Women's day out

Our base is always putting events together to bring up morale. I am so grateful for all the events that I am able to attend while we are stationed here. This past week was spouses day out, but the guys were invited too. My husband had to work but was able to stop for a little while and visit with me.

 

We were greeted at the door with a glass of wine, my favorite way to be greeted.. just kidding. This singing trio was very talented and their outfits were adorable. They entertained us for most of the night.

 

 

 

We had tea, cake, scones, cucumber and salmon sandwiches. And at the end of the night we were allowed to purchase tea cups and plates at a discounted price.

While we munched on food there was a few games of bingo, some door prizes were given out.

At one point I had tea, water, wine, and a whiskey sour.. what a combo. There was also a potato bar and sweets table.

 

A photo booth.  

 

The night ended with karaoke and drinks at the E-Club.

 

Valentines Day

A few days before Valentine's day I attended a wine and design held by wives club on base and it was so much fun. I think I did a pretty good job on my picture especially since there was no teacher. Not the mention the was and appetizer's were delicious.

 

Valentines day is not really a big anticipated holiday for us we often just go out to dinner or get ourselves a little something. I love my husband and really don't need a gift or expensive flowers we've been together a long time. I was completely surprised when he came home with these beautiful flowers. I usually get mad when he spends his money on flowers that will just die in a few days, but since we have no garden and I can't very plant anything since we are not going to be in this home much longer it was ok.




Later that night we met some friends for dinner, and drinks. And boy did I have fun! I haven't danced like that in a long time. It felt 19 yrs old again and then the next morning I felt a lot older than 19.




Happy Valentines day!!

3200 miles later

3200 miles, that's how many miles we put on the rental car by the time we turned it in. We dove to Missouri down through Texarkana and down to Lake Charles, La. Then towards New Orleans, and then back to North Carolina, luckily our passports and visa's had come in. And then we drove north to Virginia.

We stayed at our friends house and took the metro to the National Mall. It was nice to see it at night, we always go in the day time but it's so different at night. 

The World War II memorial is my favorite. 

Brody is still too young to understand the memorials and what they represent. He asked if Medusa had done this to the soldiers, he's so funny.

The day before we left we found out that our Louie was not going to be allowed to fly because his breed, and short nosed breeds were not allowed to fly until September. Luckily we have someone watching him and I will be trying to get him over as soon as we can. I was so mad with the airline for not telling us that he couldn't fly when we made the reservation. It would have been nice to get a phone call or something.

Bringing on 2012

Once the new year arrived, I was in the home stretch of this latest deployment. January was uneventful; I passed my state insurance licensing test on my first try. I had to learn a lot of useless things that I will probably never use again, or care to use again. Once I passed that test, I was insurance adjuster.

After January,  I was swamped at work, I had no idea how stressful and time consuming this job was going to be so I guess that is why they pay the big bucks. Ha!

One of the best things about deployments are the really nice tax returns. It was really nice to have some money put away in the bank.

April finally arrived and my husband was due to come back around the middle of April and we couldn't wait!

But first, I had to plan Brody's 6th birthday party. He had been taking karate classes for a while now and I booked a party there for him and some of our friends. His theme was Star Wars...again.

Sydney and one of her best friends.

 The tumbling trampoline used for gymnastics was everyone's favorite thing. 

 And Brody's favorite part of his birthday was  having everyone sing Happy Birthday to him.

One long month

I am finally getting settled, and we are almost unpacked. We bought a house moved some of our things to the new house and then left the next day for New Orleans. I don't recommend going on vacation the day after you buy a house, all we thought about was all the work we could have been doing. When we got back home, we had a couple of nice days of weather and then it got really cold which made it near impossible to clean the old house. I am still trying to figure out where to hang my pictures and I am sure that every room in this house is going to be painted. I am not happy with the colors in this house they are so dark and I really don't care for the color orange which is in a couple of rooms including the kitchen. While we were New Orleans we stayed a few days with Micky's grandpa  and then we drove out to my moms and stayed a few days with her. We had a nice Christmas at my moms and the kids were excited especially Brody. This is the second Christmas in row we have not been home... next year we are going to be staying home.

On the GNO bridge



We took the kids to the New Orleans children's museum

Brody loved this train set and spent almost all his time playing here.

Sydney was glad that they added some new things since the last time we were here.

Playing on the small tug boats and barges was so much fun. Brody kept saluting and saying

"aye, aye, captain!"

here he is at the controls.

In New Orleans you learn how to boil crawfish at an early age.

My favorite thing at the museum is this child size Winn Dixie,

Micky likes it too, he just won't admit it.

So cute!!

Sydney was taking it a little too serious.

They also have a play restaurant where kids can bring you a menu and then go in the kitchen and make your food.

CHEERS

After all that play we walked over to Mulate's and had some Cajun food. Sydney is my picky eater and we were shocked that she tried and loved alligator!!!

what nice memories we will have of this day.

Sydney's Christmas gift I hope to have it hanging in here new room in a couple of weeks.

This is the mess we left in our new house before we left it for a week. What were we thinking?