Here he is getting off the plane. :)

Prom Night

What a beautiful evening to take some fun Prom pictures.

It was back to Legacy Park in town to meet Julie and Garret before their dinner reservations.

Brought back memories of my own senior prom, especially since my dress was SO similar to Julie's. My mom still has it, maybe now I could sell it for a lot of money as a genuine vintage antique!

Speaking of my prom, and my mom, I thought about something on my drive back to base tonight.

20 years ago next month was my senior prom (yikes) and I triple dated with my date and 2 of my best friends and their dates.

We all met at my house for some group pictures and then my parents said I couldn't leave just yet. They were waiting for somebody.

Well, it turns out that they hired a videographer to follow us around the ENTIRE EVENING, catching every moment on tape. He stood there while we ordered and ate dinner, he was at the dance, ect.

Mom..................... WHY?

That was REALLY weird.

Did she do that to my sister 2 years later, NO.

Dad...............any explanation?

Just curious!

Love ya both!

Yet another prom side note:

Sam is 2 years older than me. We are both from Air Force families. On our second date we talked about where all we had lived growing up, and we basically followed each other around the country our whole lives, living at the same time in about 5 different states.

Also, I was at Sam's senior prom with a date/friend of mine. It wasn't my high school so I didn't know a lot of people. We also ate dinner that night at the SAME restaurant! An old converted train.

So, I am sure at SOME point we laid eyes on each other, but we weren't planned to meet until about 5 years later.

:)

Too bad I don't have that prom on video, I could go back through the old tape and see if he is in it!

Well, Sam and I went with 8 other adults last night to see this movie. Well, this documentary.
I would highly recommend it.
I was very surprised that the theater was packed, and it wasn't even opening weekend.
And I can NOT remember the last time a movie ended and the entire theater applauded, some giving a standing ovation.
It really was eye opening, and a bit scary.
And very sad.
There are a lot of misinformed, misdirected and lost people out there. The fact that some of these scientists can be so intelligent, be in charge of major universities, and they refuse to even consider intelligent design as an option, but have no trouble believing in mutating crystal proteins or that life came on earth from "scattered alien seed" was mind boggling.
Go with a group.
It makes for some GREAT discussion.
We sat at a Mexican Restaurant until 10:30 last night talking. And then continued to talk for the hour drive home.
Late night. But it was fun and worth it.
Let me know what you think after you see it.

Well, that isn't as clear as I would like it to be, but I think it is readable.

Two months have flown by, and it is time this weekend for Collin and I to pack for our

CALL TO CONGRESS

trip!

Next week is also a nationwide effort by the ADA for everyone to reach congress. So, while some people are there in person talking to the senators and legislators ( smile ), they want people at home to call the above number between April 28 - May 2nd as well. Thanks for your support!

Collin had his regular appointment today with his pediatric endocrinologist and it went great! He gained 3 pounds and a half inch in the last 4 months. Everything in his blood work was in the absolutely perfectly normal range as well. For years now I kind of give myself a pat on the back because I have been his pancreas, but for several months now he has been doing it all by himself. He doesn't even ask anymore, he just figures out the carbs on everything he eats and programs the pump. So this time, the blood-work report card was all his doing.

WAY TO GO COLLIN!

We are just so proud of him!

Sam and I are off on a quadruple date this evening to go see Ben Stein's movie, EXPELLED. I will give a report on it later. :) Tomorrow, is the only day I have to shop for groceries and get organized in the house for Sam. I am also doing some Prom pictures tomorrow evening. Sunday is church, then dinner at some friends house. Monday is F15 day, Tuesday morning at 6 am, off we go!

More later - gotta go get picked up a bit before the babysitter arrives!

HAPPY FRIDAY!

.

  PLUS

EQUALS

SAM'S INCENTIVE RIDE IN AN F15!

He just came back with his required medical clearance. I am TRYING to be happy for him. Well, I truly am happy for him, I am just so green with jealousy!!!!!!! The base commander cleared him for the ride about a year ago, but the planes have been grounded, or broken or gone and now the wait is over.

A good pilot friend of his will do the honors. Except one thing has me worried. This pilots call sign is "EVIL!!" Do I want my chaplain husband pulling who knows how many G's in a fighter jet with a pilot named Evil??????

EVIL and ADAM (Sam's call sign) in the same jet? Anyone else drawing any parallels here? :) Hopefully SNAKE won't be flying as well! That would just be to much!

