scuba steve

bozeman is a camera hound. LH was trying on some old gear that we "found" while cleaning out one of the spare bedrooms and i thought it would be funny to take a few pictures. except bozeman thought i was taking pictures of him. i eventually got the dog out of the way to take these pictures to share with the world.




now you know that LH has a great sense of humor. and no, he isn't fat. those are roller hockey shorts that he is wearing. he asked if i thought that he should sell them on craiglist so we would have more room around here, but i actually said no, because he might need to use them one day when we have kids who want to play roller hockey with him. besides, if he got rid of those, he might have more leverage in trying to get me to get rid of all my old dance shoes and leotards and 30 pairs of tights. because i might need those one day, too, you never know. one day, i might miraculously be able to stand up in my point shoes again while wearing a teeny tiny leotard and tights that show off my ballerina figure. it's always good to have goals.

aha!

i love "aha" moments in life. you know how suddenly a bunch of details add up to finally make sense and you get this aha feeling? the night LH and i got engaged, i had flown in to visit him directly from work. he was getting ready to deploy for the first time and i was there to say my goodbyes. we had dinner plans for that evening and i changed into what i thought was the perfect outfit however, after i came out of the bathroom, LH asked if i could wear something different. LH had never had any objections about any of my clothes, so i was kind of surprised, but i changed into a somewhat nicer shirt. later, after he proposed, it all made sense. he knew that we were about to get engaged and that i would want a nicer shirt for the pictures that we were going to send to everyone with the news. aha!

and then there were those two crazy years where i decided that God wanted me to stay single. whew! what on earth was that about? once i met LH and realized that he was going to be deploying a few times during our lifetime, those two years all made sense. during that time, i learned how to be more independent and lost all fear of showing up at places where i knew no one and just jumping in to new situations. that definitely prepared me to survive 6+ months without the love of my life by my side.

sometimes, i have aha moments from God, too, and i totally love them. so many seemingly insignificant details will all suddenly make sense and i'll realize that he was preparing me for that exact moment in time and i'll be so grateful. i have some distinct memories where i've been sitting on the floor or walking the dog or talking to LH and suddenly it all makes sense. most of the moments are just too private to share on a blog with the world. others i may work up the courage to share later. but you know, it all makes me wonder about where LH and i are in life right now. for all i know, we're paying for two homes with one income in this weird little town because God is preparing us to live in africa one day on a teeny tiny salary. okay, i don't really think that's it at all, but that's exactly the gist of what i mean. i could keep on guessing forever about our situation right now, or i could just make the best of it and know that the aha moment is out there somewhere. one day, it will all make sense and i'll know it all had a purpose.

it's time to talk about the barbies

i've procrastinated long enough. it's time to tell the barbie story. these were the original barbies:

i'm kind of in the center with the long-sleeved, white t-shirt. we eventually added more barbies to our group once we came back to the states, but these were the originals.

it all started on a missions trip to slovakia. we were running an english/sports camp for high school kids in the area and our dorm had two whole showers for 80+ girls. we also didn't have any hot water. having experienced similar living conditions on a trip to russia the year prior, i thought nothing of enduring a cold shower as long as the end result was that you were clean. i also didn't think twice about putting a little baby powder in my hair to soak up the oil if i didn't wash my hair every day. hey, blondes can do those sorts of tricks and get away with them. anyhow, coming down for breakfast one morning, M noticed that my hair looked pretty clean and teased me, asking if i was "missions barbie" or something. i let them all in on my hair secret, but the name stuck. i was missions barbie from there on out.

later that afternoon during craft time, M did something really embarrassing. i mean, so embarrassing that i won't risk telling her story on here unless she outs herself in the comments =) anyhow, after that little episode, we dubbed M as "cg barbie." i wish i could tell you what the cg stands for, because it is so funny. anyhow, she ended up with a more interesting name a few months later and it was "rv barbie." A was much taller and stronger than most of us, so we called her "xena barbie." K was teeny, tiny and she became "skipper."

