Jaelyn's 9th Birthday Party

Jaelyn turned 9 last on Sunday.  We celebrated quietly with just us and my parents at Ruby Tuesdays (her pick).  We had her party this afternoon.  My parents and I had been working for days to get ready for her outdoor water party.  We cleaned the house and brought chairs and a canopy from the motor home.  I paid way too much money to get an extra long slip n slide shipped here in time.  Last night, I baked cupcakes and my mom helped me filled 500 water balloons. {tangent - it pays to buy the nicer water balloons.  They fill and tie so much easier than the cheap ones.}  My dad helped me set up the yard this morning.  It started sprinkling as we got the canopy and slip n slides set up.  Within 30 minutes it was raining cats and dogs.  The bucket I had filled with chalk had 6" of water in it when it finally stopped.  By 1:30, the rain was gone and we were ready to party.  It wasn't a huge party.  We had ten kids, including mine, but it was perfect.

I bought water blasters to take home as party favors.  The kids used the swimming pool to fill them up.

Jackson and Caden quickly turned our rocket blaster into a water canon.  They were quite the team.

The extra long slip n slide was a hit; although I still saw the big kids go off the end.

Everyone had fun with the water balloons. 

Get ready...

Get set...

Fire!

My Dad, my brother and my nephew slipped behind a big bush where we had hidden a few "reserve" buckets and started lobbing balloons into the fight.  It didn't take the kids long to join forces to defeat the grown-ups.

We actually celebrated two birthdays today, Jaelyn's and Joan's, my mother in law.

It was truly a great day and I'm so thankful we could be here in Pensacola to celebrate it with friends and family.  Thank you to everyone who came and made Jaelyn's day so special.  As always though, I wish Dan could have been here with us.  We have just a few more weeks until we are all back under one roof.  It might be the roof of a hotel, but we'll all be together and that's what's important.

Thankful Thursday

Encase you have no clue what this means...it's the waiting list for a 4 bedroom Major's house at Fort Leonard Wood.  I'm jumping up and down excited.  I never thought we'd make it to the top of the list.

Now, start praying for a 4 bedroom, big windowed, 2 story rennovated single family house that used to be a duplex to open up.  That's what we want.  Oh, and we'd like it in the next 2-3 week.

Roller Skating

My kids are all relatively proficient at ice skating, but we've never been roller skating.  We went yesterday with the Beatles.  We had a blast.

I love seeing my kids personalities coming out when they learn something new.  Jaelyn refused to hold anyone's hand.  She slowly went around and around the outside of the rink, holding onto the wall.  Evenually she worked her way out from the wall and could skate very slowly on her own.  She did hit the floor several times.  Jennifer kept telling her to keep her legs together because invariably, she ended up in a split.

Allie was gung ho, but she' wouldn't listen to us.  Jennifer's oldest daughter Cassidy held one hand while I help the other.  She hit the floor more than anyone.  After a bad fall where I ended up on top of her with her roller skate in my stomach and floor burn on my knee, I finally figured out to let go and just let her fall.  It didn't stop her in the least.  She declared yesterday "THE BEST DAY EVER."

Check out Jae in the background...she had the best time falling.

The kids with the awesome Cassidy

Caden went back and forth between walkers, turning wheels and walkers. He decided he liked wheels that didn't turn the best so his legs were pretty tired at the end of the evening.  He particularly enjoyed pulling me around on my roller skates.

The Last of the Camping Pics

I finally connected my parent's camera to my computer.  Here are the last of the camping pictures.

Who needs a camp fire??

Riding in Style

I like Glamping!

He did it!

Me and my little ducks

When Kids Sleep In

Allie and Caden woke me up at 5:50 with the soft click of their bedroom door as they turned on their light to play.  It took 3 visits, moving Caden and some motivation for Allie, but they both went back to sleep.  That has NEVER happened.  Once they are up, they are up for good.  Caden slept till 7:30 and I woke Allie up at 9 because I was a little concerned about her.  Allie is the brightest morning person you've ever met so for her to sleep so late, there's probably a problem.

Well...she woke up telling me she and Caden watched Cat in the Hat in the middle of the night.

I was sure she was telling me about a dream or making it up because surely three adults hadn't slept through 2 loud kids getting up and watching a full length movie in the middle of the night.  My first stop was to the DVD player where The Cat in the Hat was waiting when I hit eject.  Seriously???  In additional to their movie, they also apparently played a round of Pass the Pig Party with a book light.

I'm just shaking my head...

A 15 minute tram ride

I touristed again today... I rode on North Americas longest and the Worlds 2nd longest tram.
The ride takes 15 minutes up or down...when one car is going up, one car is coming down. The tram takes you to the top of Sandia Mountain... sandia means watermelon in spanish and it is said that when the evening sun hits the side of the mountain it looks like a watermelon. Attached are photos riding the tram from the bottom to the top. The photo sequence is left to right like reading a book.

