Paradise Found

Here is the first installation of pictures from our summer. Just a scattering of shots... I have to comb thru the pictures and these are the first I came across. Elizabeth's best friend from SC, Mackie, came to visit for a month, and we have lots of beautiful pics from that... that will be a Summer Update post all to itself later on.

Both kids played baseball... here are two of E:

And two of N:

On Mackie's last day here, we went up the North Shore to Turtle Bay Resort and went horseback riding. It was a gorgeous trip, and even The Boy did really well. It was WEIRD seeing him riding a horse without any help!

That's E w/ her hair dyed brown

The 4 of us... Mackie, Me, N and E

Also while Mackie was here, Staind came in concert at Bayfest, and it actually fell right on her birthday! So I took both the girls to the show. The pictures are not great, but we were right by the mosh pit and I could hardly get my camera up, let alone held still... so I took about 50 pics, and they mostly look like these:

Two random shots of N one morning before school:

Back in April or May I posted up some progress shots of my fitness transformation... so here's a few more from August:

That's it for now... I need to get changed and ready to go to the gym! Don't forget you can leave a comment here if we haven't talked in a while... I don't use the bikergirl_brazen Yahoo email address anymore... had to change that several months ago. So if you've been writing to that, I'm not getting it!

Hi all! I know I haven't written in months... hopefully you guys are still out there. =o) It's been a long time... since April I guess. Can't really catch up on all of that time... but I can start with recent news.

C was just home on his 2 week R&R from Iraq. We're home now from taking him to the airport for the return trip. It was a fantastic 2 weeks... and the pictures I'm sharing tonight are from that time. Maybe tomorrow I'll post some that are a bit older... from the summer months.

So C's been gone for over 9 months now, and unless there's a last minute extension, the unit will be home before Christmas. It's strange to see how much the kids have changed in 9 months' time... stranger even for C, I'm sure.

To start out the pictures......

I was able to get an oceanfront beach cabin for 3 days/2 nights of child-free time! This was our cabin:

And looking up the beach at more cabins:

C standing on the seawall off of our porch:

We made sure to be outdoors for the sunsets both nights, so here are some pics of them:

This guy was really cool! He paddled all over the bay (Pokai Bay)... and spent hours going thru the surf along with the surfers!

E received an early Christmas present; it was a huge surprise to her, but something she's been asking for:

His name is Bruiser and was almost or right at 2 pounds in these pictures when we got him. LOL!! He's 2.5 pounds now, and 9 weeks old. He's 3/4 Chihuahua, 1/4 fox terrier. His mom was 7 pounds, and dad was 4 pounds.

While C was gone for the first 9 months, I worked on designing my next tattoo... and once I was done, C really liked it and decided to get it done too! So I got mine done first, and two days later he went and got his.

The pictures aren't that great yet, because the flash made too much glare on mine, especially. The ointment made it all shiny. When it's all healed up, I'll get new pics taken.

These 3 were taken earlier today, before we left for the airport: