Thinking Thursday

So I went for a run today (YEA) and I forgot my ear buds (epic FAIL) so I spent my time on the treadmill thinking, and thinking and watching a little food network, but mainly thinking of random things.

• Why doesn't the Community Center have blinds on the windows? I don't really like staring into the sun while running.
• Why is it that when the kids are little you want them to so badly say "mommy" and then they learn it and all you want them to do is not say it at all? Only so many times I can handle hearing "mommy,mommy,mommy" in all sorts of tones, and whines.
  
• I wish I could go take a shower/pee/think with the door shut with out a child banging on it having a major kid meltdown
  
• I miss S., le sigh
  
• I LOVE living in Hawaii, but hate that life catches up to you here too. Just like any other place.
• Hickam Communities customer service sucks.
  
• Why is this run taking forever...ack I have only done a MILE???
• What would it be like to have a husband who works 9-5 and doesn't travel?
• Why can't adults go to summer camp? I am uber jealous of Big A being at Tennis Camp all week...it sounds like so much fun!
• I really wish all the homemade ice cream I have been making was fat free, but alas using whipping cream and whole milk makes it taste better ;)
• what will I do when the kids are both in school? Get a job, sit on my ass, volunteer?
• I don't want little A to go to school...I want her to stay home with me. Wait did I really just think that? The run must be making me crazy :)
• how come the picture of the Fat Lady on my fridge isn't keeping me out of it at night..or during the day?
  
• I am so happy I can watch at least the first 4 Harry Potter's with the kids. Fun for the whole family!
• I really need to take some pictures of the house and post them on the blog.
  
• why does S always want to go on a vacation to the beach...we live at the beach!
  
• Can I make this vacation to Europe next spring actually happen? Thoughts of eating pizza in Italy, Beer in Germany lots of alone time with my hot husband....I will leave it at that.
  
• Yea Miley gets here in a week!!! Got to buy pet supplies.
• is this run over yet? Only half a mile to go!
• UGH why do I always feel so nasty after a run, and all the bloggy running people say they feel so good...I bet they are full of it.
• AHHHH DONE!
  
• Did I enough to have pizza for lunch? hmmm maybe I will do a few weights just in case.

That is most of the randomness that ran through my brain during a 40 minute run. I think tomorrow I will remember my ear buds so I don't have to go through that again! HAHA

A much NEEDED UPDATE!

So I know I know..I am a horrible blogger, terrible, I should be punished! So here is a massive update blog of the things I can remember.

The month of June was not spent on the "rock" we caught a Space A flight home to Travis (after 4 days of trying). We flew out on a KC10 which if you Space A and have a choice, I highly recommend! We had tray tables, the seat reclined and you had more leg room then on a commercial flight..oh and it was FREE!! i love free! I of course have no pictures of this...i know slap me now.
We spent a day in Lodi, CA which is about 45 minutes from Travis. My mom's uncle passed the day she picked us up, so we needed to go over and get a few things settled. Then I drove us the 7 hours back to Orange County. Usually I am a non-driver. But when the opportunity to drive 85 on the freeway presents itself you gotta take it! Plus I was itchin' to put the pedal to the metal! Here on the rock we can only go 60 on H-1 and it is sooooo slow!

We spent 10 days at home just hanging out, shopping, eating, eating some more oh and there was more eating. Seems to be all I do when I go home! Steve joined us on day 11 after returning from his first official mission!!! It took him 6 months to get on a mission, craziness! He flew commercial because he got an awesome roundtrip ticket the night before. I picked him up at the airport and from that point on it was non stop on the go! We Disney'ed with his Mom 2 days in a row (I should add the kids had already been to Disney 1 day already) My parents joined us for one of the days too. They actually had to leave and go to my nieces 14th B-Day dinner and Audrey left Disney to go with them...can you say MaeMae's girl! SHE LEFT DISNEYLAND TO EAT AT CALIFORNIA PIZZA KITCHEN!!!

Steve and I traveled for a quick getaway to Vandenberg AFB in Santa Barbara to visit with out fabulous friends the Bowker's. Love them! They let us stay at their house for a night and what ended up being a whole day because someone couldn't handle his margaritas the night before!!! AHAHHAHAHA! Once he was able to motivate his body we left and drove down to Santa Barbara and checked into a uber nice hotel. Thank you Hilton Points! Free hotel room and breakfast, yes please! We had dinner at a cute little Thai restaurant called Zen Yai, very good I highly recommend it. We walked around a bit and then headed back to the hotel. The next morning after we almost missed breakfast because we didn't have our usual alarm clocks with us, we went back and walked around Mission Santa Barbara, did some shopping and then headed back out on the road to get home to the kids. They could care less that we were gone.

