Pics from the Weekend

We had a great weekend. The community sponsored a movie on the lawn night and we had fun watching "Marmaduke". The girls really enjoyed it, except for Brielle who only enjoyed half of it and the back of her eyelids the other half:) Then Hoss's brother came for the day on Memorial Day and boy did the girls enjoy their cousins. We older ones got through an entire game of Phase 10 and yes, before they came Hoss and I did finish the puzzle:) Also my friend from Okinawa was down in San Diego for the weekend and I was able to see her for a bit. It was so nice. So below are some pics from the weekend and one from Friday.

How great is this? Ash brought it home from school and I just thought it was too cute. The kindergarten writing with the exclamation points:) For those who are too far removed from kindergarten it says: Penguins are great!! divers.

Here they are doing a craft at the movie night. Not sure about Ash's face, but with two kids I never seem to get a good picture of both together.

Here we are waiting for the sun to go down so they can start the movie. It was really sweet as we were waiting Ash kept watching the sky (remember they are usually in bed by 7:00 so they aren't outside when it's dark very much) and then I heard her start whispering "star light, star bright, first star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might. Have the wish I wish tonight"

Her's the finished craft. Ash used so much glue that hers slid apart before we made it home and she canned it, but Bri's is still on the refrigerator.

Our Lazy Long Weekend

I know what you are thinking...are they doing a puzzle?! Yes, we are. Have you tried it lately? It's relaxing and fun and frustrating and a great way to share conversation around a table:) So that is how our weekend is going; putting a picture together of a beautiful mountain range in Washington. I long for the beauty of the mountainous outdoors, but will settle for a picture until it warms up more and the rain has decided to stop for an entire weekend.

Also this morning we had SUGAR PANCAKES!!! A favorite in my house. They are supposed to be called Swedish pancakes, but since you throw a wad of sugar down the middle (or sprinkles as my girls prefer) that's their nomenclature in my house. The story with these is that it's a family recipe that my mom tells me has gone through a few generations. In my house growing up they were significant because my mom was a health food nut. We rarely ate real sugar in the confines of our own home and about once a month my mom would make these and put a bowl of sugar in the middle of the table. As you can imagine it was the best kind of treat and we couldn't gobble them down fast enough. Of course my mom always opted for the more healthy brown sugar. If you have the illusion that I am ladylike just don't sit at the table with me. 14 years of 4 brothers, sitting around a common table, aggravated by the trauma we endured to eat in boot camp and I can suck down food faster than a garbage disposal; and unfortunately I rarely think about it. So, I try to pre-flight if I am eating out with better company as to avoid the embarrassment of people asking me what just happened:)


Anyhow, here is my version of the recipe (for Karen as I thought about eating them with Maddi in Hong Kong and the happy times that we all had together)


Swedish Pancakes

2T. Butter
1 Cup Milk
2 Beaten Eggs
1/2 Cup Flour
1t. Baking Powder
1/2t. Salt

Melt the butter in a saucepan and then turn off the heat and add the milk; letting it warm while you gather the rest of the ingredients. Grab your mixer and blend in the eggs, flour, baking powder and salt. I just leave it in the saucepan when I do this. After it's all blended keep mixing for another minute to fluff up the eggs and make your pancake fluffy. (The dough will be pretty thin.) Then pour or ladle it onto a pan on medium heat and cook it like a pancake, turning when you see bubbles about halfway to the middle. After you can pour your sugar down the middle, roll it up into a tube and enjoy!

Hope your long weekend is going well!

Why Thomas Jefferson School of Law (TJSL)?

