Making Dinner

I absolutely love our new duty station! It is so peaceful....tonight making dinner I was just looking around with a very content smile, the content smile I haven't had since our island days on Okinawa. The fountain was going, a cover in training on the counter and a tooth waiting for the tooth fairy to remember to swap it out for some cash.


Jasper was laying in the living room staring at the door. He knows his papa should be rolling up pretty soon. You can hear all the other dogs barking as their daddy's get home from work!!!


The menu tonight was teriyaki pork with potatoes, carrots, mushrooms, and onions. Life is really good!


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The Desert was Brutal On My Flags

Yay!!! I found my garden flags!!! Time to remove my ( hopefully last ) ripped garden flag!!! Those desert winds were brutal on our flags! Our big flag post was completely ripped out of the wood on one out of the blue windy day when we weren't home to take it down!!! So nice to be out of those crazy desert winds!!!






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Twisting In The Sand

These two were having a competition to see who could twist faster into the sand. They looked hilarious twisting and sinking!






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Our First Dinner Guests

We had our first dinner guests! The Garcia's came to visit for a few days. I slaved away and we ate at our outdoor dining room!!! It was a perfect evening to eat at the beach!














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Jasper Waits...Until He Forgets

Every time Ed walks out the door Jasper just plops down at the door and stares....I guess just waiting for him to walk back thru!!! He stays there for a pretty long time, well until something distracts him! Than he is up and on his way to whatever has caught his attention!


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I Don't Wear Quitters

Ed needed some new boot socks. The uniform section had two rows of them. We were looking and I handed him some and he says, "I don't wear quitters!" I looked over the brand name as I put them away wondering about what he said....a few minutes later I asked him if 'quitters' were socks that fell down. He looked at me with a pause and than started laughing. I think he wasn't quite sure what I was talking about at first. He said yes, and showed me the difference between quitter and not quitter socks. After over 2 decades married to this Marine I still learn new terms in this way of life!!!


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A New Cover In Training

Just in case anyone wondered how Marines got their covers to look the way they do! He bought a new cover....it is tied up to a corn can getting in shape right now!!!


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First Broken Item

My jewelry box I bought in Okinawa is the first item we have found broken this move, so far. I'm not sure how this even happened!!! It's like it was dropped from the roof onto cement. The moving company happened to call at this moment! I told them that so far just my jewelry box. He got the information and the value and told me to send a picture and the check would be in the mail. Wow!!! That was painless! Hopefully nothing else is broken!!!


Update, the check came in the mail before I had even emailed the photo! That was fast!!!


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Sitting On The Porch With My Window Buddies

I thought I would go sit on the porch and just relax while watching Ed and Ty play catch....oh my gosh!!!! Jasper and Bella decided to join me, VERY loudly!!!! So much for relaxing on my front porch!!!


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Our Neighborhood Gym

Our neighborhood gym is just about a 7 minute walk from our house! The pool is right there to! I usually have the gym to myself.....very nice!!! There is even a cute lil spot to drop your kids in while you work out! My kids would have missed out on a LOT of bike rides and stroller walks if I would have had something like that!!! The cardio machines all look out the windows at the ocean. It's a perfect place to work out!!



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Lizards Here To

Came back from walking Bella and found this big guy hanging out on the porch!


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There's The Culprit!

I was wondering how this dirt was getting on my driveway....this morning while Ryan and I were walking the dogs he pointed up at the roof and showed me the nest and the bird that is annoying him! Mystery solved! My phone didn't take good pictures that high up, but the bird was up there looking down on us. Too cute!!!



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10 Days No WiFi!

Our new evening tradition is a game of Skip-Bo after dinner dishes are done. Due to busy PCS season Internet and cable won't be on right away. The boys are having to go without WiFi for TEN days!!! It's funny watching them play old games, watch old movies.....and we get a new movie at Red Box every day! PCSing old school this time, and loving it!














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They Always Wanted To Be Pirates!

