cheara was in the front though so no sweat off my back, I could see my kid. :-) The next day Corri had her feast with all of the sixth grade. More yummy food. Corri's was at the end of the day so I just checked her out about an hour early and let her go home with me.

Dustin had his Christmas concert for band last week. They made a CD of the concert, but it wont work in the car only in the house. They did a good job. I was pretty disappointed with the turnout though. Their was hardly anybody there. All of the parents couldnt have even been there. Afterwards Dustin told me that the mike they were using cost something like $4,000 and they bought two of them. I think they should have bought a stand for the drums he was trying to play. They had two chairs turned backwards with the quads sitting on them and Dustin is standing trying to play them. But they have a $4000 microphone!

Kokosai Street

2006-12-19T09:37:00.000+09:00

This is one of the side streets, it is two stories high with some apartments up on top. Every so often there will be another side street with more shops. It is at least a block big, probably more and it is all covered so very easy to get turned around once you get in there.

We went to Kokosai Street and went walking around one day. It is just a long street, as far as you can see with tourist shops up one side and down the other. We didn't buy anything and had more fun when we went down the side street into all the little shops. We always have at least one person stop us when we are out because we have a big family. One time an older Japanese man told me I must make my husband happy, referring to having four kids. He asked if they were all mine and when I said yes, he went "oh husband happy" funny! There was a Tiffany's store down there. I didnt even see it, Corri pointed it out so I had to go in there, I have never been in a Tiffany's before. There was a jewelry store I went into also. Holy cow was their stuff expensive! I just went in there to get my ring cleaned and browsed a little while I waited. I could not believe how expensive it was. Now that I have been down there it is one more thing I can cross off the list. I dont know if I need to go back or not, maybe if I get a visitor we can go back.

Say what?

2006-12-19T09:34:00.000+09:00

I took this outside of an arcade. We love some of the signs around here. This is the only one I have taken, but Kris put some good ones up a while back. I will try to remember my camera more often and put some more up.

Colts cheerleaders

2006-12-19T09:06:00.000+09:00

Practicing their cheer
Performance time!
Group shot
Here is Cheara with one of the cheerleaders

The Indianapolis Colts cheerleaders were here for a tour. They went to some of the squadrons and had a cheer clinic for the girls on base. Cheara is cheering for youth football so she went to the clinic they had. They were there for about an hour and learned a couple of cheers and did the Cha Cha slide. The first thing they did when they started was call all of the girls out to the gym floor and did the cha cha with them, then broke them up into smaller groups according to age. In the groups they taught the kids 3 or 4 cheers then played duck, duck, goose. Each group performed their cheers for the parents, then they called everybody out to the floor. I just stayed on the bleachers because I thought they were going to have us do something stupid. What do you know? I was right, they now wanted all the parents to do the cha cha. No thank you, think I will pass! I just watched other people make idiots out of themselves, I really liked watching a couple people who thought they still had it! Jeff and Corri went out there and did it with her though. Me and several other parents were spectators on that one. So after that, they took a group shot of all the cheerleaders and girls and handed out group photos of the cheerleaders and did autographs. Cheara was so excited, she talked about all the way home and most of the day. While we were driving down the road she would put that picture up in the window and try to show the other people driving.

Old moment

2006-12-19T09:02:00.000+09:00

Ok, so I just had an old moment. The big kids were all gone to school, Landon was still asleep and it hit me. Here I am with CMT on, laundry going, had figured out what we were going to have tonight for dinner (and it is only 8am) and I am crocheting!

Dear Santa

2006-12-15T07:09:00.000+09:00

This is to cute not to share, and isnt it the truth? We are going to see Santa on Sunday, maybe I should take this letter with me.

