Officially a First Class Petty Officer

The day has finally come where they frocked Mark. It only took them a good two weeks! Can you believe it? I never thought they took so long to frock the sailors. I always heard of it being done within a week at most.
Mark was officially named a First Class Petty Officer! YAY!!! I am so excited and proud of him and for him. He has worked so hard to get to where he is today. I think he feels a sense of relief that he has finally made it. Now he can sort of take a breather and relax for a minute. I only took a couple of pictures at the frocking because we were on the wrong side....OF COURSE! We got there with about 5 minutes to spare, which was cutting it a little too close for me. I hate running late and just barely making it somewhere. I couldn't find my ID, and if I hadn't found it, we wouldn't have been able to attend the frocking that I insisted and threw a fit about. I'm such a brat, I know. Mark just seemed to make excuses about us going until I said...fine we just won't go. You don't want us there, so we won't go. Again...I'm such a brat. If I hadn't found my ID it would have been karma coming back around to kick my ass for being such a big brat about it all. But what matters is that we made it just in the nick of time and Mark did want us there after all. I guess he's just a man and doesn't know how to say exactly what it is he wants or needs or thinks or feels. Ah, but I love him anyway, and he loves the big brat I am too. So, here are the 2 pictures I took. Take a look at that nice clean, pressed uniform with all the stripes on it! lol. (BTW, I didn't clean it or press it, the cleaners did! I can't take credit for that. haha) I even brought the big hot shot first class some dinner tonight. I'm so nice. :D

Home Again

The Thanksgiving vacation is now over. *Big sigh of relief* It was a long weekend. Good, but long. We spent Wednesday-Friday in Carlsbad, CA. It was a different experience. We are used to staying with Laura anytime we are in the area, but this time we stayed in a condo. Mark's Grandma Sharon very graciously offered us the timeshare condo that she had reserved for that weekend. It was a nice little place and would be a great vacation spot for small families who don't know anyone in the area. Anyway. Thanksgiving at Laura's was good, as usual. I made the broccoli casserole that I usually do. Although this time around it seemed like I was doing so much more work. Its funny how our memories of things aren't always so clear. lol. The casserole turned out great, as usual. It is delicious, that's for sure. We spent all of Thursday at Laura's just hanging out.

Friday we spent a large portion of the day at Legoland. The boys had a blast and we (the adults) had fun as well. I didn't think that it would have been very busy considering it was Black Friday and all. Apparently massive sales don't stop people from taking their kids out to have a good time. haha. The lines for the rides were incredibly long. Austyn could barely make it through the first line that was about 45 minutes long or so. We didn't do a whole lot, unfortunately. The wait times for the lines were about an hour long or more. The boys (Mark included) had a great time on the firetruck show or whatever you want to call it. They were the first to arrive at the "burning" building, the first to put the fire out in their window and the first to get back to the finish line. Taylor was really excited about that. I told Mark it was a good thing that they won because if they hadn't we might have had a grumpy kid on our hands for the rest of the day. lol.

Friday evening we spent with our best friends in San Diego. I haven't seen them in about 4 months or so and Mark hasn't seen them since April! It was so good to see them and catch up on everything. The kids had a blast, because they are all such great friends.

Saturday we spent the entire day driving. There was SO much traffic. The only drawback from visiting with family during the holidays is the long drive along with the traffic. It's great and all to see the family, but it sucks that we have to sit in the car for hours on end with cramped legs. Not to mention gas prices are outrageous as usual!

Well, the holiday is over, so now we prepare for Christmas! It'll be nice to have Mark home for it, but it really stinks because he is leaving for ten days soon. He has to go back out to the ship. Can you believe that? They just came home and here they go, right back out again. BLAH!

Holiday Chaos

So, I take it that "The Holidays" are now upon us. I ran out into town today to run a few errands and WOW, can you say major traffic jam. Everywhere I went there was no parking and there were cars and people everywhere.
Thanksgiving is just a few days away and we will be braving the dreaded traffic to go down and visit with family. I thought I would be getting out of cooking a Thanksgiving dinner, but boy was I wrong. We have a friend Dave who is a single sailor and he has been eating Thanksgiving dinner with us for as long as we can remember. Well, since we have been here I guess I should say. He was shocked when I said we weren't cooking dinner and he couldn't come over! LOL. So, Mark thought that we couldn't leave him hanging, so he said that I would make him a dinner!!! Can you believe that? Men and the things they say and volunteer their wives to do. haha. Actually I don't mind at all. So, tomorrow I will be cooking a Thanksgiving dinner for his co-workers. How nice of me right? They better be thankful. :)
Tonight I will bake some cookies for them too. He has a friend who is constantly requesting that I bake snicker doodles for her. She mentioned that her birthday is on the 26th, and that's what she wants as a gift. Its funny how people just assume that you will give them a gift. Actually she is a really nice lady and she always appreciates the cookies and goodies I send with Mark. Gosh, I'm such a great wife....right? :D
So amongst all other things Austyn has decided tonight that he no longer wishes to eat pizza. He has a good reason for a 2 1/2 year old. He says that he doesn't want to eat his pizza because there is blood on it! He thinks that the pizza sauce is blood. I explained to him about a million and one times that it is sauce, kind of like ketchup. He still refused. He wiped off most of the sauce and nitpicked around the so-called blood. He's hilarious.
That about sums it up for today.

