Aloha 'Oi

As many of you know, Ry deployed yesterday. Talk about a seriously emotional rollercoaster of a day! We arrived at the company area around 9:45 am and had 3 hours to kill/spend with our guys til it was time to load up onto the buses.

Ry's the tall guy on the left with his platoon.

With his platoon sgt. Love this guy to death and soooo grateful Ry gets to work with him.

Time for good-byes so that they can load up on the bus. Everyone was tearful at that point.

Ry was trying so hard not to break down (it didn't help that the girls were all out crying at this point). Even though he still had a few minutes, we finally just left so that it wouldn't be so hard on him.
My last picture of him...and he's smiling. :)
We promptly left and sped over to the doctor's office for sports/school physicals for Julia and Jacob (Evelyn went to a friend's house for a play date). Julia cried quite a bit and Jacob shed a couple tears. We sang "I Know that My Savior Loves Me" and it helped bring the Spirit into the room to comfort us. We all know that we will see Ry again and that we are an eternal family. We want to thank everyone who has been offering up prayers on our behalf. We know that we really have been blessed. :)

Evelyn--take 2

So apparently, she knew what she was talking about when she said she only needed to be one day older...or perhaps just two days. She begged and begged til Ry said he'd take her. She did just fine getting the first one done...it was when she realized that her other ear was going to go through the stinging, too that she became that "cat taking a bath" creature again. A kindly grandmother noticed and began a calm conversation with Evelyn about how she has both of her ears pierced and how lovely it looks...and that A beautiful girl like Evelyn can't go walking around with just ONE pierced ear. It worked--and Evelyn finally calmed down enough to finish the piercings. And SHE LOVES it!

"See, Dad? I just needed to be one day older!"
My beautiful, matching girls. (Who refuse to wear their hair down...it covers their earrings)

Daddy Daughter Time

Last week Ryan took Julia out for some daddy/daughter time. They were planning to go snorkeling at Shark's Cove but got sidetracked...there were some errands in Mililani to take care of. While they were there, Ry offered to have Julia's ears pierced.

I was so shocked that she did it--she's been scared stiff about the thought of it for the past few years and didn't want anything to do with earrings. I guess I should have known change was coming when she got out my earrings on Mother's Day. Ry did his homework before taking her. He'd asked around and found out that Walmart was the best place to go since they have the closed backs on earrings (no pointed back digging into your skin when you lay down). When they got there, Julia was able to browse around and pick out the pair she wanted. She chose diamonds. Anyway, she was quite brave (who wouldn't be when they're sitting on their dad's lap?) when they clipped the earrings in. Didn't cry or anything. Now she's always asking me to do her hair up so that everyone can see her ears. :)

So of course Evelyn wanted the exact same thing done when she saw Julia. Ry took Ev to Walmart and had her pick out her earrings (same as Julia's). Evely was soooooo excited. They marked her ears and brought the clip close....and then she freaked out. Ry (who was the only one with her) said it was like trying to give a cat a bath. Evelyn wouldn't sit still, crying, squirming everywhere. Ry finally just decided that they'll do it when she's a bit older. So the very next day Evelyn asked if could get her ears pierced...afterall, she's a day older. :)

Kids Say the Darnest Things

Or mine do....

Thought I'd share what I've been hearing while hanging out with my kiddos:

Julia (while seeing a commercial): "Oooooh! I remember those--back from when I was a kid!"

Jacob (after putting deoderant on for the first time and sniffing his armpits): "Hmm (shrugs). Smells human."

Evelyn (walking in a park): "Ewww! Dog poop. Remember Mom, poop doesn't go in the trash."

Marcus: "Look, Mommy! I have my winsoup on--I'm ready to go to the beach!"

*for the life of him, he can't pronounce "swimsuit"

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

November 19th--you know where I'll be! It kills me that none of my friends here are fans (they like the movies but have never READ the books--it's so wrong!). Anyway, this trailer just came out today and my mouth is still hanging open....:):):) No one knows where the cut off between the two movies is (not even the actors). It just looks amazing to me and I just had to share.

Deployment Ceremony Afterparty

After the ceremony, there was lots of activities, food, entertainment, ect for the families. It was mainly for all the children. Here is part of the performances which entertained. Once they were in front of the stage, they performed all sorts of tricks with their guns.

Picnic style! There were plenty of tables and such set up, but since I'd brought along the blanket we just set up just off to the side near the stage. Great view while we had dinner.
Dude, now THIS is a slip'n'slide! Jacob was completely soaked after sliding on this thing for a few rounds. The kids would act like they were diving and slide all the way to the end.

This bounce house was the coolest--it had a basketball hoop inside and then the kids could climb on the side to get to the slide. Of course, the first time Marcus did it, he got scared stiff--starting crying and couldn't get down (terrified of sliding down the slide and couldn't climb back down either). I ended up going in there, climbing up, and FORCING him to go down the slide on my lap. He screamed half the time down but it quickly turned into laughter and "That was fun, Mom!" This thing entertained him for almost two hours.

The MWR mascot joined us.

This has got to be my ALL TIME favoritest picture EVER. A big thank you to Roxann for going around and snapping pix for everyone.

Deployment Ceremony

We attended a brigade deployment ceremony last week for all our guys. You're only seeing maybe half the guys in this picture. In attendance were honored veterans.

During the ceremony, we retired the battalion and brigade flags (it's called "casing the colors).
The flags were wrapped up and then covered with the camoflauge caps.
Here's all the retired flags. They'll stay that way until the guys return.
A friend of mine was going around and snapping pix of everyone in our company. Here's one of me. :P
My not so little girl--love her to death!
She brought her Daddy doll with her to play with.
It's her knight in shining armour.

Marcus played with a boy sitting next to us who had some cool helicopters.
After the ceremony was finished, we were invited to go to our soldier. Dude, we only had to search through, what, a few hundred dudes all wearing the same outfit! Once we did find him, a fellow Lt. offered to take our pic.
These next few pix are what I'm going to print off and put in their Daddy dolls...


Hmmm, maybe except for this one....gotta find a different one.



This may be the one that goes into Marcus's doll.