16 Days of Glory

I remember in 1984, when the opening ceremonies of the Los Angeles Olympics came on. My mom was watching it in her bedroom and was crying. I thought she was kind of weird, but I watched with her. Fast forward, 2008, I love the Olympics and have been soaking up every minute. I kept telling David, we've got to get to bed...it's midnight! But he always said, it's the Olympics, it's too good to miss. We watched so much and loved it all. It's almost sad to see it end so quickly. So, we wait, another 2 years to see it all in the snow in Canada, and then to London in 2012. What inspiring stories and examples of human accomplishment and brotherhood. Here's a montage video, put on by NBC. I've watched it about 20 times, and the happy crying continues. What an amazing 16 days of glory.


http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/player.html?assetid=0824_hd_ccb_au_l1808r1

Mr. Jackson loves trains

When I was in New York with my mom a few weeks ago, David called me and said, "I think I'm going to build a train table." We've looked at the ones that you can buy, but #1, they're insane expensive, #2, kind of small, and #3, paying to have them shipped is more than we want to dish out. So, David finally had a moment or two, and went down to Home Depot and wha-laaa, a beautiful train table. He did a fantastic job on it. The kids absolutely love it, especially Jackson. He's at the perfect age to love trains and everything Thomas the Tank Engine.

A view of the table from the top.



We all worked together as a family and painted it, the top and sides. It looks really great! Well, I figured we'd have a train party for Jackson for his 2nd birthday. Since David will not be here on Jackson's birthday on the 31st, we had his party this past week before David left. We brought the train table downstairs, cleared out the living room and let all these two year olds play on it. They had fun, except the big kids wanted to play, too, so it got a bit crowded.

I also attempted a fun cake. I tried to keep it simple, if you've seen that website about amazing cakes, these people are making train cities with cake, it's crazy. Anyway, after two frosting disasters, I ended up with a funny looking pink, yellow and blue cake, which was supposed to be Thomas red and blue, but oh well, they just ate it up anyway.

The masterpiece cake!



Jackson liked it no matter what colors it was!


I also had a pinata. It was a train shape, but was kind of hard to get smashed, so David had to step in.




Jackson opening presents. He got a battery powered Percy train, the Aquarium cars, and two cool Thomas books. I love his little face in this picture. My mom has a picture of me drawing, and I have this same look, with the concentration lips and everything!





It was a fun day, and I know he won't remember it, but we took great pictures. I can't believe he's two already.

Birthday & College

Last Wednesday, we had a fun day with friends for my birthday. It was just a nice day out with the kids and some of my friends. We went to a Butterfly Zoo in Tiverton. It was kind of fun, you go in to this greenhouse basically and just let the butterflies fly all around you and land on you. The kids thought it was cool, but very hot and humid, so it lasted for about 30 minutes. Then we went to a park with sub sandwiches. Then we all wanted to cool off and decided on Slurpies from 7-11, yummy! :) One friend that was with me said she wanted to give me something for my birthday and asked if I had ever had my eyebrows waxed. Ha Ha, i know weird question, but she's a hairstylist and does facials, too, and we had talked about it before. So, I don't have bushy eyebrows, but I've never plucked or anything, but I thought it would be fun, so we did some waxing! Ouch!!! I like the new brows, though. Then later we had cake at home and went to dinner at the Blue Plate Diner on West Main St, in Middletown. All in all a fun day.

So, I mentioned in my last post about starting college again, some of you have asked about that, thanks for asking! I'm really excited but also a little nervous, I haven't been in school in 9 years! I was a music education major at USU when David and I decided to leave school to join the Navy. Well, 9 years and 3 kids later and it just hasn't been a priority. In November, I started feeling the desire and thought it was just one of those fleeting things, but it has very much stayed with me and now feels kind of like a need for me. I don't know if it's just for my brain to keep working and not living on Cheerios, or if there will be a need in the future for me to have a source of income, or what, but right now, I don't care about any of that. I'm just proud of myself for following through with it all and getting registered, etc.

