Great 2 Weeks!!!!

What a fabulous two weeks we just had! Joel left about 48hrs ago and is back in Iraq now. I'm not sure if he's made it back to his base yet, or is waiting for a flight to his base, but he is in Iraq. Funny how they got him back there so quickly, but it took so long to get him here...

At the Children's Museum





We had so much fun when he was home. It was nice to have two weeks where he didn't have to work and we could pretty much do what we wanted... We went whale watching for my birthday. It was pretty neat. We didn't see anything spectacular, just a few tail slaps, but it was still cool. We went out to dinner as a family that night and had a great steak dinner. I got to eat for free, because it was my birthday... We went to the zoo one day and let Isaac pick where he wanted to go, which he really enjoyed... We went to the children's museum another day and Isaac was in heaven. Two hrs. of non-stop play, play, play!!!...We went to the beach one morning and the boys had fun building sand castles and swimming, while mommy watched. I took some pretty great pictures!...Joel and I went out on a date Saturday night. We went to eat at a restaurant called Sam Chuy's. It's Pacific Explosion food. Which pretty much means, fancy Hawaiian food. I stuck with steak, I figured it was the safest! After dinner, we went to the movies and watched "The Blind Side". If you haven't seen it, I suggest you do! AWESOME movie!!!! Well, not exactly the movie, but the story that the movie is based on. It was wonderful. I was crying at the end. Poor Joel says, "if we weren't in public, I would be bawling right now.". It really is that good!









Isaac also started preschool. He started a week later than we had planned. I got the physical paper filled out for him, but then his teachers were going to be at training for 3 days, so we decided to wait until the 19th to let him start. He seems to like it. Some mornings he gets sad when I have to leave and he cries, but usually he's good and then when I pick him up he's very excited!!! We've started introducing him to the potty. They take him every hour at school, but we're not that regimistic here. He has gone potty for us probably 5 or 6 times though.


First day of preschool.

So, we had a little car trouble last week. On Tuesday night, we were going to the Stake Center to get our temple recommends renewed and as I was backing into a parking spot, there's a loud bang and I look in my rearview mirror to see my window busted out! I had hit a palm tree! It was rainy and dark outside and this tree was right in my blind spot. I hit the tree at the exact perfect spot to bust my window. In the bottom right hand corner of the window, where it meets the tail gate. There was probably only one inch of the tree I could touch and I did it! Joel called me a miracle worker. Still not sure how I did it! Total fluke!!! So, because it was an at fault collision, we have to pay $500 deductible to get it fixed and it will take 4 days to fix, because they have to fix the tail gate too. Thankfully we have Joel's car as a back up. We decided to get the oil changed in it on Saturday morning. After waiting for 2hrs, they finally come out and ask if we had problems with the drivers side window. They had rolled it down and could only get it half way up. We had to order a $140 part to fix it and we have plastic taped across it now. I feel like I should put "FARM USE ONLY" plates on my cars for a while and yell, "here come the hillbillies" every time I drive down the road! LOL!
Broken Van Window

That pretty much sums up our last two weeks! Hope everyone is doing well.

Loving the heat and sun.....

So glad to finally be back to our home! We had a wonderful vacation and I'm so thankful we were able to do that, but it's always nice to get back home....

We ended up having to buy commercial airline tickets for all but the flight out of Hawaii, because military flights just weren't working for us. However, the tickets we were able to purchase were all on sale and we still ended up saving probably $1000.


Isaac had so much fun playing with his cousins, grandparents and aunts and uncles. I am so glad he had the opportunity to do that. He certainly made lots of memories and I took a few pictures to help him remember... Probably some of the most memorable was Animal Kingdom in FL and playing in the snow in WV. He keeps asking for everybody now that we're home. Too bad we all can't live closer together.

