Walk to Iraq and Back & Thanksgiving

I was looking at the local website for 4th ID and I saw that they were having a program where you can walk to Iraq and back in support of your Soldier. Add me to the list that will be doing it!

Check it out here.

Anyone else game?

Thanksgiving was good. Have to do it again on Sunday with the outlaws. Blech. Only so much turkey I can eat! At least they are coming over here for the festivities and cooking since they know I won't eat in small house with 6 big dogs that have run of the house. I wouldn't be able to eat!

They also don't make comments about my weight as someone in my family did today. I just don't get it....

Home

There's no place like home.

After traveling all night, we were more than happy to come home and see the children and get showers and a good meal. Thanks for the soup mom!

The kids were happy to see us....Abs was of course in her room having a time out. I have to work today and DH is taking all the kids to the zoo and for a picnic.

Junior got into bed with us this morning and it was so nice having him curl up next to me and throw his little arms around me. I sure missed him and he of course grew half an inch in the last 11 days! I couldn't wait till the girls got up this morning either.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I have plenty for which to be thankful about.

Last Day in Paradise

We leave Hawaii tonight, but right now we are hanging out in the USO here at the airport. It has been raining all day, but we managed to go through the pineapple maze at the Dole Plantation, have lunch at Schoefield barracks (where my husband SHOULD be stationed instead of Fort Hood!) and have a hamburger at our favorite place over here. The USO is nice, free internet, and snacks for everyone. DH is kicked back and watching football and having a cup of coffee.

I bet they have clean bathrooms too! Woohoo!

Whew

What a whirlwind of a trip! We could barely walk into the hotel this afternoon because we were so sore. Dh twisted his ankle, but the hike was beautiful! We went early enough to avoid any crowd of people coming along with us. We got some great pictures...over 600. Every once in a while we threw one of us in front of the camera for the fun of it.

It started out an easy hike, then we had to throw in a little rock climbing where the road was destroyed due to a mudslide. We managed though and found one hidden cache. We saw a cave but were too chicken to explore it. We entered into the albatross sanctuary and saw tons of them all over the place. They also had seabirds nesting. The biggest surprise was when we went down by the point (the Western most point on Oahu) and found two seals sunning themselves.

The water was calm on one side of the point and white caps on the other. We found a blowhole and stopped by on the way to the hike to visit a Hawaiian Heiau. The Heiau was originally built for planting but they eventually turned it into a temple for the war god, and it is thought that King Kamehameha made human sacrifices there. You could just walk around the outside of it, and they had a strange tiki looking thing on the sacrifice table--kind of reminded me of the idol that the Brady's found on their Hawaiian vacation which brought bad luck! Please tell me that someone else remembers that episode besides my little sister!

Anyway, we had dinner tonight at Senor Frog and watched the young Japanese guys sitting next to us drink about three mixed drinks, a few beers and take shots from the shot lady when they were handing out free ones. They of course took their "hang loose" photos--I think every Japanese tourist is told to make the "hang loose" sign in every single picture that they take here!

We fly out tomorrow night but have more than enough time tomorrow to hit a few more things before we leave. I don't plan on any hiking though, so we can make it through the airport when we have our connecting flight.

Aloha....

I can't wait to see the girls and Junior!!! (you too mom!)

GPS Coordinates

What do two people whose bodies are tired and sore do today???

My husband is entering GPS coordinates outside on the lanai where he can pick up the satellites. We need to make lunch and then we are heading out on a hike that is estimated to take us three hours to complete. I think I read that correctly and it isn't three hours each way. They have two caches along the way so we get to do some geocaching along the route. My husband will be in heaven! He's probably wondering why we didn't get internet access earlier so that we could geocache all over the island!

We have water, sunscreen, cameras, GPS, cell phone and food so life will be good....if our bodies cooperate.