Well, the old saying goes that Good Overcomes Evil! :)

The kids had their dentist appointments scheduled 6 months ago for Monday morning, but I had NO choice but to cancel. They will let us out on the runway to take pictures and video, and there is no way in this world I would miss that.

So, check back Monday for some pictures, videos and stories. I am off to buy large amounts of Dramamine and over sized barf-bags for Sam. :)

The best laugh I have had in weeks!

I laughed so hard I think I pulled a muscle in my back. My friends who are married to a pastor, this is so funny! I think everyone else will find it funny too. And you will remember it the next time your pastor mentions his wife in his sermon again! :)

Last night, I had another job, team and individual pictures for the 5th and 6th grade girls soccer team in town. I knew about half the girls and that made it even more fun. That beautiful blue sky didn't last long, about 15 minutes after I left a huge storm blew in.

They wanted a silly picture, and after a few unsuccessful attempts at making a pyramid, this one below is what we ended up with.

On the drive home, after the storm blew through while I went to Wal Mart BY MYSELF, the sky was just amazing. The photo below was taken from the side of the road when I was almost back to the base.

The photo doesn't do it justice. Without any trees here, the landscape and the sky are huge and that piece I was able to photograph just doesn't look like the real thing.

I loved the different layers of the clouds and the varying cloud colors with the snow still on the mountains.

(click picture to enlarge)

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

A Family Portrait....

...from the left hand of a three year old. :)
(click on it to open it up big)

Daddy is the "Big Guy" in the middle. :)
Collin is on the bottom left, then Kaitlynn, then Mommy, with the long hair, and the only one without a body (???) then Kaebrie, glued to my side as usual (and the only one without hair). Christopher is in green. The two small four legged bug things are the two cats.

I wonder how this would be psychoanalyzed?

Backyard Campout

The big boys decided that tonight was a good night to try out Daddy's new tent in the backyard.
There is only a 50% chance of rain/snow and the temps will only drop to 25 degrees.
I guess if that is their idea of fun, then go for it.
It is my idea of torture.
Kaebrie wanted to try it out after it got all set up.
I think I am in love with this picture.

Then she had to try out the twenty-below mummy bag.

This is a few minutes after they got in, Sam is making hot chocolate on their home made stove, made from cat food cans!

CHEERS!!!
I will leave the backdoor unlocked just in case.
:)

These pictures will open big if you click on them.

I am so thankful that I married a man who is such an incredible daddy.

:-)

Fire pit

Here are two of my favorite pictures from our four and a half hour fire pit night last night.

Sam goes to the wood pile to make sure we have enough wood for these fire nights, which have been pretty frequent lately. Neighbors bring over lawn chairs and something to drink and we talk for hours.

He likes to get the ammunition boxes because they burn well. For weeks now I have been meaning to get a picture of the explosive sign burning up in the fire. :)

Above is the last of our cut up Christmas tree. It smelled so good! The fire lasted so long last night we used up all of our wood supply, including all the branches and twigs that last week's wind storm blew down. Time to stock up so we can do it again!

Another recent photo shoot.....

Little Mallory turned ONE!

(yes, that is snow on those mountains in the distance)

It was SO cold and windy that afternoon, but Mallory was a trooper! This is such a sweet family and mom is a very good friend of mine.

Instructing A Child's Heart

Before Collin was even born, we were given a book to read called Shepherding A Child's Heart. It has been one of the best Biblical parenting books we have found. For 11 years now we have read, and reread and REread this book. We have also taught home studies with it in past places we have lived and Bible studies with it here on base. If you have not read it yet and you are about to be, or already are, a parent, I highly recommend it.

This month, after all these years, the author and his wife have released part two, Instructing A Child's Heart. It has both the husbands and wife viewpoints as well as more practical implementation suggestions and lots of answers to questions. It arrived in the mail today and I am excited about reading it. I know I need all the advice and encouragement I can get in this job of being Mommy.

I added a bookshelf a month or so ago to the sidebar on the blog. There are some incredible books listed there as well.

Happy Reading! I am off to see if I can sneak in the first chapter before they are ready for dinner.

 

A Sign of Spring

Well, the trees are finally budding! A few more weeks and we can look out of our windows and see GREEN! A lot of the buds blew off in the bad dust storm the other night. For those of you who have never experienced one, it is like a wall of wind that hits out of nowhere. We had a surprise one Monday night. It doesn't build up, it doesn't get a little windy and slowly get stronger. There is no wind, and then there is WIND. The reports were 60 mph wind gusts with steady steams of 40 mph. If you are somewhere out in the open, most of the time you can see it coming, the air looks red. But here in the neighborhood, you can't because of the tall trees.

