Last night (11/14) Grandma Thelma arrived at our house for a visit. We aren't sure how long she is staying but she will definately be here through Thanksgiving. The kids were so excited to see her, its been 11 months since we've been together.
Today I finished registering for my spring semester classes. My biology class was full so I had to rearrange everything which was not what I wanted to do. I will have to drive to more with this schedule. But I got everything in that I needed to take so here's the finished product.
Monday- Computing 9:30 - 10:45 Annandale Campus
Medical Terminology 1pm-3pm Med Ed Campus
Tuesday- Statistics 9:30 - 10:45 Annandale Campus
Nutrition 12:30 - 3:10 Annandale Campus
Wednesday- Anatomy and Physiology 9:30 - 12:10 Alexandria Campus
Thursday- Statistics 9:30 - 10:45 Annandale Campus
Friday- Anatomy and Physiology Laboratory 9:30 - 12:10 Alexandria Campus
Saturday- Work 8 am to 5pm at AMC in Alexandria
Sunday- Work 8 am to 5pm at AMC in Alexandria
Looks like a busy schedule, of course there will be homework and study time somewhere in there. It was not easy making a schedule that goes around Scotts work schedule as well as the kids school bus schedule but I got it done. I start January 10th.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
November
So far things are going great here in Virginia. Scott is working at Naval Reactors in Washington DC and I found a job working as Film Crew at AMC Hoffman 22 in Alexandria, Virginia. Both a a bit of a commute but we are getting used to it. The kids are enjoying their new house, and their new school here in Woodbridge Virginia.
Halloween went well we trick or treated around our new neighborhood and scored loads of candy!! The kids enjoyed handing out candy to their neighborhood friends. We had a big halloween party and I've already posted all the recipes on my food blog so be sure to check them out :)
November is here and its getting colder and with that comes our first round of colds and flu, I was hit first being sick now for 2 days but luckily I am off of work this week so it doens't interfere with anything.
The girls are enjoying Girl Scouts again this year. Jennifer is a brownie and Aurora is a daisy. They both have meeting twice a month and 2 monthly weekend activitys so that keeps us busy at least 8 days a month. Next year Michael will start cub scouts, he's very excited for that!
My grandma Thelma is coming in this weekend and staying for the holidays. We are still uncertain if my Aunt and Cousins will be able to make it up for Thanksgiving yet due to their work and school schedules.
Well there is a little update from the Spear family, I'll try to keep up with this blog a bit more from now on :D
Halloween went well we trick or treated around our new neighborhood and scored loads of candy!! The kids enjoyed handing out candy to their neighborhood friends. We had a big halloween party and I've already posted all the recipes on my food blog so be sure to check them out :)
November is here and its getting colder and with that comes our first round of colds and flu, I was hit first being sick now for 2 days but luckily I am off of work this week so it doens't interfere with anything.
The girls are enjoying Girl Scouts again this year. Jennifer is a brownie and Aurora is a daisy. They both have meeting twice a month and 2 monthly weekend activitys so that keeps us busy at least 8 days a month. Next year Michael will start cub scouts, he's very excited for that!
My grandma Thelma is coming in this weekend and staying for the holidays. We are still uncertain if my Aunt and Cousins will be able to make it up for Thanksgiving yet due to their work and school schedules.
Well there is a little update from the Spear family, I'll try to keep up with this blog a bit more from now on :D
Monday, August 9, 2010
New House in Virginia
We recently just returned from 4 days in Washington DC. Scott took house hunting leave and we set out to find our family the perfect house. Easier said then done...... After 2 days of dud after dud we finally found it. It was actually one we weren't to excited to see, it looked small. But don't judge a book by its cover because the house turned out to be huge. For some reason the owner only photographed a few rooms and didn't even mention the completely finished basement. This house is immaculately kept and beautiful. It is in a great neighborhood outside of Woodbridge Virginia. The only places in the vacinity of the house are other big houses, schools (a block away) and churches, what better neighborhood could we ask for!
Scotts commute will be about 40 mins without traffic so he is going to check into the commuter lot that comes right to our neighborhood. Its a bus that takes you to the metro station and from their he can board the metro which has a stop right at Navy Yard where he will be working at Naval Reactors. He took me on a tour of where he will be working and it is a beautiful brick building on a quiet base. We also went to the Navy Museum which is right there, and there is also a big ship to tour. If he would like to get lunch or a haircut he only needs to exit the back of his building and cross the street to the Navy Barber, shops, eateries, and mini nex. Looks like an exciting place to work and only 2 blocks from the Washington Nationals baseball field, CVS, Safeway grocery store, 5 guys burgers, and a subway.
