365 Days in SD, Day 19: New friends, Old friends, and dinosaurs

This morning I was getting ready to take a shower in an attempt to ignore an entire bowl of Frosted Flakes DUST (you know, the remains of the bottom of the cereal box?) all over my living room carpet (thanks Camden), when I got a text from a friend basically saying "my kids are bouncing off the walls and I can't stand it, want to go to the playground in 20 minutes?"

Screw the shower, I can get clean another day. Maybe. Let's get the hell out of here! (and continue to ignore the Frosted Flakes on the carpet)

So that's how we spent the morning, at the playground with new friends (no pictures, I didn't even think to bring my camera). 

Immediately after getting back, our old Cape May friends came to visit and spend the day. It's as if living in a time capsule, because Calen remembers Aiden (who he hasn't seen in over a year and is now almost 3) as a one year old in Cape May, and continues to call him "Baby Aiden" even though he's well past the baby stage. However, he does have another Aiden friend who's 7 so maybe that's his way of identifying them. I just hope he doesn't continue to call him that five years from now, because he might end up getting punched in the face. 

After hours and hours and hours of playing in the pool and the trampoline, all three kids collapsed in the living room and watched a movie, and played dinosaurs together. 

Also I did end up taking a shower (you're welcome) and I did end up vacuuming up the Frosted Flakes (you're still welcome). 

365 Days in SD, Day 18: The Honest Reality of Living in Paradise

I suppose as a military wife the appropriate way to respond to a cross country move is "Oh I love wherever we go!" or "As long as we're together it doesn't matter!" or "I just love moving around every ____ years!" And then we go back to baking our own bread or knitting baby socks or whatever society thinks military wives do.

It's not that simple, guys. 

Before I even begin and people criticize me for criticizing living in "paradise", let me start by saying, I like it here. 

I like that there is so much to do ALL year round. I like that I have not yet checked the weather report ONCE since moving here (which used to be my daily routine first thing in the am), because it's always 75ish and sunny. Always. I LOVE my house. Emphasis on house. Yes we're surrounded by other houses but no we do not have to worry anymore that the current sword fight in the bedrooms will disrupt the neighbor's peaceful evening. And I love that I don't have to drive 40 minutes just to get to Target, or Old Navy, or ANYWHERE. (and, I don't have to pay tolls. Booyah!) And there are no ticks!!!! Or mosquitoes, or flies. Like, at all. 

That being said. 

Change is hard. Change is hard for everyone and maybe especially harder for me, for whatever reason. When we moved to Cape May in 2010, I haaaated it. I couldn't get out of there fast enough and I had four years(!!!) to suffer there! I would clearly never make it there. But after about two years, something strange happened. 

I started to like it there. 

Not just like it, LOVE it there. Easily my favorite place I've ever lived, including our home state. 

Disclaimer: I'm in no way saying that I actually like the state of New Jersey. I don't. It's a dump and if someone incinerated the entire state I wouldn't shed a tear. If Cape May was in Delaware, or Pennsylvania, or California, I'd love it just as much. If not more.

I fell in love with the small town on the beach feel. The sense of community not just through the city, but our extremely close-knit Coast Guard neighborhood. Where neighbors were friends were family. Where we never locked our doors and the most noise we ever heard outside the kitchen window was the neighbor kids playing, the ocean, or the recruits running by on Sundays.

And honestly? I miss it. Terribly. And I can't help but have a sense of feeling robbed of another year there, since we put in for an extension and were denied and sent here. And even though I was born and raised on the west coast and still have all family connections here, I want to go back. Badly.

Moving from a small town of 3,000 to living inside the city limits of a major border city of 1.3 million will make just about anyone's head spin. It's busy here. BUSY. The drivers are absolutely insane (worse than French Canadian drivers which I didn't think was possible). The crime rate here is high enough where we don't keep our windows open at night and each house is equipped with alarm systems. The neighborhood, even though it's military, isn't very friendly compared to our last one. Only one family has extended friendship (and bless them for it!). One. Compared to Cape May, where people came out of the woodwork the first week inviting you over for dinner, to the enlisted club, to the beach. And I hate palm trees. I don't know why, but I always have. Maybe because when I see palm trees in America they remind me of some tropical island and it's an ugly reminder that I'm NOT on some tropical island, but here on a major freeway staring that them. And they're ugly. 

