Weekend!

Once again, we had beautiful weather and a great weekend. On Saturday afternoon, Erin went to a friend's birthday party. Then we just kind of relaxed. Today, we went to the park! Eric worked first shift so he was able to come with us. Emali sulked around a bit, but we've come to expect that from Her Royal Tweenness. Attitude abounds with her these days. Where did my little angel go? Oh, yeah. She's growing up. Anyway, that's a post that could go on forever. Parenting kids is a tough gig.

 Look at Erin fly in the tire swing!

 My little man all smiles in a different tire swing.

 And this is why he was all smiles. His Daddy was pushing him. 

 I know it's a dark pic, but I love it. 

Alvin and Daddy. This boy LOVES his Daddy.

Father's Day 2012

So, today was Father's Day. Unfortunately, Eric had to work a 12-hour shift today, so we were unable to do anything big for him. I made lasagna and fruit cobbler. His favorites. The kids colored him pictures and filled out some questionares I found online. The girls are older, therefore, they have a better idea of the answers to the questions. Alvin, however, was hysterical. I asked him the questions, and he responded. I wrote his answers down.

I have to explain some of these answers. His favorite thing to do is 'drink'. Alvin means Mt Dew. I assure you Eric is NOT a drinker. At all. He never drinks alcohol. I do mean never. He likes to wear "Jeep". Eric has a jeep t-shirt that he wears a lot. When my Dad goes to work he "fan". Your guess is as good as mine. I've got no clue.

Memorial Day 2012

Today is a day of remembrance. A day we remember those who gave their lives for this country. For freedom. May those brave souls rest in peace. It's also a day to remember those who serve today, those who served in the past, and those who will serve in the future. My Grandfather served, two of my uncles served, and my husband served.

Sigh. I miss seeing this. 

We saw TWO, yes two, parades today. Erin was in one with her Girl Scout troop. The other went right by our house. Erin's having a great time with GS so far. I hope she enjoys it as much as I did.

I promise you, if you look close, you can see her. :)

Busy, busy, busy

Well, I've already dropped the ball for 2012. Sorry that I haven't been updating. We've had a crazy hectic few weeks here. On January 5th, I was driving home from Wal-Mart. The guy behind me wasn't paying attention and when I stopped for traffic in front of me, he didn't. He plowed into the rearend of the truck at 40 mph. Luckily, neither Alvin nor I were hurt. Nor was the truck, amazingly. The only damages were Alvin's carseat had to be replaced and our hitch was obliterated.

January 8th was Eric's birthday AND the Broncos/Steelers playoff game. Eric got his birthday wish and the Broncos won. ( I got my revenge the next week when the Patriots wiped the floor with the Broncos)

Eric's blue and orange birthday cake.

Then, it was on to January 11th. The day Eric wrecked the Corolla. It was raining rather badly and he slid off the road and OVER a traffic sign. The Corolla was pretty beat up and is still in the bodyshop being repaired.

Our poor car :(

Since then, we've been a one car family. Because of that, nothing much is really going on here. Eric driving the truck 100+ miles a day has been really hard on our finances. So, we aren't doing much of anything. Now that I'm caught up, I hope to post more regularly. I have TONS of crafting projects planned for this year.



Happy Anniversary...

to me and Eric!

It's been 4 years since I married my best friend. 4 crazy, hectic, wonderful years. We've been through hell and back, but I wouldn't trade any of it. I love you Eric! Here's to 70 more years of adventure!

Where Were You...

Hi there. It's Eric this time. I know you readers rarely hear from me, but today, I'd like to post where I was on September 11, 2001.

I was on the USS Seawolf two-thirds of the way through a 6 month deployment. We were at a port call in Scotland. I was on duty, on watch, when one of the officers came in stating that the towers had been hit by a plane. He had found out through talking to his wife via phone. We all thought he was joking until we saw the front page news in the local Scotland newspaper. We were all pissed off and all wanted to go. Go do what we had been trained to do. We made preperations to leave port as soon as possible. Port call was being ended early.

Military day to day would forever change because of this. While I cannot tell you exactly what happened to my boat mission-wise, I can tell you that our missions changed. We went from a pleasant port call, to being back under the sea. All within a day.

So that's where I was when I found out.  On a submarine, in a foreign country.

Never forget

Whistle While You Work

Oh yes. ERIC GOT THE JOB! Woo hoo! I know some of you are going, "What job?" Well, some backstory. Eric was involuntarily discharged from the Navy on June 15th. So, he was unemployed following that.

Well, the night before, he did a phone interview with AK Steel. The phone interview went VERY well, and the man asked Eric to come in for a face-to-face interview. This was done about a week after we got here to Ohio. Well, since then we've been waiting to hear back from them. Today was the day! They called with an offer and he accepted! We'll get hardcopy of their offer tomorrow in email, but it's a GOOD ONE! Yay!

