Saturday, August 30, 2008

boys are back

My boys are back home! They arrived Wednesday night with Aunt J and cousin J. I thought Aunt J would want to go do stuff with them, but we just sat around Thursday during the day. Thursday evening we took Tommy and Anthony to school to meet their teachers and find their classrooms. Tommy has the same teacher as he did last year, so he had no issues. Anthony's teacher seemed ok, she wasn't particularly easy to talk to, but I'm hoping it was because of all the chaos with it being an open house.

We told both teachers about our upcoming move and Tommy's teacher said she'd be glad to help with whatever we can. Anthony's teacher just seemed bothered that he would only be there for a month and a half.

J & J decided to stay and hang out with us on Friday. So, we went to eat at Moe's Southwestern Grill, we'd never been there before. They had really good burritos, I'm happy we finally tried it. Afterwards, we went to the soccer store to find Tommy's soccer uniform. $65 later and he had 2 jerseys, a pair of shorts, 2 pairs of socks and new cleats. The cleats were $40, so when we went to Target later I tried to convince him that the $18 ones were nice too. He preferred the ones from the soccer store, so to compromise, he didn't get his shiny orange and blue soccer ball that was more expensive than the plain black and white ones. lol


Today we went to the dreaded commisarry, I almost had a panic attack the moment we walked in there. We walked out spending too much, as is normal, and came home. So we are done for the day it is uncomfortably hot outside and I have a daunting pile of laundry waiting for me. So, we are going to hang out today and play games and watch movies.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

we have a CA address!!!

I am so relieved that the rental realtor finally got in touch with us today to let us know that they accepted our application to rent the house. It is such a weight off my shoulders to know that my family will have a place to live when we get there. We will be able to get the school situation figured out and do as much as we can from here so that the kids can get back into school quickly.




The lovely silver car in the driveway was our rental when we were out there. I wanted to take pics inside, but didn't bring my camera into any of the houses we saw. I meant to, but I also thought that we would be able to check out the house one more time before we left town, we just didn't want to go back and get our hopes all up for something that might fall through. So, we will try to remember what this house looked like on the inside. It's hard to differentiate the houses though, we saw so many. lol This one does have a large kitchen with white cabinets and a 3 car garage, also a loft area upstairs with a built-in desk area on one wall.

The kiddos are back. It was so nice and quiet until they got here! lol We've been trying to not push ourselves on them because they are having so much fun. I don't know what their plans are tomorrow, but I need to try to run to Wal-Mart to pick up a kindermat for Anthony and 5 composition books for Tommy. We haven't been able to find any comp books anywhere, I might have to order them online and hope they arrive in time for the first few days of school. I also need to finish cleaning up my room & start in on the computer room, it's been a dumping ground for all sorts of things lately.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

August layouts

I've been meaning to post them for a while, but you know, life gets in the way ;) lol

So, the one with the tree isn't quite one I love, but I'm glad I scrapped it. I can always re-do it if & when the mood strikes. I love the Awards one though, of these 4 it's my fav of the bunch. These are all the pages I've done this month, pretty good considering we've been gone & so busy.










So, that's all for today...I'm a bit tired from cleaning out the garage today. I hope that the mice won't come back, we had to scrub, wash & throw out so much stuff that they had gotten into. Gross.

Monday, August 25, 2008

family...

I've been lucky enough to have been spared alot of drama from my in-laws for awhile. Unfortunately Tom and I are knee deep in drama. Tommy and Anthony start school on the 2nd, their school open house is the 28th of August, Tom and I agree they should both go especially Anthony. Now, here is where we run into the drama; the MIL and SIL wanted to take the boys for the last 2 weeks of the summer which normally wouldn't be a problem until about 2 weeks before (almost 3) when I found out when the open house was. SIL will have the boys during their open house, and she seems to think that our opinion doesn't matter and she doesn't want to bring them home or let us come get them. I told her about this as soon as Anthony went to his kindergarten testing, I told her that we would call the school and see if we could get the boys in to meet their teachers before hand. Noone asked us when we dropped the boys off last Saturday if they had met their teachers, so maybe the lack on communication is on my part for not specifically telling them that we were not able to get them in to meet their teachers. I called, Tom called; we tried.

