Gymnastics

Today, Joella attended her first in house Meet. She had a lot of fun hanging out with her friends and showing off her new skills that she has mastered. Joella is in Level I and maybe next year she will move up to Level II.

Preschool Holiday

Liesl and Therese spent the week at preschool having holiday parties and putting on a Holiday Program. Here are a few pictures. There aren't very many good ones. I have discovered a complaint about my camera. It doesn't zoom in far enough. A lot of the pictures come out grainy when trying to take pictures from far away using the zoom feature. Oh well! It will have to do. I am tired right now and so busy that I have no energy to go into details about things. Just enjoy the pictures!

Irish Dance

Tonight, parents were allowed into the dance studio (finally!), so I grabbed my handy digital camera from the diaper bag and took some pictures. Since starting classes in September, Joella has really come a long way. She really enjoys her class. I took a bunch of pictures in sequence and also filmed a little bit of the action.

St. Nick's

This morning, we celebrated the Feast of St. Nicolas by opening presents from the man himself. The kids had a wonderful time ripping wrapping paper apart and screaming with joy when they see something they had asked for. It was fun to see the kids first walk in the room and stop in wonder/shock/awe as they feasted their eyes on a bigger than life size dollhouse! A lot of the pictures are a bit blurry. Hard to make kids sit still for pictures when they're too busy jumping for joy, ripping papers of boxes, and screaming their heads off. I thought Joella was funniest. Witness her reaction upon seeing that she got a My Secret World DS Lite game.....

I was up for 3 hours last night putting together a giant dollhouse. There were a few stalls as I would have to stop periodically to change a piece around. It's hard to follow the directions sometimes. With the couch, I was able to complete what was supposed to be a 2 person job. When I was finally done, I stepped back to gaze at my creation when, *gasp*, there's a wall upside down!!! I started to take the dollhouse apart but stopped and thought, 'Well, screw it! It's been 3 hours, it's assembled and it WORKS!' The girls are enjoying their new dollhouse as we speak. They did mention that we need to get some dollpeople for the dollhouse....

A cold day at the park

Every Friday, we try to go to Homeschooler Park Day. The kids have a lot of fun playing with their friends at the park. Yesterday was the first truly cold day that we attempted to go to the park. Only one other family showed up and we were all bundled up in layers! Just look at poor Noni...everyone brought up Ralph from A Christmas Story. She couldn't put her arms down and needed help getting up if she fell down. I wore a hat, scarf, two pairs of mittens, long underwear, & boots. I was still cold! I can see I'm going to have to dress everyone as if we're going skiing just to play warmly at the park through the winter!!

Preschool Thanksgiving Feast

Today, Liesl's and Therese's preschool hosted a Thanksgiving Feast. First, the students put on a little show for us. I'm sorry the pictures turned out badly. I just couldn't get the camera to focus properly for some reason. Anyway, after the show, all the families and students ate a potluck Thanksgiving feast. The food was good. We enjoyed ourselves.

Just Because!

A few pictures of the girls that are growing by leaps and bounds!

Scouts

On Monday night was Colum's pack meeting. He earned a few more activity pins, the Compass Points emblem, and a red vest. Colum will not be able to earn his Arrow of Light award until Dad can get back and take him on a Webelos overnighter, or until he can go on a day hike. Hopefully that will happen in the Spring. Colum is also working on his religious emblem. The only two things he has left to do is to visit with the sick/elderly/homebound and to make a banner. So close!

Ballet/Tap

Last night was Parent Night at the Golden Slippers, so the parents were allowed into the rooms to view their children taking dance class. Normally, the parents have to wait out in the waiting area while the children take their classes. This was a good opportunity to take some pictures. Liesl and Therese are obviously learning something in class. They seem to enjoy it.