All 15 Grandkids

We got home Friday afternoon and just relaxed for a few hrs. at home. Then went out for dinner and grocery shopping that evening. Isaac fell asleep on the way home from the store and slept until 9am the next morning, about 13hrs...Saturday was busy with running errands. We had school shirts to buy, Isaac got a haircut, and we had to buy a new carseat. Isaac's was broken on the flight from Orlando to CA. (One of the arm rests was broken off, so there's just sharp plastic sticking up poking him in the arm. Technically, I could finish breaking it off and it would be usable. I think I will do that and put it in Joel's car as a spare.) So we had to do compairison shopping at about 4 different stores. We ended up getting an Eddie Bauer adjustable high back booster from the NEX. It was $95, but they were having a $10 off sale. However, when they rang it up, it came up as $75. I think we got a pretty good deal. It's one of the seats that starts out as a 5pt. harness, then switches to a high back booster, then just a booster. It should last for a few years... Our stroller also got broken on the first flight from CA to FL. It's just the handle and it still opens and is usable, so we're not going to replace that one just yet.




Isaac is supposed to start school tomorrow, but I think that is going to be put on hold. The school needs him to have a physical before he can start. Well, they told me this the week after he had his 3yr well child check-up, just days before I left on my trip. So, I dropped the papers off at Tripler and told them what I needed and to send the papers to my house when they were completed. I figured there was no need to do a new physical, he had just had one. However, there are no papers here at my house from Tripler, so I guess they never got filled out and mailed back. I also had left a prescription for PT with them and the therapist hasn't received them either. I should have known better than to drop them off at the front desk. I should have hand delivered them to the doctor myself!

The next few weeks should be quite exciting and fun in our house! Joel comes home for R&R for two weeks! He'll be here sometime towards the end of the week. We won't know definitely until probably Tues. or Wed. what day he will be here. We're planning on having Christmas, going out of dates, celebrating my birthday and going whale watching. It should be a wonderful time and I'm very excited for it!

Hope everyone is doing well!

sitting in the parking lot of Panera Bread....

The 10 littlest grandchildren

So, we made it up to WV last week to visit with my family. Apparently WV really wanted me to miss Hawaii, because since I've been here, we've had one day that it has been above 40. It was below zero with the windchill factor the other day. I was told that it wasn't this cold until I got here. What a greeting!!!

Today Isaac and I are in VA, shopping. We came here to meet up with our old friends Crystal and Matt and baby Asher. We ate lunch with them, and then Isaac and I went to Kohls shopping. On our 2 minute car ride from Kohls to Walmart, Isaac fell asleep, so I'm parked in the Panera Bread parking lot using their wi-fi. I figured it's not cheating, I did eat lunch here earlier today.

Things are going well for us. Isaac is enjoying spending time with all of his cousins. What a treat that is.

Joel is doing well too. He's enjoying his new church calling. And he just finished up taking a history class. He'll take another class in Jan.

We're here until Jan.1, then we fly back down to FL. until Jan. 6th, when we fly to CA. Once we get to CA, it will be another waiting game to see how long it takes us to catch a military flight back to HI. Hopefully, it will only take a day, because Isaac is supposed to start school on the 11th, and Joel will be coming home for R&R on the 16th. If it takes too many days, I may just have to pay commercial to get back home. I sure hope not though.

Well, time to wake my kid up and finish shopping so we can head back across the moutain. Hope everyone is doing well!

Thanksgiving

What a wonderful day it was. Our dinner wasn't until this evening, so we got to relax most of the day. I tried to stay clear of the kitchen, so I didn't get in the way. I contributed my part yesterday, by peeling and slicing apples for the apple pie and peeling and slicing vegetables for the stuffings, and helping with a few other things.

Dinner was really yummy and not crazy! It was just with Joel's parents and sister and his Aunt and her family. So, 10 adults and Isaac. Not bad all. We took family pictures before dinner which turned out really nice. I don't have a shot of the group picture though.

