Too Cute!

Taylor got an art kit from Santa that she named her "Devit Kit". We have no idea why she calls it that, but she loves the kit. She drags it all over the house with her new color books. Last night she asked if she could lay in bed and color for a little bit. When we went up to tuck her into bed this is what we found. She is just so darn adorable...I love that girl!


Just a side note, the sticker art on the wall is what we found her doing one night while she was supposed to be sleeping. She was hiding under her blanket applying tons of them to the wall. What remains up is just a small portion of what she originally had put on the wall.

Cape Cod Canal

The Cape Cod Canal is a man made body of water that separates Cape Cod from the rest of the state. Travis has been running the bike path which is about 14 miles preparing for the marathon. Today, it was such a gorgeous day out that I decided while Trav ran I would take the kids for a good long walk/bike ride. So we bundled up a bit and off we went. It felt so good to get out and walk.

Looking up the canal towards Cape Cod Bay


Taylor enjoying her ride

Travi on his bike. We hope to loose the training wheels by the time Winter Break is over

There is a small boat station on the canal and this is one of their 25ft rigid hull boats

Looking down the canal at the Sagamore Bridge. This is one of two bridges that take us off the Cape

Christmas Eve!

Well its Christmas Eve and we had a nice, quiet day at home. Taylor requested Baby Back Ribs with Broccoli and Bread so that is what we had for dinner. After that the kids took a bath, opened up their new PJ's and then got everything ready for Santa. Santa actually called our house last night and Travi is convinced that Santa told him he would be taking a Pit Stop at our house and resting. So not only did we supply cookies and milk, we also had to leave out GermX hand sanitizer, a heating pad, pillows and a blanket. They also sprinkled their homemade Reindeer food outside. The kids are very excited for Santa to come.

I also have thought a lot about my Mema today. She will be turning 81 years old tomorrow. I pray that even though she suffers with her disease, that she knows how much I Iove her and how much I cherish our Christmas together. I love you Mema and Happy Birthday!

Lastly, I have thought a lot about our families today who we will not be seeing this Christmas. It is so difficult to be away from them. Each year I tell myself that it will be fine, but then this day always catches up to me and I miss them terribly. We have spent so many Christmas just the four of us and while I love our special days I still can't help but yearn for those big family Holidays with everyone laughing, cooking and enjoying one another. If there is one downside to Travis' job it would be this. The distance from family can sometimes be very agonizing.

We do wish everyone a Merry Christmas and hope that you all remember the true meaning of the Holiday, our dear Saviors birth. With much love and warm thoughts...God Bless Everyone.

A Serious Snow Day!!!!

The back of our house.


Taylor freezing in the sled. She was done and cold. She definitely doesn't last as long as her brother.

No food for our feathered friends today!

Travi was seriously in heaven. This kid is meant for the foul weather. He hasn't been this happy to be outside since we got here. He even broke out his sledding goggles to do some serious sledding in the driveway.



After seriously thinking that it didn't snow on the Cape, we finally got our snow storm. We lost power last night for about 4 hours so we ate dinner by candlelit and then woke up to all this snow. Travi needless to say was beside himself and I think this definitely helped him like Cape Cod a little bit better. We headed out to do some sledding and clear a path to the cars and then dug the cars out. It felt really good to be in the cold, snowy weather again.

Just one of those days...

My mom and Sissy at Noon Tea

Dad and the kids on the Duck Boat...Quack, Quack, Quack!

Me and the kids with my parents in Maui

Its the Holidays and families are supposed to be together. I am feeling sorry for myself today because, once again we will not be going home for the Holidays. I miss my family right now and am just frustrated. I feel like my kids are missing out on so many good times. No Grandparents, no cousins, no Aunts and Uncles. We have not been home in 4 years and I just miss my Mom and Daddy. Looking at pictures of the kids with family always helps me feel better so I decided to put a few up here.

The Real One!

OK, so a little background to go with this photo of Travi and the "REAL" Santa.

Before we left to DC for Thanksgiving a package arrived at our house with a huge Christmas tin of popcorn. The label on the box said, "Merry Christmas from Santa Claus". So I explained to the kids that Santa must have sent this popcorn from his popcorn factory at the North Pole to let them know they are on the nice list and that this was a good sign that he would be stopping at our house on Christmas Eve.

