Fair Winds and Following Seas

Now that I'm back on solid ground, I figured I would share my journey with you. Life on the ship, like anything, has its positives and negatives. Being away from home and those you truly love is hard, but building new friendships and experiencing the "real" Navy will be something that I will always remember.

The Iron Gator...Home away from home.

The Big Deuce...


Leavin' Oki....anchors away!!

The wide blue yonder....a familiar sight.

Chillin' on the fantail...our "O" club.

Smokin' cigars with the boys...

First port visit...Subic Bay in the Philippines

Nice view of the PI mountains...

Brownie and I up on the flight deck...

Time for formation....

Would hate to see this coming at me...

Break Away....

Entering Hong Kong Harbor

My Boy Bruce Lee

A shot from Victoria's peek

A Guinness anyone??

Keep em' coming...

Night life in Hong Kong

A little like NY....

That's how I made my coffee...gotta love the old school coffee press.

Press play and turn the music off on the blog so you can hear the helo and jet noise!!

Thanksgiving Boys

Thanksgiving in Okinawa...just not the same as home...

And Tim wasn't home either.....

Here are some pics of the boys:

This is the best shot I could get out of Noah. He was being pouty.

And Elijah is always photogenic.

He's still so cute I could just tackle him with kisses.

"Cheese!"

Elijah can see now!!

I can see clearly now, the rain is gone,

I can see all obstacles in my way

Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind

It's gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)Sun-Shiny day

It's gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)Sun-Shiny day

Noah wants glasses now too...

Might just have to get him a pair of sunglasses and take the lenses out.

Before....

After...

Reading....

And now super happy he can actually see!!

So, I took the glasses up to my eyes(couldn't actually put them on because my head was too big) but golly...they are strong!! He kept glancing above his glasses to through them, above, and through, above and through. Comparing the with and without. After all of his fuss on not wanting them all this time, he hasn't taken them off once. And he's been playing "doctor" because he has glasses. (Wonder if it's because of Tim??) Only problem with that is he calls me "Amber" and not "Mommy"

Missing Tim

I want so much to see you
if only for awhile

to tell you face to face
how much I miss
my special friend
who's life is such a part of mine

I want so much to see you
if only for awhile

to reminisce our days gone by
and catch up on all the news
I've yet to here

I want so much to see you
if only for awhile

to talk as we used to
of our lives
our loves
our cares and concerns

I want so much to see you
if only for awhile

to feel the joy
you used to bring
and the love found in your smile

Tim and his Ship

Take a glimpse into the life Tim has been living in the last couple of months:

USS Essex

Waiting in the rain...

Steve and Tim

The ICU...empty

Tim chillin' in pre-op

Southeast Botanical Gardens

Another 80 degree sunny day in November. We had to do something fun and new...why not beautiful at the same time? We had lots of fun!

Proof...we are in shorts in the middle of November!!

Hello!

Do you know what this is?

I don't either but I thought it was interesting!


Climbing monkey...

A steep wooden slide....wheeeee!!! (I went down too, but of course I would be the clumsy one and fall down...hurt my toe a little but I was madder that I ruined my new toenail paint job!!)

Colorful cow

Floating flowers in a huge oyster shell...(or some type of shell anyway)

A nasty beetle of some sort. They had a bunch on display. I guess they are popular here.

"U-G-L-Y....You aint got no aliby...you ugly...yeah yeah you ugly!!"

A beautiful contrast to the above picture...

They had an enormous net full of flowers and these butterflies.


I love butterflies!! They are my favorite!!

Of course Noah would find a "gun" to shoot with....

Okay...at first glimpse just a school of fish swimming in the pond right?

But then feed them the food they provide

from a vending machine for 100 yen....

And you have a billion crazy, hungry koi fish!!!

There were so many fighting over the food

they were even outside of the water belly up!!

I love this pic...

Pose for mommy!!

Okay...so I had to take a pic of one of the million vending machines

here so you could see what I have been talking about!

Of course I got a Mt. Dew. I guessed the kids might like the 3rd one on the bottom row. Success!! They liked it!!


Noah wouldn't stop playing around long enough to take a picture with us...

I love this sink!!

Going down the zip line!! Wheeee!!! You know I had to do it too.

This time I didn't fall though!

The kids loved this roped cage climby thing!

Sebastian, Elijah, Noah, and Olivia

Where's Max??

My beautiful boy...

Playing on the banana boat!!