LINK TO HOUSE:
http://www.militarybyowner.com/listings/hometour.asp?F_BASE_ID=232&F_STATE=VA&LISTING_ID=158377
she didn't list that the house actually has a completely finished basement So it comes out to be a 4,000 square foot house.
HOUSE HAS:
Living Room
Family Room
Office
Dining room x2
Kitchen
4 bathrooms
6 bedrooms (master has Jacuzzi jetted tub and separate glass shower
Rec Room
Deck
fenced yard
two car garage
(in a home owners association, includes pool, tot lots, pond for fishing
Has a commuter lot with bus pickup for the metro for Scott to go to work in DC.)
I will be posting more pics of the house that I took as well as pics from the trip to facebook shortly.
Scotts commute will be about 40 mins without traffic so he is going to check into the commuter lot that comes right to our neighborhood. Its a bus that takes you to the metro station and from their he can board the metro which has a stop right at Navy Yard where he will be working at Naval Reactors. He took me on a tour of where he will be working and it is a beautiful brick building on a quiet base. We also went to the Navy Museum which is right there, and there is also a big ship to tour. If he would like to get lunch or a haircut he only needs to exit the back of his building and cross the street to the Navy Barber, shops, eateries, and mini nex. Looks like an exciting place to work and only 2 blocks from the Washington Nationals baseball field, CVS, Safeway grocery store, 5 guys burgers, and a subway.
LINK TO HOUSE:
http://www.militarybyowner.com/listings/hometour.asp?F_BASE_ID=232&F_STATE=VA&LISTING_ID=158377
she didn't list that the house actually has a completely finished basement So it comes out to be a 4,000 square foot house.
HOUSE HAS:
Living Room
Family Room
Office
Dining room x2
Kitchen
4 bathrooms
6 bedrooms (master has Jacuzzi jetted tub and separate glass shower
Rec Room
Deck
fenced yard
two car garage
(in a home owners association, includes pool, tot lots, pond for fishing
Has a commuter lot with bus pickup for the metro for Scott to go to work in DC.)
I will be posting more pics of the house that I took as well as pics from the trip to facebook shortly.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Trip To New York City and Coney Island
We took a wonderful trip to New York City, saw times square, shopped, and ate at bubba gump shrimp. We took Aurora to American Girl Place to get her Birthday Present (she's been waiting since May) she picked out Elizabeth since she is the best friend of Felicity (the doll she already has). So now we have 4 american girl dolls in our family and the girls could not be more excited! We then went to Coney Island for the first time!! We saw the rides, the beach and of course Nathan's famous hot dog stand. It was a really neat experience. What brought us to Coney Island was Michael's Birthday present which was tickets to Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. The Circus was great and the kids really enjoyed it, eve Scott loved it! We then took a walk on the pier and beach before heading home. It was another wonderful trip to the big city! Pictures to follow maybe tomorrow :)
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Spring Break 2010 Florida
We left for Spring Break on March 31st in the early morning. We drove to Virginia and stayed at Sarah's house with her and her kids. If you're driving to Virginia or DC know that radar detectors are illegal there, I got pulled over and was given a ticket for having one. My friend Joann moved to Virginia a while back so she came over to Sarah's with her kids and we all had dinner, it's always so nice to meet up with military friends later down the road. We headed out early in the morning on April 1st now with two cars (Sarah came with) and 6 kids.
We drove to Kingsland GA (Kings Bay) and stayed at our friend Kelsey’s house with her kids. We had 10 kids between the three of us!! The kids enjoyed getting to see each other and we enjoyed catching up again. Kelsey wasn't able to join us in our road trip to Florida because her husband was coming back from deployment. We headed out early April 2nd for our 2 hr 50 minute drive to Orlando.
We purchased our tickets at Shades of Green, I love that place! It's a military only resort and so nice! It does ticket discounts. After we had our tickets we headed straight for Magic Kingdom. The next day we did Animal Kingdom, the next day we did Epcot, the next day we split up, Sarah and her kids did Magic kingdom again (Since her little girl slept through most of it the first day) and my kids and I headed to Hollywood Studios for the day. Jennifer and Michael both road the Tower of Terror for the first time, and joined Aurora in having a T-Shirt to prove it. They all loved it!! We met back with Sarah and her kids at the Hotel.
