The weekend

This last weekend was great, busy and fun! It started out on Friday night with Taylor's basketball game, which they won. We then headed out to San Diego at 8PM. We didn't get in until 1AM and had to be up by 4AM in order to get ready and get to the ship by 5:45 for Mark to muster. I guess it wouldn't have mattered if we were there in time or not because there was a long line that we had to wait in. The day on the ship was long, but fun and exciting. Taylor had a blast and I'm glad that we were able to experience it together. I definitely have a new found respect for what Mark does in the Navy. Don't get me wrong, I've always respected his work, but now I respect it differently. It was amazing to witness things first hand and is nothing like seeing pictures or videos. Pictures don't do it justice. For Mark, its just another day at the 'office' but for me, its mind blowing. We were able to sit on the flight deck during air ops, where a jet did a touch and go, landed (caught the wire) and launched off the ship. We watched them drop bombs in the water, shoot a .50 cal gun and watched the helos do the same thing. Powerful is an underestimate of the ship and jets' capabilities. We explored the ship with Mark and were able to go down the elevators. That was pretty cool, and not nearly as scary as I thought it would be. We were also able to go into the sea combat room, which was really cool, and kind of eerie. The whole room was dark, not to mention empty! There was only one guy in there working when we went in. That room has so much vital, secret and important information that Mark advised me NOT to take any pictures. I really really wanted to, but wasn't able to. We visited Vulture's Row for a bit and tried to go up to the foc'sle, but every time we went up it was secured. All we were able to see were the giant chains that pull anchor. It was still cool, none the less. We visited the ready room, Mark's shop, and a few other places. Its hard to remember all of it. Taylor had a wonderful time, and was blown away by the air show. From what Mark says, it wasn't much and they didn't do as much as they normally do, but we didn't care. It was heartwarming to see the giant smile on his face all day long. He had such a great time there. He wanted to spend most of his time on the flight deck. There were also sea cadets on board. Some of them looked like they were Taylor's age. He said he would want to be one. =) Our day started at 4AM and didn't end until nearly 7:30 (the time we got back to our friend's house.)

The next day we attended the World Baseball Classic in LA at Dodger Stadium. We took our friend's daughter, Natalie. We have been friends with them for about 8 years now (since Taylor and Natalie were babies.) It was special in the sense that the very first baseball game either of them had ever been to was the Tide's game in Norfolk! This was their second game together, in about 7 years! Everyone had a great time even though the US lost! Austyn really loved the cheering and yelling and would jump up and pump his fists in the air while yelling, "USA, USA, USA, USA!" He was hilarious to watch. Taylor pretty much only cared about watching Jeter play since the Yankees are his favorite team. I think he was pretty amazed to be there. Elvis, one of our friends tagged along since Adam couldn't find a sitter for the night.

We ended our weekend by driving up to Laura's house for lunch. We visited for a couple of hours with her, Jack, Kenzie, Haylee, Jenn and Bonnie. It was fun and good to see everyone, but definitely time to head home!

Last Week...

Was pretty busy. Taylor had his cup-stacking tournament on Wednesday. This time it was at a different school. Austyn, Ryleigh and myself all tagged along to show Taylor our support for him. It was such a long, drawn out tournament that could have been over in about an hour, but instead took 3. Taylor had a blast and was able to miss school. He competed on his own with a time of 8.51 seconds. He wasn't the fastest, but heck that's pretty quick. I have to admit that it would most likely take me 3 times that to get it done. He also competed in a table relay race. His team didn't do that great on that one, as some kids toppled their cups over and were disqualified. His finally event was the floor relay race and his team won first place! He was really excited about that, and we were too! Enjoy the slide show of pictures from that.
Later that evening, his basketball team competed in the semi-final tournament and won their game. That meant they were to compete in the finals on Friday.
Friday night, the game was intense and a nail biter. I sure love watching basketball! The other team was really good and the score was getting tossed around. The wizards ended up winning the game by ONE meager point! But, hey a win is a win! The coach's son was crying in excitement and everyone was hopping around, clapping and yelling. It was so great to be able to have that excitement, sense of accomplishment and pride for our son and his team! I'm so glad that Taylor was able to experience that. The only picture I have is one that I took on Mark's phone. I hadn't been taking the camera because I would get so side-tracked and into the game that I would forget to take pictures.
After the game, we came home and packed up the truck and headed to San Diego for the weekend!

It's Been a (busy) While

Let's see...wow! I can't believe I haven't blogged since mid-February. A lot has been going on since then. Mark's been gone for the last 3 weeks, and I've been a single mom again. So to speak. We have been keeping pretty busy around here. Taylor has school, obviously. He has been going to Cup-Stacking Practice after school once a week for the last month or so. For those of you who have no clue as to what Cup-Stacking is, I'll give you my very brief knowledge of the sport. And YES, it is a sport. =) There are 9 cups (or at least I am thinking). And the object of the game is to stack them in "cycles" and take them down as fast as you can. I first heard about it last year on the news. They were talking about kids participating in the sport and how fast it was becoming popular. There is even a McDonald's commercial about it. I'm sure you can find it on You Tube. Anyway, so yeah, he is really into that, so that's one afternoon a week. They have a tournament on Friday. We'll see how that goes. He also has basketball practice twice a week and a game once a week. His team is awesome! Did I say awesome? They are unbelievably awesome! They have only lost two games thus far. They lost their first game by one point, and they lost their third game by like 4. Their last game is this Saturday and they have a tournament all next week. I'm thinking they will do pretty darn well! He really enjoys it. Baseball season is also coming up and he just had tryouts on Saturday for those. Austyn is still being himself. Loud and rambunctious! Ryleigh is doing well too. She just had a rash on her back yesterday and we went to the Dr. We waited for what seemed like an eternity for the Dr. so in the meantime the boys were coloring and playing. They colored animals with different colored spots to make them look like they had diseases. Lovely, huh. Then Austyn was pretending to be the Dr. and he told her to take her shirt off so he could see her disease she had. It was really quite hilarious to listen to them. I'm sure if anyone had been listening in, they would have had a good chuckle. Her rash is completely gone, less than 24 hours later, so something we did was right. lol. Anyhow, Mark comes home on Saturday. Thank goodness. We definitely have missed having him around! He will be home for a measly couple of weeks. The following weekend we will be attending the Friends and Family Day Cruise with him which will be a lot of fun. Taylor and I are the only ones going along with him. We will get to set sail on the ship with Mark and get to experience a day at sea. I'm really looking forward to it. I'm also double checking my stash of Dramamine just in case I get sick!! Anyhow, that's pretty much the last few weeks of our life in a nutshell. We hope everyone is well.