Arrived Safely

Thursday morning Lauren and I left for Albuquerque. We drove until Sweetwater until we stopped for gas and pizza, then drove to Lubbock where we picked up Skipper at the airport. He took over and drove the rest of the way. We got in just before midnight. It was an uneventful trip overall.

Lauren has been enjoying her cousin Mia, and she's had a lot of fun with her uncle Jon. Lissa made tamales yesterday for us to enjoy on Christmas day, and we're going to have a traditional Thanksgiving dinner on Christmas Eve. I'm looking forward to Christmas morning here. I think Lauren will really have fun opening presents. She got a new pair of Christmas pajamas today to wear on Christmas Eve.

All our Christmas shopping is done, but we did go to the mall today. It was insanely busy and I'm glad we weren't pressed to get things and we could leave when we wanted to.

Lauren decided that her grandma's dog Charlie should be named Sue. That's all she'll call him. She calls all the other dogs by the right name.

Ben is doing well, we're still waiting on his internet to get up and running, hopefully it will be any day now.

Just two days until Christmas!!

Another trip to the Pediatrician

Lauren's nose started running yesterday. She has also been sneezing, but I'm not sure when that started. The first few days she was just copying me, and I didn't really notice when the change happened that it became a real sneeze instead of a mimic of mine. Last night her nose was running so much that it was interrupting both of our rest. I tried a dose of Benadryl, but it didn't do anything for her. So this morning I called in to her pediatrician's office, and we'll be going in at 1:40. I'm worried this stuff is going to cause another ear infection since she just got over the last one not long ago. Hopefully she'll prescribe a decongestant so we can get all the gooey stuff dried up and nothing is sitting in her ear.

Ben expects his internet to be up and running on Thursday, so keep your fingers crossed. And he's been getting a lot of packages this past week, so thank you to everyone who sent something. We're hoping the DSN line gets set up in the hangar soon so he'll be able to call home more often and more clearly.

As for me, I'm feeling pretty good, just gearing up for the long drive on Thursday. I have some cleaning and some packing to do, and aside from a little thing here and there we should just be able to relax at home after the appointment today.

UPDATE: Lauren doesn't have an ear infection, but the pediatrician said she could still develop one. She could tell how congested Lauren was, so she prescribed a decongestant that she can take twice a day to help her breathe better. Apparently there's a virus that's been going around and most likely that's what Lauren has that's making her nose run so much. She said to keep an eye on how she's acting and take her right back in if it she's acting like her ear is hurting. Sometimes it can take a couple of days before the infection gets to the ears. But for now, they're clear and they look great. And, as a bonus, the entire visit, from getting out of the car to getting back in, was under 12 minutes. :)


Only one week until Christmas!!

Weird weather, Ben's Bike, Goodbye Ann

We have been having really weird weather. It was in the 80s over the weekend, then down in the 40s on Sunday, warm in the upper 60's mid 70's yesterday, and cold (not even 40) and drizzly today.



I got an email from Ben with some pictures. His room is better looking than I would have imagined. Looks small, but enough room for a bed, a small couch, a dresser, a wall unit and a little fridge. He even bought a bike to ride around over there. Doesn't he look scary and intimidating on that bike? ;)

He sounds like he's doing pretty well, and packages are getting there fast. The two that I sent took about a week, and I know he's received a box from his mom already, too that only took about a week to get there. We're still waiting for the internet to get up and running in his room, it should be any day now.


Lauren and I will be watching our friend's three girls on Thursday evening for a few hours, and we're having company over on Friday. We have just about a week left until we go to New Mexico. I ordered another hand held GPS yesterday so I can feel a little more confident about the drive. I don't want to get lost on the 11 hour trek.



And I can't let this post go by without honoring a very special woman who has passed today. Ann Eldridge outlived the doctor's expectations by nearly a year before the cancer was too much. She was a lovely woman and a force that will be missed. From one pilot's wife to another, I'll miss you, Ann.

More things on my Christmas List

Picture Panel screen/room divider
Two of these curtains - 84" long
One or two of these curtains, also 84" long
A table for my entryway like this one
an inexpensive but good scanner

a 12" Moxy UglyDoll (any of the UglyDolls will do)

Mandy Moore's "Wild Hope"
Kelly Clarkson's "Breakaway"

Plain White T's "Every Second Counts" (re-released with extra tracks in 2007)

Feist "The Reminder"

Faith Hill's "The Hits"

Dixie Chicks "Taking the Long Way"

Gift certificates to Kohl's, Target, Hobby Lobby, Amazon.com, or WalMart




This picture is of Lauren from when we went to the Squadron Christmas party the first weekend of December.

