last time...

our disney annual pass time is coming to a close...

so sad...

we have definately gotten a lot out of our ticket... but april 18th is coming fast... (the day that it ends) and what a sad day that will be... except for the fact that it is both my brothers birthday and beautiful elisabeth w's birthday... that part is good...

i know i have said it before... but doesnt the look on that kids face make you want to live at disneyland... so much happiness...

.............

this time we went to meet rachel... she was here with her choir group from mountain view...

gotta love rachel... we are just walking down main street when she sees these show tunes guys... and decides she just cant pass up a dance with them... they were super nice and took a picture after dancing with her...

my favorite highlight of our day of disney with rachel:

teaching jones how to eat a frozen lemonade without a spoon...

lick... lick...

too bad i took a blurry picture... this one was my favorite...

we couldnt leave with out doing two things....

1.

watching, in pure amazement, the eletrical light parade...

i loved that he loved it... every time a new float would come around the corner he would practically jump from my arms and shout... "look mommy!"...

thank you to the dad that let us have his spot so we could see better...

and 2.

saying goodbye to rachel...

...and jacob...

(who asked her to prom just moments after this picture... awwww....)

3/26/2010

...

we had so much fun... thanks for giving my arms a rest... jones loved hanging out with you guys!

"tres!"

love thursday... our green day...

how was your saint patricks day?

ours was wonderfully green...

we started off the day with green waffles...

then trying to "be green" we planted the rest of our garden...

we were missing carrots... and the flowers...

hopefully we will have one bed of wild flowers that attract hummingbirds and butterflies... and one bed of hollyhocks that my grandma c sent me from her very own garden...

yeah carrots...

then to trader joes for some "green" shopping...

four lucky things... green apples, green spinach, green honeydew and popcorn in a green bag...

...

ps... this popcorn is one of my all time new favorites... so good and it is made with olive oil and sea salt

...

jones was green for the day... he rode his bike instead of electric mcqueen...

and...

we even did some green recycling and received $12 back from cans and bottles...

all this while wearing my green necklace...

.....

then... we had a fun camp out... in the backyard...

with hot dogs...

and a fire for cooking with brandon...

although we only "camped out" for a couple hours... long enough to watch the princess and the frog in the tent... it was fun!

3/17/2010

spring... with summer not too far...

i went running today... it was marvelous...

there is nothing like a fresh breeze, the smell of the ocean and a good song...

it was different today... it felt and smelled like newport beach on the forth of july... summer time at the beach... yet it is only just spring... it was perfect...

i love having moments like these... it helps to give such a wonderful perspective on life and living to the fullest no matter the circumstance...

all the beauty that surrounds us... what a beautiful gift we have been given

(a leaf i liked in hawaii 2/7/2010)

keats

i just watched the movie bright star; it centers around the biography of john keats... who is amazing!

i love the image above... he talks of a dream he has of him asleep on the tree tops, with all the flowers bloomed as he kisses perfect lips... the way he writes of love and the mystery of the heart is so... lyrical...

he wrote:

A poem needs understanding through the senses. The point of diving into a lake is not immediately to swim to the shore but to be in the lake, to luxuriate in the sensation of water. You do not work the lake out, it is a experience beyond thought. Poetry soothes and emboldens the soul to accept the mystery.

this movie spoke to my soul... i was in love...

i fall for most poetry... and the fact that he was a english romantic poet greatly helped me to love his work...

he does, for me, captivate what the romanticism movement really was at that time in the world...

he makes me miss my literature classes from college...

(image thanks to jonathanrosenbaum.com)

once again...

my brother brandon stayed with us for his spring break... we had so much fun with him and hated to see him go on saturday... jones wanted to go with him on his airplane so badly... so once again we had to drive back to our quiet house and it was a sad moment... but what do we come home to find... a package from b... how does he do it? i really dont know... so sweet of him to think of us...

as you have seen in many pictures... jones loves his boots... whether rain or shine he is wearing them quite often... so thanks to daddy... jones has his very own horse boots straight from kyrgyzstan... and what more could i ask for but some kyrgyzstan chocolate... which is actually really good... i cannot read the labeling at all, there are five different languages and each does not use letters... luckily we just eat chocolate not read about it right... we have only tried one bar so far and it is delish... dark chocolate with hints of white... which usually i would not like, i dont like white chocolate, but mixed is very good...

thanks for the surprise b...

i hope everyone had a wonderful first day of spring... it was saturday if you didnt know... i love it... it always seems that the first day of spring is beautiful... and i love the expression spring cleaning... because that is what we did... is it weird that i LOVE the feeling of cleaning my house... that i get very happy... and no it is not from any fumes from cleaning product... although i do love how it smells after a good clean...

3/20/2010

im the luckiest...

i am not trying to be all sappy... but this is how i feel...

im the luckiest... like the ben folds song...

(love you b... xoxo)

when we drove home from disneyland thursday afternoon... we were a little sad... leaving disneyland is always a sad thing... especially when going home to a quiet house... on b's birthday when he is no longer here... but how much luckier can i get... when we arrived home... i found a beautiful box by the front door... i opened it to find a beautiful bouquet of daisys, one of my favorites... with a sweet card that said:

"happy birthday to me, it is my birthday so i get to do what i want! love brent"

how does he have such great timing...

