Memorial Day

While you might be out camping or BBQ-ing today. Take a moment to stop and thank someone for their service. I'm so humbled by the sacrifices our military make. Here or in Heaven they are protecting my freedom, our freedom!

And just remember:  Freedom isn't free.


When I married my husband I never thought this is the life we would lead. Besides a cousin in the Army I had no understanding of the Military life. One day while driving in the car, my new husband told me he wanted to go into the Navy. He wanted to do his part not only for our family but for our country. "OK" were the only words I could get out of my mouth. I never fought him, I could see the passion in his eyes.

He left for bootcamp with a new wife and an 8 month old baby at home. Seeing him again 2 months later, I felt like I wasn't looking at the same man. He had grown and changed, our lives would never be the same.

Four years, four moves & four states later, we are living 3,000 miles away from home. I am a survivor of a submarine deployment (on the wife side, that is) and countless underways. My husband is gone more then he is home. But I would never trade our life. The work my husband does amazes and humbles me everyday. He risks his life to make sure his family sleeps safe at night.

So, I say this with the most respect and love I can. Thank you. Thank you to all who have served and who are serving. Your dedication and determination have made our country a better place.

Thank you for fighting for me.

BBC Book 3. "Thanks for the memories"

If you would like to read with us (the BBC.....blog book club) Then please do! We love to have new people join us! If you don't know how it works click on the "About the BBC"  page at the top of my blog. If you still have questions or don't understand leave me a comment or e-mail me. We are going to be starting a new book next week and the first heck in will be a week after that.

The book for June is........

This is the only one that really got any votes. I will post next week about the pages and such for each week. I also found a few new books that I might add to the voting list. I would like to know what books I need to bring with me on the trip home, so we might be voting for July & August at some point in June.

This book was sent to me by my MIL so I don't know if it's in every store. I do know that she got in From Costco though.

Deployment Recap: Week 1.

I want to do weekly recaps. Mostly for me to see how I've grown this deployment and for J when he's able to get on here and look at everything. I don't quite know how I want to do it yet. I want to try to keep it the same and answer the same questions each week. If your man is deployed and you want to do it with me, please do!

Week 1:
Emotional: So far I'm doing good. I think I've convinced myself that he's just underway, and it's easier that way (for now).

Physical: Kinda getting sick/getting over being sick. Pulling that all nighter on top of being stressed did a number on me.

Communication: I've gotten a small handful of really great e-mails so far. I know he's busy and doesn't have a ton of time to write, so getting any is amazing to me! They are uber-sweet to, which helps.

What's something fun you did this week: I went on a field trip with Landon to a really great park about 10 min away. It was so much fun and I know we will be going back a lot!

What are you looking forward to next week: Another field trip with Landon and letting Landon open his first gift from Daddy.

What made you happy this week: Waking up to 3 e-mails! (For those that don't know, e-mail is my only communication with my husband. When they port he can call me, but it can go months between ports. Also, it can take days to get a reply due to them not downloading the e-mails right away. For the most part I will get an e-mail 1-3 days after he wrote it (but sometimes we don't get e-mail at all for weeks))

What made you sad this week: Ummmm saying goodbye, duh.

What do you miss the most: Honestly, seeing J walk up the stairs when he gets home from work.

How's Landon this week: So far he's good. The first few days were hard, but he's doing better now.

Pictures from this week: These are from Landon's field trip. We had so much fun and I love that I always get to go with them.

Goodbye my love.

I had pulled an all-nighter making 12 dozen cookies for my husband and a bunch of his buddies on the boat. So when I laid down in bed just to hear the alarm go off 30 min later, I knew it was going to be a longer day then I had planned for. We got up and got everything ready, woke Lan up, got donuts and said goodbye. Landon and I came home and snuggled for a bit then had to get back up and get ready for the picnic.

The picnic went from 10-12 and the boat was set to leave at 2. The boat is so amazing, they are the only ones here that I know of that do a picnic like this. All of the cooks come out and make hotdogs, hamburgers and all the sides for the families while the sailors come up to say goodbye.

J never came up. at 12:30 I told the omb. that I just needed to see him to give him the stuff he forgot (like the new camera he bought just for deployment!). at 12:45 he walked off the boat. He said he was one of four guys aloud to be up there and he had a while since he had to work through the picnic. He also informed us that they weren't going to be leaving on time.......

My boys at the picnic.

I love this picture of us.