Dear Santa,

I've been a good mom all year. I've fed, cleaned, and cuddled my children on demand, visited the doctor's office more than my doctor, sold sixty-two cases of candy bars to raise money to plant a shade tree on the school playground. I was hoping you could spread my list out over several Christmases, since I had to write this letter with my son's red crayon, on the back of a receipt, in the laundry room between cycles, and who knows when I'll find any more free time in the next 18 years. Here are my Christmas wishes: I'd like a pair of legs that don't ache (in any color, except purple, which I already have), and arms that don't flap in the breeze like the wattle on a turkey neck; but are strong enough to pull my screaming child out of the candy aisle in the grocery store. I'd also like a waist, since I lost mine somewhere in the fifth month of my last pregnancy. If you're hauling big ticket items this year, I'd like fingerprint resistant windows; a radio that only plays adult music; a television that doesn't broadcast any programs containing talking animals; and a refrigerator with a secret compartment behind the crisper where I can hide to talk on the phone. On the practical side, I could use a talking doll that says, "Yes, Mommy" to boost my parental confidence, along with two kids who don't fight, and three pairs of jeans that will zip all the way up without the use of power tools. I could also use a recording of Tibetan monks chanting "Don't eat in the living room" and "Take your hands off your brother," because my voice seems to be just out of my children's hearing range and can only be heard by the dog. If it's too late to find any of these products, I'd settle for enough time to brush my teeth and comb my hair in the same day, or the luxury of eating food warmer than room temperature without it being served in a Styrofoam container. Being able to sit down to eat also would be nice... If you don't mind, I could also use a few Christmas miracles to brighten the holiday season. Would it be too much trouble to declare ketchup a vegetable? It will clear my conscience immensely. It also would be helpful if you could coerce my children to help around the house without demanding payment as if they were the bosses of an organized crime family. Well, Santa, the buzzer on the dryer is ringing and my son saw my feet under the laundry room door. I think he wants his crayon back. Have a safe trip, and remember to leave your wet boots by the door, and come in and dry off so you don't catch cold. Help yourself to the cookies on the table but don't eat too many or leave crumbs on the carpet. And don't spill your milk. Yours Always, MOM P.S. One more thing... you can cancel all my requests if you can keep my children young enough to believe in Santa. (*Santa has asked that this gets passed on to all the mommies you know)

Happy Thanksgiving

2006-12-13T08:05:00.000+09:00

I know, I know, this is a little late. A lot late, but better late than never right? We spent Thanksgiving at home, with just our family. Since Jeff was gone last year and we never know around here what next year holds for us, we spent a quiet day at home with just our family. Idid some cooking, cheated a little this year but that's ok. I bought a smoked turkey and all I had to do was pop it in the oven for a couple of hours and let that bad boy heat up. It was really good and I will buy one of those again, definatley better than getting up at 3 o'clock in the morning just to put a turkey in the oven. The commisarry was out of pie crusts, and I didnt feel like making one, so no pumkin pie for us, we had pumkin bars instead, they were so yummy. A couple of years ago I met a woman named Mrs Smith and she was so kind as to make us an apple pie. Later in the weekend we put up our Charlie Brown tree. I didnt bring any of our Christmas stuff with so I just have to get a little here and there. I bought a cute little bow to put on the top, now I have to listen to my wonderful children ask me over and over, why there is no star on the top of the tree. So I went and got presents off of layaway and started wrapping my little heart out!
The weekend before I took the kids to the beach and tried to get some pictures that I could use for Christmas cards. Landon was much more interested in playing in the sand, and by the time I got a shot that wasnt to bad, he had his shirt off.

BRRR!

2006-11-07T08:12:00.000+09:00

It is 73* and breezy, and we are all freezing! I guess we adjusted to the tropical weather ok huh? This morning at the bus stop all of the kids had on jeans and/or jackets. Cheara thought it was going to be to cool to wait for the bus! I am going to have to go put pants on :)