Hunt Club Farm

Yesterday, we went to another farm for a field trip, this time with Liesl's and Therese's preschool. The kids went on another hayride and picked a pumpkin from the pumpkin 'patch'. It wasn't really a pumpkin patch. Just a bunch of pumpkins on the floor with hay strewn about. I definitely enjoyed Brookdale Farm better because it wasn't commercialized and definitely more 'real'. Hunt Club Farm was WAY overcrowded. There were a lot of school buses in the overflow parking lot, as you can see in one of the pictures! We had to wait in a looooong line as if we were at Disneyland to go on the hayride. The kids did not have a great time there and I can tell because they asked to leave to have lunch. They never ask to leave or even to eat if they're having a lot of fun. Here are pictures of the moments where we had fun at Hunt Club Farm.

Sleeping Kids

The kids and I went over to a family friend's house for a sleepover. Our husbands were away so it was a good time to do a sleepover. All the kids played and celebrated Halloween together. The girls (5 of them) shared a room. We finally told them to go to bed about 2230, but it wasn't until about midnight that ALL of them were sound asleep! I could not resist taking these pictures because of Therese. Just look at her face!!

Halloween

Our family got together with another family and we all went to a Church Halloween Festival as the characters from Alice in Wonderland. A fun time was had by all. Enjoy the pictures....

Homemade Skirts

Joella is a member of the Daring Girls Club with a local homeschooling co-op. This is a club that does books and activities from The Daring Book for Girls. One of their first activities was making a skirt out of a pillowcase. Even though this club is really for 6 years and up, my two other little girls didn't want to be left out! Here you may see the final results of that activity. It was so simple to do! All one needed was a pillowcase, some ribbon, any decorative things you wanted to add to your skirt, scissors, and washable fabric glue! And an iron is useful....

Not Your Traditional Pumpkin Carving

To celebrate Halloween this year, I decided the kids could decorate the pie pumpkins. No carving for me! The kids had a lot of fun painting their pumpkins. After Halloween, I will prepare the pumpkins to use for making pies, and we'll roast the seeds to eat. Yummy!

Getting ready for Halloween....

Liesl and Therese have ballet class tonight and they're supposed to wear costumes. We scavenged through their dress up box and this is what we came up with. Liesl is going as Fancy Nancy and Therese is going as a black cat. The first picture was mistakenly recorded as video instead of as a picture. You may as well enjoy it.

Pretty in Purple

Taken one fine Sunday afternoon at Church.

Colum's Artwork

Colum is taking a bible art class at the homeschool co-op, HomeschoolPlus, in Norfolk. He really enjoys it. I've included two pictures that the students in the class have completed thus far. I really like the Ten Commandments picture. Colum told me that he doesn't really like the other one because he realized after he was done that he misunderstood the teacher's direction. The teacher had said 'Don't leave empty spaces' and he mistook that to mean that he needed to fill up the paper with lots of things. It wasn't until he sat back and thought about it that he realized she meant to make sure that you draw your subjects to size, big enough that you don't waste any space on your paper. Colum's a smart guy. For the next school year, Colum asked me if he could keep taking bible art, and add a drawing class to his schedule. I'm all for it.

Fun at Brookdale Farm

This past Friday, we headed off for a visit to Brookdale Farm with a local homeschooling group. At the farm, the kids learned about cows and got to see how butter is homemade and even to taste some just fresh out of the cow butter on some crackers. They also learned about sheep. An interesting fact we learned is that donkeys make some of the best 'watchdogs' for farms. They have a keen sense of hearing and can alert one to the presence of predators up to 5 miles away. I never knew that. Anyway, the kids also got to pick some cotton and to go on a hayride. While on the hayride, we stopped at a field of pie pumpkins to pick some and take home. For those of you that don't know, pie pumpkins are simply small pumpkins and the smaller size make them better tasting for baking/cooking purposes than jack o'lantern pumpkins. I plan to use these pie pumpkins to make, (what else?), pumpkin pies!!

