We returned to our seats to watch the show because although we were in a box seat (a bank of 12 seats) there were other people crashing our area and pushing up to the front rail (which really riled up the passive aggressive in me…)  We watched the demos by the coast guard…

and the Red Bull crazy parachute team!

and we watched the Marines put on a demo:

we were also pretty impressed with the Air Force’s F22 Raptor

and then finally, the act we had been waiting all day for. the Blue Angels!

We left after the Blue Angels show, got on one of the first shuttle buses heading back to our parking area and I KID YOU NOT… it took an hour and a half to get a few miles across the base to get to our van.  Then it took another half an hour to get a few miles off the base. BUT, it was all worth it.  It was a beautiful family day and I’m thankful to KHON2 and MCCS for our prize pack!

I have quite a few projects to share with you in the next few days and weeks… but for now, thanks for stopping by!  Love Love and Blog You later!

Joscie, rhymes with bossy

I got the disc of pictures from Tess Monday and I am so in love with these pictures! I can’t wait to get prints hanging on the wall and scrapped too. Thank you thank you thank you to both Tess and Operation Love.  These are a few of my favorite shots:

I really liked all the pictures but didn’t want to overload ya!  My very very favorites though are this one where we are all walking and the one of the four of us in front of the ship. :)  Thank you again Tess, you’re the best! :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Love Love and Blog you Later,

Joscie, rhymes with bossy

first stop, pick up lei from Lita’s Lei shop.

I got a little Puakenikeni Lei for myself. I love these flowers, they are so sweet smelling!

and since we were down in Chinatown, we headed around the corner to Char Hung Sut for Manapua (Char Siu Bao). This is our favorite place- closed on Tuesdays.

Jordan enjoying his second manapua.

later down at the pier, trying not to get heat stroke… here I am in Jalen’s glasses. and you can see Tess in the brown behind me :)

sigh, our ten year old cutie!

Since we are a family of J’s (Joscie, Jalen, Jordan) the boys added a J to Daddy so Troy wouldn’t feel left out. Welcome home JDaddy!

I drew and colored this sign for Jordan :)

I love the closeness of their two faces.  The contentment on Jordan’s face. my heart is happy.

a shot of the ship. excuse me mr. white uniform, you’re in my shot, could you move over a bit? (clouds from eyecandyoverlays)

the ship and the lei :)

We are so thrilled to have Troy back home with us.  I mean really! Sometimes transition can be difficult, but with an intention to be considerate things go so well.  We were so lucky to have my friend Tess shoot our homecoming as a part of Operation Love and I can’t wait to get the disk of pictures so I can scrap them, share them here and order a print or two :)

Thanks for stopping by, Love Love and Blog you Later!

Joscie, rhymes with Bossy

I made this sign. How convenient is it to be a hybrid scrapper? (that’s minty paper and letters there)

our lei …

some of the other kiddies ready to cheer…

I love the look on his face, like what the? We were all clapping and cheering for this hero…

Welcome home hero, welcome home.

Thanks for stopping by!  I have a few more pictures from this morning and then a scrappy tutorial to work on…

Love Love and Blog you Later,

Joscie, rhymes with bossy

If’ you’ve come over from Shelley’s Creations , you’re in the right place ;)  If you’ve joined midway, please do start at the top of the hop!  and I’ll see you when you hop back around my way!

My name is Joscelyne Cutchens, but I go by Joscie, and that coincidentally rhymes with bossy.  My husband is a warrant officer in the Navy and currently midway through a deployment.  We live in Honolulu, HI.  We have 2 sons who have also been dealing with difficulties that come with deployments.  In fact, I was looking at some homecoming pictures this week and wanted to share– you can see our boys growing up through these pictures.

When we first moved back to the islands in 2003, Troy was on a new ship being home ported here in Pearl Harbor.

Our first deployment/homecoming with 2 kids 2005:

Next homecoming: 2008

Next homecoming: 2009

Also in our family, my dad was in the Army, my step dad in the Marines, 2 step brothers in Marines and one is now in the army, My mother in law and father in law both were in the Air Force.

