New quilt

I really need to be quilting Brena's quilt, but before I changed the foot on my machine, I decided to just whip up some blocks really fast. I still have some blocks to make, but I am half done. I found this adorable fabric at a great quilt shop in CO, I couldn't pass it up. I love the little chickens and eggs, and the chicken wire - too cute! Double click on the picture to see it better. This will be the next quilt after Brena's is done. Brena is none too happy her quilt isn't done yet, she keeps asking me about it, and she says "I want it!" She gets her patience from me :)

Maine

TJ finally got home from Maine, boy did we miss him! It might sound funny for an active duty NAVY wife of 11 years to say, but he hasn't been away from us for NAVY stuff since 2003! I know this is just the beginning of many, many days/nights - heck MONTHS away. He got to fly over Niagara Falls at 4,000 feet - I am still jealous, I have always wanted to go there. The kids and I were ecstatic to see him today. He brought some t-shirts home for the kids and I think they are planning on sleeping in them, they were so happy to get a gift from daddy.

TJ in the plane
Niagara Falls
Niagara Falls - showing more falls on the left
Two very happy children :o)

Brenalee's quilt

Between looking for houses and reading "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn" by Betty Smith - which I highly recommend - I finally got Brena's quilt top finished! She keeps saying "I love it, I love it!" and I love it too. The darker purple border in the middle looks a lot more purple in person. That part of the quilt, in the picture, looks too dark, but it does look good in person. I wanted the outside border to be the yellow butterfly/dragonfly material that I had, but TJ insisted the teal border looked better and Brena picked the teal over the yellow as well, so I was vetoed on that one. But, I'll put it on the back :) This quilt measures 73x84 - it is my biggest one to date! I am a little afraid to baste and quilt it, but I am going to dive in and hopefully finish it for her 3rd birthday on August 9. I think we finally found "the" house. I think I will let Brena have her own room and give her the extra queen bed so this quilt will fit perfectly on there. When we have company, I'll just kick her out to Tyler's bunk beds. But, maybe they will keep sharing, I don't know yet. They say they don't want their own rooms, they want to keep sharing, so we'll see what all happens.

Jacksonville & 4th of July

Eating popsicles at the pool - yummy!

Robert & Robyn's pool was very refreshing and a great way to get the kids tired for bed!!

Pancake breakfast at the Carr's ward - blueberry pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream!! Robert & Jack Daddy's girl
Brena didn't know any of the kids at church, nor did she have a bike for the parade, but that didn't stop her from strutting her stuff! Tyler was too busy taking a walk around the building to be in the parade. We went to a State Park over there to do a little bit of fishing and swim at the beach, the sand was all of these shells, millions of shells all over, at least there was sand closer to the water, it would have hurt to keep walking on these shells!

TJ caught 3 fish, he said he would have been prouder if they had been bigger :)

Brenalee liked to throw the fish back in the ocean.

The trip to Jacksonville was a success, I think. We were supposed to leave early Wednesday morning to get over there, but at the last minute TJ found out he couldn't leave Wednesday as planned, even though he had signed papers saying he could. There was a change of command that was mandatory for everyone to be at. So that was a little disappointing to have to leave Thursday morning instead, ah the life of the NAVY family! So then we got in Thursday late afternoon and of course got stuck in LOTS of traffic. So we didn't get anything accomplished Thursday. Friday was 4th of July of course and no one was answering any calls on properties we did manage to find. So Saturday we finally did get into see a couple of houses, not what we were looking for. So we left with nothing. But, on the upside, we did find the area we want to be in, and we definitely know our way around the area pretty well, we can look at house locations and see if they are where we are wanting to be. I have found more online now that we have been home and I feel much better, not like we will be homeless - like I was feeling for the first couple of days!! We had a great time catching up with old friends we lived near in San Diego and they were very kind and generous with the use of their home, pool, ward, and friends! Thanks Carrs!!

Carrie Underwood Concert!!

Friday night a good friend and myself went to the Carrie Underwood concert in Mobile. It was awesome!! We left Pensacola around 4:30 without our children :) and drove over to Mobile. The concert was great and we even got to hear Jason Michael Carrol before Carrie came on. She changed outfits like 4 times and she looked amazing every time. She sure can sing! We had a great time singing our little hearts out along with her - and the best part of that was no one else could hear us ;) We didn't get to park very close to where the concert was at so we had a little walk and wouldn't you know it at 10pm when we walked out of the concert it was POURING rain and we had a LONG walk to go. It was miserable! We were in our flip flops and we almost slipped and fell about 100 times. We finally made it to the car, but boy were we wet!