Acheivements

This last weekend was a great weekend. Mark had his PRT (Physical Readiness Test) on Friday and passed. He also found out that he made First Class Petty Officer, which is AWESOME! I was very happy when he told me that he made it. It is a very big accomplishment for him. He is also the MWR president for his command, so he runs the functions to keep morale up. Part of his job as the president is to plan the Christmas party. The party was on Friday at the Palace Casino and Hotel. He, of course was freaking out the whole time because he wasn't sure of how it would all turn out. It turned out awesome! There were TONS of prizes, lots of seating, a dance floor, servers, a DJ and photographers. The entire party was free, except for alcoholic beverages, photos and raffle tickets of course. I won a certificate that is good for 72 hours of special liberty for Mark. Which basically means that he can get 3 days off of work and it doesn't go against his leave. I thought that was pretty cool. The photographers were very very nice and insisted that Mark and I have our photo taken for free. We were planning on having our photos taken anyway, but were speechless when they approached us and offered them for free. It was a very nice thing for them to do. Everyone at the party seemed to have a great time and I overheard several people saying that this was the best Christmas party they had ever been too. Of course it wasn't all Mark's doing. He had a lot of help from other people, including myself. He did a great job this weekend and I couldn't be more proud of him for his accomplishments.
Saturday I had a baby shower for my friend Cassidy. It went really well, although it lasted a lot longer than we expected. She likes Color-Me-Mine, and so we rented a party kit and purchased pieces to paint at home. We all helped her paint a tea set for her baby girl she is expecting in February. It came out super cute and makes me want to go in and paint a tea set for Ryleigh. Taylor painted himself a surfboard and I painted a board for Ryleigh. Mark painted most of a board for Austyn. I finished the rest. We just dropped off all of the pieces to be glazed and fired today. I can't wait to see what they look like. The plate that Cassidy painted for Callie didn't go back to the studio today. She is waiting for Callie to be born so that she can put her footprints on the plate. It will be really cute when it is all done.
So, that was our weekend. A weekend of accomplishments and achievements!!!

Our Weekend

The weekend is officially over except that its Veteran's Day. Bonnie, Mark's mom came into town to visit for the weekend. It was a very pleasant visit and we were happy to have her. Its not often that she makes it our way, so it was nice. The boys were especially excited to see her. Austyn had to sit with Gammy and kept asking where she was and what she was doing. He didn't leave her alone. He really enjoyed having her here. Ryleigh did really well with her. She wasn't as shy or as reluctant to smile, or even let Bonnie touch her. She's beginning to open up, which is nice. Leaving her with a babysitter is always a hard thing to do. Taylor also liked having Bonnie here for the weekend. He is a little more independent and thinks he is "so" grown up so he wasn't as clingy as Austyn was. lol.

We spent Saturday at John's Incredible Pizza which is a lot like a bigger and better Chuck E. Cheese. The boys had a blast as usual. This was our 3rd visit there. This was Mark's first. Mark, Taylor and I played Laser Tag. Mark got the highest score of the 3 of us, of course. Austyn played lots of games and so did Taylor. We almost thought we lost Austyn for a couple of minutes. My heart was pounding and I was on the verge of tears when Bonnie said that Mark had found him. He was only about 10 feet away from where we had been standing, but he was sort of hiding in a little corner where no one could see him. It was a very scary experience and I'm VERY thankful that we did not lose him. That is the first time that we have ever lost one of the kids for even a moment. I'm usually really anal and on top of where the kids are at and making sure they are leeched onto an adult.

I think one of my greatest fears is that one of our kids will either get lost or someone will take them. There are so many sick people out there in this world. I am constantly explaining to them why they can't go to the park or in the next aisle by themselves and why it is important to hold hands. I don't want them to think that I am just a "mean" mom because I make them hold hands with someone when we are in a crowded place. Taylor is beginning to understand the importance of all of it. Austyn however is still learning and I'm sure he will still be learning for a long while.

