In Hawaii!

I am not sure when the last time I blogged was and I don't even have a reason to be blogging right now.  I should be cleaning up my house.  We have been in Hawaii since July 19th.  We were staying in a hotel down in Waikiki.  Our truck was here already so we had someone take us to pick it up the second day.  It was so nice already having our vehicle.  The hotel was awesome.  It is the same hotel that is in the opening for the old Hawaii 5-0 show.  It is called the Ilikai.  We could see the beach from our lanai, it has a gorgeous view.  The only bad thing was that we are going to be living on Kaneohe Bay which is pretty far from Waikiki.  It was a long 9 days driving back and forth to look for houses on the Windward side and then head back to Waikiki at night.  Needless to say we were all pretty stressed out.  It was a hard transition to get to Hawaii and then more instability.  But God showed up in a bunch of little ways to let us know that He was always there.  We actually got a house that is part of a church property.  It is the house for the pastor.  The church does not have a pastor at this time so the house was available.  It was a God thing, let me tell you!  So we signed a three month lease and decided to have our house stuff delivered so that we didn't have to buy a ton of stuff for only a few months (the house is furnished!).  So now we are here living in Kailua which is a little town right outside of the base.  Jay started 7th grade and Ellie is in Kindergarten.  They both like school, thank God.  Ricardo works on Camp Smith and is adjusting to being the Gunny in charge of the entire shop.  As for Isabel and I, we hang out all day, go for walks and try our best to clean up before the family gets home.  It is pretty hard getting things done since she learned how to low crawl  a few weeks ago.  Now she gets into everything and has even eaten a piece of a magazine!!  We just heard from the housing office that a house will be available to us on October 25.  That is amazing because our lease is up on October 31st!  God is always taking care of us.  We are so blessed!
Sorry I haven't posted any pics.  I can't seem to find my camera cord, I think I left it in Texas!  So I have to wait til I get it and then I will post like a thousand pics from our busy summer.  Until then my friends! :)

Christmas 2010

I just found this post that was never posted so I will post it now.  Wow this seems like an eternity ago.

Where has the time gone???

It has been so long since I have blogged!  The time has passed me by.  I think the last time I posted I was like 36 weeks pregnant.  Well since then I have given birth to Isabel Soledad on March 10, packed up our house in Maryland and have been on "vacation" for almost 2 months!!  We are moving back out to the Pacific so we decided to pack up early and go to Texas to visit family.  We had fun but now I can't remember what we did there.  You would think we would swim every day since the weather was 100 degrees everyday (which I am NOT complaining about since I was so tired of the cold MD weather!), but we did get to hang out with family and chill.  Now we are in California staying with my Tias Terry and Lori.  We used to visit them all the time when we lived n Cali many many years ago.  They were at the hospital when Justino (Jay) was born.  I love them both so much and I am glad to be spending time with them.  My other aunt Rachel also lives here and her daughter Nicole.  My cousin Jessica is visiting so we are all getting to catch up.  I don't really know alot of my cousins because they live in Michigan and we move around so much and are always so far away.  Anyway, we are flying out on Tuesday the 19th and I am ready.  I am ready to have my family back to normal.  BUT we won't have a house right away. 
So this summer has been amazing because I have had a chance to see some of my best friends.  Terry who was my bootcamp buddy in Okinawa.  Donna who was my neighbor in Maryland, Tiffany who is my Sister (in Christ ;) ) Farah and Glenn (Farah is one of the best woman you could ever know and Glenn is like my big brother) and now my family.  I am so thankful that we have had the chance to see these wonderful people that GOD has blessed us with. 
I know this blog doesn't make sense but I am writing it anyways.  No one reads this right???
I will be posting pics soon, I hope.
Goodnight.....

SIGH!

Wow so I haven't even posted the Christmas pictures yet.  So much is going on right now.  I am a few days shy of being 36 weeks preggo, that is 9 MONTHS!!!  I can't believe that is has gone this fast and now it is slowly but quickly approaching!  I am wishing that this little girl would come early but I want her to wait for my mom to come up from Texas which isn't until the end of the month.  Part of me wants to change her ticket and have her here tomorrow (Ricardo has been asking me to bring her earlier anyways!) and the other part is telling me to chill out and be patient.  God is on control not me.  That is hard for me to understand sometimes.  Well so I just thought that I would talk about this on the blog just because.  If anyone reads this, please pray for me and my sore body to go 4 more weeks!  I hope that the next time I get on here will be to share pics of my new baby girl (who still doesn't have a name!!!).  :)

Ellie's ballet "recital"

Ellie has been in ballet for a few months now.  She absolutely loves it.  The teachers helped the girls learn a routine for Christmas.  The parents are not usually allowed to go into the dance studio but we got to go in this past class to see what the girls have learned.  It was really cute to say the least.  Ellie sure has grown.  Last time she was supposed to perform, she froze up.  The best (or worst) part was that the girls got to teach one of the parents how to do the dance.  Since I was the only one there (Jay and Ricardo were at Jay's school for his chorus concert) I got to learn the dance.  Then the parents had to perform it for the girls and the teachers.  Yeah not cool.  But I did it and it made Ellie really happy which is all that matters.  I love that girl!!

