Deployment Memories, 2nd Edition

I just realized that I didn't post any pictures of people, whom are the reason for all the fun moments!


Ok, not the greatest picture of Ali and I, but it is the only one on my computer at the moment of us from deployment. We were just having a silly night in the old metal box we called home.

My buds...on their Boy/Girl Band CD cover. Don't they look like NSYNC or something!

Some more buds...how cute, they are using the box that I painstakingly created for their mission as a stool...

Oh, well, I lied. Here is Ali and I at Abraham's House.

One of my favorite crews! (I don't have a full picture of my other favorite crew - sad - tear)

Well, that is it for now. The other pictures that I have aren't on my computer right now.

Love ya!

Deployment Memories and Day 30 - 33, December 8th - 11th

After a recent trip to my local VA clinic and seeing all these great old vets and talking with my Dad about how he is reconnecting with some of his old Air Force buddies, I started thinking about my last deployment. As much as I didn't want to be there and I wanted to be done with the Navy, I wouldn't have changed a thing. There were some very stressful times, hard times, lonely times, painful times, but there were also ALOT of fun times. Here are some of my favorite photos from my Iraq Deployment (I wish I could take credit for these, but I stole them from a guy in our squadron!)

This was the entrance to the Navy Compound

It's actually very pretty isn't it

We are the Skinny Dragons (the one on the far right)

That's the Mighty P-3 Orion - under the actual Orion Constellation

Then there are these awesome photos of the Ziggurat and Abraham's House (yes, the ACTUAL Abraham!)

The Ziggurat

Stairway to Heaven

Oldest Arch in the World!

The House of Abraham

Despite the long days, the sand storms...

It looks like Mars!!

Despite being away from friends and family, I can only hope that the work we were doing made a difference in people's lives and hopefully even saved a few.

I always have a prayer in my heart for all the soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen deployed oversees and I wish them good health and a safe return home!!

Day 25 - 29, December 3rd - 7th - Gift Wrapping Extravaganza!

Once again I know I haven't been very good at keeping up with the daily diet log, but lets face it, they can be pretty boring if I don't have anything else to talk about, so I am grouping up days as I go. From last Thursday to today, Monday, I have been doing very well on my diet. The diet has stayed in tact, however I did have a little hiccup with my workouts due to a late doctors appointment. I didn't get home until 7:00 from it and I just wanted to eat dinner, but I forgive myself, so you should forgive me as well :)

Todays topic is Christmas gift shopping and wrapping. I have been doing some Christmas shopping for the last few months (just little things) so that I wouldn't have to spend everything at once. This Saturday we shopped all day to finish up the list. We have everything we were going to buy and all we have left is some delicious food gifts. Besides the food gifts and one very oddly shaped item, I finished wrapping everything as well! I know, it's crazy!! But, we do have to ship everything so I felt like I needed to get all of this done as quickly as possible.

Have you noticed that way too often we tend to spend just as much money on the gift wrap as we do on the gift itself? Well, this year I decided to take some advice from a budget saving article and got some solid color gift wrap (on sale), some floral accents on sale, and then I splurged on some ribbon and gift tags. The great thing about the solid color gift wrap is that you can use it all year for any occasion! Here is the outcome of my fun day of gift wrapping:

Day 24 - Wednesday, December 2nd

Back to the old boring posts : ( I wish we could go on road trips everyday so I would have exciting pictures to show everyday. Wednesday was just a regular old hump day. However, we did get to watch Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer!!



I love that movie, but man, Santa sure was a meany!! Luckily, everything worked out alright in the end - hehe. However, we noticed that the movie got the amount of reindeer wrong. Isn't there 8 reindeer + Rudolph - "Now Dasher, Now Dancer, Now Prancer and Vixen! On Comet, On Cupid, On Donner and Blitzen!" ? The sleigh only had 6 + Rudolph! Craziness, anyway let me know what you think? Is it 6 or 8?

Day 24:

Breakfast - Cereal + Tea
AM Snack - Protein Snack Bar
Lunch - Protein Meal Bar
PM Snack - Cereal Bar
Dinner - Bean and Ham Soup

Workout - 5 minute warm up, 20 minute interval jogging, 5 minute cool down and abdominal strength training.

No Christmas movie tonight, but maybe some Christmas decorating!

Days 19 - 23 and The Grand Canyon!

I know that I have been a little lax lately - ok, a lot lax - about posting the last few days, but you know how it goes when you are traveling and you have family in town. Believe it or not I actually kept up with my diet throughout this time. The only thing that was difficult was the work outs - driving a few hours everyday wasn't very conducive to the gym. But, the good news is that we picked it back up on Tuesday with a good 30 minute jog and upper body strength training.

Now, on to the important stuff - our road trip!!

On Friday, we drove up to Flagstaff. We visited the Riordan Mansion, which was beautiful. It is a log cabin home that was built and occupied by the Riordan family, whom basically put Flagstaff on the map with their lumber company. The house is 13,000 square feet and was occupied by 2 Riordan brothers who married 2 sisters. Each family occupied separate sides of the house which were connected by a large gathering room (you can kind of see it from this picture).

We couldn't take any pictures of the inside, but it was beautiful. It was an amazing example of the Arts and Crafts movement of bringing the outside in. Trust me on this one!

On Saturday, we drove up to the Grand Canyon. The North Rim was already closed for the season (and it was an extra 5 hour drive) so we just stuck with the South Rim. What can I say about the Grand Canyon besides...

Beautiful.

Majestic.

Vast.

And cold! I look like a marshmallow all bundled up in my layers!

Towards the end of the day it started snowing! It was very light and melted immediately, until we woke up the next morning to this....

It was so beautiful and exciting. You have to remember that we are from Texas and we have spent the last 4 years in Hawaii, so yes, snow is very very exciting!

Flagstaff is such a quaint little town and it just looks right when there is snow all over the place!

It was all light and fluffy and perfect for making snowballs - unfortunately I don’t have any pictures to show you our snowball fight - well, ok, I was the only one throwing them at Z. He is a very polite gentleman that didn’t throw them back at me. Ha - I win!

And last, but not least, I leave you today with this amazing wall mural...

Have a wonderful Wednesday!