And We're Off...Almost

I have several things that I have been wanting to write about, but we have been a bit busy. Look for those rewind posts when I have more time. But just a heads up so y'all will know what is going on with us.
The movers came today and packed the whole house. They took everything apart and did a much better job packing than I could ever do. Because our house is completely taken apart we are staying with our friends the Schwartz's. Tomarrow they will load all of our stuff up on the truck and haulin it off. We have a bynch of loose ends to tie up here, and our friends are throwing a going away BBQ tomarrow night for us and then we are off! Friday morning we HOPE to leave for Arizona. That is assuming that we get everything done. Keep you fingers crossed! You won't hear from me for awhile until we are a little less busy and I have computer access again. Signing off!

Restaurant Review

Last night we got a babysitter and Jake and I went out on a date. I had been really wanting to see Prince Caspian for a long time, and it's almost out of the theaters so we went to see it. I liked it, but it puzzles me that Disney feels the need to only faintly resemble the books. I love the books, and neither movie stays true to them at all. But it was a MUCH better movie than the first one. MUCH better.
Anyways, we were hungry after so we went to eat at a new restaurant called The Red Onion. It is an Indian Bistro and I had been curious about it for awhile. Just one look at the menu let us know that this was pretty authentic as far as Indian foods go. It was okay, and very interesting, but it wasn't long after we left that we began to feel it. I was a little queazy for a little bit but Jake got really sick. He hardly slept last night, and he has thrown up so much that he is also super dehydrated. He also was running a fever and just feeling completely achy and miserable. I feel so bad that the place turned out so badly. Jake has been in bed all day today still pretty sick. Most food poisoning goes away in 24 hours, so hopefully he will be better tonight. Maybe it was a little too authentic for us.

Movie Review

So we ended up going to see Kungfu Panda tonight. It is weird that we are having leisurely days when we are moving within a week. It feels like we should be packing or doing something. But we have to sit and wait for some paperwork to come from Jake's company before we can make any more moves. I am bad at waiting. Part of me wants to just get it all over with. But it is so nice to just hang out and not rush around. So we went to Kungfu Panda with the kids. Really Good. I really liked it. It is rated PG, and for good reason. The girls get into movies as much as I do, and there were some parts that were really scary for them. They also had a hard time not jumping from their seats and yelling at the screen. That is how they watch movies. It was a good thing there were other kids in the theater being loud as well. But I really liked the movie. Dreamworks movies can have a lot of hidden adult humor, and crude moments that, honestly, I don't care if I am just watching it, but it's not something for the kids to watch. BUT this movie was not like that at all. I was really happy with it, and it was HILARIOUS! I totally recommend it, but maybe not for kids under 5.

SURPRISE!!!!

JAKE IS HOME! Can you believe it? He showed up 8 days early to surprise me. I was totally caught unaware. I had no clue. He was able to call from Germany on Father's Day, only I thought he was calling from Iraq. If he had gone several days without calling I would have become suspicious. I had asked a friend of mine if she wanted to go to Kungfu Panda with us tonight, only she had gone to the airport to pick up Jake. So I unknowingly set up the perfect pretense for her to come over. So when she came for us to head to the movies she had Jake with her. I was completely shocked. Completely. Apparently last Friday Jake's company decided that they needed Jake to get home sooner so that he could get us all over to Arizona sooner. Fine by me. That pretty much means we need to get this house packed up and ready to move by the weekend. Fine by me too. I've already sorted and packed most of the house. We are already ready to go. It's just a matter of lining up a moving van and stuff in time. Lots of work to do, but it's better to know that I'll have a husband here to help me with it. We're a family again!!!!

Funny thing my kid said...

