Yes...that's a helicopter!

Today some of our good friends were kind enough to invite us on a boat ride to the sand bar in Kane'ohe Bay.  (thanks guys)  Andrew and I LOVE LOVE LOVE going to the sand bar.  Today was the first trip for everyone else with us.  We went at the perfect time...low tide.  That's the lowest I've ever seen the tide in all the 5 1/2 years I've been here.  

Exposed reef

Kristina chillin' on the boat

We all sat and watched while Kelly pulled us in close and set the anchor.

The kiddos shooting water guns.

Wait...is that a helicopter?

Yes it is...and it just LANDED on the sandbar!  

Naturally, Andrew wanted to go check it out.

It turned out to be a group of  professional kite surfers, doing a professional photo shoot.

  He flew the photographers around.  It was so amazing to watch!

We got to see them do some pretty cool stunts.

It was a beautiful day!

Man, I'm going to miss this place!

Water Park...again!

Since we have annual passes to the water park, we like to get the most out of them.  School was out on Monday due to a teacher work day, so Silke and I loaded up the kids for a day of fun.  The boys were a little shy of the slides at first and just wanted to splash in the water, which was fine with me.  

Caius having fun!

Splash!

After this shot, I put the camera down so I could have some fun too!  We played so hard that we fell asleep when we got home at 3:45 and slept until 7:30...OOPS!

Pray for Albertville

On Saturday night around 10:30 pm central time, my hometown Albertville, Alabama was hit by an EF3 tornado.  With winds up to 150 mph and a path of distruction 3/4 of a mile wide, the town is a disaster area.  There were 23 injuries (that I know of) and luckily NO FATALITIES.  Once you see the pictures, that in itself if a miracle.  Luckily my family was not affected, as we live outside of the city limits.  They were very fortunate.  Downtown Albertville took the most damage and it will be a while before things are back to normal.  I heard a city councilman say in an online video that "the landscape of our city is changed forever."  I believe that is true.

It is so hard to be 5,000 miles away and not be able to help in some physical way.  All I have to offer is prayer. This morning in church our sign language team performed to Casting Crown's "Praise You In This Storm" and I cried as I thought about the images I had seen online.  Albertville, I hope you do Praise HIM in this very literal storm that you're experiencing.  My thoughts and prayers are with those of you who were affected.

VIDEO OF DAMAGES
Albertville Tornado

Aerial footage and article:
http://warmsouthernbreeze.wordpress.com/2010/04/26/tornado-rips-severe-damage-through-albertville-alabama/

Beach Buds

On Sunday afternoon Andrew and I went to the beach with some of our good friends, which happen to double as our neighbors.  Andrew and Caius are really good friends and we've been hanging out with them a lot lately.  With Drew in AZ and Caius' daddy in Iraq, we can do that!  And they play so well together that Silke and I get some good "girl time" in.  We can actually sit on the beach and RELAX while they play in the sand.  It's so nice! It comes as a much needed break for us.  

Here they are in the sand:

At one point they were on their bellies doing army crawls in the sand. *sand EVERYWHERE*  Caius went down to the water's edge to wash off.  He was all happy, jumping up and down and Andrew is standing there like 'I'm not getting in the water!"  (To his defense, it was really cold!)

Best Buds

Yes I know that my child is EXTREMELY white!  He's in the sun a lot.  I guess our sunscreen REALLY works.  The other day at walmart the Asian lady at the checkout counter, in her pigeon English said, "Oh your boy really white ya?"  Thank you Asian lady for noticing.  

Missing Chiquita

Last night, while I was tucking Andrew in he said "Mama, I really miss Chiquita.  I miss her thiiiiiiiiiiiisssssss much (arms stretched out wide.)"
Me:  I miss her to Baby. 
Andrew:  How much do you miss her?
Me: (Stretching my arms out too) I miss her Thiiiiiiiiisssssss much."
Andrew:  Wow!  That's how big I love you!

Silly Rabbit!

Pepper has become more mischievous in the past few days.  I feel sorry for her living in the cage, so she gets lots of "free" time to roam about the house.  (Don't worry...she's litter box trained and surprisingly, I haven't seen any "chocolate chips" in the floor)  Recently, she has learned to climb the stairs, though I've yet to see her come back down.  I usually have to go and retrieve her.  That development has caused me to dig out the baby gates to keep her downstairs.  She has also figured out how to get ON TOP of the coffee table.  Yesterday, I busted her EATING the edge of it!  

Most of the time when she's out and about she's lounging around like a dog!  

Bath time!

