31 Oct 08-Today turned out well but sure didn't seem like it would for a while. We had commanders call this morning so I headed to the base for that. Afterward, we headed to Miles' school for his community contributors parade. It was so fun watching all the little ones walk the school grounds in their "outfits" for their jobs. Anyway, that was the good part of the day. I went back to work after the parade and finished up all my work and was excited to get off work an hour early because I had grocery shopping to do. I was halfway done with my shopping when the fire alarm in the commissary went off. Ugh! I was so tempted to just leave but I needed to do the shopping and it wouldn't be fair to the people that work there to make them put away my stuff so I spent almost 30 minutes sitting in the van waiting for the fire department to clear us to go back in so I could finish my shopping. I was just in the mood to relax at that point and knew that wasn't going to happen. Finally, I got it all done and still had to get gas. I rushed home (I use that term loosely because it was in the middle of rush hour traffic) to get the groceries unloaded and get the kids ready to go trick-or-treating. I missed the pumpkin carving but I told Chris to just go ahead but take pictures for me (which are on the website along with all the other pictures I hadn't posted yet that I thought I had. Oops!). Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised when I came home to find Cody already in a costume after hearing him say he wasn't going to dress up or go out trick-or-treating for the last couple of weeks. He ended up wearing my old blue M&M costume which was too funny! We've gotten a lot of use out of that thing! I got the kids ready, snapped a few pictures and off we went. We covered some good ground and the kids decided to use pillow cases this year instead of buckets and got A LOT of candy. I'll have to start sneaking some of it out to work for the boys soon! We had a great time and then came back to help Chris hand out candy. It turned out to be a great day. Cody is having a sleep over at a friends house and it's 9:30 p.m. and Harmony and Miles are still playing in the neighbors garage. I'm headed to bring them home, get them in bed and crash! What a day!!
30 Oct 08-I had a great day today! The wing quarterly awards were today and I was asked by the command chief's office to sing. I was nervous as always but I did really well. I always feel like I accomplished something when I sing. I have a couple more things lined up and I don't think it will ever stop. :) The kids are really excited about Halloween. They have worn their costumes more this year prior to the actual event than any other year. It has been fun though. The kids have been learning all kinds of cool things at school. The kids voted yesterday and even came home with their ballot receipts. I had never heard of that before. Too cool! They were not to be coaxed at all. Miles voted for Obama but couldn't tell us why and Harmony wouldn't tell us who she voted for. We were told not to push so we just left it alone. I am curious but I will respect her. Anyway, Miles also had a project where he had to choose a job he would want when he grew up but it had to be a job that he could explain how it contributed to the community. He chose being a soldier so he could "protect freedom". He drew a picture of a soldier standing in front of a flag. It was too cute! They are having a parade tomorrow where they will wear something that shows what job they chose and walk the school. I will post the pictures this weekend. We will both be there to watch our boy walk proud tomorrow. We've been having some issues with Harmony lately. She has been lying to us as most kids do and we just try to reinforce that you do not lie. Well, she lied to me yesterday which I found out about from an e-mail from her teacher. I e-mailed her teacher about it wanting to get her side of the story and then she talked to Harmony and she lied to her teacher. I was shocked that she would lie to her teacher but we're working on the issue. Anyway, I'm just looking forward to a nice weekend with my family.
28 Oct 08-Hello again! It's been a week. I don't know if I will remember everything that's been going on but I'll just start typing and see what comes out. I've been busy with work and school and just life in general. I finally got some pictures posted. I've been continuing with my walking/running and thankfully I've been able to run a lot longer/further. I still need new shoes but I'm trying to deal with it. Anyway, the kids are doing well. They enjoyed their red ribbon week last week and their crazy hair day was fabulous! They had so much fun with blue spray painted hair. School is still going well for me. It's a little confusing at some times and I had to call my mom for help but I know I will get through it just fine. I guess not a whole lot as changed around here. That's all I can think of for now.
21 Oct 08-The kids had crazy hair day today for red ribbon week and we just had a blast getting them ready. It started last night when I was trying to figure out what I was going to do with Miles. They were already in their PJs and I decided it would be fun to take them to Walgreens and pick up some spray color for hair. They thought that was the coolest thing to go out at night and in their PJs. Harmony's hair was easy to do this morning but not quite a fun to brush out tonight. They had a great day though so it was all worth it. I had to rinse out the blue bathtub after washing that stuff out of Miles' hair. Anyway, this is my busy week so I'm just hoping to get through it. I was able to get 3 miles of walking in today. I'm trying to increase the mileage as often as I can. My feet really hurt though. I really need to get new and decent shoes.
19 Oct 08-This time of year is so crazy. It seems like there is always something going on. Yesterday was by far my most favorite day! I finally got to go meet the twins and they are just precious!! I could have stayed there looking at them and holding them for days! It was so nice to catch up with Pam and Dwayne too. We miss them so much! This week has been a bit more challenging figuring out how to go back to work and get my homework done. I really need to get it in gear and figure out a plan that is going to work for me. Dwayne helped me out greatly by letting me load Microsoft Office on my laptop so I can take it and disappear when I have homework to do and need some quiet to get it done. I am a little more stressed out than I had hoped because of going back to school. I was out of the game for far too long and I'm afraid that I'm just not getting it. We'll see after this week how well I did with my first paper. The paper for this week is worth as much as the final paper so I can't afford to mess it up. Thankfully I have not lost my excitement for school though. This week we have tons of stuff going on. I have a key spouse meeting, some fundraisers for school, fall festival at the school, Seth's birthday party next Saturday and then a carnival on the base. I'll be thankful once this next week is over!