So we were driving home from the lake today and stopped to get some ice cream on the way. As we passed a church Mckayla called out from the back of the car, "look what the B*!#$es (female dogs) turned into!" I was driving, and wasn't previously paying much attention, so she caught me by surprise. I asked her what she had said, and she repeated, "Mommy, what'd the B#!**es turn into?" I understood this time and started a scolding of what kindof language we use, and asking where she learned that word, etc. And defensively she yelled back, "But look at the B*$!*es!!!"
Then it finally dawned on me that across from the stoplight we were at was monogramed BUSHES forming the word CHOP for Christian House of Prayer, a huge church in Killeen. It was a funny moment. I explained later how we pronounce the word bushes.

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY JAKE!

We made a couple of little videos for Jake for Father's Day since he couldn't be here with us. Anyone else can watch them as well, but just know that this is all intended for Jake. We miss him a lot and we are excited to say that he will be home in just 9 days!!! YAY! Our house sure feels empty without him. I also wanted to say how grateful I am to have such a great husband. He is a wonderful Father to our children. The girls ask about him constantly and enjoy the times that they get to chat with him on the phone. Jake- we love you and look forward to being with you again in just 9 days!!!!!

I turned on all of the lights and it was midday, but the videos still turned out pretty dark. I hope you can see them well enough hun. They didn't look as dark on the camera as they do on the computer. I hope you still like them!

One more Recital Video

So I was able to sneak in my little camera and videotape during their dance. Don't tell. Actually I saw loads of people with little cameras taping the recital and no one seemed to care. They just didn't want anyone to bring an actual video camera I guess. I think this video turned out a lot better than the other one, so I thought I'd post it too. Mostly for Jake to see it.

More Ballet Pics

These are some pictures I took of the girls at the dress rehearsal. Below Lyla is cheesing and Mckayla is the space cadet.
I told them to do some ballet poses and this is what they came up with.
And they had to go a little gansta during their ballet poses as well.
Of course you gotta show the love!

Mckayla and Lyla's Ballet Recital

Today was the dress rehearsal for the girls' first ballet recital. They have a policy that you can only video tape at the dress rehearsal because they sell a DVD of the recital. There is no way that I would buy that. I want to be able to have a video that is zoomed in on my kids the entire time. Mckayla and Lyla were conveniently placed together on the end of the line. They did really good I thought, considering I took them on a trip for three weeks, so they didn't get to practice at all. They were really excited to get their hair done up with hairspray and to get to wear make-up. I felt like a freaky pageant mom though, but it was a one time deal and the girls really had fun. I haven't ever tried to upload a video before, so we will see if it works. I am trying to find a way to share video with Jake since he isn't here to see the recital. Consider this your Father's Day gift honey!! I wasn't able to send anything because they are leaving in less than 2 weeks, and the mail stops getting to them a bit before they leave. So, here is their Dress rehearsal preformance, Mckayla is on the end and Lyla is next to her.

WARNING: DIRTY PICTURES AHEAD!!!

The following post is going to be a completely disgusting one, so if you are sensitive to these types of things (warning for Aunt Hope), then you might want to skip reading on this one. But I had to share my confusion and amazement at my baby's mystical powers. He has been sleeping in my bed almost every night recently. I need to break him of the habit very soon as my husband is returning to take over his side of the bed once again. Anyways, yesterday Lyla came and woke me up and Jaxon was already awake sitting up in a nasty mess. He had had a mega huge diaper explosion. It was completely disgusting. AND I was sleeping next to it. How's that on your gag reflex? When I managed to get the onesie and the diaper off it was my amazement that there was not a single drop of poop inside the diaper. Nothing at all. It looked as if he had taken off his diaper to poop and then put it back on. I have yet to explain how it could have happened. Scroll down for the proof if you dare......

THE CULPRIT SERVING HIS SENTENCE

So you can't say I didn't warn you, and I put it at the bottom so you'd have to scroll down if you wanted to see for yourself. But despite the disgusting mess covering my bed, notice that there is nothing, and I mean nothing, inside the diaper. How crazy is that? It had a night's worth of pee in it, but no poop at all. Yet the outside of his onesie, and my entire bedspread were completely covered. Gross, I know. But also a bit mystical. How did he do it? I guess I'll never know. Any guesses or theories?