Next day Sarah headed out Virginia bound, she was supposed to stay longer with her sister in Tampa but unfortunately her sisters new house flooded so they decided to head home. My kids and I decided a board day in a hotel room was not an option so we headed out to Universal Studios for the day. It was insanely hot that day but we had a great day despite the heat. We did Universal as Michaels birthday present and spoiled him with photos and gifts from the ET store and Nickelodeon store. The kids saw lots of characters despite the long lines and had a good time. Every park had some sort of Firework event at the end and the kids were just in awe of everything they saw. It made me feel good to see them so happy.
Next morning after some much needed krispe kremes (haven't had those in 3 years) we headed to Tampa to stay at my cousin Tricia’s house. Tricia has 6 kids and I have my 3 so the house was always lively. The kids jumped on the trampoline and swam in their pool ( I wish we could have either of those in base housing!! but we can't) It was a good relaxing day after so many busy days.
The next day we went to Busch Gardens (love the hero salute passes) The kids had fun riding rides, and seeing the Sesame Street Characters there. It was insanely hot!!! Thank goodness for the splash area for the kids they stayed nice and cool. After Busch Gardens we went back to Tricia’s to watch Princess and the Frog with popcorn. The old adults watched double jeopardy.
The next morning bright and early we headed out for our long trip back to New York. We drove to Myrtle Beach South Carolina and hung out on the beach. We played in the water, sand, and gathered up sea shells then we continued our drive North to Wilmington North Carolina and saw places that the show One Tree Hill (one of my favorite shows) is filmed http://www.wilmingtondowntown.com/go/one-tree-hill-river-court2 . We also saw the Battleship USS North Carolina http://www.battleshipnc.com/ . Wilmington was very nice, I loved the historic district reminded me of Broadway Saratoga Springs. It was very packed because of its Azalea Festival that was going on http://www.ncazaleafestival.org/ We spent the night in the hotel.
Next day we headed out on our journey home. We checked out http://www.visitwrightsville.com/ Wrightsville Beach NC which was gorgeous! We stopped off in Woodbridge Va, but had no luck on scoping our next housing (I forgot the address at home). We continued on to Washington DC. Of course my luck it was packed full of people (more than usual) because of the cherry blossom festival http://www.nationalcherryblossomfestival.org/cms/index.php?id=390 . We walked to the White house and took pictures, we also saw the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, the Mall, World War II Memorial, and the Jefferson Memorial. We saw the capital building from a distance lets hope my disposable camera worked out okay because my digital had a dead battery for the entire day.
After that we drove back to New York, we arrived home at about 1am with some Michael Jackson on the radio, good ending to a good trip! Now to unpack the car, catch up on laundry, clean the house, and wait for Scott to fly home on Tuesday. We miss him!!!!!!!!!
We drove to Kingsland GA (Kings Bay) and stayed at our friend Kelsey’s house with her kids. We had 10 kids between the three of us!! The kids enjoyed getting to see each other and we enjoyed catching up again. Kelsey wasn't able to join us in our road trip to Florida because her husband was coming back from deployment. We headed out early April 2nd for our 2 hr 50 minute drive to Orlando.
We purchased our tickets at Shades of Green, I love that place! It's a military only resort and so nice! It does ticket discounts. After we had our tickets we headed straight for Magic Kingdom. The next day we did Animal Kingdom, the next day we did Epcot, the next day we split up, Sarah and her kids did Magic kingdom again (Since her little girl slept through most of it the first day) and my kids and I headed to Hollywood Studios for the day. Jennifer and Michael both road the Tower of Terror for the first time, and joined Aurora in having a T-Shirt to prove it. They all loved it!! We met back with Sarah and her kids at the Hotel.
Next day Sarah headed out Virginia bound, she was supposed to stay longer with her sister in Tampa but unfortunately her sisters new house flooded so they decided to head home. My kids and I decided a board day in a hotel room was not an option so we headed out to Universal Studios for the day. It was insanely hot that day but we had a great day despite the heat. We did Universal as Michaels birthday present and spoiled him with photos and gifts from the ET store and Nickelodeon store. The kids saw lots of characters despite the long lines and had a good time. Every park had some sort of Firework event at the end and the kids were just in awe of everything they saw. It made me feel good to see them so happy.
