Nick's visit

Well I'm proud of myself, I FINALLY am putting up pictures from Nick's visit! I'm just glad to have them up before the month is over. I figured it would be easiest to put them in collages based on what we were doing. I also figured it would make this post much easier to load :)

Enjoy!

Speed Fest

No I have not converted to a car lover, although it's starting to seem like it. Somethings can just be fun to watch (Top Gear LOVE LOVE!) and others are just a nice way to get out of the house and have a nice time. Saturday we spent the day out at the Coronado Speed Fest 2010. It's held on base at North Island (apparently it's the only car race that is held on an active duty air strip!) for two days during fleet week. I didn't know about it last year, I guess Frank did but didn't mention it. I wasn't sure what to expect I just wanted to take advantage of this crazy hot heat wave we have going on! Even if you're not a car lover, I think you'd enjoy this.. it's just fun :).

If you ever get the chance to see an LCAC on the water.. just do, it's pretty fun to watch at sunset. Not so much fun to watch on land though. I have a picture I took in Virginia of one of these out on a training run, the sun was setting behind it and there was water spraying up all around it. It was amazingly beautiful!

If you heard about those pilots who got grounded for pulling a stupid stunt in/over lake Tahoe, this helicopter is from the same command. I'd be a bit embarrassed to say I know the pilots.. or maybe that's just me.

Frank's command is walking distance away yet they had no helicopter out for display, instead they had a small booth.. it was kind of sad looking between everything else ha.

So this is a car both Frank and I agreed on. We didn't like it! The sticker she had on it didn't show her to be a very nice person for one. However, that wasn't our problem with the car. You can't see it every well but the bow tie on the bunny is bedazzled! Yes freakin bedazzled. Who knows maybe others would do that to there car?? You can count me out though.

I liked this one because it was fancy looking ; )

Pretty sure I would NOT be able to get out of this car! You can see that the bottom of the door windows are around Frank's knees. He's about 5'11. That equals too low for moi!

Test driving the Camaro (sorry it's so dark I'm in a hurry to finish, I want to go take a bubble bath with some of my new CHEAP bubble bath stuff from the Bath & Body Works outlet store!!). He was going to drive the Corvette as well but the wait was insanely long since they only had two too drive. Chevy had to have a rep in the car with the driver since there course wasn't gated off, somebody could have easily driven off. The guy told Frank that Mercedes had no limits or rules on the cars they had to drive... so of course we had to make our way over to them!

Driving the SL63 AMG. They also had E63 AMG and C63 AMG (yes I had to ask Frank what they were.. there is no way I'd remember!). Since Mercedes course was gated in you didn't have to have a representative in the car with you, you could also go as fast as you wanted.. just as long didn't wreck of course. We only got around to driving thee SL63 since we were getting hungry and I made the smart move of making sure Frank had sunscreen on, then forgetting about myself. Now I'm nursing a pretty bad sunburn. No fun! Thankfully mine always turn to a tan. 

This guy was pretty awesome! He was out in front of the race track entertaining us all.

Well now that we've done one Speed Fest I can't wait for next year!

Back track...

I've been wanting to upload some of these pictures since August! After 6 or so hours of transferring pictures I finally have all my photos on the new computer. Which means I can finally share them with you all :)

These were taken out at Fiesta Island in August while enjoying a beautiful day on the water with Mikey and her pups.

Check back later, more pictures to come...

My Pesto is the Besto

I have finally found a pesto that both Frank and I like! Actually this is the first pesto I've made that was good period. Yay for that. Of course it was out of my first Costco cookbook, not sure how after 2 plus years I've never made this before. It would have gone GREAT with some crusty bread on the side, but I figured we'd go the healthy route and skip a lot of bread. Instead we buttered up a few pieces of sliced bread ;).

I hope this picture looks good on everyones screens since I didn't feel like doing any editing. I am loving the better quality in cameras.. it's nice :)

You can go HERE to check out the recipe. I left out the cherry tomatoes since I only wanted a few but the commissary only had them in containers, and there is no way I was eating that many. The olives go AMAZING with the pesto! I wasn't so sure it would at first, but boy was I wrong. I could have also used more basil.. I'll just have to remember for next time.

So any other amazing pesto recipes out there to share??!

Ramblings

Frank has been glued to the new computer, which leaves me to use the dieing laptop. Not fun when I'm typing more then him and I have no D key. It's not fun.

