Well...........

It happened, the power went out. I went to bed around 11pm and it was still on, woke up around 5am to a child trying to sneakily enter our bedroom, however typically we have a few night lights on throughout the house, but the power was out and the "sneaking" turned into him walking into a spare tv set we have on our bedroom floor at the moment, and falling over. He then got into our bed and actually everyone in the house slept until 7:30..... that NEVER happens here!
It was a very relaxing morning despite the fact that we had no electricity. Daddy made eggs & bacon on the grill and the kids just played for awhile. We had cranked the heat (like I said in my post last night) so it wasn't bad in the house. The kids watched movies on the laptop until the charge ran out, then went outside to play. I'm not positive the "exact" total accumulation but the amounts people were measuring all around us were anywhere from 21-27 inches!!
After we heard that power could be out for a week, Daddy decided to go in search of a generator. You would think after the big ice storm in 08' everyone would own one... nope, not us. Anyway, of course there were only the really expensive ones left on the shelves. So he came home with nothing :(
We have family members with generators, but for a week... and then later hearing maybe two weeks! We don't want our basement to flood and our pipes to freeze. SO thankfully my friend  had power at her house, and she was able to put a little "S.O.S" on facebook for us ;)
She put up a post saying that we were wondering if anyone out there Happened to have a generator that they would be willing to let us borrow or even rent from them.
Ask and you shall receive! Thank you God, his cousin  read it and happened to have an extra, WOOHOOOOOOO!!!! (thank you) ;)
Most of the gas stations had HUGE lines and/or no gas left, thankfully a few towns over where his cousin lives, there was power and a gas station with no lines. It is running and we were able to warm up & take our food out of the snow filled coolers on our front porch and put it back into the fridge ;)
All in all, this was a good day. The kids had a BLAST playing in all the snow, I shoveled a path to the back yard for him to bring the generator through, and it proved to be a great area for B to play in, seeing she could not move in the snow. The kids are a little bummed out because their halloween party & parade won't be happening at school tomorrow since school was cancelled. Trick or Treating will most likely be cancelled as well if it wasn't already. Not very safe with no street lights and sidewalks covered in snow. However we will be making our own trick or treat rounds to a few family and friends houses, and we will have our own halloween party right here! We won't let the storm rain... or should I say "snow" on our parade!
ps..... I'm so happy my internet works now that the generator is going! ;)

looking out our front door

she had a rough start in all that winter gear... but she managed to have fun ;)

making her way to the backyard 

the 3 girls playing while the boys went to pick up the generator 

Blizzard in October

It is absolutely snowing like crazy out there... we are up to about 12 inches and it's only been about 5 hours... NUTS! We are going to be pulling our trick-or-treaters in sleds instead of wagons. I can't help but laugh a little, I mean I don't mind snow really...REALLY I don't. However it is very early for snow like this! The inch or two that we got on Friday, and was pretty much gone the next day... that was ok. Nice crisp fall weather would have been nice for a few more weeks.
I thought to myself as he went out to shovel..... It is just making up for all the snow he missed last year. Then I got pictures of him shoveling, just because he didn't have to do any of it last year ;)
The kids have been loving it, out playing in it tonight. They were so excited, it was cute!
As I ran around all day doing laundry and getting it all done, running the dishwasher so that was done, cleaning up whatever I could while I could. I definitely managed to make some killer chocolate mousse cupcakes with a creamy peanut butter filling and chocolate/peanut butter mousse frosting. I had been wanting to play around with some for awhile and today seemed like a good day, but I just had to make sure I finished before the power went out.
So far so good there.... it has flickered quiet a few times and I hold my breath each time! The last mission of the night was to get the kids tucked in and hope they would fall asleep before we loose power so they wouldn't notice when their nightlights go out. Phew... they fell asleep pretty quick after that evening play in the snow ;)
So it's quiet now.. He in the other room is watching a movie on the other laptop, and me here in the living room, I'm watching tv that is constantly being interrupted by storm watch updates, and has threatened to just go completely black a few times. So I decided what better to do than to blog about the crazy snow while enjoying a delicious cupcake and large glass of milk. (Yes I had 2, don't judge me!)
Well, the heat is cranked in anticipation of the "impending doom". I'm going to go take a peek outside and see where we are at now. Here's to hopefully staying warm tonight!