The boys are going to be going to Oceanside High School, home of the Pirates! They started off their high school years as Trojans and now they will finish their high school years as Pirates. Fitting, since they've always wanted to be Pirates!!!



The street sign turning into the school, Pirates Cove.



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High School With Ocean Views

I was walking around the boys new high school today and was just like, WOW!!! It's almost like being on your own little island with beautiful ocean views!




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A Walk In The Neighborhood

Bella had a fun walk in the neighborhood. All the dogs are getting more walks than normal since our backyard is sooo tiny and they refuse to go potty out there!!! Bella loves to sniff everything and she seems to really like walking in the grass and burying her head in bushes!!! I put her in her adorable blue dress tonight. She actually didn't mind!!! I guess she likes to be styling every once in awhile!






It's hard to tell in this picture because the sun is setting, but that is the ocean straight out there! It's a beautiful sight!



Jasper loves his walks to! Especially when he gets to go with his favorite person!


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Best Way To Start The Day

The 13 Area pool is just down the steps from our TLF room. Lap swimming is Tuesday-Friday from 6-8 am. It felt amazing to swim laps for an hour this morning!!! Seeing a pool with black painted lines at the bottom, land lines, time clock on the wall....it was a beautiful site!!! Not to mention the wonderful smell of chlorine!!! The water was warm to!!! I don't know how the pool at our last duty station, in the middle of the desert, with temperatures consistently in the triple digits could stay ice cold!!! I swear there had to be some sort of secret underground Arctic penguin operation going on under the pool area there!!! It was nice to just slide right into the pool without hyperventilating and my heart not skipping a thousand beats!!! Loved being back in a real pool!!! Could actually do 12 full freestyle pools before doing a flip turn and 14 breast stroke pulls before reaching the wall!!! The day is definitely off to a great start!!! Love that I get to do this all the time now!!!



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Huge Stress Is Gone!!!

It is sooo nice to be gone from Barstow!!! The desert is beautiful, I had some great friends, an easy job, a beautiful home, a great gym just a mile from my house, The Dude In Cammies home almost every night for dinner and 10 beautiful horses to hang out with! But there was always that underlying fear that something bad would happen there! I think it might be the weakest Marine Corps Installation as far as security goes. I had numerous nightmares of terrorists storming the base and just killing as many marines as they could. I was soooo glad when Ed turned the old dental building into his new office and took his marines over there. My nightmares were always coming into the gate and seeing a dead guard and finding out terrorists opened fire on headquarters building. I also woke up from several nightmares that the horses had been killed by a sniper.....I haven't had any of those nightmares since we left and just a huge stress has been lifted. Hopefully nothing ever happens there or any of our military installations....


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Jennifer & Julia Win!

Yep, Ty and Taylor lost to Jennifer and I in Sequence!!! This is just in case I need proof for Ty someday....he's quite competitive!!!











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Farewell Pictures With The Horses

June 6th
We did one last photo shoot with the horses. Carlos and Laurie took them. We used Rookie (unofficially Ed's horse) and John who we have a special place in our hearts for. Here are just a few....


Sweet Rookie!


Best Photo Bomb EVER!!!!


John had just stepped on Ryan's foot


Just having fun! It is actually quite hard to take pictures with these guys when there is food at their feet!!!
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They Really Do Sleep ALL Day!!!

I have thought our dogs are pretty lazy, but now I know fer sure just how lazy they are! Ed has been taking the boys to football conditioning this week. I have stayed behind with the dogs. They have literally barely moved in 6 hours!! Aside from Leah rolling over and Jasper switching his head from the pillow to the other end of the bed they haven't really moved!!! The life of a dog....well atleast our dogs!!!



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Bella....