Happy Halloween

2006-11-01T08:49:00.000+09:00

Halloween is always so much fun. The kids love it, and I love to see how excited they get. Dustin dressed up with his friend at the end of the cul-de-sac and they handed out candy and scared kids. I thought I got a picture of him, but my camera battery was dead. Corri ran out of the house like her butt was on fire so I didnt get a picture of her either. She got dressed up with a bunch of other girls and they went walking around. She went to a couple of houses with me and Cheara and Landon since her friends had to eat dinner first. Then she ditched us for the rest of the night. Cheara was a cheerleader. That was super easy since we still have Corri's old cheer uniform. Landon was Dumbo, he was too cute. We ended up having to borrow a costume from the neighbor. I am glad that lady saves all of her kids costumes. I didnt realize until we were out walking around that Halloween didnt cost me a penny this year. That was awsome, to bad I cant get away with that for Christmas!!! The two little ones had fun, I think. Landon didnt know what to think, but he did get a thank you out at almost every house. Cheara was a little skiddish at first, maybe because her dad thinks it is so much fun to try and scare her. He has been telling her about bats and witches for weeks and she wasnt even going to go trick or treating. Did you notice who I said went trick or treating? Cheara, Landon and ME!!! Do you see that Dad is not there? He was out in the jungle trying to find his way out!! They scheduled him for stupid training that they know lasts into the night on Halloween. UGHH!! He got home around 8:00, the kids were done trick or treating, had thier baths and were already laying down. Oh well, it could be worse.

A litte weekend recap

2006-10-31T13:49:00.000+09:00

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

2006-10-27T19:06:00.000+09:00

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

2006-10-22T13:20:00.000+09:00

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

2006-10-11T09:14:00.000+09:00

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!

2006-10-11T08:55:00.000+09:00

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.

Crazy boy

2006-09-28T14:19:00.000+09:00

All tuckered out!! He was so tired after a long day he fell asleep while eating, you can see food still in his mouth. Poor baby.
wearing daddy's gas mask
I walked into the kitchen and he had climbed up on the counter, opened the drawer and got a spoon. The peanut butter was still out on the counter, so he helped himself to a little PB!!

For a few days I thought that Landon had lost his mind. He is soooo good that when he does something you cant help but laugh. He is not like most two year olds in that if he is "too" quiet he must be into something. He talks a lot, but he thinks that he is having a conversation with you even if he says the same thing 100 times and doesnt let you get a word in. Here are some pictures of him that I got over the last week or so of him!

Giving himself a bath in the sink.

Why, why, why???

2006-09-21T14:54:00.000+09:00

Why are people so stupid? I went into arts and crafts to get a little thing of velcro, and magnet strips. I found velcro, i thought it was a little expensive for no more than you got but whatever. So I took it up to the registar and asked them if that was all the had or if they had a different kind. You will never guess what she asked me next. "Is that all that was hanging there?" DUH!!!! What do you think? STUPID!!!!

School Days

2006-09-01T10:54:00.000+09:00

It is that time of year again. I cant believe it is already time to send the kiddos back to school. What a fast summer, as always. I was not ready to send them back this year at all! This is a big year for all of us. Dustin starting high school, Corri ending elementary school and Cheara in first grade just starting school. Granted this is is her third year of school, but pre-k doesnt count and kindergarten was only half a day so she was still home by 11:00am. She wasnt concered with getting lost or making friends the first day, she just wanted to make sure she was going to look cute. That's Cheara!! The first day the girls were up and ready, Dustin hasnt got up with his alarm clock yet and we are only on day 4! Cheara had PE yesterday for the first time and she was so excited, they got to bowl so that was lots of fun for her. Dustin has PE again this year also, he hasnt had it since 6th grade. Their first unit is swimming, not sure he is to excited about that. He enjoys swimming and always has fun at the pool, but I remember having swimming in high school and it sucked. This will be an interesting year for him, he has a heavy load but is excited. They do an A day and B day here so he only has a class every other day. He is in 2 honors classes, and Japanese, Algebra and Biology along with PE and band, so he will be a busy boy. Him and Corri both came home with homework yesterday already. I could probably count on one hand how many times Dustin brought home work last year. I got a picture of Cheara before school started and when I went to take Corri's, Cheara had to be in that one too, and then here came Landon with his backpack. Dustin is to "cool" to have his picture taken so I will have to stand at the door after school ready with the camera.

Self-taught

2006-08-16T17:22:00.000+09:00

Cheara comes in the house the other day and is telling me about riding her bike. I knew she had it out but never dreamed she would just get on it and ride it. We told her all week that over the weekend Dad would take her out and teach her how to ride her bike, I guess she got tired of waiting. She thinks it is great, me to. I was so proud of her that she just went and rode it all by herself.

Four letter F word!!!!!