Next morning after some much needed krispe kremes (haven't had those in 3 years) we headed to Tampa to stay at my cousin Tricia’s house. Tricia has 6 kids and I have my 3 so the house was always lively. The kids jumped on the trampoline and swam in their pool ( I wish we could have either of those in base housing!! but we can't) It was a good relaxing day after so many busy days.
The next day we went to Busch Gardens (love the hero salute passes) The kids had fun riding rides, and seeing the Sesame Street Characters there. It was insanely hot!!! Thank goodness for the splash area for the kids they stayed nice and cool. After Busch Gardens we went back to Tricia’s to watch Princess and the Frog with popcorn. The old adults watched double jeopardy.
The next morning bright and early we headed out for our long trip back to New York. We drove to Myrtle Beach South Carolina and hung out on the beach. We played in the water, sand, and gathered up sea shells then we continued our drive North to Wilmington North Carolina and saw places that the show One Tree Hill (one of my favorite shows) is filmed http://www.wilmingtondowntown.com/go/one-tree-hill-river-court2 . We also saw the Battleship USS North Carolina http://www.battleshipnc.com/ . Wilmington was very nice, I loved the historic district reminded me of Broadway Saratoga Springs. It was very packed because of its Azalea Festival that was going on http://www.ncazaleafestival.org/ We spent the night in the hotel.
Next day we headed out on our journey home. We checked out http://www.visitwrightsville.com/ Wrightsville Beach NC which was gorgeous! We stopped off in Woodbridge Va, but had no luck on scoping our next housing (I forgot the address at home). We continued on to Washington DC. Of course my luck it was packed full of people (more than usual) because of the cherry blossom festival http://www.nationalcherryblossomfestival.org/cms/index.php?id=390 . We walked to the White house and took pictures, we also saw the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, the Mall, World War II Memorial, and the Jefferson Memorial. We saw the capital building from a distance lets hope my disposable camera worked out okay because my digital had a dead battery for the entire day.
After that we drove back to New York, we arrived home at about 1am with some Michael Jackson on the radio, good ending to a good trip! Now to unpack the car, catch up on laundry, clean the house, and wait for Scott to fly home on Tuesday. We miss him!!!!!!!!!
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Update on the sick family
Everyone is doing better! Michael had a great appointment on Friday and his Oxygen levels have increased which is great. He was at 90% in the hospital, then 94% last week at the doctor, and now 97% this week at the doctor. He still has a chest x-ray on the 15th to make sure the Pneumonia is gone. Fingers crossed this will be the last time we are sick. Two Pneumonia's and a bronchitis all in the same house made for a fun 10 days.
What did we do this week?
Scott had 3 days off (he saved a coupon from his re-enlistment 2 years ago to get 3 days off) So had the weekend off, worked monday, then had tues, wed, thurs, off then worked Friday and had Sat, Sun off. We were completely spoiled having him here this much, it was so nice after the crazy 2 1/2 years of school and shift work. But tomorrow back to the real world and he'll be back at work. We finally saw Avatar in 3D at the IMAX in Albany, it was a great movie but it made me sad! We had Augie's Pasta this weekend which is this great little Italian place in Ballston Spa, it was yummy as usual. Scott surprised me with a huge container of Coldstone Ice Cream, he's the best!!! We watched cloudy with a chance of meatballs and had a popcorn party with the kids. I made a yummy sausage, bean, and cheese dip that we enjoyed with chips to go with the movie. We also saw The Lovely Bones, so sad (Love it when they bring books to the screen) and Leap Year which is a romantic comedy. Great weekend of just being together!!!
Today is Super Bowl Sunday!!! YAY!!!! Go Saints!!!!!!! I'll be cooking up some traditional new orleans food to have during the festivities today :)
What did we do this week?
Scott had 3 days off (he saved a coupon from his re-enlistment 2 years ago to get 3 days off) So had the weekend off, worked monday, then had tues, wed, thurs, off then worked Friday and had Sat, Sun off. We were completely spoiled having him here this much, it was so nice after the crazy 2 1/2 years of school and shift work. But tomorrow back to the real world and he'll be back at work. We finally saw Avatar in 3D at the IMAX in Albany, it was a great movie but it made me sad! We had Augie's Pasta this weekend which is this great little Italian place in Ballston Spa, it was yummy as usual. Scott surprised me with a huge container of Coldstone Ice Cream, he's the best!!! We watched cloudy with a chance of meatballs and had a popcorn party with the kids. I made a yummy sausage, bean, and cheese dip that we enjoyed with chips to go with the movie. We also saw The Lovely Bones, so sad (Love it when they bring books to the screen) and Leap Year which is a romantic comedy. Great weekend of just being together!!!
