USS Alabama

I should update the blog as soon as we go to these neat places because I quickly forget the great details that we learn. Sorry... This is the USS Alabama. It was an hour drive from where we live so we decided to cross the border and go check it out. It was really neat to be in a battle ship and the submarine. I just can't believe how tight and small those ships are. Definitely a sacrifice from the luxuries of home.

Joey was so scared to climb and go down those narrow steps. After a while he got the hang of it.

The barber shop

Sleeping quarters: Not very spacious. I mean one wrong move or a bad dream and you are on the ground. Too bad for you if you are the third person up.

Kevin, our Silly Sailor.

This is the jail. I never realized or imagined there would be unruly sailors. What was I thinking?

The bars kind of ruin the picture, but this was the bakery. That was one of the biggest kneading machines I had ever seen. It was pretty cool.

Men and their guns.

Jessica's Wedding

For Labor Day Weekend, we flew back up to Atlantic City for my cousin, Jessica's, Wedding. She married Robert Coleman and he is a great guy. She was one of our bridesmaids for our wedding and we hadn't seen her since we got married 7 years ago so we definetly wanted to go and support her. With the military its so hard to know when you will see family, so we like to take advantage of these great opportunities to be together. It was a beautiful wedding. We had so much fun and ate great food. We hadn't danced in a long time and it was great to show my Dominican family that my white boy, Kevin, has rhythm.

My Mom was so cute because she loves us so much and loves to show off her family whenever she can. She was happy to have all her children together. This is my brother Aristy. He's hot! His girlfriend is hotter! Katherine, is amazing. We love her and hope she becomes a member of the family.

My sister, Karina, and her beautiful family, Jose, Bianca, and Sabrina. I went to the salon with Bianca and Sabrina that day and I loved getting that quality time together with my nieces. I wish I could do it more often.

I have a really big family. Here are some of my fun, beautiful cousins. From left to right- Karina, Lorraine, Katherine, Stephanie, Me, the bride, Jessica, and Cindy.

I absolutely love this picture. Sibling rivalry always exists when you grow up, but it is so great to be adults and to just love eachother and be not only family, but friends.

My good friend, Jackie (in the orange sweater), drove down to Atlantic City from NYC and she watched the children while we went to the wedding. Afterwards, we went to the bride and groom suite to talk and catch up. We stayed up until 4:00 am!!! Never again... but it was worth it.

Bye Bye Summer....

We have had such a really good summer. Our move to Florida has been great, we went to Disney World, spent some time at the beach, and most importantly Kevin is spending lots more time at home. Its great that he is not on call all the time now. We love it when he is home.

Joey is 3 now. He turned the big 3 in August. I started Joy School with him this fall. It is a value based learning system that moms can do at home to teach their children how to learn and still have joy. Its been great. Its just me and him so some things he has a hard time with just doing us two because honestly, he looks at me like I'm crazy because I do these silly songs with him and he almost acts like hes too cool to do it. But he loosens up and joins me. He did great at drawing a stick figure to learn about the body and loves to change the date and weather on his calendar.

One of the things we loved to do this summer was just walk on the beach and fly kites. Kevin had more fun flying the Buzz Lightyear kite than Joey did. It was really cute. The beaches here are so beautiful and clean and warm. Joey loved it.. Emma not so much

We went to this restaurant in Alabama- just an hour away- and it was great. It was your typical home country cooking, but it was a lot food with a lot of fun. They throw you rolls at the restaurant from across the room. Kevin caught his second one and Joey was so impressed. We also hit some milestones this summer. Emma can crawl now as you can see her hiding under the bed. She is so fast and loves to follow me around the house. And Joey is potty trained. He has random accidents if I am not on top of my game, but overall he does really good. Every time he goes, he says he has to go "Like Daddy."

These two are twins!

Happy 3rd Birthday Joey

We cannot believe how fast time flies. It feels like just yesterday we were in Arrowhead Hospital in Glendale, AZ about to have our son with Kevin's parents and my mother there anxiously awaiting his arrival. It happened so quickly and we were so blessed to have Kevin's parents and my mother be there despite Joey's early arrival. Every year I say that I will watch his birth video that my father-in-law, Neil so lovingly video taped, but every year I chicken out. I still get goose bumps just thinking of the pain. But I would do it again in a heart beat for Joey and any other child I bear because it was definitely worth it.

We had a birthday party for Joey on Saturday the 1st of August. My brother was on vacation in Orlando so we planned it early in case he was able to come up, but he couldn't but it was OK. We were really lucky to have made such good friends already in Florida so I invited anyone that had children Joey's age. 13 primary children came and they had a ton of fun. We had 3 kiddie pools, a slip and slide, a pinata, and tons of food. It was amazing too because at 9 am it was pouring rain. I mean pouring rain. The party was at 11 and the backyard was all Thomas decked out. I didn't want Joey's party to be ruined or our opportunity to make friends so we lifted our hearts to the heavens in prayer and prayed that the rain would stop. 10:30 rolled around and it was crystal clear skies. I was so excited Kevin had to humble me down. But I just couldn't mistake how much Heavenly Father is aware of our desires. It was a great time. Joey at the end said "Thanks Maddy (short for Mami and Daddy- its his new thing) for birthday party, thank you." Ahhhh...

This is a great friend, Fallon, who moved as well from the Bethesda area. Her husband too is a flight surgeon and she made Joey his train cake. HE LOVED IT!

