The Simpson's

You may or may not know, but Nolan absolutely LOVES the Simpson's!
Fox airs two episodes every week night and since we moved to Florida in March

we have had a DVR so we have all of those episodes recorded too! ;-)
Back to the movie... Of course we saw it on opening day! (yesterday) I personally think the Simpson's are just okay, but the movie really was funny! I would recommend it for sure!

All Dress Up... for
Spouses Night Out at The Melting Pot!
(I'm even wearing make-up! Can you believe it?)

This is my best girl friend here in Florida, Angela, who I met while we were in Virginia... She and her husband, Jason invited us to Thanksgiving dinner at their house last year! Crazy thing about it is, I was really nervous about going, since I really hadn't spent any time with her and looking back I am SO glad Nolan convinced me to go! I can't say enough great things about them... we love that we are able to spend lots of fun times with them! :-) They are both originally from California, so they hope to be stationed there again once they are done with flight school!
(Jason and Nolan carpooled together to the airport in Manassas while completing IFS...)

Back to The Melting Pot outing...
it was an interesting and fun (thankfully Angela was there with me!) experience, but it seems to be one of those things you do once and you're good. We did get a discounted rate of $32 since it was "Ladies Night," but WOW! the portions were tiny! We absolutely LOVED the chocolate fondue for dessert! Not worth even going back for just dessert, but worth putting Angela's fondue pot to use in the future! ;-)
Oh and the make-up I got when we were down in Orlando... Bare Minerals - LOVE IT! I got the recommendation from Amy and Charla and I don't think I will ever buy another brand of make-up -- EVER!

While I Was Gone...
Nolan captured what Sandi was up to...
"Who me?"

It's interesting that Sandi has pulled (literally) this blanket out of the laundry room to lay on it. When we first brought her home, this was her blanket, so I kinda wonder if she remembers that... or maybe I'm just crazy! haha She has almost outgrown her blue and yellow bed, so maybe this is its cheap replacement.

The Next Day... The short story:
Sandi didn't get let out (yes, out of her kennel, but not out of the house) one morning, so her morning potty was left by my desk in the office ( I guess she came looking for me?) for 3 hours until I found it... of course by that time it had really soaked in! :-( So off to The Home Depot I went to rent a carpet cleaner. It didn't work quite as well as I had hoped, but I did try cleaning the couch cushions since I had the machine for 24 hrs! Fun times!

"I'm Ready!"

Every so often, and sometimes a few times a day, Sandi will bring me her leash...
It's usually on top of her kennel, which as you can see in this picture is in the dining room/living room, so she has easy access to it! She's too cute and not to mention a lot of fun!:-)

Adorable fabric bags in various colors and prints!
They make great beach bags and are so easy to travel with! Each bag is 11 inches by 10 inches and has one outter pocket and two inner.

If you like Vera Bradley you will love these and so will your wallet!

A fellow Marine Corps wife and friend of mine, Kristin, hand makes these bags!
She is working on getting them on Ebay to sell,
but I thought I would help get her bags out on our blog too!
Please email me if you see one you like and I can get you in touch with her! paigedean@gmail.com

They are $25 each... shipping included!

Thanks for your support!

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Hmm...


Where to begin?

Nolan is no longer an NFO, he will be training in Milton to be a PILOT! WHOOP! I can't be more proud! Nolan has worked really hard to earn this pilot spot!
The downside is that I have a 6th grade math teaching job here in Pensacola; Milton is about an hour commute, one way... and I wasn't able to find a position in the county that Milton is located in... so Nolan will be commuting each day... It has been a decision that we have thought long and hard about... looking at our different options to see what would work best for us and staying put is overall the best choice, for now.

Nolan started IFS (the ground school part) this week... so he should start flying soon!
(You might recall that he did IFS in Virginia, those last two months we were there, but that was as an NFO, so now he's doing IFS as a pilot!)

Nolan is also working on two of the six parts of EWS - Expeditionary Warfare School. EWS is one of the requirements to become promoted to Major (which is many years down the road, but it's good to get an early start
;-) ) We will eventually head back to Virginia to complete the remaining four sections of this course.

I've decided I'm going to somewhat copy an idea I got from another blog...
keeping track of the things that Sandi tears up/destroys each week!

So I'll start with last week, because it's just too funny not to mention!
We were chosen to do a TV journal for Neilson Ratings (we got paid $30 cash!) so we were given two journals, since we have two tvs. Sandi got a hold of the one journal we were actually using, a total of three or four times, before she DESTROYED it! (Obviously we didn't learn that putting it BACK on the coffee table wasn't a good idea!) With the journal, of course was a pen. Did she destroy those too? Oh yes, three black pens, which she wore on her tongue one day when the pen exploded in her mouth! haha But the best writing utensil that she has found was a red permanent marker, which she proceeded to color on her bed with, before it too exploded on her... so she had a pink tint to her paws and chest! Never a dull moment!

This week her victims have been:
a wooden pencil (thanks to mr. silver piece and the eraser, I could figure out what it was!)
the roll of red duct tape that I was using to make my student's white boards
she hasn't destoyed, but loves to mouth my green crocs too! :-(

Now that Sandi has taught US to completely clear off our coffee table, you can see she was still up to no good in the picture below! Of course, instead of immediately getting her down, I go for the camera so I can show Nolan! haha

Who is to blame for this behavior?
Guilty as charged! I love having Sandi in my lap!
Even if she is 26 pounds and still growing! ;-)

We have really become FANS of eBay lately and our most recent purchases have earned us a Yellow Star Achievement Award! What have we been buying?
Well... Nolan has re-started his childhood hobby of model making... so of course we needed an airbrush to paint the models he is building! I am of course thinking of ways to use Nolan's new gadget too! I LOVE looking for/finding school/teacher supplies at really cheap prices - lately dry erase markers, so my students can use the whiteboards that we made!

I'm almost done with my second summer course... only 2 more weeks! YAY! I earned an 'A' in the other, so I am hoping for the same outcome! I will have a 3 week break before I start my next two classes at the end of August.

Looking forward to getting back in the classroom soon ~ teachers go back on August 9th and the students come August 20th.

Hope everyone is enjoying their summer! Keep in touch!

Sandi is 4 months old!

Happily enjoying her new pool!

Angela and I setting off fireworks!

All the guys who were helping Nolan and Jason set off their fireworks!

The loot!

Sandi and Zoe...
See May 25th to see how much bigger Sandi now is than Zoe!

More photos soon!