it all sounds a little childish to be calling your friends barbie names, but we had all bonded during our trip and there seemed no better way to show it than to become the "barbies" and to later invite others to become barbies with us. here are some of the ways we bonded:

here, xena barbie and i are shaving our legs in the bathroom sink. we decided that it was better than shaving in the cold shower with goose bumps.


skipper barbie and i had just gone for a really long run through the city before this picture was taken. when we came back in to the cafe where everyone was hanging out, someone asked if we could help them out by washing dishes. we thought that they were just kidding around, so we agreed. we soon realized that they weren't kidding, and we just could not stop laughing at our situation. thus my red face...


and here are skipper, cg and xena barbies on an escalator back in the states. i think this was the time that we had just gone out for dinner at the cheesecake factory and then decided that we needed to go to lord & taylor to find and try on the most hideous evening gowns that we could possibly find. that was awesome. anyhow, here are the girls striking funny poses while i took the picture.


we also used to go running together quite a bit. i only wish someone had recorded us during those runs... we would make up the most insane songs to sing and keep ourselves going. now, the barbies live all over the world. we still share the barbie-bond, though, and if we ever run across each other it is like no time has passed at all. anyone else have any barbie friends or stories?

milestone

this past monday was bozeman's 2nd birthday. he must have known it somehow and decided to give us a gift before we could give him anything. guess what he did for LH and i? he lifted his leg to pee like a big dog! you may laugh, but this is a big deal in our house. bozeman has lifted his leg about four more times since then, but nothing in the past couple of days. i'm sure he's just building up the confidence to do it once more. my neighbors probably think i'm crazy when they see me clapping and praising my dog for peeing.

fundraising can be fun!

if you just read the title of this post and laughed sarcastically, then you probably went to school when you were a kid. or have a kid in school. or a neighbor kid who rings your doorbell once a week to sell yet another fundraising item. back in high school, i was actually our marching band's drum major. as the band nerd leader, i was supposed to set a good example for the rest of the group and do things like sell the most pies or pizzas or rolls of wrapping paper every time we did a fundraiser. which was pretty much every month. i hated it like i hate the squishiness of corn and peas when you bite down on them. i almost always sold the minimum amount and determined that i would just lead in other areas. like doing pushups and being the best musician.

anyhow, i digress. since becoming a military wifey, i've gotten involved in the spouse clubs at each base. usually, each spouse club has a group that they sponsor or donate money to every year. in order to get the money, we usually hold fun fundraisers like root beer float sales and silent auctions. much more painless than the kind they did back in school. and much better causes, if you ask me. i'd much rather work hard to raise money for military members in need or children of veterans killed in combat or for civilian employees on base who might need some financial support than for a band member to go to band camp or for the band to drive half way across the country to compete in some little competition. granted, those experiences are important when you are in school, but sometimes other needs in life take precedence.

today, the spouse club that i'm currently a part of held a lunch sale fundraiser on base. i don't think i'm stretching it a bit to say that we raised a couple thousand. one of the wives totally got on the ball and had businesses donating food and coupons and even take-out boxes for us to sell homemade lunches in. it was awesome to see how everyone came together to work for such a great cause. it also warmed my heart to see how so many members of our military were willing to give so much to help us. rather than set a price for lunch, we asked for donations only. once the guys and gals buying the lunches found out a little bit more about who we were raising money for, they gladly opened their wallets and gave much more than i could have ever imagined. we live in such a wonderful country where we are free to give and help others and i felt very blessed to be a part of an effort like today's lunch sale.

and speaking of high school... my ten year reunion is this summer and guess what? i'm totally not going. i just really have no desire to catch up on some people's lives and as hard as it is to believe if you read this blog, i really do like my privacy. did anyone else skip out on their reunion?

