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Category Archives: USMC

Well that was certainly a comeback.

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I was honestly surprised when the packers arrived at 8:36…but of course that didn’t mean they started at 8:36. They brought in some more boxes and as I went out in the garage to tell them I would buy them lunch they were smoking in the van. 🙄

But then they started packing in the garage—something I wouldn’t have ever wanted to tackle—and it took a long time but they got it done (with a lunch break—we got them subs)! They even had time left to work upstairs, too! It was an easier day for me because there weren’t many questions and they were outside so the kids and I just sat and watched movies all day. I did have to do a few things, but it was mostly restful.

They left about 4:30 saying they had about another hour and a half of work left so they’d just do it in the morning. Which is fine…but…I really wanted to say IF YOU HAD WORKED A FULL DAY YESTERDAY YOU’D BE DONE TODAY. But I was still happy with what they had done, and I even complimented them. See, I give credit where credit is due. 🙂

I finally got my cammie quilt!

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I have wanted a quilt made out of Tom’s old cammies for a long time now—a friend had one made and I thought it was the greatest idea. And I’m not kidding when I say a long time—I’m talking seven or so years ago (the last time we lived here) and it took me this long to get off my butt and actually find someone to do it (I posted a want ad on a local Craigslist-type site).

Tom picked it up today… He knew I was getting it done, but I think he was surprised at the results. 🙂

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And lest you think it’s just a generic quilt…the name tapes are on there (including a few actual pockets)!

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I love it!!

And we’re off to a…crappy start.

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This move has been annoying since the beginning…

We didn’t get the move dates we wanted but we got our second choice which wasn’t too bad. But even then there was a miscommunication and while we thought we were getting our stuff DELIVERED on July 3 (what we asked for and told was scheduled), we later found out they were LOADING on July 3 and since there were no deliveries on July 4 delivery would be July 5. Not awful, but NOT what we’d been thinking of and planning on.

Then the moving company sent a person to do a walk-through to estimate how much stuff we had and how long it would take to pack…and he gave me a weight estimate which sounded about right…but said something about his two packers. Wait, what? Two? I then related our past few moves—one which we had 4-5 packers and they were done early both days…and the other which they mistakenly sent only two packers and everything ran late and caused mayhem. He said his two girls were GOOD and there were three days scheduled for the packing so so he wasn’t worried. Ooo-kay. Sorry but I have zero faith in that.

So you’d think they’d try to get as much done as early as possible to avoid having to do much, if anything, that third day. But NOOOOOO…8:00 comes and goes…8:30…9:00…9:30…SERIOUSLY? The ball of anxiety in my chest was growing rapidly and I seriously contemplated taking a Xanax (which I had my doctor prescribe for just such an occasion). They FINALLY pull up at 10:00—and yep, only two women. And after they sat there for a few minutes, they literally SAUNTERED to the front door like they had all the time in the world. I wanted to scream.

So Tom gave them the quick walk through and honestly, they were both duds personality-wise. Most people in the past have been super nice and personable and they’ll chit chat with you and what not and make you feel at ease. These two looked like they’d rather be anywhere else doing anything else—like we were putting them out. Definitely not a good first impression.

So they haul in the boxes and packing material and then—THIS IS RICH—they told me they were going to their van to finish their breakfast and energy drinks. ARE YOU F’ING KIDDING ME?! You don’t show up until 10am and you still need time to finish your breakfast? Oh, and apparently take a smoke break, too. So they didn’t actually get started packing anything until 10:30.

And within an hour, I heard something crash and break. Ugh. THE FIRST ITEM THAT HAS EVER BEEN BROKEN DURING PACKING OR DELIVERY IN ANY OF OUR MOVES. So I got called in to see a 24″ x 36″ picture frame shattered on the floor. She wasn’t careful when she was taking pictures off the stack and they slid and tipped over and there you go. She apologized, but then just stood there. Oh, I guess I have to clean it up then? She has no responsibility for it?! So I was picking up shattered glass while she just stood there. The picture—the mosaic print of our wedding photo—was ruined as the glass cut a bunch of places over the whole thing. Not a good way to start the experience.

And then a mere 2.5 hours after they started? A smoke break, which turned into a THIRTY MINUTE BREAK for one of them and a 15 minute break for the other. Seriously? I MEAN SERIOUSLY?!?!?!?