Me, Mimi and Jill


Our family (minus Joel)



Isaac had lots of fun today. We tried to take him to the park that's around the block, but it was locked and he was throughly upset. He knew where we were going and he was excited to play. So, when we got back to the house, Pop put together a tricycle I had bought for him as a christmas gift to stay at Mimi and Pop's house. Isaac was beyond thrilled. His feet are still too short to pedal, but he loves to push himself around the house and has mastered the 3pt. turn.

So excited that his bike was almost ready to ride!

Joel had a fun Thanksgiving too, considering where he is. They had a Turkey Bowl and played football. Then, his shop all had lunch together and they made them Thanksgiving dinner. After work he was able to Skype with us for a little over an hour....I am so thankful for modern technology that allows us to be able to keep in touch with each other.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!!!

Fun @ Animal Kingdom

On Friday we decided to go to Animal Kingdom. We went to Magic Kingdom in May and quite honestly, I'm not so impressed. You have mobs and mobs of crowds, with very little things to do for small kids. There are the occassional play areas, but I think we'll wait a few more years before we go back there....So, since Isaac loves animals, I thought we should try Animal Kingdom. It was fantastic!!! The weather was perfect. It may have gotten up to 80, but it was very comfortable! And the crowds were not bad at all. In fact, we didn't have to wait for anything that we wanted to do. We got right in line and got on. We did the Safari ride to see all of those animals. We did the train ride to the conservation area to see the petting zoo. We saw the Lion King show, which was incredible (and Isaac was so tired he fell asleep, but he loved what he did see!) We played in Dino Land and did some rides there. AND, we saw tons of Disney characters and got our pictures taken with them. Isaac loved them. He was so excited! He especially loved Thumper the bunny. He still gets a big smile on his face when he sees the pictures.

Hugging Thumper

Florida has been so much fun. We've been doing lots of shopping and way too much eating! In fact, I think I've gained back those pounds that I lost. (Time to get myself under control again.) I've also been doing some crafting. I made a countdown to Christmas tree. It should be complete within the next day or two. The sign that says "Days Til Christmas" is being painted as we speak. I also made a christmas wreath for Joel and colored some ornaments with Isaac to send to Joel. And I started on a plaque to hang on our wall at home. I wanted one that said "Families are Forever" and I got the idea to make one from my friend Sarah. I've got everything done to it, except for the lettering. My friend Becky has a Cricit, so I'm supposed to get together with her in the next few days and she's going to help me with the letters.

I've finished all of the shopping for Joel. Two boxes were mailed out on Saturday and another will be ready to send soon. He also has a pair of running shoes that are being mailed directly to him from the place I purchased them.

Joel is doing pretty good. He had a few rough weeks, where he was having issues with one of his Captains, but after some intervention and a long sit down talk, everything has gotten better and they are now friends....He is preparing to run a marathon in March, so he's starting to run a lot for that. He also has a bike, so he's been biking a lot, which saves him lots of time going to and coming from work, which gives us more free time to talk!

Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Relaxing in FL...

Isaac playing with Scout, his partner in crime!
We finally made it! We got here around 11pm Saturday night...Some of you were probably tracking the whole fiasco on Facebook, but I'll go ahead and tell you about it again. Our original plan to get here was to fly from Hawaii to San Diego and then from there to Jacksonville, all by military flights. Well, the flight to San Diego was changed from Tuesday to Monday and I was not able to make it because of other commitments for that day. So, the next flights to California were to Travis AFB. They were scheduled for Wed. Thurs. and Fri. My plan was to get there and take a flight to FL if they had one or fly commercial if I could find cheap tickets. Well, it ended up Travis didn't have any flights to FL for those days, so I ended up finding one way tickets for $220/person from Sacramento, which was about 40 min. from Travis. It wasn't all flights out of Sacramento, just a few each day...Anyhow, Wed. flight from HI only had 1 seat open, which doesn't work when there are 2 people. So, Thursday had 2 flights. We went down to the base at 5:30 for the first flight, which had 9 seats available. So, I signed up and my name was #3 on the list. As they started doing roll call, I was called to the counter and when I gave them my paperwork they said, "Sorry ma'am, we called you out of order. You're just a spouse, not enlisted." I had to step back and wait for them to continue down the list. Before they got back to my name, they had filled the 9 seats. They told me that the 11pm flight for later in the night had 40 seats on it and I was pretty much guaranteed a spot. So, we went back home and had some dinner then went back at 11pm. This time my name was #2 on the list. However, I was not called as #2. I had to wait until all of the enlisted people traveling with their families were called first, then it was my turn. The guy checked me in and then asked how old Isaac was and how much he weighed. I told him he was 3 and he weighed 27lbs. He told me to hold on a minute and then walked away. He came back a few minutes later and said that they needed to weigh Isaac. They weighed him and sure enough 27lbs. The guy then looked at me and said, "sorry, you can't go on this flight, we have too many infants. Isaac is #8 and we only have 7 infant life vests. He needs to weigh 35 lbs. Do you understand?" Of course, being highly aggrevated by this I said ,"Yes I understand. If my husband were here we would be on the plane." He said "No you wouldn't, you would still be #8." Wrong! My husband outranked more than half the other enlisted guys, we would have been on that plane.

