New Years Eve Day......

What to do, what to do.......
Starting out with a bike ride to Gab Gab to meet up with the Thornton boys...
Back home to work on a Guam Monopoly project and wash the dog (I know she looks it but no, Aggie isn't dead)......
Then making some traditional Dutch Olie Bolen from Grandma Reddick's recipe.... a New Year tradition so we can have a sweet new year :) I shared some with some parents at swim team- they found the name amusing.
Ellie was worried about the part of the paper that is ripped and missing, in case we would mess up the recipe with the information that was lacking-
They turned out just fine. Though I will say Grandma's look better than mine do. I wish I could send some to Fort Erie to Grandma for the real taste test. I will admit it was like a little piece of home making these today- love you Grandma!

Its funny that I am missing home more with the New Year coming in than I did at Christmas. Part of it I think is the anxiety of the unknown- what will this next year bring?

I am taking a personal challenge this year to have more "applicable" faith....
I have tons of faith, but I want to actively live the faith that believes I am where I am suppose to be in my life, that my girls will continue to amaze me, that my family back home will keep healthy and well, that where we move next is where we need to be.

I fully know that God has a plan for me that is better than anything I can make happen- but this year I want to act on that faith :) which will hopefully have me worrying a whole lot less!

I hope the New Year brings in huge blessings, happiness and health for you all. And I hope that there will be less miles between us by the time 2012 rolls around!

To quote my sister Jodie "I think that 2011 is going to be amazing!"

Happy New Year!

I love you guys, sam

Holiday Fun...

And by that I mean doing a whole lot of nothing!

Spent as long as possible in our pj's today. Kevin took the girls to see Voyage of the Dawn Treader in the afternoon- it was in 3D and really, sad to say it but 3D movies make me nauseous! Anyway, I skipped the movie and met up with them after at the local (one of the only local) Mexican restaurants- Carmen's Cha Cha Cha (Ellie loves the Cha Cha part of the name).
In case you can't tell, Ellie grabbed my purse camera and went snap happy.

Took the girls on to swimming from there.

Love this photo of Maddy:
Yes, we usually are looking at a book when looking at Maddy. But since Christmas, she has been all about these Nurse Cherry Ames books that my Mom sent- so Maddy is now going to become a nurse. I encouraged her to go on to be a Nurse Practitioner after she is done her BScN. She seemed to think six years of school was doable :) Time will tell....

Happy Winter!

Okay- easier said than done for me on the tropical island.....

Just a quick story for tonight-

All around the base here in various buildings, they have photos posted of the CO and XO of the base- so when Coco was here she kept pointing at all the pictures of Kevin up on the walls and saying "Kevin!". Yesterday when we took her to the airport she looks up at the wall of pictures of the Governor of Guam and his staff and said "Oh, no Kevin?".

Kinda cracked me up so I wanted to share :)

Hope all is well- only four more days of vacation :( Man it goes fast!

Busy day....

Took Coco to the airport in the morning.
Very sad goodbye- Ellie was overly sad. Fell asleep tonight snuggled as close to Madison as she could, holding her hand. Ellie is really missing having a full time friend who was super sweet to her and looking to be with her all the time.
So, a lot of tears- but no time for them as we were scheduled to meet another friend at a water park for her birthday.
Straight to swim team tonight to round out the day.

I am ready for bed!

Our last night.......

....with Coco!

We take her to the airport in the morning. I am sure to see some tears from my girls, especially Ellie. They wanted to take Coco to their favorite restaurant-Ruby Tuesdays in honor of her last night here.
They didn't even complain when they had to do a couple of extra practices for Coco..... ok, maybe some minor "what?!?!'s....... but mostly happy to make the sacrifice.
Sad to see her go :(

Boxing Day?

Yup, thats what we did the day after Christmas, a beach day :) - no snow here!

And a quick story-

Ellie asked for kraft dinner today because thats what the girls get once a week after church. I told her since we didn't go to church today (had a swim team event) that there would be no mac n cheese. So Ellie disappears and comes back with this contract I signed October of 2009:

So apparently the kraft dinner applies to Sundays, not church...... she caught me with a loophole- I think she is a lawyer in the making. Couldn't believe that she remembered I had signed this! I'll be more careful what I sign from now on.

Merry December 25th!

Merry Christmas!

Hope you guys all have as great a day as we had.

The girls were SO overexcited about it all- the biggest hits were Grandma Gillam's calico critters and Pookalooz (not to mention the bear and barbie tradition continued), Aunt Julie's necklaces ( I still have mine on- Hi Julie! Told you I would blog :), Barb's t-shirts and Grandma Sue's Cherry Ames books.

