oh the joys of pregnancy and motherhood

Between the girls and this pregnancy, sleep is a word in my distant past... a faint whispy memory of something I used to enjoy. I sit here every nite and listen to the silence... the the slow steady breathing of my hubby, the soft baby breathing of Michi... and listen to the sounds of Makenna shifting in her bed upstairs. And here I sit at 2 am, unable to get comfortable, exhausted and wishing sleep would just take me, and somehow knowing it won't... until shortly before the lil ones come in to wake me for the day. blah. I guess it's a good thing... let's call it preparation for a newborn lol

My friends

Never fail me when I am down... how totally blessed am I to have such a wonderful bunch of friends.... without them, I'd be just another navy wife... with them, I am a CRAYCEE navy wife who sits in her living room and laughs out loud along with her friends as long as we were all in the same room again.... aye wey!!!! te quiero mucho mis amigas! I can't thank you enough for being you!!!

Busy times in VA.

So I am lovin it here so far... the weather is crazy, hotter than heck and then rainin with thunder and lightning, it's amazing.... i love my house, though i wish there was more storage room lol. I love the neighbors and Kenna is loving her school. Michi has really blossomed here, she is talkin up a storm and isn't nearly as shy as she used to be (though she does have moments) and all is well. Jonathan is still away at school :( We only have about a month left **fingers crossed** it goes by quickly. I have made a lot of progress with makin the house a home, been takin the girls as many places as possible on the lil bit of money we have to live on til everything gets settled, and been hangin out with my Nee and Aiden, how blessed am I to have one of my besties here <3 I will post pix just as soon as I have a moment to sit still and get em all up, will prolly do them tonite since I will have new ones of Makenna at her first music recital here in our new place of residence.

What in the world!

A tornado warning in Virginia! Well the weather got pretty crazy, but thankfully the Verizon guy showed up, the vonage got hooked up after an hour and a half on the line with tech support and my wireless is working impecably! The tornado nevery blew thru, but we got a lot of rain A TON of wind and lots and lots of big gray clouds.... it is fun stuff, this east coast weather! lmao

Life in Virginia!!!

Well, it's been a while since I have blogged, so I figured I would roll on by and post and update. Well, there are plenty of updates since we have left Japan, a lot has happened. lol

For now I will update on life here in VA and leave the leave in Cali and the roadtrip across the continent for another time. :o)

Well, Virginia... We are now living in Virginia Beach, VA and it has been lovely so far. The weather was awesome coming into the state... lots of awesome rain and wind... for some reason, I am a loon and LOVE to drive in the rain **hides** So anyhow, it was rainy and windy for the first few days, chilly, but not like we were unaccustomed to it... we got PLENTY of that in Japan ;o) We got a mini tour of VA as we drove thru Suffolk to get to our landlords house to pick up the keys to our new place!!! She had offered to come out and meet us in VA Beach but Suffolk is a lil ways south of where we live now and I didn't want to make her go all the way out to our house to meet us when we had to drive by her neck o'the woods anyway... so we found her house thanks to trusty GPS and then made our way to our new home. First, we stopped at walmart cuz we realized we were going to need A LOT of things such as pillows, blankets, candles for light since our electricity couldn't be turned on til the next day (stupid circuit breaker had been on when they went to start the electricity blah) and food/drinks... yes, we had been living on the bare minimum during the drive lol. We left Walmart after dropping a hefty sum of money and then we wet home... it was late, dark, and still raining!!! We unlocked the door, the girls decided to wander the dark house and check out what they could lol, as they did that Jonathan and I unloaded the car of our new wares and our pile of suitcases haha. Finally, we were done with the car, locked 'er up and came inside... only to realize that we wouldn't be able to inflate our nifty new airbed thanks to the lack of electricity :o( bummer!!! I was resigned to sleeping on the floor... hey, at least there is carpet! but Jonathan decided to slink next door and "borrow" the neighbors electricity via their outdoor outlet **hiding** I guess I have no room to talk, I was surfing the web on a borrowed WiFi lmao

Since our ginormous air bed was finally inflated, we made it up with the new bed in a bag i had picked up and Jon and I joined the girls in meemees time. We awoke not so bright and early the next day to ELECTRICITY!!! woot!!! apparently we were so dead asleep we didn't even hear the Electic Company come thru the side gate and into our backyard to turn on our service... either way, we were STOKED! first thing we did was take HOT showers and the girls got their bath. From there, we headed out (rather late) to pick up my brand new car!!! What an ordeal that was. We had to go pick up papers from the dealership, take em to the DMV only to find out they needed proof we lived where we said we lived (and a childsupport check was not sufficient evidence... bastards) so luckily we were back down in suffolk and only ten minutes from our landlords, so we were able to get a copy of our lease and get my temp plates and headed back to the dealership.... five minutes later we were rollin' out in my new whip! rofl easy as pie... (you should check out my key...the thing is CRAZY!!! I will post pix later in a highlight lol) So yeah, that was our fun friday! Then we got to see my renee!!! YAY! and aiden! I have missed them so! she spent most of the weekend with us, which I loved! It is so good to have my Renee back close!

