VOTE for Olivia!!

You'll find it hard to believe but I have been accused of "over sharing" on my blog.  Truth be told, I'm sure I do but that's why I have a husband to look over my shoulder and make suggestions as to what to delete!  In the interest of trying to be better I took the liberty of editing these posters that Olivia worked on this weekend.  They are super cute, too cute not to share, so I deleted her grade and last name.

As you can see she is making the most of our surfing photos and I was really impressed with her results.  Wish her luck, voting is at the end of this week.  

We are proud that she is anxious to take on a leadership role at her school - is that what happens when you attend a school for more than one year?  Go Olivia!

SURFING!!

You may just see this photo again around say December ...nothing would give my kids greater pleasure than NOT to hear...It's Christmas card photo time!!

Em was a little nervous so "uncle Louie" had her practice before the real thing.

She got over it, fast!

Wasn't long before she was waving to her fans.  David was a pro from the start, no surprise.  Look at the determination on his face!

Olivia got the hang of it very fast also.  

I Love that you can see her smiling in the photos!  I was only out there for about 10 minutes and as promised, never got more vertical than this.

What goes up...

You might see this one again too :)

Technical difficulties! Please stand by.

I haven't fallen into a volcano, I'm just patiently (or not) waiting for some photos to become available so I can show you our AWESOME surf day!

The girls had last Friday off (already) so David took the day off and the three of them went for a surf lesson.  The company was amazing and even had a photographer on hand with his handy telephoto lens to capture the madness.  

They all did great, but none as well as my littlest mermaid!  Emily had a "private" lesson which translates into being on the board with a cute hawaiian who literally pulled her up with him.  You should have heard her - or better yet seen her.  She was riding the waves within minutes and spent her time waving to all the other schmucks doing their best in the water around her.  What a hoot.

The photographer got fantastic shots and for the low, low price of $40 they got to be mine...in 3-5 days.  Grrrr, today is day 5 but that includes weekend days and to be honest 5 days in Hawaii can be anywhere from 7-15. 

I didn't pay for a lesson but they gave me a turn too - I'd say I was about 75% vertical for about 4 seconds but that was enough to get some shots of me "shredding" the waves.  Ok, not really.  It's comical but we had an awesome family day. 

Pictures soon - I hope!

The rest of our life is pretty standard; school, homework, soccer, but now we are adding hula, gymnastics and confirmation class.  We were suffering from underachievement issues.  

Fire Power

As promised, here are a few short videos of the gun shoots from the cruise last week.  In typical Jen fashion, I found a little nook one level down from the crowd that provided me a good viewing spot.  It was a little "bridge" for lack of a better word, tucked away and I was all alone.

I was pretty psyched when I captured this shot as I really didn't know when the gun would shoot (someone did, just not me) and I have a lot of video of nothing.  

I tried for one more, what I thought was the last shot of the day.  You can see me jump on this video when they started to shoot the forward and aft guns sequentially about 8 times each!  I was VERY surprised and really had that "life flash before my eyes" moment as I was right in the middle of all this gun fire and no-one even knew I was there!  I know, you're thinking only me right?  Wrong, Olivia does stuff like this too :)

For the next shoot I happily stayed with the crowds!  This "sea wiz" (not sure of that spelling) or R2D2 as we like to call it shot some ridiculous amount of ammo no time flat.  I think they said 300 rounds in 5 seconds?  It was over before it began!

Ok - that was for all my nephews.  I know how you love things that explode.  Speaking of - here is one of my favorite shots.  I like to use it as a screen saver when my kids are mis-behaving :0

ANOTHER Cruise!!

Navy style!!!

Olivia and I got to spend the day at sea yesterday for the LAKE ERIE dependents cruise!

We got underway about 8:30 am 

Amazing to see the water go from blue to brown - she churns up a LOT of water!

We backed out and made the turn to head out of the channel right by the Missouri and the Arizona memorial.

The size of this ship never ceases to amaze me - she is a beauty! 

Turning around Hospital Point.

Even the tugs put on a show for us...doughnuts :)

Just outside the bridge, ready to go!

Once out in open ocean they opened it up to 30 knots and we were MOVING!!  I can't even describe the sounds and color of the ocean.  Stunning, and very windy!

Just to be cute they did some high speed "S" turns and nearly killed us all!  You can see the pattern in the wake and how far off vertical we are!

This is "back aft" at top speed

I think someone is contemplating her future life in the Navy!!

This is just after they "put on the brakes."  Believe it or not we stopped in about 2 boat lengths - it felt like a plane landing!

This was the last spoken command of Captain James Lawrence and soon became a battle cry for the American Fleet - most famously as the motto emblazoning Oliver Hazard Perry's battle flag at the battle of Lake Erie. 

My little nerd in the engineering spaces

My big nerd ;)

Heading back home

A fantastic day.  As always I am proud and impressed by the skill and might of our military.  I have a few videos to post also but for now I have an anniversary to celebrate - 17 years.  Better than ever.