One year ago...

A year ago today we were apparently in DC at my mom's. Notice the adult supervision of our children. My brother J is asleep with Pablo the Monkey (courtesy of Jaron) and Sean is also asleep with Cupcake the dog (courtesy of Kaia). At least I know the guys were well-taken care of...by my kids. ;o)

Thank goodness my children aren't pyromaniacs or have many destructive tendencies.

HAPPY BIRTHDAAAAAAAAAAAY!!

Happy Birthday, Bear/Ba-ba!!
35 never looked so good!
Thank you for always being Mr. Fabulous!
We love you!!!

Fun times...

Kaia is currently home with a stomach virus...albeit not a horrible one like the one that knocked out me & the kids and almost the entire wardroom of the USS Tennessee. Poor Sean got less than 3.5 hours of sleep after coming home from taking Kais to the ER past 12:30am.

Kaia's good now. Sean's sleepy. Go figure.

This past weekend was great. Two birthday parties and lots of rain. We had a lot of fun though. Kaia got a taste of gymnastics at her friend Jack's birthday party on Saturday. Before we ran to Jack's birthday, I made quick healthy pseudo-Cuban sandwiches...Kaia's favorite samich. Then on Sunday, we joined our long-time friends the Tabingas to celebrate dear Colin's 5th birthday! We had so much fun!

We're still backlogged on updates. Still have to post Kim's baby shower (which the kids & Sean didn't get to make since Kaia was crazy sick during the party also)...but if I haven't even posted Kaia's birthday celebration in Disney...we'll see if I get to posting about the shower! ;o)

So Much for Being Land-Locked...

So when the sub goes into dry dock, one can still get pulled to go out to sea. Ahhhhhh, the sub life. Still, with this boomer tour we can't complain...it beats fast attack life any day, hands down.

Earlier this month there was a distinct possibility that Sean was supposed to fill in for another WEPS that quit in our old homeport. The fun part of that was that he was going to be gone for 1.5 months...again, that's not too bad but considering he's in the shipyards and the smartest and more practical and most economical decision would've been to pull from the other available WEPS in the area...which they eventually did. Now, he's on this other little underway. It sucks because he'll miss our sister's (that sounds incestuous...so, my sister, his sister-in-law) baby shower...or moreover, I'll miss having him around this week while I am a crazy woman getting ready for a shower in a different state. Still, our BFFs Shirl & Hil (and our wonderful Mom) have a lot covered too up there.

Anyway, we miss having Mr. Muscles around...even though he hasn't been gone for more than a few hours yet. The kids always handle these underways with the easiest of ease. I love it. I used to be disconcerted that they didn't do the "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, DADDY, DON'T GOOOOOOO!" and whole crying bit...but easily adapting to new situations is preferable any day!!! Shoot, I still remember the first time Sean went out on his PWEPS tour and I was a hot mess and Kaia comforted me...at the ripe old age of 3!!!! I guess it hadn't helped that we had some psycho come into our house (who Mr. Muscles punched out) and we were living waaaaaaaaay far from The Fam AND had a new puppy (Jax...thanks to the psycho, we felt the need for a protection dog) AND two toddlers AND I had Sean home for 3 years, so I wasn't used to him going out to sea anymore. Now, it's back to military spouse mentality and my kids are tough too...we'll see you soon, Beb/Ba-ba, but not soon enough!!!

STILL...it's a mini-underway and I can't complain. Becca's in the middle of a move with a toddler and her hubby is on deployment (read: fast attack deployments are the real thing...6 months out and not counting the various underways before they leave and throughout the year...these guys are MAYBE home for a total of 3 months out of the year...spread out throughout the year)...we're talking single married spouses for an entire fast attack tour), Kelly has been home with the 3 kids while her hubby has been in a different state up the coast, and Ellyn had gone through a deployment and then her hubs got sent on a 1 year IA tour in Iraq, and Liza's been holding it down with her 3 cuties while her hubby does a geo-bachelor tour.

Yeah, we miss Mr. Muscles, but we have no complaints.

And so starts December...

I had way better shots, but didn't want to post those for fear of the whole security thing of our guys and stuff.