"take the wifey to work" day

this morning, i willingly woke up at 4am. bozeman and i went for our morning walk while it was barely light outside and i ate breakfast much sooner than normal. i even skipped shaving my legs in the shower so i wouldn't be late. for what, you ask? for work with LH! today was his department's spouse appreciation day and they gave us the chance to walk a few steps in our spouses' shoes. i even got to wear one of LH's uniforms. of course, it might have been better if i had gotten the memo from a few of the other spouses that they were going to wear cute high heeled shoes with the uniforms, but i decided not to let the lack of a stylish pair of shoes ruin my day.

after a quick little talk about safety and such, we spouses were given a short tour. we got to see the men and women that work with our hubbies every day and see the spaces where our hubbies spend many of their waking hours. i've seen that sort of thing before, so while i was impressed, it wasn't earth shattering. what was, however, was seeing my hubby in action. i actually got to go through some of his daily routines by his side and see how difficult some of his work really is. i even got to try a few things on my own! not only was i impressed with the level of skill needed, but i was also impressed with the manner in which LH conducted his business. it was like seeing my hubby through a new pair of eyes and i liked it very much. i've always had oodles of respect for LH, but today, it multiplied exponentially. LH is a big stud. i just thought you all should know that =)

of course, while i would have tried my darndest to keep up with the pace all day long, i didn't have the option. instead, i headed over to the gym on base and waited for LH to finish up for the day. while i ran on the treadmill, i had happy thoughts of LH running through my head. i not only feel like i understand the job a little bit better, but also my hubby and his coworkers. today's fun day raised my respect and patience levels and i hope that they will continue to do this sort of thing in the future and hopefully spread it around for other departments and to other bases.

everyone loves a picture post

we finally got LH's camera back from my parents and i downloaded the pictures from our tahoe vacation. enjoy!

this was my first trip ever to a cabela's store. i enjoyed the drive over there as much as the store itself. carson valley is a beautiful place and reno was nothing like i expected. as you can see in the pictures, you don't just shop in cabela's. i wish we had pictures of LH and me practicing in the toy shooting range =)




emerald bay is a beautiful place on lake tahoe with, surprise, emerald colored water. we took a boat ride out to it to get a closer look. there is an amazing castle on emerald bay that was built back in 1929. it definitely looks like it could have been built in the past decade.






after spending a couple of hours on the boat to emerald bay, LH, my FIL and i were ready for some fishing. we headed over to the gorgeous and very hidden echo lake. this is the same echo lake where i was uber-worried about mountain lions attacking me. the echo chalet is incredibly stocked. i would go so far as to call it a mini whole foods! i guess they have to keep it full of such yummy and organic foods because of all the desolation wilderness hikers and cabin owners that visit. oh, and please don't out me on my fashion faux-pas of wearing boots with shorts. sometimes you have to do that in the mountains.




we also fished at fallen leaf lake. here, a steller jay kept coming back to visit LH and me. probably because i fed him a peanut...



i wish i had more pictures to share, but i'm notorious for enjoying the moment and totally forgetting about pulling out the camera until it's too late. oh well! hope you enjoyed...

a special note from the lucky doggy

bozeman here. i'm taking the computer away from the lucky wifey because she has made me listen to abba one too many times today.

does my fur look soft in this picture? that's because i've conditioned it with pear juice, fresh from the tree. then i rolled in some grass clippings. all of this led to my mom brushing me a whole lot, which i really liked. a lot. she's a good brusher.

speaking of the wifey... she's coming down the hall right now. quick! how do i publish this thing??

the good, the bad and the thursday

if you've ever seen the movie game plan, you know that "stupid is a mean word." i agree. i also think that hate is a mean word. so rather than do the "love/hate" game that i like reading on other blogs, i've decided to create my own version. as you can see in the title, it is called "the good, the bad and the thursday." because thursdays aren't quite fridays they are kinda ugly. so there you have it. and here you have my good, bad and thursday list for the week:

good: nice, clean cut grass with straight lines

bad: women don't sweat, they glisten. however, if anyone happens to drive by while i'm mowing the grass, they'll realize what a lie that is... because i usually lose a couple pounds just from sweating while mowing the grass (don't worry, the pounds come back as soon as i rehydrate)