It's going to suck for Eric since the job is an hour and half from here. But, due to other issues I'm not getting into right now, he's going to half to commute for a while. Anyway, he'll be the Shift Manager for Casting. It's rotating shift work, which sucks. But, they offer medical from DAY ONE! Dental/Vision after 30. We're so flipping excited. We had set a base line on what the lowest we were willing to accept was and they offered well above that. So we're good to go! Yay. He has a few medical appointments there to finalize the hiring process, but that should go well and he should start working soon.

I'm going to miss having him around all the time, but him having something to do is great!

As sands through the hourglass...

So are the days of my life. *giggle* So, those of you that know us (or paid attention to various posts) know. Eric was diagnosed with trigeminal neuralgia back in September 2009. (Wow has it really been THAT long?). Because of this, he has to take an anti seizure medication called Tegretol. He was subsquently removed from both submarine and nuclear duty. The process that was supposed to take 6-8 weeks has FINALLY come to a conclusion.

Last week, we recieved Eric's official disqualification papers for both submarine and nuclear duty. Effective Feb 18, 2011. This meant he needed to rerate or attempt to qualify for LimDu (limited duty) again to seek a new treatment we had found out about. Unfortunately, today he was denied a second LimDu period. So, as of 1pm this afternoon, Eric will be rerating. He will begin this process sometime this week. He's hoping for either CTN, GSM, or MM (non nuke). Once he gets his new rating, we will then be able to pick out orders. So, looks like we'll be moving away from Groton sometime in the foreseeable (soon) future. I know that he's upset with losing the nuclear part of his designation. It's something he truly loved. But he's picked out a few ratings he thinks he'd enjoy just as much. I am grateful that if the Navy just forces him to the non-nuke side of his previous rate, he'll be happy. We've still got many years til retirement.

So, I will keep you all updated as things progress. Hopefully, it wont be another 18 months before something happens.

Eric's Birthday

So, Eric turned a whole whopping 31 yesterday. So, for the next few weeks, I get to torment him incessantly about being 31 and I'm not. Granted, my own 31st isnt that far off. Anyway, it was a good birthday for him. At least he says so anyway. We got about 8 inches of snow in the overnight before his birthday. So he got to play with the snowblower. Then everyone went sled riding, and built a snowman. Later on, the kids and I made him a chocolate fudge cake.

I covered it in carmel frosting and made fondant stars that I had the girls write message on with food markers. It was very very very sweet. Then the girls gave him their homemade birthday gifts. I had given him his Christmas/Birthday present on Christmas. Yes, cheap I know, except, it wasnt. I bought him an Invicta SubAqua watch. Yes, I bought him a watch. He's been wanting a good watch for a while though. So, I bought him one. But because of the amount I spent on it, I combined it into both Christmas/Birthday.

Happy Anniversary

To me and Eric! Today marked our third anniversary together. CRAZY! I really cannot believe it's been three years. I still love this man as much as I did that day.

We celebrated by going out to the Hard Rock Cafe at Foxwoods Casino. This was made possible by the WONDERFUL Jackie. She and her hubby (Ryan) watched our monster so we could have a few hours to ourselves.

LONG weekend

We had a wonderfully enjoyable LONG weekend. We spent it cleaning out the garage, watching movies, playing the Wii, and just spending time together as a family. We ended the long weekend by heading out to Bluff Point. It was such a nice day today we couldnt resist. Below are some pictures from that. The girls and I also spent some time tonight making Halloween wreaths. They wont be fully dry until tommorrow, so I'll post about them then.

The view from the beach at Bluff Point
Eric and Alvin playing with Charley in the water

Charley just LOVED the water.

Time flies...

So, it's been a very busy and interesting weekend. The kids and I went to Pittsburgh to the zoo again on Friday morning. They had an absolute blast. Erin loves the cats. Her favorite is the tiger. Emali, once again, wanted to spend the whole time in the shark tunnel. Alvin's favorite? The train ride. He LOVES it. He kept making the 'toot-toot' sign. (Ie, pump your hand up and down like you're pulling on the train whistle's rope). He didnt want to get off the train. I really need to find an actual train to take him on.

Alvin on the train. He loved it.





Friday night Eric got in around 8pm. The look on Alvin's face was priceless. He got all excited, then stopped and looked at me and the girls. Like "Are you seeing this too?" He got all excited again when he realized it wasnt his imagination. Eric spent the rest of the evening playing with the kids while I got homemade pizza rolls in the oven.