I've decided to go to the University of Phoenix. Mainly because they have degree programs that are entirely online. While I'm excited about school, my husband, kids and home are my top priorities, so on campus is not an option. So, the Uof Phx is very military oriented and have given me a lot of help to get started. I have a lot of credits from USU, so hopefully, I'll have an associates degree in Business within about 9 months or so. From there, I'm planning to start the Bachelors program in Communicative Disorders /or Psychology. After that, I plan to do the Masters Program in Counseling/Marriage and Family Therapy. Writing it down, I can see it sounds pretty lofty, but I'm praying everything will continue smoothly and I'll be able to finish my goals.

New York City!

So, here's installment #2 on my summer trip... After David and I got back from D.C., my mom and I left the next morning on an Amtrak train bound for Penn Station, New York City! Neither of us had ever been there, so we were excited. The train was an hour late getting to Kingston, RI station, but we weren't in a big hurry, so it was nice to have that extra time to visit. We had about 3 hours on the train, but it went by so fast. I haven't had that kind of one on one time with my mom in many many years. It was really great!

Me and my mom on the Amtrak train.

We got to Penn Station and found a zillion taxis outside, so we grabbed one and went to our hotel. I got a great deal on Priceline for a 4 star hotel about 6 blocks from Times Square! It's called the Intercontinental The Barclay. Very nice! So, we unpacked a little and set out for some sightseeing. We walked around the corner and found the Waldorf Astoria. It looks much bigger in the movies. Then we made our way to Times Square. We went to the M&M's World Store, too fun! We visited a bunch of other places on Broadway, etc. We ate lunch at a fun place called Ellen's Stardust Diner. It's 50's themed and the waitstaff goes around with microphones singing the hits of the 50's and 60's. My mom was singing along and we had the best time.

At M&M's World, Times Square

After walking around this city entirely too full of people, we went back to our hotel to get a shower and ready for Broadway!!!! We got tickets to the Phantom of the Opera. We dressed up and got ready to go, got a taxi from the front of our hotel and told him 8th and Broadway. Okay, it's Friday night, we're all dressed up, clearly tourists, and I said 8th ave. and Broadway. Guess where we ended up?....8th STREET and Broadway in SOHO. While we were in the back trying to ask the driver if this was broadway for the plays he pretended to be on the phone and ignored us and shooed us out of the taxi. So, there we were, standing all dressed up on a regular street corner in SOHO, scratching our heads and wondering if we'd just been had by a NYC taxi driver. YUP! Anyway, after 3 tries, we got another taxi who took us to our destination and was nice to us. We had an amazing fancy dinner at a restaurant right across the street from the theater. We went in and found our seats, almost to the front. The Phantom of the Opera was incredible! I absolutely loved it, it moved me so much! Then we walked back to our hotel, amazed at how many thousands of people were still roaming around at midnight!!!

Saturday, we went touring around on foot and on the top of one of those tourist buses. It was so much fun. We walked to Central Park, walked over to the Manhattan Temple, down into Times Square again, and then on the bus. We stopped at the Empire State Building..(side note on the ESB...waited for 3 1/2 hours, paid $45 to get to the 80-something floor and look out over NYC for 5 minutes. Total waste of money and time in my opinion...especially after seeing Tokyo from the City view tower, way better!!!) Anyway, we went all the way down to Battery Park, by the UN building and Ground Zero. We saw so much of NYC, it was great! (Note: At Bowling Green down by Battery Park, we saw the fountain where the opening credits sequence for FRIENDS was filmed! :)

On top of our tour bus. After a long day of sight seeing, we wanted to try and get tickets for another Broadway show. We went to the last minute ticket booth and Marriott Marquis and got tickets for Hairspray. So, we rushed over there just in time for the 8 pm show. I've seen the movie, but the show was just soooo much fun! We loved being able to see that show, too! After we walked through Times Square again to find somewhere to eat. We saw the Olive Garden and tried to get in, but at 11:30 pm the wait time was over an HOUR!!!! So, we ate at some other steak house place, terribly overpriced, but pretty good food!

