Merry Christmas!

We hope everyone had a great Christmas! Here are some before & after pictures of Christmas day at our house.


And here's a link to more of our pictures on our Kodak Gallery:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=14moigfq.7n2hplfq&x=0&y=o54pgs&localeid=en_US

December Happenings

Wow! This month has really flown by! I can't believe it's been so long since I updated our blog. We've definitely been busy getting ready for Christmas. We're so excited to spend it together this year! Here's a pic of the kids seeing Santa on Sunday. Ella was very serious and told him she wanted a pink Cinderella puzzle (of course, the first I've heard of it. mustfindcinderellapuzzlethisweek!). And Benson hated him. Obviously.

Crystal & my Dad came out for a visit over Thanksgiving. It was lots of fun showing them around the island and doing some 'touristy' things together. Ella started preschool the first week of December, and she loves it! She goes to a school very close to our house 2 days a week. They had a Christmas program on Friday, and it was so cute to see the little kids dressed as the nativity scene & singing Christmas songs. One of Ella's songs was "Mele Kalikimaka" which she pronounces "wiki wiki maka." LOL She is VERY excited about Christmas this year, prancing around the house singing "Happy Birthday, Jesus." It's really cute.

James is officially home on leave for the next 2 weeks, and he's very relieved to be done with his combatives training that he's been teaching for the last 3 weeks. We're happy to spend some family time together before he travels to Minnesota in January to brief their National Guard unit. I'm sure the winter weather will be an awakening for him. We aren't missing the cold at all!

Tomorrow James and I celebrate our 5 year wedding anniversary. We can't believe how quickly these 5 years have gone. James joked this morning and said it felt more like a reunion. He's got an evening out planned for us, and apparently I don't need to know any more than that. It was my job to find the babysitter. We never get to go out, so we're looking forward to it!

Here's a link to our December pics on the Kodak Gallery:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=14moigfq.484m8dra&x=0&y=ppi72f&localeid=en_US

We hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!

Our 1st Family Thanksgiving

Crystal flew in on Wednesday to spend Thanksgiving with us. The kids were so excited to meet her at the airport! Ella had to color her a picture, and they were excited to help pick out a lei.

I spent all day cooking yesterday and made my first turkey. I'm so glad that it turned out okay! We had our friend, Sherry, and her daughter, Rachel, over to eat with us. Her husband left for Iraq a few weeks ago. She lives two houses down from us, and they're from NC! We're quickly becoming great friends.

Crystal, James, and the kids spent the day at the beach while I was home cooking. Here are a few photos of them in the sand. I have more pics from Thanksgiving on our Kodak gallery:


http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=14moigfq.8k6t3zim&x=0&y=-3o0igl&localeid=en_US

The Lagoons

Today I took the kids to the Lagoons at KoOlina resort. KoOlina is a vacation resort that's a 10 minute drive from our house. All beaches on the island are available to the public, so everyone likes to go to these lagoons for swimming. I like to take the kids there when I'm by myself because the water is very calm and safe for little ones. They had a blast! I only got a few pictures of them having their snack because I was busy with them in the ocean the rest of the time.
Pic of Lagoon
Benson telling me he's ready to go swimming again.

Snack time

And here's a pic of Benson playing with his dinosaurs (he decided to flush one down the toilet recently) and of Bastet relaxing.

Preschool, Park, & Pics of House

I finally found a preschool for Ella! We've had her on the wait list for the on post preschool, but it's an 8 month wait. Plus that would be a 30 minute drive from our house. This preschool is just a 10 minute walk from our house, and they have an opening in her class. We have an appointment on Monday to meet the teachers and take a tour. Ella is super excited! She's been asking me when she'll get to go to school and meet her friends since we got here. If we like it, she'll go on Tuesday and Thursday mornings.

We took the kids to the playground last night before dinner, and here's a couple of pics:



We're almost finished with our house, so I finally got around to taking some pictures. We plan on painting our bedroom this weekend, so I'll add pics of the bedrooms once we finish that. You can see the pics on our kodak gallery:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=14moigfq.3iaoy6ce&x=0&y=o1adpw&localeid=en_US

A few interesting facts about Hawaii:

1. There are no snakes or seagulls in Hawaii. (but there are tons of little lizards, all in my backyard!)
2. Hawaii is the only state that grows coffee.
3. More than 1/3 of the world's commercial supply of pineapples comes from Hawaii.
4. It takes 2-3 years for a pineapple to fully grow.
5. Hawaii has it's own time zone and doesn't observe Daylight Savings.
6. There are only 12 letters in the Hawaiian alphabet.
7. Honolulu is the largest city in the world (in reference to it's borders).
8. More than 100 world-renowned beaches ring Honolulu.
9. Average daytime temperatures range from 72'F (January) to 82'F (July).
10. The island of Oahu is made of 2 volcanoes; Waianae (close to where we live) and KoOlau.

