Spring

We have been having spring for awhile now.  I noticed the other day that we have this beautiful tree in bloom in our front yard.  No one else on our street has one that looks like this.  It's so beautiful.  It makes me so happy to see it every day.  I have a love-hate relationship with Spring.  I like it because the weather is gorgeous.  I hate it because of the bugs, and because I know the awful humidity will be here very soon...

Oh the weather outside is frightful...

We are having the most amazing weather here in FL!  When I took the kids to school this morning around 8:15, I saw ICE!!  Icicles everywhere too!  It was a balmy 25° when I took the kids to school - and with the wind chill I'm sure it was 15° at least.  LOVE it!!!

New neighbor

So, we have a new neighbor causing quite a stir. An alligator!! I had heard the rumors for a couple of weeks that there was in the pond across the street from us. Saturday morning the kids and I took a walk and sure enough - we saw it. But, I didn't have my camera. Well, today we looked out in our backyard - at our lake. And guess what? Yep, the alligator moved over to our lake! This is a picture of him if you can see that dark spot in the middle of the lake. I kinda wanted him to come closer for a better picture :) I never wanted to get a fence for our yard. Funny thing is that a fence is being put up in our yard right now. I am kinda glad we will now have a fence!

Maine, Moving and More

We are all settled in the new house, and it's AWESOME. I LOVE it. Did I mention I LOVE IT!! There are still some boxes that need unpacking and other minor things, but we are loving it. The only bad thing is that we have been without phone and internet for 2 weeks - UGH! It's awful. We are supposed to have internet by Friday. TJ's mom flew into Jacksonville on Monday. I flew up here to Maine yesterday. It's so beautiful up here. Nice cool weather (55 degrees or so) and beautiful trees everywhere. Nothing like Florida. And, I am enjoying being with TJ, just him and I. We will be driving to Boston tonight and visiting the Boston LDS Temple. Then Washington D.C. the next night where we will visit that Temple as well. I am so excited to have 4 days of my husband all to myself. TJ just found out he will most likely be deploying to El Salvador for his upcoming deployment in November. That's what we were hoping for. Hopefully nothing will change on that.

Here we go again...

We close TOMORROW!!!!!! I probably won't be able to sleep tonight - it's just so exciting thinking about how much debt we're getting ready to take on...
Anyways...the house pretty much got packed up today, tomorrow the packers will come finish the Kitchen, master bedroom and garage and that will be it. Then, Thursday the movers will come and move it all to the new house.
This is our 3rd move in 3 years...I don't recommend it, and I'm not even the one who has ever packed a single box or moved it on my own. It's just all such a hassle. Hopefully we won't be without internet for too long.

Happy National Cheesecake Day!

YIPPEE!!! It's National Cheesecake Day! My sister Kim flew into visit me for a week (LOVE HER!!) and she has never eaten at The Cheesecake Factory. Then we found out that it was National Cheesecake Day! So, we went and got our cheesecake today :) She got the new kind, Red Velvet - yum-o! I had my same Chocolate Mousse and the kiddos got Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip cookie dough. And, Tj thinks he gets to come visit this weekend on a training flight, so we picked him up a piece of Oreo Mudslide just in case he gets to come home tomorrow.

House update

Our lot finally got cleared today! You can imagine how many times we drive back there hoping to see some progress. Well, finally we got some satisfaction! 2 months to go...

Front of lot.

Back of lot

Tyler got stung by a bee...

Brena taking some pictures

5th day in a row

It has been raining basically non-stop for 5 days now. It's incredible. I love it. We have not been doing anything but lots of snuggling and movie watching. I can't believe T.J. leaves in 10 days. It seems like we are really not doing anything because we just want to spend every single second together.
If anyone doesn't believe that God flooded the earth after 40 days of rain, you should come to Florida and see how much rain there is after 5 days. The kids are starting to go a little stir-crazy. I finally let Brena out yesterday, and what does she do? She jumps in the lake, yep she jumped in. Crazy girl.

Foil lining

I don't think there is any silver lining in having your husband gone from you for a year. So I'll call this a foil lining. I have been digging in my heels on this, I still am not 100% sure I wanted to do this, but T.J. was 110% sure and kept wooing me with granite counter tops, wood flooring, 4.5% interest rate, etc. So I took the plunge and did it. The building on our house will begin next month and we will close on it on July 26! I will be doing all the closing by myself. I don't even know when T.J. will see the house. I hope he likes the colors I choose :)




We will have no houses behind us. We are at the very end of the cul-de-sac. I don't think you could ask for more. And oh yeah, it's our first home so we get that $8,000 next year on our taxes. That swayed me a little too. And T.J. talked the NAVY into coming and packing us up and moving us too, which is a huge relief. I'll post more pictures as the house goes up.

