5 Years!

My how time flies! Seems just yesterday I was walking down the aisle in my wedding dress smiling at my handsome hubby-to-be! Yet so much has happened in these last five years! A deployment to Afghanistan, a move across the ocean, a new 'culture' to get used to (and I mean the Army, not the island!), an amazing three years on my beautiful Oahu, snorkeling adventures, hiking adventures, a deployment to Iraq, learning deployment survival, running my first 5K, church on the beach, several friends made (and unfortunately several friends lost), lots and lots of coffee, a move back across the ocean, a new job for hubby, a new job for me, life in a tiny duplex, a week of hurried painting and fixin' up the new house, our first Christmas tree, our first garden, fishin' and campin' trips, and the list goes on! What a crazy first 5 years! Who knows what the next five years may include. My hopes are that we have a lot more time together (easier now that Joe is out of the Army!), have a few kids, buy a house, Joe's dream to compete in a triathlon comes true, lots of family vacations (and hopefully one back to Hawaii), and that our relationship keeps growing, as it has done the last 5 years! We have had our ups and downs, we've had our moments of pure happiness and we've had moments of sheer pain too. But those moments - all of them - have made us who we are.

Joe's Birthday Adventure!

This year for his birthday, Joe wanted to go fishing and camping at Meade Lake. I took off work and Moe and Judson tagged along! Driving to Meade, it rained on us the whole way, but once we arrived it let up. After about an hour there (by the time we got our camp set up and were ready to get out on the boat) the sun decided to come out! We spent the afternoon on the boat and had a great time! Evening came around and the park ranger was speeding to all the campsites to let everyone know there was a forecast of hail and a tornado heading our way. So we jump in the car and head south, away from the storm, and wait it out. Turns out we only got rain at the camp - no hail or tornado. The guys stayed up late fishing, even caught a bunch of crawdads to use as bait the nest morning - only problem was that the coons got the crawdads sometime in the night!

The next morning it was gray and cloudy out, but it didn't rain, so we kept on fishing, still hoping to catch something. Sure enough - Moe caught something - a turtle. A not so very happy turtle! It took Moe a bit to unhook the turtle cause he kept snapping at him! We finished out our day without catching a single fish (though we kept seeing them jump out of the water the whole time!) - but that doesn't mean we didn't have quite the adventure for Joe's Birthday Fishing Trip!

Splish Splash!

Bethany and Morgan are some pretty lucky girls - their uncles LOVE to play with them, even if it means getting wet! They love their water balloon fights - in which the girls are WAY more drenched then Joe and Moe!! Last week, they even pulled out their slip-n-slide and had their uncles playing on that too!

Here are a few pics of their water adventures!

My Roses!

Growing up, I always wanted a rose bush! Everyone said they wouldn't grow well out here, so I just put the idea out of my head. Well, our house has a rose bush out front, and, well, when we first moved in, there were only a few puny roses on it. So maybe it is true, they don't grow well out here! Well, after a few tips from Andrew, Joe cut the bush way back (I thought it looked horrible, but he assured me it would be good for it.) Well, that rose bush has taken off and now grows gorgeous roses! I am so happy to finally have my beautiful rose bush!

Chef J

Oh, Judson! The kid's whole world revolves around Lego's. That is all he thinks about and talks about is Lego's. But every once in a while he'd tell people, "I'm a good cook you know". So it seems that every once in a while when he wasn't thinking about Lego's he was trying to cook. Hmmm, maybe this interest in cooking could distract him from Lego's a bit more often! So, being the 'favorite sister' that I am - I bought Judson a kid's cookbook and a set of oven mitts/potholders. I gave him the cookbook and he flipped through the whole thing and had several recipes he wanted to try. His fav recipe is Broccoli with Magic Cheese Sauce - though mom says he usually just makes the cheese sauce! He has been cooking pretty regularly and really enjoys it - I think mom enjoys having someone to help cook, too! Again, being the 'favorite sister' I decided every chef needs a chef's hat - so I bought a yard of fabric and made him one. He's a full fledged chef now! He's not Judson anymore, he's Chef J!

Meet Lela

A couple from our church had recently rescued a golden retriever who had puppies and they wanted to give the puppies to good homes. Well, of course, after losing Hilo, we wanted to get a new puppy. All the dog experts around here decided that Hilo most likely died of poisoning from something he got into under the house and most likely not from parvo or some other virus. Though we did take precautions and bleached everything down before we decided to bring home a new puppy. And we blocked off the hole so the new puppy couldn't get under the house!
Monday evening we went to the couples house to take a look at the puppies and we found a sweet little one that we brought home. We named her Lela. She was quite scared in her new surroundings, but after the first day she started warming up to us! She loves to get out and play with us! The first evening we had Lela, our nieces, Morgan and Bethany, came over to see her. They both crawled right into the kennel with her and held her and pet her! When it was time for the nieces to go home, I didn't think that we would ever get Bethany away from the puppy! I told her that at least I knew if I ever needed a dog sitter, I knew where I could find one!
I hope our little Lela stays with us for a VERY long time!

First Pick

Our first pick of the season were the radishes! I was so excited when I went out yesterday and saw them pushing up out of the ground! I picked a small handful and we had them on a salad for supper - they were so good! And to think, this is just the beginning of a summer full of fresh pickings from the garden!