Crete July 2010

This post has been a long time coming! Last summer Ben was able to make one of his few port calls since joining the Navy over 9 years ago. Lucky for us it was in beautiful Crete, Greece during the summer. The weather was perfect and the sunsets were amazing! Did I mention that my wonderful mother came and stayed with the girls? Thanks again Mom!

We stayed at this wonderful little hotel called the Porto del Colombo. It was very European! The walk up the three flights of stairs sure burned off all those extra calories.
So here is the short version of our trip:

Day 1 - Flew in at 6:30 p.m. and had a crazy drive with the girls trying to navigate through town. Managed after about four hours (should have taken 30 minutes...maybe) to find the hotel and then had dinner at the funny guy restaurant.

Day 2 - Met our guide to get on the Greek Navy base, watched the boat come in, managed to get on base then waited the better part of the day for the gangway. Drove straight to the hotel on the crazy roads and impressed the guys! Unfortunately, we didn't do as well parking and managed to get two parking tickets. They just keep giving them to you until you move your car.

Day 3 - Explored the town, shopped, went to the open air market, and had dinner overlooking the harbor.

Day 4 - Explored some more, found the gyro shop, had a crazy dinner with Nate, Ingrid, Kathy, and Mike. Did I mention that they bribe you with free wine to eat at their restaurant and then serve a free shot of Raki or Ouzo after each meal? ugh.
Day 5 - Recovered from day 4 dinner and ate bland food. Found the town beach and ate at an outdoor restaurant on the beach with the live Greek music, and watched the sunset.

Day 6 - Drove to the beach through the mountains and Ingrid almost puked. Due to the winding roads I'm sure and not my driving. Exfoliated at the very windy, yet beautiful beach. Accidentally forced a restaurant to open early. Had dinner at a small place in the back streets with the best meat balls we found.
Day 7 - Looked for a cave and found a great restaurant instead. Went on some crazy fast go carts. Walked to the lighthouse and went on a sunset cruise. Had dinner at an outdoor restaurant that was in the middle of buildings with an open roof with Nate and Ingrid.
Day 8 - Last minute souvenir shopping and checking out antique shops. Looked in a neat church with a tall tower. Had my last dinner with Ben at a restaurant on the hill. Watched the sunset and had a crazy drive to the base in the dark. Which I am proud to say I made it both ways without getting lost.

Day 9 - Dropped off the rest of the guys and watched the boat leave from the mountain side. Had a fun last dinner with the girls.To see all the Crete photos (even if you aren't on facebook) visit this link: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.417086662113.202712.797762113&l=eb93fbcc41

Orders: The Plan

So I realize I hardly ever post and I'm not sure if anyone is even still bothering to check this, but since Ben has started blogging about his car rebuild (http://thisoldcub.blogspot.com/) I have been getting the itch. So I guess I will start with an update about our orders.

Ben's next duty station will be Pearl Harbor, Hawaii!!!! Yippee!!! We are so excited! Unfortunately, we have a deployment to get through first. The movers are coming mid-June to pack everything up, then we are headed to Charleston, SC for a few days. After that the girls and I will be spending the summer with my mom in Colorado. We are also hoping for a trip to SLC, but will see how I feel about being in the car after the drive to CO! We will head over to Hawaii sometime in August or September. Hope to see everyone along the way or you can visit us after we move!

You can reach us on my cell, email, or facebook until we get settled. If you don't have any of that contact info just post a comment on the blog. Happy summer!

Some people suck, some are AWESOME!!

So we finally got out squatters out of our house in Charleston this weekend. They were messy, didn't take care of anything, never told me the air conditioner leaked into the bathroom, and broke our lawn mower...not sure how that happened being as they never used it. Anyway, I went to Charleston on Friday and met with a property manager, got some quotes to paint and fix things and it should be good to go in about 10 days. It could have been worse and at least we had nice weather!

Just as I was hating the human population a very sweet lady from the property management company stopped by and eased some fears about what needed replaced and how to get mildew out of a shower. And she is coordinating all of the repairs! Then on Saturday my two wonderful friends showed up with lunch, pine straw, and more cleaning supplies! Now you know they are good friends if they are willing to clean with you! Especially this house! Now Mary did draw the line at one of the toilets and she will be happy to know I replaced the seat. Then my wonderful husband showed up and dusted and cleaned and did yard work. The next day our neighbors came over with a lawn mower, edger, blower and even provided the manpower!! Not to mention my fantastic mother who had a terrible cold and stayed home with the girls all weekend and made sure they had a happy Halloween.

Thank you so much everyone! I couldn't have done it alone!!!

Fire Ants

I realize I haven't posted in a while, but at 5:00 this morning I was inspired! So let's back up a little bit and tell you that Saturday morning I was pulling weeds and happened upon some angry fire ants. By the time I realized what was happening I had six bites on my foot and ankle. Ouch!

This was a good experience to have because this happens to the kids on occasion and I give them itch cream and keep on them not to scratch. Little did I know that those things make you want to scratch the skin right off your body! So this takes us back to this morning when I woke up at 5:00 with a crazy itchy foot!

What I have learned about ant bites is that it itches more when it is hot and humid, that leaving air conditioning makes the itching start all over again, and that prescription strength itch cream will help. This was all good for me to learn since Morgan seems to find every ant hill possible. But it also gives me some empathy for the kids when it does happen.

If you have any cures please share!

Christmas Cards

Someone asked me once why I send Christmas cards with all the work and expense why bother, right? Well I love everything about doing the cards. I love looking back over the year for the perfect photo or taking one special during the year. I love that the girls will look back over those photos someday, as I look back on the one's my mom did for us, and see how much we have changed and how many different places we have lived. I love looking at all the fun card designs on Shutterfly (I must have really liked last year's because this one is nearly identical). I even like figuring out what to say on the card so I don't have to hand write everything. I love the time we spend together as a family getting the cards ready to go in the mail (isn't it fun to get mail that isn't a bill or low interest rate notice??).

But the thing I love the most is thinking of each person on my Christmas card list and thinking about how they have touched my life. I get to replay memories from how I know each person whether we worked together and at which company, if we met playing tennis, spent crazy nights at the bar, had water fights in high school, or shared just a short time during one of our Navy moves. Even if I only contact you this one time each year please know it is my way of letting you know that you are special to me.

Another reason to love living in GA

One of the best things about living in coastal areas is having impromptu trips to the beach. Today I took dinner to a friend in Fernandina so we made the extra trek to the beach. It was a little cloudy and threatening rain, but that didn't stop us from playing chase the sea gulls, freeze tag, and looking for shells. I usually love to go to the ocean when Ben is gone because it makes me feel just a bit closer to him.

Here are a couple photos from our adventure. And I should note that we all managed to stay dry!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

So back in about 6th or 7th grade there was a bake sale at school. A friend and I decided to make chocolate chip cookies. There was some sort of mix up with the baking soda and baking powder and we had these horrible rock cookies that never spread out. Ever since I have struggled to make a decent chocolate chip cookie and ever since discovering Schwan's frozen chocolate chip cookie dough there really is no need to make this type of cookie from scratch.

Now I should point out that I absolutely LOVE to bake and cookies especially. There isn't anything more relaxing than baking a batch of cookies from scratch.

Today I decided to use a bag mix to make some chocolate chip cookies thinking there was no way I could mess these up right??? Wrong! Again I have little lump cookies that didn't spread. I'm sure it is because my butter was too cold, but hey it's getting late and after melting the first stick I wasn't willing to risk going for softer. However, these cookies taste better than the middle school batch so someone will be forced to eat them.