Leaving AZ to LA and finally made it to San Diego

Well, we made it!!
It's been a long, awesome and unforgettable trip across the country with 3 kids under the age of 4. The boys watched more movies on the iPad than I care to admit but it preserved our collective sanity for the 12 day trek.
Seeing family, meeting cousins for the first time, and spending a lot of quality time together had been a blessing.
We left the south side of the sun also known as lake Havasau early in the morning and got to Jennifer and Daniel 's house around 2 on Tuesday. The boys promptly put on their swim suits and spend the rest of the day swimming. We all got to have some great time together. Jenn's dad, my uncle john is there too and it was great having 3 generations together and introducing everyone to little Wallace! Poor baby somehow got sunburn on his arm despite our best efforts at the Grand Canyon. Winston 'found' a pair of scissors and decided he didn't like the hair in his eyes. He gave himself a little trim and thankfully only cut his hair. He looks pretty funny now and will have much shorter hair all over pretty soon. frown emoticon

We again had a nice breakfast with the family before piling in the car one more time this morning. A quick 2 and a half hours later we are at Costco buying 500 dollars worth of 'essentials' for the house. We picked up the keys and made it to our new home for the first time.
The house is great, it has an open layout and a great backyard. It needs some TLC as it's been empty for. Awhile but should be a great house for the next year.
Our stuff gets delivered tomorrow and I check into the Cg unit on Friday for my last day till October of putting on a uniform!
We've had a blast but are ready to stay put for a few weeks!

Winston before we left Lake Havasau. Little sunburn under his eyes!

When I moved out to California for "A" school this section of the Interstate starts where I-40 begins was under construction. Had to make an obligatory stop here this time!

Baby Ace and Daniel Poolside

Baby Ace and Jen chilling together. 

Leaving Grand Canyon to Lake Havasau

Hey Winston, what did you like better, the Grand Canyon or the painted desert?
W- painted desert
Jenn- why?
W- because I could watch 'despicable me!'

I think he's had enough of traveling and after being homeless for almost 5 weeks I think I understand. The Grand Canyon was great. The boys were awe struck when we first stopped but overwhelmed by the 3rd or 4th scenic overlook. We got some great pictures and had fun. The boys are a little too young though to go on hikes or any of the other fun stuff you can do there. Oh well, there's always next time.
Jennifer finally found a necklace she liked and bought it at one of the road side stands on our way up there.
After the Grand Canyon tour we went to Williams AZ for lunch on Route 66. It was fun and Jenn got to eat some pie she had been craving since stopping there with her dad 8 years ago.
We made it to lake havasau which we picked as a reachable place that appeared to be nice. One of my friends Sean posted pics there a few weeks ago and it looked like Fun! We however had no idea that the temperature would be 110 for the time we were there! The Hampton inn was great as always and the outdoor pool was crucial. It wasn't too bad in the pool and unbelievably Wes was shivering when he was out of the water. If he didn't eat all day you would think we were starving the little guy!
We are now on our way to Burbank to see my cousin and uncle john! Wednesday we get the keys to our new home!
Frankly I think we all just want a place to leave our toothbrush for more than a day at a time!