Saturday when we got home after traveling all night SIL calls and asks if she can have the boys all week. I explain the situation, again. I tell her that we tried, but we do with what we have. She sounds like she is mad at me, I tell her that I'm sorry we couldn't have made arrangements otherwise, and that I will come get the boys or meet her halfway. She says she's not mad, just disappointed. She says that she's not going to be able to come down for a long weekend to visit like they are accustomed to once we move to CA. This of course makes me feel horrible, but it's nothing we can control. We go where they send us, we tried numerous times to get his orders changed to Lejeune, but even moving there wouldn't enable her to be able to drive down for a long weekend. We get off the phone and I could tell she was more than irritated with me.

So, tonight the MIL called Tom and had to have her say because SIL has called her a couple of times upset about having to bring them home earlier. Tom is on the phone for 15-20 minutes explaining, again, why it is important to us. She asks why can't we just go and get the information for the boys. Then she says she understands and is caught in the middle. She says that if they had known ahead of time (anyone remember 3 weeks?) they could have switched weeks so SIL would have had a whole week with them.

I'm really tired of it all. I feel like we are being punished by them for getting orders to CA (which we've tried to change) and now for wanting the boys (mainly Anthony) to go to their school open house and meet their teachers, get their bus tags, etc. We have to be flexible with Tom's job, we change what we can, adapt and make the best of what we can't change. With everything else we are trying to accomplish trying to organize I don't need this right now. We aren't trying to be mean, I want Anthony to meet his teacher.

Ugh...that's my rant for the day...still waiting on a yes or no from the house we really want, but that's a whole other story.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

back from SoCal

So, the hubs and I are back from SoCal. That was a long flight back, very glad that we didn't have the kids with us.

We got up super early to fly out there and stayed the whole week at the Pechanga Resort & Casino. It was nice to stay at a nicer place for a change, and we got to gamble for the first time! lol We won a little, lost a little, in the end I think we came out $14 ahead! lol Big winners that we are.

We saw some houses nearly each day of the week. Monday we went to Oceanside and saw the houses that were probably in our price range and we were assured that we didn't want to buy any of those. Tuesday we saw houses in Temecula to buy that were generally about twice the size, newer and in a much better area. Wednesday we saw 2 rentals, one that we loved and one we would settle on. lol We still have no firm answer on anything...which frustrates me. The other was running a credit check when we left to head down to San Diego, why they don't have an answer yet is frustrating.

We drove around a lot and saw a bit of Temecula's Wine Country, found all sorts of stores, we went down to Oceanside and walked around the street fair thing they had, wish we had more money, lots of stuff I wanted lol. We picked up some souvenirs for the kids and saw Pineapple Express. Friday we had to kill time around town just in case we got an answer so we saw Death Race. lol Afterwards we drove down to Coronado Beach. We tried to see Lisa Lampanelli on Thursday night, but they were sold out. It was nice to be able to do whatever we wanted, but we were out there for a specific reason and we had to kill more time waiting on call backs, it was frustrating. We both thought we would be busier so we didn't plan to do anything except go down to the beach at Oceanside one afternoon.

Will post pics later.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

new iPod

So, my dear, sweet husband was trying to do a good thing and get me something I had been wanting for awhile. And he even thought ahead and wanted to get it so it could be used on our trip this weekend. It arrived yesterday and I opened it once he got home, and I reacted so badly when I opened it and saw what it was. I am ashamed of myself, it's not that I didn't appreciate the thought - but when I opened the box it was a brand new 80gb iPod. I know that we don't have the money for that. Plus, we had agreed over a month ago that getting me a new one (yes, I already have an iPod, no it's not broken - but it doesn't play videos, and that's what I wanted) was a silly idea and it would be a waste of money. If I really wanted to watch movies that badly I could borrow his iPod if I should need to.