Yellow Ribbon Event

So we had our Yellow Ribbon event this past weekend. If you are not military you probably have no idea what this is. I actually had never heard of it before this deployment. It is fairly new and was not around during his 1st & 2nd deployments.
Since we are national guard it is considered a "drill weekend". It is a mandatory event that the soldiers have to attend after deployment. Actually they have one pre-deployment as well, but because we only had about 2 weeks notice of his leaving, we didn't exactly make it. It is pretty much made up of seminars and I had no idea what to expect going into it. It was all set up for us we just had to show up. Lucky for us it was in our favorite place, North Conway. It is technically a one night deal, but He and I haven't gotten away alone in a LONG time, so we decided to get our own room the night before and make a weekend getaway out of it.
So Nana & Pape agreed to watch the kids for the weekend at their house and we took off on Friday night and headed north. We stopped for dinner on the way up and didn't actually check into our hotel until about 9:30pm. It was like a mini suite with a little kitchen/sitting area with a table and couch and the best part... the fireplace. All we asked for was bed, so this was a nice treat. Not too expensive either, plus we get that handy dandy military discount. ;)
I woke up around 9:30 to him coming back into the room with a tray of breakfast. I got to eat it while it was warm and I didn't have to share! Then I enjoyed a nice long warm shower and peacefully got ready for the day ;)
We checked out of our hotel and went around the corner to.... The Outlets! (Hey... it was his idea) and I think he had more fun than I did! We got some amazing deals! I mean really it's not every day you save $288.70 on clothes in one store! I mean it was mostly for him, but really I felt like we stole half the clothes.. HAHA..what a great feeling ;) Got a few things for ourselves and a few things for the kids for birthdays and Christmas.. we made out like bandits!
Then it was off to the next hotel, which was right next door. The military put us up in this one, The Fox-Ridge resort, http://www.redjacketresorts.com/fox-ridge-resort.php. It was a bit hectic when we got there considering the unit from the night before was just leaving and we were all showing up and trying to check in. Check in wasn't your conventional, go to the desk and get your key kinda deal.... There were tables lined up with national guard members waiting to check you off their list and give the soldiers their folders and info for that night and next days events.
They had a big tent set up on the grounds and we had our meals in there and listened to different people speak... Captains  and... whoever they were ;) Some of it was interesting, some of it... not so much.. but thats the Army. It was nice to finally be able to put faces with names, after a year of hearing about people he was working with, and occasionally hearing them in the background on skype... or sometimes popping into the screen to say hello. I finally got to actually meet them, and their wives. Some I had gotten to know via facebook and it was nice to sit down and chat and laugh and have a good time.
We were dismissed early enough Saturday night so we decided to head to Cranmore Mountain for some haunted fun..http://www.cranmore.com/ghoullog/lodging_packages. It was quite the experience, and I don't really mean the haunted houses themselves... I actually mean just hanging out with the group of 10 of us that went.... THAT was the experience, and a Hilarious one at that! I won't go into detail, I don't want to disturb anyone ;)
Long story short... they start you off in the Bar, and they drop you back off at the bar and there are really no bathrooms in between.... However there are plenty of masked men with chainsaws to chase you into the woods. Probably a good thing I didn't have my camera for this experience, his first trip up a chair lift definitely did not need to be documented. (we will just leave it at that) ;)
Sunday was when all the seminars took place, so we sat through a couple and then went to the tent again for lunch. The next seminar was going to break us up... sending soldiers to one room and spouses to another. This is when myself and a few other wives decided to ditch the men and head back to those outlets ;) OK, "ditch" sounds a bit harsh... they were actually perfectly fine with it, and kept saying we didn't have to sit through the seminars... so off we went.
We didn't have too much shopping time at this point but it was nice to get out of there for a bit. We went back sat through a short "dismissal" speech and then we were free to head home. I have to say other than parts of it (some of the seminars) being a bit... well... boring, it was actually a good time. Most of all it was a nice escape for a bit and we enjoyed ourselves.
Nana & Pape brought the kids back to our house early in the day Sunday and a friend of ours came by to watch them for the rest of the day until we got home. The kids had a blast the whole weekend with their grandparents and they always enjoy having our friend watch them (thanks everyone for your help) Despite all their fun, they missed mom & dad and were standing at the door with huge smiles when we got home! I always miss my kids when I'm away from them, even if it's only for a day, and even if I really, really need to get away. I just miss them, so the huge smiles and hugs were awesome.
So thats the "yellow ribbon event" in a nutshell I guess. Serves a good purpose and gave us some laughs ;)