Great Wolf Lodge and Seeing the Oklahoma Greenwoods

What's in Amarillo? 
No idea. Apparently a nice sky and more importantly time to catch up on our cross country adventure. 
St. Louis is my favorite so far. Amazing day and hotel. I'm sure Winston will say Kansas City although we just drove through it. 
We left wed morning for Kansas City so we could be at our next hotel for a 1:00 check in. Jennifer found a great wolf lodge along our route and figured wed give it a try. I had seen posts from Denton and other high school friends about how much fun it is for families. 
We had Winston at indoor water park. 
It did not disappoint. While I thought it was a little pricey for one night it was excellent for kids. They had a blast. It's an indoor water park with other amenities that are extra and happens to have a hotel attached. Great concept but felt like bass pro shops wanted to make a Disney land hotel. Don't get me wrong I liked it and the boys loved every minute of it. Since we were in the water pretty much the entire time we didn't get too many pictures. 
Thursday we left after a little time in the water park to drive to Tulsa. The drive was great as we were off the interstate and felt like we saw southern Kansas and northern Oklahoma. Beautiful countryside that reminded a lot of the piedmont of NC. Rolling hills, farmland and little mom and pop stores... But more wide open and less trees maybe. 
If you ever need to navigate in unfamiliar areas trust the waze app. It is great for this trip. 
We arrived in Tulsa to see my great aunt and greenwood cousins with a great welcome. It was great to see Pamela and Nate and everyone else. We truly did plan to come that far north just to see them and had a great time. 
Winston loved playing with his cousin max and uncle Tim, aunt ann and aunt Pamela were great hosts. Thank you all!
While we wanted to stay longer the baby was sleepy and cranky. We left with heavy hearts knowing we would kiss our distant family but resolved to visit again. 
Our next stop was for Jennifer to see the Oklahoma City memorial. She thought she would just walk in see and and walk out. 
I knew better having seen it 12 years ago. 
She took Winston in and was truly moved. 
We pushed through and Jenn kept the boys happy long enough to make to Amarillo Texas. Next stop 
Sante Fe!

pimping the aviator brewing company in NC...
www.aviatorbrew.com

Sunday evenings or How Ren Fair's and the junior league have much in common

Well it has been a productive weekend in my estimation. we  had two trees cut down, most of it cleaned up, visited the Mobile junior league's Christmas Jubilee and then later went to the local renissance fair as well.
Not surprisingly both feautred many people dressed up out to impress each other and to see and be seen in their outfits.  Both had loads of stores selling crap you don't want or need and a lot of it was home made and therefore sold at a premium.  Im sorry but in the case of the Jubilee, I saw so much handmade jewlery I no longer wonder what women do when their kids no longer require constant supervision but they don't want to leave the house.  It was a little out of control. In any case, There are plenty of awards that could go to each of these fine events but I'll take the Ren fair because there was live entertainment and more importantly, good beer. The jubilee did allow the vast minority of men who attended one kernel, there was a guy with an HD TV display showing the saturday games.  Of course, I spent  a few minutes watching tennessee lose to Ole miss.
On a side note, I bet on that one with a guy at work who is a Tennessee fan.  I'm not going to lie, it was sweet to see them lose and win $ from him on it.  It's not that I don't like Tennessee, it's just that seeing them lose provides a lot more material to work with come Monday morning than if they won.  Which is also why I like seeing Georgia lose. But that's another story for another time.
Saturday night was quiet.  We had dinner at this good vietnamisee place in the middle of the ghetto here in mobile.  Seriously,, the only business across the street that is still open advertises that it sells ice old canned beer for $1.50.  Around the corner the mega laundry center was very busy... guess thats the place to be on a saturday night in that part of town.   We rented a movie called atonement.  We got it from a red box... which if you have never seen them it lets you rent a movie for 1 dollar a day. see www.redbox.com I am pretty sure I overpaid and will never have those two and a half hours back that I wasted on this god forsaken movie.  I slet through most of it, woke up, picked up were I had left off and really didn't care if I went back to sleep.  SO yeah I was rivetted on the edge of my seat!

Today was nice and quiet, our friends brad and stephanie had a bar-b-que at their house to watch the saint's game.  It was cool, none of the people I didn't care to see from work were there and most of the people that i Do like at work were there.  Met a few others and more importantly saw Brad and stephanie's baby Lila.  We had seen her when she was brand new and about a week and a half old.  She has grown so much and was so well behaved, truely a little angel.  Brad told us that they had to leave church early today not because she was crying, but because she was laughing too loud! That's how you know you have a happy child!
I wore one of my steelers jersey's over there and was greeted nicely by everyone but the douche rocket wearing a cowboys jersey.  It wasn't the animosity but lack of any personality or interaction that annoyed me. He was nice but really could not get past me being a steelers fan.  what was funny at first just made him seem more lame.  Yet another reason I don't care for the cowboys... Jennifer loathes them being a red skins fan which I can understand I care more about seeing the Patriots lose or after today, cincinatti lose!

We did get two pine tree's cut down which leaves us with none left on our property.  The main reason we had them cut down is we loath mediacom, our local cable company. their service goes out in the rain.  Yes, a cable company whose service is disrupted by rain.  Anyways, we find out on Tuesday if this will solve our issues with getting direct tv or some other satellite service. Keep your fingers crossed.