New Hope

We tried out a new church today, and we really like it. It's called New Hope, and it's similar to the church we used to attend in Charleston. It's a huge church with lots of satellite campuses throughout the island. I think there are 10 locations, mabye more than that. There are three in our neighborhood, and the one we chose is only 10 minutes from our house. The kids really enjoyed the kid's program today, and I think Ella was excited to meet some new friends. They have a preschool program on Sunday nights, so we might start taking Ella to that next weekend. We're excited to have found a church that we like. That was one of my biggest concerns with the move because we loved being at Cascade Hills so much. It's definitely not a replacement for Cascade, but it's good.

Here's the church website if you want to check it out. http://www.newhopeleeward.org/html/Welcome.php
They're really active in the community, so I'm excited to get involved and meet people in the community.

Happy Halloween

So, Halloween is a big "to do" in our neighborhood. I bought 4 huge bags of candy and 4 medium sized bags, and we ran out at 8pm. I had to be the grouchy neighbor that turned the lights off and put a sign on the door that said, "We ran out of candy." Oh well. I thought we had big halloweens on post at Fort Benning, but this was crazy. The kids had a great time, including Benson. He kept his costume on the entire time, and he wanted to eat each piece of candy that he received. He also tried to knock on the doors, say 'trick or treat,' and told people bye bye. Ella was super excited and knew exactly what to do this year. And I think she had more fun handing out the candy and guessing the other kids' costumes. She made sure to tell everyone "happy halloween" as she handed them the candy.

Just before the craziness started, I got a chance to meet our neighbors two houses down from us. They have a three year old little girl, and they're from North Carolina and Tenessee! She was so nice, and I'm really excited to have finally met a friend/neighbor. Her husband deploys from Iraq next week, so we moved in just in time to meet him and help her out when she needs it.

Here's a link to our October pictures: http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=14moigfq.bis09nie&x=0&y=-8jaa41&localeid=en_U

HOME SWEET HOME!

After 46 days of hotel life, we finally have a house! No more hotels for this family for a long, long time. We moved in last Thursday and our household goods arrived on Friday and Monday. It's been a crazy week, but I finally unpacked the last box today! Moving is totally different with two kids in the picture. I've found myself rushing to get things done during nap time and after they go to bed. We still have lots of painting to do. But everything is organized, and that's a huge relief (especially for the OCD, perfectionist types like myself). I'll take some pics soon. It's still a work in progress...

An Early Peek at Halloween

We were at the mall the other day, and Ella picked out her and Benson's halloween costumes. James thinks that I'm a very mean mom for making Benson wear this, but it was just too hilarious not to buy it. Aren't you supposed to do this to them when they're this age?
Here are some more pics in our Kodak album: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=14moigfq.8u8cl2au&x=0&y=wibuzs&localeid=en_US

So we're finally picking up our cats from the quarantine facility tomorrow. I can't believe they've been in there since September 7th! Ella is so excited to see her kitties again. It's all she's been talking about today. I'm sure we'll have more pictures to post soon. We're still hanging out in the hotel, counting down the days until we move into the house (10!).

We found a house!

So, we've made it to Hawaii, and we've been here for a month now. There was a 2 year wait for housing on post, so we've made our way to 3 different hotels while we've been searching for a house to buy. We've found a 4 bedroom/3 bath in a nice neighborhood called Ocean Pointe near the beach. There's lots of parks and playgrounds in the neighborhood for the kids, and it looks like there's also a lot of military families living there. We're supposed to close on the house on October 23rd, and our stuff will be delivered on the 24th. I haven't had a chance to take any pictures of the house yet because Ella was sick the last time that we were there. I'll post some as soon as I can.

Here are some pictures from the Children's Museum on Sunday. James' mustang broke down, so he spent the day working on it while the kids and I hung out here. They had a blast!
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=14moigfq.77vtxbw6&x=0&y=k8bado&localeid=en_US

Moving to Hawaii

So, I know I've been absolutely terrible about updating our blog. There isn't much excuse except that you stay fairly busy with two toddlers and no husband :). You all know that James redeployed in May, and we are extremely happy to have him home with us. The summer has been great with all of the traveling that we were able to do. We've visited all of our family in NC a couple of times, and James and I were able to get away to Charleston for a couple of days. We're now busy getting ready for our big move to Hawaii! The movers come to pack most of our goods on August 27th & 28th, we ship the car soon after, ship the cats soon after that, send the rest of our things on September 3rd, James has his Change of Command ceremony on the 5th, and we fly to Honolulu on the 8th. It is going to be a whirlwind for the next 3 weeks! I'm scrambling to clear out any excess that we've accumulated over the 3 1/2 years that we've been at Benning. And I'm desperately trying to make this move as organized as possible. It's becoming quite the challenge :). We're very excited to see what island life is like, and anxious to see what kind of house we'll get. I promise that I will keep you all updated through our blog with lots of pictures and stories about life overseas. Our internet will be shut off on the 3rd, and I don't know how long it will be until we have a home and internet connection over there, so it may be a while until you hear from us again. Please stay in touch and keep us in your thoughts!
Love,
Brandi