Tag Archives: navy

Happy Birthday Baby!

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So today is my husbands birthday and the poor man has to spend the day away from family or friends out on a ship in the middle of the ocean somewhere. I wish he could be home with us to celebrate.

We love you and wish we could spend this day with you.  I can’t believe this is the 14th birthday that we have spent together (even if we are not technically together)! It’s been a wild ride and I am already plotting next year, when you will be home. We’re gonna do it big!

You have a family that loves you and is thinking of you all day today!

Seriously, my husband is so good looking and doesn’t look a day over 25… I LOVE YOU BABE!

 

So, yeah, this happened…

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I finally went to the doctor today to get my finger looked at. It was the same finger that I had jammed in our last game and I kept telling myself that I just needed to give it time to heal. Well it just wasn’t feeling any better, it was still swollen and every time I tried to straighten it or hit it on something it still hurt like hell.

So off to get it checked, got some x-rays taken, doc tells me that it’s fractured for sure, there is a chip somewhere. So just great. I have never broken anything in my life, but I guess a finger isn’t a bad bone to break! So all was fine up until I got turned over to a corpsman to have it splinted. He made sure that finger got as straight as possible. I. Almost. Died. And I have a pretty high pain tolerance. So now I’m all wrapped up for a few weeks, hopefully my finger is normal after this.

I will say, I never realized how much you use your ring finger until every time I try to use it, it hurts! I can’t put my hair up, type, wash dishes, open jars! It’s terrible! My husband told me I should send his ship a red cross message so he can come home and help me! I can’t do anything, I am broken!

Living in Hawaii {4 Month Update}

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We have officially hit four months of living in Hawaii.

And I am in love with this state.

Hawaii can be a difficult place to live. It is so very different than living on the mainland. It can be hard to not have every store and restaurant you are used to having around the corner. (No Olive Garden, Michael’s or Chik-fil-a!) Living here means that you are living far from family, at least a 5 hour plane ride away. It can be expensive, housing is expensive, food is expensive, we are on an island so you will pay more for everything. We are lucky to be able to shop at the commissary and exchange which offer a huge savings over shopping on the local economy.

But with all that it is still magical to live here. I will be driving and then all of a sudden see a gorgeous rainbow, a vibrant green volcanic range, or a stunning sunset over the beach.

We did come here with a bit of an advantage. After living in Spain for four years we learned to live without many of the American conveniences that people complain about not having here. Plus we’ve been living far from family. So when we moved from Rota to Pearl Harbor it was awesome for us! We had Target and Starbucks and T-mobile…

It is like most places for me, it depends on what you make of it. If you spend your time here complaining about how much you hate it, you’ll end up hating it.

We’ve had a great time getting out and exploring the island, learning about the culture and customs and eating!

Don’t get me wrong it’s far from perfect here, the DMV is a nightmare, the traffic is the worst, and the bugs are out of control. There are shady parts of the island, it sucks being 6 hours behind all my friends and family on the east coast (especially when your husband deploys!)

I have found some fun friends by stepping outside my comfort zone and playing football, volunteering with the PTA and getting together a FRG for the Paul Hamilton.

The only thing that would make it better would be if my husband were still here to explore the island with me!

Happy Halloween!

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We had a GREAT Halloween this year… It was Omar’s first Halloween in America. Wait I lied, he did have one before when he was a month old.  We did celebrate in Spain on base but it was not quite the same. So this year he was SUPER excited.  He dressed as Darth Vader and then decided the mask was too annoying to wear the entire night but at least I got a picture with it on.

Mckenna was a dark fairy. This is our homemade costume this year, I had a lot of fun making it and she loved it.

I also tried my best with her makeup. I am NOT artistic or good with makeup but she thought it looked great and that’s all that matters!

Although I did it a few hours prior and it did get smudged and had to be fixed before we headed out.

Me, I was pretty boring this year and did a cop out with a witch had and some awesome feathery eyelashes…

And then was irritated because the breeze kept blowing my hat the whole time we were out, AND I carried a light saber that SOMEONE just couldn’t carry.

I can’t post the aftermath sorting of candy because Omar stripped as soon as we walked in the door and sorted in his underwear. Sounds about right.

Also? People are getting WAY too stingy with the chocolate. Keep your Laffy Taffy and Twizzlers, mama wants Snickers and Reese’s!

Oh I had to go snooping for pictures from Halloween past. I can’t believe how much my babies have grown over the past few years!

Care Packages!

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While I hate pretty much everything about deployment, the one thing I do enjoy is sending care packages to my husband.  It’s been years since I’ve had to do it (5? 6? I don’t remember!) So I’ve been having fun coming up with ideas of what to send as well as making the boxes themselves fun.

This was the first box I sent out. I LOVE these large size priority boxes from the post office. First off, you get a discount if you are sending these particular ones to an APO/FPO. Second a 12×12 sheet of scrapbook paper fits each side perfectly!  I decided to put some pictures on here, just printed them out on copy paper so I could glue them on. I was hoping it would give him a little boost to remember why he is doing this and what he has to look forward to when he comes home.