Although we can communicate via email, we also LOVE to get cards in the mail.  The boys love to read and reread cards from Dad.  This is why I like to make cards to send to Operation Write Home.  I have a few red white and  blue missing you cards to share…

Are you thinking, WOW-that’s cool, how can I help?  It’s very easy! You can make cards and send them in!

what? you’re not crafty?  that’s okay, you can also make a contribution to help cover shipping costs!

To thank you for stopping by, I’m giving away a Hawaiian Prize Pack!  Please leave me a comment and tell me something about you!  I’ll draw a random winner on Tuesday.

Thanks for stopping by, Love Love and Blog you later,

Joscie, rhymes with bossy

your next stop is: Peggy at The Wired Angel

I downloaded a few vectors for craft cutters from Peppermint Creative.  When I saw this particular image, I thought it could be a cute teacher gift filled with cookies or kisses or some other sweet treat.  I cut the design out of silver vinyl and put it on a jar I got for a few bucks. add a ribbon and voila, you’re all set:

COMMERCIAL Vectors – Life is Sweet Word Art

My picture of the day, a quick snap of Jalen.

Thanks for stopping by, Love Love and blog you again real soon!

Joscie, rhymes with bossy

and we waved. and waved. and pointed (right there! do you see him? right there! no, over there! okay, bye!!!)  Troy texted me and said he thinks he got a picture of us, so I’ll share that when i get ahold of it.  We watched it sail away a bit… (it’s the little one in the middle)

then the boys posed for my photo of the day:

The boys and I have been busy today, keeping our thoughts occupied with games, reading and digi scrap.  We appreciate all your prayers for us and every one on Troy’s ship (and their families)  Thanks again for all the encouraging comments and emails I’ve been getting.  We love you, thanks!

On the scrappy front, here are my first two digi layouts from Two Peas in a Bucket:

This was Jordan in the grass this morning, waiting for the ship to come by.  You could say he was ready to go home already… ;)

I was so drawn to the bright colors in this kit, and the scalloped mat with the epoxy brads… so cute.

Both layouts use Betsy Tuma’s Wowy Kazowy at Two Peas in a Bucket.

Thanks for stopping by!  I’ll be blogging often (hopefully-daily) to keep Troy and all of you fabulous readers up with our goings on around here.

Love Love and Blog you later,

Joscie, rhymes with bossy

Today’s picture of the day: Happy Birthday Jordan!

My picture of the Day for yesterday is my (step)brother Kam and my sister in law Melissa.

Today was a day for tying up loose ends.  Getting safety inspections for truck and motorcycle, mowing our little patch of lawn in the back… I think we are about as ready as we can be.

In scrappy news, Tattered Angels is releasing a few new products that I am super super excited about!  Liz posted the first sneak peek on the Tattered Angels educator blog today.  She listed all the new educators and there is a great giveaway, so check it out!  My first tattered angels project went live on the blog today too! Here’s a peek:

Thanks for stopping by!  Love Love and blog you later,

Joscie, rhymes with bossy!

1. FOCUS.  my word of the year.  I toyed with the ideas of unity, stability,strength… but in the end I chose focus for a two reasons.  I have decided to focus only on what is important.  I will focus on God. Family. Health. Gratitude. Happiness. Integrity. Kindness. Generosity. Love. Honesty. Faithfulness.  I will also focus my lens to capture our life throughout the year.
2. P365.  I will take a picture a day for the next year.  Some will be people, some will be things. But each will capture a bit of our life that we can look back on and remember where we were and what we were doing this year.  I will share these on my blog here, and I will order a photo book at the end of the year.

My first picture of the day of 2010:

the three boys sitting on the couch. one playing on the computer, one on the wii and one on the ds.  jordan’s toes were so cute propped up there.

day 2:

Jalen on the couch, playing one of his mario games on his new dsi that he got for Christmas.