And then. AND THEN!!! They decided to wrap it up at 3:30. After just 4.5 hours of work (since they took that 30-minute break). YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!!! I’m guessing they know there are technically three days allotted for packing so are slacking on the front end. I’m NOT happy AND I predict they run out of time…at which point we will be VERY unhappy.

I was debating calling the moving company when they happened to call to check on the progress (ironically about 10 minutes after the packers left)! I let them know we really weren’t expecting a five-hour work day and she was surprised when I told her they didn’t arrive/get started until 10:30 (she said she’d check on that but I’m sure nothing will come of it). But she assured us it would all get done. We’ll see. I will sing their praises (for the most part) if they do get it all done…but right now I’m not feeling hopeful. At all. They only got the first floor done today—they barely got started on upstairs (they did the kids’ rooms) and they have the entire garage (which has all the household stuff that was in the pod!) plus the living room (with the storage areas) left. Can you see why I am not hopeful?

Unfortunately, this is the busy season (we’ve never moved in the summer before) and I think we’re lucky to have what we have on the approximate dates we asked for. I mean, that’s the basic attitude we seem to be getting. I’m not happy but it could be worse. /knock on wood

Stay tuned.

P.S. The kids were actually VERY good. They watched movies all day and were well-behaved for the most part. Katie didn’t take a very long nap but at least she took a nap. Owen has been bribed with a Star Wars Lego book… 🙂

Visiting with old friends

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Friends of ours live in Fairfax so we went to visit and have dinner with their family. (Tim was in the Marines with Tom back in the day.) They had also offered to watch the kids if we needed them to, so we were letting the kids get to know them. 🙂

Of course Owen immediately got along with them all (ages 7, 5, and 2) and had a blast on their playset. We had also brought Maggie and she was having fun playing with their lab!

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The kids were way off their sleep schedule but both did well—they were both wide awake as we drove home at 8:30!

House Hunting Day 2

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Today’s fun thing? We found an awesome house—the first one we looked at [again!]. Great, we thought, it JUST came on the market, we’ll get our app in and be done. Except no, they’re not looking at apps until MONDAY. So of course by then they’ll have a mountain of them to sift through and to get ours to stand out we’d need to offer more rent. It was already over our budget so adding more just wasn’t realistic. [Sidenote: That really pisses me off. You put it on the market so take my app and be done—or raise the listed rent price to start. None of this other BS.]

So we kept looking. Everything we saw was simply okay—nothing that we loved. There was either no basement or what they called a basement wasn’t really (one was literally a 6×10 room with a fireplace right inside the front door?!); fenced patios with no grass or doors to the patio/grassy area were on the lowest level (doable but not convenient at all for letting Maggie out); only three bedrooms with no good place for guests or an office; and lots of townhouses with absolute crap for parking.

There were a few we surely could have made work, but we still had more on our list so we kept going.

Then we saw one that was almost identical to the very first one we wanted—it was the same floor plan but with less hardwood/more carpet and no bedroom in the basement. But we still really liked it so it became our top choice. It had been on the market awhile so we were pretty confident we didn’t have to act immediately so we kept looking. But we referred to it as the Band-Aid house because there were little cosmetic issues throughout (stains on carpet, no fence, no ceiling fans, etc.) but nothing serious. 🙂

We took a mid-afternoon break to get lunch and let Katie take a nap while our agent had another appointment.

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Afterwards, it was back to work. She drove by a few and said the parking was horrible so we were able to cross them off without even looking at them. A few others didn’t even have any grass patches so those were immediately out. And another one was doable but not great. And others just felt too small. One was in a perfect spot—right across from a walking trail to the pool (maybe 100 yards away) along a grassy, wooded area—but of course the house wasn’t quite right.

We had time to wait at that one so walked around—and Owen actually held a caterpillar! I never thought I’d see the day he’d hold a bug! (Of course, Katie picked one up and immediately tried to squish it!)

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But we still had a few on our list we needed to check out before deciding on the Band-Aid house…so we knew we had another house hunting day ahead of us… But at least we had pretty much centered our search on the Lorton area—Alexandria was just too crowded with no parking. I’m sure some of the homes themselves were livable—but it’s very hard to give up space when that’s all you’ve ever known. And of course we had the open-floor-plan Band-Aid house in our memory.

House Hunting Day 1

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I hate DC already.

On our way here, our agent called us to give us the rundown of houses on our list that were already gone. Of our top eight choices, five were gone. FIVE. I mean, we expected some to be gone but not that many! And our top listings weren’t even perfect listings—there were compromises. Which means the remaining ones have even more compromises. Ugh.