So here's the story:

Thomas Jefferson School of Law used to be located right off of Highway 5. Every morning I would drive past it's small black sign on the way to the ship when I was in the Navy. I always thought as I drove past it that someday I was going to aspire to go there and that if a law school was named after a president it must be prestigious...hey, I was just driving by and it was very early in the morning:) Then 9/11 happened and I would drive to the ship at 4:00 in the morning just to miss the huge 2 hour wait to get in the gate for the morning rush (because security was so tight). That way I could spend the two hours in my shipboard rack instead of the car; and at 4:00 in the morning as I would drive by I'd think "this sucks, I wish I was going there instead, at a normal hour!" Then, partially because of that, and just embarrassment of having to tell people I had a GED, I started going to school again. I signed up at Miracosta College to get my highschool diploma and I signed up with Central Texas College (CTC) to get an associates; CTC accepted my GED to start. Funny thing, I did get them both within one month of each other. It was kinda nice because my English papers could be recycled for both:) At any rate after 9/11 we started going out to sea a lot. As much as I enjoyed it, I did miss Hoss and we would talk about how someday I was going to be a lawyer and we wouldn't have to do this and always their small sign (that I passed twice a day) was in the back of my mind. Then I started looking into the JAG program and I found out that I needed a 178 on the LSAT just to get in while I was active duty and I kinda gave it up. The funny thing is that when I was going through paperwork I found my last review or my closeout evaluation and on it was a blurb about losing a fine sailor who might come back as a better asset (I can't remember the wording exactly) meaning I was getting out to pursue law school and then join up again as JAG (something that I still consider).

Well, I received my bachelors in Criminal Justice in 2006 after I had, had Ash and decided to take the LSAT. It went horribly! It was the first time I was ever separated from her and she was nursing every hour to hour and a half and wouldn't take a bottle. So not only was I terribly uncomfortable, but I was worried about her well being as well. I bombed it. The practice tests didn't help my score and Hoss was wanting to go on the MSG (embassy tour) program so I gave up. Then about a year and a half ago I got a pamphlet in the mail stating that Phoenix Law had looked over my stuff from The Law School Admission Council and I was qualified to attend their program. It made me think about it again and I wondered if maybe motherhood wasn't all I could be about. So thanks to the good advice of my Aunt Sharon I studied and retook the LSAT in Hong Kong and with her assistance got together a good personal statement so I could be eligible for wherever Hoss's job took us next. so of course when we found out we were going to San Diego the first thing I thought of was that black sign.

I applied to Thomas Jefferson, California Western and one other school south of LA, but still in the back of my mind I wondered if this was really something that we should do and I told Hoss that maybe our family would be better off if I just pursued the Forensic Science field and got a job. Even after I submitted the applications I was telling people that even if I got in I wasn't sure if this was what I was supposed to do with my life. I also told Hoss that if it was truly meant to be then perhaps I would get a scholarship to really show me that this was the way to go.

At any rate, we left Hong Kong before any acceptance letters arrived and I took this as a very bad sign. I was discouraged and had already started looking into jobs the week before we flew out. So it was a huge surprise the morning we were sitting in the hotel and I opened an email that invited me to "An accepted student open house". It stated that by now I should have received my acceptance letter and they would be happy to have me come for a tour and the weekend presentation. Not only that, but it was from Thomas Jefferson School of Law!!!! I was shaking and crying when I showed it to Hoss. When we finally got our new address I called the universities to update their database and sure enough I had gotten in and the packet they sent me stated that I was also eligible for a partial scholarship! So there you go. It was meant to be.

The open house was amazing. The professors and staff were incredible. Unfortunately, they are no longer along highway 5, but it's a good thing as this year they opened the most technologically advanced, newest law school building in America. It is great. The dean (who has been a dean for 31 years and has two previous schools for reference) has made the building functional, beautiful, warm, and welcoming. Every detail has been carefully thought out to benefit the students and the environment. It is right downtown and we get an automatic membership to a great gym across the street. Not only that but it's right beside Padres stadium!

I did also get into California Western, but as you now can understand I had to pick Thomas Jefferson.

A Couple Pictures

Ashlynn received an award this month along with two of her other classmates. She was SO excited and we made sure to tell her how proud we were of her. They also gave her a certificate for a free hamburger at In an Out which she insisted on redeeming as soon as we picked her up. I definitely wasn't complaining and made sure to get a double double (a double cheeseburger)at the same time:) For those who haven't seen her in glasses yet...she got them the week we left Hong Kong. I took her in because she was doing a weird blinky thing and we thought maybe she was having a reaction to the pollution. Well, she was but they noticed that she also had amblyopia. Which is a lazy eye in the sense that her right eye's vision was so bad that her brain blocked the visual reception of it and was only using the left eye. We had no idea! So, now she patches the right eye for four hours everyday and we are hoping the problem will correct itself before she turns seven; which is the age when her brain will finish developing this area. Poor girl! So her prescription in her right eye is a +9 and the left eye is nearly nothing. Fortunately this has helped her coordination as using only one eye gave her no depth perception and she was pretty clumsy. Another positive is that her allergies are completely gone now and we don't have to use the eye drops, can you imagine though if I didn't take her in that week and just waited to see if the problem would've corrected itself in clean air...we never would've known. She might have broken a leg next:)!

