Category Archives: Life in Spain

Pre-nostalgia…

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Is this even a thing?

I was at the commissary yesterday right after work to pick up a few things and it seemed like every aisle I went down had someone I knew.  I’ve never lived in a small town before and moved a LOT as a kid so I’ve never had this opportunity to really know a large part of our community.  I know it’s never going to be like this again. We are never going to live on such a small base, we are headed back to big cities with tens of thousands of people.

It is going to be so weird to have traffic again. To have to drive more than 10 minutes to get to everything relevant. To have to start over from scratch not knowing a single soul in the whole entire state of Hawaii.  I’m just so comfortable here.

I was driving around the other day and I’m already missing being here and I hate it! There is so much pressure (coming from myself) to enjoy every last second of our time here. Don’t waste any of it. We may never be back in Europe so we need to get all those ‘must-do’ trips out of the way.

I’m trying to not stress out about it and just live. Just enjoy these last few months. I’ve been trying to say ‘yes’ more when it comes to making plans.  I know that when we leave there is still going to be a HUGE list of things that I wanted to do or see or experience but that is going to be okay. I’ve loved all of the amazing things we’ve been able to do so far and moving to Hawaii is going to open up a whole new experience for us.

But damn. I really do miss it already.

Girls Weekend!

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{So it starts out sounding a little crazy….}

A bunch of women from base are going to be spending the weekend at a hotel…

{…but then quickly goes downhill to boring mom-ville …}

and we are going to be scrapbooking the entire time!

I cannot tell you how much I need this. Just to get out of my head and spend some time on my favorite hobby that I am SO behind on.  I am not planning on spending the night but I do plan on hanging out for most of the day Saturday and possibly leaving my stuff and going back over Sunday (the hotel is only about 10 minutes from my house).

And even though I am looking forward to tomorrow -yay scrapbooking!- I am also a little nervous because while I know most of the women there, I don’t KNOW them. I don’t have any close friends in the group that’s going. So I am hoping that people actually talk to me and that I am not a loner the whole day because while I would probably get a lot done, that would crappy and boring. But enough with the girl crap.

So to get ready for this weekend I have been frantically trying to get all of my homework done ahead of time and it has kept me busy, along with night training for work this past Thursday. LOTS of fun stuff coming up at work, we are doing a TON of stuff for April for the Month of the Military Child because – shocker- we have quite a few military children! Also Feria, which is kind of like Spain’s county fair but that needs MULTIPLE posts with a ton of pictures.

Hope you have a WONDERFUL weekend!

P.S. Birthday shout out to Ben, my son’s brother from another mother!  Happy 5th Birthday Ben!  Wish we could be there to share it with you!

Happy Birthday Girl Scouts!

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The Girl Scouts are turning 100 years old and our troop participated by having a sunrise meeting.  On a Sunday. At 7:30 in the morning. It was also pretty dang chilly but at least we had a beautiful view.

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Good morning moon!

 

The girls all huddled together before we got started. Did I mention it was cold!

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Everyone got into a circle and sang some songs: Happy Birthday, You Are My Sunshine (which actually has VERY depressing lyrics!), Mr. Sun and the girl scouts friends song.  We also attempted to light some candles but that wasn’t so successful because it was windy as hell. (And cold! Did I mention that!)

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Not as picture perfect when unlit.

After we did all that the girls got a breakfast snack of croissants, fruit and juice, then we had everyone pick up 5 pieces of trash from the beach (everyone really could have picked up 50, it was really trashy).

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Picture Time!!

All (slight majority) of the Rota Girl Scouts!

 

 

Our Junior troop!

I don't even want to tell you how many times we attempted this jump shot. They are all this bad. C'mon girl scouts work together!

 

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Good morning, Rota!

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Let’s get a little bit rowdy, R-O-W-D-Y!

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M is playing her first season of basketball this year.  Honestly I didn’t think she was going to really like it or be that good at it.  Soccer has always been her go-to sport and she had been playing that since she was 4 (3? Don’t remember for sure!) She’s also played a couple of seasons of flag football and really loved it.When she said she wanted to do basketball I was a little hesitant, but only because taking your kids to practices is the worst thing in the world. No exaggeration.  I might be the worst mom ever, but man, I HATE sitting at practice!  It’s always at the worst times and totally throws off dinner time.  And then there is never anyone else to talk to there and if I am going to sit and read a book I would much rather do it on my couch than sitting on a bleacher! BUT, the basketball court is about 5 minutes away from my house so I figured I could always run home if I needed to.

My personal laziness aside, she is LOVING basketball! Her and the other girl on the team are playing really well together and are quite the powerhouse duo! Here are some pics from her first game this morning.

The girls!

 

 

Playing a little D.

 

She chose #13 and said she was going to make it lucky again. Love it!

 

 

 

Friday Photo Dump

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LOVES this helmet.

 

Pretty curl.

 

The ol' hide in the laundry basket until the dog pulls it off of you game...

 

Super jumpy dog!

 

Out flying a kite.

Fun for about 15 minutes until it crashed onto the roof.

 

Smarty pants.

I win at procrastination (alternate title – How to phone it in)

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So. Ugh. I am just sucking at everything right now.  I have this horrible habit when I am feeling overwhelmed of just not doing anything. I have TONS of stuff I NEED to get done, homework, housework, but instead I will ignore the piles of laundry and ride my couch.  It is the worst habit ever and I was really hoping that as I ‘matured’ it would stop. Nope.

So, meanwhile I have hours of homework that I need to do that I will probably wait until the very last possible second to get done. I am down to my last two classes (cue chorusing angels) before I am done with school and I have a life threatening case of senioritis.  I am honestly rethinking my plan to start working on my Master’s in Hawaii because the though of more school makes me want to throw up. Hoping that a) taking a break for a few months will help b)I won’t be working which will mean less stress and more time and c)I’ll be doing classes in person which I love SO. Much. More! I get to talk to people! But first! I must make it through these last two damn classes. C’s get degrees right? That is my mantra this semester!

Also my housework. It’s embarrassing how much I have been failing in this aspect! When I was a SAHM or even working part time I was all about the Fly Lady and I generally kept my house looking good. While it might have some mess, it was clean. Now, not so much. I seem only able to get laundry done on the weekends, and then it takes me forever to get it folded and put away (I try to convince my husband that searching through piles of clean laundry for PT gear is like a scavenger hunt). There are pretty much always dishes in the sink, and please oh please don’t look at my shower.

Oh yes then there is trying spend time with my kids, my husband, scrapbook (so, so very behind) and possibly think about PCSing in the next few months. My brain is just fried!

I wish I could say that I don’t have time to get this stuff done but that isn’t true. I am just the worst about actually making myself do it instead of cuddling up on the couch after dinner and surfing the internet or watching tv until bedtime.

I know I am not going to magically wake up tomorrow with a new attitude and abundance of energy but maybe just getting it all out there will help my brain (and my teeth because I can feel I have been stress clenching my jaw at night).

Oh and two things I have been rocking it at lately? Work – have gotten TONS of compliments from both parents (my customers) and my boss about what I do. I LOVE feeling appreciated when I know I am working my butt off. Also? Eating! I have gained 10 pounds in the past year! WTF? So I think it is about time for me to get back on WW. Even though I’ve been loving Paleo, I’ve been cheating WAY too much. Maybe just making myself journal so I don’t eat a bowl of cereal at 10pm. Oh vey.