Horses

Being in Arizona the girls got a chance to go for a horse ride. Thank you Grandma Jane!!! They did awesome!!! Abby got to ride her own horse and take him around the yard all by herself. She spent most of her time trotting. The other two were lead around by Nancy the owner for a while and then got there own turn alone. Each got a chance to ride on their own without being held by the owner. I was fine until Anna wanted to "go fast" on her own. I looked up and her horse went a little to fast and got ahead of the owner and I about had a heart attack. Luckily he listened well and stopped when the owner yelled "wooh" aahhhh... They had a blast and didn't want to stop. Tomorrow is my turn for a hour long trail ride. Hurray!!!! Enjoy the pics!!!

The horse taking off with Anna on it



Audrey all on her own


Grandpa Bill and Abby

Galloping away

Chiquita Banana

Abby came up to me a bit ago to tell me good morning. I looked over at her and saw that she had a sticker on her forehead. Not so unusual for one of my kids. I then read what it said, and thought it was funny enough to share with all of you.
"Place sticker on forehead. Smile"

My life in 15 years

I was on a forum earlier today and some one was asking where everyone's dream place to live would be. This is what I would like in my perfect world. I guess we better start saving!! And looking. Where would we find such a place???

I want a small two bedroom cottage/house right on the beach (west coast) preferably with islands out in the water to look at and explore.
I good size yard with room to garden.
A nice porch to sit and have our morning coffee or evening hot cocoa and listen to the sea sounds, if its to cold outside I want huge windows so we can be toasty warm and still enjoy our view.
A fireplace to keep us warm.
Some Kayaks or maybe a canoe pulled up under the porch.
A separate heated work room for me to be artsy fartsy in my old age :)
Great neighbors close by like just over the fence (none of this living on a highway with no one to talk to crap)
bike/walking friendly streets.
A dog of course!!
A small down town five minutes or so walking from our house where everyone knows everyone. Great coffee shop and ice cream place for the summer is a must.
A big enough school for Brandon to be able to fulfill his work dreams of course!!
Great walking/hiking trails.
Warm summers and windy cold rainy winters (no snow would be nice)
And then the hardest part to fit in, a big city less then an hour away where I can get my shop on and we can enjoy the city life.

Are Brandon's last 8 years done yet??? I am sooooo ready to plant some roots!!!
Oh and we better start saving so we can afford this place of my dreams when we find it lol...

A Fairy Should Be Arriving Tonight

Audrey has reached a new mile stone in her life. After many days of anticipation her first baby tooth has fallen out, well has been pulled out. Here is a picture of the proud and excited girl.

Snow day

We have had a very long week over here in Maine. Tons of snow, me with a bad cold, Audrey’s ear infection and her insurance fiasco, Brandon out of town for the past two weeks, ext, ext, ext….
So with winter break ending, the idea of getting up early and getting Abby on the bus, Audrey missing yet another day of school, and running off to the YMCA for Anna’s swim lessons at 9am was a bit daunting… So I did it, I wished that the little snow we were supposed to get would be enough to close school…

WELL I TAKE IT ALL BACK!!!!!!

We got over a foot!!! I can no longer turn around in my driveway. The plower is working on getting a front loader in here so he can move some of the snow out of the way. He says that there are a lot of people with the same problem. There just isn’t enough room for all the snow we have had this winter. It doesn’t melt in between snow storms here, it just piles higher and higher… There is so much snow piled up at the end of the driveway that it is over my head for about 10 ft wide, all the way across the front of my yard!!! It’s insane!!!! I was out there shoveling for 2 ½ hours this morning!!! When I got a shovel full of snow I had to hoist it up over my head to get it on the pile!!! It reminded me of when I was a kid shoveling out my Dad’s fish hold on the boat. Ugh…. If this keeps up I won’t have to go to the gym, I will be getting all the exercise I need right here at home… My mail box was buried under 2 ft of snow. I had to shove the shovel into the pile just to find the thing!!! Two of my friends don’t have power. One of them since 10:30 last night when some power lines fell across her street!!!! I am glad we have power so we are warm. We might be having a few guests tonight so they can get out of the cold.

Anyway here are some pictures.


Pretty pictures





Route 17

Mailbox

The house, there is a swing set right to the left of the car behind the snow!!!



Disappearing driveway

Brandon's car

Car parked in little tunnel I made so I could clean out our parking spots

IS IT SPRING YET!?!?!?!

A New Old Adventure

Well I am sure you all have heard our good news. Brandon, the girls, and I are all heading off to Alaska this summer. Thinking of this makes me laugh. I never thought I would want to keep going back up there. The draw of family and all that is familiar is very strong!! I am glad that I have a husband who is willing to understand what I feel and also like living in a small town in Alaska.

So far on our Coast Guard adventure we have lived in:

Sitka, Ak until married

Eureka, CA 2000-2001

Oxnard, CA 2001-2003

Sitka, Ak 2003-2006

Rockland, ME 2006-2009

Sitka, Ak 2009-????

Do you notice a trend? I sure do. It seems I am only able to make it away from home for 3 years!!! Is that sad? I don’t know… I do want the adventure, but for instance we had to choose between Sitka (home, family) and Hawaii this time around. What did we do? We chose a small boring town in Alaska over what some people would consider paradise!!! Now it was far up on our list, so we did have a chance of getting there, but the detailer chose Sitka for us.

I do worry that Brandon agreed to this job for me. It will be hard for him. The TAD billet is not that fun. He will be jumping on planes to head of to who knows where when ever they want him to. I hope he knows how much I appreciate the sacrifice he is making for us. I worry that we didn’t really think this decision threw and might end up regretting how much he is gone. I know I will have support with family in town, but no one can replace him, you know.