All in all, our weekend was great. The kids had fun, Bonnie was able to get in some much needed rest and relaxation and Mark and I were happy to have her visit with us. Here is a family picture of us that we had Bonnie take for us. I'll post them both so you can see what lovely children we have! HAHA

3 GOALS!

Okay, okay, so I'll admit that I may have fallen off the wagon. It's been 6 days since my last post. I feel like I'm at an AA meeting or something...haha. We have been keeping busy and I haven't really been online much this last week except to check e-mail, so I apologize.
We spent our Saturday at softball. Yep. Mark has been home for a whopping month and already we have made our way to an all-day softball tournament. It actually wasn't that bad. The weather was nice and the kids were surprisingly good for most of the day. Mark's team, "Total Chaos" lost the tournament in the championship game. That's usually the way it works. lol. We went out to the outlet malls after that, and it wasn't anything spectacular. The prices didn't seem any lower than what the mall had. Then after about an hour and a half of boring shopping we went to dinner at a pizza parlor. Mark saw a mouse scurry across the floor and I swear I have been sick since!
Now for the point of this blog...Taylor scored 3 goals in his soccer game tonight!! This was their first night game and their first weekday game. Mark couldn't make it since he is working nights. It sucks, let me tell you! Anyway. This was Taylor's third game and we have been telling him to get in there and get the ball and take it from the other team, be aggressive, and score for heaven's sake! LOL Well, tonight he finally took our advice! Their team had 4 points, 3 of which were scored by the superstar. HAHA! He did awesome tonight. He kept taking the ball from the other team and he almost scored a couple of other times. I kept Mark in the loop via text messaging. You gotta love technology!
Now for the sore highlights of the game. The assistant coach was yelling at the kids on the other team. They were sitting next to a fence and he took it upon himself to run across the field in the middle of the game to yell at these kids and tell them to get down. I thought that was pretty crappy considering their parents were in plain view of them. If their parents wanted to scold them, they were perfectly capable of doing so. The coach said something about earrings again. I told him at the last practice that it's not rules or regulations that earrings must be removed. I then told him that Taylor will continue to wear his. He was pissed. An ignorant parent looked at Taylor and said, "Don't the boys need to take our their earrings too? It shouldn't matter boys or girls, studs or hoops, take them out, right?" That's when the coach had to tell the parents that it is his "personal preference" that the earrings be removed. I hate his coach more and more with each game and practice that they have. He's a crappy teacher, he's rude and he has no patience!! I hope Taylor gets a better coach next year.
All in all, Taylor did superb and I couldn't be more proud of him tonight!

Halloween 2007

As you all are VERY well aware, yesterday was Halloween. Ryleigh had her twelve month well-baby appointment. She measured 28 inches long and weighed about 18 1/2 pounds. She is a little thing, but she's growing. We have been referred to a dermatologist for her hemangioma on her forehead, also known as a birthmark or as my family called mine, a strawberry. Her new Dr. says that between 12-18 months it will most likely grow a lot before it actually starts to "sink in." I didn't like that news. It's already big. Of course, they will continue to monitor it during this time frame. They said they will monitor it by taking photographs and measuring it. It has grown 2 millimeters since her last appointment. The Dr. said that she will very quickly learn the word 'hemangioma' as she gets older. This dr. says that hers seems to be a combination of 2 types of hemangiomas. These two types are: strawberry hemangiomas, which are slightly raised, red birthmarks and can appear anywhere on the body; or cavernous hemangiomas, which are a deeper birthmark characterized by a bluish color. Ryleigh's is both red and ever so slightly blue. We'll keep you all updated with what dermatology has to say about it all.

OKAY. So, Halloween. The kids had so much fun trick or treating. Austyn learned to say "Trick or treat. Smell my feet. Give me something." That's as far as he got with it. lol. It was very cute. He did surprisingly well, and was only scared a couple of times by scary masks. When he would see something scary, he would just keep backing up. One kid was really sweet about it, and took off his mask, and said, see, its just me. I'm a kid. I'm not scary. And he apologized. One of the guys handing out candy also took his mask off so Austyn wouldn't be scared. Taylor on the other hand was surprisingly brave. He went into two haunted houses alone and nothing seemed to scare him! And then there was Ryleigh. She got two pieces of candy! LOL. She just laid back in the stroller and played with her glow stick. We didn't go very far from home and only stayed out for an hour. About 45 minutes into trick or treating Austyn was tired of walking. Taylor sat in the driveway and passed out candy to the other trick or treaters. Austyn was super excited to have seen 3 spidermen! It doesn't take much to excite a 2 year old! Anyway. We all had a good time. And like Mark and I always say every single year....We should really dress up next year! So, we'll see. Maybe we will, and then again, we might not.

Taylor as the Grim Reaper, Austyn as a skeleton and Ryleigh as an Angel. (By the way...she HATED her costume! Maybe a little devil would have been more fitting? LOL)