June so far

Well, this has quite possibly been the longest month of this last year.  I say that because knowing Eric's coming back makes time go much slower and we also have had less to do this month than any other month while he's been gone.  We've tried to fill our time with some of our regular weekly activities, like bible study and story-time at the library.  Every Wednesday, they host a story-time for kids under the age of 5.  It's a good chance for Marcus to learn from the older kids how to sit still and listen to stories.  Sometimes they read for a half an hour and then do a craft and sometimes they read for an entire hour.  This week, they made paper plate suns.

I tried to get him to pose for the camera, but he wasn't really into it.

Later that day, we went back to the library for their afternoon program.  This one only runs through the summer, but it's different demonstrations.  This week was a bubble show.  They brought in a lady that can make all different sizes of bubbles and she also does tricks with them, like bubbles inside of bubbles.  She put a grown man inside of a bubble at one point and also made a bubble volcano.  I took some pictures, but being bubbles, none of them really turned out.

Today we went to the splash park over by our friend Chantal's house. When we first got to her house it was a little gray out and couldn't decide if it was going to rain or not, so we decided to go run a few errands I needed to get done. By the time we got done with that it was looking a little better out, so we headed to the park.  Marcus had a blast running back and forth through the water and, of course, taking breaks to sit on the smaller fountains.  I love the splash park because he can play on his own and I don't have to worry about him drowning or getting hurt.

For those of you not familiar with military deployments, what you see above is what we Military Spouses like to call the Donut of Misery.  It shows as the year goes on how much time you have left.  It's pretty depressing in the beginning, but as you can see above, it's exciting now!!  Every once in a while, the DOM updates the caption under the circle.  The caption now?  Leavin' on a Jet Plane... He hasn't left yet and I don't actually know yet when he is leaving, but we're getting close.  The hardest part is that I won't even have an approximate arrival date until a day out and I won't have an exact arrival time until 5 hours out...when they leave Los Angeles.

Please keep all of us in your prayers this next week as it will probably be the longest one in all of our lives as Eric travels half way around the globe back to us.  We'll of course let you all know when he gets back.

May

Wow, what a month! We're one month closer to Daddy coming home and we kept ourselves busy to make it go by faster.

We started off the month with a retreat at Ko Olina, which is an amazing resort on the west coast of Oahu.  It was a well needed rest for all of us.  Sorry, I don't have any pictures from that weekend, I was having too much fun relaxing and enjoying the resort.

That first Wednesday we had a big meeting with the rest of the spouses from Eric's brigade.  It was meant to inform us of the redeployment process and give us some insight into our husbands' returns.  It really didn't tell us much, of course.  They don't like to tell you much in the military because it always changes and then people would get disappointed or upset.  So, they just keep us in the dark and let us get surprised.

That Friday, we all went out to dinner for our friend Courtney's birthday.  She took this cute picture of Marcus.

On Mother's Day, we went to Outback with our friend Chantal.  We were planning to go to Ruby Tuesday, but the wait was over an hour and we decided we'd rather have steak anyway.  I also got this cool mug from Eric and the boys.  In case you can't tell, it's a heart made up of their three names.

The next weekend we all went down to the Baby Expo in downtown Honolulu.  We got a lot of free stuff and some good information.  We also went to the Pineapple Festival that weekend, which had a surprisingly small amount of pineapple but some really good jazz music.  One of the vendors thought Marcus was so cute she gave him a free bracelet; I see this becoming a problem later in life.

The next weekend found us attending another retreat.  This one was at the Hale Koa and I put both kids in the free childcare that was provided.  The childcare was easily the best part of the retreat.  It allowed me to have some much needed rest and relaxation.  They build in a lot of free time to these retreats while the kids are still being watched because they know with our husbands being gone for a year we really need the break.

The view of the ocean from our hotel room

My feet, relaxing by the side of the pool (without any kids)

Marcus enjoying his first tropical drink, the Shaka!
(Relax, it's just a strawberry smoothie)

Marcus checking out the city before bedtime

Sesame Street has a program that they do in combination with the USO for military children.  It's called Talk, Listen and Connect and they have shows about deployment as well as moving.  They brought their show to Hawaii this month and we got to go see it.  Marcus had a blast and got a cool Elmo light-up spinner.  It's nice for the parents because it's basically a free Sesame Street Live performance.

Marcus enjoying the show

He absolutely loves Elmo

Friday found me attending another event for spouses of deployed soldiers.  This month we attended ARTafterDark, which is a monthly party at the Honolulu Academy of Art.  It was fun, with lots of good food, and I even ran into a guy I used to work with in the Marines.  It really is a small world, I hadn't seen him in 10 years and ran into him and his family at the door.

On Memorial Day, military had free admission to the Hawaii State Fair, so we took the opportunity to check it out.  Marcus got to go on a helicopter ride, the ferris wheel, and the giant slide.  We also checked out the "backyard circus," which is basically a bunch of kids in costume doing silly acts.  We tried to sit and watch the European-style circus they had as well but the kids didn't want to cooperate so we left that early.  We did get to sit and listen to the 25th Infantry Division Home Front Brass Quintet as well as the Marine Forces Pacific party band.  It was a pretty good day.

Marcus flying a helicopter

The Ferris Wheel

Dominic enjoyed the fair too

Me and Marcus on the giant slide

Marcus peeking out of the Ferris Wheel

Marcus' prize from the Midway

The last day of the month was pretty rainy, and I found a cool program called KidsBowlFree that enables Marcus to bowl for free all summer, so we went to the bowling alley on post.  He had a good time and kept trying to take our turns too.

Getting ready to roll the first ball

Talking about the next shot while we wait for the ball to come back
(it was a split 8, so we had to pick which pin to go for)

Lining up the second ball

There it goes!!

 Marcus actually ended up with a combined score of 161 points between the two games.  Not bad considering the ramp wasn't stable at all and the ball only weighed 6 lbs.

Dominic trying out this bowling thing

I'll leave you with a few random pictures of us from around the house throughout the month.

Marcus reading to his little brother

Checking out the new pool

The first day it was actually sunny enough to use the pool
(it was a little chilly so he didn't spend much time in it, but we'll certainly be using it this summer)

I don't remember exactly what he was doing, but he fell in to his toy box and couldn't get out

Marcus holding his little brother (with Mommy's help of course)