World War 2 Memorial

The World War 2 memorial is huge! This is the picture we sent to The Dude In Cammies. 

Next Friday The 13th & Full Moon....

The next full moon to fall on Friday the 13th will be on Victoria's 53rd Birthday!!!

In the meantime just......

Last Lunch In Middle School For Ty

 

I had to go pay the boys final lunch bills. They both owed a couple dollars and so i decided to just zip in the last day of school since i was already off and pay rather than trying to guess the amount. before it didn't matter, i just over paid so they were set when school started but i am not sure if we will be here when school started so i didn't over pay the last time i sent them with checks to school i just kinds guesstimated what it might be and i was just a couple dollars off on the two of them! I took a picture of the menu board so Ty could remember FOREVER what he had on his last day of Middle School for lunch! Somethings you want to remember forever, RIGHT?!!! Later he saw this picture in our photo stream and was like, "Mom!!! Why do you have a picture of our lunch menu in your phone?!!!" I told him he might want to know what he had on his last day of Middle School someday. He shook his head know while laughing and said, "Mom, why would i want to remember the worst food EVER?!!!" Than he and Ryan started telling me all kinds of horror stories about the cafeteria food!!!! Certain dishes ALWAYS had a a hair in it no matter what....unidentified stuff that did NOT like food and on and on. I was pretty sick after all that!!!

See Ya Later Kelli, AGAIN!!!

Kelli Kirwan and i have been friends since the early Spring of 1998. We met while our husbands were stationed on Camp Pendleton and we both lived in Base Housing and were in the same ward for church.  Kelli was the nursery leader and Vicki was in nursery along with Kelli's daughter Rebekah who was the same age as Vicki. Those two became quick friends and probably the reason why were never stationed at the same duty station again. We used to joke about those toddlers stealing a helicopter if they were ever on the same base as teenagers! We have had a LOT of fun and crazy times together. Seen lots of sadness together to with the many memorial services we attended for our Marines killed in training accidents. We have gone in different directions over the last 16 years but only because of our husbands duty stations. We would totally CHOOSE to live next door to each other if the Marine Corps would ever make that happen! Anyways.....from 1998-2014 we have PCS'd around the Marine Corps duty stations and the Kirwans hit an Army Post along the way. We finally ended  up in the same state in 2009! Now Kelli is doing her last official PCS move as her husband, Charles, is now in the ranks of the Retired Marines. I went and hung out with her/helped her on her last day of packing out while the movers loaded the truck one last time from a military duty station. It just doesn't seem possible that we are at this point in our lives! When i met her my husband was just barely a Corporal....it has been a fun and crazy along with some tears 16 years of Marine Wife friendship. She is off to Texas in the morning, that is home for her. I won't be surprised if we end up close together again when my Marine joins the retired ranks. Texas is a state we are looking at if the Democrats don't find a way to plant toooooo many blue voters there! I see it happening with all their constant legislation is gaining the Mexican vote, now they just have to figure out a way to get those numbers there to out vote the Texas people. When that happens, which i am afraid it might, The Dude In Cammies and i will have to scratch off another retirement wish location off our list. The blue seems pretty hellbent on taking all the warm locations of our country!!! Maybe i will be talking Kelli into joining me in Wyoming, Oklahoma, or the Dakotas! I sure hope not! I hate the cold!!!    

This is Luke. He is Jasper Jr. The only child of Jasper that we know location of. We know some of his pups were given to Wounded Warrior, but Luke is the only one we have kept in contact with. He is JUST like his Daddy. We always joke and do the Darth Vader voice around Luke of "Luke, I am your father". It never gets old. gonna miss this cute, wild, fat, spaz of a dog!!! He wouldn't look up because he had a ball in his mouth and he thought i was going to take it!!!  

Throw Back Thursday...A Year Ago

Wow!!! It has been a year....she was 16....now she is 17.....

Desperate Tutu

Poor Red a horrible Hot Spot getting out of control on his back from we think it was when he got his shaved hair cut for Texas and he got nicked. He of course was making it worse!!! We were trapped at the house with the packers but there were still scissors and some paper plates on the counter! In desperation a Tutu was created to keep him from scratching until later that night when we could zip to Walmart and get him a dog shirt to wear! Red was NOT happy about his tutu!!!! But it kept him from making his Hot Spot HOTTER!!!  

Jasper Jr AKA Luke Kirwan

Nope, this is NOT Jasper! It only looks like Jasper because it is Jasper's son, Luke! I had to say goodbye to him as his family is moving to Texas! He is now the dog of a retired Marine and they are going home to the Lone Star State! Luke is like Jasper and it was hard for him to hold still while out in the front yard. But chewing on his ball got me a quick picture before he began tossing the ball like his Daddy! Gonna miss this guy and his human family!!!

Sgt. York

I fell in love with this horse when we were at Ft Myers. We were in and out of the stables often feeding, checking on the horses, and taking them out of their stalls to walk around.  The Army has several horses, alot more than the Marines have, but they need a larger number due to the services they do just at Arlington alone. There are 4 Platoons of horses. The Platoons are either all white or all black. One Platoon is always gone. Each platoon gets a one week liberty pass to go to pasture each month and run around and be a horse! Lucky for me Sgt York wasn't on liberty. Since Sgt York wasn't on liberty i was able to spend quite a bit of time with him. He always poked his head out when i came by so i would stop and we would have some good chit chats. He thought he should chew on my hair while we were having these awesome discussions though.....Sgt York has some pretty incredible history. I loved his original name to start with. He came to the Army as a race horse who had slowed down and was not considered a winner anymore. His name was All Aboard Jules. Yep, that name just did NOT blend in with the other names in the stables so he had a name change to Sgt York. Being a race horse the guys at the stable weren't exactly sure what Sgt York's job was going to be. They decided to see how he would do with some mock combat training. The soldiers fired machine guns from his back and threw grenades along side him and he basically didn't even blink. Sgt York had secured himself a job! He is most famously known for being the riderless horse for President Reagan. He had Reagan's boots in the stirrups, turned backwards and made the famous walk seen around the world.  We talked about that day. I told him i watched him from Okinawa and that i thought he had done a beautiful job and he was a darn special horse to have had that honor for President Reagan.  I might have some better pictures of him on my real camera. The lighting in the stables isn't the greatest and the sun coming in reflecting off of everything made it hard to get some crisp pictures. But these are on my phone and i am blogging from my phone right now....But he is a beautiful horse. 

