first a quick note, if you are reading this in a feeder, you’ll have to click over for the whole post/pictures.  thanks! now back to the regularly scheduled post!

Oh.my.goodness. What a crazy week we had last week!  I had been so busy with the boys and procrastinated going to the grocery store for such a long time, I actually had to cancel a trip to the water park with some friends.  There were things that needed to get done, and restocking the house was one of them.  Now, normally I am go alone during school/work hours, so that I am able to leisurely stroll the aisles, think about items to try out and enjoy the silence.  Don’t get me wrong, other ladies have their children who fuss and cry and beg for items, but not me. NO… my boys are usually in school. I usually give the other mothers an understanding smile and hope it gets better for them while I say thank you for our teachers.  BUT now, thanks to that infuriating thing called summer break, I have to drag my boys to the grocery store, but only as infrequently as possible.  My boys are not horrible children. I love them, I do. But how much fun is it for them to have to try and be still while Mom contemplates this flavor of coffee over that? No fun at all, that’s for sure.  Add to that a pay day weekend and a long holiday weekend and what do you get? more crowd and fussing than I cared for.  I tried to get as many items as I could to put off the next trip as long as I could.  Our shopping cart was fuuuull. bread.milk.soda.creamer.nutella.strawberryjam.orangemarbleade. you know, essentials! we finally got out and brought all the items home.  I backed into the garage and noticed a puddle of water on the floor next to the freezer.

thinking to my self: OH NO! I bet Troy forgot to close the door all the way when they had ice cream the other night, tsk tsk. time to flip open the book of blame

I notice the items are still cold, but some are starting to defrost, and yet I put the frozen biscuits, french fries, chicken nuggets, chicken patties, steaks….all on a shelf in this huge freezer.  I put away all the other groceries and when I head upstairs, I notice a dripping sound coming from the air conditioner unit. dang.  i open it up, clean up the water as best as I can and put a bucket under the drip. I call the maintenance people to come fix it.

them: Sorry Ma’am, the first appointment is not until Monday. Is the unit still running?

**UHHH, it’s like 90degrees out, of course it’s running!

me: yes.

them: Well ma’am as long as the unit is running it’s going to leak and you don’t want to cause any damage to the unit… you might want to switch off the cooler and just run the fan

**check, like that’s going to happen

me: okay, then I’ll see the repairman monday at 11am.

We go about our business, doing laundry, eating lunch etc, and I go back out to the garage to check on the freezer. I hear a fan running and items are still cold, but not frosty yet. Later I would figure out the freezer is broken. It’s blowing hot air and I had to throw out most of the food I had just bought and all of the food I had in there. :( Then a message on facebook from a friend that my blog is giving a malware alert from Google. what the??? after a lot of calls/emails with Network Solutions they have cleared out a script that was installed in my blog. I updated my blog software and my theme version, and for now, things are going well.  I don’t understand the brain works of people who are so malicious with their computer skills?! If only they could use their powers for gooood!  I am now happily running WordPress v 2.8.1 and hopefully will be able to avoid any future security compromise!

On the Fourth, we headed out to Ford Island to catch the Pearl Harbor Fireworks again.  Unfortunately we got there a little too late and some people were already camped out in our spot! I grumbled and grumbled about the boat in my way. And in retrospect, I should have embraced the boat and used my wide to shoot at least some of the fireworks. (**next on my wish list, a better tripod!)

early on in the evening, i snapped some ttv shots of the boys eating McDonald’s.  I flipped these shots so the writing would be facing the right way…

Here is a shot of the boat that was blocking my shot! Last year we were further to the left of the tree, so i could see the water and the fireworks reflecting on the water.  But still a cool longer exposure shot. :)

The fireworks at Pearl Harbor started at 9 so I had lots of time to fuss with the camera and take pictures of the moon…

and finally a few shots of the fireworks, different view than last year:

Happy (belated) Birthday America!

I also wanted to share with you all that Troy is going to be going on a short(ish) 3 month deployment with his ship.  They’ll be leaving on Jordan’s Pre-School orientation day, which is no fun. but really in the grand scheme of things, leaving is no fun no matter what day.  He’ll be missing Jalen and my birthdays so I think we’ll be going out to a nice dinner to celebrate before he leaves.  He should be home before Halloween some time, so we’re excited and looking forward to Trick or Treat with Troy! I will be sharing tidbits from his deployment (whatever he says is okay to share) just because it’s part of our lives.  I’m not looking for sympathy, because it’s just a part of our life and there are tougher things that we could be going through. I do however appreciate prayers and positive thoughts of encouragement, safety and guidance for our leaders to make the best decisions they can make.  Thanks so much for coming by!

Love Love and Blog you later!

Joscie, rhymes with bossy and so glad to be back!