It's just different. Is it a kind of different I could get used to? Probably. There's so much to do here it's easy to push from your mind the discontent feelings. But they always manage to creep back.

Unfortunately (or not?) due to the circumstances of our time here being limited to a year, we already have to think about and discuss as a family where we want to move to next year (we need to put the list in FIVE short months from now! Deja vu, anyone?). And maybe after a year we will forget all about Cape May and fall in love with this area and want to stay. After all, it happened last time didn't it? 

I might even start liking palm trees. 

Probably not. Let's not get too crazy here. 

Disclaimer: Despite the struggles, I am thankful for every opportunity that we are given in each city. I am excited for the next year here and the adventures that it brings. However because of our very short time here, we are forced to really think hard about our future and what's to come 11 months from now. There are opportunities both here in San Diego and a return tour in Cape May next year, so we have to start now to determine what we would prefer. Being a higher priority this time, we should (in theory), get what we want. 

These ugly bastards....

365 Days in SD, Days 4-17

Well there goes my theory to post every day for the next year, NO thanks to it being impossibly difficult to get an appointment for internet installation (who knew it could be so challenging in a major metropolis?! Something is wrong, here). 

The last two weeks have been busy to say the least. Moving in to the new house. Unpacking the new house. Getting every built/put together/rearranged/cleaned up as quickly as we could possibly go. Brad deploying six days after moving in to the new house. Figuring out a new schedule for a new house, new city, and new circumstances being a single parent. Oh and trying to see as much of the area as we can in the short year(+) that we have here. 

Did I ever mention how much I haaaaate moving?!?!

I took lots of pictures of the adventures of the last two weeks but of course couldn't post them because the powers that be thought I needed to wait this long to have internet. I was suffocating without my wonderful broadband oxygen. So here's the last two weeks in quick review:

Day 4: officially move in to this place. Goodbye townhome, hello single homes!

Day 5: exploring the USS Midway aircraft carrier in downtown

Day 6: comparing muscles on the beach like normal surfer dudes

Day 7: rolling down the grassy hill at the "Park at the Park" at the Padres game. Great for kids that like baseball but can't sit through a 3 hour game

Day 9: experiencing my first full sized behemoth cockroach. It was huge and I may never walk barefoot again. 

Day 11: sneaking out of bedrooms with disguised as a giant T-Rex so mom won't notice. This has been every night.

Day 13: making sure to order my burger "animal style"

Day 14: Space ice cream at the Air and Space Museum. Because obviously.

Day 15: Juno has most assuredly lost her mind. Those squirt guns are definitely a threat to the household.

Day 16: Strawberry picking in Carlsbad. Which was mostly strawberry eating and mom filling up their buckets. 

And now that you're all caught up and I have the interwebs and everyone is happy, we can return to our regularly scheduled program. 

365 Days in SD, Day 3: Can't we flat pack the balcony?

It's our last night living in a hotel!

::cheer:: ::clap:: ::parades:: ::champagne::

We spent today doing lots of incredibly important things, like swimming in the pool at 9:30am (the boys asked at 7am, but I managed to convince them that the pool transforms into hot lava overnight and doesn't turn back to regular water until 9:am). We also took our first ever maiden voyage to this magical place:

Because you know the movers might have broken something and we might need to replace it with new things. Even though the moving truck doesn't show up until tomorrow. Chances are we're right and we should replace it as soon as possible, right? And what's sooner than before you know it's broken.

So we brought back with us a lot of flat packed boxes. How does a full sized dresser manage to fit in a Wheaties box? I'm incredibly impressed but also confused. We brought home major furniture that fit easily in the trunk. Europeans have some incredible witchcraft that I need to get in on. 

Also, free daycare at Ikea. Dump drop the children off and go shopping, alone? Why haven't all major stores incorporated this idea. Sheer brilliance. 

Also also, there's a height requirement (min and max) for their childcare. I'm not sure why the minimum, because poor little Camden has his mama's genes and was too short to "ride". But the gal was nice and let him in anyways. Poor kid. Spinach in every meal for him from now on. 

