July 7, 1980 "The Good Ole Days"!!!!

I suppose I could begin by saying the rest is history of the story of my life?? Both would certainly be very true. I wrote an our story or how we met post a while back, which brings me to tomorrow 33 years hubby and I began. Wozzer that's a long time ago lots has happen, the good, the bad, the ugly and the very very ugly he's been right there by my side. We've been a team ever since I'd be selling a huge lie if I said its been a bed of roses so I won't. I will sell the truth, it's been stars, moons, roses, thorns, lots of thorns, kids, pets and grand kids!!! Hey who allowed those sweet lil babies of mine to grow up and have one of them have sweet lil babies of his own?? It's been said many times the years fly but the days drag, true and false honestly I think at times it's the opposit. I'm often asked if given the chance would I change anything, I have to say no. Everything happens for a reason or so I have always thought. I try very hard to live my life with no regrets, I said try didn't say always. I think I love my husband more now than the day we married, there have been times over the years I've not liked him much but I've never "fallen out of love" with him. He is truly my very best friend in the "whole wide world", (our very sweet 3 yr old g/daughter says "Moodie" is her bestest friend in the whole wide world) melts my freaking ice freaking cold heart every single time I hear her say it. "Moodie" really is "Moonie" our mini beagle, it's very sweet to watch those two, oh man tears again, dam it dam it dam it!!! TEARS!!! FYI.....are the main reason I broke my most recent promise of trying to blog more often, I mean hell there's more than enough sad crap, poor my crap going on in everyone's world. So I keep my sad crap wrapped up tightly in my chest, no a great idea but between that and sucky health I've shed about 40 pounds since February. Oh those reasons as well as I really would like to move my blog so I can have the option of password posts if I so choose. But I'm not bright enough to figure out how to do so, any volunteers or suggestions as to how to do, I'm all ears! This is all over the place, sorry exactly how my heart and brain have been, plus I am using mobile blogger for the first time and it's not allowing me paragraphs nor allowing me to copy and paste my ramblings. Yup I'm lazy and that's how I write my posts in the middle of this thought, oh yeah gotta write this next or I'll forget so I do so then just copy and paste and move it it's own paragraph or one I've already rambled a bit in. Excuses, excuses yup I'm full of those right this very second too!! OK let's move this back to a happy postive post as I promised myself it would be!! So suggests/advice on our 30th freaking wedding anniversary coming up quickly in November, November 5 to be exact. Fab vaca? Renew our vows? Fab presents for each, we normally don't exchange gifts goes back to single income hubby in school raising babies and being even poorer than we currently are. Once things got "better" financially we continued this and used that dollars for fab vacas for the hubs and I!!! Yup we were some of those horrible, horrible parents who took kid free vacas!! FYI, I'd do it all over again only sooner than we actually did so. Of course we always took kid vacas too, but it still pissed our female off spring off, ha still pisses her lil ole 25 year old self off!! That makes me laugh as well as give her grief when she vacas without us, which is any and all of hers!! Although if ever invited I'd very politely decline and offer to pup sit, I don't do backpack camping, 25 plus mile hikes and climbing of randome rocks here and there and every where along this fine US of A!! Here goes another ramble.......I need one day to write a post on her travels, trust me they are mostly last second, not even minute and always always on very minimal dollars!!! Oh the time my lil traveler, her friend and said friends sweet lil 2 yr old traveled to FL with a total of maybe $200, likely less!!! Oh my, considering my child no doubt they would have been OK, but I wasn't OK come on they had a baby camping and it was hot!!! So I transferred a lil cash, yes they were very thankful, especially on their way home when they had to use some for gas!! Much to their sorrow because they were planning to save said dollars for another fun adventure!!! Oh man my nerves!!!! OK rambling all finished, well not really but at least for now. I really, really, really am serious about your suggestions/advice on the moving of my blog and the anniversary debate, help please!!! Another reason I'd like to move this is I'm rethinking being so out there about my identy, not that I have anything to hid or as if it's not freaking crazy easy to figure out stuff these days, there's just "things/events I'd like to blog about and don't want everyone to read. It's not as if anyone reads this crap anyway but one never can be sure and no matter what happens, ever I just don't and never, ever will trust let's just say someone who may or may not be reading!!! See told you I had more ramblings, ha ha. So brainstorm and get back to me, please?? Hubby happy dating anniversary I love you more now than the day we married and thanks for loving my very unlovable at times self!!! Me

I'm not exactly sure where to even begin!