Pretty quick after that Steve left to head back to work. Only to find out that he would be headed back out on another mission! Random! He spent all of 3 days of the month of June home. The kids and I putzed around, they spent two fun nights at Gramma Kelly's house and go to go to Disney 2 more times (can we say spoiled!) My mom and I did lots of shopping and updated my sad wardrobe. Got some great deals! I love a good deal! Ate more food and just lounged around. We headed back up to Travis to start the game to get home...

Aiden was happy to be with Miley (she will be here soon!)

My kids confiscated my ipad!

Crazy cousins on the beach in Balboa.

While in Travis we shopped some more, ate (are you sensing a theme) at restaurants that I had missed since we left there 6 years ago, and did some more stuff in Lodi. One of the highlights of Travis is the JELLY BELLY FACTORY TOUR!! The kids loved it. You get free jelly bellies and then you can load up in the gift shop, which we did of course :) So remember how I said Steve was on another trip...that trip just so happened to go through Travis on its way back to Hickam :) Totally not planned but oh so good! Steve landed Friday afternoon and we got to do one of the best things EVER!!! We had dinner with some of our favorite people from Charleston. Michelle, Brandon and Conner Tellez! WHOOO HOOO! Michelle made a fabulous meal for us and we sat around and talked. It was great. I have missed MT so much and I know S had a great time talking with B. It doesn't matter how much time has passed, good friends will always be good friends! We headed back to lodging where the kids stayed in our room with my mom and I spent the night with Steve. I didn't want to wake the kids up coming in late ;)

I did a total walk of shame the next morning when Steve kicked me out so he could get ready for the flight. I headed back up to my room gathered the children and our carry-on (steve took the other bags.) It wasn't looking good for us to get out so we broke down and bought one way tickets out for Sunday just in case. I wasn't going to be checking 4 bags and PAYING for 4 bags! highway robbery! So I just packed the kids and I a few days of clothes in a carry-on and headed to the PAX terminal. I will save you the stressful 2 hours I spent there and the long boring story, but we made it on with Steve by the skin of our teeth. PHEW! Only to have an inflight emergency and have to turn around and go back to Travis :( UGH really and of course I had already called Delta and cancelled the tickets (got a full refund!!) Luckly it was an easy fix and we just had to sit on a bus for 30 minutes. We got back on and off we went! Steve came down and talked to us for a bit, but no special treatment...pssh! We were very happy to make it back to the rock! PHEW I was glad that trip was over! I had a great time, but it is always nice to come back to your home! kids laying on Steve's bedroll and the quilt I made while home, watching a movie on the IPAD, spoiled much?

Once back things didn't slow down. We spent Sunday lounging around the house and cleaning, putting a month's worth of stuff back in place, lots of laundry and organizing. Monday was the 4th of July and we were all still pretty bushed from the traveling so we just played it low key and went to see Transformers 3. Highly recommend. My only complaint was the random use of curse words throughout the movie. They weren't needed and added nothing to the dialogue. Audrey slept through almost all of it, but Aiden sat on pins and needles the whole time! Steve took the kids to watch the fireworks and I stepped outside for a few minutes to see what I could from the house. Tuesday started back the work week for Steve and with this exercise that he is doing in Australia right now, we hardly saw him. He worked long hours and came home after the kids were in bed, but not on Friday night...oh no because Friday night started the intramural Softball Tournament!

