California Trip

The boys were so excited to ride in a plane this time. I love that we can give them these opportunities to experience these things so young.
First things first: In N Out...
Then, we started celebrating Jeremiah's birthday! We had his party this year at my grandparents house. My Grandpa had been working for a long time getting a new go-cart put together so the boys could ride in it. They had a great time! Mommy and Daddy did too!

Jeremiah's #1 request for his party was hats.
The presents were a bonus, though.
Everyone wore a hat! Whenever we tried to take them off, Jeremiah asked us where our hat was.
He was pretty excited about his Thomas cake. My mom baked it so I could just decorate it once we got there. It was a lot of help!
Jeremiah and my Grandpa share a birthday so we celebrated for them both.
Then the next day we headed to Discovery Kingdom. Phil and I rode lots of grown up rides (a really rare treat for us since it's usually just us with the boys in tow). The boys... well, they rode a bunch of rides too!
They have a Thomas the Train area there which was obviously right up the boys' alley.
We weren't there while my folks took the boys through all this, so I was a little shocked to see this picture. Can they both really be old enough to ride things like this? They couldn't stop talking about it once we met up with them again.
We made the most of an unexpected trip to San Francisco and had some Boudin sourdough bread bowls with my favorite clam chowder. Josh... not such a big fan.
We walked around a bit and took a picture with Alcatraz.
My Mom showed us this ship and I couldn't resist getting a picture with Jeremiah and the USS Jeremiah O'Brien.
Daddy got to take us through the whole thing. He obviously knows more about these things then we do.
How appropriate for Jeremiah to ring the bell on this ship.
Jeremiah hung out with Nana when we went a little too high for him to be able to come with us.
Daddy explaining things to us again.
We stopped by a penny arcade that we really enjoyed. They had a huge amount of squished penny machines so the boys really enjoyed it!
Yep. It's big because he's so smart.
Then it was Jeremiah's actual birthday. Breakfast in bed was called for. It just happened to be Nana and Papa's bed because he was already in there playing and watching Disney Channel before I rolled out of bed. We even got to use the special plate I used as a kid on my birthday.
Then it was off to Chuck E Cheese. We tried very hard to put this off on Nana, but we ended up tagging along anyway. The boys had a great time! My big secret: go right at opening and you'll be one of maybe 2 or 3 families there. Much better then the evening with huge crowds of unwatched children. Go in the morning. It's just better that way.
Josh found one game that he could do great at that gave him a large amount of tickets. This is him celebrating another victory with hand shaking.
Hm... is it possible to see the gene transfer?
When I said it gave him a lot of tickets... I did mean a LOT!
Then off to the Lego store!


Another day we went back to ride the go-carts again. Grandpa took the boys around on the tractor a bit.
Here's one of us with my Grandma and Grandpa.
I'm pretty sure there are a billion pictures of me growing up in front of this fountain in their backyard.
There were a couple days that Phil and I spent in San Fransisco that we have no photographic documentation of yet. We were part of a friends wedding in the Bohemian Club which allows no cameras. Fortunately, my friend had a professional photographer who was permitted so hopefully eventually I'll have pictures.
We got home at around 11:30 Saturday night, packed, then woke again at 3:00 to head to the airport. It was one long day Sunday getting back home to Virginia. We did find a few things to enjoy along the way, though...

"Adventures" of a Military Wife

It's funny this life we've chosen to live. Hours and hours away from even the closest part of our family. We only get to see family a few times a year. I get so irritated when wives sit and gripe about any particular part of military life like it's some unfair burden cast upon them that they are completely unable to control. It's not that way at all. Phil and I have decided to stay in the military even though we could get out. We have our reasons for staying in, of course. So let's keep it clear that my belly aching today is not me being a victim by any means. It is just a way of helping pass along the understanding of the things we have to live with because we decided to stay in the military. It seems there is a general misunderstanding of military families among those who aren't military, so I thought it would help to specify that.
This weekend Phillipp's Aunt Verna came for a very brief visit. We really loved having a bit of time together but it was so sad to part again. As I was sitting feeling sorry for myself, my feelings were suddenly amplified by the realization that this is not going to get any better in the near future. Soon we'll be moving to Virginia where we will not only still be far away from our family but will probably be spending quite a bit of time far away from Phil as well!
There is quite a bit of loneliness that goes along with being a military wife. Loneliness when the house is so dreadfully quite because the boys have gone to bed and Phil is on duty or working or just gone altogether because he's out to sea and there are so many long hours to pass before the boys wake up again. There is loneliness when a big holiday is coming up and all our friends have plans with extended family but ours is too far away. Loneliness comes with every move we make since we have never really had a lot of friends awaiting us at our destination. Loneliness also comes with a move when we leave all our friends that have taken us so long to find behind us. Loneliness sometimes creeps up slowly when you're waiting for a big deployment or suddenly like today shortly after Verna left.
I know this is where civilians say, "I don't know how you can do that." You just do, I guess. There's no magic to it. No special gift. It's not because I don't love my husband (thus not having a hard time when he goes away). This the life we've chosen and this is what goes along with it, so we do what we need to do. You find things that help you along the way. Sometimes it's keeping busy with things to do, sometimes it's cleaning incessantly, sometimes it's watching a whole lot of old Baywatch re-runs... and sometimes it's freshly baked peanut butter cookies... a lot of them... oh, who's kidding?! It was the cookie dough. In a minute it's also going to be going outside to pull weeds because for some reason that always makes me feel better.
So, before I go do that and take the last batch of cookies out of the oven (yes, some dough actually did make it in to the oven), here are some pictures from the tremendously fun couple of days we had with Auntie Verna and Randy.

Catching fireflies with Josh

He was very interested to watch one that was on the ground.

Yes, I have seen this look on Josh before...

This is us with Auntie Verna this morning before she left. Yes, those are my high school gym shorts if you must ask.

Jeremiah was promoted to a new kind of bed today! We changed around his crib to a toddler bed that he seems to be enjoying quite a bit!

Update #1

I started this little ditty a while ago but never kept up with it then got to realizing the other day that this could be a rather effective way to pass along information about us at your own pace. I can put up as much or as little as I like without worrying about bothering anyone by filling up your email boxes.
Things are quite crazy right now as we are preparing to make some major decisions for the next year or so of our family's life. Phil will be heading to Virginia next week for what will probably be a rather grueling week of tests and interviews, working and PT-ing (physical training). I will be finishing up my first course of wilton decorating which was a lot of fun. The boys will still be growing and learning and mostly loving life (until Mommy says no cupcake until tomorrow). Please be praying that we make a decision that is good for all 4 of us in the long run. Keep checking on here for more updates! I'll try to put up some pictures as well in the future as the boys go about life having fun.