I didn't think it could get any colder!

I didn't think our house could get below 63...we hit a new record at 61. No heat for us! I think we had every blanket we own, which is a lot, on all our beds last night. For previous post on this click here
It's also amazing to me how on Saturday we were sitting at like 80 degrees, and in a day it can drop 30+ degrees. I guess that's Florida for you. My friend said her husband (who lives here) woke up the other morning (when it was a cold one) and said "I want to move to Florida." That really made me laugh!

First beach trip of 2009

We finally had a free day and we headed out to the beach. This was our first time to Jax beaches. The water isn't as beautiful as Pensacola, but it's still a great beach. We are all so pale! But, I guess it's only February - the tans will come soon :)
I love this photo of my poser girl!

Noteworthy Event

TJ got promoted on Tuesday to Lt. jg. I am so proud of him and all his hard work and dedication. Ok, so that was just a tad sarcastic. For those of you who know us well, you know how hard TJ is really working (hee hee) and that the NAVY automatically promotes you every two years. But, it's still exciting! I am teasing him because instead of having gold bars for Ensign, he has promoted to what looks like silver bars for lt. jg. So, I had to tease him he went from gold down to silver. He says the ensign bars aren't gold, they're bronze, but they look like gold to me! I guess you could say the lt. jg bars are platinum, so he went from gold up to platinum? I don't know, I don't get all the bar stuff. I also got to sew his new patches on his flight suit. This picture is from the winging in October, not from Tuesday, so this uniform doesn't show his new "title." For some reason he wouldn't let me go to his ceremony. He is so unpretentious and insisted "it's not a big deal." Whatever! It so totally is!

Frosting the sugar cookies

We finally got around to making our sugar cookies for Christmas. It's a tradition we do every year, but it has been so hot I really haven't felt like baking. Plus it doesn't really "feel" like Christmas. But, we will be flying to Colorado on Monday!!!!! I can't wait to be cold and wear pants, socks, shoes, a sweater AND a coat! (that's instead of wearing shorts and flip flops!) My kids don't even own a coat. I had to call my sisters and tell them to have some hand-me downs ready when we got there. Tyler was too busy playing outside to frost cookies with Brena and I. Brena however, doesn't miss an opportunity for sugar.

Slacking

I haven't blogged much, don't know why. We are just doing the normal stuff around here. The kids finished swim lessons, so that's done. Every day for two weeks gets kinda hard for me. Like I have said in a previous post, I think I have a problem with commitment! It is still so stinkin' hot here, can't wait for some cool weather! Tyler's teacher asked me to be the Room Mom, so I am sure I will be getting a little busier with that with the Fall stuff coming up. And we will be starting T-ball in a few weeks too. Here are some pictures of the kids from swim lessons.

On another note - do any of you CVS?? We had a girl at church last week give a little presentation on couponing, and boy have I been missing out!! But, I am starting to get on a CVS and coupon kick and have already been making money - whoohooo! It does take a little bit of time to figure it all out, but saving 50% on your grocery bill each month is worth it to me! There are BILLIONS of blogs/websites about CVS, coupons, and saving money on food, etc. It makes it easy because I don't really have to figure out the best deals, they are already on a website somewhere for me to just look up and take advantage of it. Here are some of my favorite websites so far:

http://www.moneysavingmom.com/

http://iheartcvs.com/

http://thecentsiblesawyer.blogspot.com/

There are MANY, MANY more websites out there, and believe me I have spent about 6 hours the last week finding more out about all this. I am not about to go into all the details about it all here, I can't explain it like other websites can, but in case you don't already have a CVS extra care card - you really, really should get you one!

