Our New Obsession - GeoCaching

Hello Everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. Monte, the boys and I stayed at home and just spent time together. Monte's been home now for almost 2 months and we are still trying to soak up as much of him as we can. One thing good about him having been deployed is that he has pretty much been off since he got home. He's gone to work a few days here and there, but for the most part has been off.

For Christmas this year, Nate got a new bike from mom and dad and a Nintendo DS from Santa. Brady got a cell phone from mom and dad and an iPod Nano from Santa. Monte and the boys got me a KitchenAide mixer (which I absolutely love) and the boys and I got Monte a Garmen Nuvi GPS System for the truck. One of the information sheets that came with the Garmen talked about GeoCaching. We've never heard of this "sport" until we got the Garmen and let me tell you, after the first "hunt" all four of us are hooked. For detailed information about GeoCaching, you can go to http://www.geocaching.com/ and find out about it. Basically it is a scavenger hunt. You go onto the website and put in the zip code of the area that you are going to be in. A list of places comes up complete with a name of the cache, GPS coordinates to get you to the cache and a coded clue to help you find the cache. When you find a cache, you open it up and fill out your information and what you are taking and/or leaving. Then you put the cache back where you found it and move onto the next one. The coolest thing so far has been these travel bugs we found in our first cache. It has a serial number on it and if you take one out of a cache, you are to take it home and log it in that you've got it and where you found it. Then you are to place it in another location and log that in as well. People buy these things and place them in caches and by logging in to their bug, they can track its movement and see where its been. We've gotten a couple of them now and one of them was noted as hoping it could make its way to Ireland and Scotland. The person who bought it said they've always wanted to go to those countries, but still wasn't able to make the trip, so they hoped that their "bug" would end up there. Monte's done most of the research for our caches, but this is a pretty big thing all around the world. We've gone on 11 hunts so far and are planning on going out again this weekend. Its basically our SFA's with an extra element of fun added to them. We're looking forward to doing some hunting when we go up to Chapel Hill in February for Brady's next diabetes check-up and of course, across country when we head back home after retirement. Monte looked up Kalispell and there are currently something like 300 cache's in the Flathead Valley alone. Get yourself a Garmen and go GeoCaching guys. If you like to go on drives and road trips, you will love doing this.

Here are some picture's from our new obsession.

God Bless! :)

Sophie's First Birthday

Sophie turned 1 today and of course, we had to have a little party for her. I planned on using a can of dog food to mold a bone "cake" for her, but I got the wrong kind. Chunky dog food the consistency of beef stew just doesn't cut it. Anyway, we put a candle in the pile of food and made her wait while we sang Happy Birthday to her. Monte was laughing at us, but hey, Sophie deserves a birthday too. She's our baby girl, our little miss, the fifth member of our family. We love her to death, as you've probably guessed. With Christmas just 10 days away, we only got her one present though. Its a big bag of cookies from the PetCo cookie bar. We have to go to Wilmington for them, as we don't have a PetCo here in Jax, but she's a spoiled puppy, what can I say.

So, that was Sophie's birthday party. She ate her birthday food in about a minute, chowed down on two cookies and went to bed. Its hard work being the birthday girl you know....ha ha.

Have a great rest of the week everyone. God Bless! :)

We're Still Here

Hello Everyone. Just wanted to post a quick note to let you all know we are still here and are doing well. We haven't been doing much. Just staying close to Monte and trying to soak up as much of him as we can.

We did get some good news last week. The construction guys have been moving rather quickly lately and so we got our notice that its our turn to move into a remodeled house. Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! Thank you Jesus! We are finally going to have a garage again! We will be moving on the 12th of January, so we are all really excited for that. I 'll let you all know what our address is and post a picture too once we get the keys.

Well, I guess that's about it for now. I hope you are all having a great Sunday. Bye for now and God Bless you all! :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

May your stuffing be tasty
May your turkey be plump,
May your potatoes and gravy
Have nary a lump.
May your yams be delicious
And your pies take the prize,
And may your Thanksgiving dinner
Stay off of your thighs!

Happy Thanksgiving to each and everyone of you!

Love you and God Bless! :)

Priceless

Cammie Cover....$10
Cammie's....$80
Combat Boots....$150

Having them in the closet and my Marine home with me....PRICELESS!

Monte arrived at the meeting place at about 5:40 pm last night. I didn't tell anyone as I wasn't sure of the date and there were some delays before he actually got on the plane. I was afraid that if I told anyone about his coming home that it would end up not happening. The boys didn't even know until a couple days before. Anyway, it did happen and lets just say that the boys and I (as well as Monte) are so happy and relieved. I was so excited that I couldn't stop hugging him and he and I haven't been apart since. All we want to do is be with each other. The six months went fast, but felt like it lasted forever all at the same time.

Our thanks to all of you for your thoughts and prayers while Monte was away. We both appreciate it very much. Have a great weekend everyone! God Bless! :)

Happy Halloween!