My last post spoke of a wonderful vacation we had just returned from enjoying. Man do I wish I could say we were once again headed on vacation. Lots has gone on since that time, last summer was a typical summer for us, we spent time traveling to see our grown children. That's always fun for sure!! We were blessed with a beautiful grand son in late October, oh how handsome that lil guy is!! His big sister could mostly take him or leave him, cute for sure. I wish were could spend more time with those sweet lil ones, I'd go to the moon and back for them. It's very bitter sweet knowing they are all so close but out of our reach, just heart breaking. I can only hope and pray that one day things change and we are once again able to see the kids. I wonder non stop exactly what the almost three year old is being told when she askes for me-me and poppi. I may not want to know what she's being told, which again is heart breaking. My favorite sister and aunt came to spend my birthday with me in October, wonderful feeling to know they drove all the way here just to see us!! Their trip was cut short by someone who is a bit spoiled as well as selfish. Hindsight is 10/20 as they say and it certainly. I can say that I refuse to ever ask my house guests to leave early for any reason and certainly it won't happened just because someone who doesn't even live in my house, "didn't want to deal with company"! As my father often said, "you live and learn" and he couldn't be any more correct. It was a nice visit with both of them while it lasted and I hope to be going to see them very soon. Around my birthday in October our 8 year old beagle was dx with congestive heart failure and given 3-6 months to live. We gave her lots of different meds, nothing really appeared to help our poor girl!! It was very sad to watch her go down hill. Somewhere around the first of March she took a turn for the worse and we knew things weren't good. I took her in and we did some med changes and if possible gave her even more love. Much to my sorrow it just wasn;t meant to be, she lost her two days later. Heart breaking to say the least, we have comfort in knowing she wasan't made to suffer and she had a fab life with us and was very much loved!! As far as my health, still good and bad days here and there. In Janaury I had a very long and scaary hospital stay for approximately 27 days or so. Those days were spent between ICU and step down ICU, not my idea of fun at all. It took me until the last Friday of February to be able to say, "you know I really think I feel better". Truly a very scary time to say the least. I was again readmitted in mid April for about a week. So very glad it didn't drag out as the Janauray admission had. I think this is pretty much the cliff notes of what's been going on in my life. I could or shall I say I wish I could go into way more details with certian issues but am fearful of who maybe reading. Not that I have a single thing to hide, but it's just not worth the drama anymore. I don't think the person I'm concerned may be reading but I'm not THAT conviced, so until I can figure out my traffic and stuff like that, this is how it's going to be!! Maybe I could look into pass word protected posts or anyone else have any good suggestions? I could be wrong but I don't think Blogger offers pass word protected posts. There have been way too many times where I'd love to have written just so I can keep track of the time line of events, but again that fearfulness that someone maybe reading just waiting to cause even more drama, and I refuse to be put in that place once again. Some very good things have transpired during this time as well, such as our lil beagle who was so very sick back in Novemeber of 2012. You may remember she was sropped off at a firestation a very, very sick lil girl!! They said she was 2.5 months old but only weighed 3.1 pounds. Long story short or you could go back and read Moon Beam's posts, we ended up finding out a few weeks later that she was only 21 days old when dropped off. The slackers who dropped her off orgianlly were "kind" enough to bring her AKC papers by a few weeks later. Anyway we strugged, she struggled for months of being ill, just one thing after the other, the poor lil girl had it rough!! Then she was a horrible eater and well know she's spoiled rotten to say the least. Isn't such a great eater even today but we can deal with that as long as we can keep her healthy!! She finally has been well long enough that we had her spay and her extra teeth removed a few weeks ago. Talk about funny, she never lost her baby "K-9's" before her adult ones came in. I truly think that was a huge deal with her eating issues, or shall I say I thought!! She does eat better as I said but never have I met a beagle who turns food down!!!! Intereting fact: she begs for your drink!! Yup drink, doesn't matter what I happen to be drinking she wants some of it!!! Nuts???? I say yes!!! OK well I think that's all for now, any suggestions on the pass word thing or how to figure out who is or isn't reading would be most helpful to me. The little detail I've already written I can say I do feel a bit better and I can only imagine if given the chance to get even more off my chest would be such a freeing feeling!! Marie

