Upside down

A few things are going to change up our lives in the next few days/weeks and hopefully we'll find the energy to get through it all. I'll blog this quick just to get some things down and then I'll come back to blog later about our trip here to Utah. It's been a fun filled week for sure and we're sad that our time is coming to a close. I have heard the girls ask if we could move back to our blue house, can Lexi move in next door to us in South Carolina and simply, can we move back. The kiddos have gotten along great and as I said it's been a fun week. It will be a tough goodbye for all of us as I have a great friend in Katey and the girls have a great friend in Lexi and well, Emily and Ty have become quite the buddies. The girls have been looking forward to this trip since I dropped the bomb and told them about it and are not going to be happy campers Saturday am. Maybe they'll be so tired at 7 am when we have to leave that they won't remember?!? Right, wishful thinking. Anyway, we'll get through this tough goodbye, again, since this will be what, the third time saying goodbye to this fun crowd? The first was pretty tough but it hasn't gotten much easier. Darn you Katey for being so much fun :)

Once we get home, we head right into the start of school on Wednesday! Monday will be orientation and open house for both Nichole at her elementary school (ok, so I admit, I'm starting to get anxious about it) and for Emily at her preschool (and ok, I'll admit that I'm ready for her to GO! ;)) "Fine, I will stomp all the way over here" is not something I enjoy dealing with from my 3 year old! Both are super excited to start school and I have a feeling the first few days will be like a dream to me, but then reality will kick in and the 3 hours on Monday, Wednesday and Friday will fly by when Emily is gone. Tuesday will be filled with dentist appointments and hair appointments to be all bright and shiny on Wednesday am. We're sad Daddy won't be able to share in the day with us, but he made the "sacrifice" to miss the first day of kindergarten to be able to go TDY here to Hill in Utah so we could join him. I think Nichole will remember her trip to UT much more than her first day of kindergarten, but then again, who knows.

So we make it past the first day of school and then move on to another sad goodbye. Nichole has had a few best friends in the past few years and has had to say goodbye to 3 of them already, to include Lexi here in UT.

Lexi was the beginning of the list when we left Utah, then we moved to SC and Nichole became friends with a little boy named Caden in her class during her first year in preschool. Caden left last summer and she has missed him and whenever we pass his neighborhood she always mentions him.

Then Kaity Mac was in her class for the 4 year olds as was Scott and we are in the same squadron as Scott's family, so we always saw a lot of them. Kaity moved a few months ago and Nichole was quite upset at this lifestyle we live and wanted to know why all her friends had to move. She quickly piped up again when our neighbors moved recently.

So that leads us to now where she doesn't know yet, but Scott will be leaving in about 10 days. They wouldn't have gone to the same school anyway, but trust me, knowing them and Scott's mom and I, we'd have made plans at least three times a week to get together even with Nichole in all day kindergarten. I haven't told Nichole that Scott is moving yet b/c we just found out in the past few days and I didn't want to ruin her time here in Utah although it has laid heavy on my heart. I know she will suffer a huge loss in her friendship category considering all her best friends she has made since she was 2 are now "gone". I know she'll make new friends in school and such, but it just won't be the same for her, for me or for Emily for that matter since Scott's little sister and her are best friends.
Luckily, Emily will still have one of her best friends, Kylynn going to preschool with her, but the 3 of those girls together would always just crack us up and especially when you threw Scott and Nichole into the mix.

They are a great group of kids that have their moments, but 90% of the time play awesome together. I will lose a great friend also (only to distance, I know), but it's tough to say goodbye to certain people. Hopefully we can come up with some good distractions over the next few weeks to get us through all this.


To finish it out, we are busy putting together our list for where we'd "like" the AF to take us next. Our list is supposed to be turned in by Sept 9 and while that seems a long way away still, I'm sure it will creep up on us and then we sit and wait to see what our fate is. We have talked through many different scenarios and added to our conversations the many different factors that come into play with options we have. Please pray that we make the best decision we can for what is best for our family. Obviously, us turning in a list doesn't mean we get what's on there. It's just a "dream sheet". But with some different things happening over the next year or so, I'm just trying to keep my faith and know that God is ultimately in control, even if the AF is deciding where we go next, it's really God making that decision and he knows what is best for us.

Summertime Fun!!

We've been hanging out doing lots of fun things with friends to enjoy the summer and get out of the heat some days! Part of me is sad to see summer come to end knowing there still could be so much fun to be had with these friends we won't be around next summer, but yet, we're ready (or so we think) for this next adventure in life with Nichole starting kindergarten and Emily beginning preschool. Let the fun begin...