Saturday we got up bright and early to head to Beaver Falls, PA to a place called Meiter's to pick up a hitch for the van. Then we came back home for a little while and then it was off to Grandma's. We spent most of the rest of the day at Grandma's. I couldnt tell you what all we did after we got home. We just did so many odds and ends this weekend, that I dont remember when some of the littler ones were done.

Sunday. Oh Sunday. We discovered we had a leak in a pipe, so we had to drive to Home Depot (yet again) to get supplies to fix it. Then I spent the afternoon cleaning up while Eric attempted to put the hitch on the van. Let me just say this, if the framing bolts dont want to come off, you cannot MAKE them come off. So, after HOURS of trying to remove the bolts required to put the hitch on, Eric gave up. He's taking the van to CT and going to remove the bolts at the hobby shop on base. Then we got ready and headed to Columbiana to see the fireworks. Alvin just loved the ones that went BOOM! but he spent most of his time trying to find the train. Since you could hear it, but not see it. After the fireworks, we went home and let the girls play with their sparklers.

Eric and I in Columbiana waiting to watch the fireworks.

The girls and me waiting for the fireworks to start.

Alvin playing with a light up thing we got the kids.

Today. *sigh* Today, we finished up the 'honey do' list and said "goodbye" again to Eric. It's only been a few hours since he left, and already there is a void. He completes the family. We miss him terribly while he's gone and we cannot wait for an end to this geobach.

FYI, if any of you milspouses out there are considering a geobach, DONT! Do whatever you can/it takes to stay with your spouse. Trust me in this.

Happy Father's Day

I just wanted to take a second to say "Happy Father's Day" to my wonderful husband. I know it's only your second 'official' Father's Day, but you are a wonderful father to Alvin and the girls. We love you and miss you so very much. I cant wait til we can be with you again.

Alvin, Feb 5, 2008

Eric and Alvin, Feb 5, 2008

WBW - 1989

That's right. Once again it's WayBack Wendesday(WBW). This time, however, Eric is being featured. I dont know much about this photo, other than it was taken in 1989 when he was 9 years old. He was sooo cute back then. What happened?? *grin*

Eric got a tattoo!

Yes, you read that right. Eric is now an ink wearing member of society. He's been wanting to get this tattoo for a long time. The time was finally right. Since some of you dont know what you're looking at, I figured I'd help you out. Submariners call them 'dolphins', but the US Navy officially call it the submarine warfare insignia pin. This means a lot to Eric. He worked very hard to get his 'dolphins' and now they will forever be a part of him.

Tattoo done by Frank of the Spirit Gallery LLC, in New London, CT.

TatT: Eric's Spaghetti Sauce

I'm participatin in Tuesdays at the Table (TatT) this week. I had Eric make me his famous spaghetti sauce while he was home! I was able to freeze 3 more servings of it too! Yummo!

Ingredients:

1 lb of ground beef

1 pound of sasuage (we used Sweet Italian)

1 large oinion (we used a sweet oinion)

4 cloves of garlic

4 various color bell peppers

1 large jar of spaghetti sauce ( the biggest one they sell!)
1 package of fresh mushrooms, or 1 large portabella

Step One: Dice the oinion and sautee it , over low heat, in 1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil. While it starts to sautee, dice the garlic and add it to the pan.


Step Two: While the oinion and garlic sautee, dice up the peppers and mushrooms

Step Three: Add the ground beef and sausage to the garlic/oinion in the frying pan. Heat over medium heat until browned. Do not drain.

Step Four: Add it all into a large stock pot with the jar of sauce. Simmer for 1 hour stirring frequently.

Step 5: Boil your choice of noodles or rice, and serve! Garnish with shredded cheese if wanted. Yum!

What we've been up to!

Since Eric came home (on leave) Tuesday, we've been insanely busy. Busy, busy, busy. We had a great time though. Almost an entire week on leave. Wow. I cant believe it. The time went so fast. I dont want him to go, but go he must. Thought you all might enjoy some collages on what we've been doing.

Eric got really busy on Wednesday/Thursday doing the tilling for the flower beds and the vegetable garden we are putting in. He didnt get it all tilled, so I'll have to finish it in the next few days.

Top from the left: Eric playing around in the garden; Alvin helping with the garden; Charley laying in the garden.

Bottom from left: Eric tilling the flower beds; Eric tilling the garden; A double of Eric playing around in the garden

Then, on Friday night, we took the kids to Hilltop Drive In in Chester, WV. It was Alvin's first time at the drive in. He loved it! He stayed awake til about halfway through the second movie. How to Train Your Dragons was a GREAT movie. Iron Man 2 was so-so. Eric liked it, but it's not the best super hero movie I've ever seen.

