Ryan Loves Lorikeet Landing

I think this might be Ryan's favorite part of going to The Safari Park. He loves feeding the Lorikeet's at Lorikeet Landing! They seem to love him too!!! He even got groomed today by one of the lorikeets. It was hilarious!!! He was fine as long as the bird didn't decide to groom his ears!!!  

Sea Lions!

We found where the sea lions hang out!!! We see them randomly one at a time here and there around the harbor but today we finally found where they lounge and call home! It was hilarious to watch them holler back and forth at each other and flop on and off their docks. Now we know where to zip and see them! This duty station feels like a vacation spot! Love it!!!

Wild Animal Park Souvenir Photos

We did a couple of the souvenir photos at The wild Animal Park today....yes we had a great time in case you can't tell by certain peoples expressions! HAHA!





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Time To Update Uniforms

We left this morning for 29 Palms.

We are coming into crunch time before Ed will be wearing Sgt Major chevrons so we zipped to his favorite tailor and dropped off his uniforms.


After we dropped off the uniforms we went to the PX, the boys had their favorite pizza, and than we went for a drive. We headed over to the training areas where Ed has been too many times to remember how many!









It was fun to see the actual places he's stayed since we have only seen pictures or heard him explain it or the conversations I've heard him have with his buddies when they were here.  It was great for the boys to get a visual too! He was out here when we were on Okinawa and he left to go to Iraq with a battalion from Camp Lejeune. He's been here for training with tracks at Camp Lejeune and with a CLB from Camp Lejeune for an Afghanistan deployment and again for Advisory training before going to Afghanistan. He will be back here in October for training for a deployment in 2017 with his new unit. He jokingly calls it his home away from home!    

The boys were like, 'Wait! There's Marines in there!' Ed laughed and said yes, that is where we live when we are out here. I said and there is no AC in those! Ed chimes in, and no heat! I forgot he's been here during every season! 

It was hilarious! We would be driving along and than a random arm pops out of the sand out of nowhere. Ed laughed and said that is a Marine trying to get a signal or take a selfie.

Angels Rangers Game

I am a Yankees/Boston fan, which Mr. Baseball, Ed, says is impossible, Ed is a Tigers fan, and Ty is an Angels fan. Ed and i have adopted the Angels while we are stationed down here in southern California and enjoy going to a few games every season. Our friends are from Texas and are obviously Ranger fans.  We thought it would be fun to hit a Angels/Rangers game this season. Tonight is the night that worked with all of our schedules.  It was hilarious with those three in their Rangers gear and us three in our Angels wear. We joked with people on how we had come as their protection.  The Angles won last night so our friends took a lot of fun teasing in their Texas apparel.....We arrived in Anaheim a few hours ahead of game time so we walked around Downtown Disney for a little bit.  Jennifer still has her foot in a cast so she had her little scooter to zip around in. It was hilarious!!! We headed over to the stadium about an hour before game time. Tonight they were giving away blankets. Perfect night for those, it was just a bit chilly!!!  It looked like there might be rain so i got us seats under the overhang. Thank goodness, because it did rain for a bit! No game delay though, yay!!!! The game got off to a rough start and the Angels never really pulled it together, so sadly they lost and now the series is tied 1-1. Boy was it a LONG game! We got home around 1;15. I think i am getting toooooooo old for these nights games, well atleast when it is a 2 hour drive home!!! But fun night with friends and Jennifer got to honk her pink horn a LOT!!!! Hahahahahahahahaha

The High Roller

I added another wheel to the books today, this time the highest ferris wheel in the world! Poor Ty, facing his fear again!!! He did great though and it was a really fun ride! It took 30 minutes to go all the way around and the highest point was 550 feet. There were beautiful views. I saw what pools were the best on the strip and had no idea there was a gold course tucked away right there behind the strip!!! 

