Don't you DARE bring that in my house!

Oh great! Now my child likes to catch lizards. Were frogs not good enough? How on earth was that possible? Aren't those little creatures supposed to be fast!?!?

She's so proud of herself.


YUCK!

I'm going to miss this!

Now I'm not a huge fan of the south. I'm a California girl to the core! The weather is muggy and we can only open our house for a few weeks in the spring and fall. Our AC bill goes through the roof in the summer (I know, not like it'll be any better in Vegas...but its DRY heat) and this town has a STINKY smell every now and then depending upon which way the winds blow. However, I do absolutely love our proximity to the BEACH and when we are stuck in the desert again in a few weeks, we won't have that luxury. I know we'll squeeze in as many trips as we can in these next few weeks, and last week was our first beach run of the season. We went with Candace and her crew of 3 girls as well as Kelly and her little one Emily. It wasn't a "chillin' in a chair sippin' on a nice cool beverage" kind of day, but it was still fun and the kids loved it!

Here's my awesome friend Candace, no kidding, wrestling with her 15 month old twins Taryn and Ashlyn. These girls wanted nothing to do with the fence Candace toted down to the beach. Instead they raced off to the water and had the time of their lives!


Ava likes to go off by herself and enjoy the waves crashing on the shore. She's done it every summer we've lived here.


Juliet trying to fight off 2 little girls who truly know how to hold their own!


A quick smile, and a soggy diaper.


Look at them hold hands. Again, their sweet moments are few and far between.

He is risen!

Easter is such a fabulous holiday, and not because of the candy and eggs and non-existent bunny (yes, I know its a bit harsh, but the kids know he's about as real as Santa, but also know NOT to spoil it for their friends), but because Jesus conquered death and rose from the grave and has allowed for us to do the same after we die and spend eternity in heaven with Him! In fact, Kylie wrote this note last week in Sunday School.

Now does that mean we are total scrooges? No. I did make Easter baskets with the girls and the woke up last Sunday to find theirs hidden throughout the house. Once they located them, they immediately asked to eat the chocolate. Their Grammy sent a few gifts so I included them in their baskets as well.

Here are their home made baskets. They loved making them. It was messy. I had to walk away from the table a few times and let them do what they wanted to do.

Eyes closed and smile real big!

Juliet so surprised to see her card!

Lip gloss!

Daddy teaching Pez skills.

After church, we came home and got in a few minutes of a nap for the girls then headed to the Schantz's house. We gathered with great friends, and I think we had more food than Thanksgiving!

The kids did get to search for eggs. Since Kylie was the oldest kid there, we told her she needed to look for eggs that were up high and let the little kids get the ones scattered on the ground.

She found one on top of the swing set.


Juliet could care less how many eggs she gathered, or whose basket they were in! She just wanted to dive in and go for the prize.




Kids belonging to the Schantzs, Flottmanns, Registers, Hiatts, Arkemas and us. There are a few more roaming around somewhere.

Happy Easter!

2FS comes to an end

On April 2nd (quite appropriate), the 2nd Fighter Squadron, the "American Beagles" here at Tyndall AFB flew jets as a squadron for the last time. The girls and I headed out to watch the jets take off and it was amazing. 20, yes 20, F15s successfully took off...about 1 every 15 seconds. It may not seem like it, but for all those jets to take off and not have any issues is quite a big deal. We then waited at the squadron with our friend Kelly and little Emily because it was her hubby's fini-flight so we wanted to be there to take pictures and support Trigger when he landed.

Ava, Kylie, Emily, Juliet and Louden in the crew bus all ready to go see their daddys.

Trigger holding Emily and the bros giving each other the congratulatory hand shake.

Our family after Jonathan's flight.

Juliet petting the squadron dog, "Copper".

All the Beagles in front of the commanders jet.

Rolexx, Trigger and Jonathan.

The guys now fly with the 95th Fighters Squadron and we will be in this squadron for the next month until we leave. The 95th is due to close down at the end of the fiscal year, and come then, F15s will no longer fly here! We began our F15 career in this squadron back in 2003 and 2004 when I was pregnant with Kylie.

We are Family

Since the squadron Jonathan is in is officially closed as of today, we are now part of the other F15 squadron here at Tyndall. We had a joint coffee with these great ladies earlier this week at Pure Art to paint F15s. The ladies who own the place walked us through every step and I made one for the girl's play room with their names on it.

Kristen and I were the only braves ones to think outside the box and do a jet that was not either gray or blue. Well, we were making them for our girls so it made more sense to go against the crowd. Most everyone else made one for their front door with their family's name on it.

It took a couple of hours to finish our projects and here are a few of us with our schnazzy Eagles.

Bear Creek Feline Center

On Wednesday the 31st, we took a field trip to the Bear Creek Feline Center and got to see some cool cats. Jonathan was able to go with us and Juliet stayed with Jennie since she's quite young and the animals only see her as food.

Here is a Florida Panther.

Isn't she so pretty?

Here is another one on top of a house that a local Eagle Scout made. She jumped up on that house with such ease!

This is an African Serval. This is the cat you think of when you see pyramids or Cleopatra. This cat was in a "cheetah" club, so use your imagination for that one.

This is a lynx. The owners have a house cat named Psycho that taunts these cats...they are behind a cage and he is not. It was quite comical!

Jonathan and Kylie petting "Sweet Pea"-a bobcat.

The girls and I inside a cage with a 10 year old Serval.

At the end of the tour, we got to go inside the owners home and play with a very friendly 11 month old bobcat named "Uga".

Here he is giving Ava some love.

They passed out drinks and popcorn to the kids once things were over. We told Kylie one more sip of her root beer then we had to go, and she downed this entire cup with only a few stops in between swallows to breathe and make a silly face due to the carbonation she just inhaled. The sugar took a mere 5 minutes to turn her into a crazy kid on our drive home.

Just Kid Stuff

Ava is doing phenomenal with her school work. I'm really seeing a big jump in her reading skills. She has memorized some words and no longer needs to sound them out, the words she does need to sound out she figured out quickly what the word is, and her handwriting is greatly improving. She enjoys her school work and usually asks me to do more when I make her stop.

Since I'm not hard core with certain curriculum yet, Ava just gets to do a nice variety of work book pages or things I've printed off the internet. Here is a 1st grade work book I picked up at Sam's Club. On the page on the left, she had to read the sentences to me and then had to figure out which word to put in the blank, and write it neatly. On the page on the right, she had to read the sentence and draw a line to the correct animal it was describing. I'll say it again, there is nothing like seeing something "click" with your child right in front of your eyes.

Juliet didn't quite make it through "Bee Movie" last weekend. She snored her little heart out and drooled all over her bean bag.

I had to take her to the beginning part of a baby shower I co-hosted last weekend and she thought she was cool stuff sitting in the front seat of daddy's truck.

Oh yeah, Juliet's new talent is fake sleeping. It is so hilarious! Jonathan got suckered into it a few days ago. He turned to me when we got home and opened the van door to get her out and whispered "she's sleeping". I whispered back "she's faking it". He quietly turned back to her and said "are you fake sleeping" and she cracked a big smile and opened her eyes.

Kylie is great at helping out around the house. Her newest chore is feeding the animals and emptying the bathroom trash. She's great at getting down cereal bowls and pouring breakfast for her and her sisters. We just haven't mastered the gallon of milk quite yet....well we haven't let her try.

These sweet sisterly moments happen, but they are usually few and far between these days.