4th of July

As is tradition, we all gathered at Kelly's sister Sher's home and celebrated 4th of July. This is actually the 1st time we have been able to attend in 5 yrs so it was awesome. There were tons of activities, and I'll admit I got super competitive during the corn shucking contest. Kelly and I made a great team as usual. The kids had a blast on the trampoline, riding bikes/scooters, and shooting off fireworks. Everyone had all their body parts intact when it was all over so I will call it a huge success.

A one post update...

Ok, I took some time off from blogging but here is the quick and dirty update. The pics are: Our new house, my 7th time celebrating my 29th birthday, and Kelly's 1st day going to Naval Postgraduate School. Thats right, he's not wearing a uniform...he gets to go to school and basically pretend he isn't in the Air Force for a couple of years (but we still get all the perks - how cool is that?)

We're in Texas, Y'all

Just wanted to pop in for a quick hello. We have been in TX for about a week, and we've been staying busy. We have been going to the pool almost daily and have been also going to the library and bowling. Kelly's coursework isn't really intense so he is around quite a bit. He has been back from his deployment for about 6 weeks or so and it has been great to be able to spend so much time together.

We are really looking forward to moving back to CA in a few weeks, and moving into our new home the 1st week of July. Kelly starts his Master's degree July 6th so it will be a very busy week indeed. It will be so nice to have our own home again with a yard for the kids. They are doing great here but I am looking forward to be able to send them outside to play when they get crazy. We are staying in Temporary Living Facilities (TLF) which is very nice but the walls are thin and I feel like I am shushing the kids constantly. I really don't like doing that, I think kids should be free to be crazy and loud (within reason).

Grand Canyon

Greetings from Flagstaff, AZ! We are on our trip out to Texas, and took a day to go to the Grand Canyon. It was really beautiful. Kelly and I went there back in 1994 (also on our way to Texas!) and it was so wonderful to come back with the kids. We walked out to the lookout point on the South Rim and Julia said "It looks like a picture." We also saw some beautiful scenery on the way to Flagstaff from the Grand Canyon, we got a close look at San Francisco Peak and saw some aspen trees. We got all the way up to an elevation of 8049 ft.

We took lots of pictures, of course, and wanted to put them up to share. Enjoy!

Goodbye for a while

The movers will be at our house at 8 am, so we are packing everything up right now. We are going to spend a month in Texas while Kelly completes a class, then we are moving into our new home in Seaside, CA (near Monterey) the 1st of July. We found a wonderful home and already have Julia registered at our fantastic neighborhood school and Kenneth is on a waiting list for Pre-School 3 mornings a week.

We are grateful for our time in Fresno during Kelly's deployment and for the tremendous amount of love and support we received from everyone. A very special thank you to my own parents, who not only helped me out tremendously last year, but who also gave Julia and Kenneth an endless amount of love and support. So thank you, thank you, thank you Mom and Dad.

Disneyland Pics Part Deux

On the second day of our Disneyland trip, we went to California adventures. This turned out to be a big treat for Kenneth, as he got to meet Lightning McQueen and Mater from the movie Cars. On the 3rd day, it was back to Disneyland where we went to Pixie Hollow to meet with Iridessa and Tinkerbell herself.

Disneyland Part I - Fit for a Princess

We took our recently reunited family on an awesome vacation to Disneyland! On our 1st day, we treated Julia to a visit to the newly opened Bibbity Bobbity Boutique where she was given her own Fairy Godmother who transformed her into a Princess for the day.

Julia was such a rock the year Kelly was away. She did so well in school, helped around the house and with her little brother more times than I could count. Thank you, sweetheart, for everything you do and for just being YOU. We love you more than you will ever know.