Park day

Every Friday, we join other homeschoolers in Virginia Beach at a park. The kids get to play with their friends for 3 hours. I am usually either chatting with the other moms, or following Noni around the park if she is feeling very active. Last Friday was nice because Noni was very content to stay in one place for a long while and check out the dirt, pine cones, rocks, or the sandy pit. This enabled me to actually talk with the other moms for more than 5 minutes at a time!! We all look forward to park day every week!

The Bounce House

The last sunday of September, the FRG for VFA-15 threw a free bounce house party for all the kids while the moms had a meeting about stuff. Needless to say, the kids had a blast! I had to drag them away and only succeeded by being able to prove that we were being thrown out of the Bounce House along with everyone else! The Bounce House in Virginia Beach is basically a warehouse full of bouncy things. They have 3 bounce things and a giant slide. They also had a toddler room, which was nice, as Noni spent most of her time playing there (as did Joella!). I dare you to guess from looking at the pictures where Therese spent most of her time at the Bounce House.

The Fashion Show

So, on Friday night, the kids insisted on putting a fashion show on and I had play the part of fashion photographer. Colum was the designer and show production. The girls were models, obviously!
Enjoy....

Firefighter Field Trip

Last Wednesday, the kids went to a local firehouse and got to have a look at a fire truck, and then attend a fire safety presentation. The fire safety presentation was a lot of fun for the kids. What amused me the most was how they took popular songs and changed the lyrics. For example, the Banana Boat song became "Smoke-o, smoke-o, smoke-o, and me wanna go low". There were three 'clowns' who did the majority of the presentation and they were funny. The most useful part of the show was where they took one of the firemen in the clothes he normally wears to the firehouse and had him put on one piece of firefighting equipment at a time and explain the reason for each. Started of with his boots & pants and worked his way up to the helmet over the gas mask. Told the kids how to make noise if they couldn't do it the normal way because of smoke. All in all, a fun field trip.

Face Painting

Yesterday evening, we braved the rain and the wind to go to the Cold Stone Creamery Social Night. They were giving out free ice cream to support Make A Wish Foundation. While at the Cold Stone Creamery, the older kids also got their faces painted by a clown. Looked pretty good.


I can't believe how windy it's been the last few days. Never mind the rain. We've had a couple of limbs blown off our trees, the playhouse in the backyard got blown apart and then scattered around the yard. The biggest damage I discovered this week came not from a weather storm but another kind of natural storm.... Liesl thought it would be fun to take a rock and scribble some art on the back of my minivan. Lovely! She also thought it would be nice to give herself a haircut. As a result, her bangs are very short. Oh well!

I don't think I ever put up any pictures of our trips to the beach this summer. We had a terrific time. The family can't wait for the next beach season. We have decided it would be fun to take a vacation from home next summer. One week of doing the typical touristy things a visitor might do while visiting Virginia Beach. Should be fun. Our house will be the hotel room and we'll vacation as if we were actually staying at a hotel! Anyway, enjoy the pictures of our fun at the beach this past summer.

Colum and Joella each got a hamster this summer. I was able to get the hamster, cages, exercise balls, food, etc for free. We got them from two different owners who couldn't keep the hamsters for various reasons. It is working out good. The kids are required to make sure the hamsters have enough food and water every day. They must handle the hamsters for at least 10 minutes daily and clean out the cages twice a week. Colum and Joella must be really motivated to have a dog for a pet. We'll see if they can keep this up for as long as the hamsters are living. That is the deal! The hamsters are kind of fun. Even Ray, who hates pets, has to admit that the hamsters 'are alright'.

The Air Show

We decided to go to the Twilight Show of NAS Oceana's 50th Anniversary Show. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see much. Conditions were very windy. The night jumps and the fireworks show was canceled. Pretty much the only thing we saw was this cool plane flying around with fireworks streaming off its wings, a F/18 do some afterburner fly-bys (that I could not get a picture of by the way because I could never get the timing right), and a monster truck zooming down the runway setting off fires. The few pictures that I have included are those that came out okay. The ones of Colum resulted from the boredom of waiting in line for 30 minutes to get one funnel cake for $6! I tell myself that it's actually $1 per person and it came out to about one candy bar size per person.

