New Hair Color

On a whim, I let Caitlin and Holly color my hair about two weeks ago. What I thought would be a nice brunette with a little auburn highlight turned out to be RED. The girls say it almost looks purple. Lee was out to sea when we had our little hair party. The day before I was to go pick him up at the pier I emailed him a warning to let him know that some "other" woman with red/purple hair would be picking him up. He just laughed when he saw me. Poor guy he never knows what will be different when he comes home after being gone for more than 3 days. Sometimes we buy new furniture (rare) or rearrange the furniture we have (common). Once or twice he has come home to find a new animal in the house or a new paint color on the walls. This time it was new hair color. The color has now faded a bit and we are growing a bit more accustomed to the red. Well at least I no longer shock myself when I look in the mirror in the morning. Here are a few pictures, it is a little hard to see the color in all it's vibrancy but you'll get the idea.

The Gracie Years

It seems like she just got here but then I barely remember life before Gracie. She came to us as a sweet 7 lb 9 oz bundle of fun at 7:56pm on this day 9 years ago and life has never been the same since. Gracie is happy, creative, funny and smart. She has a generous, caring spirit and the determination to match. Come with us on a little photo journey through the Gracie years.

1 day old- going home to meet her sisters

6 months old

1 year old-living in Mississippi. Gracie went through a year long phase where the red boots rarely came off of her feet, she even slept with them on occasionally.

2 years old- Living at Camp Lejeune

3 years old- her Halloween costume

4 years old- the Hello Kitty Year(s)

5 years old- this picture was taken just days after we moved to Guam

6 years old- no front teeth and a wounded chin, it was a rough and tumble year

7 years old- getting taller

8 years old- Gracie's Guinea Pig Harriet had just had piglets and Gracie was so proud

9 years old today- living in Virginia. Here she is with her new Vera sleepover duffel and as you can see she also got money.

Happy Birthday Boo!!! We love you very much!!!

Coffee Fact

Our piano teacher focuses on a composer each month. We the students are required to bring in an interesting fact about that composer. This month were are studying Beethoven. I finally found what I want to use as my interesting Beethoven fact.

Beethoven who was a coffee lover, was so particular about his coffee that he always counted 60 beans each cup when he prepared his brew.

What's That Noise???

I'm enlisting your help. There is a website online called www.MySecretSound.com When you go there you can listen to a short little sound clip. If you can guess what the sound is then the sponsors will award you $2000.00. Our family has been trying to guess this sound since November. We thought we had it figured out but we were wrong. You only get one guess per day. If you don't want to guess for yourself but might have a clue as to what it may be, PLEASE share. If you get it right and we win, we will share too!! i can send you a list of what we have already guessed if you would like. Happy Listening!

Bring In Your Brass Monkies!!

It's so unbelievably cold here. It is supposed to get down in the low teens tonight. I'm staying right here in my warm house. The snow we got yesterday did not stick to the ground, so there was no pretty white blanket in the yard this morning. The kids went to bed last night with visions of snowman building and snow angels. Oh well there is still plenty winter left.

Let it Snow Let it Snow Let it Snow

You guessed it, it's snowing! We came out of the movie theater this afternoon and the flakes were falling. They continue to fall but nothing is sticking. The temp is below freezing though so I am sure that all the rain we have had over the past day or so will be ice in the morning. Church for us has been canceled, so we'll just have a quiet family worship time in the morning. Hopefully there will be a nice layer of white to look out at while we enjoy our hot chocolate and praise music. If there is snow in the AM I will make sure to get a picture and post it here.

Belly Belly Belly

As our first official act after joining our local YMCA Caitlin and I took a belly dancing class. Yep, you read that correctly. It was a sight to behold. I'm actually pretty thankful that not too many people saw us trying to shimmy and shake. It was a ladies only class and the room was packed. I had no idea that belly dancing was such a popular thing. We did have a lot of fun and will probably do it again. I'm a little worried about how my old hips are going to feel in the morning. I thought about posting a you tube video of a belly dancer here on the blog but decided against it. Might be a bit too PG-13 for some of my readers. If you are interested there is a girl named Sadie over on You Tube who is fabulous at shimmying and shaking. What Caitlin and I were doing tonight really didn't much resemble what she does. We were a little enamored by the scarves many of these women had tied around their middles. They were pretty colors with lots of beads and coins that jingled when they shook their hips. What can I say, we're girls, pushovers for pretty, jingly things. Now we think we need jingly scarves.