Top from left: Eric and Alvin at the Drive In; Emali and Alvin; Alvin watching Dragons

Bottom from left: The kids playing; Erin; Emali

Saturday, we drove the Lima, OH for the 25th Annual 4 Wheel Jamboree. Alvin just LOVES monster trucks, so we had to take him. The 4.5 hour drive was rough, but it was all worth it when we saw his face as he saw the trucks.

Top from left: Alvin in Bigfoot's tire; Alvin watching the monster trucks; Eric and the kids standing in front (under) Bigfoot

Bottom from left: Eric with Raminator; Alvin passed out on the way home; Bigfoot

Today, we took the kids to the Cleveland Zoo. We had a blast there. I am definitely going to be taking the kids back there. Even though it's a 1.5 hour drive, it's well worth the drive. We got to see the rare Titan Arum (corpse flower) bloom. So, that was cool. They also have an animatronic dinosaur exhibit that the kids just loved.

Top from left: Alvin playing on a slide, Titan Arum (corpse flower), Eric and I on the train

Bottom from left: Baby Koala; the girls on the train; Red Panda

Feels good...

to get it off my shoulders.

Yes, yes, it does. I finally swallowed my pride and gathered the courage to call my sister-in-law. She didnt answer, but she did call back! We talked for a couple of hours about everything that had gone on, everything that was planned to go on. Well, about everything really. I feel so much better now that we talked. So, Karen, if you read this. "I love you! Thanks for taking a couple of hours out of your time to talk to me."

Now, onto something that is bugging me. I have been getting regular emails from Eric. But, apparently, he isnt getting any from me. I send 1-2 a day so I can only assume that 1) they are sending, not receiving, or 2) they are withholding my emails for some reason. I am going to assume its 1, because 2 is just wrong in so many ways. Is this normal? For them to send but not receive? I just feel so bad because the last one I got was him begging me to email him. *sigh* Made me cry, oh yes it did. Hopefully, they are just not receiving and when they do, he will get spammed. But seriously, is that normal? Cause yeah, I have no clue.

One of those days

Yes, this is going to be a beatdown, depressing post. So, feel free to turn back now.

Today is one of those days. I hate my life, I hate the Navy, I hate that I am the one that has to deal with everything. I sit here and look at my children and ask myself, "Why in the hell did I think it was going to be ok to raise these kids without a father?" No, I know they have one. Eric is a wonderful father and a fantastic husband. But, he isnt here. He is an email every couple of days, a picture on the wall, and dirty clothes in the basket. He is a voice on voicemail, a save game file on the Playstation and an empty spot in the bed. Yet, I love him more than I thought possible. I just hate that I have to do this alone. Find a house, sign the lease, pack up this house, move to the new house, sell the Jeep, sell the Kia, transfer Emali's school file, take Alvin to Yale, take Alvin to Cranial Tech, take Alvin to other random appointments, try to find SOME time to spend with Erin. Housetrain the dog, take the cats to get spayed, call housing to argue that we are eligible for a move, etc etc etc.

I know I can do it. Its not that. I want Eric to be a part of it. I want him to be here. I want a husband, not a part time husband. So, today, I sit here and wallow. Yes, its a funk. It will pass as fast as it has come. But, for right now. I despise the Navy. I despise being away from my family. I want a normal life. Then again, maybe I dont. I dont know. Just right now, I want my husband home.

I can breathe, finally!

Ok, some of you know the whole Balfour Beatty housing thing. In fact, I think most of you know, so, there is no point in beating a dead horse. Well, the whole situation has me so stressed out, that it constantly feels like I am being squashed in a vice. Last night, that changed.

I had just left Chuck E. Cheese with the kids. I was getting everyone in the van and trying not to flip out, when I felt my phone vibrate. My inital thought was, "Who the f^*k is calling me?" Then, it rang. (I have my phone set to vibrate for 2 rings, then 2 for 2 rings). Holy crap. It was Eric's ring tone. After staring at the screen in disbelief, I answered and heard "Hey Baby". I immediately started crying.

I told Eric all about the housing situation and being jerked around. I told him everything that I could think of with this whole mess. He calmed me down and we formed a plan. He is going to talk to the command and at least let them know what is going on. I am going to take the house only if I have no other choice.

I tell you, nothing beats a 3 hour phone call in the evening, especially when you arent expecting it. We talked, and laughed. I cried. He told me that its going to be ok. He won't be gone forever. That I can do this. Then he called me a dork and I laughed some more. The conversation wasnt nearly as long as I would have liked, but, I am grateful that I was able to talk to him at all.

I love you Eric. Thank you, I can finally breathe.

PS. figured I'd add some pics from CEC.

Alvin eating a french fry.

Erin the pizza bandit. Grab and go.

The only pic of Emali I could get.