Photo Post for May Cruise!!

Dave in front of a very nice waterfall. I think the next one should be of me in front of same waterfall. If blogger coperates with me that is!!

The above photo is one of my favorites of us!! I have no clue what the "blob" of light is and I tried everything to remove it and I couldn't so, it's just there.

Just a lil pretty that hubby took and I thought I'd add in here!

Dave just being a bit silly and giving me a bear hug from behind. Considering neither of us were making ugly faces and both looking at the camera so it got tossed into the mix too. We took fabo photos of the others in our group, the photos others took us, not so fabo looking! I don't know if they didn't know how to work Dave's fancy smancy camera or what the deal was, so not very many decent photos of us. This for the most part is fine with me as I don’t really enjoy looking at photos of me at all, ever!!

This is my fabo handsome husband, plus one, spouse, whatever one calls the person they have been married to for nearly 29 years.

This is me, another photo that I'm not exactly fond of me in, but such is life and for that matter there are almost no photos of myself I'm really happy with. I either appear to have 778 chins, my cheeks are way too chubby or my legs are too fat or I'm too short. Then I think back to the convo a trusted physician had with on February 1, 2001. You know the one no one ever w looking wants to hear; something along the line of "if you don't receive a kidney within six months things aren't looking great." So both I try to think of that convo and accept these photos for what they are EXTRA TIME!!! It's not always easy to accept photos of myself with my " but "flaws" but you know if it gives me that extra time and I can have good and bad days, heck I'm good with the way I appear!!! Sure I'd like to be a bit thinner and have been working towards that way, I've lost about 20-25 pounds in the five to six months. I'm good with that I'd like to lose another 20-25, will I have the body I had "pre-end stage renal disease"? Of course not but then again I'm not the same person, so I'm good with it!! I'm "gimping" along doing everything I possibly can to stay as healthy as I can for me, some days it's an easy job others not so easy, I'll take them all thank you very much!!! OK, off my soap box and on to more photos.

OK friends this concludes my photos from our cruise. I'll be back soonish with another post as I stated I have a few posts jumbled in my lil brain.
Enjoy the weekend friends.
Marie

"May Vacation Cruise"