Fluffernut is 2 weeks old

The girls and I went down to NC to get a peek at our new puppy Fluffernut. He's a cutie! We are so excited about getting to bring him home. It was great fun to get to kick back, relax and visit with friends. Thank you Jim and Sherry and all your kiddos and many critters, we love you guys!
While we were down at our old stomping grounds (Camp Lejeune) we were able to do a little reminiscing. It still feels like home to us. Our old neighborhood housing has been completely renovated which makes me think I would not mind being sent back there. We'll know where are are to go sometime next summer so stay tuned for the next relocation of the Brown family. I think I need to buy everyone we know a new "B" section for their address books. Our move here to Virginia from Guam was #18. Sorry folks, we just can't stay put.

And the Grand Prize is.....

That's me in my regular spot. Blogging, entering contests, reading email, trying to make sense of the checkbook.... you get the idea. Where would we be without the computer?!!

I have a new hobby, it's called Sweeping. No, I am not on a cleaning binge! Some of you are going to laugh and call me nuts but that's ok. I am hooked on entering contests and sweepstakes. The majority of them I enter online which takes about an hour of my time each day. You would be AMAZED at the stuff that companies just give away. The great thing is that most folks don't take the time to bother entering. I'm entered to win several different cars and a motorcycle, trips/vacations to tons of different places, cash prizes and gift cards etc... The most popular prizes by far seem to be home makeovers and home electronics like appliances and home theater systems. The big one that I am hoping for right now is the HGTV Dream Home giveaway in the Keys. It comes complete with a GMC Yukon Hybrid. THAT would be nice. I can dream big, but so far I have only won a few little things. Since I began this hobby back in late October I have won a box of chocolates from See's (it was yummy), Mike and Ike and Hot Tamales candies, Buy one get one free certificates for a year from Dairy Queen and Blockbuster. I also won some song downloads from Rhapsody.com Here is the link for that dream home I mentioned earlier, just in case you would like to see where you can come visit me next.
http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/dream_home_2008/text/0,,HGTV_30596_65296,00.html

Fluffernut

This is Fluffernut, our new puppy. He was born on New Years Eve. We are anxiously awaiting his 1 week old picture. Hint... Hint....

Wii LOVE our Wii

Thank you Mimi and Papa!!!

Random Chocolate Fact

• In 2000, the total chocolate consumption in the U.S. was 3.3 billion pounds.
  
  
• We are not the biggest fans however. The British eat 16½ pounds and the Swiss, who invented milk chocolate, consume the most at 22 pounds per person.
  
  
  
• Chocolate is America's favorite flavor. A recent survey revealed that 52 percent of U.S. adults said they like chocolate best.
  
  
• Seventy-one percent of American chocolate eaters prefer milk chocolate.
  

Goodbye 2007

We spent the last day of 2007 sightseeing in our nation's capitol, the beautiful city of Washington DC. While Mimi and Papa were still here we drove up to Annapolis Maryland (home of the US Naval Academy) and spent the night. We would have liked to just stay in Annapolis to look around, it's such a neat little town right on the water. That'll have to be another trip I suppose. The goal was to see DC, so off we went bright and early. We started our day with breakfast at a cool cafe where our waitress spoke perfect "Engrish", it made my day. From there we drove into the city but not before we made a quick stop at the Harley shop, Papa needed a T-shirt. We decided ahead of time to limit our sightseeing to a few of the monuments and memorials, since we only had 1 day to spare. We ended up going on the trolley tour which turned out to be a great thing. We could get off wherever we wanted and we got lots of really great info along the route from our driver. We also did not have to worry about navigating around in the city and finding places to park. We happened to notice that there is a Starbucks on nearly EVERY block. We decided that our federal government must be fueled primarily by mocha latte's.

The National Cathedral, Very Impressive

The Jefferson Memorial

The White House- wonder who'll be living there next year?

Here we are at the Lincoln Memorial, also very impressive. Within walking distance from it was the Vietnam and Korean War Memorials. I think our favorite stop of the day was the Korean War Memorial. We definitely want to go back to DC a few more times while we live so close. There is SO much to see there. You can see all the pictures from our trip (which Holly and Caitlin took with their new Christmas cameras) in our Picasa web album.