Slog Blog #5

Wow, exactly 3 months (more or less) since I updated the blog. It truly is a slogging blog. It has been exactly one week of experiencing the joys of being a single mom. Joy, joy, joy! I feel like I am on the go from sun-up until long past sun-down. Let me tell you, being busy does NOT make the time go by faster. I feel like this blog has been named perfectly....
We are getting to know Virginia Beach. It may be a beachy town but it is more well known as a city of crappy roads and bad traffic lights. Most things are 5-10 miles from the house but it takes at least 20 minutes to an hour to get ANYWHERE. It sucks. I have resigned myself to the fact that I'm just gonna have to add an hour to my schedule for every trip I have to make out of the house. So, we try to consolidate around here. Never mind the fact that gas is expensive, etc.
We are staying busy through the various activities that the kids do on a daily basis, plus we go on a lot of cool and fun field trips with a homeschooling co-op. We get to learn about some interesting places in Virginia Beach that we may not have otherwise checked out.
I finally met the wives that I'll be hanging with now and then while the hubbies are away. They seem like a nice group of ladies. Not very many kids in the group. I actually have the most, with five. But I suppose I can usually say that, wherever I am!
Dinner is percolating, a hand is tapping away on my arm, and I am trying to supervise game time on the computer so I must sign off for now. I'll have to think of a Virginia Beach joke or two to include with the next blog.

First picture with my new camera!

Since Ray took the only digital camera we had with him, I went and bought a digital camera for myself that I have had my eye on. It is the Olympus camera and it's supposed to be shock proof, water proof, freeze proof, etc. Better to be prepared, I say! Anyway, this self portrait is one of the first pictures I took with the camera. I am still learning my way around the camera. This is also one of the first few times I am attempting to update the blog and use the Picasa web album all by myself. Nothing like being thrown into the deep end to learn to do things by yourself. I have so little free time these days since I am having to do and take care of everything myself. Colum is a great big help though! And Joella, once in a while.

ColdStone Creamery Tour

The kids went on a tour of their local ColdStone Creamery. They got to see how ice cream was made on site, where they store their food to keep it fresh and cold, and to make their own yummy ice cream to eat!

Slog Blog #4

This post isn't going to be very long. It's about 10 at night and we've had a long day of packing up stuff and moving things around. The trailer arrives tomorrow and we start loading it up full of stuff. Hopefully we get all of our stuff out of the house by Sunday evening. Notice I keep saying, "stuff". That is how I feel about our stuff right now. And I can't even imagine how other people would feel if they had to do a DITY with the full weight that they are allowed to move according to their rank and be reimbursed for. Yowch. We don't have that much stuff. But it's enough to become really tedious and boring after a few days of putting stuff into boxes. Now it's time for me to stuff it and take myself off to bed where I can stuff myself under the covers and go to sleep. And I can dream about all the stuff that still needs to be put in boxes and all the stuff that still needs to be taped up and all the stuff that needs to be loaded onto the trailer tomorrow morning. And not to forget, once we arrive at the other end of our journey and close on our new house, we will have to unload all of our stuff off the trailer once it arrives and stuff it into the new house. Stuff me and call me done!

