USS North Carolina

Last weekend, we headed to Wilmington to check out the USS North Carolina Battleship.  It was so interesting and I loved seeing the excitement in the boys faces.  They loved hearing the history and they wanted to read everything.  I think Jeremy enjoyed being able to share military history with the boys as well.

This is me and Kaleb in the kitchen

It was a beautiful day to enjoy the battleship.

Water faucets in the bathroom.

 The boys.

The dental lab.

Markus checking out the big guns.

We plan on going back this summer when Jeremy's parents are in town.  

SNOW DAY

We have finally made it home from visiting family in Oklahoma for the holidays and we had a great time.  The day we were scheduled to head home however, we did get an unfortunate call that my cousin was in the hospital and we needed to get there immediately.  He is still in the hospital and is in an up and down roller coaster, he improves then gets worse.  So, we are continuing to pray for him and my Aunt Val.  She has not left the hospital since he was admitted and then later transferred to Oklahoma City.

 On another note, since we got home to North Carolina, we have been so busy getting back into our routine, its been a struggle but we are getting there.  The boys were a little upset that the whole trip we did not see any snow and while were gone, it snowed here in NC.  Last night, the news said we were gonna get a "wintery" mix but when we woke up this morning it was snowing, alot! The boys were still sleeping at 9am, so I just couldn't resist and woke them up.  They were so excited to see all the snow. 

They have been asking all morning to go out and play but its still coming down hard.  

Before I woke them up I took these photos, I just love this weather, other then my toes feeling like they will never warm up! Im so not used to this weather.  We are gonna enjoy our day off and play in the snow and drink hot chocolate :)

  

SANTA'S COMING!

Yes, that's right! This lil guy is super excited!!! When we talk about Santa, this is his face, hehe! Last night, Santa drove through the neighborhood with the firetrucks and the Military Police on a decorated float! It was totally unexpected, we had no idea it was going on. Jeremy was out in the garage putting together his weight/gym set and heard the sirens and came in to tell Jake to go outside and check it out. When we went outside, his lil face lit up!!! He was so excited to see Santa, again. It was so cool, he drove right in front of our house, and I'm sad I didnt have my camera with me, like I said we were not expecting this. At one point, Santa pointed right at Jake and said "don't forget to bake me some yummy cookies", he was one happy lil boy. As we were going back inside, Jake says "we gotta go bake Santa cookies". He thought Santa was coming last night to bring him presents! Yikes, how do you explain to a 4 year old that he has to wait 2 more weeks. I told him Santa has to go make the toys and will be back when he gets done. Stuff like that just makes me and Jeremy smile, our older two boys are getting too "old" for Santa.

Last Saturday, we took Jake to the mall so he could tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas. We stood in line for 30+ mins waiting on crying kids, stressed out moms, and annoyed Elves, just to get up there and have our picture taken and done in less then 5 minutes! Really! Ok, it was for the kids, I know but by the time we were done, I was done and needed a Frappuccino! Jake did so good, he didn't act too shy, AND even Markus and Kaleb wanted to sit on Santa's lap! They all told him what they wanted and took a super cute picture, sorry I haven't scanned it yet.

Hope you all have a Merry Christmas and enjoy every minute of it, I know we will! We leave for Oklahoma in a few days. Ill try to update while we are there, but don't count on it :)

~becky~

Boys play dress up too!

Jake loves to dress up in his old Halloween costumes or his big brothers clothes/shoes/hats/etc. This is what he was wearing last week.

Its a Marine Pilot Jumpsuit. He's so cute! He will even wear this out, like he did last week when we went to lunch then out to the Dollar Store. I say it builds character and imagination!!!! Have a good weekend!

~becky~

Happy Fathers Day!

  I have been married to my husband, Jeremy for almost 10 years!  We had our first son, Markus at the young age of 16 and ever since I found out I was pregnant, Jeremy has been by my side and has been a great Dad to our 3 boys.  When we were teenagers and still living at home with our parents, he was always been there for me no matter what.  We both had to go to high school and raise a newborn baby.  Jeremy also had a part time job as a dishwasher.  Times were very tough back then but he was not going to abandon me or our son no matter how hard things got.  He did what he had to in order for us to live and take care of our son with little help from our parents.  