Christmas Festival

Every year our housing agency hosts a Christmas celebration.  We went last year and had fun so we didn't want to miss out this year.  It wasn't snowing but it was pretty cold.  Thankfully there was hot chocolate dispensers outside and huge space heaters.  They also had hot dogs and chicken tenders and fries, all free!  We ate and had a great time.

Waiting in line to ride on the horse carriage.

We met Frosty! :)

One of the horses.  Her mane and tail are braided with flowers.  Ellie just loved it!

The lady that was riding with us took our picture.  Family pictures are rare for us.

We got the exact same horse as last year.  Her name is Princess.  Of course Ellie was ecstatic!

YAY a penguin!

They had a bunch of crafts for the kids to do inside.  It was nice to get in the warmth.

Ricardo's promotion!

Waiting for the ceremony to begin.

The Marine students

Chilly Ellie

Ricardo greeting the Captain

Ricardo picked Jay and his dad to pin his new chevrons.  I was holding back the tears!

Dad pinning on the new chevrons.

I love these guys so much.

Oath of Enlistment as Gunnery Sergeant.

Congratulations!

Listening to Ricardo give his speech.

Belinda, Mom and Dad Morales and the rest of us! :)

Ricardo got promoted to E7 Gunnery Sergeant on November 1st.  His parents were able to fly up from Texas which was absolutely awesome.  Ricardo's dad was stationed here when Ricardo was born so he had the chance to see the apartment they lived in and his old workplace here on Fort Meade.  We were so happy that they had the chance to come up.  My mother in law was such a blessing, doing the housework so I could rest a little.  Belinda, Ricardo's cousin came up from D.C. for the ceremony also.  We went to the Inner Harbor to Phillips a yummy seafood restaurant to celebrate after.  It was a wonderful day!

Character Day and Halloween 2010

Ellie as Emily Elizabeth

Holding Clifford

Clifford

Ellie was supposed to dress up like a storybook character the Friday before Halloween and we couldn't think of who she should be.  We looked through every single book that we have (which is ALOT!) and we couldn't decide.  We saw a Clifford book and she agreed to be Emily Elizabeth.  The costume was quite easy, thanks to Walmart.  I found a pink turtle neck and sewed two black buttons in the center and got some striped tights.  She already had a black skirt and a white shirt.  But finding a Clifford proved to be a very difficult task.  I went to Toys R Us, Target, Walmart, the PX, Borders, Books a Million and I couldn't find a Clifford in any of these stores.  I found many characters like Corduroy, Curious George, Skippyjon Jones and even Walter the Farting Dog!....but no Clifford.  So I decided to get a sock puppet kit.  The night before the parade I asked Ricardo to help me come up with a way to make Clifford out of one of Jay's old baseball socks.  And this is what we came up with.  With a little bit of rice, thread, felt and glue we made Ellie this cute little puppy.  We were so excited to show Ellie the next morning but she was quite upset that she didn't get to help. :(  Seriously!  She got over it and proudly wore her costume to school and gently carried her Clifford in her arms.  It turned out to be a great time for her.  The parade was really cute. 

My Hello Kitty

Gir from Invader Zim

It was hard to think about Halloween when I had been so focused on character day so I was very thankful that Hot Topic had these ears for both my kiddos.  Add some face paint and voila! two very cute characters!

Renaissance Festival

My parents were here visiting so we went to Annapolis for a Renaissance Festival.  We waited about an hour in the car just to get to the festival which was bad because I really needed to use the bathroom but we made it and had fun.

This was my favorite thing at the whole festival! ;)

Grandpa bought this for Ellie.  Thanks!

Storytelling

Ha ha ha ha

 

Jousting

Hair braiding

 Sorry the video is sideways.  I didn't think about it when I was recording.  Ricardo took Ellie on the slide and she squealed the whole way down.  Hopefully you can hear her.  It was hilarious.  She loved it and wanted to go again but the line was really long.  We had a good time and ate some yummy food.