Nichole with one of her best friends, Scott. Check out that crazy hair!

Emily with two of her best friends, Sydney and Kylynn! And no, we did NOT plan their outfits with all this pink!!

I have more pics but have to get them off the camera later. For now, it's time to go paint 3 little girls nails!

Mission accomplished!

I have been working for months on these quilts for the girls. I saw the fabric first and then found the pattern with the exact fabric I had bought so I immediately fell in love and couldn't wait to see the finished product. The girls were happy to finally have them after months of waiting as well. I couldn't have made them without the help of friends and I love how they turned out. We are in Utah currently and my friend made her daughter one as well, so we'll post a pic of the 3 kiddos with them at some point.

They weren't supposed to be used as quilts for their beds, but they wanted to take their other quilts off and use these as their blankets and they fit perfectly for what the girls were wanting.

I let them each pick their own backing and of course Nichole chose pink.

I personally like Emily's more just b/c I'm not as into the pink as Nichole is, but both are super cute!

Living with girls!

And so life with girls begins... on the way to the mall Friday, Nichole told me how for her birthday she has decided she wants make-up and jewelry. Right kid, fat chance, you must not know who your mom (or parents) are. I think what brought this on is that we had just been at a "princess and pirate" birthday party where they did the shimmery glitter and such on their eyes and who knows what else since I was on the other side of the room. In any case, no I'm not giving my 6 year old make up for her birthday, lip gloss and some costume or play jewelry, okay maybe. Anyway, so we continued our trip to the mall and she began talking about getting her ears pierced. This has been topic of conversation off and on for quite a while but we have always managed to deter her by telling her it would hurt to get them done. Apparently this time it didn't matter. So I had to say, well we really need to talk to Daddy first. To which she replied, "Well I know how we can talk to him, we can call him". Right. Daddy would love that. I continued on in trying to say "Well we really need to have Daddy with us when we do this". "Well Mom, we can just show him". HA, I did NOT want to hear that! That scares me for the teenage years. So we briefly had a conversation about how Daddy needed to be involved in this decision and we don't just "show him" things after they are done. We'll see if that sticks over the next few years. We finally ventured into the mall got our other things done and we stopped by Claire's so I could price things out and see what options we had. We of course left without having our ears pierced which Nichole was not too happy about but I told her it was her job to bring it up to Daddy. I, of course, later that day when talking to Eric, told him about all this so he'd be prepared and he could think about his response to her. Saturday morning when Eric got home, Nichole once again was bringing it up and I told her to go talk to Daddy. Daddy told her she could get them done! She was super excited and Emily of course this entire time wanted what Nichole had so she played like she wanted them as well. So, off we went to the mall. On our way to the mall this time, we had said that Nichole would go first and Emily would watch. Then it would be Emily's turn. We were secretly hoping that Nichole would have a reaction and Emily would see that it hurt and wouldn't want to get it done. Ha, right. That backfired on us. Nichole had no reaction and even said it didn't hurt, so Emily hopped up into the chair after Nichole had her 14K October birthstone earrings in her ears. So, a nice pretty penny later, we now have two little girls with earrings! Just one more step in the growing up process since it was supposed to be a while until this happened. Yesterday afternoon, Emily was having a bit of "buyer's remorse" I think and wanted to take them out, but ha, not for the price we paid girl, sorry :) They immediately headed over to look at all the possibilities for future earring purchases once they had gone through with it.

Nichole waiting in the chair as the ladies prepped things

It's go time!

She was so proud of herself as were Mommy and Daddy! She's growing up!

Now it's time for baby sister!

I think Emily was a little more apprehensive than Nichole, but she did it!

Still not sure about what just happened.

Two pretty girls after they were all done. I could hardly get them to stop looking at the possibilities of earrings to take this picture.Some rockstar earrings Nichole has picked out. Hmm... not so much kid sorry :)

Friends are friends forever...

"Packing up the dreams God planted

In the fertile soil of you
I can't believe the hopes He's granted
Means a chapter of your life is through

But we'll keep you close as always
It won't even seem you've gone
'Cause our hearts in big and small ways

Will keep the love that keeps us strong"

As I sit and listen to my 5 year old try to explain to me how she's sad/mad that our neighbors are moving (they are a F-15E family heading back to North Carolina) and how she's tired of all her friends moving away, it breaks my heart and I know exactly how she feels. What she hasn't grasped yet is that this is just the beginning. She remembers leaving Utah (must have been the blue house) and remembers her real first best friend Lexi and while Emily doesn't remember as much, she chimes in with the excitement of our upcoming trip to visit Utah and our friends we still have there. I also remember leaving my friends in Utah and I had to be dragged away from that house and those friends. I sat crying for the first few weeks, okay so Eric would say months, we arrived in South Carolina wondering how God would introduce me to more friends that matched up to these other few wives.



Being in the military, we always are moving and meeting new friends and it's hard to leave one place and have faith that God will put other friends in your life at that next base. We go through deployments, numerous TDY's, long hours when they are at home and anything else life throws at us. Here in SC, I'm so thankful for the way the wives work together. In Utah, it was like we never stepped outside our squadron and met the other wives, but here, it's completely opposite. I rarely hang out with anyone from our squadron minus one wife, but the rest are in one of the other two squadrons and no ladies, that's not b/c the other squadrons are better :) I finally allowed myself to move on from Utah and knew that all those friends I made while in Utah, God had me meet them and build a relationship with them for a reason. And boy do I ever miss those gals, but I keep in touch with them and I love them for all they have been to me! Which all brings me to now. I have met some great gals here and again it's just that small handful that have gotten me through a deployment, even LONGER hours (if you can imagine that), more TDYs than I care to count, other life struggles that have come our way and even though they've all had their own lives going on, they've always made time to check in on me, even if it was 11 pm at night. I always knew who was calling if my phone rang after 10 pm and somehow we could talk until midnight and have no clue what we talked about in the end. Kim Mac, somehow we never put aside our crud tourney differences and took pictures together. :) Or maybe I just don't have copies of the pictures?! How is that possible? So, that's my shout out to you girl! I miss you! (Oh and so is the second song on here:)) Wives have come and gone, but I am so thankful for the few that have been best friends to me. Now as I sit with my husband home, well, on alert, (for now thankfully), I have 3 best friends who are missing their hubbies due to either Korea or the desert. I find myself hurting for each and every one of them and wishing I could take their hurt away, since they don't have the every day joys of spending time with their husbands and their children's Daddy, b/c I like them, know what it's like to be a single parent and it is one tough job! I know that eventually we will be in this same boat (Korea I mean) and we will be faced with some of the same trials they are all going through. But I know that even with them all going through these things, I could call one of them up, ask them anything and they would be there for me at the drop of a hat and they know I would do the same for them, b/c that's what friends do. Now, if only I could convince Eric to take on an additional 5 kiddos a few nights a month so the 3 of us could go for some girl time.... HA, right. The one thing I'm thankful for is that we all arrived here around the same time and will move on to our next bases within a few months of each other. So, here's to all my girls past and present (man I feel like I'm doing a Gambler toast)! Thanks for who you are to me, each other and everyone else you come in contact with. I love you all! Oh and Ryndee, Gamblers rock, your van even said so :) See Shari, I do show emotion ;)

Pictures from NH!!

Sit back and be ready for some laughs! Out of the 270 or so pictures we took, you get to see a few of them on this post, but you can see the rest on the right hand link "Family Pictures Galore" !! These are a few of my favorites, so enjoy! Also, they are in no particular order, b/c I don't have time to put them all chronologically. :)

This one totally defines our family. One of my cousin's took it from my phone while we were all trying to get set to take a family picture. It reminds us of some magazine cover or something, probably for a magazine called "Crazy Weekly" or something along those lines :) I love them all though!

Aunt Kelly finally gave up playing all nicey nice with Eric, so she played his game and he loved it :)

The girls loved having so many people around to hang out with. Patrick, Kylie and KK had fun with them, too.

Aunt Kylie is one of the best aunt's in the world. The girls absolutely love hanging out with her getting to have sleepovers every night and piling on top of her! She takes it all so well!

Some of my favorite people in the world! Aunt Patty, G-Man and Gigi ready for some fun on one of the few beautiful afternoons.

We took this before heading down to do some jet skiing. I love him!

Colee loved having her hair braided by Aunt Kylie. We had finally gotten to hit up the beach.

We took some family pictures with everyone up on a hill where you could see the lake behind us. Beautiful. Refer back to the first picture to see another one at this site.

It took Aunt Kelly and I a good long time to get our standard self portrait on the hill. People kept wanting to be in the picture with us, however this is probably one of the funniest pictures with Uncle Ricky in it!

