The Mother's Day "Cacti Lanai" - complete!

Those of you who have visited – do you remember how nasty this little pit of an area was? It had so much potential and we’d been wanting to do something here for so long. We just randomly said yesterday morning – want to put the pavers down? A flurry of activity ensued, with Sam helping carry many of the bricks. I moved about 2/3 of them with Ben on my back! Dave heaved and hoed to get the grass out and level (I made him lunch, brought him beer, sparkling water, Sprite – whatever – just kept him working away!). Then Dave went to a dinner function to receive an award for one of his papers (don’t let him know I mentioned that! I’m not supposed to!) and then to see the Star Trek movie. I watched a Bruce Springsteen concert with the boys then took them to Coldstone (Sam earned it with all his work, and jumping into and swimming across the entire deep end of the pool on his own!)…

Enjoying our Mother's Day fruit plate on the new patio.

 (My camera SD card bit the dust, so for now all we have are cell phone pictures.) Here we are enjoying Dave’s traditional Mother’s Day fruit plate on our new patio! The boys (all of them, and me, too!) built a patio yesterday from pavers we had lying around for another project. It took a lot of work getting the old, beat-up grass out and leveling the area. But Caff had helped a bit while we were away by digging a cool spot to lie down.

Riding in a KC135 on the way home

We had an amazing trip, learned how to sleep just about anywhere, anytime (Dave already knew this well, but I developed the skill, too!), and had lots of adventures and laughs. One of the funniest on our way home yesterday was listening to Sam during the pre-flight safety briefings (we flew space-a on military air refueling planes).  The “boom” (the person who is in charge of refueling) was pointing out all the oxygen masks (some of which are really large, like the kind you’d picture on a hazmat suit), bags you’d put over your head and seal tight, cylinders you have to pop open somehow to get oxygen, and how the hatch would fall open on you in an emergency, allowing the ramp to come down. I don’t remember it all since I was busy feeding Ben Cheerios to keep him from screeching and interrupting. Sam piped up several times during the briefing, saying fairly loudly “I don’t WANT the bag!” or “Why is the DOOR going to fall away?” and finally with some interest “Is that MY mask?” It’s interesting watching him absorb experiences around him, interpret them, and respond.

In Scotland for Doug and Mary's wedding

 We’re heading home today (via two nights in Travis) from a really fun and action-packed couple weeks. Our travels took us to NJ, then to Scotland, home to Dave’s family on Long Island, then upstate NY for a few days in Saratoga and finally back to NJ to catch a space-a flight to Hawaii. Wish us luck! I’ll post pictures when we get back home. Aloha and love to all!!!

Peek-a-boo!

Out to Sunday brunch with the boys after church. We are a complete family now – Dave flew in yesterday and today we’re packing up the fam for the flight to Scotland. Funny, seems like such a short hop after doing the Hawaii-NJ leg. Had some real wintery weather here yesterday – even HAIL – so of course we had to go out for a run dressed in forty layers! I have adjusted to the weather already. Didn’t think I would – thought it would really take me a while, but all those runs in Washington weather came right back to me! See some funny movie clips in the album…

More sausage, please!!! These kids really like the German food!

We’ve had some beautiful weather here in NJ and are really enjoying some down time before the next phase of epic adventure 09. The kids were ravenous tonight at a German restaurant in Wrightstown. Check the album for more details on the adventures we’ve been having and some funny stories – some of which weren’t so funny at the time but after some vitamin B (Bourbon in my flask) they will really be enjoyable. Off to hang with Dad…hope to see Dave on Monday. He just bought a ticket – the only space-a flight back East didn’t pan out.

Getting their ya-yas out at the playground!

We had a great day today, starting with a good night sleep for the boys last night. I was up late, sorting through pictures and getting settled. I expected to be awakened at midnight by Ben confused still, but alas my waiting up was for naught. They both slept until 0730, but that meant mommy didn’t sleep too much so I was tired today while they were rarin’ to go! We went up to see Dad’s wife Marilou in the hospital (backstory in the photos in the album) and then after Ben (and Sam) napped we went on some errands. I also managed to get some work in this afternoon. I love being on Dad’s LAN – very fast. Dave is hoping to catch a C17 to Norfolk this weekend. Keep your fingers crossed. He is working hard wrapping up a report at work and getting school work done. Poor guy – not a moment’s rest even with us gone. Oh – in other minor news – I actually had to call tech support for my watch this morning. I got this super duper high tech watch from Campmor for the trip – it automatically sets its own time by checking with CENTCOM in Ft Collins or NASA or something. I thoguht it would be perfect for going through 11 time zones in as many days. Anyway – it wouldn’t cooperate and I screwed it all up. It was an hour and 11 min ahead of time when I got to the east coast. My watch was jet lagged, but now it’s all set. Doug and Mary are in Scotland doing final preps and hopefully finding time to unwind a little.

A slice of life in March.

I try to create new desktop wallpaper for Dave monthly, but it’s more like every 6 months! Here’s the latest edition. Click for larger view/download.

Our ticket to the east coast! (hopefully!)

 This looks like fun – will be a bit of a long trip with a couple layovers, but it’s free except for the cost of lunches for about $7 total. Looking forward to being on our way finally! Hopefully next post is from east coast 🙂 Dave will be following later in the week, destination unknown but hopefully closer than I managed to get!

He is risen!

We got another “found” day together this weekend with our space-a flight getting bumped to tomorrow (then cancelled altogether). Sam found a sword bubble-maker in his Easter basket – it was a big hit making HUGE bubbles. (You dip the sword into the plastic sheath and then squeeze a button to open the sword “jaws” and the breezes blow up huge bubbles twice the size of your head!) They floated gently over the palms, oozing into ovals then back into spheres while twinkling in the morning sun. As I gazed up at them floating into the clouds, it occurred to me that it was a fitting motif for the resurrection. This afternoon, Sam took all of us on a mountain biking adventure back at the trails we rode yesterday. This time we took all our bikes and Ben rode on the front of mine. Dave got thoroughly filthy riding through huge puddles, much to Sam’s delight. It was a wonderful day, capped off by a delicious (albeit impromptu because Dave thought he’d be a bachelor by now!) Easter dinner. Here’s hoping for a flight tomorrow… I managed to repack and condense more stuff into fewer bags. I even have a tent and several fleece sleeping bags in case we end up in a backyard in Memphis or an overnight in a terminal. Ready for anything! Just need to get to the mainland now. It’s funny when Memphis (16 hrs from NJ) looks like a solid consideration with two kids in tow…hey 73f (73 firm seats) looks mighty fine at this point!