3/11/2010

.............

and not like i should have even been complaining... because my family was in their own car at the same moment driving to come visit us for the weekend... so it wasnt like our quiet house would stay all that quiet for long...

we had such a fun weekend:disneyland, gardening, donuts, snails, park, beach, pizza... and all the other inbetween stuff...

here is what i got pictures of...

yeah! we love visitors...

posing for our give a day, get a day service activity...

we made blankets for a charity group...

jones and grandpa c planting the green beans...

thanks to my dad... we planted our garden... i prepared the planter boxes so that when he came we could finish and plant... i found these two boxes from free stuff on craigs list... yeah!!! one was an old bookcase and the other was a sandbox... they are perfect... and i love the color of paint that brent and i picked out to paint them with... i love blue!!!

we will see how i do with our first garden...

we planted:

tomatoes

watermelon

squash

zucchini

lettuce

jalapenos

anahiem chiles

green beans

beets

onions

&

pumpkin

playing with snails... brevin loves them... i wish he was here all the time... i would let him take them all home... unfortunately his heart was broken when jones accidently stepped on the one here and killed it shortly after the picture...

and... we finally made it to pizza port... we have been told so many times that we have to come here to eat... now i know why... if you love pizza... who doesnt love pizza... it is worth every penny... and it isnt even expensive... which makes it even more worth every penny!!! so many fun combinations.... or just a regular pepperoni... we will be going back there! yumm!!!

3/12/2010-3/15/2010

happiest people ever...

castle...

my aunt, uncle, their two boys and grandparents came in town to visit my other aunt that lives near us here in california... so we had a party... so much fun!!!!

downtown disney... trying on indiana jones hats

3/9/2010

.....

my cousins are so fun for jones to play with... they are more his age than mine because of the age difference between my mom and her two younger sisters...

we spent the night in their hotel room so that we could all go to disneyland together... yeah... like we dont get enough... i know... we went again... our year pass is almost running out of time... april 18th is soon approaching... and we arent going to know what to do without disneyland... jones can already narrate the whole jungle cruise ride to you... he will tell you about all the animals and what sounds they make... if we get in the car and go somewhere and it happens to be longer than a 10 minute drive... he thinks we are going to see dumbo... but we are not complaining... we love it there...

and then....

it got even better...

how you ask...

i seriously was so excited when i looked at the disneyland map that jones was holding... and what do my eyes see... the logo for CAPTAIN EO!!!!!!!

i cannot express to you how excited i was... my aunts both laughed at me, because i was SO excited... you could literally see it on my face...

michael jackson can dance.

i could watch him dance forever! he makes me want to dance the second his music comes on... i absolutly love it! i think maybe you get the point... i have such good memories of disneyland from when i was a kid... and that is one... i dont know how but i do remember 1996 and captain eo...

if the eo sweatshirts werent $55 i maybe would have bought one to show my love...

later we made our way to toon town and i loved the pictures of all the kids in cars and in the jail too much to not post...

i also love the look when i use the night time setting on my camera...

3/10/2010

....................

we stayed a second night and then went to california adventure...

i didnt even ask him to pose for this picture... he decided that he wanted to all by himself... must have been all the other people that do the same thing... just happy i got a picture of him doing it... love it...

then...

jones found the loves of his life... and literally was in love, like i was with eo...

mater

&

mcqueen

then... i spent too much on something i would usually never buy...

a buzz lightyear souvenir sipper...

it was brents birthday and to celebrate i decided that i would get jones something special... you should have seen his face light up when he got to take buzz with him everywhere after that... he loves buzz...

hanging out with grandpa mikesell while the kids ride some "tall kid" rides... 35 inches and up... we will get there someday...

checking out the flowers with grandma...

3/11/2010

.......

too much fun... and we didnt want it to end...

heartbreak...

i call this post heartbreak...

i want/need to write about it... then we will move onto happier times...

more light hearted...

the scene... 1am... brent had to check in near what you see here. it was so very cold... so i stayed in the car (where the picture was taken from)... i wasnt as brave as all those other people that you see standing around the buses... they are all family and friends of the other marines that were leaving on the buses... see the tents in the background... like that would keep you warm... i think it was easier for us both for me to stay in the car... we dont like to let others see us cry... but for some reason... everyone always sees me cry... you are lucky if you get to see brent cry... it does happen but not nearly as much as me... what can i say... i have a tender heart... and weepy eyes sometimes...

our last picture... my heart aches when i look at this picture...

lets just say that it was the only thing i could do to not cry... at least for the second that the flash went off... words were hard to have... what do you say in that moment... other than goodbye and i love you... there is nothing to say really... good thing it was 3:30am by this time and we were both so tired from being up all night... i think about it now... it was easier this way... jones was fast asleep at our house with a friend that spent the night... so i didnt have to deal with him yet... and i was so so so out of it... being the time it was...

we said our goodbyes about 3:30am march 3rd 2010...

at 3:57am i sat and watched as the buses left... i actually followed them for a minute or two... i dont know why... or what i was hoping for... i guess part of me hoped that the impossible would happen... they would stop and say, "you know, lcpl martindale doesnt need to come anymore... he can get off the bus and stay with his family." but we all know that that didnt happen...

then... as the buses turned right to leave the base from one exit i had to turn left to go home... what a dramatic turn... we were literally heading in the opposite direction from one another... and that is how this adventure of our 7 month deployment began...

we miss him...

this picture makes my heart ache too... but in a way that only can be described as true love... what can i say... a man in uniform makes my heart pitter patter...

march 3rd 2010...

.....

since that night/morning

.....

he took the bus to a base in riverside ca

then a plane to a base in maine

then another plane to germany

then another plane to krygyzstan

spent a few days in the country of krygyzstan

then another plane to afghanistan

he is there now at camp leatherneck in the helmand province and and should be until the end of september or early october...