He got to stay and hang out for quite a while and it was so nice! After he went back to the boat we decided that we were going to stay to watch them leave so we could chase them out. They ended up not leaving till after 5!

Here is the amazing group of ladies that were there with us watching the boat go. I'm so lucky to have such amazing people to share this with.

These are of Landon & I while the boat was tugging up to get ready to go.

Justin was waving to Landon from the top of the boat so Landon waved back to him. This part I think was the hardest of the day. He loves him so much.

Once the boat pulled out we all raced to out cars to beat it down the river. We stopped about 5 times to see it from different places. The first was right off the road. Mandy got some REALLY amazing pictures of the boat when we stopped.

The we stopped at a few places down the river where you can get pretty close. We even saw J waving at us as they were going down.

My friend Bri & I watching the boat leave (both our kiddos fell asleep in the car on the drive from the pier)

These are all from our last stop at the beach (the same beach where J and I were the night before. All I could think about was being with him not even 24 hours earlier in the same spot....) Landon and I sat on the rocks and watched them drift out.

Mandy wanted to get a few shots of us on the beach so right before the boat disappeared we got a few. It's the black dot in the background.

I'm sad that he's gone. But the pride I have for what he's doing outweighs that by a ton.

I'm so lucky to have J in my life and I'm so proud of him for the sacrifices he makes not only for our family but for our country as well.

Goodbye my love. Be safe and come home to me soon.

KK

"House rules" Week 4

If you're not reading with us not, but you want to get in on the next book! Vote! We love having new people join us!

First. I'm sitting here at one in the morning, listening to Glee music with all the light out watching this AMAZING thunder storm we have going here! I'm lov'n it tonight! Ok, on to the book.

Wow. This book is getting better and better! I have to be honest I don't really have much of a question this week. I just don't know what to ask! So lets try something new.......post your own question on your page and everyone can answer it in your comments.

Week 4 prompt: How are you liking the book now that we are getting close to the end? Is it what you expected?

My answers- I love this book. I like how Oliver is with Jacob, even though he wants to lie, I feel he's really looking out for him and truly cares about the family. I hate the courts, but I'm glad they are giving him some exceptions to make it easier on him.

Instead of my question for the comments I'm going to open voting for the next book. While I loved doing a poll on the side, we had 20 people vote and only 8 read. So we are going to do it this way. It will make this post a little longer then it should be. But I want to make sure the people who are going to read are voting. Also, I'm going home for the summer so we might be voting again early for the next book......or pick your top two (in order) that you want to read (if you wouldn't mind reading all of them, say that to!).

Go HERE to read what it's about.

Click HERE to read what it's about.

Go HERE to read what it's about.

Click HERE to read what it's about.

Happy Voting!

The morning of.

I had to take J to work the day he left sine the car needs to be home with me. We woke up(or J woke up. I had not slept yet since I was up till 5 making cookies for all of the boys on the boat) and I helped get the rest of his stuff together then we woke Landon up.  

Landon was super tired and so sad that he had to say goodbye. The only thing that helped was knowing that we got to go to the pier for a picnic to say goodbye again.

We have a tradition that when J is leaving for a deployment or even an underway, we stop and get dunkin donuts and hot cocoa on the way to the boat and eat them in the car. It's a fun little treat to make it a little bit better.

I love these pictures.  They really are best friends and it's going to be so hard while Justin is gone.

 While I know I'm a picture happy person. I like to have all of these amazing memories while Justin is gone. Landon loves looking at them and I love sharing with our family back home.

Our last night.

I can't ask for a better two weeks then I have had.  J should have left weeks ago but things changed and we were given extra time. I was so thankful for the time we got. J got leave and we spent 5 days doing nothing but family stuff (as you can tell by the pictures. lol).

When we have leave and time together I always know way ahead of time what I want us to do. This time was no exception. I do know that we can't do something everyday or we get burnt out so I try to do something every other day and sometimes on those days we would do a few things to get as much in as we could.

When J comes up with something that he wants to do it makes it so much better. I love when it's his idea. He told me that the last thing he really wanted to do was go to the beach and maybe have a picnic. I thought it was a great idea! So the night before he left we got dessert and went to the beach for a dessert picnic. It was the most amazing way to end our time together.

Justin and I laid the blanket out and snuggled while Landon played in the sand & water. He was having the best time and J and I were over the moon happy watching him.

Landon is all boy. He can play in the dirt and sand forever and never get tired of it.

This is J's great picture taking skills.