Last Freemont Street Experience

After we got back to our hotel we decided to go walk around Freemont Street for awhile. Ty and Ryan wanted to stay in the room, which I'm glad they did!!! The bands tonight on all three stages were blah and it was just filth out on the street tonight.  Must be tough times here in Vegas, nobody can afford clothes!!!  The general attire was a g-string, stickers on nipples, and shoes were optional. It's a sad day when the chicks walking around in little sparkly bikinis actually look classy compared to what was walking the streets! Even guys were running around in g-strings. Total gross! We said goodbye to the Freemont Street Experience and headed back to our hotel. We decided to sit by the fire poolside. The shark tank was all lit up and it was just a beautiful view. We found where they sold the shark cups i had been looking for so i bought one and a yummy pina colada!  The boys called after we had been there about an hour and wanted to join us. Claim Jumpers is in our hotel so we decided to grab a late night snack. You definitely know you are on vacation when you are at Claim Jumpers at 11 pm eating wings and desserts!!!     

MGM Fun

Just a few pictures walking around the MGM Grand Hotel.....

Ty Faces His shark Fear For $20!

Today is much warmer and the pool was amazing! Ty decided he would go down the water slide, but not until he had sealed the deal with a $20 cash payment!!! We all had fun going down the slide, but Ty literally just did the two times he was obligated to do. He mumbled something about not wanting to be on the slide if an earthquake hit! He just sat in one of the lounge chairs in the sun while we swam and did the slide. Later the rest of the boys joined him and i went and sat in the wonderful jacuzzi for awhile. Ty and Ryan went up to the room and Ed and i sat poolside and just relaxed, it felt WONDERFUL!!! 

Paris, Las Vegas

Ryan is taking French this year, and actually likes it and is doing really well so we definitely wanted to hit Paris with him. We had fun walking around and than bought our tickets to ride the elevator up to the top of the Eiffel tower. Ty was not happy about how high it went but was a good sport. We had an awesome guy who gave us all kinds of facts. He's been on all kinds of news shows due to his photographic memory and being able to remember EVERYTHING!!! We learned something we did not know about the MGM Grand. Several years ago you entered the hotel/casino by walking thru the mouth of the giant gold lion. after walking thru the mouth you followed the yellow brick road and you were greeted by the characters from the Wizard of Oz, even the flying monkeys! But soon the hotel realized they weren't getting any Chinese customers and discovered because it was considered bad luck to walk thru the lions mouth. Money won over and there was no longer an entrance thru a lions mouth! Did not know that!!! The elevator ride up was fast and we went really high!!! I actually felt slightly dizzy!!! Stepping out of the elevator at the top is quite windy and definitely colder than it was street level!!!  The top was completely enclosed like a giant bird cage, so totally safe! ty did really good for being that high up.  It was fun to look out over Vegas. They had given us this Ipad to use that showed on the screen what you would have seen if you were actually at the top of the REAL Eiffel Tower looking down. Really fun to see where all the French landmarks were as we looked out over Vegas, it gave you a faint feeling like you were really in France looking out when you looked at the ipad.    

Swimming With The Sharks

The pool was our first stop here in Vegas. We changed into our suits and we were off to go swim and slide with the sharks!!! It was TOTALLY awesome to be in the pool with the sharks swimming right there next to you. The slide was SUPER fast and soooo amazing going thru the tank!!! There were sharks swimming next to me and over me while i zipped down the slide thru the shark tank! Ed and Ryan liked it too but Ty decided to just sit in a chair at the pool!!!  His two big fears are heights and sharks......poor guy, we have plans with both this vacation!!!

Our Home Away From Home

Vacation is off to a good start! Our room was ready early so we were able to check in early!!!  Our room is VERY similar to the room we had at Monte Carlo in November for the Ball.  Ty and Ryan are NOT happy about sharing a bed....but they will survive!!! Our tower is a non smoking tower so that is nice since Vegas is a smoking chimney once you leave your room!!! Bags are in and we are ready to go play!

Off To Vegas For Spring Break!

Yay!!!!  It is finally time to leave on vacation!!! We are off to Las Vegas for 3 days. We are staying at the Golden Nugget because there is a shark tank that the hotel pool surrounds AND there is a water slide where part of the slide goes thru the shark tank!!! Soooo excited!!! The boys are not sharing my excitement with me.....Ty and Ryan would have rather stayed home...... 