Yesterday we also made our deployment chain.  The theory is one link represents each day that Troy will be gone.  It makes it easier for the boys to conceptualize how long Troy will be gone and help mark the victory of each day as we get closer.  I use Miss Mint’s Birthday Boogie, Spotted Streamer Paper, and Miss Mint’s Commercial Vector’s Basic Label shapes to create the strips:

I stamped the numbers on with my stampin’ up! number stamps and black versafine ink.  I trimmed with the paper trimmer and Troy and I stapled all the links in order.

we layed it out in the hallway, it was sooooo long.

We decided to hang it in the stairwell to keep it out of the way, but still within daily eyesight.

Thanks for stopping by!  I should have my first project up on the Tattered Angels Educator Blog this week (or so) and I should also have my first Two Peas Digi projects going soon too, I can’t wait to share with you.  I also have to finish up my alabama mini book, and I’ll share than when I’m done too.

Love Love and Blog you again real soon.

Joscie, rhymes with bossy. :)

While we were down in China town, we took a walk around the block for our very favorite Chinese treat, manapua (aka char siu bao).  My very favorite place to go is Char Hung Sut.  It’s the kind of place where you walk in and order from one person, another person runs and fills your order and the girl at the register scribbles the math on a stack of scratch paper. it’s just so good.

I know you’re going to find this hard to believe, but I procrastinated a little bit on making the welcome home banner.  I toyed with the idea of ordering a sign, Noel even sent me a link, but of course I waited too long.  I also entertained the idea of cutting vinyl and making a banner, if I could just stop off at a sign making shop and get a banner to apply my vinyl to… but in the end I decided to cut and sew a banner, on Sunday.

Jalen commented that our coconut tree did not have any coconuts and did we have to wait 3 days? (that’s a facebook my farm joke, btw)

We expected the ship to be pulling in around 830am-ish so we arrived around 8.  We had to park a good distance and I wanted to be sure we had enough time.  I let Jordan ride the umbrella stroller so i could load our goods on the handles.  There was a cool tent and seats set up for us to lounge while we waited for the ship.

I loved the reflection in Jalen’s glasses, you can see me right in the middle.

We watched as the ship pulled up.  Troy was not manning the rails, he said he had something to do inside the ship, I didn’t even ask what it was.  When the ships pull in from a deployment to Pearl Harbor, they tie a lei to the front of the ship.  It’s made out of plastic (i think it’s trashbags).

the boys held their umbrella signs, even though dad wasn’t on the outside of the ship…

Then we waited and waited, and Troy showed up, checked out on leave in his Tshirt and shorts with all his goodies.  Jordan got to give the first lei:

Jalen the second (and me last)

The boys went back to school on Tuesday and Troy fell in with our daily routine.  I got my new id card that I have been waiting for. I was so excited to see that the camera was mounted up high on the counter, at a flatteringly higher angle than the chair.  It’s the little things that help a girl out, ya know?!  Of course i can’t show you the id card, but it does look like me, so I’m happy.  Today’s errands included a trip to the pumpkin patch…

ha ha, just kidding. you know on the Wednesday before Halloween, the pumpkin patch is closed. and evidently the Navy Commissary is also sold out of pumpkins.  So we took a trip to Sam’s Club and picked out 4 non rotten pumpkins. ha ha.

and  have I told you, I love this man?

pumping my gas. **swoon** what a man.  and do you know what I did on Monday night? I was able to run out and pick up steaks for dinner, by.my.self! and I was able to come home and cook dinner while he bathed the little. **sigh** it is so good to be a family of four again.  We are enjoying and being thankful for all our many blessings.  I want to thank all of you who prayed for us and him while he was gone, I really really appreciate it!  Tomorrow’s excitement? I’m getting a long over due eye exam. and I’m not only buying new glasses, but I’m also getting sunglasses. prescription sunglasses. eeeeeeee! You lucky ladies who wear contacts or have been blessed with good eyesight have no idea.  For people like me, sunglasses require so much effort. I am such a lucky girl.  I’ll check in with my new eyewear when they come in, I can’t wait! SUNGLASSES! yay!

Thanks for stopping by, Love Love and Blog you later!

Joscie, rhymes with bossy!