We love the White Mountains... We try to get there as often as we can. It's pretty much become our families favorite place. The kids love it just as much as we do. K man will just randomly ask "Can we go drive up the big mountain?"
We made a quick escape a couple nights before Daddy left for his deployment a little over a year ago. Things were so intense at home, we were running around (in what felt like circles) like chickens with no heads. We were nervous and scared and sad and pretty much every possible emotion ever known to man. We had to just get out of here... so we packed up and went up north. we could only go for one night because of the circumstances. It was chilly and not very clear, but we had to drive up Mount Washington. So of course all year K man would pop that question... pretty much whenever we drove by a big hill ;)
Finally when Daddy had his 2 week leave time, we went up and K man got his wish. Well... of course ever since then, he will once again randomly ask that question "Can we go drive up the big mountain?"
We decided since the last couple times we made the drive up it was pretty foggy.. we would make a day trip up with the kids. We picked a day and crossed our fingers. Boy did we luck out, it was a beautiful sunny day, and it was warm too. Now Im a fan of fall and the cooler weather that comes with it, but I knew that it would be much colder on top of that mountain, so a nice warm day was perfect... instead of being 32* up there, it was actually in the 50's. However the wind... that was more like 70's... yep averaging about 70 mph winds up there that day!! The foliage was gorgeous though!!
It was a great day, just enjoying some good family time. The kids really do well in the car, of course there are moments, but we really can't complain. We left home as early as we could manage... I think it was around 8:30. We packed a cooler with snacks and drinks, but we went out to lunch once we got up there before we headed to the mountain... then we made a pizza hut stop on the way home. We make it a point to pack jammies and time our drive home around bed time. usually works out good for us. We ate dinner, then headed to the car to change everyone into jammies and popped a movie into the dvd player in the backseat... and then they were out. ;)
Of course before we headed home, we enjoyed the day. Walking around, or should I say, trying to walk around on the mountain. Poor E  was so scared, she was almost in tears :( She was so afraid she was going to blow off the mountain. At one point we got out to walk around for a minute at one of the many spots to pull over and "view" along the winding path up... The three girls stuck with me, as K man and Daddy were walking ahead.

They were exploring... or so I thought. he later informed me that K man had to pee.... how you pee on a mountain in 70 mph winds is beyond me...sorry to who ever was standing down wind!

So I tried to sit the girls down and get a picture of the three of them, I though it would distract E from her fear of blowing away. Thinking if I sat her near some big rocks she might feel more secure... it didn't work...

~Bet you can't tell which one is E~

I can never get enough of the views from the top when it is clear. It is just absolutely amazing! SO breathtaking to see what God has laid out for us to enjoy.

The kids were ready to get back in and head down, they were done with the wind. I wanted to snap a few more picture though so I walked to the end of the parking area to do that. He backed the car up to where I was and got out and joined me for a moment, then he got this picture of me attempting to stand still in front of the great view. However it was hard to do so without falling over.

We got back in the car and the kids were saying "Mommy we thought you were going to blow off the side of the mountain" I assured them that wouldn't happen and we headed down ;)

At some points it is so narrow on the road, you have to stop and let people get by and you get mighty close to that ever so steep edge!

~Isn't he Hilarious~

We decided to go play around near the river down the road... it is very rocky and shallow and we could just let the kids walk around. It was really pretty too. We parked and we could have easily walked right down to the rocky edge by way of a nicely paved path, but Daddy can't pass up an adventure, so we went his way....

~ me thinking my husband picked a great route to the river~

we got there... we played... some got wet, and it was fun!

It really was time well spent. We had some wet sneakers we aired out in the trunk on the way home, and K man had a soggy bottom. Not sure how he did that, I turned around to see him back up, try to catch his balance, fall backwards over a rock (all in slow motion i swear)... then catch him self, look up as if he has got it and fall back right into a small puddle in the rocks on his bottom. He was a good sport and went onto "skip" rocks.

I love days like this... I live for days like this... just taking off and heading out on adventures with my family. They are awesome and I love every minute of this quality time we spend together making memories that will last us a lifetime. And what kind of adventure would it be if we didn't do some dancing or make an attempt at taking a serious picture of our four crazy kids!

Thank you Lord for Blessing me this much

help spread the word!!