The Petroglyph National Monument

Today I went to the Petroglyph National Monument. The PNM was established in 1990 to protect and preserve one of the largest petroglyph concentrations in North America. Petroglyphs are images pecked into rock surfaces that can still be viewed in their original context and possess deep spiritual meaning for today's Pueblo Indians. No one can say for sure what many Petroglyphs portray. Native peoples hold complex and widely varying interpretations and it is not always appropriate to even reveal the meaning of images. This is taken from the NPS handout on the PNM.

Wordless Wednesday - Finished

If They Only Talked to Each Other

Hard, I'm telling you.  Ridiculous, I'm telling you.  If only one hand would talk to the other hand at Ft. Leonard Wood.  If you read my frustrations from yesterday, you know what I'm talking about.  Today, I talked to the housing office to turn down the three bedroom jail house. I talked to the girl about staying in temporary lodging and being able to register the kids in school with a waiver.  The school liaison officer told me they NEVER give out waivers.  The housing girl said "No problem.  We have a standard form letter we can give you."  Huh???  I had a pinched nerve in my neck all afternoon from worrying about having to be in post lodging and no openings...for nothing.  Ridiculous. 

I need retail therapy and I have a 30% off coupon to Kohl's.  I think I might go ahead and buy the Kitchenaid mixer I've been saving for.  Who cares if I don't have a kitchen to put it in?  I have a storage unit with plenty of room!

Added Back Posts

The wi-fi was non-existant at the campground; so I journaled in a Word document while we were gone.  I copied and pasted everything in chronological order so scroll down to read...

Now All We Need Are Knobs

I love how Allie's dresser turned out.  All we need are the pretty glass knobs.  Come on UPS - pay us a visit tomorrow pretty please!  We might not have a room to put Allie's dresser in, but by golly, she's going to have her own dresser.

Directions were requested, so here's what we did.  We started with an oak stained and varnished dresser.  We lightly sanded the varnish off so we could paint on top.  My mom LOVES milk paint and since she had a pint of the color I wanted, we used it.  We did it exactly how the experts say.  Paint a thin coat and then lightly, lightly sand.  We were using 220 and then at the end 400.  I wanted the wood to show through to highlight the details so I sanded those edges after every coat.  If you wanted a color showing through, you would paint or stain those areas first that you knew you were going to sand.  We had to paint 4-5 thin coats to get the old finish covered.  Take your time.  Once we did the final sanding, we used satin water based poly.  I think we put on 4 coats, no sanding in between coats because we were tired, but you are supposed to.  Oh and if you are filling in knob holes and drilling new like we are, my Dad used dowels and wood filler.  I can see the old holes, but it's only because I know where they were.  No one else is going to notice them.  I bought antique-looking pink glass knobs online.  They are going to be the perfect finishing touch...if they ever get here.  Hope that helps.

Prayers for a House in Missouri

This move has been the hardest move we've ever made and that's saying a lot considering we've done the overseas thing already.  Last week, we bounced around the housing list...3rd to 4th and back to 3rd.
I got a call this morning from the housing office offering us a 3 bedroom house.  It's one of those old, tiny, unrennovated houses I was crying about when we first found out we were moving to Fort Lost in the Woods.  I found a picture of the house I think it is online and the windows are long and narrow and at least four feet off the ground.  Seriously, the kids wouldn't be able to see out the windows unless they were standing on something.  I think it would be similar to being in jail...for a year.

We have a few days to make a decision.  I was hoping we could move into it and then move into a four bedroom house once one was available.  With privatized housing, they make you sign a year's lease so we would be stuck.  I did find out we have moved to 2nd on the list.  In the meantime, I started thinking about living in a hotel until a four bedroom was available.  My next phone call was to the school liaison officer (SLO) to find out about being able to live in a hotel and registering our kids at the school we'll eventually go to.  We have two options:  we have to stay in lodging on post or we have to get a waiver from housing stating which house we are getting if we live in a hotel off post.  The SLO told me housing will usually NOT give out those waivers since they don't know what house we'll get.  I called lodging and of course out of 400 possible family rooms, there are no reservations.  We are on a waiting list for a "pet cottage" of which there are seven.

I'm just so done.  I'm ready to quit.  Nothing has ever been this hard with a move.  Would you pray???  I would really like the first family on the list to move off post and for someone in a four bedroom to pcs out so we can move in.  Oh and it would be great if it could all happen before school starts on the 18th or preferably by when Dan gets to Missouri August 6th. Got it???  Start praying.