Joella's Tea Party

Joella had her birthday tea party at My Enchanted Cottage in Ridgecrest. All the girls in the extended Marshall Clan were invited... plus one special friend! The girls had fun getting dressed up, trying on tea hats, and eating yummy food. Many pictures were taken... some really cute, some a little blurry. There is nothing like a little tea with friends.

On with the Show!

Liesl and Therese performed in an end of year show a couple of weeks ago. They were so cute! Poor Therese, she had to deal with glasses that kept slipping off her nose throughout her performance. But I say she did well because, after all, the show must go on!! Our seats were up on the 2nd level and pretty far from the stage so I was not able to get some close up footage of the girls dancing. But if you make the effort to peer closely at the screen, and maybe even do some zooming of your own, you may be able to see the two cute girls tapping away....

Noni Turns Two Today!

Today is Noni's birthday! She is 2 years old and quite bonny. The whole family took Noni out to dinner last night, and then to the ColdStone Creamery for some ice cream. She loved her ice cream as you can see from the evidence on her t-shirt. After a fun evening out, we went home and gave Noni her birthday present. It was funny to watch her figure out what a present is. Tissue paper? A purse to walk around with? Anyway, Noni is napping now and I am taking the time to update and sort out my web album and the blog. Yikes! I will try to post pictures from April-June that hasn't been posted yet during the next few days....

Crossing Over

Colum is now on his way to becoming an Eagle Scout! On Monday evening, his den, the Komodo Dragons had their crossing over ceremony. Ray wanted me to point out that Colum has also earned his first 'major' achievement in scouting, which is the Arrow of Light award.

The Carrier Teddy Roosevelt, TR, Pulls Into Port

The day after the fly in, we headed out to Norfolk to welcome the rest of the ground officers and sailors on the TR home. It was a neat experience to catch that first glimpse of the carrier returning home after a long deployment, with the sailors in white manning the rails. It's quite something to see a ring of white all around atop the carrier. The kids had a lot of fun playing with the other kids at the pier, and we chatted with fellow officers and wives while watching the festivities....
what was even better was going on board the TR later that day! Ray showed the kids (& me!) where he slept, ate, worked, and prayed while at sea. An interesting thing to me is that the carrier had that 'airport' smell, and you have to think it's quite impressive for these guys to live on something that inspires claustrophobia... (I don't even wanna think about the guys who live in submarines!!)

VFA-15 Fly-In

Today was homecoming day for the pilots of VFA-15. Even though Ray was not flying in, we went anyway to support the squadron and to participate in the festivities. It was kind of nice to go and enjoy the afternoon, without any of the stress or hyper-excitement... the only thing that I really missed out on, was the 'cool' factor of being able to see my hubby fly over in formation... and to see him strut down the line in his flight suit, flowers in hand, after 8 months away! After all, you pretty much deserve it after loaning your hubby to the Navy for 24/7 over eight months....

Easter Fun at Liesl's & Therese's Preschool

Liesl's & Therese's preschool hosted an easter party & egg hunt. Unfortunately, it rained all that day so the egg hunt was held inside. The kids still had a lot of fun searching from eggs amongst the chairs, tables, & fake topiary.