We have been enjoying lots of ballgames this year. For our ten year wedding anniversary (can you believe it's been that long?) I got Hoss season tickets. The modern ten year gift is diamonds and we all know he's not much of a diamond guy and I definitely liked the idea of going modern as it benefited me as well; so what better way to get a baseball guy diamonds then to give him 20 baseball diamonds in the form of season tickets? So yeah, that's him enjoying the game on one of the bright, sunny San Diego days. Our seats are great and the people on either side of us are fun too so we really look forward to it. And, in case you are wondering, he got me a three stone (one for the past, present and future) 2 carat diamond ring. I'm spoiled!

I have so many pictures of Brielle lately. We play all day while Ash is in school and there's so many more moments that my attention isn't divided so I can pause to take some cute pictures like this one; taken at our favorite part on Miramar base with long slides, swings, musical areas, spinney things and best of all it's fenced in! She's been wanting her hair braided like this lately; like "Hansel and Gretel" this day she told me, "now I look like a Hawaiian Hansel and Gretel!"

This day we were watching Lord of the Rings and she curled up in my legs and fell asleep:)

America!

Ok, so here I go again...
I have refrained from writing up to this point because I’ve been having a really hard time adjusting to American life. I know this sounds trite, but I didn’t want to write as if I was whining or ungrateful for the many things that I have to be thankful for. Life here is easy and we are very blessed. I just have had a hard time; as making friends here has not been simple and the neighborhood we moved into is beautiful, but the very secluded. I say this because everyone seems to enjoy being anonymous and the neighbors are anything but friendly. We have tripped our house alarms a few times but have yet to have anyone even pop their head out to ensure that we are ok. We have a joke that they put their phones to their ears as the run from their cars to the house just to avoid a friendly wave. And as of living here for two months we have only met two neighbors. Despite this, the house and area are amazing! Our house is a cute thing on the corner with an enormous fenced in yard. Funny, maybe enormous is relative though. After coming from no backyard and no grass to be found, we are ecstatic with the beautiful fenced in yard and think it is huge!
One of my favorite things about living here again though is driving! The kids are happy, there’s no waiting for busses or stinky cabs and I have the safety locks on the doors so Ash can’t unexpectedly sling open a door at any unexpected moment. Also, this allows me to scale down from the big purse and just carry a wallet as I can leave the wet wipes , first aid kit and everything else in the car.
Another awesome amenity is the gym with child care! The YMCA here has a supervised playroom for the kids so I can drop Brielle off and go work out. She gets socialization time and time away from me while I get to work out and de-stress. And I have to admit, that on Mother’s Day we dropped them off there and instead of working out we went and sat in the hot tub for a free mini date.
As for Ashlynn, her school is going well. We have had to get used to people being really crazy about attendance and fundraisers since it’s a public school, but she seems to be adjusting well. I think the only major difference, that we have noticed, is the amount of bullying and kindergarten manipulation that goes on because of the large class size that she is in. There is one teacher to 23 kids and she can’t watch everything so Ash has been manipulated and bullied a couple of times. It’s nothing big and we have had lots of talks with her about how it’s ok to not do something even if someone says they won’t be your friend if you don’t, but it’s hard as some of these situations would be non-existent in a more affluent neighborhood with better supervision. Or perhaps they would still go on, but it is something we didn’t worry about before we got here.
Another thing that has gone on since I last wrote is that I was accepted into law school! I’m very excited as this has been a dream since I first visited the courtroom with my father when I was 4. For a bit there I was having doubts that it was supposed to pass, but when I received my acceptance I knew that it was the thing for me! Also, they offered me a partial scholarship so that helped to convince Hoss that we could do it. So now I am making preparations for this fall to go to Thomas Jefferson School of Law. Perhaps next post I will tell you why it was so important to go to Thomas Jefferson, but I think this post is quite longer enough for now.
Please forgive me for not posting sooner. I will now try to be more faithful in my correspondence and start filling you in on some of the funny and happy things that you have missed.