Trying Hard To Bowl

No work for Ed or i and no school for the boys. We wanted to something but none of us felt like driving 2 plus hours to go do something.....soooooo we decided to go bowling on base.  I went on line and double checked the hours. It said it opened at 10 am. We arrived at 11 am and there was a sign on the door that it would open at 1 and an apology for any inconvenience.....so typical of this duty station. I've enjoyed my time here but really looking forward to living on a REAL Marine base again and having things to do close by and not having to drive HOURS to go do something!!! We decided to go check the bowling alley out in town. It didn't open until 4 pm!!!!  Oh my gosh!!! like seriously it's just eat or watch a movie in this town!!! Drives me crazy!!!  It's super windy today so hiking, shooting, and riding horses is out, so literally leaves eating, watching a movie, or go bowling......ugh!!!!! So we killed some time running a few errands and went bowling later on base when it opened. As you can tell by the score we don't bowl often!!!  We are more of an outdoor family but on these crazy windy days we are a bit limited on things to do if we don't want to sit at the house!!!  

Ryan gave us all our name

Snazzzzzzy shoes here!

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London Has Fallen

It was one of those cloudy looks like it's gonna rain kinda days so we decided to go to the movies. It's been awhile since we've been to the movies and we didn't even know what was out! We decided on London Has Fallen. Aside from the F-Bombs throughout the movie it was really good. I felt like I had done a cardio workout when we exited the theater!!!



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Sawtooth Canyon Hiking

We had a great day hiking Sawtooth Canyon today! 

Ryan snapped this picture of Ed and I

Quick family picture while we all happened to be sitting on the same rock!

Ty taking in the view! I decided to go around the other side. My arms were tired from the other climbs I had done.

These two boys can climb soo fast!

Aside from the wind it was a gorgeous day for hiking!!!

Made it down those steep set of rocks behind me. Always easier going up than coming down!!!

There were a LOT of great grip rocks climbing up this! Quite the workout though!!! 

Happy New Year 2016

We started off the new year with a totally relaxing day! It was wonderful!!! We watched our Marines and horses open up the Rose Parade....

than the Michigan game and Michigan won! YAY!!! We watched our Marines open up the Rose Bowl game for The National Anthem 

and than we were off to the outlets for some shopping! 

Everyone found what they needed and while Vicki was in line at the Nike store we played a game of guessing the sport each customer played when they came in or left. There were lots of Beer Bong, Bowling, and Sumo athletes shopping today! Hahahaha! Lunch was at In N Out for Ed, Vicki, and I and the boys met us there with Panda Express. We rented San Andreas and Max for our Double Feature Friday. Both were great! Ed didn't watch Max though.....he loves the dogs that go to war with them and so he just didn't want to watch that movie.  It was a fantabulous first day of 2016 and made complete with Iowa losing in the Rose Bowl!!!

One Horse Open Wagon

We decided to get our Christmas spirit in gear and head out to The Mission Inn in Riverside to see The Festival of Lights. We haven't been in awhile. Last year it started raining on the night we were thinking about going, so we had a change of plans! But we made it this year. Boy was it crowded! BUT!!! We saved a fortune on cash and calories because the lines to buy anything yummy were crazy! Like roller coaster line long!!! So we didn't buy any of those totally over priced, very delicious smelling, calorie packed Christmas treats! And I was just fine with that! I'm down 21 pounds since summer no need to pay an outrageous amount of cash to get some of those pounds back!!! Hahaha The boys did the Cinderella Cariage last time and they did not want to do that agin! Sooooo we did the wagon tour for the lights. It was totally beautiful as alway!!!

We have arrived!

The boys did not want to do the Cinderella Carriage again!!! But it is definitely worth it to do once!!!

Our beautiful horse

This sweetie was right behind us. She reminded us of Aires and Ford on how they hold their heads and stare at you. Loved their sparkly hooves!!!

In the wagon...if you know them than you know they are happy. If you don't know them, than they look like grumbly teenage boys! Ha! It was pretty chilly, but to Ryan it was perfect weather! Shorts, tshirt, no jacket required.

But we look happy!!! 

It was a fun Christmassy night. The YouTube video shows more of the lights. 

Here it is if us want to see a little glimpse of this fun place!

http://youtu.be/HaJbk-ML8NY