We came back to the hotel for another round at the pool and dinner on our super awesome 2nd floor balcony that overlooks Coronado beach and the Pacific Ocean, and also gives us a perfect up-close view of the fighter jets and Apache helicopters landing at the airstrip next to the hotel, which of course my all-boy boys go absolutely nutso over. 

Can't we just like, flat pack the balcony and the view and tie it down to our truck's roof rack? Because that would be perfect. 

Moving truck comes tomorrow! 

365 days in SD, Day 2: Keys and Kids

Today we spent the majority of the day in limbo, like yesterday. Waiting for the housing office to call. Waiting for the moving truck company to call. Waiting for anyone and everyone to CALL. 

I'm not a patient person and waiting for phone calls isn't really my thing.

After some storming into offices, we finally got some answers. Answers in the form of an address and keys to said address. 

Know what that means? It means we have a place to live! 

Please note: If you are someone that we sent a new address to via Facebook, disregard that address. In order to move in before Brad is shipped out, we agreed to a different house with a completely different address. I will inform everyone that needs to know the new address privately.

We don't move in until Friday, so until then we continue hotel life. 

The other good news is that the boys finally flew in from Grandma's house this afternoon! Oh how I missed those small bundles of chaos. Even though it was late in the evening, we skipped dinner and went right to the pool to play. The kids were overjoyed that swimming is obviously more important than eating at this new strange world called California and I had to drag them from the pool screaming and kicking, literally.

Okay only Camden was screaming and kicking. Calen's lips were blue and asked for pajamas and bed. I just love the age of 5. 

reunited with these little men

End note: the culture shock of going from living in a small beach town of 3000 people to a massive border city of 1.1 million has given us an extreme case of culture shock. So far we love the area but as with all major life changes, it's an extreme adjustment. 

365 Days in San Diego, Day 1: Limbo

Well if you can believe it, the Cape May chapter of our lives is closed. 

Crazy, I know.

What's crazier is I'm actually sad to say goodbye to our little mid Atlantic beach village. As much as I hated New Jersey, I adored our little town, our little house, and the people we came to call family there.

I was sad the whole six day drive to California. Seeing ugly cities and unfamiliar people and undesirable places. Screw everyone. It's not Cape May and it pisses me off. 

Until of course I saw our view from our room in the Navy Lodge in San Diego which improved my mood a bit.


So there's a lot of dirty details about this military move that we haven't discussed yet. Mainly because it was all up in the air and didn't want to be presidents of the Rumor Mill Club just yet. These are the (almost) official terms of this move.

1) It's a Short Tour. When our detailer told us we were moving to San Diego, he didn't deem to inform us that this billet is only for one year. This is because the boat that Brad is assigned to (USCGC Sherman) is moving to Hawaii to replace a decommissioning boat. The crew will not follow. So, we have to put in picks this fall and go through the whole move process again next summer. Unless by some miracle we get San Diego again, which we want, because who wants to move twice in a year? NOT MY ASS.

2) We don't have a house (yet). As of this moment, our house (part of military housing) will be available to move in on the 24th, which is two weeks from now. Until then we will be living at the Navy Lodge (hotel) at Naval Air Station Coronado in San Diego. However we might move in to a different address sooner because of:

3) Brad's boat is in dry dock out of state and they're jerks. To put it mildly. Another detail that NO ONE thought to tell us about is that the Sherman is in dry dock in Bellingham WA (an hour from our hometown....gooo figure) and his new command wants him to fly up and meet it. Now. Before we move in to the house. Which would leave me moving in alone with a 5 and 3 year old, a trailer Id have to unload alone and a motorcycle I can't drive. So we are waiting on a call from housing with possibly a different address that will allow us to move in sooner.

Until we get some answers, we will carry on sitting here in limbo. But we have beer and the view is nice. 

Endnote: since we only have a year(+) in San Diego, we are going to make it a busy year and cram in as much sightseeing and local adventures as possible. So I'll attempt to blog every day with our discoveries.

Tourist For A Day

You guys, we have a month left in Cape May. 

One month.