So many emotions...

We are HERE!!!!! We made it back yesterday morning at 9:30! We are back in the U.S.A for good. The girls were absolute angels on the airplane. We are so blessed to have such sweethearts. Brielle had an earache that started the day before we left and even she was a gem.

I have so many feelings and emotions right now. I am devastated to leave behind the people and city I love, but so excited to be coming back to a beautiful, smog-free life. I think I have cried more this week than in the last year. Here are some of the expressions that elicited the most emotion:

"Thank you for being nice to me" (said by my friend's live in maid). I saw her randomly in the city before I left and said goodbye and this is what she said to me. I managed to smile and hug her and get through it but as soon as I walked in the door I fell apart on Hoss. You see these people are treated so badly by everyone. The entire city is racist against them and everyone else only sees them as a workhorse. They work 15+ hours a day/six days a week. If they complain with what they have been given then they could get fired with a bad referral letter. This letter means that they will not get another visa and will not be able to get the $450/month that goes to feed their entire family and extended families back home. They live in closets (if they are lucky) or they have to wait until their family goes to sleep and then they may have the couches. Sometimes they sleep in the child's room to make sure the parents aren't bothered during the night. And yet despite this, they are the most beautiful and joyful people on the inside that you have ever met. There was one in my building that never said he was having a bad day. I would see her and ask how she was doing and she would say she was happy everyday and would say bless you and make sure the girls got a hug. This is the same one that I watched with a newborn and a high energy two year old and the smile never left her face. You would never hear a negative word or complaint leave her lips.When I left her I asked if she knew any maids who could use my prepaid cell phone. She said she did but asked instead if she might keep it herself to remember me by. That made me cry too; so I did leave it for her and erased everything but the random pictures of us that we had taken. So anyways, when the last thing that the other maid said to was "thank you for being nice to me" I thought it was just so sad that her life is so hard that the few times I saw her and talked to her she was grateful that I treated her like a human being.

"Lets go Mom! There's nothing left here!" (said by Ashlynn) I was doing the last walk through of the house before we took off to the airport and she was super excited. Hoss had already left early to check in the dog and we were meeting him there. When I heard it leave her mouth I just had to walk to the laundry room and collect myself. I wanted to run out there and explain that even though there was no physical things left in that house there was so many good memories that I was having a hard time walking away from them. Every room I was walking through haunted me with the sounds of the laughter and joy that had filled them. I have such positive memories and the girls have changed so much since we arrived I wanted to scoop up that house and just sit in the living room and remember every smile. It's so hard to grow up and more so to watch your children grow up.

"This way sweetheart", "Your doing good honey" "Great job girls" These were the words I heard when we were traversing LAX. Everyone was so pleasant and nice. It was such a happy change from the foreign words and expressions of the Hong Kongers. We landed and had to leave Hoss in LA to drive Max down because the flight to San Diego couldn't accommodate his size and the rental car couldn't accommodate him and us. So, going through TSA's fabulous checks and navigating the LAX airport with the girls and six carry ons was a bit overwhelming after the long flight, but everyone was so nice to me and the little ones. On a side note, when they offered us a $400 voucher and tickets on the flight 2 hours later to San Diego I would've LOVED to get those tickets, but alas the girls and I were just done at 3:00am our time:)

Alright, well we are happily in the pet-friendly Travelodge. Today Hoss is checking in with that horrible new regulation haircut he will now sport. (I was quite used to his incognito one he wore on the job overseas.) We are getting cell phones and I'm going to sign Ash up for school and me up for the GYM!!!!!! How funny people look at us when we tell them (like the rental car people) No, I don't have an address yet. Nope, no cell phone. We are wandering souls for one more day and tomorrow we will get our housing assignment!

Random Thoughts...

