Before and after...

Got a hair cut today.

 Cut 6 inches off... can ya tell?



Finally!

The girls are all ready for bed! Love their initials on their PJ's!!!

Fun with my mom!!!

Had a great day with my mom this afternoon sewing!

But first, I've been meaning to post our annual family picture we had taken. This year we wore yellow and orange- Aurora's favorite colors! How cute are we???

Another cute shot- a little grainy here, but the actual picture is super cute!

 And the 3 kiddos.... Jade 20 years, Kent 18 and sporting his man-beard, and Aurora who is officially a teenager at 13 years old!

ok- back to me and my mom. Of course I started my day with Sunday morning church- though I was all by myself cause my kids are in California visiting their dad, and Jeromy was working at our Church's booth at the Kitsap County Fair ALL DAY!

Ok, now back to me and my mom!!! We were sewing some cute PJ's for our American Girl dolls. I was making a matching pair for mine, Jade and Aurora's. My mom was also making the same pair but with different material. I've had my pieces already cut for a few weeks, and finally today I can start sewing! Did I mention my mom bought me this awesome little machine a few years ago? I love it!

 I wanted to have each of our initials on them so we could tell whose was whose... how cute is that? My mom outlined them for me with her kewl machine!

 We stopped to have a yummy lunch! My mom got me one of those yummy salads at Wendy's I think- sooooo gooood! Don't mind those butterfinger bites in the background!

 There's my cute mom. And her American doll- can you believe I forgot to bring my doll???

 Ok, after lunch, back to work!

 How cute are these matching jammies going to be? Is there a limit to how many times you can say cute in a blog?? NO?

 oh darn.... I sewed one of the sleeves on backwards! LAME! My mom was so sweet to rip out my mistake for me! I hate when I do that! I will laugh about it tomorrow... maybe...

 So I was only able to finish one today. MINE! I got Jade and Aurora's partly done. When I got home I put the PJ's on my Katie doll- how cute are they? So soft and flannel-y warm!

 A close up- see how happy she is?

Thanks for your help today mom! Love you! See you Tuesday at about 9:30AM ????

Happy Birthday Jade!!!

Today, my daughter Jade, turns 20 years old!!! I can hardly believe it! She us down in California with her dad right now, Kent is also down for a visit. So I am sending Jade her presents thru the mail- but I can't tell you what they are cuz it's got to be a surprise for her!

Love and miss you Jade! Happy 20th birthday!

It's also Jade's golden birthday: turning 20 on the 20th of August!

Lame

Working 12 hour shifts. This is my 5th 12 hour shift in a row and I am not happy. That's all I have to say about that.

Oh- and my body is completely sore from my head (that I smacked on the boat) to my feet that have been going up down dry dock stairs over and over and over again. All the muscles in the middle hurt, too. The job we are working is very physical... NOT happy.

Hopefully just a few more days of it.

I'm terrible at keeping suprises...

So here's a couple of hints.... MOM!...

Hmmm what's this... a pair of scissors? On this material with squares all over it?

 And what's this??? Looks like a ton of colorful DMD floss to me! What do you think mom?

 Of course I can't show what this may be... but I can show you what the back of it looks like muwaahaaahaaahaaahaaa!

What could it be? Stay tuned (for several months-I work full time!) to find out!

Just sayin'....

I LOVE MY MOM!!!!!

Stuff...

Jade had her first interview for a job. She's staying with her dad right now in California. He got her an interview for the company he works for, so at least she'll be close to him if she gets the job. She texted me saying she's out to lunch right now but will call me later to tell me all the details of her "interview process", she said her dad practiced interviewing her last night since he does some hiring/firing for his company... waiting for her call...

Jeromy is also about to finish his second full week back in the shipyard. I'm been so thankful that he's had such a smooth transition back into the yard. He's already back in my/our shop again. We're both in shop 64, but I'm in the sail loft, and he was hired in with the shipwrights- both parts of 64, but after his week of orientation they had him report back to the sail loft cause of his prior experience. So the locker I've been saving him is finally his! Yes, our lockers are side by side- we are cheesy like that. But he's day shift and I'm swing shift- makes it kinda tough!

Kent also finished his last day of his summer class: calculus 3 (every time I say that class it makes me twitch- I love math but is there really a need for calculus 3???). Anyway he had his final today and he is soooo happy to be done. The amount of homework was stressing him out. Now he can truly relax the rest of his summer till mid September when he goes back to college for his fall quarter.

So this afternoon Kent made waffles for both of us for lunch. Love a man (still weird to call my baby a man) who can cook.

Kent is so funny, although he's 18 and legally an adult, he didn't realize he's still considered a "teenager". He does not want to be a teenager- he wants to be an adult and in his mind a teenager is still a kid. I had to explain to him that age eighTEEN and nineTEEN he's still a teenager but an adult- still didn't make him happy LOL. So I try not to call him a teenager, but a grown up.

Love my husband and my kids.

Yum

Everything in my "GREEN DRINK":

Carrots (for my eyes)

Tomato (for my heart)

Cucumber (refreshing)

Orange (citrus-ee - and keeps the colds away)

Pineapple (simply delicious)

Broccoli (I won't lie- a little bitter)

Romaine Lettuce (cool)

Kale (awesomeness from my parents garden)

Just sayin'....

It's tooooo hot!