It's only been approximately 30ish days since my last post!!! So I suppose I lied, even after having a "gentle" reminder from a fabo blogger with one of the cutest baby girls, ever!!! Before I get into the vaca mode, I've often wondered what it would be like to meet a blogger friend in person. Have any of you guys ever met a blogger in real life??? I'd love to take a road trip and meet the bloggers I read about, my sister loves to drive, and I don’t at all, ever!! So my plan is to win the lottery allow my sister to retire a couple of years early and have her drive me to meet my blogger friends!! I have been lucky enough to meet a blogger I have been reading for many years!! It was the coolest thing; she was traveling through my state, fabo time!! Only one issue.....time, is there ever enough of that???? Vacation!!! Dave and I both so needed this trip more than ever!! We have taken many cruises and I know that a lot of people don't really like them, I honestly don't see why!! Our theory on a cruise is it gives us a chance to see places that we may never get to see, as well as places we think we'd love to visit but aren't really sure about. In my book there is no worse vacation other than arriving and realizing this isn't really the type of place we'd enjoy. Such as Jamaica, we often thought wow we'd love to go there!! Um no way, never, ever again, I can promise that!!! It was a beautiful place in certain parts very, very scary in others!! We enjoyed our day in port in Jamaica but won't be returning, we can say that for sure!! OK, off my tangent for now, because Jamaica wasn't even a dang port on this cruise!! Ba ha ha ha!! Vacation for real!! We left out of Charleston, SC a first for us, as we normally cruise out of a Florida port of call. We are very familiar with Charleston as we vacation there every summer and have since about 1998. Everything was extremely smooth from the time the shuttle picked us at our hotel the AM we left!! It was hot and humid as Charleston, SC is known for, so much so that at 10 AM walking out of the hotel the heat catches your breath, hot and humid like!! Little to no delay from start to finish checking in, which truly surprised us considering we had prepared for the worst considering it's a pretty small terminal!! We cruised with Carnival which just happens to be our favorite cruise line and we've cruised on several different lines!! The ship was one of the smaller ones we've been on, which we sort of thought it would be knowing the canal in Charleston can't handle a larger ship. Everything was very clean and newly remodeled exactly as we had read about, sometimes the photos on line appear to be much nicer on line than in person, not the case here!! The weather was calling for horrible rain and thunder storms from the start of our trip through the end, depressing to say the least!! I tried so very hard not to allow that to stress me, as I don't normally mind rain while at home, on vaca a whole an other issue there!! As I said we were in need of a vaca so badly at that point I told Dave, "I don't care if it rains the entire time we are gone, I've down loaded several books to my iPad I'll sit and read and watch the storms!!! Then the day before we return I'll take a trip to the spa and either have a spray tan or use the tanning bed"!! Dave, for some reason didn't truly believe that one, as for the past 29 years of marriage and three years prior to that any mention of rain during vaca sets me wild to say the least!!! I do have to say though I do enjoy watching the thunder and lightning hit the water, after growing up literally steps from the banks of the Delaware River, watching storms hit the water are a favorite past time of mine, as well as people watching!!! Both of which are a trait that I inherited from my father!! I am happy to say that the only horrible weather we encountered was just as we began departing Charleston, the Capt made the 15 minutes to departure announcement and the sky opened and didn't stop for likely three to four hours. Thunder as loud as I've ever heard and lighting striking the water so closely it made one jump slightly!! Carnival on the other hand, I'm sure pre-ordered this exact weather, as it paid off for them in the bars as well as casino!! As our late dinner seating grew closer the rain stopped, the sun came out of those dark skies so brightly and pretty. We never saw another drop of rain the entire trip, couldn't have asked for better weather, sunny very hot days, which just happen to be my very favorite for vacation!!! Since it was only a five day cruise, we only had two ports of call. First was Nassau was our first stop, we had been to the Bahamas’ in the past so we knew what to expect on arrival. Dave being "Dave" still did his research prior to leaving and found several public and private beaches; on all of our cruises we've never taken a cruise line sponsored excursion. We always take "Dave" sponsored excursions, and I have to admit he has been on the money so to say with everything he has ever planned!! With one exception to that, which is an entire post in of itself, to say the least!!?? To his defense, just in case he one days takes me up on my offer to read this, the very excursion I've referring to was not one he researched prior to boarding the ship!! I'll have to blog about that soon, Cindy if it takes me too long to do so, please give me a "gentle" reminder, OK?? Thank!! OK, getting back on track here, Dave ummm how do I say this???? Well, let me just say he truly enjoys seeing our vacation spots from the local’s point of view, maybe??? Or he's just plan cheap and looking for a cheap way around???? Let just say a little of both to protect myself here!!! I do have to admit other than in Jamaica he has never, ever steered us wrong, ever!! So I'm sure are wondering how we go about seeing the locals point of view, we take "mass transit", that's how!!! There have occasions in which we have traveled on a local city bus next to goats, sheep, chickens and even a roaster once!! I'll admit it was truly interesting!!! I love animals and of course you see or read proof of that considering my posts where all I've blogged about are my dogs. Anyway these locals don't exactly see these animals as a "pet", they see it more like "DINNER"!!! I love goats, I don't know why but my entire life I have requested a goat on my Christmas from way back to my first list up to and including this past Christmas!! No I'm not kidding, I'd tell you to ask my sister who reads my blog here and here but isn't exactly ready to tackle a blog comment so you will just have to take my word for it. A few years back while seeing it from the local’s point of view a nice elderly lady climbs on the bus carrying the cutest lil brown and white baby goat, OMG!!! Did