The water was cold! But Landon didn't care. He loved it. J was even too much of a wimp to go out into it past his feet.

I think this is my favorite picture from that day. This beach is so beautiful and it holds some great memories. It was hard coming here the next day to watch the boat leave when the night before we were cuddling on a blanket in the sand.

I read on the blanket while Landon and Justin made me a sand castle. I loved watching them build it together and Landon thought that it was the best thing in the world. These two pictures crack me up. They are always doing the same exact thing without trying to.

This is what we saw at the end of our picnic. J & I sat on a bench swing talking and laughing while Landon played on the playground.

I really couldn't have asked for a better last night together.

Picnic Quest: Bushnell Park

The day that we got our family pictures done, we did a breakfast picnic first. It was a lot of fun to do something different.

I made mini bagel sandwiches, banana muffins, jelly filled muffins (that I'm going to be putting the recipe up for) and we had a bunch of sliced fruit. It was soooo good! I don't know why I've never thought to do a breakfast picnic before, but I'm in love with them now.

I liked this park, but have to say that driving an hour to it isn't really worth it. We had to park in a parking area that you had to pay for since it was in the middle of the city. They have concerts and such there in the summer and the lawn for that is huge! You can see the capitol building from the big lawn also. They have a really neat memorial arch for sailors & soldiers. The best part was by far the carousel. It's old and beautiful! Only $1 to ride and the rides are a decent length.

All in all it was really fun. I'm glad we went, even if we never make the trip up again it was a day to remember for always.

Picnic & Food Quest!

The other day we were driving around and J said he wanted some Ice cream. We looked up "other" in the food section of our GPS and found a place called Cows & Cones. So we went!

Cows & Cones

What we got:

J- he got oreo coffee ice cream in a waffles cone (He LOVED it)

K- I got a banana split with brownie dough ice cream, hot fudge and marshmallow! (The best ice cream I've ever had. seriously)

L- He got a vanilla cone dipped in cherry (he got one once at DQ and has been obsessed ever since)

We walked around the grounds while we ate and saw all of the animals, they have cows, sheep, chicken, pigs and bunnies. The grounds are really beautiful and the animals are tons of fun to look at.

They had a few benches, bistro tables and even some picnic tables you could sit at to eat. We chose a table up by the chickens away from most of the crowd. We ate in peace then walked around a bit more. You could even bring a blanket to sit on the hill above the animals if you wanted to.

This place isn't far from the base here, so if your ever near there on a hot day, stop by and get some amazing ice cream!

There he goes. There he goes, again.

I don't have much to say. Mostly because I am 100% exhausted. I didn't sleep at all last night and I'm feeling it catch up to me now. Spent the day in the sun saying goodbye to the love of my life.

Here are a few of my favorite pictures till I get on to write more about our day. I have a few posts scheduled to come up the next few days just to give me a bit of a break. Enjoy the last of our pre-deployment family fun posts. Leave me extra love. I sure need it.

Show us your life: Where you live!

've been a little busy, so I'm backposting this.

This week on Kelly's Blog she is doing another "Show us your life" this time its the town you live in! We move so much that I thought it would be fun to do it for where we live now!

So I give you New London/Groton Connecticut. Submarine Capitol of the world (Seriously, we have the sign).

Here it's not uncommon to be driving down the road and see this.......

Subs are always coming and going down the river (This picture was taken 2 days ago when my husbands boat left on deployment). It's really neat watching them come and go.

We have some of the most amazing parks and beaches here. I'm from Washington state and most of our beaches are just rock! So it was nice getting here and they have fine white sand.

We even have a few huge casinos (the biggest one in the United States if I believe) that have some really great food inside.  It's called Fox Woods and it's beautiful! We have our Submarine Ball there every year.

We also have REALLY great food here! Bobby's Burgers and Paul's Pasta are two of our favorites! I want to eat at as many of the different food places here before we move again and have turned it into a quest to get it done!

We live only a couple hours away from Boston and NYC and have gotten the chance to visit both quite a few times! These pictures are from this Thanksgiving when we got the chance to go to the Macy's Day Parade! It was so much fun and something I never thought I would get the chance to do!

My husband and I both grew up in Washington State, land of the rain. With navy has moved us to New York, South Carolina and now Connecticut. We've loved everywhere we've moved but I think one of the best thing about living here is the snow. I love it (not as much as I love the rain). After living in the south and all that heat, it was nice to get back to the cold!

I hope you've enjoyed my little tour of where I call "Home".