Joella's Birthday

For someone who doesn't play or watch baseball, she sure picked an interesting place to have her birthday party. That's right, Joella chose to have her birthday party at a baseball game! We arranged for Joella to have a party with Big Mo and the Montgomery Biscuits during one of their home baseball games. This minor league team has a really nice stadium. The best thing about the stadium for the children is the inflatable playground. The day we had Joella's birthday party happened to be Children's Day at the stadium, so there were all kinds of things going on. The local zoo had some animals at the stadium for viewing. There was a balloon guy who made AMAZING balloons. I am talking wa-aay better than your standard balloon poodle. There were also some craft tables set up and best of all, the children got to run the bases after the game. That was really enjoyed by all. Joella received a game ball signed by various players from the team mascot who looks like an elephant, sort of, named Big Mo (he's really an anteater). She also got to go down on the field during one of the innings to be recognized as the birthday girl. Grandma Timi spoiled Joella rotten and took her shopping at the Biscuit team store. She got some pom poms, a mini pink baseball bat, a case to keep her autographed ball in, and two stuffed dolls. One doll was a biscuit and the other doll was the mascot. Joella was not the only girl to be in the limelight. Noni had her time on the field too! She, along with Ray, were chosen to compete in the Baby races. I must say that Noni did VERY well. I say she should have won because she was the only pre-walker in that group, AND she stayed in her lane!! She was cheated!! :) Joella had such a wonderful time that she is already planning her 9th birthday! So far, she has talked about Paris, French pastries, pink poodles, and the like. Oh boy!

Joella's Biscuits Birthday Bash

Joella's First Communion

Joella's First Communion was the weekend of April 19th. Some special people traveled a long way to attend. Grandma Jeanette and Aunt Summer (Joella's Godmother!), along with Cousin Giulia, came all the way from California to Alabama. Papa Steve and Grandma Timi also traveled to Alabama, though not quite as far. They traveled from Nevada! Joella's First Communion at St. Bede Catholic Church was lovely, and Fr. Carucci celebrated the Mass. It was very well done. Everyone enjoyed donuts and lemonade at the brief reception that followed. We took Joella out for a celebration meal after her First Communion. She chose a tea house for her celebration meal. The name of the tea house is Gracie's. Wow! Everyone had a lovely time gorging themselves on delicious tea and succulent food. It is hard to pick a favorite. I really liked the cinnamon scones and Ray says the cucumber sandwiches were good too. The peach mango tea was wonderful, though my mother says she really liked the Buckingham Palace tea. I think that is what it was called. The kids got to try on hats while at Gracie's. They behaved so well!

First Communion

Grandkids

In April, the kids had a lot of fun visiting with their grandparents. Papa Steve, along with Grandma Timi and Grandma Jeanette visited from the west coast for the weekend.

Grandkids

Our Trip to Disney World

We just recently went on a week long trip to Disney World.

On the way back home

By the end of the week, we were all definitely ready to come home.

Swampy Campsite

We left early Monday morning for the long 8 hour drive to Orlando. The kids did great with the drive. Once we arrived, we had time to check in, put up the tent, and then it was off to the Animal Kingdom Lodge to eat at Boma and then spend a couple of hours in the evening at the Animal Kingdom.

Animal Kingdom

On Tuesday, it was off to the Magic Kingdom. Dumbo was the first ride of the day. Because we stayed at a Disney Resort, we got to use the extended hours perk a little bit, where they open the park one hour early and keep it open three hours after closing for hotel guests only. We were able to do all the rides in Fantasyland and Toon Town that morning.

Magic Kingdom

In the afternoon, we went to Epcot. After character dining at the Akershus Royal Banquet, we checked out the Future World portion. The Akershus Royal Banquet is located in the Norway Pavilion and features Princess characters. The surprising thing about all the character dining restaurants that we went to is that they offered adult choices and the food was actually quite good. The Akershus had norwegien food. Ray had some kind of lamb stew while I had a salmon dish. We also had an appetizer sampler of different kinds of herring, mackerel, and beet dishes. Our favorite rides from Future World are Mission Space and Test Track. All the kids really enjoyed Journey into Imagination with Figment. It is a ride that is followed by a few interactive activities the kids can do.