THE EVIDENCE

You can't say I didn't warn ya!

A Stop in Arkansas on the Way Home

On our way home we stopped in Locksburg, Arkansas to visit with Melinda Mize Hooper, a friend of mine from the military. In fact, she is the only person I have kept in touch with from my military experience and we have had the good fortune to get together several times since our time in service. She was my battle buddy during AIT in Ft Rucker, AL. She now is a Professional Bass Fisherwoman and is one the road almost constantly doing tournaments. We were lucky to catch her at home. Below is a picture of Melinda with her husband Mike in their home.
We spent a day just hanging out at the house and swimming in their pool, but then the next day we went to Murphreesboro, AR where there is a diamond field. They have a nice little mine-themed waterplayground that we played and swam at until it closed, and then we spent the rest of our time hunting for diamonds. Below is me playing the prospector.
Mckayla and Lyla kept wigging people out by finding cool rocks and yelling "Look at the Diamond! I found a diamond!" It was funny. There were a lot of cool rocks to be found. It was sad to see a lot of people driving themselves mad in the field. People who come every day hunting for diamonds. It looked as addicting as gambling, and just as dangerous. There were people who had hauled in all sorts of equiptment and were certain that "today is the day."
Below is a picture of Melinda with Jaxon in the field. I couldn't come close to explaining the whole diamond field thing. They had a record of all of the diamonds that had been found there, and pictures of the big ones. Some sort of geological explanation of how volcanic activity had pushed lots of diamonds to the surface a long time ago, or something like that. Anyways, it was fun even though I can't imagine doing that for more than an hour or so. The field may look small, but it looks huge when you are hunting for something that could be smaller than your pinkynail. It really is the luck of the draw with diamond digging.
We should've all just stuck to eating the dirt like Jaxon. That's the nice thing about binky's, if you put it in he won't eat anything he shouldn't, like rocks or diamonds :)

We came home on Monday and the girls have been playing with friends and actively trying to destroy the house I had perfectly set up non-stop. But we are glad to be home. Just 2 more weeks until Jake comes to make our home complete again!!! The countdown begins!

Back to Indianapolis

After a week in Lafeyette, we headed back to Indianapolis to visit with my Aunt Heather for a few days. She wanted to take us to the Children's Museum and was able to take Thrusday off of work, so we went. Also the Museum is free on the first thursday of every month. I have to say that it was well worth the trip. I have been to lots of children's museums, but I have to say that this was the best I have ever been to. First off, it was HUGE! We were there for 4 hours, and we didn't see everything, and the kids could have played for a lot longer.
The first thing we went to was the Dino-sphere. The pictures didn't turn out real well because the ceiling changed to reflect changing weather and times of day. It was really neat though. Above is a picture of Heather with the girls and Meeko. She had decided to come down and go to the museum with us.
There was a part where you had to dig for dinosaur bones, but everyone had to wear masks, so we all put on masks, even Jaxon.
We also put on a dino-play with puppets and had a lot of fun, below is our one audience member who would have given us a standing ovation if he could only stand.
The girls begged and begged to ride the carousel, and we finally let them at the end. We had a great time and were totally pooped after such a fun day.

After our time in Indianapolis it was time to head home. So we left Indiana on Friday, but we didn't go home just yet.....

Meanwhile, Back in Indiana...