2006-08-09T14:47:00.000+09:00

Oh great, so Landon has learned a new word. He walks around saying it all day long, to anyone who will, or who even wont, listen to him. I am sure you will never guess where he learned it, his daddy of course! Dad's are good for teaching them all of the things that us silly ol' moms just dont think they need to know. He sticks his little butt out and farts on everyone. It is actually pretty funny, the first 50 times in the day that he does it. Since daddy doesnt get to see it all day long, like I get the privelage of, he has to egg him on the rest of the evening. He does a noise with his mouth and the whole nine yards. Arent boys great! I wouldnt trade it for the world!!!

Links

2006-08-07T19:19:00.000+09:00

I have sat here for I dont even know how long trying to figure out how to do a link. I finally figured it out, kinda. I got the ones on there that i wanted to but two of them came out with big huge letters, looks stupid, but at this point, I dont care. I think it was more luck than anything that I got them on there to begin with. Now to figure out to get a couple other pictures on there. I cant seem to find them when I want to upload them. Oh well...they arent going anywhere.

Hair today...

2006-08-07T18:13:00.000+09:00

Gone tommorow! Landon finally got his haircut. This is only the third time he has had it cut. It was quite a deal to get it done. I had to sit down in the chair and not only hold him, but hold him down. You would have thought by listening to him that this lady was pulling out one strand of hair at a time. Now it is done and of course he looks adorable!! I still have to go back and get a couple of places that she missed, but it looks pretty good. It has got to feel alot better, but it is not near as curly as it was longer. I think I will have to let it be a little bit longer :)

Not a happy camper..

2006-07-21T12:13:00.000+09:00

Or should I say golfer. Dustin and Cheara have gone to golf camp all week and today they went out on the course to play. On my way to drop them off, I begin to wonder....who will be out on the course with them? they are not just going to let them go alone are they? oh surely to goodness they have all of this figured out!! We get there and I (stupidly) decide to stay until they are all settled into a group. The guy doing it all has everyone broke up into groups of four and is calling off names and telling them which hole they are going to start at. I heard him ask one other parent if they were going to stay with the group, now I panick!! They are not as well organized as they seem to be. He gets to our group, my 2 kids and 2 brothers, and asks me am i going to stay and go on the course with them. Now you know my first reaction was absolutley not!!!! but the brothers just got dropped off so what was i supposed to do? Now had i known that i was going to be out walking in the heat for 2 1/2 hours, I would have come better prepared. At least I was dressed half way decent but i had on capris and flip-flops so now my feet are fried, and capris were to hot!! I ended up rolling up my capris, I am sure that looked really cute. We were the last group out on the course and the first ones finished if that tells you anything. All in all we had a very good time, it was a 9 hole par3 course. I could not being doing much more than that, after the fourth hole i was done. Cheara ended up quitting, cant say that I blame her there, I carried her bag 99% of the time and the other little boy that was in our group ended up quitting also. The last hole those two sat under a big shade tree and played rock, paper, scissors. Dustin and the older boy had fun. Dustin's only goal was to see how hard he could hit the ball. That said, I believe he was the furthest from the hole every time! Jeff would have had fun out there with them, hopefully he can take them once in a while. Corri ended up babysitting Landon all morning and did a good job with him. I wish I would have known I was going to stay and I could have taken my camera. Cheara looked awfully cute playing golf, when she wasnt complaining that is. I was a bit worried about snakes, I wouldnt have thought about it on my own but the guy said something about snakes in the beginning. We did see a mongoose. I would have never known what it was but one of the kids told me. First time I have seen one of those, it was gross!!!! i am not big on creatures, just glad it wasnt a snake!!