We still need to transfer everything from the laptop to the desktop.. not sure how to do that. I'm leaving it all up to Frank. Once all my pictures are on the desktop I'll start posting them.

Had our first video chat with my parents. It was entertaining to say the least! We joked that we should take our next Christmas picture that way. My parents and brother on the web cam in Washington, then me sitting next to the screen in California. Fun times were had, I'm actually looking forward to our next chat.

We've decided to pay off all our debt in less time than we first set. It was going to be 3 years, but we are determined to be debt free (credit cards and cars) in a year in a half. So around March/April 2012! Wish us luck! It's going to take a lot of hard work, but is completely do able. It also means that our trip home in November will most likely be our last till everything is paid off. (We will still be putting money aside in our "travel savings" since we have some family members who won't be around for much longer. So if anyone passes we will have the money to come home for a quick trip. Gotta think smart!)

Fall starts this week... I'm sad to see summer go, but am looking forward to everything we have going on in the coming months. And BAKING!

My mind is drawing a big ole blank right now...

3 years

Before it's no longer the 16th I would like to wish my husband a VERY happy 3rd anniversary! At times it feels like we've been married forever, but at others it seems like we just got married yesterday. I can't decide if we're still considered to be in the honeymoon faze? Hum...

I had planned a whole post on being mushy about Frank (something I haven't done on here before, I thought it would be a good day to start ;] ) however, our day didn't end how I thought it would either. Thankfully it's all good!

Frank got a special liberty day (a day off that does not use his leave, for any non-military who have no idea what that means) for his birthday last month that is good up until Thanksgiving. He chose to take it for our anniversary, which I thought was odd but he didn't think they'd give it to him on a Friday since that would give him a three day weekend. Anyways, we planned to go up to Cabrillo National Monument since my ticket was still good from when I went with Nick and then eat at Tropical Smoothie since we just love it so much. Unfortunately we had to start the day off dealing with insurance. Never fun. Once we had that all figured out we headed out for lunch then the monument. Of course it's since and sunny, clear skies and warm at our house but once we get to the monument it's a little cooler and overcast. The sun was trying so hard to break through, but I got tired of waiting for it to happen. We still had a nice time since the view rocks regardless.

 As we were leaving I asked Frank if he wanted to stop by the exchange to look at the Macs and how much they were going for there. After about 3 hours we left with a 23" HP TouchSmart desktop and a Nikon coolpix P100. Yup didn't think we'd be doing that ha. They had a great deal going on that we couldn't resist since we were in desperate need of a new computer and a camera. The camera isn't anything fancy, I call it my transition camera. It's a little better than what we had and I am able to learn more about how to use lighting and all that fun stuff. So hopefully in a year or so I'll be able to upgrade to my current crush... a Nikon D90 :) One day I'll be there... for now the P100 will have to do. It's not too shabby though, so I'm not upset with it at all. Now I can start posting pictures again (which I still have some I need to share from last month!)... when I get the time.

I must say this is weird using an up to date computer. There was nothing wrong with my laptop it was just old and not wanting to be used as a main source of Internet connection. We plan to have it stripped of everything on it and keep it as a travel computer to upload pictures, I would have never thought of that! Thankfully my mom mentioned that to me.

Well this has become rambling and most likely may not be making sense... I'm tired... it's almost midnight :/ eck! It's bed time for me. Hopefully now that I have a computer that can keep up with me I will be back to blogging more regularly!?

Back to reality...

Oy, I don't want to. Nick's visit was too short for my liking, but we had a great time seeing lots while he was here. Since I'm still sans camera I have to steal all of Nick's pictures, which means it will probably be a while before I get around to posting them.

While he was here we went to Mission trails for a nice walk with the pooch's, Mt. Helix, the zoo, Mount Soledad, Cabrillo National Monument, downtown San Diego/gaslamp, a boat tour of San Diego and Coronado... we also took him out to Frank's work to see the helicopters. We were busy to say the least (I know I've left stuff out, I'm tired). Sunday he had to be to the airport no later than 7AM (eek!) so after we dropped him off we headed to the 8:00 service at church... just too early ha. After that we came home and were lazy for most the day. It was nice but I kept thinking I needed to go somewhere.