Epcot

On Wednesday, we went to the Hollywood Studios (or MGM Studios) park. We spent the whole day there. Colum and Joella really enjoyed on going the Tower of Terror and the Aerosmith Rock n' Roller coaster rides. We saw a lot of shows on this day, Voyage of the Little Mermaid, Muppets 3-D, Playhouse Disney Live, and Beauty and the Beast. We had character dining at the Hollywood Vine where they served up American fare and Playhouse Disney characters. The foods were good there too. Like I said, good adult choices were always offered. The dessert there was excellent. I really enjoyed their pecan bars and carrot cake. Wow! I think the kids' favorite part of the park was the Honey, I shrunk the Kids play area. They could pretend to be miniaturized and play among the life size grass, cereals, trash, etc. The kids did a good job of staying together and coming back to us after their time was up. Colum and Joella went on the Star Tours ride together because they did not do Rider/Baby swap. We were very surprised at that. It was the only ride at all four parks that wouldn't allow that. I don't know why. We finished off the day by eating at the Toy Story Pizza Factory and playing some arcade games.

MGM Studios

On Thursday, we went back to the Magic Kingdom in the morning to do Tomorrowland and Adventureland. It was also the only breakfast character dining we did. We ate at the Crystal Palace, dining with Pooh and friends. In the afternoon, we were back at Epcot, touring the World Showcase. We started in Great Britain and worked our way around to Mexico. We tried to eat our way through the World Showcase, but after Japan, we gave up. It was just too much food! We thought ordering just one entree per country would be enough to feed all of us. Wrong! There were some shows going on as we traveled through the various countries. We saw some English comedic theater, belly dancing, Japanese drumming, and heard some music. The week ended on Friday with the day spent at the Magic Kingdom going to Frontierland, Liberty Square and Fantasyland.
Saturday, we packed up our tent and hit the road after stopping at Downtown Disney to eat at Wolfgang Puck Express. WOW. The food was excellent and I forced myself to eat the Key Lime pie, even though I was quite stuffed. I can tell you quite honestly I gained 3 pounds in one week of eating at Disney World. The shocking thing is that we had one fast service, one table service and one snack a day.... and it was TOO much food for us!! We had two adults and three kids that we paid for and even with Therese helping Liesl to eat her food, it was still too much!! Definitely get your money's worth when you get the meal dining plan. We did not have to buy any food or drinks while at Disney World since it was already prepaid for.

On the way back home

I think, if one wants to see ALL of Disney World and enjoy it, then one would have to go there for two weeks. It's amazing how big and spread apart everything is. It really makes Disneyland in California seem small and crammed together by comparison.

International Culture Day

The international officers from Ray's class at the Air Command and Staff College, along with their families, hosted an International Culture Day for all the families to attend. Each international officer put together a booth of tasty foods, pictures, brochures, cultural items, and the like.

International Day

We started at one corner of the room and worked our away around the room. About three hours later, we were seriously lagging and could not cram any more food into our stomachs. All the food that the international officers and families had to share were very tasty. There wasn't really anything yucky or scary looking. After about 30 minutes of sampling foods, the kids were tired of it (and full, probably) and went off to bounce in the bounce house and play with friends while Ray and I continued sampling our way around the world. Now I just look forward even more to the day when Ray retires and we can go travel abroad!

Easter 2008

Easter was nice and warm this year. The kids went to an Easter Egg Extravaganza on base sponsored by the Youth Center. They got to enjoy various crafts, activities, and the bounce house. There were also a couple of easter egg hunts for various age groups, from just walking up to 12 yrs old. It worked out great because we could take pictures of the kids hunting eggs one at a time. Hot dogs, drinks, and chips were available. Liesl won a consolation prize for guessing how many jelly beans in a jar. That, too, was broken down by age groups. In her age group, 4 to 5, there were jumbo sized jelly beans in a small jar. I was very impressed when Liesl told the lady, after some deliberation and peering intently into the jar, that there were 26 jelly beans in the jar. Wow! How did a 4 year old decide there were 26 jelly beans in a jar? It was a very reasonable number and logical. Even the lady was quite impressed. An older kid won the contest.
On Good Friday, we spent some time dying easter eggs and decorating them. We took the finished results with us to Disney World and ate them for breakfast the first two mornings.
We also had our own family Seder meal and I did not think to take pictures. Nevertheless, it was a yummy meal. The lamb chops were very good as was the haroset. On Easter Sunday, the kids woke up to a coffee table laden with goodies. Liesl made herself sick eating a lot of M&Ms from the special candy bowl. She spent the afternoon in bed after throwing up once and went to bed early. She was much better by morning and ready for Disney World, thank goodness! Hopefully, that taught her a lesson (not!). That you shouldn't overdo it with junk food! Anyway, the kids looked quite nice in their Easter finery.