So, we said goodbye to Sean this morning. Found out late last night that we had to take him to the base (as we've always done anyway) reeeeeeeeeeallllly early in the morning. It was days like today that I really wish we had lived closer so Sean could get some more rest in. The kids and I came back home and snoozed for a bit and I had planned on taking us to the Island (Amelia Island) to the state park (Ft. Clinch) to say our goodbyes again. We got to hang out with the uber-cool Ms. Lynsey Hickman and watched the boat go by from atop the fort. Like I mentioned before, I got some really good shots from that fort of the sub, but don't want to post them and have NCIS breathing down my back. ;o) It was also fun having random people pass us by and ask if the sub came or is coming and I was like "WTF?" The spouses are sworn to this Don't Tell Don't Tell policy and yet the three times I've gone, other civilians have known that a sub was coming through. So much for security and confidentiality of our sub's movements. Anyway, I digress...living in FL has made me a cold-weather wimp. It was 50 degrees and a wee bit chilly. I guess it's difficult after it was upper 60s-70 degree weather just a few days ago.

But, during our snooze, Sean called to let us know that AGAIN our move dates needed to be rescheduled...the day AFTER we had just confirmed dates with the moving company. Of course, I can't find out anything else about our schedule until I hear from Sean next...I love being in limbo. Fun stuff. But in actuality, there isn't too much stress here, but just hoping that we'll make it home with The Fam to celebrate (and all of our other various fams/friend-fams to visit). Just stressing to get our place rented out. We haven't locked in a property manager (although we did interviews this past weekend) so I wanted to give MilitaryByOwner.com a chance and see how that works out. I still need to clean some more and upload more photos.

Anyhoo...our weekend was crazy busy and stressful, but we managed to head down to downtown JAX and catch the Light Parade & Fireworks. It was extra great since we got to hit my favorite downtown Jax soft taco goodness Burrito Gallery. The Light Parade was actually on water...people would deck out their boats in all sorts of decorations. There were some mad cool decorations and others that were like "ooooookaaaaaaay". Case in point of a mad cool one was the Santa Riding the Alligator down the St. John's River.

I also got to play around with my new cool toy the Gorillapod, which is a tripod for cameras that you can wrap around various things. I used it to get some clearer nightshots (man, am I reaaaaaaally wanting an SLR for some seriously crisp and no-noise photos...one day...*sigh*) by wrapping it around the railing and just snapping away (and playing w/various settings to finally settle on something I was satisfied with). At the end of the night, since we barely have photos of the 4 of us...I wrapped the Gorillapod around the stroller and this was one of the shots I got:

The fireworks were great since they were launched off of three barges and we could see all three...and were next to one of the two bridges that displayed the famous "waterfall" display of fireworks:

Anyway, what a long day it has been and I'm interested in seeing how the next few weeks pan out. I leave y'all with this photo of the kiddies as we were leaving the fort after saying goodbye to Sean:

M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

We're heading off to Disney tomorrow with The Fam. Actually, J will be flying into Orlando on Friday and Sean will be meeting us in Orlando Saturday afternoon. We had a slight scare that he wouldn't be down at all since he's the big man in charge for a long period because he's the weapons DH. Boooooooo. Anyhoo...it's Kaia's 5th birthday Saturday and just wanted to make sure we were together as a family. So yeah, tomorrow we pick up Mom & Kim from the airport in Jax w/the poochies, drive to Plant City and drop them off with the trainer, and then head off to Shades of Green (the military resort @ Disney).

Meanwhile, I've been siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick. I somehow managed to stay in bed almost the entire day yesterday...without Sean home. Yes, with the kids home. They were really good. We're so lucky to have good kids. The last time I've been so sick was with the flu back in February and before that it was with the flu in 2000. Wait a minute...is this the flu???? Nah, it's not...but it's pretty durn bad. Anyway...enough whining.

Gotta pack and plan for my baby gurl's 5th birthday celebration with our Besties!!

Welcome Home & Happy Birthday, Ba-ba!!

Happy Birthday, Ba-ba/Bear!!

So, Sean went out to sea and came back home...again and again these past few weeks. He finally got back and early AND just in time for...HIS BIRTHDAY!!!! We had gotten word that he was pulling in at 6pm...so I had a good idea of when & what to make for his birthday. His birthday gift of "cleaning the house" didn't quite make the deadline. Shoot, it didn't even get past the thought of it. Ok, so I exaggerate...I did tidy up a little bit and the kiddies did clean up their gazillion toys. So, it was a bit cleaner....but hardly noticeable save for the toys.