So she made some appointments and we met her at the first one—which we immediately loved! Someone else pulled up to look while we were leaving so we had our agent cancel our other showings and go straight to her office to start the process (and Tom went to get the cashiers checks and I sat and panicked—I hate feeling rushed and there might have been other good houses but you have to MOVE when you see something you like).

So she arrived at our hotel with the bad news that there was already an app in on the place…we basically missed out on our first choice house by minutes because the other app was being input as our agent was calling to tell them our app was coming in. 😐 She said we could also put in an app but chances were it would just be a waste of the $80 application fee…unless we wanted to offer more rent (which is apparently very common here)—but it was already over our budget…soooo no.

Have I said I hate house hunting? 🙂

So…without checking my spreadsheet I think we have one or two more of our first choice options left. And the few other places we did drive-bys on after dinner have crap for parking—like one of us would have to park more than a few town homes down and I have NO idea where guests would park. No thank you. My DC friends say to suck it up because that’s life here…but I can’t quite commit to that level of suckage yet.

To make the day worse, we found out the hotel pool is outdoor—and closed, which wasn’t listed anywhere—so Owen is sad (we promised him a pool). And the A/C in our room doesn’t seem to be working. And of course we have the smallest and crappiest Hampton Inn room ever. And Katie didn’t nap!

I’m sure tomorrow will be JUST as fun.

Sesame Street Live 2014

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A quick family selfie before heading in to the theater.

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Katie sees the decorated Sesame Street semi and is pointing to Elmo!

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Two more spinny toys!

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Owen bumped me as I was taking a no-flash photo so with the slow shutter speed I got this awesome shot!

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Katie was perfectly happy sitting on daddy’s lap!

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Some of it was a little loud for Owen, but overall he did really well and wasn’t bothered by it. (Which is awesome since when we tried this two years ago, he lasted about two minutes.) Katie never even flinched at ANY of the noise!

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Katie watched a lot of the show like this!

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They revolved the set pieces…

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…turning it into Sesame Street! The little girl muppet’s name was Katie! 🙂

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Dancing!

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Our seats—quite a bit different than the up-front row we had before, but it worked out just fine as it wasn’t quite as loud.

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Looking excitedly at the Sesame Street sign as we were waiting our turn to take pictures!

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All of a sudden Owen went from super happy to super cranky when we needed to take the picture.

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Oh well. Katie was happy!

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So a good time was had by all! I’m glad Owen got to enjoy it after missing out on it the last time, I’m glad Tom was able to go with us, and I’m glad Katie was amazing and just sat/stood on Tom’s lap the entire time! (Afterwards Owen said he was sad that the characters didn’t come up to him—a few of the characters came down the aisles about six rows during one song—and we told him they just didn’t have the time to come see everyone! Poor kid.)

Agnes and Camel reunited at last!

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This should have been posted way back on February 1… The gnome that I bought from a Tivo friend (who pulled an epic prank on a friend and as a result had a few gnomes to sell) was finally reunited with the gnome that was sent to Tom in Afghanistan. 🙂

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When Owen saw them together he said “Is that mom and dad?” 🙂

Pentagon, here we come!

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Well, Tom unofficially got orders—he’s (we’re) headed to the Pentagon no later than July 31! (By unofficially, I mean there’s no actual paperwork yet but he confirmed everything with his Monitor.) Cue my typical post-orders paralyzing panic attack thinking about trying to sell/rent our house, find a place to live, and move within four months. At least it’s summer so I won’t have to deal with school stuff right away.

It’s a much better job for him than the one he was thinking he wanted (he says it’s a phenomenal opportunity) and he’s very excited. Of course the commute will be the killer, depending on where we end up living. Hopefully we can find a happy medium between a nice house (I want a great kitchen!) for the right price and a decent commute. He does have to work in Quantico one day a week, so we will be looking for housing in Virginia (as opposed to, say, Maryland).

So, stay tuned for more…

It’s a good, good morning.

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The plan was for me to go in to Owen’s room as usual and then have Tom come knock on the door. Tom was up super early (before 5) and once I knew he was up and moving around I was paranoid that Owen would hear/see him and ruin the surprise…so I got up and dragged Tom back into the bedroom while we watched Owen on the monitor. Owen dutifully waited until his nightlight turned green at 6:30 before turning his bedroom light on and I went in shortly after.