 

The next box I sent was my favorite and I forgot to take a dang picture of it! I am so mad at myself! I had it all decked out with a Navy theme, that one had the PS Vita he wanted as well as his iPad cover/stand he forgot to take. You’ll just have to picture it in your mind. It’s terrible but it was a good use for the Navy embellishments that I didn’t like and wasn’t going to use for actual scrapbooking but didn’t want to throw away. So don’t throw away your ugly stuff! Just use it on your husband, he doesn’t know the difference!

 

Okay, I normally try to split the box at least half and half between snacks/junk food and meal type food but this one went a little overboard on the junk food. What can I say? I am trying to eat less crap so when I see something tempting I just buy it and sent in off in a box. Seriously, those Pocky sticks were tough, I LOVE them!

 

 

And here is the latest box, just sent this one this weekend and I am a little mad at myself, didn’t realize how late it got in the month! I want this to get there before Halloween but it probably won’t.  This is my first ‘theme’ box.  I didn’t want to just sent a crap load of candy so I sent some other snacks in there too… The little jack o’ lantern tin was in the dollar section of Target, I put some of those single piece candies you see, pumpkin shaped snickers, rotten egg cadbury, etc. Also Target had the crinkle paper filler in lime green so that is in the bottom of the box. Oh and I found a stupid creepy mask at the exchange for a dollar so I threw that in too…

 

There are some things that I know I am going to put in (like the gel insoles, those steel decks are murder on feet!) febreeze to make his rack smell a little nicer and not like ship. Yes, ship. It is a VERY distinct odor. And haribo gummies, his favorite candy (which will hopefully bring back memories of the haribo candy store we couldn’t stay away from in Germany!)

But then a lot of times I just cruise the aisles of the grocery store or exchange and just see what crazy new stuff is out there.

But here is a list to help get started on packing those boxes:

Food – meals

Precooked rice packets

Cup o’ noodles

Microwave soup

Single serve mac & cheese

Tuna steaks

Tuna salad kit

Single serve oatmeal/cold cereal

 

Food – Snacks/Junk Food

Trail mix

hostess/little debbie stuff

Combos

Gum

Mints

Nachos

Pringles

Beef Jerky

Single serve cookie packs

Popcorn (I love the new bowl one)

Goldfish

Energy shots

Granola Bars/Clif Bars

Toiletries/hygiene

Insoles (I bought the ones made for work boots)

Travel size toothpaste, shaving cream, qtips, shampoo, medication (they take up less space and I replenish them as needed. If your husband has hair a full size shampoo may work better for you!

Foot powder/spray (wearing those dang boots)

Febreeze

hand sanitizer

sanitizing wipes

Etc.

Cards, letters, notes from the kids

Entertainment such as playing cards/dvd’s or handheld games

Magazines/books

I do tend to send lots of food, the galley food isn’t the best and I want him to be able to have something to snack on if he’s hungry. If there is ever something he doesn’t like he can just give it away to someone else.  I am going to try to do the cake in a jar, we’ll see if it works and if it is still edible when he gets it however many weeks later!

 

 

 

End of the Season

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So today was our last regular season game. We lost. Again. Really though I had SO much fun learning to play flag football with a great bunch of lhadies. We still have the playoffs/championship but that doesn’t start for a few weeks. Which is great because I jammed the hell out of my right ring finger on the VERY first play of the game today and it is killing me! It’s all bruised and swollen. Fabulous. One of those things that you don’t realize how much you use a body part until it’s injured. I can’t straighten it or bend it without it hurting. Even though I got hurt missing a flag and my hand hitting the ground I am still proud that I went for it. My whole life I have always been the girl that will not sacrifice her body for the ball. Nope, not me. And now I am regularly throwing myself after people and getting injured and banged up. I am loving it! At the ripe old age of 31 I am on a team for the first time in my life. Yes really. No sports really at all for me period. I’ve told people my whole life that I am not an athlete, I am a nerd. And while I am by no means the fastest or strongest out there, I am pulling my own weight and knocking some big girls on their butts out there!

I love being on the other side, I’ve always been the cheerleader (not literally, I mean that I am on the sidelines) of friends games, my husband’s games, my kids’ multiple multiple sports. I love that I have a team that counts on me to play a part. We have fun on and off the field.  It’s an interesting dynamic and I am glad that I finally did it. I have tried recruiting some of the other women I’ve met on the island to come play with me and it’s been a pretty resounding ‘no thanks, I’m not athletic’. But it’s so much more than just being in shape. I think joining a team is a great thing for every woman to try, especially moms because they very rarely ever have time ‘just for them’.

Off to nurse my poor finger and hopefully get a call from my husband! Another port visit equals LOTS of phone calls (ran out of skype credit yesterday, whoops!) I am trying to get him to ‘guest blog’ his port visits but he’s not too thrilled with the idea. Maybe if I can ever get the pictures I’ll post them!