Anyhoo...we made a mint-Special Dark chocolate cake for his birthday. We made it from scratch since I can't bear the thought of putting the junk from boxed cake mixes into my family. Don't get me wrong...I LOVE the taste and ease of boxed cake mixes, but do try to avoid them. It's like the Breyer's commercial when you see the kids trying to pronounce the junk that's in non-all natural ice creams. We also made some favorites of his...churrasco (with my cousin Luis' chimichurri recipe), cabbage salad (my 98 year-old maternal grandfather's concoction), garlicky steamed cauliflower, & brown/white rice. You can check out my food blog for any recipes. The cabbage salad has become one of his favorites when Mom first made it for him. Not to mention that the raw cabbage is uber-healthy too (along w/the tomatoes & olive oil in it). Cauliflower is something that he JUST started liking last year when I started making it really garlicky. Sean's come a loooooooong way from when we first started dating. Veggies were really foreign to him. BUT...now he's lovin' them. Now, we just have to convert his Mini-Me (aka Jaron) into liking them. We're making big headway with the little turkey...so he's slowly starting to eat them or at least TRY them! WOOHOO!!

Anyway...the kids had a really late night and we finally got them down at 11pm...a full 3 hours after I NORMALLY get them down! Sean & I settled in for a movie ("Elizabeth the Golden Age") and finally got to bed at 2am!! We celebrated today with disappointing dim sum (go figure for NE Florida)...followed IMMEDIATELY with an Indian buffet (literally several shops down from the Chinese place). Yup...gluttons! I didn't take photos, but dinner was salad, grilled asparagus, & grilled pork loin chops with a gauva sauce. YUM!

That's all for now. It's on to planning Kaia's birthday coming up next week. We'll be in Orlando with The Fam. Woohoo!!!! We can't believe (not-so) Baby Girl is already turning 5!!!

Hopefully Sean will be contributing to the blog now that he's home!

Kaia cheesin' & Jaron continuing his piece de resistance!

Now Jaron's turn to cheese & Kaia creating her masterpiece.

A close-up of our son's artsiness.

This is a bad angle since I actually had 1/2 plate covered in veggies & I flattened out my rice portion to make it look like more. ;o)

Aftermath, Hanna, & Week 7 (finally)

Oops...kinda forgot to post an update about Fay. We came out A-OK! There were downed trees, debris, and lots of standing water. The water levels in the golf course lakes were really high as were the marshes and rivers. But, the electricity never went out and we were alllllllllllll good. ;o)

Sean had come in after Fay left for a hot second and then was back out to sea for a little bit. He finally came home and worked through the entire Labor Day weekend. One day he'll get to sleep in. But, now he's back out again. Hanna was looking like she wanted to come and visit us but everytime I check the forecast, she's going out further into the Atlantic. Still, the government likes to protect their multi-billion dollar assets and sent the subs out. Nothing like a huge expensive piece of metal banging into the piers!! So, we're a single-parent household preparing for a possible hurricane again. It's all good though. This'll give us some good alone time to try to clean the house for Sean's birthday (9/6). We're not exactly the cleaning-type of people...but this'll be Sean's best birthday gift ever as well as pull double-duty getting ready to get this house listed on the rental market. =D But, yeah, Hanna doesn't look too bad so far...at least it doesn't look as bad as it did for a while! So...YAY!

On to Week 7. Kaia finished her week off with American Idol. It was very cute. They sung Lean on Me (which had a stereotypical Native American theme to it...not sure what was up with that) & Since You've Been Gone. The latter was really cute and the two main singers were soooo good!!! Mom also surprised Kai-Bear and was she ever so surprised and overjoyed!! It was so cute to see/hear how happy my little munchkin was!!! So, Mom came in just in time to enjoy Kaia's very last camp performance. Kaia had so much fun and was pretty bummed to see it end. But, alas, she now has lessons up the wazoo (may I reiterate how I never thought I'd be putting them in so many classes...shoot, as well as homeschooling too....hahahahaha).

Speaking of lessons, they're loving them. Kaia's hip-hop teacher (Miss Holly from summer camp) actually wants to move her up to the 7-9 year old class. She thinks Kaia's going to make it big one day. That's fine...as long as she goes to college too. ;o)

On to some photos...

Turkey Jaron & Overjoyed Kaia with WGG (World's Greatest Grandma)