They were so strong and so sudden, one of the maintenance men working on the jets was literally picked up off the ground and thrown into the plane, breaking his pelvis and femur.

Kaitlynn and TIff were at the park, and they come running home screaming, eyes and mouths all gritty from the sand. Because it isn't just wind,I guess a better name would be a sandstorm, we do live in a high desert after all!

And, it snow flurried again on Tuesday. Every year I forget how crazy April is. No dainty April Showers here!

The tulips bulbs are out. It will be so pretty when they open. Pictures coming as soon as they do!  :)

Alright, I have procrastinated enough. The big kids started school about an hour ago and now they are calling for me.

More later! BYE!

...........

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

Saturday and over SIXTY DEGREES!

What a day it has been. The promised 60 degrees finally happened and we enjoyed EVERY second of it.
Here is proof!
:)

I think I found the cure for my funk this week.
SUNSHINE!
And being out in it all day.
And sleeping in till 10:00 thanks to my sweet hubby!

You got to love small towns. If they don't exemplify Freedom of Speech, then I don't know who does it better.

This is the local diner in town and I have cracked up every time I have driven by that sign this week. How about a big AMEN to the owner! If I wasn't on my South Beach diet, I would drive through and support him by buying a large chocolate milkshake.
:)

My first photo job today was a sweet young couple with such a cutie-pie little guy!
The mom is the great piano teacher that comes to our house every Thursday at 1:30 and pushes and challenges Collin and Kaitlynn. I LOVE how hard she makes them work.
Daddy deploys next month so she wanted some family pics and a lot of the two boys together.

Isn't he adorable?

We also did some bartering. The photo shoot in exchange for a months worth of piano lessons. I LOVE THAT! I used to have such a bartering system going on back when we lived in Alabama. I had friends and people who swapped out their skills and it was a win-win situation. I took pictures and in exchange, swapped for haircuts, custom sewing, babysitting, speciality cakes and more. I wish our society was more willing to work that way. We all could save some money and we all could enjoy using what we love for other people.

The best part of Kaitlynn's day was meeting our new horse friends. My friend Cathy has given us an open invitation to come to her house anytime to feed, brush, and soon, to ride her two Morgan horses, Dandy and Dapper. Today was the initial meeting and the tour of where everything is kept in the tack room and how to measure the hay and the grain.

Where taking pictures makes my heart sing, being with these big animals does that to Kaitlynn. So as we spend more and more time there, she will understand just how much work these big animals are, but I have a feeling she will just fall that much more in love with them.

My second photo job of the day was the 5th and 6th grade girls soccer team in town. Coach Conrow asked me to come out and get a bunch of action shots during a game. I had fun! I took almost 300 hundred pictures for him. I go back in a week and a half to do all their individual and team pictures.
Here is a sample of some great action!:

These girls don't fool around. They are out to WIN!

Here is "Coach Conrow," our next-door-neighbor and great friend Gunner with his daughter Morgan. He flew out later in the day to Alaska to look for a house. They abandon us in July.
:(

Mostly a WONDERFUL day. Our little friend Katie, fell out of a tree in the green belt and ended up getting 14 stitches. Her brothers came here until she came home. She is SO proud of the number of stitches!
It is now
bath time for a bunch of dirty, sweaty, horse smelling Smiths. ALL of the kids are sunburned. SUNBURNED!

Isn't that GREAT! Because it has to be a beautiful sunny day if the kids are going to be out in it enough to burn.
YAY!!! I am finally seeing the light at the end of the Winter Tunnel!

Things that made me laugh

How much did it cost my piggy bank to fill my tank with gas?

The cheapest grade gas is up to $3.29 per gallon here. What is it where you are?

(Jacquie, after our conversation this morning, this one below was even funnier) :)
And this is probably a glimpse into our future.

Some weeks, well, are not as good as other weeks. My patience level has been extra low, maybe because I haven't been sleeping well and I am just worn out. So when things can make me laugh, I really appreciate it!

Here are the funnies that had me giggling! (hopefully they really are funny, and not a side effect of sleep-deprived-overworked-tired-of-cleaning-sick-of-laundry-need-a-month-on-a-deserted-island momma).


I did get sent a video of a woman cooking live crabs for the first time that was also really funny. If I can find it again I will post it too!