she know that was my dream gift??? Doubtful nor did she care, as I quickly found out!! I told Dave I was going to ask this lil lady in my broken Spanish if I could pet her very cute goat!! He advised me that didn't sound like a very good idea, but never said, "No don't do it; just it's not a good idea". The next stop, much to my happiness the isle seat across from goat lady became empty, I quickly took that seat and "tried" my best to ask this lady if I could pet this goat, and what her name was!! I suppose the fact that the young local male sitting next to me laughing until tears were running down his face should have clued me in, but nope it didn’t, so I thought ok this goat doesn't look mean I'll just put my hand out palm up as one would do with approaching a strange dog for the first time. I don't think I even had my palm fully open before this "nice goat lady" began hitting living day lights out of my hand!!!! What the heck happened?? What did I do!! I jumped from that seat back to my seat, which was only one row back without my feet even hitting the ground, by this point, my loving husband happens to look up from his book and says, "What the hell are you doing"??? I proceed to tell him, do you think he asked was I OK??? Oh hell no he didn't, he stated his favorite statement, and “I told you it wasn't a good idea"!!!! I was pissed to say the least. As if that weren't bad enough this nice young local male who has been laughing till crying the entire time, turns around and says, "dude you missed it your lady just got a beating from her" motioning to "goat lady"!!! Turns out this young man worked at the very resort we were and was heading into work! He and Dave spoke the rest of the trip, well made fun of me we should say!! I finally got the nerve up to ask this nice young man if he had any idea why goat lady tried to beat me to death. After he Dave had another good laugh at my expense, he told me it was likely because she was fearful I was trying to take "dinner"!!!!!!!!! OK, thanks, talk about the wind being knocked out of your sail??? Big time!! After recovering from that statement, I asked our new friend how he learned to speak such clear English. MTV, that's how!!!!! Interesting huh????? So I suppose instead of this post being about our last vaca it's turning into more of an overview of vacas!!!! I have to say we truly have meet some very nice folks on our travels and have learned a lot about the local customs and have gotten to see places that others may not get to see!! We've taken a few company trips with Dave's employer both cruises and resort type of trips. By far Dave and I always have done and see way more than the others who had taken a cruise or resort sponsored excursion. OK, considering it's getting late and that fact that nothing majorly interesting or horrific happened on this cruise I'll close for now and add a few photos and call this a post!!! I promise I'll try to get back very soon with the "Jamaica Story" and maybe a few other trip stories, but I promise it will be worth the wait because here is a small teaser, it involved the local police and I think that barbed wire that goes across the top of a fence is called Constantia wire?? Anyway I'll double check with Dave on that one before the post!! Hope you like these photos, it was hugely relaxing trip which is exactly what we needed and hoped for!!!! There is an interesting point, and if anyone has taken a cruise lately please jump in and give me your insight too!! I felt as if this cruise had a younger group of cruisers???!!! Which is not a bad thing at all, no one was out of control or acting out at all, it just seemed to be a young crowd, or who knows maybe it's the fact that Dave and I are getting old!!!! The other thing that stood out to me was there dress, as I said we have been on many cruises and people dress, and I mean DRESS!!!!! Like gowns for the Capt.’s dinner and there always seems to be a few guys in a tux here and there. We saw one guy in a tux and no gowns what so ever!! There were many "maxi" type dresses both short and long, but the dress was very, very relaxed both day and evening. Fine by me for sure because I am in no way a fancy dressy type person at all, ever!!! Especially while on vacation, the only down side I see to this is, what if one didn't over pack as we did and always do??? We just sort of went with the flow and dressed down the entire trip including the Capt.’s dinner which is always very fancy!!! Also on every other cruise the Capt. comes around during his dinner and stops at each table and speaks for a minute or two, this trip nope never saw the dude!!! It's not a big deal either way to us but there were a first time cruiser who were a bit disappointed because they had spoken with past cruise before and during this trip and were told all about this very fancy smancy dinner and then it doesn't happen. Again wasn't a huge deal breaker for us at all, but I will tell you what did disappoint, no midnight buffet!!!!!!! Yup you read that correctly, very disappointed about that one, not that I truly needed the extra calories or anything but really now!!! They did have the normal grill/pizza place open until like two AM. They did have the midnight buffet one night, the night of the Capt.’s dinner, the very night you really don't need it, due to that meal being such a huge meal. I don't know maybe others felt differently, and I suppose from the looks of the huge lines and the fact that we heard the following morning they sort of ran out of something before one am. That's a bit disappointing I suppose, but it looked beautiful as I remember them being in the past. All the fab ice carvings and fruit and veggies carved into cool looking things, now that's one thing I did miss, now that I think about it!! Anyone been on a cruise lately and notice that they didn't have a midnight buffet every night??? I mean heck we've been a quick three night cruise out of Florida to the Bahamas and they had a midnight buffet every night!!! The other thing we did notice is that there wasn't the over abundance of food that there has been in the past, and maybe that isn't exactly what I mean, because never once did I walk away from a meal and say, "wow that wasn't very good I could eat something else", it wasn't that. We spoke with other past cruisers and they all seemed to feel the same as we did on that front, we all sort of wondered if the poor economy had any effect on it? I am sure there was a huge amount of food waste in the past and who knows maybe they are just being more aware of that and trying not to be so wasteful, who knows!! With that being said, I'd go again anytime, anywhere, it wasn't that it was bad, just different maybe is what I should say about it??!! OK I truly think I'm finished!!!