While in Bloomington we mostly just hung out and played in parks, and really importantly, got my car's A/C fixed. We had had a miserable drive up through Texas and Arkansas. It was so hot and humid that I was getting really worried about my sweaty kids in the back of our minivan getting heat exhaustion or something. After another expensive car repair we had A/C once again. After a few days at my Aunt Hope's house in Bloomington, she went up to Lafeyette, IN with us to visit my grandparents and other relatives who are there. We spent a lot of time at Columbia park which is only about 4 blocks from my grandparents house.
Above is Jaxon having a good time in a swing at the park. Below is my cousin Paul's daughter Rachel in a swing. She is about 18 months I think, and she is adorable. Paul and his wife Tee (she is from cambodia and has a different name that I cannot pronounce or spell, so everyone calls her Tee) were there while we were there visiting. Paul had just gotten back from 14 months in Iraq and was on leave, he is currently stationed in Kansas.
There is a little train that goes around the park and so we took it. In the front of this picture are two of my cousins Emily and Meeko, next car is my Aunt Heather with Mckayla, and next is my Aunt Hope, lastly is my Cousin Paul and his wife Tee and Rachel.
We had to eat at my grandparent's favorite place in Lafayette, Arnies. My cousin Emily described it well as, "a place where the food looks gross but tastes really good." Below is a picture of me and Jaxon with my grandparents.
This is a picture of Paul and Tee with Rachel sandwiched inbetween and Aunt Hope on the side.

We had a great time visiting with all of our Lafayette relatives. I liked that we weren't on a set schedule so we didn't have to plan out every minute, We just relaxed and visited with no pressure. I even had the chance to go out for a night of Kareoke with my Uncle Chris and Aunt Heather and Aunt Hope. It was a blast.

Off Again

After I had the house ready I decided to have us take off for the next while so the house could stay clean while people would (hopefully) be coming to look at it. We first stopped in Terra Haute, IN at my cousin Maria's, and the next day we went to Indianapolis to watch the Indy500 parade. My Uncle Larry was riding his horse in the parade. We were supposed to meet up with my Aunt's Hope and Heather at the parade but it didn't end up working out, so we met up at a park afterwards and let the kids play while we sat in the grass and talked. That turned out to be a better option anyways because the parade was so crowded we wouldn't have had much time to visit anyways. Below is a picture from the parade there were three times that the crowd stood up, once for the flag, once for a float of veterans, and lastly for the driver Helio Castroneves from Brazil. He had won the past 2 years in a row, and won "Dancing with the Stars." I tried to get a picture of him, but it didn't really turn out because there were too many people.
After visiting with my Pechin Aunts, Maria and I drove to Ohio to stay with my Aunt Jo and Uncle Larry (Maria's parents) over the weekend. We had a lot of fun just playing and visiting. We had a big BBQ over a fire one night and sat out looking at the stars, and we did a slip-n-slide one day and, of course we rode the horses. Below is a picture of Lyla riding on the horse "Honey", I think it is funny that they have a girl horse named "Honey" and a guy horse named "moon". Get it? It was totally by accident too. They got the horses at separate times and they already had been named. The girls both did really well on the horses considering this was only the second time they had ever been on a horse and the first time they were too scared for the horse to even take a step.
Below is Mckayla having her turn on the horse. They both trotted on the horse and kept wanting to go faster. Maria got as much of a workout as the horse.
This is Lyla and Gabriella. The three of them had a really fun time together. I wish we lived closer so they could play more often. She is only about a month older than them I think. They did really well playing together.
This is a picture of Me and my cousin Maria in her apartment in Terra Haute. We left Ohio on Tuesday and went back to IN, I stayed at Maria's that night and all the next day as it was her birthday. We had a nice picnic dinner outside made by her husband Fares, and played around. Then that night I left for Bloomington, IN to stay with my Aunt Hope.

