Official Word

Article from the NavyTimes today:

Nimitz delayed; short stop home for Ike

By Robert Burns - The Associated Press
Posted : Wednesday Nov 21, 2012 17:08:51 EST

WASHINGTON — The Navy says it will temporarily shrink its aircraft carrier presence in the Persian Gulf area from two to one this winter because of a mechanical problem with the carrier Nimitz, based in Bremerton, Wash.
Navy officials said Wednesday the Nimitz, which had been scheduled to deploy to the region in January to relieve the carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower, will put that off until summer in order to complete repairs to its propulsion system.
As a result, the Navy decided to bring the Eisenhower home in December and resurface its flight deck so it can go back to the Gulf area in February and remain for four months. That means that in December and January the carrier John C. Stennis will be the only carrier in that area.

BEST......NEWS.....EVER!!!! Hold onto your seats folks!!!!!!!........

Because........Mike is COMING HOME before Christmas!!!!

By order of ye 'ol US Navy, the USS Eisenhower will be returning to Norfolk mid December, before the Christmas holiday.....no exact date yet (couldn't really share it if I had it anyhow....)

There are other minor details that accompany the news, like the carrier will have its flight deck resurfaced while its home, and that the carrier will go out again sometime this Spring to finish out the remainder of the original deployment. For us, that is easy news to swallow though, because we already have written orders for May! So if affected, it won't be by much!

You wouldn't believe how blown away I was today by the FABULOUS news!

I literally had to pick my chin up off the floor and shake myself around a bit to fully take in the NEWS!

Of course my first response was if it was a joke...but its not! They are coming home!! Three months earlier than planned. When does that EVER happen?? Well, today it did!

So after passing what we thought was the half way mark, we are now counting down the final month! 

WEIRD.......Very weird!!! 

Okay, so now that my blood pressure is back to normal, I'm going to go have a big glass of wine and toast with Abby and Maddy and their apple juice! Thanksgiving just got a bit more meaningful for us this year.

Five months down......ONE to go!!!!

Another....not so memorable

Note, there is NO photo......you would not have wanted to see it!

And I was too preoccupied with the whining 5 year old and bored 3 year old to even pull out the phone to take a picture......oh wait, Maddy was using my phone to watch a show to keep busy. 

Abby had her 5 year checkup this past week too!

Much different experience. So they checked her vision and hearing too.....but she had to have a hemoglobin check (finger prick.....she did fine, no tears), but then her flu shot had to be a real shot, and not the mist as I had promised! Mom's should never make non-shot promises, lesson learned. Because of her battle with the activity induced asthma coughing this past spring, she doesn't qualify for the mist because she's used an inhaler a few times. Uggggg.......so on came the dreaded explanation of what was to come....

And of course she sobbed............. Then I had to explain this might happen once every year and she was NOT a happy camper. Luckily 6 seems SOOOO far away from now I can deal with that another day!

Anyhow, here are her 5 year stats:

40 pounds, 42.5 inches (50th percentile for both)

Blood pressure 100/54

Zoo in November

 We took a trip to the zoo today! The high was supposed to be 68 or so, and it was warm!

The kids needed to get out and walk off some energy.

Time for a checkup!

Maddy had her 3-year checkup at the doctor this week!

Strangely this kid LOVES going to the doctor now. She gets SO excited, its kind of weird!

(Guess she's suppressed those older memories of SHOTS!!!!)

And lucky for her turning 3 doesn't incur any new shots.....so she's safe for another year!

They checked her vision & hearing too

Weight: 30.5 pounds (10 pounds lighter than Abby)

Height: 36.7 inches (6" shorter than Abby)

Both were about the 50th percentile

Great Wolf Lodge (Third times a charm!!)

Well, we did it AGAIN!!!

Kind of as a just because, and it coincided with our true halfway date of this deployment......we went back to THE GREAT WOLF LODGE!!!!! This time we shared a room with a friend of mine and her two kids (her husband works in the strike group like Mike too, so we celebrated our halfway mark together!!)

 Maddy did a lot of lounging at the table with her towel. She was much more content this time around (3rd times a charm.....) but still a bit hesitant to try much. Luckily big sister is VERY outgoing and loved some independence on this trip, and pretty much had the run of things! She checked in with me at our table or wherever I was with Maddy here and there but mostly did her thing with her friend Ethan! Riding the slides and the waves!

 My friend Katy and myself

 Zoomed in from afar, Abby on the single tube in the wave pool

 My friend Katy's daughter Zoey riding the boogie board/surf ride!

 Mommy-Maddy time! She was a sweetheart the whole trip!

 Making silly faces to send to daddy!! WE MISSED YOU DADDY!!!

 Abby coming off the green slide

 Abby and Ethan (he's 3 months older than Abby but SOOOO tall!!)