Me in Times Square at midnight.
On Sunday, we got up early and went to Battery Park to start our day trek to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. The security lines are amazing, even at 8:30 in the morning! We got to Liberty Island and looked around for a while and then went to get in the line for the statue tour, which only goes into the base of the statue. We waited in line for about 2 hours and went through 3 different security tents. Crazy. We walked up the 50+ stairs to the deck just below where the statue sits. When we first got to the island, I thought Lady Liberty looked kind of small, but when we got right up to her, she's very giant! It was wonderful to see her and know what she stands for and how many millions have called her name in excitement when coming to America.

At Liberty Island.


From Lady Liberty with Manhattan in the skyline.
After Liberty Island, we went to Ellis Island. It was a very emotional and awe inspiring place. It's so amazing to me what people gave up and left behind for the promise of freedom. It's such a blessing to be born in and live in a free country, with opportunity and daily bread. I loved being at Ellis Island, we stayed there and read everything we could for almost 5 hours!

The main room, in the height of it's glory was filled with 5,000 people a day waiting for their turn to be admitted in the USA.
After a long day at Ellis and Liberty Island, we headed back to Manhattan. As we were walking out of Battery Park looking for the subway station, we walked up on a commercial or something being filmed. A bunch of very beautiful people in nice clothes were being pampered in the middle of the street, while some guy on the side was working a smoke machine, and another guy was yelling at the models where to stand and then action. I'm not sure what it was for, we couldn't ever tell, but it was fun to watch for a while and we thought it was a fitting tribute to the city we were in! We made it on the subway, no problem and got out at Grand Central Station. It's pretty amazing, too! I just kept thinking about that part in Armageddon movie with Bruce Willis when Grand Central station was leveled by a meteor...cool!

On Sunday night we finally got to eat at Olive Garden, my first time in about 6 years, and it was sure yummy. Monday morning we were kind of lazy about getting up and getting going. We got packed up and made our way back to Penn Station to get the Amtrak back to RI. We had another nice trip back, and the kids and David were happy to have us home. I missed them!

Some goings on at the ginormous Toys R' Us in Times Square, I couldn't resist taking a picture.
This whole trip, to D.C. and to NYC was such a blessing! Mostly because I got some time with my husband and also with my mom and I got to see some of our country's amazing places! Now on to new adventures...Abby starts Kindergarten, Jacob starts 3rd grade, Jackson will be the dreaded 2, and I'm starting college again!!!! Stay tuned!!

Washington D.C.

Don't you just hate it when you're so excited about a trip and then it's all of a sudden over? I had so much fun researching places, getting reservations, planning times and locations and getting this whole thing together, and now...it's already over. Kind of depressing, but the memories are amazing.

As I wrote in a previous post, David and I just celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary. Now, this isn't a huge number, but since I'm still so YOUNG, it sometimes feels like a dream. For our honeymoon in June, 1998, we went to Salt Lake City for 3 days. We stayed in a very cool hotel called the Annivesary Inn. We went shopping, ate out, walked around SLC and just relaxed. It wasn't very far from home and we were students, so it wasn't very lavish or fancy. We haven't spent very many annivesaries together since then, as the Navy tends to take David away during the summer. So, I wanted to do something big this year for our 10th. It all worked out that my mom could come and stay with the kids, too, so off I went on the planning. Well, I looked into the Carribean, Jamaica, Florida, even Europe, but when it came down to it, we only had 4 days and we just didn't want to spend that kind of money. So, we decided since we both love history and we've been out of the USA for a while, we wanted to go to Washington, D.C. Neither of us had ever been there.