Oh how my husband likes to play any organized sport! Friday night was the beginning. It was a double elimination touney, but no one likes to lose and Steve was determined that they would go all the way. He and Blaine Baker are hardcore...hahahahha....well as hardcore as a bunch of "old" guys can be :) Steve hit a walk off 2 run homer Friday night to win the game, and start the Tigers off on the right foot. Saturday we had to change some plans around which I wasn't all that thrilled with, but it ended up alright. I had a sitter already lined up so she watched the kids and I went to the game with JBAKE and we cheered (very loudly and to the other teams displeasure) and the boys won the first game. So they played another game, which they lost, this is also when JBake started taking pictures and then we stopped...it was bad luck! But oh that didn't mean we were done with the games oh no.....they played again! Which they won! Then I had to run back pick up the kids and bring them back to the field because they were playing again! By the end of the day we were sunburned, sore from the stress and hoarse from all the cheering. We were pretty impressive at heckling and rooting for our team! Oh but wait we aren't done yet...they had to play on Sunday too! EEEE GADS more softball! Needless to say the boys were very sore when they rolled themselves out of bed on Sunday morning. They won the first game!!! But had no break inbetween and got steamrolled by the Navy team. So they were out! BOOO! They did get 3rd place in the league which we were pretty impressed with. They did great! We stayed and watched the championship game and rooted on the Air Force Security Forces team which was called "Pound Town". They had very inappropriate names on the back of their jerseys! They beat Navy which was great! Air Force took home first place! WHOOO. Can we go home now? Needless to say Steve was useless the rest of the day. He passed out on the couch for the majority of the rest of the day.

Aiden started Summer Camp the next day and had a blast. A whole week of doing fun ocean related things! He went boogie boarding, to the pool, to the waterpark and then on Friday to the tide pools where he held a little octopus. Craziness! Audrey and I shopped and had lunch with Daddy the first two days and then S left on the BIG trip on Wednesday morning. He was nervous but so far so good everything has gone according to plan. He is now lead upgrade complete!

Aiden starts a tennis summer camp tomorrow which he is very excited about. Then one more week of summer camp and wait for it....SCHOOL STARTS!!!! August 1st is my favorite day of the summer ;) Audrey will start Jr Kindergarten and Aiden will start 1st grade. So hard to believe both of the kids will be in school. I am at a loss with what to do with myself all day! I am sure I will figure it out :) Steve has mentioned the "job" word, but I don't think that will happen just yet!

Well there you go. I full update on what the Nolan's have been up to. There has been some beach days scattered in there too. Lunches with friends and such. It was nice to go home to California but it was nice to come back to Hawaii. Different types of nice but you know what I mean. I will try harder to post. I just feel like everything is so mundane. Hope everyone is having a great summer! and didn't fall asleep reading this post!

in case you didn't fall asleep...here's a picture of the sunset the other night :)

XOXO
J

535th Wahine Spouse Flight April 2, 2011

Yesterday was one of the coolest days I have had since living in Hawaii. It was the spouse flight for the squadron! Now I did this at Charleston and it was cool, but this my friends was AH-MAZING!


The morning started out early for a Saturday. After showering and getting ready, I had to make sure I had all the correct patches, for we were wearing the guys flight suits. After we situated the kids with S. ( watching a friends kids too...so for the day he had 4 kids!) We were off for our 8:30 show at the squadron. I had just enough time to drink half a cup of coffee and eat no breakfast before JBAKE and E picked M and I up to head over.


We had a brief, briefing on what the C-17 does here in Hawaii. Just a glimpse of how much work our husbands really put in at the "office". Then there was a drawing to see which 2 people would be up in the cockpit for take-off and 2 more for landing. I unfortunately did not get to do either...darn you number 13! Then it was off to the bus for the quick ride to the plane. The jet is so big. Sometimes I forget how much crap can go in the back of it. I have seen them up close many a time and still it takes your breath away when you start walking up into it. Holy HUGE!
There was only 20 ladies and plenty of seats so we had lots of room to move around and sit where ever we wanted.

It is a little unusual taking off in a jet like this. It isn't like a regular airline where you can see out the window. There are windows...at the jump doors and above 2 of the seats. So it can make you a little disoriented. No one got sick or even felt ill. We were all a little dizzy or rather tipsy! Once in the air they let us get up and basically do what ever we wanted. We went to the windows and started taking pictures, and goofing off doing funny pictures.



The highlights of the flight, other than spending it with the lovely ladies, were:
*North Shore of Oahu. We could see Haliewa, Turtle Bay.
*East shore of Oahu. Kaneohe, and Kaliua
*North Shore of Molokai. Good gracious there were some amazing cliffs. If only we could have been closer and with no doors! It looked a lot like Jurassic Park. (even though that is on Kauai)
*MAUI!! JBake and I were up on the cockpit for the last half of Maui and the beginning of the Big Island.
*Big Island. Volcano, lava fields, coffee plantations, amazing coast line. I think the first island I want to hop to is the Big Island. I was in awe of its beauty. The volcano, the beaches. Oh MY!