thursday: dirt and grass clippings stick to the sweat and create a nice, pasty mess that has to be sprayed off with the hose before entering my relatively clean house

good: realizing that you have a pear tree in your back yard that is producing mass quantities of pears. i'm pulling my paula dean cookbook off the shelf to find a good cobbler recipe

bad: LH doesn't eat pears

thursday: bozeman likes pears. he also likes to roll on top of them over and over again

good: we are dog sitting this weekend so bozeman won't be lonely

bad: my parents called to say that they are visiting with their dog as well (this isn't really bad, because i love it when they visit. it's just going to be a full house!)

thursday: i still haven't gone to the grocery store. maybe my parents will enjoy eating cereal three times a day?


anyone have any good, bad and thursdays of their own to share? happy early fourth of july!

a little stress will do you good

yesterday afternoon, i about lost it. i had just spent hours picking up tree branches and pine cones in our yard from a recent storm and then mowing said yard. i had also been communicating with the property management company that we hired to rent out our condo. the second set of renters that they had found for us had fallen through. on top of that, the air conditioning company that had been out to the condo to figure out why our year old HVAC was not working had determined that our problem was actually electrical and told us to call an electrician. that meant another $100 fee for someone to go out to our condo and tell us how much more we need to spend to fix a hopefully small problem. i also had yet to hear back from our condo association's manager about some questions i had for him.

the stress of it all finally hit me when i was trying to finish up some laundry. the tears started flowing and i just sat down on the floor in my laundry room. i told God that he had to take over because i just couldn't handle this. was this really how life was supposed to be? paying for two houses with one salary? why can't i even get a real job here? are we even living where we are supposed to be living? did we come to the wrong city? ugh. then, after all the questions that i threw up to God, i told him that i wished he could just scoop me up in his arms and tell me everything is going to be okay. wouldn't you know it, bozeman walked right around the corner not thirty seconds after i said that? he just stood right in front of me and kissed my face and stayed there for a good five minutes or so. dogs really are man's (and woman's) best friend. i took that as God telling me that everything was going to be okay. maybe not easy, but okay.

so this morning, i took charge and started calling electricians to get advice. one company won my business because they advised that i call the power company and have them come out to the condo first since they are free of charge and the problem might be theirs anyhow. i called and they went out to look at the line and meter at our condo. it turns out that the problem is not theirs, but they were able to tell me that our problem is right on the other side of the meter, that it is frozen and should be an easy fix. i hope. i also got in touch with a lady at our condo association's office who was able to answer all of my questions and i was able check that off my list. whew. i had forgotten how much i love working under pressure. back at my favorite job, where i worked before i got married, i was constantly under pressure and did my best work with a deadline and stressed boss breathing down my neck. so today, when i was handling all of these issues over the phone, i slipped right back into my work-mode and took charge. it felt really good and yesterday's break down was just a memory.

in celebration of the turn of events (even if they aren't all resolved yet), bozeman and i just danced around our office for like fifteen minutes straight. bozeman absolutely loves dancing. and singing. probably because LH and i do a lot of both. bozeman and i just danced to quite a selection: all i want to do by sugarland, if i were a rich man from the fiddler on the roof, weapon of choice by fatboy slim (which included an imitation of christopher walken's dancing) and cinderella by steven curtis chapman. if you have little girls, download that last song and you'll cry.

do all dreams have hidden meanings?

when we were on vacation over at lake tahoe earlier this month, we went fishing at a nearby lake called echo lake. the lake is absolutely gorgeous and also has quite a bit of snow around it as it sits at 7400 feet. i almost considered putting up a tent and claiming a little patch of ground as my very own. and then i considered the possibilities of not having a blow dryer for my hair and i willingly followed LH back to his parents' condo where all things luxury awaited me.