Had some really nice phone calls from Barb, Micki, Julie, Esther and Dad, and Sara (sorry we missed your call- Ellie loved the ecard and the silly bands!)
Santa brought a couple of Wii games that the girls were all into after they had sufficiently set up the calico critters furniture in the houses. We were in pj's until 2:30 when we had to go to a swim team family's house then on to evening practice.
All in all a fun but busy Christmas day- gotta embrace it because I will literally never have another Christmas like it!

I love you and miss you all- Have a wonderful Christmas.

Dec 24th- Christmas Eve in Photos

Sorry for the lack of blogging last night, but I was tied up at the airport picking up Coco!

Lots of excitement here having her back.

Well, we did our big meal today at the Thornton's,
with a lot of really great food. Loved Mike's gingerbread guys....
looks like some of them didn't make it.... love the military guys.

Coco had a great time and fit right in with the fray.
Melda and I had to make cookies for the Christmas Eve service at church.

These are Melda's 100, highly decorated, greatly varied, mass amount of cut out fun cookies she made:
And here are my 24 break n bake sugar cookies with sprinkles:
So who do you think is the baker? Actually I made my two biannual pies today- apple and pumpkin. I think I really like the idea of all my cooking done Christmas Eve so I am not cooking all Christmas morning.

Tonight the girls had to sing for the church program, after we took Coco to swimming.
They did a great job.

Back home, the girls had special Christmas Eve milkshakes.... ya, thats what you have on a tropical island as a Christmas treat.
Then ready for bed,
waiting on Santa.
Sweet peace of Christmas Eve.
Merry Christmas to everyone. We miss you and love you all.

:) Hope the holidays are everything you are looking for them to be.

Dec. 22

Can't blog much tonight- gotta run so I can sort out the "christmas closet" where everything has been stored these last months. Need to take a look at it all to make sure its all fair and even in case I need to last minute shop!

I wanted to show you guys something I thought was so cute.

I woke up the other morning, the girls were already up. They have become very good at entertaining themselves.

On the counter was this:

I'd like to say it was me that wrote the note- but it was Ellie. She wrote it to remind herself to always use a board under clay so as not to ruin the table.

How cute- and how organized!

Then as I was walking past the living room, Maddy was saying "um mom, can you go over there and get me a movie?' Which I thought was a strange request.... turns out she wanted me to see this

The girls had dug out and set up the playmobile nativity set to surprise me. They know how much I love nativities and the day before we had mentioned this set- total surprise that they would think to do this in the early morning.

I have a couple of great girls :)

Dec 21

Haircut day!
As Ellie pointed out- this was her first time at a "big girl" hair cutting place where they actually wash her hair in a sink before they cut it. Truth be told not sure how many actual hair cuts she has had- most times I just lop off the bottom inch when her hair gets too tangly. Does that make me a bad mom?
Both girls were quite happy with their cuts.
Ready for Christmas.

Dec. 20

Had a bell ringing scheduled today with my nursing students for their community service time. They are so great!
Maddy and Ellie loved being there with my students, and they had a great time ringing for charity.
The mall where we were made it snow! So fun for the girls.

Tomorrow is our second day of vacation- we are really enjoying the down time, and I am doing as little as is possible.... though still manage to be overly busy. How is that possible?

There is a countdown going on in our house to when Coco comes, Ellie is so excited.

The secondary countdown is of course for Christmas :)

Night off-

Forgive my laziness :) too tired!

Dec. 18..... in pictures

Busy day....
Started with a long course meet this morning.
Where both girls tried their best- I only know of one best time so far but the results aren't out yet so we'll see.
Above is Maddy in the 50 free and below is...
Ellie in the 50 breast.
Coach Lewis was happy with her time- which as you can see makes Ellie happy!

Later we went to GAIN (Guam Animals in Need) to meet Ellie's teacher to give out the dog cookies they had made in class.
Ellie really has a heart for things such as this. Maddy and I went along kinda nervous as to if we could handle seeing all the dogs wanting homes. I haven't been to GAIN since we chose Alex 13 years ago- so I really wasn't sure how sad I would be. But we did it for Ellie and her wanting to help.
Turned out to be good experience for Maddy and myself. It was nice to give the animals a few minutes of attention, but sad (not overwhelmingly so) to walk away when they all looked so hopeful. And there were A LOT of dogs in need.

Regular swim practice tonight..... the girls were excited that Onward had added blue lights to their lazy river- so of course a photo was necessary....
... and I wanted a photo of them with their new GSF swimming ID - cute.

An interesting turn of events today- Maddy and Ellie have decided that their not getting along causes most of their punishments, so they are going to start being best friends. The other inspiration to getting along- I informed them that as long as they quarrel they will be sharing a room wherever we move to.
It was sweet to hear in a regular conversation between them "I just love you Ellie" and then "I love you too Maddy"..... wonder how long this will last.....

Complete sidebar -
swimming Samantha's mom brought me this oolong tea to try- I like it!

Wish I knew what it said.... I usually like to know what I am consuming....

Happy Saturday before Christmas!!!!!!!!