Apples to Apples

Tonight I hosted my first official function as the "CO's Wife" aka COW. Ok--those who know me well know that I'm not a big entertainer. It's a rare thing for me to have large groups of people over to the house AND cook, let alone do both of those things on the same night. I decided that since I'm missing NC and the fall weather I'd go with a fall theme, so I went with apples. I made a super easy apple crumble, some spiced (and a little spiked) apple cider, and caramel covered candy coated apples! I really didn't expect the apples to go over as well as they did, but everyone seemed to like them, and folks were not shy about chomping into them either. The apples were relatively easy to make and turned out to be a fun addition. I would recommend, however, to those wanting to make such apples not get the caramel that requires you to open fifty individual pieces in order to melt them. It was fun to be able to use all of my Southern Living stuff and the new glasses I got when Tom's mom was here. All in all, it was a fun night. Everyone is very nice, and I am really looking forward to the next 18 months of getting to know them and their families. There are lots of little ones the boys age, so it will be good to have ready made friends for the boys to play with. The boys were super excited when "the peoples" started showing up and didn't quite understand why they had to stay downstairs and watch Star Wars with daddy. Any other night, they would have been all over the Star "Horse," as they call it. When everyone left, they were still wriggling in bed. We'll see how this 10 p.m. bedtime plays out in the morning!

New Blog

Ok--so I know I have a blog with my Mac account, but I want to be able to take that blog and make it into a book. With all of the cool things you can do on a Mac, you'd think that iPhoto and iWeb would somehow be linked and allow you to do so. Since that can't happen--or I don't know how to do it--I'm going to try playing around with this site as well. Like all things, I start out with the best of intentions... The problem is that I don't generally follow through on my intentions. So, we shall see how this goes. Consider this my first official test message. I plan to play around with this over the next few days to see how it goes and to see if I can figure it out. iWeb is so much easier, but it lacks the ability to use non iWeb templates and to be made into a book. Thus, it seems as if a "blogger" I may become.

This is the view of the base golf course off of the lanai.

We have finally arrived in Hawaii! After a long month of packers and travel, it’s nice to finally feel as if we are on the road to getting settled again. We arrived Saturday at around 5:00 p.m. after a very long and arduous flight. The boys did great on the flight from St. Louis to Dallas. However, after that, things went downhill for Brody. Luke fell asleep for the first three hours of the flight. Brody, on the other hand, didn’t sleep AT ALL. After having gotten up at 5:30 a.m., the poor little guy was exhausted. He was loopy, mean, tired, grumpy, silly, and just plain difficult. I know the people around us were ready to get off the plane. We were “that family” that everyone kept giving dirty looks. Trying to get Brody to sit for the approach into Honolulu was a bit like trying to wrestle an alligator. I literally have large bruises all over my legs from where he was kicking me. As soon as we got off the plane, he fell asleep.

Tom’s sponsor and his wife picked us up from the airport, and we checked in to our temporary house without any problems. It’s an older (think 1960’s) furnished three bedroom townhouse. I think it is old staff NCO housing. It’s a pretty good size and has an amazing view of the golf course. There is a wonderful little park across the street, and we’ve already been there four times. The boys love it, and I love it too because it helps tucker them out. Upon our arrival, a friend brought us some milk and cereal and such to get us through the night and the next morning. It was a godsend to have such a gift.

The kitchen and dining room.

The funky 1960’s lamp. Who in the world thinks orange and yellow are good together?

I went to the commissary yesterday. Let’s just say that if groceries are “cheap” at the commissary, I’d hate to know what they cost out in town. For example, I had been getting the boys organic milk in NC. It ran about $3.50 per half gallon at the commissary and Sam’s Club. When I went to pick some up yesterday and noticed it was $5.50, I decided that the organic milk wasn’t feasible anymore given the large volumes of milk these two little monkeys consume. They had another brand ($5 a gallon) that doesn’t use growth hormones, so I went with that. It was fun to look at all of the different Hawaiian brand foods that are on the shelves. They actually sell Hawaiian animal crackers--think dolphin, whale, octopus, etc. Pretty cute.

The weather has been warm mixed with clouds and a bit of rain every now and then. It is windy all the time. I’ve noticed that when the wind blows through the palm trees it sounds like rain.

We are going to go exploring this weekend, so there will be more to come. Thanks for all of the well-wishes and know that we miss everyone!