Boring

2006-07-19T17:35:00.000+09:00

I just realized that i havent even posted anything since the fourth! Are we really that boring? well sort of, i guess. We havent ventured out and done anything. we had to take back the tv that i just bought Jeff for his birthday because it just went off all by itself. I was not happy, and of course i couldnt find the reciept! We just wanted to exchange it for the exact same thing but guess what? they dont have that one anymore. So we had to get the next size bigger. Somehow my wonderful husband always gets what he wants. You see when i bought the tv to begin with i got the smaller one, while he wanted to get the larger one, i however, did not see the need for such a big tv in base housing!! So i won at first, but ultimatley he got what he wanted :) Hmmm let me think about what else we have done. We went to the 100yen store, Japans version of the dollar store. If i ever take the girls in there I can see that i will be there for some time, it is all junk for the most part but they like to poke around in that stuff. Dustin and Cheara started golf camp this week. That is going well, Cheara is so excited. The first day though when they were learning the grip she had a minor meltdown because she didnt know that was what it was going to be, she tells me. I think she thought they were just going to get out there and hit the ball. Now that she is over that she loves it. Dustin has taken golf lessons before but he was pretty happy to get back out there to. Well I guess that is all for now, if we do anything exciting this will be the first place i go ;-)

Play Date

2006-07-19T17:21:00.000+09:00

Look at these little artists

So the other day we had Caden and Camden over for the afternoon while Todd and Kris got stuff put away in their new house. The least I could do for them is watch their kids after all they had done for us when we got here. Thanks again you guys!!!
They had so much fun and Landon actually shared with them all day. We went to the park, had some lunch, they colored some and played and played and played. I got a couple of cute pictures of them all, this is not an easy task to get three 2 year olds to look at the camera at the same time. I didnt even need them to smile, i just wanted a couple of pictures with all three of those adorable faces looking at me! I dropped off Dustin and Corri and Bailey, the boys older brother, at the pool and Cheara played outside almost the whole day. we will have to do it again sometime, they all play so well together.

The 4th

2006-07-05T08:17:00.000+09:00

Happy Fourth! It sure didnt feel like the fourth around here, no bbq's no sparklers. Cheara was sick the night before so the day was a little touchy also. After our 3 hour nap, we headed to the big festivities. There were a few little rides and hamburgers and hotdogs, (but they were kinda gross) not much to do for the two big kids so they walked around a bunch until it was time for the fireworks. We had some freakin moron sitting next to us that would not shutup, he was driving us crazy, why do we always get stuck by people like that? He had to name the color of every single one that they shot off and then we would have to hear wow that one was colorful. what a dork. Anyway, we had a good time, Cheara still didnt feel great but that somehow changed when they started shooting off the fireworks. Landon loved it, I couldnt believe it, all we heard out of him was more? more? Corri was to busy playing with those light up things that they always sell at stuff like this and Dustin is 14, no reaction out of anything, unless it is a game of course.

I cant get a picture up right now, will try again later.

Lots of work ahead of us

2006-07-03T09:41:00.000+09:00

Friday 30 June our household goods arrived! The kids were so excited. Everytime Landon saw something that was his, he said mine, home!!! The movers got to the house right at 7:30 and were gone by 9:15. The kids and I had 10 boxes unpacked and put away by 10:30!! We still have to hang pictures and find places for a few things but we are doing pretty good. We have plenty of room for everything and everybody.

Happy Birthday

2006-07-03T09:18:00.000+09:00

Do you need any help sissy?

Happy Birthday Cheara!!!! Of course the first day that Jeff has to actually work is the day of Cheara's birthday. We were going to go to Chili's to eat but we ran out of time for that. We had already planned on going to see "Cars" (if you havent seen it, wait for DVD!) The movie started at 7 but we had to be there early as they were anticpating a sold out show. She opened her birthday presents real quick, and we headed to the theatre. We decided since there was no time we would just get pizza and nachos and stuff at the movie. The beginning of the movie was good, the end was predictable but cute. The middle was long and not so good. Cheara wanted to go home and eventually fell asleep and slept through about half of the movie and Landon wanted to go home and play with his choo-choos. Left the movies, went home sang happy birthday blew out candles and went to bed, cake would have to wait for the next day. All in all she had a good birthday, very happy to get the scooter to keep up with all of the other kids on the block.

S-O-L-D

2006-06-27T11:45:00.000+09:00

That is how we spell relief. Our suburban has been sold and keys and money have changed hands. What a weight off. I was beginning to wonder if we would ever sell that thing. It sat on the lemon lot for about 5 weeks but it is now gone. Just as we stared weighing other options, we got the call, (email actually) that an offer had been made and this guy was talking to the bank. Everything always works out. YEAH!!!