15 Oct 08-Nothing to report today. It was completely uneventful and I am exhausted. :) Good night all!
14 Oct 08-It wasn't as bad as I had expected going back to work today. I was tired but all in all, it was a good day. I actually took a small lunch break today which is something that I don't normally do. I had to go out and buy the new Kenny Chesney Cd! Whoo hoo! Ha ha! It's awesome as usual. It is a lot more mellow than most of his CDs but I really enjoyed it. I only listened to it 7 times or so today. ;) You just can't go wrong with any Kenny CD. That is about all I have for today. I continued my walking and thankfully, because I am back to work, I have 3 days a week of duty time to walk as well so on those days, I will get double! I am going to make sure that I still walk on those days. I really want to strengthen my back. It's been getting worse so I'm hoping the more I exercise, the better it will get but we'll see.
13 Oct 08-I've been trying to just enjoy my last few days off without being on the computer a lot which is why I haven't had an entry in a few days. The most exciting thing that happened in the last few days was Pam and Dwayne had the twins on Friday. They had 2 girls!! Isabel Adriana and Chloe Jayden. I cannot wait to meet them. We were hoping to go today but hopefully some time this week. They are absolutely perfect and they were great size for twins. Chris did some clearing out in the backyard today. It has definitely been cold at night and early morning. When I say cold, I'm talking 30s already. Brr!! We know the kids won't be using the pool so he took it down. We want to spruce up the backyard so he took the fence down too. He took some of the old kids toys out too which was great. The backyard already looks bigger. I listed all of the stuff he took down on Craigslist too and it was all gone quickly! We're discussing what we want to do in the area where the pool was. We'd definitely love to get some pavers or something to make it a nice patio. I know he's always mentioned wanting to knock out our window and making it actually a sliding door so we'll see if we eventually get to that. We don't have the money for that right but it's nice to think we can do that. It will be nice if we can do that eventually. Now that the kids are getting older, we can definitely take advantage of making the house more "grown up". I think that's about it for now. I am in a funk about going back to work. I could have used some more time off. It's always a little intimidating to go back after any amount of time off wondering what changed while I was away. Some of the e-mails I saw really make me question what's been going on.
09 Oct 08-I am beat today. I'm not sure what sucked the life out of me today but I'm looking forward to sleeping in on Saturday. I don't think we have any plans this weekend so that will be nice. I am so not ready to go back to work. I spent most of my time playing the Wii with Miles today. We had tons of fun. I had a pain in my side tonight so I only got a mile and a half in.
08 Oct 08-Today was a good day! I didn't even leave the house. Ha ha! My internet was down this morning so that wasn't a great way but it got better as the day went on. I got another great walk in tonight and my lovely kiddos drew some GREAT art. I was really impressed. I will upload them to their albums on my website tomorrow. For now, I am headed to bed. It was nice to have some extra energy and popped right out of bed this morning. I hope tomorrow is the same.
07 Oct 08-I had a nice quiet day at home today. I only left the house today to go get mice. Normally my leave feels like it flew by. This time, I felt like I should already be back at work but I still have another week and it's so great. I worked on some more of my assignments for next week. To my surprise, my instructor graded my 1st week assignments already. I have a 92% so far in the class! I learned some stuff today with the few things I was marked down on. That was a great thing for me. I finally decided on my next class as well. I'm not sure when I can sign up for it but I'm looking forward to it! I have been trying to improve myself over all so I have been trying to be more active too. My diet is horrible so I need to up my exercise so I don't gain all that weight back I lost while I was deployed. I got 2 1/2 miles in which isn't great but it's better than I've been doing. Besides my back pain, my knees have been giving me problems as well. I'm trying to just work through everything. I truly do not want to go back to the doctor.
06 Oct 08-My online class started today and boy was I overwhelmed at first. I asked Chris to print some stuff out for me and when I had printed stuff in front of me, it made a lot more sense. I spent as much time as I possibly could going through all of it and I actually got all of my first week assignments done, a quiz which I got 100% on and some of next weeks work done too! I am scared to death of failing but I'm just trying not to think that way. It's been 14 years since I've taken classes and the online world is definitely different! Goodness times have changed. I have to write 2 essays and a paper before this class is over. I have to figure out what I want to take next. Thankfully I have a little while to think about it but it's definitely intimidating. Wish me luck to get through this. I am hoping that I can get through all of this with flying colors. It's going to be so great getting to know people. Hopefully this will open up a whole new world for me!
05 Oct 08-It's been another busy and productive weekend. I got a lot of stuff done this weekend. Yesterday was a little emotional for me. It was my yearly walk for the Vasa Previa foundation. We have been doing this walk together since Miles was 5 months old. He still doesn't quite get what we do this for every year but some day he will and it will be fun for him to understand. The girls donated a bit to the walk too so that's always exciting to help the foundation out. The kids finally decided on their costumes. Harmony is going to be a Bratz cat and Miles is going to be a soldier. We found cute costumes for both which is how the finally decided. Cody said he is too old to dress up so he just wants to stay back and hand out candy. :( While it's totally understandable but I just wish they weren't growing up so fast! Elise got home today so I gave her turtle back and her mail and all that fun stuff. She was so sweet and made us some brownies as a thank you. The kids were having so much fun playing outside today too that our normal schedule was way off. (Mom I'll call you during the week since I didn't get to it today.) I've got one week off left to relax before going back to work.
03 Oct 08-I have been having so much fun this last week on leave. Thankfully I have one more week off. I finished going through some boxes this week which was great. Now it really doesn't look like we have a lot of "stuff" even though most of it is in the attic! That was the biggest accomplishment of the week. Other than that, I've just been relaxing and working on more Key Spouse stuff. I went to my training appointment for it this week. The website is set up and I designed it this week as well. It was all perfect timing because the newsletter was mailed this week. I am so excited to get people involved! I feel like I've accomplished something now that I have the website done.
