This and That

So for the past month there's been a lot of little things that I haven't gotten to blog about. All sorts of stuff has been going on here. We found out that Tom actually graduates in September instead of June. I wasn't sure if I was excited about this or not. I'm ready to get out of here. Monterey is beautiful but I'm ready to go. CA is definitely NOT my favorite place. I'm an east coast person and am missing family. I hope that we get back on that side of the country with our next move. Speaking of.....that's another thing that happened this month. Tom had to fill out a preference list for our next duty station. Now that he's in ORSA instead of Armor we can go to a whole new array of places. The catch is that this will be his first ORSA assignment and first placement locations are a little limited. His branch manager sent us a list of places that will have openings next year. We had to pick our top 5 places and rate them with a percentage. Of course this doesn't mean that we'll get our first choice, or any of our choices for that matter. Tom's low man on the totem pole so we have no idea where we'll be. I am excited about the choices though. :-) We're really hoping that we get to Ft. Belvoir, VA, or Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD. I just want to be somewhere driving distance from PA. I don't care if it's 12 hours by car (Ft. Knox, KY) I just want to have the option to pack up the kids and drive home to see the grandparents and not miss out on birthday parties, my brother's new house, or family BBQ's, or swimming at Lisa's, or seeing my cousins play sports or helping my aunt cook dinner for my cousin's entire college volleyball team, or any of those things that I've missed out on for the last few years. You get my point. Of course I'm trying to not get my hopes up because we all know how the Army loves to mess with your head when they pretend to give you a choice in any matter. hahahaah. So we filled out the list, sent it off, and hopefully will know where we're headed next in January.

In another bit of news about Tom....he's growing a mustache. Oh yes people a mustache! For those of you who remember, he came back from Iraq with a mustache and it was straight out of a 70's cop movie. Oh and the best part.....it's red. :-) This isn't just because....it's for profit. Would he do it for any other reason? Hahahaha. He decided to organize a mustache growing contest among his classmates. The funniest thing is that part of the contest is naming the mustache......he's up for suggestions. If I can sneak a picture I'll post it for sure!

The boys are doing great! They go for check ups on Friday so I'll have to post the stats when I get them. According to our scale Ty's 16.5 pounds and growing. He was waking up through the night for about 10 days after we got back from Tahoe but he's back to sleeping through again. Jack went to the dentist yesterday and did so great! He impresses me everyday. I need to have more faith in the fact that my kids can behave in public because they really do great but I'm just waiting for them both to melt. It's almost November which means we have 2 months until we head home for Christmas. I can't wait!! We'll be there for 12 days. I'm throwing a little reunion for our group of friends from High School. We've all spread out a little bit and will be back in Pottsville for the holidays. I thought it'd be great to see everyone. I think the last time we were all together was at our wedding 6 1/2 years ago. It should be fun. Plus, even better...... our family can finally see Ty! The poor kiddo's only seen his grandparents so far. We've got lots of family! So that's the little tid bits of what's going on here at the McMurtrie house. Here's a few pictures since my Aunt Maria gave me an ear full for not posting any pics in my last blog....hahahah!

Safety First!!!


He told me he was building a house!


He LOVES sweet potatoes!


Nice and clean after bath!


Much love!

Typical Us

Yesterday morning I went out to the garage to start the 4 loads of laundry I let pile up in that many days. I hate laundry! You would think with today's technological advances there would be some machine out there that washes, dries, and folds your clothes! I need to invent that. Anyway.....I went to start the laundry and found that the washer has given up on life. Our landlord included the washer and dryer with the house, not too shabby. We never needed a set. Even though the washer is from the 70's it still worked just fine, until yesterday. I pulled the knob to get it started and NOTHING. I yelled for Tom, he came out and messed with it for about a half hour and looked at me and said...."looks like we're buying a washer and dryer today". So after I did some research and price checks and after the kiddos woke up from their simultaneous naps, off we went. Now we talked about buying a washer and dryer for a while but always talked ourselves out of it because we just really didn't need one, we had rentals. But when the granny machine conked out we just decided it was time to get our own. The model we ordered was the Whirlpool Cabrio.