Family picture with my side of the family. It was a beautiful day after church. And Eric had already been out wakeboarding too!

I love this picture of my dad, sister and I.

Family picture out on G-Man and Gigi's deck overlooking Back Bay.

G-Man with some of his favorite girls!

G-Man's kiddos (plus Em) with his new OSU hardhat!

Probably one of the best pictures of the trip!!! You have to look carefully to see what's happening... Eric is throwing his new Facebook BFF, Aunt Kelly, off the jet ski. She knew better though and took him with her:)

Colee almost got up on the water skis. Hopefully next summer.

Eric enjoyed the water and many times was found doing stunts like this one. The girls loved watching it.

Colee trying out the water skis on land first. It was a little nicer on land since it was warmer and she was standing up.

Eric got to do lots of tricks on the water, but this shot was taken at a decent hour, not 0630! I was not into waking up that early to take pictures.

And now it's Aunt Kelly's turn to get in the picture with Eric and I.

As much of a pain as they can be sometimes, I love these girls! Life wouldn't be life without them!

Uncle Ricky is loved by the girls as well.

G-Man and Gigi took a quick pic with the girls at the Russ Bell Memorial Golf Tournament

Family pic at the golf tournament dinner

We took a day trip to Boston with this gang. We wanted to take an "after" shot as well, but I'm not sure you would have seen the same amount of smiles on our faces. All of us were wet from the rain we encountered all day. We had to re-teach Aunt Kylie the letter "C" like "Christy is cool, spelled with a "c" not a "k" in hopes they would make it to Chipotle to join us before heading back to Alton Bay, but no such luck. We enjoyed a yummy dinner from Chipotle nonetheless! This was all after Aunt Kylie ran into the blind man :)

Eric helped open a safe that was left in my grandparent's cottage and had been closed up in the early 80's but had stuff from much earlier than that in it.

So there's the pics you get. Check out the link up top for the rest of the pictures! We are just hanging out for the next few weeks of summer until we hit up Utah with Eric when he goes TDY in August just before the girls start school. He will miss their first day of school, but I'm sure Nichole will be more excited to hear we're going to visit our "blue house" and her friend Lexi than worrying about whether or not Eric is around for her first day of school.

Until then...

Backtrack... again.

Ok so it takes me a while to get things updated, but eventually I get there. We just got back from a trip to New Hampshire and it was a ton of fun, as it always is. The girls had a blast playing with everyone even though we had half our trip filled with rainy days! Before we left, Eric had two other shows with the band and it's always fun to see him play. Not sure when the next show will be since the guys are starting back up on their busy TDY schedule. Over the next few months, we will be putting in the list of places we'd like to move next and shortly after that, finding out where we will be heading to next with the AF. I'm excited to find out where our journey will be taking us.

Back to New Hampshire since that's the big event from the past few weeks. I will throw a few of the pics on here, but obviously it's easier to keep up on the pictures side of things if you are on Facebook. Yea, I know, I'm lame, but it's SO much easier to upload the photos to there :) Anyway. We got to NH with a few delays but made it nonetheless and began 10 days of family filled fun! I have learned to cherish each moment you have with family and it is such a blessing to be a part of a family, even as crazy as we are! Once you see the pics, you'll understand what I mean. We had an "Internet Cafe" going at "Hornsby Haven" (my parents cottage in NH), a day trip to Boston where my little sister ran into a blind man in the pouring rain so the day trip was cut short, fireworks on the boat, kettle corn, playing cards late into the evening, jet ski rides, watched Eric wakeboard, tried to get Nichole to waterski, got Aunt Kelly to waterski, family dinners, more jet skiing after purchasing wet suits b/c the water was so cold and it kept raining, celebrated Eric's 30th!! birthday, broke into an old safe in the basement at my grandparents, had Eric fix the family boat, beach time down at Back Bay, ice cream at Uncle Bill's, Russ Bell Memorial Golf Tournament and dinner, Johnsons for family dinner, putt putt and many more great laughs as we shared time and sat around with family. This is a time I look forward to each year and although G-Man and Gigi may not be able to make it up there next summer due to G-Man (hopefully) having a lung transplant by then, we are hoping to still make a trip there and meet up with the rest of the family, as long as we're in country as we say. I wish the weather would have been better, but all in all it was a great time of relaxing and enjoying each other's company. Now that we're back to reality, it really stinks! I'll put pics in another post just to save myself some headache. Look for those soon. Off to get a P90X workout in before naptime ends!