I have been following a few different blogs for a while now, I have "met" people in the blogging world who are also military spouses. It has been kind of nice, seeing that when you are national guard, you do not always live on a base, or even anywhere near one for that matter. Often the families are spread far apart throughout a state. It has been nice to be in contact with and read/share stories of other military spouses who are in similar situations.

There are a few that I really look forward to reading, I always look for their updates. One morning in July I was sitting at the computer and opened up to one of my favorites, the title was "Three Knocks at the door"... my jaw hit the floor and I began tearing up before I even read it. I don't know how many blogs you follow, but when you read every post and follow certain ones all the time... you almost feel as if you know these families. This poor woman's husband was a marine and was killed in action. She has continued to blog, and even though she doesn't feel like she is strong, she has absolutely amazed me! I know her husband would be proud and want her to laugh and enjoy life.

Yesterday I opened up her blog to read her most recent update, it was titled "I need your help". She has three children, her oldest daughter is not TJ's (her husband's) biological daughter. However they had been going through adoption processes for quite some time, and were in the final stages. He always considered her his, as did everyone around them. He raised her as his own. She is having a hard time finalizing the adoption now. Please read her story through this link to her blog http://thedudleyfamily.wordpress.com/ please also go to the petition site through a link in her blog and sign for her. She needs all the help and prayers she can get to make her late husbands greatest dream a reality!

Such a tragic loss, such a sweet family. I will continue to follow her blog as I have for a while now, she is an inspiration. No one ever wishes to have their life torn right out of their heart. In just moments your world can be turned upside down. I pray for strength for her to continue being a great mom to those kids and always remind them how much their daddy loved them.

For the Lord does not abandon anyone forever.

though he brings grief, he also shows compassion

according to the greatness of his unfailing love.

lamentations 3:22-26  31-32 

Poop & Date Nights :)

So this morning I woke up to poop all over Missa & everything in her crib! When I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING! From every piece of clothing on her, to the sheets, and each individual blanket & little stuffed doll and/or animal. This incident may not have been AS bad, had her diaper not been on backwards... however there was A LOT of poop, so I can not be certain about that. YES, I said her diaper was on backwards... NO I did not put it on her, neither did her dad. :)
We will get back to this stinky situation, I'm going to back up to last night first. Seeing my original plan was to blog about "date night".... we will start there ;)

He & I have been on one "date" since he has been home. I know what some people are thinking.."I never get a date night!... you think you should have lots of dates?... blah blah blah..." No, not everyone thinks this... but yes... some do. ANYWAY..... when you have spent a year apart, you have a lot of making up to do. Every couple should have date nights. The mission here, one date night a month. This one happened to be in Boston, but trust me.... they won't all be there! (especially after this one haha....)

We had a 6 o'clock reservation at The Melting Pot of Boston http://www.meltingpot.com/special-occasions.aspx The original plan was to have the babysitters ..aka.. Nana & Pape, come over at 4. They had something they had to do and thought they might be a few minutes later. We talked and it was set, they would be here no later than 4:15.
Well.... things happen and.... they didn't get here until 4:35. Now that could be plenty of time IF you know exactly where you are going and there is NO traffic. HA! Needless to say, we did not know exactly where we were going. We usually go to a location a little closer to home, however they did no have any reservations available last night. It was fine though, we were planning on going into Boston after anyway to hit up our favorite pastry shop Bova's. (a hidden gem!!)

Well........ we thought it was "fine". We had the GPS, so we would be all set. Or not..... Apparently there are three "76 Arlington Streets" in Boston. YUP.... you guessed it... we had the wrong one. OOPS!
We were cutting it close... reservation at 6, it's 5:54 and we are about 10 minutes out. He at this point is very certain we will not make it. I had little faith as well, until I looked at the GPS and saw that we were only a few minutes away... we would be fine.
Nice, we are on Arlington Street, the Melting Pot should be right........ there? Ummm.... that looks like a house, and it seems to be surrounded by more.... houses!!! This when the "BLEEEEP GPS!!!!" attitude starts to come out. OK, OK... it will be fine, we will just call the restaurant. So, we pull over and I call. This is when we find out there are three of the same address. We get the right zip code and it says we should be there in 10 minutes. The girl on the phone was very nice and said she would hold the reservation.
And we are off to address number 2. TWENTY minutes later we get to the street... GPS says restaurant is at the other end. Ok, mission now... to find a parking spot. OH BOY! Not the easiest thing in Boston... we know that though. However there was "supposed" to be a garage. Of course we couldn't find it. 5 more minutes.... 10 more.... now we are driving on another road in the opposite direction.
We are starting to get annoyed with each other, and he is getting annoyed with every person around us on the road. This is not our fault... this is obviously the city of Boston's fault!! ;)
So he, even though he is extremely frustrated now... and ready to just drive home...manages to get us back to where we need to be (because he is a Great guy, and knew I really wanted to go there)... even though at this point we are both thinking to ourselves.."there is NO way they held our reservation THIS long!" 