I'm a fan of the top loading machines, and we got a steam dryer, yeah! We went to OSH ( who's appliance department is owned by Sears) See, the models I wanted were on sale but Sear's had them one their web site for even less than the sale price. I love when a store will honor the price you see even if it's wrong. So not only were they on sale but I still got about another $100 off because they goofed! Great shopping! So we ordered the set, they'll get here on the 13th of Nov. I was planning on using the "laun-dro-mat" until they came in (during day light hours, per Tom's request) hahahahha. So I'm all happy because of the deal we just got on the washer and dryer that I actually liked and the best part was.....we only went to one store and were home in 45 minutes. Of course when we got home, Tom went back out to the garage, gave the washer a huge bang and the freakin' thing started right up! See people.....this is ALWAYS how it goes with us! It never fails! Typical!

Banana Pie

After the fun of pumpkin carving yesterday Jack and I decided to make Tom's favorite Banana Pie. It has a layer of chocolate and peanut butter.....soooo tasty good! Jack loves helping me in the kitchen. He gets to stand on a chair, get messy, and taste test everything. We made a cake 2 weeks ago and he even cracked the eggs. He's the best at stirring....hahahaha! He really has fun and I love baking and getting to share that with him. I hope he remembers that in a few years when he's playing baseball with his dad! Anyway....Here's some pictures of my little helper baking away!

Peas and Pumpkins

Ty had his first taste of real food last night. We started him on peas. The kiddo's an eater and I thought, why not give him something more nutritious than rice. He's almost 5 months and this is when we started stage 1 foods with Jack. He was definitely ready. Not sure if he enjoyed the peas, but it was food so he ate it. :-) He had more tonight and he polished it off yet again. Yumm Yumm Yummy!

Uummmm...What was that???


The taste of peas does this to my face too. :-)





Jack carved his pumpkin today. I have our huge one to carve yet but that will be a project without the help of a 2 yr old. Jack's wanting to cut things with the big knives doesn't make it fun, just scary! He had more fun scooping out the guts of the pumpkin and flinging the seeds everywhere than trying to cut the thing with his kid's knife but it was fun! Here's his little creation....I helped a little, his Gerber knife wasn't doing too much. :-)

Pumpkin Pickin'

Yesterday we went to pick out pumpkins. There's a huge pumpkin farm with a corn maze and a pumpkin launcher about 45 minutes away from here in Hollister. The plan was to go there. Ty had another plan. For the past 4 days he's been waking up at 3am screaming and wanting to eat. It could be from a million things....growth spurt, teething, traveling....who knows. All I do know is that Tom and I have been very spoiled with a baby who sleeps through the night that once he doesn't.... we're lost. Anyway, so with a baby who was pretty off schedule we went to a pumpkin patch about 5 minutes away. Much easier!!! :-) It was perfect, not crowded and Jack had a blast of course. We haven't carved them yet, that'll be the project for this week. We decorated the house today so it's starting to feel a little like October here. I wish we were back in PA so we could go around the neighborhood trick or treating with my younger cousins. Instead, we'll just be hanging out in our front yard handing out candy. I love Halloween!

Jack's also been talking up a storm lately. The kid doesn't stop. He has stories and tells secrets to the dogs. Most of the time the secret is "Spider Man Chewies". hahahah That still cracks me up. The other day he sat down right next to Lola while she was sitting on the porch and just started telling her about his day. It was soooo cute. He's such a sweet kid.

And here's my new favorite picture of Ty....
This happened in the 2 minutes it took me to clean up Jack's lunch.


I love how babies can sleep anywhere!


Jack having a very in-depth conversation with Lola. hahaha!


Jack having that same conversation with a ghost at the pumpkin patch. :-)


Ty in the middle of the pumpkins.


He just had to be the one pulling the wagon.


The 2yr old strong man competition.


"I'll take this one, please!"