Time flies!!

So it's been ages since I last blogged! Many new and exciting things have been going on to say the least! Where do I begin? First of if you read my last post you will see that David returned safely from his last deployment. Now we all know what happens when they return home after a year, correct?? So let's just says Kayla is preggers!!!!! Due date is approximately November 2, 2012! We are more than excited o say the least. They are having a boy. The next newish news is I got a fabo cool lil car!!! I got a Fiat convertible and to say I love it doesn't even come close!! I've had some issues with the computers in it and at the 52 day old point it had been in the service department for a total of 33 days!!! 33 days you guys is a huge amount of time! We have been in touch with Fiat and pretty much want them to switch the vehicle out. To say I've spent a ton of my free time working on "our case" doesn't even come close! Next, our lil girl turned 24 years old, who the hell allowed that???!!! She's so grown up working full time and working about 978 part time jobs, she's busy all the time. I have to say we ate so very proud of both of our kids! Melissa has also moved in with her boyfriend who is a bit older than her. He's a very nice guy and I can see that he cares a lot about her. He has a daughter from a previous marriage as well as a son who isn't his but continues to treat him as if he were his bio child. Makes me have such respect for him because of that!!! Melissa loves his kids, we haven't met them yet but hope to do so in the next few weeks! I suppose the last news worthy event is Dave and I finally got around to taking our yearly anniversary trip a few weeks ago. It was a fun cruise, that's sort of one of our favorite modes of transportation for vacations. You see lots of different places, the good part is if you don't really care for a port of call then, no worries you only have to be there a day at the most!! The downside, if you truly love a port of call you only have one day there!!! We have taken care of that issue by just booking a trip to that location on our next vacation, it seems to always have worked out for us. I know there are people who would never step foot on a boat, as for us we love it. It's the best sleeping ever, especially if the water is a bit choppy, the best sleeping!!! So I'll leave you with a few photos and am going to try my best to blog a few days a week at least!! I complain I'm bored and have nothing to do, why now I can just use my time wisely and blog!!! Ok folks this is just tossed together and I have clue how to edit from my iPad, so please forgive any typos, ok??? Thanks and have a fabo week!!!! Marie Edit to add: blogger sucks or my iPad does since one or the other won't allow me to upload photos!!! I tried!