Before rain storm:

After rain storm:

Update

We finally found out on Friday what plane TJ will be flying. We weren't sure he would be graduating from Primary school as planned on Friday or not because he hadn't been able to get his flights in mostly due to weather. But he was gone most of last week and actually got his flights in, so he did graduate primary on Friday - yeah!! He called me Friday night and let me know he did get the P3!!! We are very excited. We will be moving to Jacksonville, FL. We don't know much more yet, but we should find out more info next week. If you didn't see my previous post on P3's, click here.

Brenalee's "princess bankie"

Now that Girls Camp is over I have had a few moments to sit and work on Brena's quilt. She keeps taking off with the material - the little stinker! This is the fabric we picked out together - it isn't really "princess" material, but she keeps calling it that. She is loving it and it isn't even put together yet. I got the blocks put together, now the top just needs to get sewn together and of course the borders. But here is what it looks like so far. You really can't see the "bling" going on in this quilt. The second picture captures it a little, but it is very sparkly! I think I will have some time today to get more of it put together.

Girls Camp

Last week I got the opportunity to go up to our church girls camp for the week. I was gone Monday-Friday. It was HOT HOT HOT!!! I can't tell you enough how hot it was. We slept in tents and it didn't even cool off at night. There were LOTS of bugs and it was hot - did I mention it was hot? But, we had a great time. I had another leader from church go up with me and it was nice having her there. Here are some pictures - we are definitely not looking our best! I missed my kids and my husband terribly, but it was a good experience and I know the kids didn't even miss me - Grandma was taking too good of care of them. I would call and Tyler would tell me "Mom I have to call you back." My MIL had to leave yesterday morning, so we are missing having Grandma around.

Purple Patch - Finished!!

My mother-in-law flew in tonight. She is going to watch my kids Monday-Friday next week while I am up camping - that's another story. But, for doing that I wanted to give her something special, so I gave her purple patch as purple is her favorite color. I did the machine quilting and I was going to stipple it, but chickened out at the last minute, so it's just got diagonal lines through it, I think it still looks good but I don't think it would win any competitions :)

I'm Back

I got back from CO a few days ago - I am still trying to feel "caught up" on everything. 3 weeks away from responsibilities is a lot - and I am grateful to all those who kept things going back here - thanks Heather and Maurine!!! You girls are the best! I just wanted to post some pictures. We went to Martin's Cove in WY on Memorial Day Weekend. That was neat. We hiked the two miles up to the Cove and back down. I didn't know we were going to be doing that on our visit up to my sister's house and so I hadn't taken any shoes - I did the 4 mile hike in my flip flops - my feet are still a little sore, but it was worth it. These pictures are just random ones from the 3 weeks I was away. I did manage to get one geocaching trek in - I finally dropped off my geocoin I found here in FL and dropped it off up in WY - what a trip for that little coin!