I thought he would have been much more excited…but it was still sweet. And then people (on Facebook) pointed out his wiggling feet and I guess that’s how he shows excitement. He also sounds a little choked up toward the end. (Facebook only got a snippet. This is the whole thing.)

The Facebook comments were great:

  • I like the wiggly feet…..
  • Awwww. This is priceless. I think he was very excited. His little feet!
  • The wiggly feet give it away!! So sweet!
  • Those feet!!!!!
  • Awww. Those feet! I totally cried. Both times.
  • The boy who emotes with his feet. What an awesome moment.
  • I love the little foot wiggle.

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Then first things first—he had to show daddy his Lego book!

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And then it was time to surprise Katie. She doesn’t seem to recognize him at first…but don’t worry, she was saying “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!” the rest of the day and didn’t want him to leave her sight.

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And daddy even did the morning diaper change!

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Welcome home, Tom!

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He wasn’t scheduled to land at MCAS (Marine Corps Air Station) Cherry Point until 6:30, at which point they had to unload and do admin stuff and only THEN get bussed an hour to Camp Lejeune. The official ETA was 10:15, so I planned to leave at 9. But it’s the military, so surprise!

The easiest way for me to do this is follow a direct timeline according to my texts and Facebook posts. 🙂

6:28 Owen tells me he wants daddy to pick him up from school tomorrow and “Mama, you can stay in the car.” He’s going to have such a big surprise in the morning!

6:44 Tom texted: Landed

6:44 I texted back: Woohoo

6:45 I posted to Facebook: The eagle has landed. (It was Liked by 72 people.)

8:01 Tom texted: On the move. (He sent a Glympse so I could follow his progress.)

8:19 Tom texted: I should be ready by 2130.

8:20 I texted back: 9:30?!? I need to leave earlier.

8:24 I texted my next door neighbor (who was coming to stay with the kids) asking if she could come over a bit earlier.

8:40 I pulled out of the driveway.

9:03 & 9:13 Following his progress—if I had left about 10 minutes earlier, I would have likely been following the bus on base:

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9:17 I posted this picture on Facebook: So close, yet not quite.

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9:21 Tom texted: At armory now.

9:21 I texted back: I’m watching. 🙂 (I could still see him walking around on Glympse.)

9:26 I posted this picture on Facebook: Bags are unloaded from a separate truck first, ahead of the guys.

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9:27 I posted this picture on Facebook: This is what the scene looks like.

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9:37 Tom texted: We are half way done. 15 minutes. Getting back on bus. Four guys left.

9:40 I posted to Facebook: I was so excited to get out of the house that I forgot it was freezing. I have no hat, gloves, or scarf. I’m frozen.

9:43 Tom posted to Facebook: M4, M9, and NVGs turned into armory. On bus to see Jen and do the Sea Bag Drag.

9:45 I posted this picture on Facebook: Waiting while freezing my fingers off.

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9:46 I posted this picture on Facebook: They’ve rearranged the bags three times now.

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9:54 A friend took these pictures of our reunion. Not quite as romantic a picture as you’d probably imagined. 🙂

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And of course our traditional selfie (we did them before they were a thing):

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9:59 After Tom found his bags, we took this selfie with the iPhone so we could post it on Facebook: He’s home! Better pics later! (It was Liked by 127 people.)

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10:04 A buddy of Tom’s helped haul all his gear to the car and then took this picture:

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10:48 Maggie welcomes daddy home:

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Daddy wanted to go on errands with us.

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Tom texted me on Facebook to say good morning and I told him we were headed out on errands. He said he’d like to go with us, so I kept sending pictures. And FYI it’s harder than you’d think to take pictures while you’re shopping…while trying to keep an eye on one and keeping the phone away from the other who wants “Alno.” 🙂

Waiting for the hair place to open:

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Getting ready to get his hairs cut:

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Waiting for brother:

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At Walmart:

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A tempting display:

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“I want to push her!”

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Done!

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Showing daddy Owen’s big boy booster seat (he uses the regular seat belt now) and his new hair cut:

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Waving to daddy!

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Owen noticed what was wrong!

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I can’t believe I’ve read this book 5-6 times and never saw it…but in my defense, it’s just a graphic and there’s technically nothing to read on it. And I’m usually reading fast so I don’t start crying.

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But then, after he noticed the 7 was missing…I noticed Wednesday was spelled wrong! TWO MISTAKES!

I contacted the company and they couldn’t believe in over 200 printings no one noticed! They thanked me and said they’d send a replacement book (which I declined, though maybe I should have accepted it so each kid could have one as a memento).