Fast forward to the day after Thanksgiving. We take the kids to a mall in the DC area and Santa is there seeing children. So Travi is begging us to let him talk to Santa. So we wait in the line and when Travi's turn comes up he approaches Santa and Santa says, "Oh...Travis, I was hoping you would come, I have been waiting to see you." Travi replies with a" Thank you" for the popcorn and Santa says, "What are friends for." Travi's eyes lite up and he grinned so big, it was priceless. This guy was honestly the best Santa I have ever seen. I have no idea how he knew Travi's name and he played the part so well, not even having a clue what Travi was talking about with the popcorn. Travi left Santa's lap and said, "Mom he is the real guy, not one of the pretend Santa guys. I just met the REAL Santa. He knew my name and even remembered sending us the popcorn." He followed that with a "This is the best day of my life!" I had to pause and ask GOD to never let me forget his face or this day. I want a mental note of that moment for the rest of my life.

Taylor wanted absolutely nothing to do with Santa at all and on a side note, my dad secretly sent the popcorn to the kids. I love my kids and I love this time of year. This is one of the reasons I don't want my kids to grow up. Magic and miracles really are real to them. Their innocence is just so adorable and inspiring.

Snowflakes...

A friend of mine in Kodiak had these in her house last year and they were just so pretty I had to try and make them myself. So the kids and I used the instructions that she had used from the internet and made some ourselves. They are so easy to do and really look pretty hanging in the house. I posted the link below in case anyone wants to make them.

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-3D-Paper-Snowflake

I just love making crafts with the kids!!!

AirStation Christmas Party...

We decided to go to the AirSta party this year because they were offering on site child care. The kids were excited to get dressed up even though they weren't going to the party and I always enjoy seeing Trav in something besides his ODU's.

Christmas, Christmas Time Is Here!

We have a small collection of Nutcrackers started. It began while in Kodiak and both kids really love them. We try to add to our collection each year. I don't know what it is about them they love so much but we have about 25 of them all over the house.


So we finally got our tree up. We have been spoiled for the last several years. In Oregon we would go to tree farms and cut down a tree for $20.00 and Alaska we just walked into the woods and cut down a tree for free. Well this year we hit a local tree shop and I thought Trav was going to have a heart attack when he saw the price tag on the tree. We haven't paid that much for a tree ever. So he decided that was a rip off and we were getting a fake one. We drove all the way to Home Depot only to find out that all the fake ones cost $150-$200. Once again, mild heart attack. Needless to say we drove back to the tree lot and he paid for the real one. Honestly though its a beautiful tree that we all think is perfect. Our little magic elf loves the tree too! I truly love this time of year. I love looking at the tree and all our decorations and I love watching the kids smile at all the fun of the season. I have always been a Christmas fanatic, but sharing it with my babies is just so much fun.

Running the Boston!!!

After training for what seems like months, this weekend Trav qualified to participate in the Boston Marathon. He was very happy and relieved that all the anticipation of this weekend is over. He is going to be running a half marathon in Feb. here on the Cape which will be 13.1 miles and then in April we will head up to Boston for his 26.2 mile run. I think he has had "Perma Grin" all weekend long.

Santa's Coming to the Cape...on the Helo!!

So the AirStation flew all the way to the North Pole to pick up Santa this morning and bring him to the Cape. We all went to the hanger on base and got to have breakfast, do Christmas crafts and see Santa flown in. He did a few pass overs and then landed on the runway and taxied in waving to all the kids. Taylor was still recovering from the flu so she wasn't really into it but Travi loved it. The line to sit with Santa was so long, but luckily Travi already saw Santa after Thanksgiving so he wasn't to upset that we didn't stand in line.

Travi did however ask Trav to let the Captain know that he was willing to go up to the North Pole and pick up Santa if they needed him to next year.

Our Magic Elf...

Every Christmas our "Magic Santa Elf" comes out to protect our Christmas decorations and presents for us. He also reports back to Santa every night about how the kids have been during the day. The kids were so happy to see him and have enjoyed looking for him the last two mornings and seeing what kind of trouble he got into downstairs. This Elf has been in our family for longer then I have been alive and was given to me by my grandmother years ago when I was a teenager. I have wonderful memories of him being at Mema and Papa's house and then my parents house when I was little. I am so lucky to be able to pass on his Christmas magic to Travi and Taylor and tell them stories about him from when I was little.

