Colors

Emily loves crafts. She loves, painting, cutting, gluing, coloring... just about anything crafty she enjoys. I guess she comes by it honestly since I love all that too. We have been trying for quite some time to work on her colors but she has just not grasped it yet. So I came up with a few ideas to help her with colors and she loves it. First I let her cut up pieces of paper and then she glued them to a paper plate. Next we colored close pins and she pins to the corresponding section. She does real well with matching the right colors but it is the names that confuse her. Grandma sent her some little m&m's and so we take a few of those and put them on the matching color. Her favorite part is when I tell her a color and she can eat it. Since we started doing this a few days ago she has gotten a little better but she still needs to work on it some more. In the mean time we are having a great time with our little projects.

Lambert's

One of the things that I was excited about in joining the Navy was the opportunity to visit places that I normally wouldn't have. We have been in Pensacola for a month now. We have visited many parks in the area, been to the beach a few times and now we have been to Lambert's. This restaurant has been featured on food network and is just a fun place to eat. It is the home of the "throwed roll" and Em loved that. They walk around tossing fresh out of the oven rolls to you. Em got the hang of it real fast and she would hold out her hands each time they walked by to catch one. She also loved the huge drinks they gave us. That girl loves to drink and she was very happy drinking her juice and eating rolls. They serve more food than you can eat and they have "pass arounds" basically they walk around and offer you a handful of sides. We loved the fried okra. Everything about it was good. So if you come visit us Lambert's will be on our list of places to take you.

Daddy and Em

My mom got Em a really cute pea coat for Christmas with the request that I get some pictures of Zachary and Em in their coats together. So here you go mom. Em has been a stinker to take pictures of lately which I guess really isn't really any different than before. I was just hoping that she would have outgrown it by now and cooperate with me a little. Maybe I just need to bring out the camera more so she gets used to it. Oh, well!

a little photo shoot

So there is a old abandoned gas station/auto shop on the way to the Naval Air Station that has been dying to be photographed. The first time I drove by it I knew I would be photographing it soon. It was the perfect fun colors of bright green and pink with pink polk dots. Perhaps the reason that it was abandoned was because of those colors and no one would actually take a car there for repairs for fear of how it would turn out. I couldn't let the opportunity pass me up and took Em out today to take a few shots. It happens to be on a very busy road and when I parked I noticed No Trespassing signs and Beware of Dog signs. I was a little embarrassed seeing as everyone could see what I was doing and I didn't actually hear any dogs so I went with. I promise Emily's life was not in danger. She did pick up a few bottles and was a little bummed I wouldn't let her play with them. Anyway no need to worry I did get a few cute shots. I love finding cool new places to take pictures

A short walk

It has been quite cold her the last few weeks. Actually it has been freezing. There was one day last week that was a little warm and that day Em and I ventured to the park with some new friends. We had a great time being outside and enjoying the sunshine. But, now we are back inside trying to stay warm. Things here are starting to feel a little normal and I am trying to get used to the idea that this is actually home for awhile. I have this feeling in the back of my head like I am on vacation and that we should be going back home soon. I wonder if that feeling will ever go away. We have found a church that we really like. It is actually just right around the corner from where we live. It is a somewhat small church and Zachary and I both really like the pastor and the worship. This last Sunday we went to Sunday School and liked that as well. We decided to stay afterwards and go to the dinner that the church was having for the pastor's birthday. We met a few more people and just enjoyed the fellowship. Sunday night we decided to go to the Life group and let Em go to Awana. Awana has a fairly recent program for 2 year olds now called Puggles. I can't believe that she is old enough to start Awana. She seemed to really enjoy it and wants to go back next week. In fact every morning when she wakes up she wants to get ready to go to church. So cute!
In the middle of our apartment complex is a nice little pond with a few ducks. We decided to take a little walk on a somewhat warm day to see the ducks and find the little swing set they have as well.

~Our apartment sits to the back of this picture~

The Drive

Being a California girl my whole life I was excited to drive across the united states to the east coast. Em and I left our home town of Redding, California on November 5th 2009 and drove (well my father-in-law drove) to Pahrump, Nevada where we lived for almost 2 months. After spending a wonderful Christmas with family we left Pahrump on December 28th and started on our way to Pensacola, Florida. The drive was pretty uneventful but good. I enjoy traveling with Zachary because we get a lot of time to just talk and neither one of us can escape. I took bonine the first part of the trip so I was pretty much out but the later part I was much more coherent for. Emily did awesome and was perfectly content to just sit in the back and watch her movies. Zachary and I pretty much have Monster's Inc, Finding Nemo and Veggie Tales memorized. The first night we stopped in New Mexico after driving about 10 hours. The next evening we were able to spend the evening with Nanny in Dallas. She made us a delicious home cooked meal and we were good to go the next morning. Having never been east of Dallas I was excited to see what the rest of the country looked like. I must say that it is a much prettier drive than the drive from Pahrump. It was so green and beautiful. It started raining just as we got out of Dallas and rained non stop to Pensacola. We stopped in Louisiana and enjoyed catfish for lunch at a great little restaurant. We finally arrived in Pensacola Wednesday night and stayed on base at the Navy lodge. Thursday morning we headed to see our apartment and it is a great little place. Emily was excited to see where she would be sleeping but more excited to be living with her Daddy again. Later that afternoon we headed out to buy stuff to live. We left all our stuff in Redding until we get to our first duty station. So for the mean time we are sleeping on air mattresses and living very simply. I will be very thankful to finally have my stuff again though. We are so happy to be living together as a family once again. Emily loves hanging out with her daddy and acts so silly when he comes home in the evenings. She just can't get enough of him and is constantly telling him that she loves him and it just melts my heart to hear. So far my take on Pensacola is that the people are super friendly, the town is spread out and there is a Wal-mart on every corner. I am looking forward to visiting the white sand beaches with Em this spring, meeting new friends, and finding a great church. Life is Good!

Gingerbread Houses

I know that I am really far behind on the blog posting and many want to hear about life in Pensacola but I feel I need to at least post something about our Christmas so I know that it happened. As many of you know Zachary was able to be home for Christmas and what a great time we had. Em loved having her Daddy around and hardly let him out of her sight. This holiday season was very relaxing for me seeing as I didn't have a house to decorate, no parties to plan, very little shopping to do, I hardly picked up my camera to take pictures either ( i always regret that after the fact). I do however look forward to next year and having all my Christmas decorations, planning parties,baking, shopping and taking more pictures of our holiday season at our first duty station wherever that may be. One of the things I love doing during the holiday season is decorating gingerbread houses. So we bought 2 houses and went to work. The boys and Em took on one house and Lauri and I worked on the other. The boys were hilarious as they worked on theirs adding all kinds of things to their house including a huge American flag, fire hose and a snow storm that hit the back of the house. Lauri and I opted for more of a traditional look with an awning over the door, lamp post, and a pebble walk way. Em loved adding the sprinkles and eating the candy.