Ok enough of that mushy stuff…

Brandon and I are planning on driving across country on this move. Most people I talk to think we are insane. “Who drives across country with three kids in a tiny car?!?!?!” they ask. Well I guess we do. Besides my Mom thinks it’s a good idea. Thank you Mommy!!!

How could we pass up the opportunity to see so much of our country?!?!?! The kids will even remember a lot of it when they are older, and if not then pictures will jog their memory. This is what I would like to do if we had all the money we needed and all the time. So Coast Guard be nice to us and let me have my dream… please….

Put cats on the plane in Boston. Thanks Jen!!! Maybe go see the aquarium there.

Drive to New York City check it out for a couple of days.

Head up to upstate New York and visit friends and see Niagara Falls.

Head west to Chicago and see a Cubs game (Brandon’s favorite team)

On the way out west see Mount Rushmore and Yellowstone National park.

Veer South and head down to the Grand Canyon and then to Kingman AZ to see family

Head West again to San Diego to see more family

North to Alaska, and on the way

Stop in San Jose to see more family

Head up the coast threw the Red Woods (would love to show the kids those) to Eureka see more friends

Farther north to Portland OR more friends

North again to Bellingham to see more family and catch the ferry up to Alaska.

Arrive in Sitka 3 days later completely exhausted and ready to go insane.

I of course would like to drag Brandon kicking and screaming to smaller sites along the way.

So that is my dream. Will it happen? Probably not, but wouldn’t it be great!!! I think I might need to get a job so we can pull it off lol…

What am I looking forward to after our move…

The kids living on a street where they can ride their bikes and play with other kids.

Woods that we can go in and not get Lyme disease (this is a big one for paranoid me)

Walking distance to the beach

FAMILY FAMILY FAMILY FAMILY

Familiarity

We should be able to pull of classes like dance, piano, and what ever else they might want to do, for the girls.

Coffee and bagels for lunch at the Highliner.

FAMILY FAMILY FAMILY

My girls will get to know some of their cousins!!!

Family dinners with more then 5 people!!!

Being out on the water again.

Hiking in the woods

The smell of morning

Familiar faces every where

Being able to afford family vacations

I could go on and on and on

What I will miss while there…

TARGET!!! Lol

Roads going to other towns

Other towns

City life

The thought that we could have been in Honolulu lol…

Adventure of new things

That’s about it…

I guess we made the right decision. My first list is a lot bigger then the second.

So everyone, we are off again. Brandon’s report date is July 1^st and we should be finding out soon when we can pack up all of our stuff and head out. This means I need to start shoveling out this house!!!!! It’s amazing how when you get a bigger place it fills up over time. I don’t recommend having a basement if you move a lot. They are bottomless pits!!!!

See all of you in Alaska soon!!! And hopefully a lot of you along the way!!!

Hunter

Tonight I closed the door to the girls’ room after tucking them in. About 30 seconds later Audrey came out crying telling me she doesn’t like bugs by her bed and she heard one. OH NO!!!!

So I went upstairs and sure enough a big old housefly thought it was spring and had come out during our unusually warm day. I was going to catch it for our pet spider named Rufus (a whole different story see below) but it was flying around so much I couldn’t.

Molly our cat and come in to see what all the commotion was about so I decided to use her as our hunter.

She cracks me up. I can pick her up and put my hand on her lower back and my other under her front legs and lift her all the way above my head so that she can reach the ceiling. She completely trusts me while doing this which I think is very unusual for a cat, her body will be very relaxed the whole time she is up there.

As soon as I lift her up, she knows that there is a bug that I want her to find. It took her about 10 seconds to find, catch, and then eat this particular fly.

I was going to get it away from her and give it to Rufus who hasn’t eaten since last fall, but she was to fast for me. And poor Rufus needed it so much more then Molly. She weights over 16 lbs already.

So hurray for Molly who saved the day!!! The children will not be eaten alive by the humongous house fly, but poor Rufus had to go without….

So about Rufus, I am not entirely sure why he is there. I hate spiders. The idea of one in my house creeps me out. What if it crawls away from where I saw it and ends up on my pillow!!!! You know all the normal stuff.

Well Rufus showed up in our upstairs bathroom one day and neither Brandon nor I felt the need to squish and flush the sucker. We soon saw that he was catching all the annoying bugs that live in the lovely state of Maine, well at least all of the ones that make their way to our upstairs bathroom.

He has never moved from the corner above our sink. The only thing that gives me chills is wondering if Rufus is really a Rufasina and will soon be sneaking a disgusting egg sack out somewhere and then we will be attacked by hundreds of tiny little nasty buggers. But as long as I just remember how interesting it is for us and the girls to watch him catch his prey, wrap it, and eat it, then I feel a little better about leaving an enemy in my bathroom. After all, what could be better for three girls who freak out anytime a bug is near? They are living with one in there bathroom! They will brush their teeth standing right under him. Although it only works on this particular bug. They trust Rufus, but any other spider or bug and its freak out time. Note the above story…

The only down fall is when he is threw eating he drops the carcass on our bathroom counter and also leaves some other unmentionable dots around. The good thing is Rufus hasn’t eaten in months. So we live together in harmony for now… The more webs he makes the less I want him there. The BIGGER he gets, the more I want to flush that little sucker. Right now I will try to hold out until spring so we can let little Rufus out side into the big old world of Maine. Where there are three billion million trillion bugs to eat!!!