I'm actually kind of sad about this. While I'm elated that I get to move to San Diego, of all places (especially after this completely cold and absurdly long winter), but Cape May has become our home away from home and it's going to be hard to leave our little plot of happiness here on the Shore.

I can't even believe I said that.

Today was (for once) a completely gorgeous spring day, so we decided to make a family outing out of being a tourist in our own town. We went to the Washington Mall (which is like, an outdoor "mall" type thing and window shopped, and did real shopping, ate lunch at a cafe you know the whole tourism crap. Not that we haven't been to these places before (well some shops we hadn't and the cafe was new to us), but it was fun to make an entire outing of it. And we got some cool Cape May books to go on the coffee table that we totally don't own.

And we had fried pickles. Have you ever had a fried pickle?! If you haven't, you must. (And if you live here, Stewart's at the mall serves good ones). Also did you know that Cape May has a peanut butter company? Like The Cape May Peanut Butter company? Why aren't our lousy supermarkets carrying their peanut butter. Especially their cappuccino peanut butter. Yes, I just said cappuccino peanut butter. 

Fried freaking pickles.

Good Heavens, where was I.

So after a couple hours in town, Cam had his typical mid-day psychotic breakdown (aka...naptime was overdue) and the grownups were dying from spring allergy hell, so we considered the tourism tour over. But we supplemented the day with an afternoon of smoking THIS for dinner:

MEAT.

and the kids ate dinner ON the playground. Because obviously. 

Later I was going through the closet and decided I HAD to figure out what the eff to do with the four tubes of fingerpaints before we moved. 

So why not the bathtub? It's contained, right? And washable. 

It started out awesome.

And got a little out of hand.

And what's the best remedy for a completely destroyed bathtub? 

A bath with half a bottle of bubble bath (that had to be used up before the move too).

And now I have especially clean kids. 

What did you do this Saturday?

Easter Weekend

So this past week was spring break and it was long. And by long I mean horrifically, hair-pulling long. It was unseasonably FREEZING ASS COLD, and rainy, and cold and rainy, and thus both kids were stuck inside all week left to do nothing but argue over absolutely everything. 

God how we ever survived a time before school is beyond me. 

However, our painfully long week ended with an actually quite lovely weekend. The weather turned, attitudes from certain small cretins got a lot better, and things just all around got great. 

Saturday Calen asked to go to the baseball field on base to practice. And let me tell you just how much my baseball loving self hates hearing that! So we gleefully spent an hour or so as a family playing ball. Even Cam has suddenly taken on an obsession of sorts of "base-a-ball". 

Towards the end Cam preferred to watch from the stands. With a batting helmet on. Because obviously.

In the afternoon we did confetti eggs. No, I did not make them. I spent four freaking dollars per carton of premade eggs at the grocery store. Because any cost is worth the sanity of not making those by hand. Immediately afterwards we decorated the eggs that we colored the day before. Camden took an egg (raw mind you) and attempted to crack it on his head but I stopped him in time, but now I wish I hadn't because it would have been just damn funny.

confetti eggs!

Ninja powered eggs

Sunday we went to Church like good people do. Although because we are who are, we decided it would be amusing to put superhero shirts underneath their fancy church clothes. Because why not? Because we can never do anything normal. 

Oh look at these nice clean cut Christian boys...

Yeah...nope.

The kids got small Easter baskets from us. Not the Easter bunny. Let's talk about this. I'm not against the Easter bunny or the like. Obviously because we do Santa Claus, the tooth fairy and the new creeper Elf on a Shelf. So our theory of "Easter is about Jesus and not some bunny" is flawed. But that aside, the Easter bunny is just flat out creepy. I mean kill you in your sleep kind of creepy. A jolly man on a Christmas cookie sugar high breaking in your house to leave presents just seems more acceptable than a seriously alarming genetically altered mutant rabbit pooping eggs full of jelly beans into baskets for kids. 

I mean look at this!

I don't know who this is. I googled "Easter bunny" and this was the first hit. Good heavens.

So we just don't do the Easter bunny. They just bother the shit out of me. 

Our good friends from out of town came to spend the afternoon with us and we decided that a superhero egg hunt on the beach was a brilliant idea. Because obviously. So that's what we did. A superhero egg hunt on the beach. 