I guess my internet is just really screwed up. I couldn't access it for a while and then it was on again, but I still can't attach pictures. If the fabulous people who tap my phones and watch my computer are reading this then please make it back like it used to be...I leave in four days and then you can adjust and screw up everything for the next person then!

Another random thought...
I love my husband and have to brag...he ran 3 miles in 19min 32sec last week!

More...
No matter how hard you try you still can't catch everything. Ashlynn was doing some crazy blinking last week and we thought maybe it was allergies so we took her in. It was allergies, but they found out she has almost no vision in her right eye and because of this it has become lazy. Thankfully we have 2 years to try to correct it before she is stuck with the results, but poor kiddo!

More...
I'm going to miss this place! The ladies here had a going away for me Tuesday night. We had dinner and sang karaoke. It was great and then they gave me the most amazing charm bracelet with charms from around Hong Kong! I am so thankful for everyone here that has made it so enjoyable. I will miss everyone.

More...
Four days!!!!!! How crazy is that?????????????

Just for a laugh...

Ashlynn at the Canadian Pet Store

When Ashlynn was 3 ½ we left Tunisia, N. Africa for a much needed Summer break and headed to Canada to relax in Calgary with my mom and younger brother, Kelly. It was a fabulous summer and the girls learned how to start calming down around other people; as Tunis had them paranoid. They were paranoid from playing at the park and getting run over by rude Arab boys who had no concept of proper play with little white girls and so, they in turn had no idea how to make friends outside of the American Embassy compound. Not only that but for safety measures I never let go of their hand when we were in public. Anyhow, they were definitely shell-shocked in this Western culture and I suppose so was I.

I say this because as I was driving home from the grocery store with my mother one evening, around sunset, I observed a young teenager in a small pair of shorts and tank top walking along a stretch of road that ran aside the highway. I immediately panicked and took in a sharp breath, and then I started laughing. It had crossed my mind that she wasn’t wearing enough clothing and since it wasn’t a densely populated area she was going to get raped. But in reality, her outfit was more than reasonable for the circumstances of the era and people didn’t have to worry about dressing with everything covered there. Not only that but she wouldn’t be looked at in such a sexual way for her dress nor was it dangerous for her, by any means, to be walking in that place alone.

So here we are in Calgary and for an evening activity we go to the pet store. The girls had never been to a pet store as there weren’t many in Okinawa and it was very limited in Tunisia. As a matter of fact we saw more living (and dead ) species at the food market than the “pet” store across the street from it. As a side note it was a very amusing day the day they had a live squid for sale that crawled across the floor and then stuck to the butcher’s leg for entertainment. We had to go back to the stinky, fish part every time after that but there never was such a “lively” performance repeated. We had to make due with the guys who would smack them as we walked by to show them suddenly flail and gasp through their fins displaying how fresh they were as they called out in French the names and prices. So back to the original story, we walk into the pet store and the girls have ear to ear smiles as they are drawn to the kittens that they have caged at the entrance; and their excitement attracts the attention of the bored saleslady who comes over to engage them in conversation.

Now my girls were slow to start talking and a bit shy from being overseas but once they get started every embarrassing family secret and bodily function could come out in course of a conversation. Brielle is even prone to start improving and fooling random strangers into believing that she goes to a school with 130 teachers and 9 brothers…well, that’s about the time I think they figure it out, but the point is that the girls love to talk. So, here’s the conversation I overhear when the saleslady asks Ashlynn if she has a kitten or wants another one:

I want a kitten but I can’t have one because my brother, Max will eat it (Max is a 130 pound Mastiff, but the lady doesn’t know this). I’m waiting for him to die and then my mom said I can have one. (Keep in mind that the lady still doesn’t know that her brother is a dog.) He’s in Africa with my dad. I wanted to bring him but my dad wouldn’t let me because he’s too big and he’s black.

I was sitting in the background dying! The poor saleslady had no idea and Ashlynn didn’t realize that there was anything wrong with what she had just said. So I had to step in and save her. At this point it wasn’t worth the explanation of why Africa and who Max the dog was. So we just redirected her to the rabbits and away from the horrified lady who still might remember the child who was waiting for her “big, black, African brother to die so she could get a kitten he wouldn’t eat!”