OH LOOK, haha...had we not taken another road looking for a parking garage we would have seen the parking area 2 seconds past the restaurant. (laughing now... not then) We park, and walk over. We walk in the door as the hostess is telling the people in front of us there is wait time of an hour and a half!
I get up there, tell them we are the ones that called, and I assume it's too late. NOPE!!! :) The hostess was SO nice, and brought us right to our table! This is when we were able to start smiling and laughing with each other again... and we really did enjoy our dinner!!

I had actually wanted to bring the little pocket camera with us and snap some pics... but the batteries were dead. Probably a good thing, because I'm sure, had a tried to take some he would have probably thrown it out the window at few points in our adventure. :) Kinda like when i attempted to use my cell phone camera & he threw it in the backseat. (don't worry... at this point we were past dinner and onto pastries, and laughing) I did snap a few during dinner, but it was too dark in our "intimate" little corner of the restaurant ;)

SO.... (yes there is more)....we decided, lat's walk to Bova's it's fairly close. We usually drive, so we asked the hostess to point us in the right direction. She was very sweet and wanted to make sure we made it there. He was waiting outside the door, at one point I had to beckon him to come inside so I could take a bathroom break during her 15 minutes of writing out step by step directions. Finally, she finished and then went over them with us just to be sure. We walk outside, down the road, around the corner and..... it starts to POUR! We took cover under a hotel awning and decided... nope, not walking to Bova's. We people watched for not too long, and then the rain let up. We did a loop and went to the car. Where it looked like he was going to have to make at least a 15 point turn to get the car out of the spot. He kept saying "Seriously, how am I going to get out of here" We were laughing because the man that worked there parked the car... but then gave us the keys to get it out. Of course, because he himself didn't know how he was going to get it out. (And we didn't have our expedition, we had his parents small car) he managed to get it out in only a 3 or 4 point turn. He was so proud of himself! :)

We headed to Bova's... at this point we knew where we were going. However the GPS apparently did not haha.... This is where I tried to get pics of him yelling at "her" to "SHUT IT", but he threw the phone in the back seat. I couldn't help laugh as he is throwing his hands in the air and yelling at "her" saying "WHY would I turn right? I know it's this way..." then "she" recalculates and decides he was right. This is where he yells "I WIN!! Told you I was right!"
It's hard to find parking near Bova's... it is on a VERY tight one way "side" street... so typically I get out and run in and he continues driving in circles until I come out with the goods ;) Im not lying when I say this place is a "hidden gem"... it is nothing short of amazing!
As we drive back towards I 93 to head home, we pass a few other pastry shops that are more well known... one of them being "Mikes Pastry's"... good, but not AS good as Bova's. There are people lined up down the street to get into these others, Bova's was busy and I did wait a few minutes, but not outside or in a long line. Amazing.... the place is Amazing!

ok this is long sorry .... back to the poop ;)

We made it home, we went to bed.... around 5 am a whole bunch of littles end up in our bed. I have to pee so bad, but I don't dare get out of bed because if I do I risk losing my spot. It is like a puzzle I tell you. We have a queen size bed... it doesn't fit an entire family in it! Well... Missa usually will "talk" for a bit in her bed in the morning... but this morning she began yelling. I made my way up there to find.... "the scene"!! Oh man was it everywhere!!!!!!!! I began to clean it up and thats when i noticed her diaper was backwards. I guess Nana & Pape were tired when they got her ready for bed last night... hahaha. They have three kids of their own and have changed our kids diapers plenty of times... I know they know which way is the front. ;) Now I don't know if having it on the correct way would have actually held all this poop in any better... but it's possible seeing the "front" of the diaper doesn't come up as high, and IT was all coming up and out the back. Aren't you glad for that visual!? ;)
anyway.... it's all cleaned up now and washed... time to go switch it to the dryer!

I bet you wish I did manage to get pictures of all this! I do too......... ;)
Have a great day!