Sgt York is also a fun horse with a sense of humor. Sticking out his tongue at me when i told him my hair was off limits! My hair must really resemble hay....all the horses kept trying to lick and nibble on my head!

Boys At The Beach

I think I will have to frame this....

Looking Good

This picture of The Dude On A Horse is getting published somewhere but I have no idea where....just glad the photographer sent me the photo!!!  They get really dirty at the rodeos as you can tell by his gloves....

Updated My Shell Box

I have a shell box by the fire place full of shells from various beaches. These are the shells that i write on. Just a few words from that day to remind me of the memory of the beach day. I got a BIG shell even though i probably could have just written Adolpho 2014on a little shell and remembered it, but in case i am not around someday i figured all the information would jolt the kids memories to match the shell to my scrap books, photo books, blogger books, Facebook books......i'm starting to think i might have too many photo books of our family adventures!!!  

Accidental PJ's To School

The kids were teasing me about checking my shoes before I leave for work because i had worn a black boot and a brown boot to work  before and Ty says,
When I was in 3rd grade on Okinawa I got all the way down to the playground at school and looked down and realized I was in my Jammies!!! I ran home soooo fast to change!!!"
We all cracked up and I said "I never knew that...what Jammie's?"
Ty: "That isn't something you talk about in 3rd grade! They were Star Wars with Qui Gon Jinn on the front"
We were laughing at how he had to have been freaking out realizing he was in his jammies at school!! And even funnier how we never knew this until now!!!
Soooo funny!!!!

Elizabeth Colorado Rodeo 2014

The Dude on a Horse just wrapped up another rodeo. He is getting pretty good at these things. He will definitely be coming out of the gun club as a well-rounded Marine! I love that he is able to experience this side of the Marine Corps and America! He has been able to meet another sector of the American people on their stomping grounds doing what they do best and in their comfort zones. He has also been able to see quite a bit of America as he travels around with The Mounted Color Guard. This rodeo was in Elizabeth, Colorado. He said it was beautiful but everywhere you went there was just a cloud of stench because of the legalized marijuana law. He had Colorado on our list as a potential place to retire, it is now crossed off the list and I no longer have to argue with him presenting why I don’t want to live there. He was also surprised at how cold it was there! He had just come from a rodeo in northern California where it was in the triple digits and now he had to actually go and buy himself a coat! The drive out was a little rough. They had taken 2 additional horses so they were driving 2 trucks and 2 trailers. They blew 2 tires on day 2.  Thank goodness all was fine, but it is just a hassle unloading horses and securing them while changing tires on the trailer each time on the side of the road.  The weather was not pleasant during the duration of the rodeo. There was rain which meant mud. Lots of lightning and thunder which spooked the horses.  Dean went crazy on the Saturday afternoon rodeo.  The Dude on a Horse managed to NOT drop the flag while Dean insisted on staying on his hind legs for several minutes. There were tornado warnings on Sunday so they had to secure all the animals and put everyone into shelters. This delayed the rodeo until later. The tornados did not hit, thank goodness, and all ended up going well.  They blew 2 more tires on day one driving back…..i will do a follow up post when The Dude on a Horse returns to his barracks room in the desert as he has pictures for me but can’t get them to me until he gets to his computer. I rely on stocking Instagram and other social media sites for photos in the interim while he is on the road!     

 

 

Discovering Me....Thru Facebook Quizes

I'm learning a LOT about myself by doing these Facebook quizzes.....I'm sure these people creating these quizzes are really smart and I can go solely by what the results say!!! NOT!!!! Hahahaha ha!!!

But, they provide entertainment....

My theme song should be:

I guess I was supposed to live in the 60's!

My song is....

I should be driving a.....

I am this TV Mom..,

And this is where I should live....

Funny Face #134 To The Dude In Cammies

Funny Face #134....but whose counting! We have taken phones to whole new level...i can probably write a book about how to keep your marriage alive and well via a phone...but i really don't want to share all the photos...Facebook, Instagram, and the Blogger only get an itty bitty snippet of what goes back and forth.  

Sooo True! Every Day To Work!

This is like EVERY flippin' day driving to work!!! Seriously!!!

I'll Raise Your Straw Hat....

This was the picture The Dude On A Horse sent today to say hi....i showed it to Ty...he laughed...

Ty did some thinking.......

Ty said his hat was better.....

...and that he would raise his Dads straw hat.....

And i couldn't be left out, so i sent him a picture that it's "Arty Time"!!!

Yes, we have a LOT of fun texting photos on our phones....

Dean LOVES Me!!!

Christmas Pictures 2004

A Throw Back Thursday from almost 10 years ago!!! Family picture time for Christmas cards!!!!  We found a perfect lil spot on this beautiful island to take them. It was actually unusually cool for this tropical island since this was early November so we are NOT in shorts and tshirts!  We just had one of our friends take this picture for us and yay, everyone was looking at the camera and kinda smiling!!! 

Life Right Now In America

This sums up how life in America is at the moment....