It's Christmas!

Hope everyone had a great Christmas!

Ours was very nice-and it was in the 60's! Today is a different story though.

We began our Christmas on Christmas Eve after Steph got home from work by the kids opening their choice of 1 gift. This is always quite a process of shaking & feeling out the packages to find the right one.

Jake wants in on the action!

Then Christmas morning, which in recent history would mean the parental units being woken up between 4 and 5 am! Im glad this year they seems to haven jumped over this hump!

Justin is very happy with his new jacket.

I think Im going to have to have a few glasses of hot chocolate with Steph! That chocolate mix is real chocolate shavings! YUM!

Zoe LOVES Christmas paper!

Justin's friend since 6th grade, Kevin, is home from college for the holidays & stopped by. It was good to see him!

And THEN!!!!!

Mes, Justin's girlfriend is home from boot camp finally!

The kids hanging out on the porch.

Then Uncle Larry, Tiffany & her Mom got here for dinner. Justins friends also stayed & we had a nice time.

And for the finale...Santa left Grandma Cherie a special present!

For the last 4 or so years there has been a certain crochet tree that has made itself around to all three of us girls (we have no idea who made it as it came with a lot of stuff I bought at an estate sale). So when Tiffany saw it thought it would be funny to give it to her Mom from her 'daughters'...well Rick came up with a new idea for the special tree...

Hahahaha!!

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!

Stephs Winter Concert & Change of Command

Wow we have been busy! Tonight was Stephs Winter Concert at school. This year they have a new teacher & he is awesome (much different than the 70+ old teacher she had the first 2 years) She is having a blast this year finally! This is where she is in the program-the first one lists the soloists.

Anyway-she is first chair again & had a few solo's tonight. Cant really see her though cause the new teacher likes to have his 1st chairs sit right down the middle in front of him so he doesn't have to look over to the side...lol...so she is front & center behind the music stand. Its not a Christmas song but sounds good! I edited it down to just her parts so its quite short so as not to bore everyone.

And the holiday grand finale!!! The orchestra, Choir & 1st chairs from the Concert band did Alleluia & I was blown away! You won't believe they are High School kids. They sounded like a professional orchestra & choir! Beautiful! (She is in the back in this one so you cant see her, plus I was standing at the back of the auditorium)

And now a few Change of Command pics from Friday...

Don't they look handsome? Rick is at the other end and I'm waiting for another wife to send me the pic she got from that angle.





The Captain





The new Captain





Us in front of the freshly painted boat.

The Christmas Lights are UP!

So we finally got it together & hung the lights outside. We thought we would be different this year & used our red & green strings. It looked ok when it was dusk but I had a shoot last night & came home after dark & it looked a bit tacky to me. Oh well I'm not doing it over!

He scares me sometimes! Im just glad we didnt put them on the upper roof!

Justin handing Rick a stand of lights

At dusk

At night...

The picture doesn't really do it justice-it really does look a little like overkill :)

Gonna have to come up with something else for next year. Im open to any suggestions!

Not retiring yet.....

We got some sad news today. Rick may not be able to retire when we were planning. If the situation were a normal "can't let you out yet" situation this wouldnt be a problem-we would just sit it out & do the time-but his boat is changing home ports very soon & very far away from Va. so that would mean 3-4 more months apart! And so soon after a deployment. Needless to say, today was a bit emotional. We will see what the next week or so brings, hopefully something else can be worked out & we can go back to the May retirement and only 1-2 months apart.

On a lighter note, someone left me this very nice comment & gave me a link to the fixed photo:

Our Castle Rock Farm said...
Hi there.I teach digital design at a university and happened upon your blog. I took the liberty of photoshopping out the boy behind your family's homecoming photo.

Thank you!

Sue & Wes Tour Rick's Boat

Sue & Wes have come down for a visit & to be at Rick's party. Rick has duty so I brought them down to the boat for a tour. Here are a few pictures...

Rick showing Wes some stuff....

Wes acting like he is touching something he shouldnt!

Steph up in the bridge

Pic from up in the bridge

WELCOME HOME RICK!!!

WOO HOOO!! He is finally home safe & sound!

Steph & I went to the Chesapeake Bay bridge/tunnel with a few other wives in the morning to watch them go by. There is a restaurant there so we figured we would sit & have lunch while we waited for them. After we ordered, one of the wives went to get her camera from her car. She saw the boat way out on the horizon so we thought we had time-well we sort of did. We were close to being finished eating & she ran out to check & they were hauling butt right past us! We told the waitress as we ran out we would be right back-no really we would...lol...just wanted to be sure she didn't think we were running out without paying! Anyway we had to run down the fishing pier & I was able to get a few shots like the one above. So we rushed back in & payed & ran back to our house to pick up Justin.

The boat pulling into the pier.

The crowd.

So they moved the spot where they were suppose to pull into & it was further away from where they had everyone waiting, so no one could really see the boat very well (they were suppose to pull right up next to the parking/waiting area so that everyone could watch). The ombudsman asked if our photographer (that was me of course) could go down with the media crew to get photos of them pulling in. Comes in handy to be a photographer sometimes I guess!

He's so cute!

When Rick was in sonar he was always topside but the job he has on this boat he isn't usually up there. I didn't even know he was there when I was shooting away! When we I said something about it being a bummer he wasn't topside anymore he was like-what are you talking about I can go where ever I want now! You were looking right at me, I was standing there acting like I was supervising! He knew I would be the unofficial official photographer so I guess he wanted to see everything! He is too funny.

Getting tied up.

All changed & ready to get off the boat. He is so darn handsome!

Justin was the first to run to him. That's the back of his head. Our friend Tiffany was snapping photos at this point.

Then Steph got her hug.

My turn!!!!


So happy he is home!

I am going to ask my good photographer friend, Chris, who is way better than I am at photoshop to get rid of the kid growing out of Ricks head :)

I still can't believe it over!