Easter 2008

Noni Moves!

Noni started crawling in February.

Noni Moving

I am amazed how quickly she gets around. I spend most of my days asking "Where did Noni go??" and then searching through the house until I find her. She is definitely ready to walk. She can pull herself up and will take a couple of steps. A funny cute thing happened the other day. As the kids were leaving the house to go play at a friend's house, Noni was crawling after them. As they shut the door, Noni sobbed as if her world was ending! I'm thinking, "Uh Oh". We can expect more of that as Noni starts walking and trying to keep up with her older siblings!! Every day, I put her down for a nap in the bedroom. When she wakes up, she comes crawling and looking for me in the school room. She also likes getting into everything. The books, the tupperwares, the toys, the laundry, you name it!

Webelos, Blue and Gold Dinner

Colum earned his Webelos patch in February.

Cub Scout Pack Mtg

The theme of the Blue and Gold dinner was Chinese New Year, hence the decorations. Colum made a rat cake using fondant icing. It looked great but the icing was just a bit too thick so it was not yummy. The cake itself was good, but the icing was terrible!! He needs to roll the fondant icing a lot thinner next time!! I made the dragon myself using directions for making a paper dragon out of tissue paper and toothpicks. Not too bad, eh?
For those of you who don't know much about scouting, now that Colum has earned his Webelos patch, he has another year before he can bridge over to Boy Scouts from Cub Scouts. Colum told me the other day he would like to make Eagle Scout. We will help him make that happen!

Slog Blog #3

The holidays are finally over and I actually have some time this weekend to upload all of our holiday pictures. We had fun celebrating Christmas, and I have learned that less is definitely more when it comes to celebrating the birth of Christ. Hopefully, in the future, I will have more peace instead of chaos during the holiday season!
We stayed home to have a family Christmas and then traveled to Bald Head Island, N.C. over New Year's Eve weekend for Heather's cousin's wedding. It was lovely to get together with family and to do a little bit of catching up. The wedding was beautiful and the reception very enjoyable. I wish my cousin and her husband many years of wedded bliss!! I told Ray I would love to live near a beach because I find the ocean beautiful to look at and he said we can get a mural and put it up on a wall and make a 'beach' room. Hmmm, certainly a cheaper viable option to living right on the beach!
But I should get part of my wish soon as we will be sent to live near a beach, courtesy of the Navy. The kids are looking forward to living near the beach and getting to play on it a lot. That may be the 'park' we go to, when we need to get out of the house and give the kids some room to run.
Anyway, enjoy looking at all the new pictures I have posted and Please DO leave comments! We LOVE to hear from YOU!

In honor of football fans everywhere during this bowl season:

Whats the difference between Alabama and cheerios?
One belongs in a bowl. The other doesn't!

Entertainment at Senior Center

Colum and Joella played some Christmas songs on the piano and sang some Christmas songs for the residents of a Senior Center in Montgomery.

Making Christmas Cookies

Christmas

Bald Head Island

We had fun going to Bald Head Island, N.C., for Heather's cousin's wedding....

Noni's 6 Months Old Portrait

Such a lady in blue...

Ray's Mutton Chops

Ray's Mutton Chops

Having some hair-raising fun over the holidays...