Welcome Home David and Rocky!!

OK, here I am trying to get another post up here so that I can sort of get into the habit of posting a few times a week at least! So I changed the decor here, anyone like, not like, not care? I want the flag and sort of USA "appear" to stay up until after our son returned from his most recent deployment. So he's back, yeah!!!!!!! We are very happy that he is back with his lil family in VA, but I do have to admit I have found it a bit hard to "brag" to very much about it on Face Book. I think that is due to the fact that I belong to a Face Book for Navy Moms group and during the holidays several moms were very happy their sailor got to come home, for them I was truly happy, honestly I was. On the other hand it also made me feel a lil sad, for several reasons, one is because there are three moms that I personally "know" from that group that lost a child this past year, maybe I'm wrong and they were OK with everyone being happy their friends sailors were home, I just don't know about that, truly!!! Another reason was the fact that our son wasn't home for Christmas once again, and it really bothered me!!!!! So because I knew how I felt about others bragging their sailor was back from deployment or for the holidays or whatever, I just really have not said a whole lot there about David being back. Of course we are extremely thankful that he is back home and in one piece. Maybe I'm wrong for feeling this way, who knows but since it's my Face Book page I can write or not write about anything I want I suppose. So any feelings on that anyone??? How would you feel if you child was still out in harm’s way and a few others were no longer, would you feel comfortable being all bragging and stuff??? Please do tell, not that it's going to change my feelings because they are my feelings but I do like to hear others points of view. Also as I said three of those moms lost a child during the past year, so that also brought up a few "feelings" in me as well, I thought OK I'm feeling a bit left out because my child id still deployed and these poor mom would most likely to be happy their sailor was still deployed rather than gone forever. So that made me feel as if I wasn't grateful that my child was or at that point we hoped he'd be safely home soon. I was more grateful than I have words for, that's for sure!! Anyway my feelings were all over the place while David was deployed, I was a complete and total wreck for the first maybe three to four weeks. If it hadn't been for my friend across the street and my sister who has gone through deployments with her son, I'm not exactly sure how I'd have made it, truly!!!!! The other thing that helped greatly was the fact that our daughter in law and grand daughter were here. That was a huge distraction from our son being in harm’s way, we so enjoyed having them here. They are really only about 6.5 - 7 hours from us but still it's a bit of a drive to see them, unlike while they were here!! We did face time with them on our phones yesterday since it was David's birthday and that sweet little girl oh how I miss her!!! I do hope that sometime very soon we will get a chance to go up there and visit them!!!! So I suppose I'll close here for now, I hope I wasn't to very confusing here but it was suddenly very hard for me to find the words for my feelings on that topic. So any input or suggestions, would be fabo!!! I hope you have had a wonderful weekend!!!
Marie

This is David and his Military Working Dog (MWD) Rocky!! Thanks guys for your service!!!!!

Meet Moon Beam Luna

It's been "forever and a day" (a fav of my mother's)since I have blogged!! I really thought that setting myself up for at least a photo everyday for 30 days would have jump started my "block". Well it's clear it did not, so I don't have a plan currently, I'm just going to attempt to blog as often as possible. I realized I missed an entire "book" of posts that some were full of drama and others not so dramatic, but memories just the same. While our son was deployed keeping all of us safe, our daughter in law, Kayla and grand daughter Caroline divided thier time between our home and her parents home about three hours from here. It was for the most part a wonderful time of memory making at it's best!! Caroline grew so much while he was gone, but thanks to good ole Skype he did get to see her at times. Most of the time I'd have to leave the room after telling hi and the general mom questions. Caroline would kiss the laptop screen and then if David asked for a hug she would wrap her arms around the computer or she would wrap her arms around herself!! Talk about a tear jerker, for real!! We are all very thankful that he is back and able to enjoy his little family. Yesterday or today I think was his first day back to "work". I will write a post about my feelings while he was gone and some very scary things that happned, but just not right now. I have had a very rough month or so and I sort of can feel myself "turning the corner" so to say. It was both mentally and physically rough and I want to enjoy my happy place for a bit before I go back and write about drama, fears and all of that junk.