One of Joey's presents from us, well I made it, Kevin paid for it ;), was this Batman towel. Kevin has been unwinding by playing Batman legos on Xbox and Joey stares and tells Kevin where to go. So I decided to figure out a little cape thing for him. Lets just say he went to bed with it.

3 Things We Love About Joey

1- How friendly he is. He will go up to any child and say, "Hi, I'm Joey, Come on" We love it. We hope he stays that way for his mission.

2- His sense of humor. It is so difficult to keep a straight face with him when we are trying to correct him. He makes silly faces in return or says the silliest things.

3- Any time he goes on time out, he always says he has an ouwy (?). We think he is trying to tell us we hurt his feelings.

Thanks to all those who called and sent well wishes. Love you

Our First Family Vacation

Disney is offering amazing discounts for the military this year. We were able to go to Disney World and get Kevin's admission free, mine dirt cheap, and 40% off of our resort stay. We had promised Joey that we would take him to Disney since my bed rest caused him to have such a boring summer last year and we had to keep our promise.

It was our first official family vacation where it was only the 4 of us hanging out, enjoying each other's company. We stayed at the Pop Century Resort and enjoyed their great food, fun heated pool, and Joey loved the toy store there. We went to Hollywood Studios, Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, and Sea World (for free as well). Hollywood Studios was great because Joey met all his Pixar heroes- Buzz, Woody, McQueen, Sully, Mater, Mike Wizeow...something. They had a great new Toy Story ride that we were able to shoot lasers at different Toy Story theme stuff (I don't know how to explain it) and Joey really liked that.

We went to Magic Kingdom twice. Once on Thursday night for the parade and than again on Monday to do the tea pots, we met Buzz there again, and did a Monsters INC comedy show. Joey was so cute when he met Buzz all those times. He was such a good boy during the whole vacation. One morning, he woke up and immediately jumped in the stroller (pjs bad breath and all) and said "Lets go guys!" It was so cute. Just seeing how happy he was made it all worth it. And Emma was a doll too. Poor thing was so sweaty because I carried her in the baby carrier 90% of the time, but it guaranteed us that she would be happy so she didn't mind and neither did we. But as you can see in the pictures with Goofy and Minnie, she was star struck. She never cried when the characters came around, just stared in awe. It was darling.

Animal Kingdom was great because we saw some great animals really close up. We probably saw a dozen hippos and crocs just hanging out in this safari ride we took. It was really fun. Sea World was amazing! I love sea animals and Joey was so thrilled to get wet by Shamu- Emma not so much! It was pretty cold. But she survived.

All in all it was a great vacation. We felt so blessed to have our children behave and the weather as well. It was always a beautiful day and than when we had enough and were on our way back to the resorts, the heavens opened and it poured big time. So we felt lucky. If you go to Disney definitely get the meal plan. We were able to have character breakfasts with Lilo and Stitch and Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Donald, and the Little Einsteins which we would never have paid for individually. We will be back in Disney in January for my first ever Marathon! Wish me luck. If you want to see WAY more pictures go to the blog (if you get this by email) and there is a slide show there.

Milton, FL

If you got our posts as emails, be prepared to get a few emails in the next few days as I catch you up on our new adventure.

This is our new home in Milton, FL. Its about 45 minutes outside of Pensacola. We decided to live here because Kevin will be working in two bases and this was somewhat in the middle. Its a cute little neighborhood that is behind a golf course. All of our streets are named after famous golfers- go figure. But I have to say that we really love it. The house is 4 bedrooms and 3 baths. Our master bath is as as big as a room on its own and we each have our own closets. Kevin was thrilled to have a place to finally spread his clothes out. I guess I wasn't giving him enough space. I don't ever see how that is possible :) What I really love is our dinning room. If you know me for a long time, you know how much I love our dining room table and how much I love to entertain, so now I get to keep it open and have beautiful pictures on the wall- its just great.

The kids are adjusting really well. It was sensitive there for a while because Joey really missed his friends back in MD but we are keeping him busy and have set up all his toys and he is happy. He is potty training. Not fun at all! He does better with Kevin than with me, but I have to be patient. I just say- "No PooPoo on Thomas" (thanks Amy) and it works out sometimes. I just have to watch for the PeePee dance and the hiding when he poops.

Enough about Poop. Emma is great. She is 7 months and such a cutie if I say so myself. She sits up and I started to make her her own baby food. My friend Luz introduced me to the concept and I actually enjoy it. Yesterday I made her 14 jars for about $5.00. The cheapest I ever saw baby food was when Dad got some for Amy in CA for .25 and I never saw that again so hopefully this way I can save money. She really likes them so far and I get to be creative. Hopefully this will help her not be as picky as Joey.

Kevin is THRILLED to say the least about this training. He is excited to learn to fly and meet new people and get more of the Navy experience. He really loves the area too. He was great at getting the house unpacked and has been so patient with Joey and his potty training.

Me, well, we only have one car so I get to stay home lots, but my Mom is here which has been really nice. And I am going to start Joy School with Joey at home in the middle of August so between that, the kids, and some projects, it will be fine to stay home and not spend any money ;)

Well gotta go put Joey to bed so I will be back to update you on Disney World!!!! PS- that picture of us in a box was while we were putting together our patio set, this big thunderstorm hit and Joey was so scared of the thunder he hid in the box. It was pretty loud.