Another Halloween has come to an end and we had a great time. We went over to trick or treat with Ann and the girls at 5 o'clock today. Brady actually went by himself for the first time. He said the rest of us would just hold him back. I guess that's standard though for a teenager. Well, he'll officially be a teenager this coming Friday, the 6th of November. Nate and I trick or treated with Ann and the girls until about 7 o'clock and then the girls had had enough and wanted to go home. I knew the boys wouldn't be ready to stop though, so we found Brady and picked him up and went home. We dropped off the bags of candy they had gotten already and headed out to trick or treat in our housing area. Brady got a lot of compliments on his costume. In case you haven't figured it out, he was a cereal (as in breakfast cereal) killer. Nate, as you can tell, was a vampire. So, we walked around our housing area and got home at about 8:30. Perfect timing as trick or treating is over on base at 9 o'clock. As you can see, they got TONS of candy. Should be enough to last them until next Halloween.

Well, that's pretty much it. I know I haven't posted in awhile, but there just hasn't been anything that interesting going on. As I've said before, just school and soccer. Brady is finished with soccer as of today, but Nate has one more week. We've enjoyed soccer, but are all glad that its almost over. It will be nice not to have to be at practice 4 times a week and spend most of our Saturday's at games. The break for winter will be nice.

Have a great rest of the weekend everyone. God Bless! :)

Flowers From Monte

Monte ordered these flowers for me one night while surfing the Internet on ship. They were delivered on Wednesday and I had no idea he had sent them. It was such a wonderful surprise and it totally made my day. They are miniature roses sitting in ceramic pumpkins, which in turn sit on a green ceramic tray (the lids for each pumpkin are sitting off the side). Wasn't he just too sweet to send them to me? Monte is an amazing person and the best of husbands. I am so blessed and thankful to be his wife. I love you Honey!

Hope you all are having a great weekend. God Bless! :)

Shark Dissection

Hello everyone. Nathan dissected sharks in class on Tuesday and I went in to help out. Thank goodness I have a strong stomach, because the kids at my table couldn't wait to rip, cut, and/or pull apart the shark that we had. It was an interesting project though. The kids identified the sharks spinal cord, liver, stomach, eyes and brains. One of the sharks even had some partially digested fish in its stomach. The kids were all really impressed by that. It was a lot of fun seeing how excited and interested they all were. After about 30 minutes though, the smell of the formaldehyde was burning my nose and giving me a headache. Its been a long time since I dissected anything. I told Nate that I had dissected cow's eyes in 5th grade, frogs in 8th grade I believe and fetal pigs in 10th grade. He wasn't very impressed and told me that the squid they did a few weeks ago and the sharks this time were way better. But, of course they were. With Nate, everything he does is better than anything anyone else does, especially Brady. Nate's got to one up his brother at all costs. I guess that's what little brother's do. He feels left out when Brady gets to do certain things and he can't. The latest thing is staying home alone. He just doesn't understand that a 7 year old can't stay home by themselves, but a 12 year old can. I imagine this is only the beginning though. Being 5 years apart, Brady is going to be doing things that Nate won't be able to do for awhile. Poor kid.

Nathan & Mrs. Hunnicutt

Well, that's about it for now. We've got Nate's soccer practice tonight and then its time for Thursday night TV. This is my busiest TV viewing night. I gotta record two of my shows as they are on at the same time as a couple others. Don't forget, if you haven't seen it yet, watch Flash Forward. Its on tonight on ABC at 8 pm for me. Again guys, this is an excellent show! Watched Eastwick last night and its a good one too. I would definitely recommend it.

Have a great rest of the week and an even better weekend. God Bless! :)

Hey All

I can't believe we are headed into the last week of September. Back in May, when Monte left, the end of the year seemed so far away. We're in the finally stretch now and Monte, the boys and I are so glad. We are so ready to all be together again and begin to enjoy our Smith family adventures again.

We haven't done much this past week or so. Just the usual things like school, soccer practice and soccer games.

The new fall TV season is really getting going now. It was great to watch House, Bones, Grey's Anatomy and Fringe again. The best thing though was Flash Forward. Have any of you watched this show? If not, you should. I was so excited to see the pilot episode and now can't wait until next week for the next one. I'm telling you, this is the next big hit. Its on Wednesday's at 8 pm. If you're not watching anything in particular at that time, check it out. I think you will like it as much as Brady and I do. I can't wait for Monte to get home so he can catch up with the first set of episodes and watch with me. I got him addicted to Lost and I think he'll get addicted to this show too.

Well, that's about it for now. Nate's dying to get on the computer for his hour and then it will be Brady's turn. Have a great football Sunday tomorrow. GO PACK GO! God Bless! :)

The New Me

Well, I finally did it guys, I cut my hair! About 9 inches came off to be exact and I LOVE it! I think I'm going to keep it this length for awhile too. I could not not go back to the hair salon that I went to anyway. After James (my new hair guy) washed my hair, he massaged my scalp and my neck. It was like a mini spa afternoon and so very relaxing. I think I'm going to have to show Monte how to massage my head and neck that way too. I could definitely go for that more than once a month or so when I need to get my hair trimmed.

Well, I guess that's about it for now. I know this post was short, but its Sunday and the boys and I have football and NASCAR to watch. GO PACK GO! Have a great day everyone. God Bless! :)

First Soccer Games of the Season

Here are some picture's of the boys' first soccer games from this past Saturday. Brady (#39) is on the United team and Nathan (#27) is on the Fury team. Neither one of them won their games, but they both played really well. Brady was always pretty good at soccer and Nate has gotten a lot better since he played in Idaho. He's not as afraid to get into the mix and go after the ball. I was a very proud mom on Saturday.

Have a great week everyone! God Bless! :)