We also found out this weekend that jennifer may not be able to come up for all of thanksgiving holiday.  It was suck big time if this happens but is yet another reason that we are convinced she is going to get out.  Her immediate supervisor is terrible.  He's the reason she wants to get out and frankly I don't blame her.  He stood up to her and got him in trouble so now he looks for every reason to take advantage of her.  Its no wonder the coast guard has a problem with diversity.  We want everyone to have no life outside of work and no time to see another's point of view. I hope that I can have the involvement as a leader to prevent these types of things from happening. It really sucks not being able to help her at all. Very frustrating.  Otherwise she is doing well, she lives with constant back pain and mild heartburn but is otherwise in good spirits.

We both can not wait to come home and I really hope that things work out with her work so that she can go on the entire vacation... we shall see. It depends on one of her coworkers, someone she considers a friend so hopefully it will be a non issue.  They are working together tomorrow so hopefully she can help her out.

So this will probably go down as our first blog post.  
this is something that I've wanted to do for awhile and have been procrastinating about especially since jennifer and I found out we were pregnant.
There's a lot changing and so many neat things happening lately I figured why not start now and can always post a few pics as retrospectives or at least highlight somethings we will want to remember even if no one else ever reads the posts!

Hurricane/Topical storm/over hyped thurnderstom IDA came through yesterday to much hoopla and not much punch thankfully.  The low lying barrier island dauphin island did not even have a storm surge cover it.  I think the news quoted a 2-3 foot storm surge.  Lame.
I got to take advantage of the mass hysterial and fly quite a bit over the last 3 days... over 12 hours is pretty good for any week, let alone a half a week.  We evacuated to airstation houston and stayed at a brand new hilton garden inn near elington field.  saw the nasa's beluga, the worlds largest airplane.  It was nice, went to texas land and cattle steak house which featured steak nachos and steak queso in case you didn't get enough meat with your steak... oh yeah I also indulged in the steak soup. it was delicious.  However the piece de la resistace was the smoked sirloin. hickory smoked... it was yummy with a huge sweet potato.

Jennfier is doing well. she is in the third trimester and counting down the weeks. She knows she will be gaining more weight in the next 11 weeks but doesn't know how as she is certain she can't get much bigger.

We took a Bradley birthing method class that was 12 weeks long that ended last week.  It was a lot of information but helped us quite a bit in our desire  to have a natural child birth.  The above picture was taken on our last day of class. Rene is due later this month while we still have 12 more weeks to go!  If you want to know what bradley method is all about, check: http://www.bradleybirth.com/ 
My best explanation is that it educates expectant mothers on how to have a healthy pregnancy, and natural delivery with the support of the coach/husband actively involved in the process and helping mom to relax and enjoy something that you both will always remember.  
I must say that I was reserved at first but have learned alot and hope that I can remember it all in a few months!
Jennifer has taken to reading any book she can on childbirth and can quote what to expect when you are expecting from memory.  She's ready fro the big day!
I've skimmed a few books and really enjoyed a collection of short stories my mom got us called the Book of dads.  It's a good read and has stories from dads from all walks of life and every stage of life. It's neat and sentimental.  In my true boy scout fashion I picked out a book called Be prepared that featured a drawn rugged dad with junior in a backpack. It is written for guys and covers everything from how your partner will be during her stages of pregnancy through potty training.  There's a lot of comedy in it and is a light read but very informative.
Lately we have taken to what happens after the big day... i.e. when we take that sucker home (literally as we hope to breast feed!) and try and figure out how to keep it sleeping though the night and not damage it too badly!    Jennifer has learned from her past mistake of buying all the baby books to checking them out from the library first and then determining which ones are worth buying.   There is a many different theories and methods.  We haven't picked one but would love some recommendations!

Tomorrow is veterans day and jennifer is off, I however will enjoy a rousing day of duty that does not involved flying. It's going to be great. no really... On the bright side it should be a slow day and will mean I get to have friday off, so three day weekend for me!

I don't want to make this post any longer than it already is, so I will write more about things a bit later.  Tune in next time folks.  Same bat time, same bat channel.

Jennifer and gerald at hotel before the game...