Lake Tahoe

We spent the long Columbus Day weekend in Lake Tahoe. Tom's been trying to get me to go since we've lived here but I kept shooting his idea down. I thought....it's a lake, can't be that fun. I regret that decision because if we would have gone sooner we'd have gone back a time or two by now. We loved Tahoe. It was soooo beautiful! Our neighbor warned us that South Lake Tahoe can be scuzzie but we looked at 100 places to stay and couldn't decide. So we just stayed in South Lake Tahoe at a place right one the lake, Lakeland Village. It was really nice. There was a heated outdoor pool and hot tub so Tom and Jack got to swim. We were right on the lake and it was a sandy beach, no slimy rocks. There was a pier and the water was really shallow so you could walk out about 40 yards and the water would still be at your knees. Jack of course loved this. The water was freezing but we got used to it pretty quickly, or our legs just went numb. Hahahaha.
We stayed on the CA side of the lake but could walk to NV. It's funny because right at the state line there's 3 casinos. Hahaha. Of course we had to gamble a little. Did you all know that you can't gamble with a baby in a stroller next to you?? I was told to leave Harrah's right after I put my $20 in the Wheel of Fortune slot machine with Ty next to me sleeping in his stroller. (Tom was walking around with Jack) Hahahaha....now I know!
My favorite part of the whole trip was just hanging out at the Lake but Jack and Tom's highlight was the gondola at Heavenly Village and seeing a salmon run. We went up to 10,000 feet and the view was amazing. Jack has no fear of hights since he had his face glued to the window the whole time, I panicked most of the way. Hahaha. At the top we got off at a ski area and there was snow....so much fun! Jack hugged a snowman and ate some non-yellow snow. The boys did so great on the trip! They would sleep in the car when we drove around the lake. That's when we saw a bunch of people at a bridge and got out to see what was going on. There was a school of salmon swimming up stream. It was pretty cool to see! Jack was going crazy! We also drove to Carson City, NV....who knows why....there's NOTHING there! We had a great time and would definitely go back, we're not skiers so maybe next summer when it's a little warmer.

Here's a bunch of pictures....sorry, there's a lot! :-)


Jack loving the lake.


His shell collection.


Tom and Jack walking on the pier.



Salmon run


Lots of salmon on the salmon run.



They boys in our condo.


A view of Emerald Bay.


Jack on a stump. :-)


At the top of the Heavenly Village gondola.


Yummmm snow!


Hello Mr. Snowman!


Are you excited about the snow??? Yeppers!


The view of the lake from 10,000 ft.


The family.


Snowball!


View from the gondola.


Jack on the pier wondering where the ducks went.


Cheese!

Halloween Preview & Fires

I really LOVE Ebay! We've been talking to Jack about what he wanted to be for Halloween this year. He, of course, asked to be Elmo after seeing the costumes online. Now, I refused to pay more than $20 for any costume. Last year he was a bat for about 30 minutes. Even though Ty will get to wear the costumes I grew up making our own costumes. We were always football players because my uncle was a coach, or a gypsy, or a hippie. Half the fun was creating your own costume and seeing if anyone could guess what you were. Hahahahah. Anyway, when I saw the Elmo costume was $45 I almost fell over. So, in comes ebay. I found the costume he wanted, it's only been worn twice and I got it for $16.00. YEAH! The costume came about 2 weeks ago. Tom and I have been trying to get Jack to try it on everyday since it came and this morning......success! So just in case he never puts it on again, here's Jack for a Halloween preview. I have to dig out Ty's costume....He'll be in my favorite costume.....a baby billy goat. :-) hahahah!













For the past 2 days this is what we've seen from our back porch. This is not something exciting to see in CA when your whole back yard is like kindling. Hahaha. Thankfully this was a controled burn done by the Army. This is on Fort Ord. The Army owns this property and it's being developed for houses and condos. They weren't burning to aid with wildfires....oh no, they were burning to set off unexploded ammunition from when this land was used for training. How funky is that? Jack's been amazed by all the helicopters buzzing around with water bags. He finds it pretty cool, I just hope it stays where it is. :-)