We did up going and looking at new vacuums and cameras. If only we had endless money at our finger tips... ha. On a good note we finally have our DVD player! Frank had emailed the company that the player is from and they sent us a new one and said they would deal with FedEx. Well the DVD player arrived today! YAY :) We've been sitting on our butts since Frank got home watching the Top Gear DVDs I bought him for his birthday.

When you can't sleep...

God grant me the serenity

to accept the things I cannot change;

courage to change the things I can;

and wisdom to know the difference.

 

Living one day at a time;

Enjoying one moment at a time;

Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;

Taking, as He did, this sinful world

as it is, not as I would have it;

Trusting that He will make all things right

if I surrender to His Will;

That I may be reasonably happy in this life

and supremely happy with Him

Forever in the next.

Amen

There is no reason for this prayer, it just keeps sticking with me right now so I thought I'd share. There has been so many changes in our lives even in a few short months, that looking back at it makes me... happy. It's nothing huge it's all just little things here and there... but it's all things for the better, for us, for each other. It just makes me happy :)

I've missed you blogger world! I've been so busy lately that I haven't even had time to read up on other blogs, and that's what one of my favorite things to do. Let's see if I can catch y'all up here...

Friday was my moms, Frank's and a cousins birthday. My mom decided that next year we need to go home for his birthday so we can have a huge party for them all. I can only think of one trip home at a time! ha.
Frank wanted to go to Hooters for his birthday since he got free wings for it, and it's a place people from his work meet up at sometimes. It's not my first.. or last choice, but it's what he wanted. We had a good time, I got to see some people I do know and meet people whom I'm sure I'll forget. I also made Frank Ree's (Pioneer women) best sheet cake ever and took it to him at work. They were all happy about that since it's been a long time since I baked for them.

Saturday Haysel and the kids came down for a visit and we celebrated again at BJs. Yumm gotta love BJs! Sunday after church we went up north to Oceanside and and hung out with Ricky. Nothing special, we just needed to get out of town for the day and since Ricky is now in an apartment we wanted to visit him for a change.

For Frank's birthday I bought him some DVDs of Top Gear (I'm finding more and more people who love that show, and it makes me happy!!). I gave him his present early, which turned out to be a good thing. The DVDs didn't work on our standard US DVD players. We thought about returning them and finding something else, but then Frank decided to look around for an all region player. We found out that they don't sell them around here so we ordered one off Amazon. On the 20th of August it was suppose to be delivered. Nothing. FedEx told us it was delivered on Friday and left on the door step. Ummm... no. I was home at the time and no delivery truck was even in the parking lot. After a few phone calls and trying to figure stuff out we found out that they had out address wrong. They fixed the problem and said our package would be redelivered (by this time they said they had it again). Well it was never delivered for a second, and yet again they still had our address wrong. This time they had the wrong apartment number. Fedex said it was delivered to apartment #9, we're #49. Before Frank got a hold of the people in that unit he asked our apartment manager if they were good people and if they'd turn the package over to her to see who it belongs too. She said yes they are great people. Well Frank caught up with them and they said nothing was ever left for them. I know I shouldn't accuse without knowing the truth, but I half way don't believe them. FedEx admitted they messed up twice with the address, but they have no reason to lie about not delivering something. Right now we just hope and pray that everything works out for the best, and that if these people, or some else took the DVD player they realize what they did not only hurt someone but it completely wrong. We're still working on it, so I hope to have a good end to all of this SOON!

Let's see what else.. my camera is still broken :( BOO! So I've been taking lots on my phone still, but haven't uploaded them to my laptop to share. One day I'll get around to that. I ghettofied my laptop by breaking off the "D". I was trying to clean under it and didn't realize you shouldn't take it completely off. Opps. Guess this is just my laptop telling me "I'M OLD! GET A NEW ONE." I've had it almost 6 years. Insane these days ha.

Tonight I got to attend a small group (bible study) for the first time with Michelle. I've been wanting to go for a while now but wasn't sure which group to choose from since there are so many in our church. The group she has been going to is a women only 22-20 something (although Michelle and another lady are in there early 30's, yet neither of them look it!) that is not too far from us. It was a few ladies who were very welcoming and made me feel at home. I loved it, it was just what I was needing. I'll be missing the next two weeks but I told them not to forget about me :)

I definitely feel like life in going in a good direction right now. I have no idea what is in store for us even in a year, but I'm enjoying the ride right now. I have to remind myself not to take each day for granted, to soak in all that we have and all the good things we've been doing to better our lives now and for the future. We truly have been blessed <3