So, the next flight out was 6am. We went home and slept til 4:30 then got up and went back down to try again. This flight had 13 seats. So, I went and put my name on the list again. I told them how I had been called for the last 2 flights, but had gotten booted from both and the reasons why. Then they said, "oh, you're traveling with a kid. How old is he and how much does he weigh? There are no infants allowed on this flight." Knowing that the "infant" cut off was 35lbs. I just about lost my mind! I said fine, then how many seats are open on the next flight, "zero". Great, now what? The next flights out aren't until Monday!...So, then the nice girl says, just wait a minute, I will call to see if they'll make an exception. After a few phone calls, she came out to the lobby and said, "you're going!!!"...I honestly have no idea what the big deal was with no infants. We were on a commercial airplane that had been converted for military use. The first 15ft. of seats had been removed. Other than that, it was perfectly fine. There were rows of seats and windows, just like any other commercial plane and they had oxygen masks and life vests! It was actually a fantastic flight! They don't require you to stay seated, so Isaac got to run around. They even took him to the cockpit for a few minutes.

We landed in California at 4pm. and they shuttled us by bus to the terminal. After going inside, I asked about transportation to the hotel. It was only a 10 minute walk, but with 2 suitcases, a stroller, a carseat, a back pack, a diaper bag, a purse and a 3yr old, that walk was impossible! So, the nice people at the desk called a cab for me. While waiting for it to arrive, I decided to go ahead and give the hotel a call, just to double check about rooms. I had called a couple of days earlier and they said I didn't have to make a reservation, just to get a room when I got there, they had hundreds open. Much to my surprise, when I asked about a room, they said they were booked up!..HMMMM? Now what was I supposed to do? I had only factored in enough money to stay at this hotel, on base, and not one on the economy, in Napa, CA!!!!! So, in tears, I called Latrisha, my cousin, who just got married in June and moved to Napa where her husband is from. She said they had an air mattress if I didn't mind sleeping on their floor. They were going to come pick us up, but it would probably be an hour or two. I let the people at the desk know what was going on and the nice manager opened up the dependents lounge for Isaac and I to stay in until they got there. It was a room with toys, tv's, movies, cribs, couches, recliners, etc....and we had it to ourselves!..

While we were waiting I went ahead and called Mimi and Pop and they helped me make reservations to fly out of Sacramento the next morning....I went ahead and called the main gate to let them know who was coming to pick me up and what kind of car. When Trish got there though, they wouldn't let her on, because she had just switched her car over to CA plates and insurance and she didn't have her insurance card yet. Well, I asked how far the main gate was from the terminal and the people at the desk said 2 miles, but you can call a cab...There was a nice couple who were there inquiring about flying Space A to Hawaii and they overheard the conversation and asked where I needed to get to. I explaned to them what was going on and the guy asked his wife if it would be ok for him to take us to the gate. She agreed and we went and loaded all of our stuff into his truck and started for the gate. While driving he was asking where we were from and all that stuff. I explained we were coming from Hawaii and going to FL and that Joel was deployed. He asked me if I had a church family in HI to help out while Joel was gone. I told him that I did. He then said, "Are they LDS?"!!! He was the bishop of one of the local singles wards there in CA!!!!...