Bella and Ed have quite the love/hate relationship. He says he hates her but meanwhile every morning i hear him tap his chest and she comes crawling out from under the covers where she has slept all night next to me and he starts his morning with cuddles with her. If she is sound asleep than i will feel him grab her and slide her over me to him, I actually thought a python was slithering over me one time when he did that! Totally scared the crap out of me!!! This morning when Ed left with the boys she sat on his bag and watched the window as he backed up and than proceeded to lay on his bag the entire time he was gone, except for those times she thought she should run to the door and ferociously bark whenever someone walked by or got in their car! She knows loves her even though he is always plotting her death and/or dissapearance!!  

Great To Be Back On A (REAL) Marine Base!

I was out walking with little Bella this morning and hear quiet chitter chatter and click click click. I had looked around, my contacts weren't in yet, actually still aren't in as i type this....but mascara is on, so blind i will be today! But ANYWAYS!!!! I keep hearing these soft voices and clicks and BAM!!! i see some movement and realize there are Marines right across the street from me with their weapons practicing something. Wow, it just feels soooo good to be back on a REAL Marine base again!!! I'm not putting down MCLB Barstow, that was just such a tiny base with hardly any Marines i just didn't see training like this there as i was walking my dog, or walking anywhere for that matter!!! What a great start to my Monday!!!

I Love How There Is Always Atleast One

I actually can not recall a single time that i have gone to the Oceanside Pier and NOT seen one of these beautiful birds just sitting there all ready for photos! I think i take a picture every single time! I might have to go thru all my photos and put them all together on a fun fliptogram or something!

Another Sad Day In America....

There was another mass shooting in our country.....my heart is sad for all of those affected by this horrible tragedy.....I don't care who you are, what color or race you are, what your sexual or political preference is, nobody should be killed while just out and about wherever they may be living life! I do not get political on here very often but it deeply disturbs me that the root of this shooting is not being addressed. I blogged some time ago how it would just be a matter of time before terrorists began attacking the LGBT community.  This country has opened its borders to a huge amount of people who believe everyone in the entire LGBT community should be put to death! Of course the outcry from POTUS and all the left liberal outlets is to ban guns. Seriously, stop with the banning of guns!!! I personally would much rather die to a gunshot wound than be stabbed repeatedly with a knife, screw driver, ice pick or whatever the killer can find! I also prefer a gun over being bludgeoned to death or even having my head cut off!!!  If every single gun is removed from the law abiding citizens than only the criminals will have guns! There will always be a black market of illegal items. Just the simplest example of illegal drugs dissolves any argument on making certain types of guns or even ALL guns illegal!!! Illegal guns will be just as available as illegal drugs. The only difference is other countries and criminals will now be the ones making the money off these items and more Americans will be out of work and no law abiding citizen will be able to protect themselves!!! These terrorists will just go back to old school ways and go into clubs, shopping places, etc as suicide bombers! I'll take death by gun any day over the other choices those intent on killing will use!!!  Wake up America!!!! Guns are NOT killing people!!! Horrible people are!   

We noticed the flags were flown at half mass here on base today.

Morning Beach Walk

The dogs seemed to really like their walk on the beach this morning at potty time. I think Leah is especially happy with this cool 61* weather!!! The squirrels seemed to keep their distance from the dogs!






Found a lone crawdad crawling on the beach. The dogs were not interested at all.

The Struggle, It's Soooo Real!

The struggle to find matching cammies in the same shade of desert print is very real! When Ed said he was going to look for cammies I told him I would go get the things we came for. I avoid cammie shopping at all costs! I was hoping he would be done when I finished. He wasn't....Ty and Ryan got to witness the madness this time. When I got over to them Ty and Ryan were mumbling, "this would make anyone not want to join or reenlist!" It is always the same every time Ed needs new cammies! It's literally like all trousers are made from one type of material and than every single blouse is made from material an obvious shade darker or lighter!!! Drives me insane! Primarily because I am with the Marine searching for matching cammies!!!


The endless sets that are laid out to find a match....


After endlessly matching cammies one set was actually found!!! Jumping for joy that one set has been found!!!


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