Usually she really is a good bunny and she loves Andrew.  She likes to play.  She'll follow me around the living room and the other night I was sitting in the recliner watching TV and she came and jumped in my lap!  Never have I met such a friendly rabbit!

Could it be because we bribe her with food?

Well my good little bunny is now on the bad list!  Last night after Andrew went to bed, I let her out for her usual "kid free" free time.  I was on the phone with Drew so I forgot to put the baby gate up.  Next thing I know I hear her upstairs running around my bedroom.   I thought, "Oh well, I'll get her later" and settled back in my chair to watch CSI.  At 10:30 I went to get her, figuring she'd be under my bed, which seems to be her favorite upstairs hiding spot.  But what to my surprise, she wasn't there.  In fact, I couldn't find her ANYWHERE!  I looked all over the upstairs...nothing.  I kept looking until around 2 am.  By this time I'm getting worried.  I hated to go to bed with her MIA but I couldn't stay awake any longer.  I think I finally fell asleep around 3 because every time I'd hear a noise that I thought was her, I'd get up and look.  Then my angel child that normally sleeps until 9 woke up at 6!  I should have known.  So we got up and still...no Pepper.  This is very unusual behavior for her.  I mean, I would expect some movement at some time!  By this time my mind had conjured up the most horrific scenarios.  (she's stuck somewhere or chewed a cord and died).  While we were looking for her Andrew says, "Mama, I'm going to ask God to keep Pepper safe."  

We looked everywhere and I mean EVERYWHERE...even places where there's no way she could fit.  My neighbors came over at 9 and we still had no Pepper.  Around 11:30, I sent Andrew to his room to play so I could take a shower.  While I was in there he came running in, "Mama!  Pepper is in my room!"  I told him to go close the door and stay with her until I got in there.  Sure enough, there she was!  After 15 hours she decides to show her face.

Where was she?  We have no clue.  Andrew said she hopped into his room and ran under the bed.  Wherever she was, it was a very good hiding place!  Alas, Pepper is home, but she's grounded until further notice!

Surprise Visitor

A couple of weeks ago we got a call saying that we had some family in town for business.  Stay with me here...Drew's mother's cousin's husband (so technically I guess that would be Drew's 2nd cousin's husband?), Carlos, was out here on a business trip that came up suddenly.  When he was finished with all his work responsibilities, he came over to our house for dinner.  

Andrew talked his ear off and showed him all of his toys.  Andrew has always been very fond of Carlos.  We had a great night.  Carlos, it was so good to see you.  (Shelly, we wish you could have been here too!)  

On Batteries and Space A

For those of you who know me, you know that at times I can get a little tongue tied and/or say the wrong word when I totally mean something else and yet the whole time my brain heard the word I was trying to say.  Well, Andrew and I were driving the other day and he asked why we turned left.  I said, "We have to to go to Walmart, Home De, I mean TARGET...we're going to Target."  

His reply:  "Mama, I think you need new batteries!"

Yes, Andrew.  Some days I DO need new batteries!  Especially on days when dealing with Space-A.

And on the subject of traveling Space-A....the Air Force HATES me!  (lol)

After an unsuccessful attempt at a flight that was actually going to Birmingham, there was a c17 headed to Montgomery today with 51 available seats on it.  I was pretty optimistic since there were only about 10 people trying to get on the flight.  Roll call comes at 4:25pm and we make it on!  We're travelers #3 and #4.  I called home to let them know we were getting on the flight and what time to come and get us.  I handed the phone to an Air National Guard guy and he told Dad where to go when he got to the base and even called security to notify them that he was coming since Dad doesn't have a military I.D.  Andrew was all excited because Paw-Paw, Papa, and Gracie were going to pick him up.  He proudly rolled his suitcase across the floor as we headed over to the counter to check our bags and get our boarding passes.  Just as they are about to put our luggage on the conveyor belt, a man comes in and says, "Folks I have bad news. There are only 3 available seats."  SERIOUSLY?!  The Air National Guard guy from Montgomery says, "That's impossible.  We've done this 1000 times and if you packed our gear correctly, there should be 51 seats for passengers."  He then proceeded to go look for himself and came back with bad news as well.  Apparently they didn't pack all the gear properly, thus doing away with 48 seats.  And if you remember from the beginning of the story, we're #3 and #4 on the list and since we can't be split up, we got bumped!  Talk about crushing your spirit!  It doesn't really matter to me, because I understand what's going on and I know that there will be other flights...BUT for a 3 year old who thinks he's getting on a plane to go to Paw-Paw and Granna's house it's a whole other ballgame.  He was so disappointed.  It broke my heart.   So we went to McDonald's and got hot fudge sundaes to make us feel better.  

