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The boys had a great time at the range and Huey returned with all smiles. Andy said that he shot very well and was extremely safe and well behaved on the range. Here are some shots daddy took of Huey's first day on the range.
Packed up and ready to go home.
Nothing, NOTHING, can match the pride in daddy's eyes when they returned home. Today was a very special day.
I haven't publically blogged in ages and suddenly I'm motivated to jump back in. I've recently started reading a bunch of military or Army wife support blogs and have even connected with someone I knew in Germany through mil-blog reading. Jan writes great articles on her blog about what it's like going through a deployment and I'm happy to be able to take the journey with her. Her blog is Standing By and she writes often.
Another blog I'm completely addicted to these days is the The SoulTravelers3 blog, written by a former Santa Cruz area mom and wife. Mrs. SoulTraveler, or Ms. Mozart (as she refers to herself for some anonymity) and her husband and daughter sold their house, gave up most of their belongings and flew to Europe to live a life on the road. They spent the winter in a small village in Spain and have already visited many wonderful places in Europe, and even Africa, with their daughter. They are "roadschooling," their daughter as they experience living history and learn about culrtural differences live and in person. They are currently relaxing on the beautiful Greek island of Santorini. Be warned. If you go to the blog and look at their photos of Santorini, you may feel compelled to quit your job and fly off to a magical Greek island forever. You may not be surprised, but Andy and I already have big plans for our year in Austria in 2009-2010 and a magical Greek island is on our list of to-do's.
Finally, another friend is blogging about her recent move to Romania. Melinda writes at When in Romania about their move to a foreign country and is currently focusing her writing on the adjustment and trying to find a house to live in. I know her frustrations well from our time in Germany and I wish her the best of luck finding something suitable quickly. I have visions of meeting up with Melinda and her family in Budapest or somewhere else in Eastern Europe when we return to Europe.
As for the homefront here in magical Monterey (everything is magical to me lately, must be the impending release of the last Harry Potter book that's affecting me) we are enjoying a classic Monterey summer. It's cool and often foggy here, but I just can't complain about the weather. To put it simply, it's pleasent. No, we can't spend hours swimming in the ocean here, because the water is freezing cold, but we've enjoyed the beaches and tidepools and the wonderful local bike trail since we arrived. The boys began swimming lessons this week and will go for the next 3 weeks. These are the first formal lessons they've had and we just hope that they get as much out of the lessons as possible. They beg me to take them to our local indoor pool in the afternoons so they can practice what they learned in class. Sure enough we did that today and it didn't go over too well. The fact is I'm very outnumbered when I take the 3 kids to the pool alone and frankly, it makes me nervous. That and the boys decided today was a great day to duke it out with each other and I had to make a swift exit which didn't come with great cooperation.
For the most part, we are taking it easy this summer. Huey already completed his Cub Scout day camp and just today, I signed him up for a week of Sports Camp at the local sports club. I wasn't going to do anymore camps, but it's close to the house, has unbelievable hours, is rumored to be a fabulous camp, and it was an AMAZING deal. He's excited and he will get to swim, roller skate, take a tennis lesson, and play all kinds of sports for a week in July. I think it will come right about the time when we are all going crazy from Summer boredom. But until then we fill our days with swimming, some arts and crafts and tons and tons of reading. Quinlan has suddenly become a very hungry reader and insists upon reading to me! It takes us a while to get through books, but I'm amazed at how well he is doing. Huey has taken to silent reading alone, which is a new thing for him. Today I insisted that the boys go out and play and I opened the garage door to find him hiding out in the shade of the garage with his nose in a book. The kids are involved in two different summer reading programs through two local libraries, and they've already completed the summer reading requirement for one. They are thrilled because they each get a free pizza out of the deal.
Other than some local hiking trips, we don't have anything really planned as far as travel goes. In August we will do a short trip to San Francisco to catch a baseball game and check out some sights and in September we will visit Yosemite again. We went to Yosemite back in May and fell in love so we are really looking forward to our return trip. The boys can't wait to go back and work on their Yosemite Junior Ranger (Huey) and Little Cub (Quinn and Andie) program.
And finally, it's officially birthday season here in Clarksylvania. Andie turned 3 last week and we kept it quiet and simple with just family. My kids are convinced it's a party if there is cake and a balloon, so that's what we did. We had this great idea to give Andie a leotard and ballet slippers for Birthday and to start her up in ballet lessons, but the first week didn't go over so well. She was a bit shy to enter the classroom, so we just watched. She was mesmerized by the class and continues to be infatuated with ballerinas and her favorite book character, Olivia (who pretends to be a ballerina on one page of the book, a page that Andie must study every time we read it), BUT, she wouldn't enter the room and participate, and that's ok. She's still so little. I told her to let me know if she wants to try again. This particular birthday was cute because Huey bought her a present with his very own money, for the first time. He's been saving his weekly allowance for months for something very special, but was very proud to dip into his savings to get her a My Little Pony. Mommy helped Quinlan buy her a Backyardigans ball. Speaking of Backyardigans, Andie loves the song that they sing, "Shake Your Body," and does quite the performance to that song. I need to figure out how to get a video of that online (YouTube??) because it's hillarious and the girl can and does indeed shake her body. She's got some moves!
Quinn's birthday is up next and it will of course be filled with fireworks and lots of Red, White and Blue! He's also having his big 5th Birthday Party (which is an event in this house) and has decided on a Pirate Party. I went a little nuts and did homemade invitations (why? why do I subject myself to that kind of work?), but they turned out very cute. Shoot me now, but we invited Quinlan's entire class, plus a few extras, plus parents. It's going to be crazy, but should be fun.
Huey's birthday will be a quiet one, but will be celebrated in a special way, of course. We trying to come up with a plan to go indoor rock(wall) climbing with just 1 or 2 friends and that should be fun.
Well that was quite a catch up post after not blogging in ages. I never even shared the adventures of our overseas return and move or our adventures at Walt Disney World. Something tells me I won't backtrack, so don't be holding your breath for that.
Welcome back, blog!