And that was our weekend. Admist an incredibly stressful few weeks trying to coordinate this completely complicated move, it was nice to have a peaceful (albeit busy) weekend with the family.

And without Easter bunnies.  

Calen's 5th Birthday

You guys. My biggest baby boy is five. FIVE. That means it's not even acceptable to call him a preschooler anymore (though I guess since he's actually in preschool maybe it's okay for another couple months? Maybe?). Although I hate seeing my littles grow up, I can tell "five" is going to be a fun year. He's more interested in conversations, asks funny questions, tells even funnier stories and is so incredibly helpful. I guess I'll let him grow up a little. I guess.

His actual birthday was on Thursday so we did what we usually do on his birthday. We started the day with birthday pancakes (the only day a year where whipped cream, sprinkles and fire are allowed on the pancake. It's also the only day a year where Mommy singing before 8am is permitted):

Ready to blow out his candle!

 After school, we drove up to his restaurant of choice for an early dinner. He wanted "a 'rester-naut' that has food and a place to play", so we went to Chick Fil A, the closest restaurant with a play area. After some good play time, we continued the tradition of going to Toys R Us to let him pick out anything he wanted (limited 3 items per customer). He chose Hot Wheels tracks, a Hot Wheels cargo truck and some Star Wars podracers. 

Unlike other years where he grabs the first thing he can find and refuses to get any other item, he very meticulously walked through the store with his hands folded behind his back, going "hmmmm", putting things in the cart, then pulling them out and trading them for "better" items. It was very thoughtful and adorable.

Also Mommy and Daddy bought him a new bike because he looks like a clown on his current one, and a skateboard, because one ER visit this month hasn't been enough.

Today (Saturday) was his party. Surprise surprise he requested a Hot Wheels party and a #5 cars Cake. Luckily, Pinterest is amazing and some crazy person actually made a #5 cars cake and posted step by step directions so that I didn't have to figure it out all by myself. Also Walmart sells premade black fondant which meant I didn't have to do anything regarding fondant except pull it out of the box. Cheating is lovely.

Since I'm not in the least a fan of creating, setting up and coaching birthday party games, I decided not to this year. And Calen didn't ask. And since it was a hot wheels party, it was as simple as bringing out all his hot wheels tracks and putting them in various "stations" around the house, then putting a basket of cars out and letting the kids go at it. It seemed to be a big hit. 

Tracks EVERYWHERE

Party favors: Cups and a matchbox car. Done and done. Also, princess cups for the girls, because who wants yucky boys stuff anyways

And that was that. Friends, cars, pizza, cake, presents. A simple party that didn't leave for want. After the party, he built some new Lego sets, sat (literally) on ALL of his new cars so that Camden wouldn't touch them, and played his brand new Disney Infinity. 

And I'm still in denial that he's Five.

Happy birthday Calen.

Boogers.

The other day, I noticed something on the wall in the upstairs hallway. It was brownish and smeared like a finger dipped in paint. "is that blood?!" I asked myself, wondering who had killed what recently? And why was there evidence smeared on the wall? What is this, Murder, She Wrote?

Detective Brad said "I think I've seen this before, look in here..." and led me to Calen's room, and pointed to his bed. There, on the wall, above his headboard, was the most gruesome crime scene I had ever seen:

genocide

It was enough dried on booger smears to make my eyes twitch and dinner to start coming back up. I stared at Calen mouth agape.

Who smears boogers on the wall??
Why would you think smearing is even almost okay?
How long have those been there and I haven't even noticed??? Because that's seriously like a years worth of boogers on that wall. 

So we had an impromptu family meeting about boogers and if you have one, put it on a Kleenex, for the love of God, and put the Kleenex in the trash. Immediately. And those that smear boogers on the wall must live outside in the trees with orangutans. 

I'm not quite sure there is anything more disgusting on this planet than a human boy. 

The amazing thing is, I discussed this with my next door neighbor at the bus stop the next morning. She said her daughter did the same thing at the same age!! What is this phenomenon?! Where did it come from? And why? Whyyy.

So, if you have children from the ages of 4-5, check the walls around their bed. There may be boogers. Lots of them. In various shapes and colors. Take all necessary precautions.

This has been a Public Service Announcement.