Whew

Well, I have finally recovered from an awful stomach bug that kept me in bed for 4 days. I have come to the conclusion that I get sick when I go to new places - Jen and Nicole - do you remember Denver last year when I was sick to my stomach for the whole time almost? Well, same thing again here. But, I am better, life is almost normal, and we are all happy and healthy. We did weather the Tropical Storm Fay, the neighbor's tramp blew across a fence and into a pool, they lost some siding on their house, TONS of trees and branches were all over, the city was shut down for 3 days, but all is better now. I am loving this new place. We are in a great location, the school is just down the road, there is a COSTCO here!!! and freeways to get me places I need to go, I love the big city! I just don't care for the humidity... We don't know how long we will be here for. We will find out the beginning of October if we stay or go to Whidbey Island, WA, or Hawaii. We'll keep y'all posted. Here is our new happy home:

I have a great story to go with it too. I brought the kids and an air mattress here while TJ stayed in Pensacola and waited for the movers. I got here and realized I was seeing some roaches. I opened the dishwasher and they were full of them, dead and alive - YUCK!! So I called and a guy comes out and sprays all over the house and tells me to run the dishwasher - as soon as it starts running, smoke is billowing out of the thing and it stinks - really, really bad. So I shut it off, call another guy and end up getting a brand new dishwasher - whoohoo - right? Well, all that didn't happen in one day - it was a few days. So, the first night we are here sleeping on the floor, my air mattress is completely flat by 10:30 that night, I slept on the floor which wasn't the most comfortable. The next night I think I can get through this, just one more night, TJ will be here, my own bed will be here. Those were my thoughts until 11:00pm when I felt something on my hand, I didn't know what it was, so I just brushed it away. TWO SECONDS later - a HUGE, HUGE roach falls onto my HEAD!!!!!!!!!! Yes, I jump up screaming and holy cow do those things run FAST! I am chasing it all over with Brena's shoe trying to kill it, while in the process seeing 5 more roaches!! I call TJ and tell him I am going to a hotel, I drag my kids out of bed at 11:30pm, and off we go to a hotel. Then I had to wake them up again at 6:30am to get back to the house for the movers to show up at 7am, which they didn't show up until 8am, that made me a little mad. And while I am moving the suitcase in my room, yep you got it, out jumps another roach! TJ got here Saturday and I made him spray the outside of the house, and knock on wood, no more roaches yet. I thought I wasn't going to make it, we would have to find another house, move all our stuff, because there was NO WAY I was living with all these roaches. So, it's a good thing there have been no more roaches.

Tyler starts Kindergarten

Tyler started Kindergarten on August 18, he went on Monday and Tuesday and didn't go again until yesterday (because of the Tropical Storm Fay). I was thinking he probably thought "wow, kindergarten is only two days? what's all the fuss about?" He was very excited, and I was very excited. Everything happened pretty quick - we got into town Thursday evening, I registered him on Friday and he went to school Monday. I felt bad on Monday morning when I walked him into his class, he didn't have a name tag, place to sit, or place to hang his backpack yet. But, all that has been taken care of and he is loving Kindergarten. Now we just need to find Brena a school because I think she asks 100 times a day when is she going to go to school?

FINALLY!!!!!!!!!

I don't even know where to begin! Right now I am just so giddy that I FINALLY have internet access/tv and a home phone as of an hour ago! And that Fay is finally gone - whew!! What a move this has been!!! At least I got to finish reading Breaking Dawn. :) I will be doing more posting, but this is all I have time for right now... :(

Moving Day!

Well, today's the day. The packers got here right after 8am and Brena keeps running in and tattling that "that girl is packing up my toys!" I knew she would have a hard time with this! I won't be blogging for a little while...

Krispy Kreme

Yesterday the kids and I went with some friends of ours on a field trip to Krispy Kreme doughnuts (thanks Kim for a wonderful day!!). We got to take a tour of how the doughnuts are made, and then dip a doughnut in chocolate and sprinkles. As soon as the lady gave Brena her doughnut, she promptly took a bite of it :) She was supposed to dip it in the chocolate, and then eat it. But when someone hands you a doughnut, what do you do - you take a bite! I normally can eat me some Krispy Kreme doughnuts until I am sick, but I am very proud to say, I didn't eat one - not even a bite of the half of a doughnut Brena threw away! Look at the calorie count: 250 calories and 12 grams of fat - for one chocolate glazed Krispy Kreme doughnut!!!

Spoiled

I have to brag about one of my really good friends, she spoils me :) As you know I didn't get to go to convention, and at convention there are things you can only get there. Well, today I got a package in the mail and look what was in it!!!! A Stampin' Up! sweater!! I was SO happy - it is totally me and I LOVE it. I can't wait for some cool weather to wear it! Thanks Jenn - you rock!!!!!!! You really made my day, and I needed it! For some good news, finally, TJ got his orders this afternoon - YEAH!!! So, that means hopefully, we will be moving next week and Tyler will be able to start Kindergarten with everyone else.