North Shore of Oahu

Kaneohe and Kailua

Cliffs of Molokai

View of the Big Island and Volcano












By this time most of us were very hungry and just ready to get back to Oahu. We had about a 35 minute flight back and most of just sat back and talked. We landed with a big bump...but all survived. They opened the back of the jet once we were on the ground. We cheered until we all looked and realized how sick it was making us. Goodness I was dizzy. I couldn't look. Once we stopped and we all cautiously looked out we were parked right in front of another 17! So cool!

We headed back the squadron fully anticipating on leaving, when we were told they had a whole spread of food for us! Sandwiches, veggies, sodas, hot wings and cake! It was great..since I hadn't eaten breakfast and my stomach was eating my spine. It was a great end to a fabulous morning.
I spent some time with old friends and even had some laughs with new friends!

Finally...

WE GOT A HOUSE!!! It is nothing spectacular but for now it is ours. I made this decision after loads of hmmm and hawing. Was this what we wanted? Would we be happy? Would there be enough room, so that we aren't climbing all over each other and everyone can have their own space? Where am I going to put all the crap (and it is crap) that I wasn't able to get rid of before we left Charleston? Well friends, I am not sure I have the right answer to any of the questions. I had to make a choice. I had to decide. So I did. I was done playing the "maybe we can..." game. I am going to have to be very creative as to where we store things. I see a big storage unit in our future. No house was going to be perfect. All of them had flaws. I actually made a PRO/CON list between new or historic. Here is what my list looked like.

Historic

PRO CON 1. Neighborhood 1400 SQFT 2. Huge already fenced yard no garage 3. I can paint Window A/C's 4. house has character no storage 5. close to school away from most friends 6. no traffic construction across the street 7. Feel like you live in Hawaii far from Steve's work 8. privacy small kitchen 9. only 1 neighbor 10. sewing room 11. Can move in ASAP (like Friday!)

NEW PRO CON NEW feel like you live in Arizona garage no yard 1880 SQFT no privacy (on top of neighbors) plenty of storage! 4 plex (we would be in middle unit) playgrounds can't paint huge kitchen all look the same close to work noisy lots of friends farther from school kids can ride bikes to friends houses can't move in until middle of April central A/C

In the end what it came down to was that, we need a yard and I can't live in the middle of 4 houses. I made a choice between a garage and a yard basically. Ok the kitchen was a struggle. It was hard to give up a new big kitchen. But hey I will make it work. I am excited to start on this journey here. I finally feel like we LIVE here and I can get off this weird vacation where my kids go to school and husband to work and I have no where to call my own! So like I said was it the right decision? I don't know. What I do know is that it is made and I can now start shopping and painting and decorate! I will post pictures as soon as I get into the house again. If anyone has ideas on how to make storage in such a small place work let me know! I will leave you with the one picture I have. I took it while sitting in the car waiting to see it for the first time. Don't judge a book by its cover! Oh and another maybe CON for the historic...I asked if it was haunted. Yes I seriously asked. The leasing manager said she hadn't ever heard anything about this house...but some of the ones across the street being renovated she had heard that the maintenance guys don't like working on them!


Our house!!!!!!

USS Abraham Lincoln...I think

So this post is oh I don't know about a week late. Last Monday our friend called and said want to go see that big ship leave this morning? Why the heck not! The "big ship" was the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln.

It was returning from a 6 month deployment and had pulled into Pearl about 4 days before. The coolest part other than how GINORMOUS this thing was, is the families could fly here to Hawaii and get on board and cruise home with their sailors and pilots! HOW COOL WOULD THAT BE??!!! (this also explains why we saw so many kids and civilians standing and waving to us) You can read the article from the Star Adviser here. You can also read, if you are really really interested about its arrival to Pearl Harbor here.

So here are a few pictures that we took while standing out by the O club. Oh and while sitting at the beach the other day we watched another submarine come back into port. It just cruises by like no one's business. Apparently there is a Japanese Sub here right now. They had no idea what had happened, or at least to what extreme things had happened until they docked. They don't get the news or Facebook while out to sea. I think that should be changed.

Anywhooo enjoy the pictures!
Watching the "big ship"

Jet inside the ship

Our first view

twidling my thumbs

So I have this really bad pain in my butt. No its not the kids, it is a legitimate pain from my run yesterday. I stretched and stretched, drank loads of water but still it hurts to walk. Hmm maybe no 7 miles for me tomorrow.

So March begins the 3rd month of being in Hawaii and living in a hotel. Rock on...NOT. Again it hasn't been terrible, kinda enjoyable to have someone clean your bathroom, give you clean towels and make your bed. But it does get old not having your own things. Yes things I have mentioned before.