This weekend, we went to visit Charity in San Antonio. We had a good trip. Unfortunately, Lauren also took a spill and hit her lip on the edge of a door. It cut her bottom lip just to her left of the middle and bled. She was crying, but shortly after was playing again like nothing had happened. I think it scared her more than anything. She has a little bump now and something like a scab over it. Hopefully it will heal nicely. She's also started saying "Stop it" whenever she doesn't like something that is or isn't happening. If I don't want to go outside with her she tells me "Topit!", and if we're in the car too long, "Topit!". It's cute, but also a little annoying. :)

I've gotten to talk to Ben either on the phone or by email nearly every day. He's doing well. He was flying nights for a while, he'll go back to days for a week and then back to nights again. They are supposed to get the internet in their rooms up and running soon.

Christmas Ideas for Lauren

It's been hard for me to come up with a list for Lauren for Christmas. I looked around online and came up with a few things:

Dora the Explorer Build N Play
Little People Busy Day Home
Fisher Price Noah's Ark
The Backyardigans Pirate Uniqua
These Embossed Wood Alphabet blocks


She wears size 4 shoes and she's mostly into 18-24 month size clothes now. Her favorites are Dora the Explorer, Go Diego Go, The Backyardigans and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. She loves music and dancing. She likes purses and shoes and clip on earrings and hats. She likes Care Bears and she has a favorite American Girl baby doll.

My Christmas Wish List

I've been kind of making a list of some things I'd like for Christmas:

Barenaked Ladies: Disc One – All Their Greatest Hits
Shopaholic and Baby by Sophie Kinsella (in paperback) along with Undomestic Goddess also by Kinsella
Energizer e2 AA Lithium Batteries
The Simpsons on DVD – seasons 6 and up
Nintendo DS Lite In pink, naturally with Brain Age and Brain Age 2
A fast laptop with wireless internet and Windows XP
Clinique's All About Eyes

And I'm trying to think of things to get for Lauren still.

Here's a small portion of Ben's list. Let me know if you buy anything on it so I can remove it:

-Glade apple cinnamon scented candles
-mouse pad
-pumpkin seeds
-funny nose and glasses

As soon as I get a good list for Lauren I'll post it.

Mailing to Ben

You can start mailing packages to Ben! They are there and the address that I sent to you (with the line including 6061) is correct. He doesn't have a big list, but he did ask for Dunkin' Donuts coffee and glade apple cinnamon candles. :)

I also wanted to share this funny video:



If you have a few minutes, fill out this form to enter Ben to get a whole case of Dunkin' Donuts coffee for free.

Thanksgiving!

I wanted to share the recipes I used for this year's feast. We decided to make homemade cranberry sauce, especially since the recipe was so easy, and I made Paula Deen's apple pie again. I was going to make the green bean casserole, too, but another person brought theirs, and arrived right before I was going to start mine, so I didn't make more. Good thing, we had leftovers of EVERYTHING. It was all delicious.

Cranberry Sauce

INGREDIENTS
· 1 cup white sugar
· 1 cup orange juice
· 1 (12 ounce) package fresh cranberries
DIRECTIONS
1. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, dissolve the sugar in the orange juice. Stir in the cranberries, and cook until they start to pop (about 10 minutes). Remove from heat, and transfer to a bowl. Cranberry sauce will thicken as it cools.

I know, I told you, super easy, right?! And the cranberries really do "pop". This had such a delicious smell to it, and it tasted a lot like the orange juice. I could have even done less orange juice with a little apple or something, like 1/2 cup of each. Maybe next year I'll experiment a little.


Paula Deen Apple Pie
3/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Dash salt
3 1/2 cups peeled, chopped cooking apples
1 (16-ounce) jar applesauce
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons butter, chopped into small pieces
2 premade pie crusts

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
Line a 9-inch pie pan with one crust. Combine the sugar, flour, cinnamon, and salt in a bowl. Stir in the apples, applesauce, and lemon juice. Spoon the apple mixture into pie pan and dot with butter. Cut remaining crust into strips; arrange in a lattice design over top of pie.
Bake for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 degrees F and continue to bake for about 45 minutes, or until crust is golden brown.

We topped the apple pie with whipped cream since we had it out already for the pumpkin pie. mmmmm!

Kuwait, Ear Infection, T-shirts

Ben is now in Kuwait. It will be a little while before he gets to Iraq, and that's just fine with me. He could stay the entire deployment in Kuwait and I'd be thrilled. We've gotten to talk on yahoo messenger a few times and he's gotten to see Lauren on the webcam. Hopefully we'll get a better connection in his room in Iraq so she can see him, too.