Happy Anniversary - late

TJ and I celebrated - well, not really, our 11th anniversary on May 10. My Grandpa's funeral was on May 10, so we weren't even in the same town on our anniversary. That's ok. I am married to a wonderful guy if you don't know already. I know 11 years isn't too long in the grand scheme of things, and to us it really seems like it has flown by. This is the first year we weren't together on our anniversary. All the NAVY deployments never interfered with it for some reason (unlike birthdays and Christmas!). I love him so much and I still can't believe at the age of 14 I knew he was one special guy - pimples and all :) I wish I had some pictures to post - I am still in Colorado. So I will have lots of pictures to upload when I get home next week - and hopefully we can celebrate our Anniversary then. Just a little reminiscing now... I know some of you have heard this, but for those of you who haven't here's the story. I saw TJ for the first time right after 8th grade ended - we were watching our sisters play in an all-star little league game against each other. He was sitting in the bleachers in front of me with his parents. I told my friend I was going to marry that kid although I'd never seen him before. I never saw him again that summer, until school started and we ended up at the same High School. We have been together ever since. Fast forward to April, 1996 - TJ calls me and tells me he's joined the NAVY - I say "what's that?" Colorado isn't a very NAVY town! I now know all too well what the NAVY is - and I LOVE it!! I know it was the best thing that could have ever happened to us and I am so grateful to the NAVY and all the opportunities it has given us. TJ can retire from the NAVY in 8 years! Although I am hoping we end up staying in for longer than the 20 years required for retirement. So TJ went to boot camp in Great Lakes, IL in October, 1996. He came back on May 9, 1997, for us to get married on the 10th, then left again on May 11, to go back to IL. He was gone for like a week and he came back to get me and we drove off to San Diego, where he was stationed for the next 10 years. But, when we got to San Diego in May 1997, he left for 6 months in August 1997. He came back in February 1998, and left AGAIN for 6 months in June 1999, and returned in December 1999. I like to tease him that he hasn't done a real day's work since sometime in 2000, and he hates it when I say that! But, since starting flight school, he has definitely been putting in his time. I love you so much honey! I'll see you next week - do you think you can pick us up at the airport??? And, I think I need a little vacation from our wonderful children when I get back from this vacation with them!

Grandpa Whiting

Last Monday I got a call from my family. My Grandpa Whiting had passed away in his sleep sometime early Monday morning. This is my first grandparent to pass away and it was really, really hard on me. I grew up with my grandparents all around me. We were with my grandparents a lot. They live on a great ranch and it was so fun to go out there and play. The last time I got to see my Grandpa was last August when I was here visiting. I am so sad and I am still having a hard time believing he is gone. It just doesn't seem fair he was only 75 years old, we should have had more time with him here. I had to do lots of juggling to get my flights changed so I could make it to the funeral, but it was worth it. We had the funeral on Saturday and that was the hardest thing I have ever done. I loved my Grandpa very, very much. I know that I will see him again, but being without him now is what's hard. I am so grateful for the knowledge I have of families being forever, but it still hurts. I am the 4th oldest of the 38 grandchildren (I thought there were more of us than that!!). He was very active in church and politics. The local paper did a story on him, but so did the Denver Post! We all thought Grandpa would get a chuckle out of that. All of my pictures of him are at home on my computer, so I will have to add more pictures of him when I get back. Here are the stories if you want to read them:
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_9219598
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/news/stories/2008/05/05/050608_1b_Whiting_obit.html

Before and After

I still can't believe I did it. It feels WONDERFUL. I think I love it, but I have only had it done for a few hours now. I have been wanting to post, but I haven't been able to do so lately. I will write more on that later. But, I figured I had to post these pics. Please be kind in your comments :) I donated all that hair to locks of love, it's the 4th time I have done that. I was trying to take these pictures by myself today because TJ wasn't around to do it, so the pictures are a little weird, I think.

100th post!

This is my 100th post! I would do something special - but I'm not that creative - so let's just look at more pictures of my kids shall we? Yesterday Tyler decided to give himself a hair cut, so check out this great hair cut. I can laugh and take pictures because it wasn't Brena giving herself a hair cut. Had it been Brena I would still be crying today. But we will just go shave Tyler's head and all will be well.

We have tons of wild berries that grow around here, so last night the kids went berry picking and ate the berries, here is a big one that Tyler found. Last year I got so excited seeing all these berries, we went all over the neighborhood picking berries. I had plans to make a pie with them, but never did. So now I just let the kids eat them when the find them.

Chipmunks?

Have you seen the Chipmunk movie? Brena loves it and she imitates the part in there when the chipmunk throws something at Dave and he throws it back, but misses. Then the chipmunk says "chick-a-wa-wa, chick-a-wa-wa" she cracks us up and she does it all the time, so I tried to get her to do it for camera, it's not as cute as she normally does it, but it is still funny. Enjoy!

Also, I haven't been posting much lately - I have actually been very busy on a project and it is almost done! But, I can't share it with you because I don't want a certain lurker to see it yet :) I will post on it when I can - I am so excited to share it! Hopefully in a few weeks. On another note, I had my last piano lesson today :( I am leaving out of t0wn, and I know I won't be able to make lessons in the summer, so hopefully in the fall I will start up again. I have a wonderful piece almost ready to play in church - I think my teacher is putting me on the program for when I get back in town. I might try to record the song so I can post it for all to hear.