anyhow, the pacific crest trail and desolation wilderness are right there at the lake and LH was kind enough to remind me that it truly is wilderness out there. earlier, my FIL had mentioned that i shouldn't go running alone outside since mountain lions have been known to attack and kill runners. i certainly didn't argue with that. so while we were hiking and fishing around echo lake, all i could think about was the numerous mountain lions that were stalking me. when i found the perfect fishing spot under a fallen tree, i thought about how the trunk of the tree was the perfect spot for a mountain lion to perch and watch me before he or she pounced. shiver. suddenly, it all made sense why nearly every pair of hikers we had seen on the pacific crest trail had a dog or two with them. they were the bait to distract the mountain lions from attacking the humans!

i obviously survived the trip without any mountain lion attacks or sightings, but i was constantly looking over my shoulder. once we were back home, i had a dream about those silly felines. in my dream, LH and i were working at a ranch where we ran a camp for kids. we took the kids horseback riding, fishing, etc. the ranch was in mountain lion country, but we were able to keep a safe distance from them because someone from our ranch had tracked down all of the mountain lions, tranquilized them, and put bright greenish, yellow reflective vests on every single one of them. problem solved.

i kind of doubt that this dream has any hidden meaning other than:
*the fact that i don't want to be eaten by a mountain lion
*i wish there was a way to spot mountain lions way before they even got close enough to stalk or pounce
*i like kids
*i don't want kids to get eaten by mountain lions
*i spend too much on the pioneer woman's website
*i have a very active imagination

what do you think? anyone ever actually had a mountain lion encounter?

p.s. i love the advice in one of the articles i linked you to: convince the mountain lion that you are not prey and that you may be a danger to the lion. riiiiiiight. and you can do that by providing them with a convincing argument that they'd be better off chasing down a wild deer?

haird to believe

i'll admit to being a hair snob. i willingly pay ridiculous amounts to have someone shampoo, condition, cut and blow dry my hair. maybe it comes from a bad experience in 4th grade when my mom accidentally chopped my bangs and i had to live with 1" bangs until they grew, but I think the most reasonable explanation for my desire to spend so much on a hairdo is probably best summed up this way: a hair style is something you wear every day. if you wore the same shirt or dress or pants every single day, you'd choose something that made a good impression, right? and even though the initial sticker price might be a little shocking, the cost-per-day would be relatively low. correct? so the same goes for a hair style. it may seem ridiculous, especially if you are like me and wear your hair pulled back in some way 75% of the time (i attribute that problem to my ridiculously low forehead), but when you look at it on a cost-per-day basis, it really isn't that expensive at all. that may or not make sense to you, but it has always made me feel better when i check out at the salon register.

that being said, last week, i made a completely uncharacteristic move and went to a little, hole-in-the-wall hair salon that is very close to our house. i'm not sure what came over me. i totally ignored the wonderful advice and obviously wonderful haircut of a close friend who found a great salon in the area and thought, hmm, i think i should check out this local hair place. so last week, i shelled out a whole $20 for a shampoo, condition, cut and blow dry, and i think i'm still kind of reeling from the shock of it all. what was i thinking? at least i have long hair and you can't really mess that up too bad.

when the stylist started making the first cuts before determining where my hair is parted, i just told myself that she would fix it before making the important cuts. but when she started cutting into a chunk of hair without actually making sure the hair was all straightened and evenly held between her fingers, i got nervous. it was at that point that i decided to just not even worry about it. sometimes people are more important than the hair snob that lurks inside. maybe i was supposed to sit in this stylists chair and talk with her that day. maybe God helped me momentarily forget my desire to have a good hair cut so i would turn the wheel into the little parking lot and go visit this lady. who knows? so rather than get uptight, i just started talking to her. i'm not even sure if anything worthwhile was said, but she sure had fun talking back to me, and by they time she had finished blow drying my hair with her fingers and no brush, i was satisfied and had convinced myself that going in there for a haircut was exactly what i was supposed to have done that day.

however, by the time my ends need another trim i will take mrs. d's advice and go to her salon.