So today I went to the housing office to get an update. I didn't get good news, but I got news that made me optimistic. Hopefully Friday we will know one way or the other. What it really means is if we get this house SWEET! If not we wait till the end of April. Well I don't want to wait till the end of April. I don't want to be in a one bedroom hotel room with two kids and a husband. So hopefully we get this house. The downside to the situation is that this house is a duplex and not renovated. That means that its OLD and has window a/c units. I guess it could be worse. The best part is that it has a yard and is fenced. No work on our part! With the renovated houses you cannot install a fence and um hello..I have a 70 pound dog to contain not to mention 2 rambunctious kiddos. So I think if they offer we will snap it up. Now I just have to wait and see if they offer it to us. Fingers, toes, legs, arms and eyes crossed!

Hopefully I will have an update Friday...with good news!

XO

****well still twiddling my thumbs. The lady never called me today so I have no idea if we have a house or not. I am taking it as or not. It is really annoying. When you say you are going to call just call! It's called being professional for gosh sake! So now I get to wonder all weekend and you better believe I will be at their office first thing Monday morning.****

a perfect Sunday

Saturday Night S and I tossed around the idea of going to breakfast Sunday morning. We aren't BIG breakfast people but I had a craving for pancakes, french toast or waffles...I wasn't being picky! Just something that I didn't have to make to be honest. We looked up a few places and believe me there are some GOOD places for breakfast on the island like:

*Boots and Kimos in Kailua, where the pancakes with macadamia nut syrup are to die for! (haven't tried them yet, but have been told by countless people)
http://www.yelp.com/biz/boots-and-kimos-homestyle-kitchen-kailua

*Cinnamons in Kailua, Red Velvet Pancakes anyone?
http://www.cinnamonsrestaurant.com/

*Mac 24/7 for pancakes the size of manhole covers. This place was featured on Man V Food...one of my favorite shows!
http://www.mac247waikiki.com/

All of these places sounded perfect..other than we would have to drive to get to them. I said to S wouldn't it be fun to go with some friends, because well everything is better with friends! So I texted JBake and after some back and forth we settled on.......Brunch at the O CLUB! Hahaa! Yes I know that wasn't on our list but hey it is right down the road and convenient and well good!

We get there and have an 10-15 minute wait, guess that was "island time" estimation. We waited an hour! We sit down and well I think they were just overwhelmed with people coming for VDay or they were understaffed because service was horrible. We finally tracked down a waiter, got our coffee, orange juice and Champagne and dug into the food. It was actually really good. The kids enjoyed it and were very well behaved. I think we put them in a sugar coma with the whip cream/syrup combo on the waffles. We spent a total of about 90 minutes at Brunch which was actually more like lunch because we didn't sit down till noon. We closed the place down.

After we stuffed ourselves silly we went outside to take a few pictures. We still had no picture of the 4 of us together in Hawaii! Blasphemy! JBake helped us out and snapped a few pictures for us just to prove that we are actually here. We headed back inside to go out to the car and only the girls made it outside. Somewhere walking through the club the boys got sidetracked. We found them about 30 minutes later in the bar looking at old photos and drinking a bottle of champagne they found out of coffee cups. Hey we paid for it, it had to be left over from Brunch! We said our good byes and headed back to the room. It was a great outing with friends, but wait what to do with the rest of the day?

easy peasy lemon squeezy...BEACH!! We got back to the room and started to change and pack up the necessities of going to the beach, when my phone rings and it is our lovely friends wondering if we wanted to go to the beach! Why yes of course since that is where we are headed anyhow! We met down at the base beach and sat back, watched the kids play, drank lava flows and Bloody Mary's and chatted the afternoon away. Then the kids realized it was dinner time and wanted to eat. I did have dinner bubbling away on the crock pot in the room, but it was just too easy to say sure lets go eat at the beach shack place right there. So we walked over and eat a decent meal. Took the kiddies home, put them to bed and we followed quickly behind them.

It was a PERFECT day with family and great friends. It made up for the horrible day on Friday which I have now put behind me. I am blessed to be here. I will wait until the time is right to get the house that is meant to be ours. My kids are healthy and happy, I am in love with the perfect man, and I am rocking a decent tan :) Life is good. This is just a little hiccup in the grand scheme of things.
DISCLAIMER: this in no way means that I won't complain about the house issue in the future...just not today :)