Such is life with space a travel.  Oh well.  I trust that for some reason, God didn't want us to get on that flight, so I'm ok with it.  We'll try again and if we don't make it, I'll see you all in August!

More Easter Fun

Our Saturday began with dying eggs.  Andrew was most impressed with the clear "magic crayon." (which our rabbit has since eaten).  

Andrew's egg.

Our local beach park had a HUGE egg hunt.  All the papers advertised the largest egg hunt on Oahu.  It was from 1-9pm.  Andrew and I were planning on going later in the afternoon, since we had other things to do.  Someone told us they were doing egg hunts every hour so we weren't worried about arriving later.  HOWEVER, we got there only to find out the the 4 and under egg hunt was at 1pm.  Andrew was pretty upset, but luckily there were rides to take his mind off of things.  

Ready for his turn.

He LOVED it!

After the beach park it was time to go home and go to bed.  I finished up some cookies and cupcakes for Andrew's class at church.  Kim, somehow in the craziness I didn't get a picture of your fabulous cupcake cuppys.  They were a big hit!

After church they had another egg hunt, which was a nice surprise for Andrew since we missed out on the one    at the beach park.  Apparently egg hunt in Hawaii translates into: Tons of eggs laying out in the open of a giant  empty space?!  

After church we headed home to see what the Easter Bunny left.  Yes, after church.  I had to drag Andrew out of bed at the last minute to make it to the early service so there was no time before.  

He was really excited to see his basket by the door.  And he was pretty happy with his goods, especially his new Veggie Tales video!

We had a very Happy Easter.  It would've been better if Drew had been here to celebrate with us, but such is the military life.  We miss you Daddy!

Good Friday

Andrew and I had a busy Friday.  It all started with our Bible Study.  Ok so I do the Bible study while Andrew plays with his friends.  After that, we had some time to kill so we had a picnic lunch courtesy of McDonald's and headed to the "super playground" on base to wait for our egg hunt to start.  


It was our squadron egg hunt, so we got to see all of our friends who live on base.  It was a blast.  There was a bouncy house, pizza, balloon guys, and an egg hunt.  It felt a little weird going to a squadron event like that without Drew.  Andrew had a blast even though he was hot, tired, and sweaty!

Choosing a balloon animal

It's a giraffe

This year Andrew was a champ at the egg hunt! He's got 3 eggs in one hand!

Which is a lot better than LAST YEAR, when he only found 1 egg...

This year's total: 14!

He wasted no time getting started on the candy.

He was so tired afterwards that he slept the whole way home! 

*Things that make your heart melt*

During our "night night prayers" Andrew said "Mama, don't forget to tell God thank you for dying on the cross."  Oh what a great and awesome responsibility it is to raise a child!

Easter Photo Shoot

Finally...as promised, here are the pictures of the cutest boy in the world.  It's true...see for yourself.

If you are a grand-parent or great grand-parent, your pictures are in the mail and should arrive Tuesday.  
Happy Easter!

Busy Baker

I've been busy baking lately.  Mostly because I love to bake and (don't laugh) for me...it's a stress reliever.  I know, I know.  Some of you are thinking that I must be crazy, but I LOVE to bake!  I'd like to think I get that from my Granddaddy!  There's nothing like mixing a bunch of random ingredients together and watching it turn into a beautiful dessert.  You know what I mean Kim!  Anyway, I made this make up cake for a friend of a friend's birthday party.  The girls met at a nail salon and had a "girlie" night, so I made her a "girlie" cake. The bottom layer is a 10 in round chocolate cake with chocolate ganache and raspberry filling.  The purse is a vanilla cake made in a mini loaf pan and the "accessories" are shaped out of gum paste.  

Then I made some cute lil cupcakes for the kids in our Bible study group with the marshmallow bunnies that Andrew picked out.

And finally, an Easter egg birthday cake for my friend and neighbor, Silke.  She lives down the street and is Caius' mom.  This cake was so THICK!

Tomorrow I'll be making easter egg sugar cookies via a "top secret, world famous recipe." (I love you Kim) Also, I've got some cupcakes to make for church.  Pictures to be posted soon!

Dumbo Ears

Annah, I titled this post "Dumbo Ears" just for you!  (I love you) 


Here's what Andrew's ear looked like after it had swollen even more.  The poor thing was miserable; though you'd never know it from these pictures.  He also had bites BEHIND his ear, so the swelling made it stick out.  Don't worry.  He's all back to normal now!

He loves wearing this mask!