Today is Super Bowl Sunday!!! YAY!!!! Go Saints!!!!!!! I'll be cooking up some traditional new orleans food to have during the festivities today :)
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Pneumonia
Michael and I have been sick for a few days now. Michael went to the hospital yesterday, his fever went up to 104 again after not having a fever all morning. They did a chest x-ray and he has Pneumonia. They said we'll see an improvement in 2-3 days on the antibiotics, then appointment with his doctor to check him and see a full recovery in 2-3 wks. Rough winter for our little guy. Hope he gets better soon, he's very tired and cranky.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Been away from the blog for a while
Okay so I was really great about blogging and now I just suck. What happened was we took an amazing vacation to Europe and a 16 day transatlantic cruise I came home and blogged about the entire trip, loaded pics, and loaded videos and then....... The computer froze!!! I lost the entire thing. This blog auto saves too, but it was no where to be found! I said okay well that's enough for today i'll do it again tomorrow, and so on and so forth until now which is 3 months later and I still haven't done it LOL. So a summer is we had an amazing time in Rome and the cruise was awesome. My grandma really enjoyed it and the girls just LOVED it and never wanted to go home. Everyone had tears when we left the ship. But it was great to be back with my boys again.
Pics from the trip:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=124311&id=660999170&op=12
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=124908&id=660999170&op=12
Since the last blog we took that trip, Michael had surgery on his ears. He had an adenoidectomy and well as tubes put in both his ears. He was at a 60% hearing loss in one ear and a 40% loss in the other. After numerous infections and medications the doctor finally decided to put in the tubes. He is now hearing better and covers his ears a lot because of loud noises. His behavior has also improved because he is not as frustrated as he once was.
Sounds like DC wants Scott from an email we received so we are hoping his officer package goes through and he does well in the interviews in DC. They are going to fly him there for 3 days to interview for the job. He really wants this so I hope it works out for him. We still do not know when we are moving. It will be sometime between March and August. If everything goes well he will get picked up officer and commissioned here in New York, then we will go to OIS which is only 5 weeks long. We will miss him for those 5 weeks but it shouldn't be too hard, we've done numerous 3 month deployments so this should be cake. Looking forward to getting some answers and knowing where we are going and when.
The kids are all doing great, having fun with friends and girl scouts. I was a girl scout for 4 1/2 years and loved it, my mom was my troop leader for 2 of the years. I'm so glad I get to share this with my daughters. The troop leader and his wife are just amazing and the kids really enjoy going to the meetings and visiting with all the girls.
I'm trying to get back into my old routine of cooking everyday instead of eating out. We've been taking advantage of living in Saratoga because there are sooooo many wonderful restaurants. It got to the point where we were eating out 4 or 5 nights a week. As fun as that is, we should put that money to better use. I have a lot of cook books from the time when we cooked together 3 meals a day everyday. So i'm whipping them out and putting them to good use. Every night has been a different meal from a good book mostly chefs on Food Network (I'm Addicted). So far it's going well and we haven't had anything that we wouldn't want to eat ever again.
School is going.... on and on and on forever. I should not have taken a break from it. I should have graduated with my Bachelors degree 1 year 8 months ago :( I kick myself everyday for that mistake but oh well. I had breaks for vacations, and was able to take a month and a half off twice during two moves, time off for funerals etc.... it worked. So I'm still trucking along with it.
So that's it for today. I'll try to keep up with the blog from now on.
Here are some links to new pics:
http://www.facebook.com/laura.spear?ref=profile
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=137245&id=660999170
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=97892&id=660999170
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=137254&id=660999170
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=136013&id=660999170
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=130867&id=660999170&op=6
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=115083&id=660999170&op=6
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=115070&id=660999170&op=6
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=127313&id=660999170&op=6
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=124307&id=660999170&op=6
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=128405&id=660999170&op=6
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=128403&id=660999170&op=12
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=106939&id=660999170&op=12
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=60678&id=660999170&op=12
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=124304&id=660999170&op=12
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=102957&id=660999170&op=18
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