We drove, 8 hours, to DC on Monday. Our hotel was The Westin Grand in the Georgetown area. It was so beautiful! We walked around near George Washington University on Monday night, had a wonderful mexican dinner at a place called Cabanas and then went to the movies and saw "The Dark Knight". On Tuesday morning, we got up early and went to the D.C. temple, which is actually in Maryland. It's a beautiful temple and of all mornings in all places, we met a girl that we were in the marching band with at USU. Small world!

Tuesday afternoon, we walked down to the National Mall. This is where all the monuments and mueseums are. The first thing we saw was the Lincoln Memorial. This is a very reverent and emotional place, I thought. We read the Gettysburg Address engraved on the wall, and it really was inspiring. Then we walked to the Vietnam War Memorial. What an eye opener. It puts it into some sort of perspective on the lives lost when you see all those names engraved in the wall. Then we made our way to the WWII Memorial and then to the Washington Monument. By the time we got to the Washington Monument, I was in so much pain I couldn't walk another step. I had decided to wear the cute sandals....go ahead and laugh, David did, he always teases me that I choose cute over comfort. Well on this day, I was kicking myself because I had the worst blisters and I couldn't go another step. I begged the security guard at the monument for some bandaids and got all wrapped up so I could keep going. After that, we went to the Holocaust Museum. Wow, what an incredible place. It was 4floors of history about the Holocaust and the events leading up to it. What a sad time in history. I would recommend this museum to everyone. Very moving.







We got excited before we left because we learned that the DC Navy band was having a concert while we were there. So on Tuesday evening, we walked over to the capitol because I had written down that as the location of the concert. Well, we found out they weren't there but at the Naval Memorial about 20 minutes walk away. So, more walking, but we made it just in time for a very fun concert. David made some contact with some people in the band, so hopefully, they will remember him in two years when we try to get into that band! Details on that development for another post.

We walked almost the whole way back to our hotel late after the concert, but by this time, I was practically dragging my poor cute sandals feet, so we got a cab the rest of the way.

The next day we were so sore, but up and at it for another day. Needless to say, we got a cab to the National Mall this morning, as we were both pretty wiped from the day before. We went straight to the Museum of Natural History. We were there for about 4 hours, I'd say, and we still didn't see the whole thing. We did get to see the 3-D Imax movie on dinosaurs. I've never seen a 3-D before, it was so fun! The museum is huge, but very cool! Then we went across the street to the Air and Space Museum. That was so fun, we really enjoyed this place! I loved the WWII planes and exhibits the most, but the astronaut and space part was very cool, too.

Wednesday we walked ALL the way back to the hotel, I wore my sneakers on this day. We got back to the hotel and decided to go down the street to find something to eat, as the restraunt in the hotel was about $30 for an apple, crazy! We found a little hole in the wall mexican place called Don Lobos. While we were having dinner it started to pour rain. So, by the time we got back to the hotel, we were totally drenched!

Thursday, we started for home pretty early, I was starting to miss the kids! We got home around 4 pm, after another long 8 hour drive...I do have to say though, that 8 hours goes by a lot faster without any kids to entertain.

We had a great time, just the two of us, visiting Washington, D.C. I loved it! Stay tuned for the New York City trip details!

Thirty Three

Don't you just love my birthday background? On August 13th, I turn 33. I guess turning 29 forever is just silly. I joke about not wanting to get older, but it's actually pretty cool. When I turned 30, I decided to go to the doctor and have everything checked. Maybe a way to ease into the "old age of the thirties". I fully expected to need glasses, cholesterol medication and all the vitamins I could find. Weird, I know. So, I did all that and came out of the doctors' with 20/20 vision, and absolutely nothing wrong with me. So, here I am at almost 33, with still nothing going on, except the pounds, and I am just going make a chocolate cake and then go to bed early. Nothing big, and before I know it, 34 will be here. Bring it on!

Around my birthday last year, Yokosuka, Japan