Pineapple Park

2006-06-27T10:55:00.000+09:00

Sunday we went to the pineapple park. We all a really good time. We got in a little self-operated pineapple car and it took us on a little tour of the park. It had a recording that told us what we were seeing, but with six people in the car, who could hear? Just before we got on the car we got pinapple ice cream. I know it sounds yucky, but it was actually very tasty. So who's bright idea was it to get a two year old a huge ice cream when it is 90 degrees outside? We spent most of the time trying to eat his icecream and keep everyone half way clean. After the "tour" we went inside the gift shop area and they had samples of everything! Pineapple anything you could imagine, wine, chocolate, cookies, cake, tons of stuff. So after all of that sampling there was no need for lunch...hey we will save a buck anywhere we can. Dustin and Corri were much braver than I in that they both tasted pig tongue, ears, face, nose! They tried their hardest to get me to taste it, but NO!! We were a side show, i felt like. They loved the two little ones there. Landon really liked the Japanese tea sample and had a 4 cups. The lady kept telling me "he like, he like" We had a group gather around us to when Cheara was tasting sea grapes. The kids really surprised me in all of the different things that they tasted. I went "tourist" all the way with my camera around my neck, at first I felt like a dork but if anybody was making fun of me, i didnt know what they were saying anyway. :)

I am trying..

2006-06-21T15:01:00.000+09:00

Well i am very consumed with this blog thing, although i havent really posted anything. I keep trying to think of something wonderful to share but it's just not coming to me! I think too hard, and i think people will think it is boring and silly so i just do nothing. This is my New Years Resulution (yes in June, thank you very much!!) to try and keep this updated.
I guess I will just start with the weekend until i can think of something really interesting. Saturday was very nice outside, we have finally got some nice hot weather with no rain. I cant believe it rained the first 15 days we were on island! We took the kids to the pool and played and splased around for a few hours. Then we came home, cleaned up and just hung out at the house for the rest of the evening. Sunday, Fathers Day, we got up and had a nice big breakfast. Jeff and I went to the Marine base, since they have a bigger BX, and Jeff got his grill and lawnmower. This was not intended to be his Fathers Day gift, but it just happened that is the day we went to pick this stuff up. I also let him get a power drill. That way when my pictures and curtains show up i will let him hang them up for me. I am nice like that, what can i say! That afternoon we took the kids back to the pool for a couple of hours, until we saw the rain clouds roll in. I told Dustin I was ready to go because i didnt want to get wet, you know, after i had been in the pool for 2 hours. Landon loved swimming, but he doesnt want anyone to hold onto him. I guess we will need to get him in some swimming lessons. Cheara had a blast, the three oldest kids got goggles so she had no problem going under. She spent two hours trying to swim, she was exhausted! Time to get her into lessons to, last year she had a death grip on me. Dustin and Corri had fun bugging each other, trying to pull each other under and just letting loose. We got home just as the rain started and after we all got cleaned up it was time to try out the new grill. I had bought a fresh pineapple and cut that up and we made kabobs. Yummy!!! grilled pineapple, that was the first time i had even cut up a fresh pineapple but definatley not that last, it was soooo good.
Now here is it Wednesday already, and we are trying to decide where we can venture to this weekend. We would like to check out the pineapple fields or maybe the butterfly garden. We havent got to do anything like that yet, so we are all excited. I will try and get some good pictues of whatever we do and get them posted.
Here is my little man eating up that pineapple!!

On our way to Kadena

2006-06-15T21:58:00.000+09:00

This is a picture of us at the Space Needle in Seattle enroute to Kadena. We spent the day walking around at Pikes Market watching the fishermen throw the fish followed by a meal enjoying the fresh fish.

my first blog

2006-06-15T09:36:00.000+09:00

So i got the blog set up. Yeah for me, we will see how good i am at keeping this up. i have started about 10 diaries in my life and never wrote in them more than 2 or 3 times. now that i am older and more mature (yeah, right :)) maybe i will keep up on it better. my goal is to try and keep everyone in the loop of our chaotic island life. i will mess with pictures soon, right now just know that we all made it here safe, got into a house and are waiting for our household goods to arrive.