My work begins

After our Houston Get-away it was time to get the house ready to be sold. I spent the middle of May hard at work on my house. My main goal was to get everything we no longer needed out of the house, and things we didn't immediately need packed away into the garage. I also had to get some minor reparis done, and get the yard finished. I was really struggling at first, but Valerie Pritchard and Sarah Schwartz came over one day and gave me a kick start on my office. FOr which I am really really grateful. It got me going. After that, I went through the entire house getting it cleaned out. I had a yard sale and sold a lot of our stuff, and took a huge load to goodwill, and several loads to the dump. In the end, we got it done. I ended up leaving on our second trip a couple of days later than I had planned, but it turned out alright. I was pretty proud of myself at the end of it all. Check out our house online:
http://www.marketplacelistings.com/property.asp?id_property=112167
And if you know anyone needing a house in Killeen, TX, you know where they should look :)

The next day of the Houston Trip

On Saturday we checked out of the hotel and went down to the Johnson Space center. I had always been curious about it, and I thought it was something I couldn't leave Texas without going to visit. It turned out to be really awesome. The first big visitors area is akin to a children's museum, except it's all about space. They have a lot of interactive things.
This is a game where kids can pretend to be in mission control. The girls are compter geeks, so they really liked this exhibit.
They had a real museum part where you could walk through things that had actually been in outerspace. Above is a picture of Lyla in the old space station. I couldn't believe how tiny come of the first space capsules were. One of them they said was akin to riding in a phone booth on it's side. I can't imagine being in a space that tiny for such a long period of time.
This was a display of all of the equipment that first went to the moon. They also had the moon rover thing. But that picture really didn't turn out.
One thing you could do was to take a tram ride into the actual NASA area and see the space program up close. The space center is much like a military base with lots of different buildings, housing, and stores and everything. This was a huge huge warehouse-like building with mock shuttles and modules used for training. There was no training going on when we were there because it was Saturday, but usually you can go and watch what they are doing. We got to see the big Japanese arm attachment thing that they had been training with and the space shuttle discovery just brought it up to the space station about a week ago. Kindof cool that we got to see it up close.
None of my picture of this turned out reall well, but this was the girls' favorite part of the whole deal. A giant space-themed play place. I think the space station was awesome, and well worth the trip if any of y'all are ever in Houston, you should go there.

Wild Weekend in May

The second weekend in May we were invited to a Romney Reunion in Houston, Texas. It was really a lot of fun. I brought two of my friends with me, and we also brought all of the kids. I originally was told that I could bring one adult friend with me to the party. I had a problem though. I am still nursing Jaxon, and Houston is 4 hours away from us. So I would have to at least bring him, but I couldn't bring him down to the party, so I would also have to bring a babysitter. Anyways, my friend Sarah Schwartz was planning on coming with me, and My friend Dee is from the Houston area, so she came to watch kids. I brought the girls also because we had decided to make a weekend of it. It was the first really hot weekend in Texas, and we left around 11am Friday morning. We were hoping to have enough time to check in and get ready before the party that evening. While we were at Dee's house in Temple, TX my A/C made a really weird noise and went out. It really stunk, because we then had no A/C for the rest of the trip. We got to the hotel in enough time to go up to the pool and swim before getting ready, and the pool was on the top floor of the Hilton Americas overlooking Houston, it was awesome!!!! Then we got ready and went. Sarah and I discovered that lots of people had children with them and decided that we'd go get the rest of the group after the speeches were over. So there was a lot of speech-making and Romney talked about the new PAC he has founded and a few candidates for other offices in Texas made speeches, but then the Beach Boys came to the stage and the party started!!!

The girls loved the music and actually stayed dancing until the end of the party. The whole concert was really relaxed because it was a fairly small party. They let people get up onthe stage and dance with them, and they let us take pictures with them while they were singing. The girls got on the stage and danced while they were singing "two girls for every boy." Only 3 of the original beach boys remain, but they still did most of the singing.

This is a view from the table we were sitting at. There was a dance floor immediately in front of the stage, and tables all around. There was also a lot of awesome food too.
My old boss from Boston, Aaron Baer was there on business from the GOP in LA, but he took this picture of us with Romney near the end. The girls kindof got cutoff though. We had a lot of fun at the party, and met a lot of cool people too!

Back tracking...

Alright, so I am not a very good blogger, but I am going to go back in time a little bit so that I can post some of my good pictures and talk about some of the things that have happened in the last few months. So, prepare for a trip back in time.....