Before and After .... the Haircut!

We finally did it. Jacob's first haircut. We figured he was turning two soon and it's about time. Goodbye blonde, goodbye curls, goodbye baby hair. Jacob really looks grown up now. I will miss his wonderful hair, but he doesn't seem to mind at all.

I'll post a better picture soon.

What a Bummer Ending to a Fun Time...Houston's Johnson Space Center

Who oh why do people have to suck? We had the best day on Saturday going to Johnson Space Center in Houston. We got up crazy early and drove for 4 hours. We got to the Space Center and the kids absolutely loved it. They had a whole area dedicated to George Lucas and his movies, the boys loved it because they had a lot of Indiana Jones and Star Wars movie props. They had a huge indoor climbing toy, and Indiana Jones escape from the Temple of Doom jump house obstacle course, a Clone Wars Blaster target practice Tent, and an Indiana Jones safety line obstacle course. We also went and saw the training center for Astronauts, Saturn Rocket Park, and a presentation of what is currently happening with NASA. Now on to the reason why we will never have memories captured with photographs. Don't get me wrong, we brought our camera.

You see, people suck!
We stayed the night at Staybridge Suites and when we woke up we relaxed and ate a yummy breakfast. Then I went to get the boys in the car while Shane checked us out. I got the boys in the car and noticed a bag in the wrong place. Weird! I said, "Eli, did you or Seth knock down that bag and not tell me?" Eli said no. I buckled Jacob in and Eli and Seth were sitting down then Eli said, "Mom, the bag was in the wrong spot, but I think somethings wrong with the DVD player. The wires are hanging down." Sure enough, the screen was gone, our GPS was gone, our driver's door lock was busted, and of course our camera was gone. No pictures. Luckily, it was our point and shoot and not our Nikon D50. Oh well, we will survive.

I keep thinking, if those jerks knew us, they wouldn't have done that. If they just saw my boys and how sweet they are, then those punks wouldn't have touched our car. Living in Laie made it so nice not to have to worry as much about these type of things. Even in Olympia there are lots of problems with theft and break ins. The world is so beautiful, the people in it are so lost.

So, if I had our pictures I would shown you these two of all the pictures. These are sad quick drawings to give you the idea. So, Eli wanted to do that Indiana Jones Ropes Course where you have a harness, you are 20 feet up, and you had 6 different courses you had to go through, there was a rope attached to the rope above you and you walked across this wide open course. Eli did a great job, but he was scared. The last of the six parts looked about like that picture. There were no ropes to hold on to except your own while you watched across these very wobbly boards like a old broken up bridge. Eli's face was priceless! He looked like he was going to cry, ans Seth said Eli was soo sad. The worst part is, my face looked about as scared just with my frown turned upside down. I really was about as scared as he was. We can always remember that it happened, even though we won't be able to see it.

So, we're looking at a building on this amazing tour of the NASA lot and training center and Seth has something to say about EVERYTHING. Shane humored him and said, " So, what is that building used for?" He said, "I know that's where they bring all the weapons. They turn all the weapons into skunks in that building. Then they use those tanks to freeze all the skunk farts.......They freeze the farts then put them up into space and let the farts go." He learned that liquid nitrogen was very very VERY cold about five minutes before and all the liquid nitrogen was stored in the same exact tanks. It was soo funny.

The other response of his that must be shared happened when we got in the car after the police had left this morning. Seth says, "I know who stole our GPS!! I know who did it. It was a friend of mine.....he's from my class....at my church in Corpus Christi!" Kids say the funniest things, but Seth sure is a storyteller. Well, the drive home was a little crazy with no GPS. We ran into a couple toll roads until we stopped to get a map. We made it back the old fashioned way. Also, we sang a LOT of songs. Not having a DVD player is a lot of work. I am not really looking forward to our long, 5 day drive home. I am looking forward to seeing all our friends, but I'm not looking forward to the hours it will take to get there. Well, five more days until take off. 5...4...3...2...1...blastoff!

Black Eyes & The Aquarium

Eli has had his fare share of black eyes. The culprit this time was Seth. The suspect, Seth the cowboy, was seen swinging a lasso (belt) waiting for the buffallo to run by. The victim, Elijah, then walked into the belt buckle on the end of the lasso. Who knew? The victim then began crying and proceeded to tell me that his eye had been popped and bleeding everywhere. So he's a little overdramatic. there was one pinprick size cut with one dew drop sized speck of blood. At the sight of blood all his color leaves his face and he starts to feel like he's going to throw up. He looked at the speck of blood on the paper towel and said, "Mommy, I feel like sick cuz I think my broken eye makes me feel like that." What a dramatic yesterday.
The first time I remember Elijah getting a black eye was Eli's first day of preschool over at Laie Head Start. It was all my fault that morning. I was trying so hard to pull apart two cups that had suctioned together that I didn't notice little Eli right behind me. I did, however, feel him with my elbow as it smacked right into the corner of his little eye as I managed to finally seperate those two stubborn cups. I was so afraid of all the question and answers that were going to happen on Eli's first day of school. I could picture it now: Q-"What happened to your eye Elijah?" A-"My mom hit me." Q-"Are you okay?" A-"She gave me a black eye. She just said sorry and she was sad."
Needless to say, everything turned out well.

