Days 2-7

I made it an entire week without falling behind on Project 365. Success!!! Let's see how the next 51 weeks go. Again, Project 365 helps document our day-to-day life.

Day 2: This picture will be posted soon. I let Ian take today's picture using the boys' new digital camera. Unfortunately, we haven't found the appropriate USB cord to download these photos just yet.

Day 3: Ryan has been working on a number of small projects around the house to make things just a bit easier for me when he leaves. Here he is "happily" painting the trim on Ian's bedroom window and painting the new (and bright) green paint just around the window so we could hang new blinds & curtains.


Day 4: Bratwurst with lots of onions. Nothing says pre-deployment like eating all of one's favorite meals.


Day 5: Uniform prep is one of my favorite activities because it rarely involves my help. Of course, as I type this I am washing 6 flight suits.


Day 6: Nathan is working on one of his preschool homework assigments. He had to color a mouse and all of the mouse's winter clothing. I had the distinct pleasure of spending 20+ minutes cutting and gluing all of the pieces together.


Day 7: Ryan's first attempt at using our sewing machine was to add a layer of black fabric to his rack curtains. He's attempting to block out light to make it just a touch easier to sleep on the ship.

Project 365

One of my resolutions for 2011 is to take one photo a day and scrapbook these photos. Since I know I will not complete this project the traditional way, I've decided to attempt digital scrapbooking for the first time! Becky Higgins' Digital Project 365 seems like a great fit for me. In fact, I've already uploaded today's photo and added the journaling! It is incredibly user friendly and I highly recommend it.

Also, in combination with this resolution, I will be posting my Project 365 photos every week to the blog. I did not post often enough last year so I will make an effort to better help our family and friends keep up with our day-to-day life.

Here is today's photo:


The boys each have their own calendar to help them keep track of all their daily activities and achievements. These $1 calendars from Michaels are perfect since each month the boys can color the picture and the daily blocks are large enough for our notes. This will hopefully help Ryan feel connected as well since we will be able to share all our mundane activities with him when he returns from deployment.

Cookies for Santa

This is the first year we remembered to put cookies out for Santa. To make up for our past negligence, the boys personally decorated cookies this Christmas.


Ian is a big fan of the sprinkles. And the frosting. And cookies in general.


Nathan just had to sneak a taste of that green tube frosting. Yum!


The masterpieces! Aren't you glad that you didn't have to take a bit of these sugar-coated cookies?

Haze Grey, But Not Yet Underway

One recent Sunday afternoon, the four of us decided to visit daddy's ship to explore his home away from home. The boys had never been on an aircraft carrier and I was excited to compare the enlisted/nuke life of the Vinson to the officer/airwing life of the Enterprise.

I "borrowed" these first 2 pictures from the Enterprise Facebook page. Obviously I do not regularly fly over the ship while it is underway to capture beautiful images such as these. So, here's the floating city:


This is what Ryan actually does on the ship...when he is not busy writing flight schedules and eating quesadillas. He may even be in the plane in this picture! We have no idea, but we like to assume he was flying at the time.


The boys made themselves cozy in daddy's rack. They thought it was awesome that he has the top bunk!


The room holds eight men, here are racks for 5 guys. Nice and cozy for sure. Glad it's not me! At least it is better than the berthing that Ryan used to enjoy on the Vinson...he roomed with 249 of his nearest and dearest.


Sorry for the awful picture, but the lighting was terrible in the ready room. Nathan is sitting in Ryan's chair. The ready room is where the crews brief for flights, conduct training, do the majority of their work and sometimes they relax by watching movies.


This is the room that shocked me the most. The ward room. I cannot believe this is where Ryan eats onboard the ship! Such a change from the galley on the Vinson. I especially love the huge flat screen TV's hung on the walls and the covered chairs!!!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from our family to yours! We have taken hundreds of photos this month and will share of the highlights with you soon. It has been a busy month full of holiday school programs, craft playdates, cookie decorating, underway period for Ryan and deployment preparation.

Snow Day!

We enjoyed a random snow "storm" yesterday. The weather guessers predicted snow at a 30% chance so we all ignored it and went about our daily business. School was cancelled in advance (not that I checked the website) and Ryan went to work. Whoops! It began snowing while the boys and I were at the commissary across town which resulted in a 90 minute drive home. At least we all had fun once we were home! Hopefully Ryan will edit the video of the boys and I engaged in an unfair snowball fight (I used a shovel).

3 Months Behind

Yes, I'm 3 months behind on all things blog related. That's my life. I still don't have Photoshop so I'm sharing some unedited photos of the boys. These were taken on the 4th of July!!!


We didn't do anything special, mainly because our boys go to bed at 6pm. They would NEVER be able to stay up past 9pm to see fireworks. Instead, we record the NYC fireworks display and let them watch it on TV. They seem happy with this routine.

Love this photo of them just waiting for me to adjust the settings on the camera. So enthusiastic!


And this is how they act the majority of the time around here...