 Abby coming off the orange slide

 The end of our visit to the lodge! The kids posed in front of the lobby display!!

Maddy, Ethan, Abby & Zoey

And after we got home we went to pick Roxy up from the kennel. When I pulled down our street, this is what the car looked like. Abby asleep, and Roxy sat next to her the whole ride home!

This was a great trip, and so fun for the kids to do it with friends!! Next time we go daddy will be with us! He was so sad to miss this with them, but they will be seasoned veterans when we go this spring!!

Look Who's 3!!!!!!

Happy 3rd Birthday to our Madelyn!!!!

Happy birthday to our youngest (and last!!!) who can make me cry and laugh all in the span of one day!

 After waking up I sent this photo to Mike so he would know what a 3 year old looks like.

 Big sister came out and brought her $1 from her money stash in her room, and told her they could go to the dollar store together and buy something fun. Abby is so kind and thoughtful.

Daddy sent her a gift from afar......Mrs. Fields teddy bear with COOKIES!!!!!

 

 She insisted the ribbon be tied around her head. 

Here she is admiring her cookie loot!

 Daddy sure knows his way to her heart!!! And luckily doesn't have to deal with the resulting sugar rush!!

 LOVING on her new birthday bear!

 Accomplishments of our 3 year old:

*Potty trained!!!!! She's been fully potty trained just over 2 months now, and doing great! She has been in school for almost 8 weeks and has NEVER had an accident, and goes in panties everyday!! She only wears a pull up at night to bed!

*Sleeps in a big girl bed! I moved Abby's matching extra bed into Maddy's room back in August, so she's been in a big girl bed for a while now, and loves being just like her big sister!

*TALKING!!! She doesn't stop talking now. Her vocabulary amazes me these days. She is like a sponge and speaks so nice, some days I want to cry when I hear her say things that she wasn't even close to saying a few months a go! Her recent statement to me last week, "Mom are you thinking what I'm thinking???"

*School! Maddy is going to school two days a week, and LOVING every second. 

*Singing! She loves to sing songs, and is doing it sooner than Abby did! Especially the difficult Disney songs from the movies they love to watch! It amazes me the lines she remembers! 

I'm sure there's more that I've overlooked, and much more to come/change over this 3rd year of her life! 4 more months and Mike will be home to experience it all with me! She channels him in SO many ways, its hard for me to watch her and not think of him. She is our little spitfire!!

Happy Birthday Maddy!!!

Halloween on the Ship

 I sent Mike some Halloween decor a few boxes ago.....and he put it all to good use decorating his office door and space! The sticky black window clings of spiders and the red words "Keep Out" and lots of white spider web and the red-eyed glowing skull on the left shelf. Adding a little holiday cheer to the otherwise dull steel gray walls! Well done honey!!

Farm Field Trip

 Abby's class had their 2nd field trip this year, and today it was to a local farm here in Virginia Beach!

Luckily it was a Thursday and Maddy was in school too, so I could volunteer as a parent helper!

Her class is small this year, about 6 kids less than normal, so that makes field trips even easier. 

The farm tour included seeing and learning about Chickens, Ducks, Roosters, Pony, Donkey, and Cows! They don't actually have cows on their farm, but they took actual cow's milk cream in a small jar, and had a few parents shake it around for 10 minutes. Sure enough when it was ready it was BUTTER!!! We spread some on a cracker for each kid! Abby loved it.

Then in a group of 30 or so kids and 12 adults we took a hayride to their pumpkin patch to pick pumpkins right off the vine! Literally the adults were handed shears to cut the pumpkins that the kids picked out to take home! Abby chose a cute normal one, and I chose a "Goosebumps" pumpkin variety. It has a lot of bumps all over the surface! After the pumpkin picking we met back for a group photo and picnic lunch!

Then Abby and I were off to go grab Maddy from school! So much fun.

Abby's class (she is in the back row, 3rd from the left in a black/white winter hat)

It was COLD at 9am this morning when we arrived. I had gloves on and was wishing I had bundled up more. Probably 45 degrees and breezy!

Halloween 2012

Maddy the Unicorn and Abby the Flamenco Dancer....All ready to trick-or-treat!

 Showing off their loot! The pumpkin bags got so heavy it felt like the handle was going to rip off. At one point Maddy refused to carry it to the front doors anymore because she said it was too heavy.

 My funny Maddy quote of the night......as she walks up to one house where the adults were handing out candy from the top of their driveway......she runs up in her costume of course, and says "Its me!!!" (as if they know her anyways, complete strangers) They got a good chuckle out of it! She has no stranger danger. She is always saying hi to new people we see and saying "Hi I Maddy".

Right before we went out trick-or-treating I found a unicorn playing the computer.....smart little things!