five

Last night I couldn't sleep, even though I was exhausted.... I finally went down and snuggled my sweet baby girl, and as soon as the clock turned to 1:18am PST my very first baby turned 5 (which is 6:18pm Japan time). We celebrated with a small party at Aunt Molly's house, and it was a great time. So what if only one kid from school showed up, all the other's couldn't come or got sick. The boy who did came is brand new to the area, and if there is anything I know, it is being brand new to a city and not knowing anyone. Gabby was the happiest girl around, a friend from school, his baby brother and parents, both sets of grandparents, 2 aunts, an uncle, 2 cousins a brother and her mom- all to celebrate HER! We had homemade pizza (cheese, olive and bbq chicken) veggies and dip, "cookie dough" dip made from garbanzo beans, with strawberries and apples for dippers, jelly beans, an awesome chocolate princess cake and vanilla cupcakes.

This girl made the newspaper online, along with her brother. Pretty cool to have your Aunt run the club where the Moose and 2 players were visiting. Also to have a Grandma and Great Aunt who score Mariner jerseys for you so you can get back to being local!

Captain America was a great party guest, and an awesome new friend! We all loved the family and enjoyed getting to host them.

Princess was the theme, with homemade banners- I cut them out and G adorned them with stickers. We played pin the crown on the Princess, I stayed up past midnight coloring Tiana.

These are the new family favorite cupcake holder, so simple and fun.

Happy Birthday Sweet Gabby Jean!

yes, this is the Princess cake. It may qualify as a "cake wreck" if you have seen that website, but not all went as planned. I am happy to say that her legs have been re-attached!

looks

There are some pretty cute looks around here lately, there are these two sweet Princesses with their Bubba as they now call him.I got determined and whipped up these Daddy pillows I have been thinking of and talking about. G & E each have their own, with different pictures and different backside fabric. You frequently can find either one of the kids playing catch with Dad; also known as tossing the pillow up and catching it. They sleep, snuggle, and haul it around.
This boy has moves, and style to go with the moves. This is the "outfit" he changed into, and was doing some very hilarious hip shaking. Oh and the slinky "belt" can also be used as a jet pack or a hat, as can the funnel which doubles as a trumpet too.
After preschool we braved the freezing cold and had a little play time at the park, which just happens to have a gorgeous view.

picture catch up

14 states in 36 days, and so many things in between all that. So many things to share, but for now pictures are what you get!

our empty rental house in FL, lots of room to play!

6 cousins jumping on hotel beds!

celebrating love, family and the New Year!

last blog from FL

Well, it seems life has thrown us another curve ball- one that we taking in a totally positive way! The Enlisted Review Board has decided that Clay is no longer needed in his job, so we are getting out of the Navy! After 10 years, many moves, meeting many friends, having 2 babies, a million unexpected adventures and too many days apart we are able to say that we are at peace with the news. It came as a huge surprise, especially after getting orders, having them changed and moving early, it was 8 days after checking in to the new ship, that we got the news. Clay got the highest review possible the past cycle, getting new quilfications, but missing his advancement by 2.5 points it was time for us to be done. Clay will still be active till the end of June, but not sure where. With the blessing in disguise of the sellers pulling the house off the market while under contract we don't have a place to live in FL and aren't going to go searching now that we know this isn't home. We are planning to undertake the very long cross country drive to WA very soon, as in we will be home before Christmas! Looking forward to this new adventure!

1st blog from FL

Well we made it to Jacksonville! Our trip has been quite unplanned and full of changes. We left VB on a good note, spending the night at a nice hotel with our room facing nothing but Ocean (although it was very windy and rainy.) Clay really wanted to stop and see Myrtle Beach, SC. I made reservations, but we are both geographically challenged so we didn't know it would take us an hour and a half off the free way to get there- and we are talking way back roads the route our GPS took us. We eventually got to our hotel, had a swim in the fun pool and dinner out. We really didn't do much in Myrtle Beach, E and I started the morning off by enjoying a chilly sunrise on the balcony, and then a walk to Starbucks where he got cocoa and I had coffee! After breakfast we went to the Ripley's Believe it or Not Aquarium. It was fun, and the 75% off they gave us for active duty military really was awesome!

my handsome morning date!

