Timmy's First Year Scrapbook, Finally!

Dave Update:  Friday was a pretty good day for him.  He was able to rest very comfortably, and after the kids came home from school he walked up and down our block -- the kids walked the dog.  With the back brace he's keeping very nice posture while he back heals...

He's looking great, and moving decently all things considered.  His spirits are high during the day.  By evening as the medications wear off he'll get pretty worn out.  Which means he's sleeping well at night...

Well before Dave's surgery was scheduled, I had arranged with a childhood friend Angela to meet for a weekend of scrapbook cropping on November 3-5 with some other ladies.  We pool our resources -- such as all those computerized, digitized tools that I haven't invested in yet -- and banter ideas back and forth.  I love doing these, and I hadn't been to a crop since I was stationed in eastern Florida right after Timmy as born!  Most of the ladies booked rooms at a hotel on the beach and we rented one of the hotel's meeting rooms to do the cropping, but my plan was to do marathon cropping during the day and sleep at home at night.

Our view from the meeting room we rented to crop.

We're playing it by ear, but today I was able to go out and join in on the crop briefly while the boys were at school.  Dave stayed home and since I wasn't far away, I could be back quickly if there were problems.

Enjoy some of the pages I made Friday for Timmy's first-year scrapbook.  I did 8 pages...many of which I started at the crop and then finished at home tonight.  As I finished each page at the crop I took quick phone photos and texted (ahem, iMessaged them) to Dave.  They aren't great photos here, and the scrapbooking supplies took a beating during our PCS last year so we have lots of upturned corners.  Make sure you see the last picture, it's my favorite of the bunch...

If Dave is still doing well, I would like to go back Saturday and see if I can crank out 8 more pages.  I'm taking the ladies a lasagna, at a minimum...

There's a page to the left of this titled "FIRST", that looks the same with four other visitors (mostly family).

This is a pre-made page that I won as a door prize at a Stampin' Up...or was it a Creative Memories? Party.  Today I just had to add the pictures and the word cutouts.

Some "journaling" (i.e. captioning) will go on the right side of this page.

A caption will go in the lower right.

My favorite so far.  Thanks to Angela for her Sizzix that makes "shadow" letters that made this so much fun to do...

November NaBloPoMo -- My Attempt to Post Daily for 30 Days...

Today I added my name...my blog...to the rolls of the National Blog Post Month list, brought to you by BlogHer.com.  Feel free to join in...

I have a lot of talk about this month, including updates on Dave's post-surgery recovery, which should make this easy to do.  Even if I just take an iPhone picture and e-mail it to the blog (which I've done before), I can meet this goal!

By signing up I apparently have a chance to win some prizes.  I'll let you know if I win -- I have to be actually blogging daily in order to get the prize.

Marshmallow Fail!

Before I get into the main topic of this post, first let me say that this was a much much better day for Dave's recovery.  He woke up in a good mood, and seemed to do well while I was briefly at a Hurlburt Spouses' Club board meeting during mid-morning.  He even took a couple walks to the mailbox and back.  Things are looking good.  His surgery sites are still very sore, but at least he's prepared for that pain and is coping.

Yesterday (Wednesday) was pretty rough.

So, marshmallows.  I like marshmallows a lot.  I always have.  S'mores are a favorite dessert at our house, which we'll make in our backyard on summer evenings in our firepit.

I made a stupid impulse purchase at Walmart yesterday while grocery shopping.

My word, these things STINK!  I smelled them in the car all the way home, then they took over the smell of my kitchen.  Some sort of artificial chocolatey chemical smell.

I ate ONE. It was 90 calories.  Didn't feel so hot afterwards.

Yeah, it's pretty big.

The rest are in the trash, and that's $2 wasted.  The odor was nauseating.

What was I thinking?

On the other hand, I found these ketchup packets for sale at Walmart and am glad I no longer have to steal have extras of them from Chick-fil-a.

Today I was at the same Walmart picking up a prescription and when I picked up some last minute groceries (I'm always suckered into picking up more than one item at Walmart, don't you?) and I walked past the endcap with those stupid marshmallows.  Oh, the SMELL....

Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Enjoy some pictures I took of the spectacular fall colors at Great Smoky Mountains National Park last week.  I was in the area training for my AF Reserve job.  These are too pretty not to share with the world!

You'll notice that I'm in my winter coat (it was in the low 50s) for some of the pictyres but just in a t-shirt for others, those pictures were after a hike up the Laurel Falls trail, about 300' in 1.3 miles.  Got a tad warm.

A few things of note.  First, these are all taken with my iPhone camera.  The coloring was difficult because of the cloudy conditions.  Secondly, the other people in the picture are some of the folks I work with.  Finally, I've captioned some of the plant and flower pictures with their names.

Laurel Falls.  These are the "upper falls", the "lower falls" are forward of my feet (imagine them spilling down off the bottom edge of the photograph).  The trail cuts right across them and I'm standing on the trail, 75' tall total.

This really thick, really tall moss.  Thought it was mystical-looking.

Asters.

This waterfall was set back from the road some.  We tried to cross the river to see it better, but weren't able to.

This flower is called a mountain gentian.

Another aster.

My favorite picture of all of them.  I like that green color in the foreground.

Halloween 2011 -- Minimalist Style

First of all, let's show a recovering Dave this evening, happy after a Panera sandwich and chocolate brownie.  My poor guy had to go 36 hours without food.  While that stinks for most people, those who know Dave well can imagine how it must have been for him.  He's recovering normally (i.e. very sore for the first 48 hours) and we're looking forward to him coming home tomorrow afternoon.  He reports that he's been walking around and not feeling the pain he'd had in his legs for the past 2 years!

Because his procedure was moved to Halloween day, the family's Halloween plans had changed considerably.  We didn't carve our pumpkin, I didn't wear any more of my costume this year than the hat at a spouses' club luncheon 2 weeks ago, and I sadly had to unplug the ghost light timer from our front porch since no one would be home to give out candy.

The picture is supposed to be of the tiered sandwich platter, but you can see me in the background in my purple witch's hat looking witchy.

After Dave went to the recovery room and we could visit briefly with him, the boys and I enjoyed a short trick or treat trip at Hurlburt Field's base housing area, thanks to an invitation from Dave's squadron's 1st Sergeant.  Katrina had invited a couple of families of deployed over to her place so we could experience a safe, traditional trick-or-treat experience.  Even though it was a short trip, and by the time we started many houses had run out of candy, the boys had a very nice time and ran into a number of their friends -- who didn't live in base housing either.

Enjoy some pictures from Halloween night:

On Sunday Jacob went to a Halloween-themed birthday party.  Jacob has a rubber rat in his hand, who he's named Scabbers.  He's with his classmate William, dressed as Link from The Legend of Zelda.  His Mom did a great job with the tunic, hat and shield!

Timmy and one of his classmates he ran into while trick or treating.

The base fire station was out visiting the kids and handing out candy.  The kids love Sparky so much -- although the CE Squadron Commander told me that suit is VERY hot and Sparky had to take a lot of breaks in air conditioning :-)

The kids enjoyed seeing the elaborate decorations.  This house turned their entire -- and I mean ENTIRE -- front yard into a haunted cemetery!  The boys loved checking it out.

Veteran's Day Deals for 2011

My military spouse blogger friend at Wife of a Sailor has published a thorough list of military promotions for Veteran's Day.  This list had circulated among currently-serving servicemembers' e-mail accounts this past week.

Check out the list here!

You'll see that many businesses actually offer their promotions year round (such as Anheuser-Busch theme parks, Lowe's, and Home Depot) and the National Park Service's Veteran's Day weekend promotion is for everyone.