(Daddy’s Deployed is a completely customized children’s book for those with a parent deploying. The book features the name, gender, and physical attributes of, not only the child, but the parents as well!)

Things about me you might not know.

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This game has been going around Facebook whereby you are given a number and you are then required to tell that many unique or fun things about yourself that most people wouldn’t know. I’ve really enjoyed reading the answers from all my friends, and while I didn’t officially get a number I thought it would be fun to play along.

  1. At a very young age I knew I didn’t want children and actually asked my mom if I could get a hysterectomy. Wisely, she assured me I should wait.
  2. I still didn’t want kids until a few years after getting married… But that changed during the few days after finding out my Grandpa Len had died and I was with all my extended family back in Michigan and I realized how much I loved my family and didn’t want it to end with me. It’s a good thing Tom was on board.
  3. From that moment, it took three years to get pregnant and involved both of us being tested (no issues), though one of those years Tom was deployed. 🙂
  4. We are currently on our third deployment: ~9 months, ~13 months, and hopefully this one with kids will be the shortest at ~6 months. When you dream about falling in love with a military man (Oh! Those uniforms!) you never think about the sucky parts.
  5. In college I made a list of the top 25 or so things I was looking for in a partner. The top 5 were CRITICAL. When I met Tom? He had none of the top 5 but I still knew from the first night he was the one. Yes, I knew the very first night that we would get married. It took four years but we did it!
  6. I loved every part of my wedding and would do it all over again in a hot second. I loved all the unique touches (trumpeter, writing our own vows, one of the groomsmen barfing in the bushes during the ceremony, reception on a dinner train, personalized cake topper, and a horse and carriage) and to this day people still tell me how awesome it was.
  7. For someone who is a homebody and doesn’t like change, the military is not really the best thing for me. I always said I would wait to have kids until we were settled so they wouldn’t have to move schools…but life just doesn’t work that way (I got old too fast and Tom had decided to stay in for 20). But, we have met the greatest people and can’t imagine life without having met our best friends Roger & Ursula Mitchell and Tom & Karen Trimble).
  8. I :heart: Amazon. If I never had to leave my house to shop I would be just fine. I have my fingers crossed that someday we move somewhere that Amazon delivers fresh groceries. If you ask me where I got something, chances are probably 90% it was from Amazon, 5% it was from another online source, and 5% it was local. 🙂
  9. If I never had another job again I would be just fine. I am NOT someone who has to work to feel validated.
  10. I don’t consider myself a hoarder, but my pantry has been referred to as Dharma. Yes, I also :heart: Costco and Sam’s Club.
  11. I hate being late. For anything. Even with two kids on a hectic morning, I still make it to Pre-K (with a 15 minute drive) at least five minutes early.
  12. This was the first year since we got married that we didn’t have Chinese for our anniversary dinner (it started as luck then we planned it and even managed during his past deployments). We changed it to steak and shrimp this year so we’d be eating the same thing on the same day!

Owen’s Halloween Party

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I walked into controlled bedlam. Or maybe it just felt that way to me, since I am unaccustomed to being in a room full of little kids. 🙂 It was actually quite calm—just noisy. I regret not taking a video so you could fully understand. 🙂

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Katie loves coming in (which she rarely gets to do because I leave her in the car while I run him in or pick him up). She gets into everything. I tried to keep her corralled with cheese and crackers today but it only lasted so long.

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Then daddy called so he could see the party.

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It didn’t last too long, though, since we couldn’t hear each other due to all the ambient noise. But what was funny is that the teacher saw me holding my phone up and was like “Oh, what do you have there?” I’m guessing she thought I was showing Owen something or taking a video. When I told her it was Owen’s daddy on Skype she was really surprised! And excited! So she got to meet Tom briefly today. (Again, it was loud so it wasn’t much more than “Hi! Nice to meet you!”)

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Holy crap! Owen is pretty good at hitting!

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Papa wanted to surprise Owen with his own baseball bat so he got it the other day and planned to give it to him after school before his dentist appointment when we’d be at the playground.

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Then after a few quick attempts and after getting his grip and stance corrected, he was hitting most of my pitches! We were stunned. They weren’t perfect, of course, but I’d guess he was at least making some sort of contact on 80% of them…and probably good contact on 50% of those! He even smacked me with a ball a few times and had me ducking more than once as a ball whizzed by me.

While we were playing, Tom happened to Skype in, so he could watch Owen! It was awesome! Tom loved it!

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