Our hotel had outdoor checkers, and we built towers with them!

CRASH!

G really loves to pose, E would rather not be apart of it most of the time! Yes, he wears ball shorts allllll the time!

We eventually made it to JAX, late one evening at checked into our too ritzy hotel the Sawgrass (where the PGA The Players Championship is played.) You know it's not your style (although it was great, and the beds were so plush) when you can't take anything out of the mini bar to make room for your chocolate milk and yogurt, because it electronically gets put on your credit card instantly! oh and you can't find regular parking for the first day so you have to do valet- with two cars full of all the junk you are moving with (front seat with a laundry basket for me, Clay had his backseat taken over by the vacuum, swiffer, bathroom scale, etc!)

Superman was spotted on the Jacksonville Beach!

cool kids. really the sunglasses were practical, the sand was blowing everywhere and wearing glasses was the only way to keep it from blowing in your eyes.

So Strong! he insisted he was too warm- at 67* with wind.

this pelican sat on the pier just posing for pictures.

We are new members of Jax zoo, it is big and there was a ton to see. This was the favorite of the day, you buy a cup of "nector" to feed the lorikeets. Don't pet, they will bite you, and hold on to your cup or they will take it.
The birds were smart, drink from the kids cups but don't climb on their arms (even tho both kids really wanted a bird to land on them, the birds knew it wasn't a good idea!)

at one point he had 4 birds on him, and just barely missed getting pooped on by fly by.

lizards, they make me squeal. they make the kids cry- because we make them let them go after they both caught them out in the sunroom.

monkey, she is a total monkey bar pro! it came out of nowhere, but she does them at all the parks now, by herself! today she also did the rings! how is she big enough to do that?
We took a trip down to St Augustine's Alligator farm. It was pretty neat. We will have to go back so Clay can pay $65 to pull a big Gator out of the water and take a picture with one.

We pet the little one, for free. It had it's mouth taped shut too.

So we are starting to settle in, well as much as you can when you are living temporarily in an unfurnished rental house! The house we were under contract to buy, well as we sat outside of it waiting for our realtor so I could see it- the seller pulled it off the market. That means the house we have paid hundreds on an inspection, planned to make our home and move into at the end of this month is no longer going to happen! shock. Things work out, and there was a back up plan in motion even before any of us knew it. We are working on getting a different house now, and it seems they actually want us to buy it! Bright news is we got internet today, some fancy little thing as big as my cell phone is all we need. no wires, nothing else. love it, amazing technology. I really missed not being able to do anything online for almost 2 weeks, especially in a place where I don't know where anything is. We are all ready to get back to normal, which means having places we go for fun and activities planned, not just watching DVD's, riding around in the car and shopping for the appliances we hopefully can have soon! do you know how awful it is to not have a washer and dryer, what a hassle. I attempted to do the first laundromat trip, it didn't work out. The crazy homeless man flipping me off and yelling "pow POW" at me scared me. We just found the one on base, and it is cheaper too! Off to bed, we have plans to meet up with a friend I haven't seen since before Gabby was born- but who threw my baby shower in Japan!

Floor.

We are on night 2 of living on the floor. The movers were supposed to come Monday, after 9 hours of waiting and trying to call them numerous times they just never showed up. Tuesday the movers came, and boxed up most of our stuff. They did however leave the boxes stacked in front of the beds, and leave the contents of our shed on the back porch (moved 20 feet and put stickers on each item). Clayton can't lift more than 5 pounds for another week, and it rained a whole river during the night. Did I mention both kids have the awful cough that is being spread rampantly around. The humidifier got packed (with water in it I think) because in all of the chaos I must have forgotten to move it from G's room to a hiding spot the movers wouldn't get it. Clay dried all of fishing poles, the shovels, rakes and bikes with a towel and hair dryer so they wouldn't get rusty being packed away wet. They movers came back on Wednesday with their block long truck and loaded up the boxes and the rest of the house (all the furniture)

Presently our 4 bedroom house consists of 2 blow up camping mattresses, 4 pillows and blankets, 3 suitcases of clothes, 2 kid suitcases of toys, a rubbermaid of toiletries and some shoes, a 20inch tv and old dvd player, travel DVD player, spices and some food, oh and the vacuum and cleaning stuff. Oh yes and our computer, and a box that it is sitting on.