So, we make it out to Trish and Rob and get everything loaded into their car and start for their house. We stopped for the Chick-fil-A on the way. We watched Ice Age 3 when we got there, then went to bed. The next morning we got up and drove to Sacramento to catch our flight to FL. We had no issues at all in Sacramento and arrived in Dallas to switch planes with plenty of time. It was supposed to be 40 minutes from the time we landed until our connecting flight took off and it was in a different terminal. The flight attendant told me how to get there and we breezed right through the airport. We arrived at our gate just as they announced they were having mechanical trouble and it would be a few minutes before we would start to board. Well, an hour and a half later, we got to take off. Isaac slept from the time we took off until we landed! It was great!....He was so excited to see his Mimi and Pop and Aunt Bean. I stopped the stroller and let him get out and he ran down the hallway yelling, "Mimi, Mimi" and jumped into her arms! It was precious!!!

So, although it was quite a trip and I never want to go through that again by myself, I can definitely see where people were put there throughout to help me get through!!!! And believe me, I have been very thankful for it while saying my prayers!!!

I've decided that I'm flying commercial back to CA. I've found tickets for $120. Once we get there, we'll fly military back to HI. Since I know what day I will be arriving, I can go ahead and reserve a room this time. Hopefully it won't take but a day or two to get back to HI from there.

For now, we are enjoying our time here in FL. We're still adjusting to the time change, but we're almost where we need to be. We've been eating good food and doing some shopping. Can't wait for payday Fri. so I can do Christmas shopping for Joel and get a box mailed to him.

On a final note, I've noticed people on facebook have been doing posts about things they are thankful for. I'm going to go ahead and do that here. I'm thankful for the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I'm thankful for the power of forgiveness. I'm thankful for the power of prayers. I'm thankful for the Holy Ghost who gives us comfort when we need it most. I am especially thankful for my husband who realizes that some of things in his life need changed and that he is working very hard to make those changes...Honey, I know you can do it! Remember to continue praying and reading and I will do the same!

Hope everyone is having a good week. Sorry it's such a long post, but it was a crazy week!!!

Trying to get home....

We're still hanging out in Hawaii, trying to catch a military flight to California. I was told when I signed up for the program, that the Air Force has flights to CA daily. They have had 1 in the last week and they only had 1 open seat on it and that was tonight...They have 2 more scheduled for tomorrow night, but they have not released how many seats they have open yet. Hopefully, we will be able to get on one of those. Because we will have missed the connecting military flights to FL, we are going to fly commercial out of Sacramento. We can get one way tickets for $200/person. That is, every day except Friday!!! Thankfully, it only cost $30 to stay in the hotel on base. And my cousin Trish lives 25 miles from base, so she is going to take us to the airport, which is a huge blessing!...Tickets are going for about $800/person now to fly commercial from here to FL. Even if we end up getting one way tickets from FL back to CA, we will still end up saving hundreds of dollars! Our plan is to try to catch Air Force flights back though.

Isaac was Wubbzy for Halloween


So, Isaac had a blast on Halloween! Isaac loves to knock on doors and ring door bells all the time, so being able to do so without getting in trouble was great! But, people giving him candy for ringing their door bell, was fabulous! In fact he liked it so much, he tried to do it again on Sunday. He was trying to run to a house while we were at the park and he was yelling "trick -or -treat"... There's one certain house by the park that has a bunch of single guys in it. He knocks on their door so often, that they know his name. When we stopped by on Saturday when we were trick or treating, they said "hi Isaac". Then he went back on Monday evening and knocked and when they opened the door he ran inside! They wouldn't let him leave without giving him candy.