Twelve years later, we have 3 boys ages 11,8, and 3!  We have stayed together through all the hard and good times.  Our boys love their Dad so much and you can tell by the smiles on their faces how much they adore their Dad.  Jeremy is always there for our boys, whether it be coaching little league baseball, playing a game of basketball outside, or teaching them to ride a bike, he always has time for them.   He is also teaching our boys to be gentlemen and I know one day they will all make great Fathers as well, and for this Im thankful to Jeremy for the great years and the many more to come!!! 

Jeremy and the boys last year, 2009

August 1998, the day we had our first son Markus

Jeremy and Jake enjoying some lunch

Jeremy, Markus and Kaleb in 2003 after he got home from Iraq

This was Jeremy this morning, he had to make his own breakfast because he makes eggs better then me! HA! If you look closely you can see his smirk, he thought it was kinda funny too that he had to make his own Fathers Day breakfast! 

Happy Fathers Day!

~becky~

Trying to get back in my routine/A challenge

First, I hope everyone had a great weekend, yeah I know its already Wednesday but Im a lil slow right now.  We had a nice long relaxing weekend ourselves.  Since I have been home for a lil over a week now, I've been having such a hard time getting back into my own routine!  For starters, Jeremy was off for 4 days, so that threw things off with him being home.  Also, Jake is out of preschool for the summer and I also have my nephew here spending the summer.  So, Im trying to get things in order and get myself back in my groove!  

We have had so many other things going on in our life right now that I feel like we were in a rut and struggling to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  I know God is here watching over us and this is just something he has challenged us with.  Jeremy thinks that when we go thru things like this, God is testing our Faith, I however do not believe this!  I feel that its God way of telling us to show his Love to someone in need and to show our Faith in God.  That is exactly the outcome that Iam seeing right now.  Our situation started off with us totally stressed out and me feeling like "why is this happening to us?" however, as time went on, I realized its not about us at all!  Its about us helping someone else out!  I seriously wanted to knock myself upside the head!  I really do not want to tell anyone what is going on exactly but I wanted to tell you all how things are changing in our lives right now and how God is working thru us to help others out.  Its something small to some but its a great reward for us to know that in the end I may of changed someones life.  

With that being said, Im keeping my Faith in God and living for him as I have been in the past.  

"God is pleased when we do small things for Him out of Loving Obedience.  They may be unnoticed by others, but God notices them and considers them acts of worship."

Here are some more photos from my trip home!!! 

Me and my new sweet nephew, Hayden

My sister Melanie and her new baby

The Raasch Family

Jake and his Papa Frank picking strawberries out of the garden

Me and my dad, Mark Sr.

~becky~

There's no crying in baseball, only smiles...

Literally!  Last night Markus pitched an awesome game!  Towards the end of the game he was literally smiling thru every pitch!  He had that much confidence in himself!  He knew he had that game in the bag.  We were all just so thrilled for him.  However, I did not get to capture that smile, due to me sitting in the bleachers, making sure Jake did not fall off of them.  I did get a few of him warming up before the game started.....

Nice posture!

His nervous lip chewing, he gets that from me.

He is a natural!

More photos later from Kaleb's game, he did awesome as well and I just think they look so stinkin cute in their uniforms!

~Becky~

Photo Fun with Susan!

This past Saturday we went to Joshua Tree National Park to have our pictures taken by Susan at Short on Words!  She was such a nice, patient, and talented person.  I have been so happy since we found out we won her Inspire Me giveaway.  The deal was we were to go to Orange County but when she found out that we lived in 29 Palms she wanted to come here and take the photos in Joshua Tree, which Im glad because that place is so awesome and the boys really like it there. 

 

We had a lot of fun taking the photos, we got to just be ourselves and have fun.  With 3 boys, its hard to make them sit and just smile for picture after picture for an hour or so.  She let the boys run around, climb rocks, ride bikes, battle with light sabers, and even play catch with Dad!  The day was perfect, sunny weather, low winds, and hardly a cloud in the sky.  

To most people this may not seem like a big deal, which is what I told Susan, but to us it means so much more.  She is capturing a time in our lives that we will get to cherish for years and not to mention that we will be able to show our families these great photos back in Oklahoma.  Being in the military, we hardly ever get to see our families and the one thing they love more then anything is getting new pics of the boys, this time it will be photos of ALL of US!!!  

We truly cannot Thank You enough for giving us this great opportunity Susan!!! 

She posted a sneek peek on here!