The weekend went pretty smoothly, got a bunch of stuff that we needed for the house and whatnot... then the movers came with our household goods bright and early Monday morning! Lucky for us, Jonathan had gotten up super early to go to base to get decals, only to find out his registration card was missing! yikes! and that they couldn't give him any :o( So then we had to send kiki and Petey on a mad hunt for it (still hasn't been found but he was able to get his decals thank heavens, cuz the plates have the correct mo and year) anyways, back to the HHG.. the movers were awesome, they worked quickly and efficiently and we got to the organizing and unpacking once they were gone. Also found out my grandpa Tracy passed away Monday morning, most likely while the movers were here :o( may he rest in peace... I am blessed that Jonathan and I were able to take the girls to visit with him while we were in Cali. As for the unpacking, we got a majority of it done, but we were trying to relax and enjoy our last week together. Got Makenna signed up for school last Wednesday and she LOVES it, thank heavens, and she is looking forward to me signing her up for the bus... she is getting to big to have mommy drop her off, I guess, Ms.Independent. Thursday, we found out his pay was messed up, tried to take care of that, but couldn't and so we had to sit on that til he got to school. Got the decals for his car and my temp pass for mine (no permanent plates, so no permanent decals) we were good to go!!!

This past Saturday (March 28th) Jonathan got in his car and drove off for Chicago to attend C school... After many tears and hugs and kisses he left our drive way some time in the early afternoon. We were in touch via cell for the entire drive, and he arrived at his base around 0500 Sunday (29th). We got another bomb dropped on us, his room was not available and he had to stay in the lodge... at a whopping 48 bucks a nite (remember, we are broke due to pay issues) and luckily he finds out he gets per diem for his stay in the barracks on top of our bah for VA so everything should work out just fine now. Our internet is slower than mud (50-100 kb/sec YUCK) and so I wasted two days in a row waiting for their field tech to show up and he stood me up both days... by now I had cabin fever, I was beyond livid with Verizon (the weather has been GORGEOUS and we missed two days of it), I was stressed about the pay issues, I was missing my hubby and in desperate need of some peace and quiet which the girls were obviously not going to give me and so I had a bit of a breakdown... Thankfully for me, Renee came to my rescue and the girls and I spent the nite at her house this past Friday. We spent half of the day together Saturday, and then I brought the girls home to enjoy the rest of Saturday so she could go enjoy some time with her hubby and Aiden....

That brings us to Sunday... today... it was a glorious day... the sun was out, it was warm, slight breeze, it was lovely. I washed my car, after the crazy weather and birds (eew) it needed a bath... I washed it, dried it, cleaned up the garage a bit. Made lunch for the girls and myself and we watched movies... then they went out to play and I put together the bunk beds and tidied up both of their rooms. Now they are bathed and it is bedtime so they will be headed to bed and i will be working on cleaning up the rest of the downstairs area and folding the mountain of clean laundry that is sitting upstairs in the loft lol I hope you all enjoyed my lil update... hopefully next time I update, I will have more to say of Virginia itself ;o)

The time is nearing

For us to leave Japan :( I am still sad that we are going to be leaving, but I am stoked that things seem to be falling into place. Our stuff was picked up on the 7th and 8th of January and we have been living with our futon a few end tables and the loaner furniture lol Surprisingly enough, it still feels somewhat like home, perhaps because its been home for so long??? Whatever the reason, I am glad it does not feel as UNhomely as it did when we first got here and had the loaner furniture.

We have a condo lined up, it is in a good neighborhood, good schools for the kids, nice yard for them and the pup when we get it, close to Jonathans work <3 it is perfect, and I can't wait to get there. The owner said we are welcome to paint any colors we want, which I am THRILLED about.... AND turns out she works at the same base Jonathan will be at.... so he won't be completely alone there, which makes me happy.... he is painfully shy so I am worried, but at least this way perhaps he will have a friendly face passing by every now and again, or someone to go to lunch with or something. And she and her hubby are dual military and so they will only be living about twenty minutes from us and she is helping the girls and me get settled in while Jonathan is away at school! WOOT!

I finally got the car sold! YES! the car is still with me and will be until the ship returns, as it is one of Jonathans shipmates and wifey who are buying the car from us. But they will need to use our car to go take the manual test :) Iam stoked to finally have that task out of the way.

Lets see, what else, I did our tax return all by my lonesome and efiled it and everything. I am stoked about that. I am working on getting Jonathans cruiser paid off and working on stockpiling in the savings acct. So far, it is going well

The kids are doing amazingly well with the transitions.... Michi had a bit of a rough time watching them take our stuff away, and she had some bad dreams the first few days with the loaner furniture and lack of selection in dvds, but she is doing better. The girls are in love with the portable dvd players that jonathan and I bought for them. And I have been sumplementing the movies that Jonathan kept behind with a few new ones, just to add some variety for them ;) Makenna has lost yet another tooth, she got two dollars from the tooth fairy :-D She is looking forward to the new house and of course they are both excited that daddy and mommy promised a puppy.

Unfortunately, while all this good is going on in our lives, tough times are falling on my family. My mother just got laid off and I am so worried about her and my dad. More my mom, because I know this worry and stress can't be good for her already high blood pressure... Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers, that she will find a new job in this weakened economy... as always, thank you for reading my ramblings. I know I have not updated in a while but things have been so hectic. Lots of love to all!