Urban Deer Hunting!

While living in Alaska Travis did a lot of hunting. He went on a few deer hunting trips, did fox hunting in Cold Bay, Bear hunting in Cordova and tons of duck hunting. He has transported several dead animals in the back of his truck. Well, yesterday he had finally seen it all. We were waiting to cross the George Washington Bridge into Manhatten and this is what pulled in front of us in traffic.

"City Folk" are crazy...

Obviously driving from Cape Cod to a suburb of Washington DC for the holiday was going to be an adventure but...along the way Travis and I got confirmation of something. We ARE NOT "City Folk"! The traffic was absolutely horrific and people are just crazy. All we could think the entire trip was how badly we wanted out of this urban jungle and back to small town Oregon or Alaska. Combat driving is not fun and while sitting in traffic for 3 hours after the New Jersey Turnpike was shut down we knew this was not our thing and we look forward to the day we have orders sending us back to our neck of the woods. Here are a few photos I took after becoming delirious in the traffic that show how many bad the traffic was. What should have been a 9 hour drive ended up taking 14 hours.

Thanksgiving...

We went to Travis' dad's house for Thanksgiving this year. Grandpa Doug lives on 5 acres of woods. The boys did several RECON missions in the woods and we were lucky enough to see some work that the beavers on the property had been doing. Also, Taylor fell in love with a baby kitten that we born just days before we arrived at Grandpa Doug's house. Taylor named her Princess Kitty and logged many babysitting hours while we were there.

The Bobcat Patch

Today was a big day!! Travi recieved his first Tiger Scout patch. The Bobcat patch is the first patch awarded to a new scout. The Den had to know the Cub Scout motto, Law of the Pack, The salute and The promise. Travi also recieved a Do Your Best Badge for a beach clean up that he did with his dad. He was very excited!

Which is Worse???

This picture was taken last winter from our driveway in Kodiak, Alaska!


So as some of you may remember, shoveling snow in Kodiak was not my favorite thing to do. We usually got slammed with a bad snow storm while Travis was deployed which left me to shovel out the driveway so that I could get the cars out. I hated it and though there was nothing worse, until now...


I have spent most of the last couple of months in awe of the beauty of fall. The gorgeous changing of the leaves and all the vibrant colors. I had always as a child seen photos and wanted to experience some of the beauty of the NorthEast in full fall foliage. So now that we live here and I have seen the beauty, I am experiencing the Hell. Once all the leaves have fallen you are left with a yard covered with dead, brown leaves that have to be removed. I decided to get a jump on removal of the leaves. What a joke. This is worse then shoveling snow! I rack the leaves into piles and the wind blows my piles all over the yard. Trav tells me to rake all the leaves onto a tarp and drag the tarp to the revene on the side of our house. The wind blows the tarp all over and the leaves just blow back onto the grass. I finally get the point where I feel like I accomplised a little bit of leaf removal. I go inside to fix lunch and that damn wind has blown leaves all over the yard and it looks like I did nothing.

MARK MY WORDS...If and when we return to Kodiak, I will never complain about shoveling snow. I hate raking leaves and wish we were rich enough to have a "Leaf Man"! That is enough of my bitching for the day.

Book Report!

So Travi finished his first book report for school. We picked a book that he could easily read and discuss and then had to make a puppet/prop that he could use while discussing the book with his class. We chose "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle. We used one of Trav's socks and painted it to look like the caterpillar from the book. Then we added feet, eyes, nose and antennas. I think he and I did a great job.

Remember A Magnificent Man...

A year ago today, my Papa passed away. It was the saddest day of my life. The last year has been a time to reflect on so many memories of my life with him, but also a time to miss him dearly. I don't think a day went by that I didn't think of him. He was one of the most magnificent men in my life and I am so thankful for him. I know that I am not alone in my grief today and I just pray that he knows how many loved him and how many are missing his laugh, fierce hugs,loving affection and amazing sense of humor. He was a true champion of life and is now "Perfect with the Lord". I love you Papa, Always!