I would like to write about lil Miss Moon Beam Luna, she is a fabo, wonderful, beautiful three month old baby beagle!!! I like her just a tiny bit and she is not spoiled in the least either!!!! Just needed to get that out of the way!! She truly came when I so needed a lil puppy therapy, for sure!! She was not supposed to live here fur-ever, the deal was I was to potty train her, let her get a little older so she could be left with our daughter Melissa's other dog. Since "Moonie" as we call her is a sweetheart for sure!! Someone "gave" her to our daughter while she was staged at a fire station while on shift. This person told her Moonie was 2.5 months old. So Melissa brings us Moonie the Saturday after Thanksgiving, I took one look at her and said there is no way this puppy is 2.5 months old, Melissa insisted this was so, OK, NOT!!! So to say poor lil
Moonie had a very ruff start in life doesn't come close!! She was only 3.1 pounds after living with us for almost a week. This is when her first "round of illneees" began, she was so pitiful!! She began to get sick and sicker, off to the vet we went. Thanks to our fabo vet Moonie got all better. Only to get sick once again, this time not so bad. Then something got a hold of that poor tiny baby beagle and she was sick as can be, we spent many sleepless nights together. Many after hours calls from our fabo vet just checking in on us, you surely don't see that much in this day and time!! During her last illness, she was very sick and we wondered if she would make it. I did everything I knew to do to help her get better, the vet did everything she knew to do. We managed her lack of fluids with IV fluids "sub- qu" which is right under the skin, and it looks sort of odd, almost like "saddle bags" on each side, as well as regular IV's. We prayed hard and worked hard on this lil girl!! She was just pitiful, during a rather ruff night, I held her and rocked all wrapped up in her blanket and begged her to get better and prayed for her to get better. I made a promise to her at that very second, I said “Moonie" if you will pull through this and get better I promise I will give you the most fabo fur-ever home, please get better I need you. There is a reason you came into my life and you aren’t getting out this soon!!! After a few more ruff days, she finally got a lot better. We just recently were informed of her true birth date, which is November 1, 2011; she came to us on the 25th. That made her only 3.5 weeks old when she first came to our home!! The vet feels this could be the reason she was so sickly. We’ve been through scary medical stuff with our kids, ourselves and other pets and this was no different, just heart wrenchingly scary! She appears to be doing well at this time, she isn’t much of an eater but she sure does love to play!! Also I suppose you have figured out that Melissa isn’t getting her back!!!! No hate, she at least got to name her, you surely didn’t think I came up with such a hippie name, now did you?????! I feel as if I have to defend myself for this but, Melissa works like 900 jobs, she is either on shift for 12 or 24 hours and there are times it's even more like 36 to 48 hours. She has friends who go by and let her golden "Mikey" out to potty, feed him and a few even just take him to thier home. "Mikey" is the type of dog who does fine with or without you, he loves Melissa, but he does LOVE his chill time too!! "Moonie" I don't feel will ever be a dog who is OK with being along for long periods of time. So no hate, I did it for a good reason and really Melissa is fine with it, she sees her when she visits us and when we visit her, she only 1.5 hours from us. So my first post in forever, goes on forever, so enjoy lil Moonie's photos!!!

The photo on the left is two days after she moved in and the right photo is about two weeks or so ago!!! A bit different in appearance???? Have a fabo Friday!!!! I'm too lazy to proof this for typos and the like so.......such is life at times!!!!
Marie