~becky~

San Diego, CA 2010

A few weeks ago we went to San Diego to have a mini weekend vacation with our friends the Romkowske family.  Im just now posting the pics from that weekend because when we got home I was sick for a few days then with the hustle of moving this weekend, well, I just been kinda busy.  We had so much fun that weekend though, even though Saturday it rained all day loooong!  We managed to make the best of it and have some fun.  

We started off by going to the Childrens Museum in downtown San Diego.  It was a super cute museum but really for the younger ones, so Markus, 11, really did not enjoy it too much.  He just helped his lil brother Jake with stuff, hehehe!

Here are the boys on the chariots.

Playing with clay.

Jeremy making "Randall" from Monsters, Inc. 

Me and the boys goofing around.

After the museum we walked to the Hard Rock Cafe! 

After dinner, we walked to the Horton Plaza Mall to do some shopping for us girls!  This is what the boys did while we shopped, played chess.

The next day, it was absolutely beautiful outside! So, we headed to Coronado Island and had lunch and of course did some more shopping! Then we hit up the beach! This is the bridge we had to drive over to get to the island, I was freaking out driving over the bridge! 

Tom and Elyse checking out the beach! 

Jeremy and Jake taking a stroll to the water.

He is just taking in the whole view! It was beautiful!!!

Me and Jeremy.

The Romkowske family, it was impossible to get the girls to look at the camera...HA!

The Shea family 

Me and my good friend Andrea!  

The kids, well we tried to get a good pic but it was not happening, look at each of their faces!  That was not planned either! Im serious, we kept telling them to look and smile, nope they did not want to! HAHA!!!

It was a fun weekend and we cant wait to go back when the weather warms up a bit so we can actually get in the ocean!  

~Becky~

Christmas 2009!

The boys with their Christmas sweaters

Christmas 2009 has already come and gone so fast!  Im a few days late posting this but I still wanted to post anyways.  The holidays are really hard with us being so far away from all our family, however, we do have my two brothers who live only 3 hours away and some close friends who we love dearly.  

Me and Andrea Christmas Eve 2009

Me with some of the kiddos on Christmas Eve

We started off the holidays with dinner with the Romkowske family! We met them nearly 8 years ago right here in Twentynine Palms!  They say the Marine Corps is a small family and yes it is!  We never thought we would ever be in the same place again, let alone the place we first met...awwww.....lol.  Jeremy and Tom met on the bus on their way out here, 8 years ago.  They attended school here together and then I later met Andrea, who had just gotten married to Tom and had no kids and no desire to have one at the time........but only a few months later she was pregnant! I was also pregnant with Kaleb, my second.  So it was pretty cool that we were both new Marine wives living in this foreign world out here in the middle of the desert.  We hit it off really well and we spent alot of time together, she was even in the delivery room when I had Kaleb!  We then both got stationed in Yuma, AZ a few months later.  She had her first child, Hailee. This was all back in 2002!  We were then stationed in Okinawa, Japan then Oklahoma on Recruiting duty and they got sent back here to 29 Palms and have been here every since.  Me and Andrea always kept in contact over the years and always chatted online.  So when I got the news we were back to 29 where they were, we were super excited!  Since we have gotten here we have spent alot of time together, our kids get along great, even though I have 3 boys and she has 3 girls.  We always say that one of her girls will end up marrying one of my boys, hehehe! 

Shea boys with the Romkowske girls Christmas Eve 2009

Future husband and wife.....

So, back on track to what I was originally saying.......

We went over to the Romkowske on Christmas Eve for dinner, I made a pork tenderloin and Andrea made some Bacon Wrapped Chicken! Yummmm, that chicken was awesome, Ill post the recipe for it in a few days!  Then we played some spades while the kids played the Wii.  It was a good night!

The boys goofin around eating candy canes

Christmas morning we got up and opened gifts, ate pancakes and then was on the road to Yuma, to visit my brothers!  As soon as we got there the food was ready, so there was no waiting around. We ate an awesome meal prepared by my brother Mark.  Then we watched movies, played dominos, and just vegged the rest of the day! 

My neice Ella being silly

More silly times....

 Saturday we did the same, relaxed, and ate some yummy Yuman Burritos that were huge! Literally HUGE....

I told you they were huge!

Showing you how big the burritos were

It was a good weekend and we enjoyed every bit of it.  We all missed my sister Melanie and her family but we both know that is life and we will be seeing here in a few months anyways! 

~Becky~