I hurt his feelings and I feel horrible about it. Today he says to me, "Sell your old one and don't worry about the money. Just open it." So, after dinner I did. I lifted it out of the box it came in, which is remarkably smaller than the box my other iPod came in. It's much thinner, but heavy. As I was spinning it around admiring the silver shiny-ness of it I noticed something on the back. Hmmm, what is that I though to myself. After closer inspection I realize that my dear husband had it engraved for me. After reading it and realizing that if we had returned it I would have never seen it, I felt like a complete ass. I should have just accepted it yesterday and been horribly grateful that he thought to get me anything at all.

I love him so much. Although at this moment he's a bit irritating. lol ;)

To our favorite woman
From all your favorite boys

Monday, August 11, 2008

Friday Letters

I almost forgot that Kathy told me about this today. I decided that since Alex is wielding a crayon I must stay in the same room to keep an eye on him, so I figured I would check it out the Friday Letters blog.

It's got great prompts for you to write about. It would be wonderful for scrapbookers. I'm wondering about creating a blog for it myself and maybe creating a notebook to write in my own writing. I am going to start with prompt 1 when we get back (or on Friday if I have time) on the blog, maybe a blog of it's own, haven't decided yet. Creating a notebook filled with letters in my own writing really calls to me. I love having letters, I've kept all the ones that Tom wrote me while he was deployed each time. There are services, such as blurb that will create a book out of your blog, so I suppose, when the time comes, I could always order one of those.

Just another thing for me to add to my to-do list. This would be a great project though for me while we are driving across the country in October. I won't have housework to keep me from it and that time with the kids will help me remember their quirks that I love so.

{funny things}

So, while I was visiting Andrea's blog today I saw her post a little cartoon about photography from WhattheDuck. I decided to go to the website to see more, I am so glad I did. The cartoons are so funny! Great shirts too, maybe I'll add one or two to my Xmas wish list ;)

We are trying to get everything pulled together for our trip this weekend. I'm finding that I'm going out of my fool mind trying to remember everything. Remind me not to leave everything til the last minute, I'm really feeling quite ill. Tom's been so busy at work too the past few days. Thursday, early morning, late night in the field; Friday early-ish morning and regular time off, but busy; Saturday, duty; Sunday, misc errands and then today was another early day and in the field all day. He's passed out on the couch currently. We're snapping at each other due to stress & lack of planning on our parts.

I'll post more another day, I have some stuff I should get taken care of before I need to try to get to bed.

Friday, August 8, 2008

cute camera straps

I've been toying with the idea of getting myself one of those super cute camera straps for a while. I haven't been able to justify the $30 that they cost, plus shipping. When I finally have some extra money to get one, something comes up. That's my luck.

So, Natalie makes these super cute camera straps and I have fallen in love with 2 of the fabric choices she has, the Cha-Cha Carnival and the Vera Bradley Java Blue. I think I like the Java Blue better, but pink seems to be a wise choice to insure that the hubby doesn't steal the camera ;) lol

Thursday, August 7, 2008

bad blogger...?

At one point in my life I considered myself to be a pretty decent writer, now, after re-reading some of my previous posts I am questioning myself. Of course it doesn't help that I just skimmed over the Blogging Basics 101 blog and found that my rambling tendencies are more likely to be passed over by readers. That's too bad for me. I realize I don't write compelling posts on political standpoints, environmental concerns, or financial matters, and I'm sure that my less-than-cohesive entries aren't entirely interesting to some, but this is my blog. It's my life, and this is me.

I tend to ramble (just ask Kathy) in a phone conversation, so it's obviously going to spill over into a blog post about just how much fun I had doing laundry this afternoon.

Ah, well...I have nothing else to really say today...til another interesting thought comes along.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

{babe} & other misc ramblings

It's hard for me to call the hubs by his first name sometimes. If I'm talking to the kids I obviously refer to him as dad, if we are around family and I need his attention I say Tom, but any other time, it's babe. Both of us do it. Around our house we normally don't hear our real names much. I didn't give it much thought until I saw some other blog posts about it. I don't think we made a conscious decision to start doing that, it just happened. He doesn't call me anything else unless he's writing me and I don't call him anything else either. I don't know how I didn't notice this before.

I'm also beginning the process of dress shopping for Tom's cousin J's wedding (not nephew J, cousin J lol). Kathy helped me find a gorgeous dress at JCrew's website, it's a bit more than I wanted to pay, but it's so pretty. So, I'm going to sleep on it and then probably get Tom to help measure me for the right size. I've got to start getting into an exercise routine...gotta make that tummy flat. I really don't want to have to go buy a new body slimming piece. My goal by the wedding is to have lost at least 10 pounds. I think that's reasonable, it shouldn't make much of a difference in the fit of the dress (hopefully it'll be mostly weight in my thighs & stomach lost) and it's 3 months from now. I'd like to loose about 20 pounds total (geez it's weird to even think that I'm that much overweight), so 10 pound increments sound like reasonable goals to me. Especially since we are moving in Oct, I know I'll have issues with exercise and eating while we are driving across the country.

Tomorrow Anthony gets to go to the school & be tested to see where he falls for kindergarten. He doesn't want to go to school very much at all, it makes me feel even worse knowing that he will only go for about a month and a half before we move. One of my friends in CA gave me the link to the school in their community and the kindergarten program is a bit different. It is 5 days a week, but they get out 1 hour earlier than the rest of the school except for on Weds, then they get out 2 hours early. Oh well, we'll figure it out once we find out where we will be living, it doesn't matter much right now since we have no idea where they'll be going to school at.

I love fonts. I have a ton. I need to go through my stash and see how many are duplicates. I found Scrap Supply has some free ones...and other freebies too :)

This post took me nearly 2 hours to write up with Alex jumping all over me. It's after midnight though and he's finally tired enough to call it a night, and so am I. ~Later~

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

playing catch-up

Found this Open Letter to Auto Industry Executives. Love it, I agree whole-heartedly with all of it. I would love to see how car seats fit in the back seats of cars or how much leg room an average person would have in the 3rd row of a truck or van. I don't want to have to spend my whole monthly gas allowance on driving from dealer to dealer to see how well my 3 kids (in a car seat and 2 boosters) will fit in the cars. I was disappointed to find out that it was such a PITA in our '05 Chevy Trailblazer. I loved my truck but once Alex was born and we had such a hard time buckling everyone in I was severely disappointed. It only needed another couple of inches and I swear the buckling and accidental unbuckling of the babies carseat base wouldn't have been so much of an issue.

I've been kind of sick since Sunday. Sunday evening and Monday were bad. I'm not sure what's wrong. I thought I was feeling rundown from not sleeping well and all the stress that came along with having J around. I have this odd dizziness and lightheadedness that I usually associate with getting a migraine. Then there's the nausea, I don't know what that's from. I felt a bit better today, but not 100%. I felt pretty bad by the time hubs came home so I napped for nearly an hour.

In less than two weeks the hubs and I will hand off our 3 children and truck to the MIL and SIL so they can take the kiddos for 2 weeks. The next day the hubs and I fly out of DC and into San Diego to hopefully find us a pretty house to live in. Then we come back and tackle the mess that is our garage, all the errands we've been putting off doing because it's just too much of a pain to do with the kids and erasing all evidence of Alex's artwork on the walls. lol

The in-laws were here over the weekend and we went up to DC on Saturday, it was nice to get up there and walk around again. I took some pictures, but dealt with Alex alot, so I didn't get as many as I wanted to. I have to work on some of the ones I took, so maybe tomorrow I'll get them posted. Saturday night the hubs and I got out to see a movie, the 2nd one this summer! We saw Dark Knight - I {love} Heath Ledger as the Joker, he was awesome.

My next crafty project, after I get a few layouts done from the summer, is to make a pretty cover on a composition book. I saw Nicole's on her blog here and thought it looked so awesome. I've been meaning to make a special notebook for certain things, so this will hopefully this will keep grubby hands out of my notebooks! lol I just have to figure out exactly how to do it and have it look nice.