Today was a blast! We went to the Texas State Aquarium with a family that we know from church. They had a membership and were able to get us in for free. Free is always good. We saw alligators, a porcupine, a dolphin show, a bird show, the otters, the sea turtles, and the jellyfish among many other fish. The boys were well behaved and NO ONE THREW A FIT!!!! It was a miracle and a blessing.

Seth used to be my most photogenic child, but as of late he has been the most difficult. I need to get him out of this awkward stage and back to fashion model Seth.

They had the coolest Stingray Petting Area. Jacob thought they were crazy, but Seth and Eli loved touching the rays.

Sooo Busy, but I need to take the time.

Jacob is making a stew with leaves, flower petals, and egg yolk brewed in dog dish water.

Elijah is taking a walk in the middle of Grandmama's garden.

Seth is really excited posing at The Hooks game in Corpus Christi, TX

Elijah took this pic down below in the USS Lexington.

So, this brings me to my matter of bussiness. I want to start blogging again. I need to start blogging again. I am going to start blogging again. I have been going through excuses of how busy I am, but journals are important. I feel like I haven't been a true friend to all of my good friends who are blogging during their busy lives. I am sorry I haven't been reading, commenting, or updating you all. I love you all and I am going to make more of an effort from now on.

I'm back from the BLOGGING Dead

This is such a sad story with a very happy ending. Okay, so one day I sat at the computer screen and began to do the usual things like check my email, check Shane's email, and help Eli earn money on his Webkinz game and something started to happen. My throat started to feel pressure and I started to breath deeply while feeling my heart racing. I started thinking about my life and my situation and I thought, 'wow! I am so unhappy.' I am a very optimistic person and have always been happy when I am with my husband and children so I began to analyze my situation. I have been having a terrible time with my health lately. I have had terrible acne, digestive problems, and my throat has been sore. I am lucky I own good makeup because I would not leave the house without it. Not to mention that I haven't been able to sing since we came to Washington from Hawaii. I realized how lost I have been without my voice. I always used to sing around the house and I was feeling so empty. I have to lay my children down at night without singing them a song and finally now Eli just says, "You'll tuck us in and give us kisses, but no songs anymore right?" I have been trying so hard to get my health insurance figured out so I can get into the right doctors and get taken care of. I thought about how greatful I was to have my family around to help us out. Shane hasn't gotten a job since we moved and we've been living with family. I took a break and went to the restroom and after washing my hands I saw a face in the mirror that I didn't recognize. I am not vain but I was so proud of myself for getting healthy, losing weight while doing P90X last spring. I saw some weight gain due to inactivity, eating habits, and a presciption I'm on. I saw acne instead of Mary. I moped back to the computer screen and started looking up solutions to my health problems that I couldn't afford. I looked up different throat conditions and holistic aproaches to diagnose and cure throat conditions, different foods that promote health that were very expensive, and different vitamins that improve acne that were also expensive. I finally checked my email and saw a name that triggered the tears. Stimmel. Trying to fight through the tears I shot a quick email to Leah about how my cell phone was broken and can almost never recieve or return calls on it. I ended the email that said I miss you and I was just overwhelmed. I walked into my room and just thought about how I missed all the times in Hawaii with friends. I couldn't quite figure out why I was sad now and not as much a couple months ago. I decided I needed to do something about this whole problem. I knew I couldn't get Shane a job, or just buy what I needed/wanted, but I could be more proactive about other things. I feel uncomfortable working out in front of people, so living with people doesn't help that situation. I can't buy any food I want because we are being assisted from other people. I could however show up at my doctor's everyday to let them know how important and high priority I need to be. All my hard work at bugging the doctors paid off and I am seeing an allergist and an ENT next week. YAY! I had a nice weekend spending time in Vancouver with the Stimmel's for Taylor's birthday. It really made my weekend. Then to top off the wonderful weekend Shane got a phone call last night and YES HE HAS A JOB!!!!!!! He starts training on the 17th and I'll go into that later, but we are extremely excited. I was so excited about all the progress that was made for our future in just a couple days. Yesterday didn't feel as good as I thought it should. I spent time with Shane and my family, but there was still a little empty feeling. I know part of it is still not having my voice back, but I couldn't figure out what else to do. I woke up this morning at 4am, could't fall back asleep, and went to the computer again. I found myself looking up Shane's new company and places to live and I read something about Christmas that said Noel on it. My thoughts immediately went to Noelle and I started to cry. I went straight to a site that has not been looked up in a long time. My Blog. I realize at that moment what was missing. I have been so distracted with my own life and problems that I forgot to keep checking in on those that I have come to care about in the last three years. I blame it on those darn Twilight books that distracted me so much. Thanks Noelle for that. After I finished the final book I forgot to go back to blogging. I couldn't fall asleep and knew I needed to post before I walked away from the computer screen again. I miss you Shanae, Angie, Hillary, Erin, Keiko, and Noelle. I can't wait to get caught up on your lives. I'm sorry I got so self-absorbed but you'll be hearing from me more often. I love you all!

Here are a few updated pictures of the boys! Jacob just had his First Birthday on Oct. 27th and he's walking. Seth and Eli and doing well but miss their friends so much!