Yep we are embracing this minimalist lifestyle. How long have you really ever hung out on the floor comfortably? Well lets just say it isn't that long. We are having fun, and looking forward to the next events of our adventure. We had to schedule our pack out before we knew anything else that would be going on.... like we thought we would have a place to live and settle into in FL. We are working on it still- getting closer to owning the house, it is just super slow. The seller has now said he can't be out of the house (which he is not currently living in!) till the end of Nov. Our realtor is working on finding us a spot to live for a month.... a possible furnished model home? I just hope we know before we drive down there.

Fun news, E has been wearing underpants full time for over a week now- with no accidents. I talked with his teachers last week and asked about him wearing them to school because he was wearing them so much with success at home. We tried it Monday and I was so happy to see him in the same clothes at pick up as he was wearing when I dropped him off. Oh and he was dry when he woke up today too- although we are having him sleep in a diaper. So proud of my boy- he will be 30 months (TWO AND A HALF!) next week. Other school highlights, he tells knock knock jokes, had to be told he couldn't kiss his friends, dances the robot.

Gabby still loves school, and is beyond excited to see all her friends each day. Her class is really into making patterns, she played princess and had her friend Aaron be her Prince. She threw a hysterical fit when the teachers asked her to try kiwi and pineapple for their Fruit salad they made (this week was letter F). She signs 2 bible verses and has the Pledge of Allegiance memorized. Always tells me she didn't have enough time to eat her lunch, I think because she is a bit too social sometimes (I have been having fun making sandwiches and using cookie cutters to cut shapes- I give her the whole sandwich. Today was a halloween cat shape). A Fire engine came to school and everyone got a hat, watched the fireman put on his gear (so they wouldn't be scared of a fireman, it was just Fireman Doug with his gear on!) and got to climb in the truck. She keeps "spelling" things aloud, randomly- no vowels included! I feel like we are in A Birthday For Francis, G even "spelled" something and when I questioned her, told me "I thought you could spell."

I will keep all of you updated on our journey, but not sure what type of internet we will have- because who knows where we will be! Off to my blow up bed, and a blanket since we are all freezing when the temperature inside dips to 72. We are moving South just in time to avoid Winter.

waiting...

We are playing the waiting game. and if you know me, I have very little patience so it is a very frustrating game. Clay put an offer in on a house he fell in love with this past weekend- he walked in and felt it would be perfect for our family. It isn't as grand and huge as the others, it is a home- hopefully our home. The sellers countered- above asking price! What??? This is our first time dealing with home buying so it is all so new. Those real estate shows are such a lie- you don't put an offer in and wait for a phone call back while you go get coffee. Anyways, I am already addicted to Pinterest and have been stalking craigslist to find the perfect things and way to decorate "our" house. Tonight I went from wanting a deep purple dining room to now a navy blue one. In reality, I don't like making decisions and am not a perfectionist so if and when I paint, it will be determined.

No more waiting for it to magically just happen, that I suddenly am in shape and all my clothes fit. It won't happen that way. I stumbled upon some inspirational words the other day "no matter how slow you go, you are still lapping everybody on the couch." I ran last night, it was only 1.3 miles but I didn't stop at all. I didn't do another lap around the neighborhood because a.) I am totally out of shape and b.) it was getting too dark. Tonight I went earlier, and did 2 laps! I took 2 walk breaks, but sprinted 2 short bits too. I need to get back into exercising, and for me the easiest thing to do is just run. I don't have to drive anywhere, just walk outside and run. I need it for me, my confidence, health, energy, and to teach the kids how to be healthy by doing. I am also trying to make better food decisions. My downfall today was hint of lime chips and my 1st ever Starbucks salted carmel mocha. It was alright, but too rich and the price about blew me away. I will stick to making toddy at home, boiling water now that it is chillier in the am and adding a bit of creamer. Positive side, we have been eating lots of beans and vegetables. 2 hours at the park this afternoon and NO snacking after dinner (unheard of for me!)