That's weird for me to say since I love the heat, and I do! But when there's no air conditioning it makes being at home straight miserable. We're all so hot we don't even want to move, even to get water sometimes cause it's just too hot. Here's how Jeromy and Aurora stayed cool while playing UNO, their feet in buckets of cold water- I thought this was so funny, cause the room was kind of dark when I came to play a game with them and I didn't even notice until I got up that their feet were in buckets the whole time- so funny!

 My new half marathon T-shirt! It's actually a woman's cut and a V-neck.

 Aurora's doll...

 The 3 girls...

 Aurora and Aurora...

With Aurora's hair down you can see how much the hair matches mom! Thanks again!

Our collection is... complete!

Now we have Aurora's American girl doll!!! From left to right: Jade, Aurora & Katie. I made the little orange/yellow dress for Aurora- they are her favorite colors right now. Aurora's doll has a caramel blond hair color but it's hard to tell cause she has it pulled back. She spent alot of time, mom, creating different hair styles!

Yep- another Half Marathon!!

I did another half marathon this morning. It was the "Tacoma Narrows Half Marathon". What a great day to run. It was gorgeous! I love running in the sun. This run goes over the Narrows bridge, too, which is cool to run past the water- relaxing! Me getting ready to start.

 Jeromy was my photographer again, since he grew up in Tacoma, he knew how to get to certain areas along the route to snap some cool shots!

 Here I am runnin' runnin' runnin'....

 Crossing the street, the Tacoma Police were out at every intersection directing traffic and keeping us runners safe...

 Still smiling... see behind me to the right, that is a little 9 year old boy running... amazing! I kept hearing different runners telling him great job, he was such a little guy...

 Another medal to add to my collection woo-hoo!!!! I also got a personal record today! My time was 2:10:21 (2 hours, 10 minutes, 21 seconds). I beat my last time by about 4 minutes so that's pretty good. Some day I hope to beat the 2 hour mark...

So even thought the run was great, I've actually been sick the rest of the day :o(   dealing with a horrible stomach ache while recovering from 13.1 miles is not fun- oh and in a house that's not air conditioned. Jeromy is also feeling ill, we think it may have been our yummy dinner at the Japanese Steak House last night, which I can hardly believe it could be that. I love that place and don't want to believe it made us sick... but what else could it be???? Just looking forward to feeling better tomorrow. It's pretty sad people... Jeromy got me some pedialite, saltine crackers and I've been lying around all day in and out of sleep whining... but I felt good this morning LOL

Ch-ch-ch-changes.....

So anyway, today I put my daughter on a one way plane ride to California to be with her dad. Too tired right now to really process that. She's going to be spending some quality time with him. She's really looking forward to that. I'm really looking forward to when she comes home. I know she'll have a great time with her dad. I just have to remind myself that I had her for almost 20 years, longer than most parents get to have their child home with them... I guess the umbilical cord is truly cut now :o(   anyway, she says she does want to eventually come home. I believe she will- though Josh already has a job lined up for her... I just have to believe this is all God's plan for her life, and He loves her infinitely more than I ever can and knows what's best for her. I trust in Him and thank Him for the years I had with her. Children really are a blessing from God... just counting down the days (though I don't know how many) till she comes home, while trying to encourage her to enjoy the time with her dad.... waaahhhhhhhhhhhh........

Kenton and Jade last night... Kent is kind of sad to see Jade go. They are pretty close. Jade also says it's weird to be going to her dad's with out Kent, they always go together. Kent will be joining her in a few weeks to visit for a month then he comes back home for fall semester.

 After the boys went to bed, Jade and I headed out to Shari's for some pie and late night talking...

 My baby.... where did the last 20 years go???? WHERE???? WHY??? WAAAHHHHH!!!!

Jade and I making sad faces about being so far away from each other...

 While taking multiple "sad" face pictures we couldn't stop laughing at how we looked... so here we are cracking up!

 Jade and I got to bed about midnight last night... than woke up to our 4 AM alarms... lame! We got out the door at 4:30 AM and headed to Seatac.... she had so much stuff. Was so worried that those bags would be over 50 pounds, they are free up to 50 pounds, but once they go over it's $50 can you believe that??? Thankfully they were less than 50 pounds!

 With one last hug, Jade heads thur security. I waited till she made it safely thru, saw her wave at me thru the crowd of people than she headed to her gate... and I left..... waaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Anyway she made it safely to California. Talked to her about 4 times today.... I didn't get enough hugs in.... lame.........

 So after that I went home and slept on and off most of the morning and early afternoon. It was nice cause I had the day off from work today.

There was something else happening today that was pretty exciting. Our church was having their evening service down at the waterfront with a potluck, while celebrating 6 people getting baptised. And one of them was MY Jeromy! The food was wonderful, the church put on a BBQ and everyone else brought yummy sides. As usual I ate too much. There was a great turn out. It seems like half of our church showed up. They had the worship team there and we sang several songs- it was beautiful. Cousin Laura and her family also came- love them!

 Then it was time for Jeromy's total immersion baptism. The water looked really cold.

 Pastor Kevin praying over Jeromy before he dunks him.

 Little girls from our church looking on....

 There's Jeromy being dunked. Symbolizing his dying to himself (going under water), then resurrecting in new life with Christ (coming up out of the water). Five other people followed after Jeromy.

 Everyone came over to the water and cheered as each person came up out of the water.

It was a great day. Sad also with Jade leaving, alot of changes going on. But thank the LORD that I have the LORD to lean on otherwise I'd be totally freaking out, stressed, angry, crying panicky and driving Jeromy crazy.