Thanksgiving is tomorrow! Lauren and I will be going to Katrina's house. It will be Katrina and her three daughters, Arlie and her son and daughter, Kim and her son and daughter, Amy and her son and niece, and Katrina's brother with his girlfriend. Packed house! I'll be making an apple pie, cranberry sauce, and the green bean casserole. I'm looking forward to hanging out with everyone and eating lots of good food.

Lauren has an ear infection. She started acting sick last Thursday and I took her to see the pediatrician on Monday. She's on antibiotics now and already doing a lot better. She'll have to stay on the medicine until Saturday morning.

We got our T-shirts back yesterday! Thanks to everyone who bought one! I'll get them all packaged up and I'll try to get them out on Saturday or early next week. Our final total raised was over $700! We should be able to plan some great events with that money.

This year for Christmas, Lauren and I will be driving to Albuquerque. I only plan to stay about a week and a half, and hopefully the weather will cooperate for smooth driving. I'm going to save flying to California until after the holidays when maybe I'll feel less stressed out about it and everyone has a little more time to hang out.

Oh, and for everyone that I send Ben's mailing address to: please hold on and let me get you the more current info. We've been notified of a change, and I'll send it out in an email as soon as we have the right (or at least newest) information.

Ben's Birthday, Visit, Halloween

We had a great time with Sarah and Evan this weekend. They got in about 8 pm on Ben's birthday and we just had some pizza and relaxed for the evening. We didn't wear ourselves out, we just spent time hanging out together over the weekend, and it was so nice to have them here. Saturday Ben made an awesome brisket while Sarah and I made twice baked potatoes and cupcakes. We served up Ben a cupcake with all of his candles. After he blew them out, we had to relight one for Lauren to blow out, too. We had a nice lunch on Sunday before we had to take them back to the airport.

This year Lauren was a ladybug for Halloween. We planned to just show her off to a couple friends and then pass out candy, but Ben took her out and she had a great time seeing all the other kids dressed up. She came back with a little bit of candy, but soon forgot all about it.

Lissa and Skipper are getting here on Friday.

And Happy Birthday to Jayna who celebrated her 23rd birthday yesterday.

Ben's Birthday

Happy Happy Birthday from Alicia and Lauren!

Butterfly, Free Movies, Dancing Girl

This picture is from the Waco Zoo. We went last month when Jayna and Kyle came to visit us.

I have four one month free trial codes for Netflix if anyone would like them. They have to be activated by October 31st, so email me and let me know if you'd like one.

This week finally cooled down a bit. We've been playing out in the front yard. Lauren really enjoys walking up and down the sidewalk and the driveway and collecting acorns in her pocket. In the evening I'll find them all over the house in random places, like shoes or just in a pile on the windowsill. Maybe she's trying to catch squirrels. She's been scooting around in her little car she got from her Grandma Lissa. She can't quite reach the pedals, but she can reach the ground, so she scoots around that way. Eventually she'll get the hang of steering.

Last night we went to Temple to BJ's Brewhouse and Restaurant to help a friend celebrate his promotion. Lauren was quite the dancing girl as dinner was winding down. She shook her groove thang much to the delight of the two tables nearby and the waitress. She can do the twist and pop lock and drop it.

I hope to have some time next week to edit our video from the Balloon Fiesta. Hopefully I'll be able to add some video of that soon. I added some other videos to the bottom of the front page of this blog, and a calendar of events on the left sidebar. You don't have to sign up to be able to leave comments on the blog.

Portraits, Pumpkins, Upcoming Visitors and T-Shirts!

Yesterday we had family portraits done at Sears. We're supposed to get them back on the 31st. I'll send out the ones I ordered when I get them.


Yesterday afternoon we went to a pumpkin patch and took some pictures. We met up with our friends, Katrina and Alton, and their three girls, Paige, Grace and Quinn. Lauren and Quinn had a great time running around the pumpkin patch together. They rode in a wagon and pushed around a toy lawnmower that was randomly there for the kids to play with. We went to dinner afterwards.





We're looking forward to Sarah and Evan coming to visit this weekend. They get here on Friday which is Ben's birthday and leave on Sunday, so it will be a short visit, but I"m sure it will be fun.


Also, I'm sure I've sent out tons of emails about the T-shirts we've been selling, and I'm sure you're all sick of hearing about them by now. I want to send a big THANK YOU to everyone who purchased one. I've managed to sell about 25 shirts, and it sounds like the other wives are selling a lot, too. I'm really proud of this project since I designed the artwork for the shirts. Plus, it's all going to some really fantastic families of some really fantastic soldiers. :)


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