Year End Review

Today brings us to the close of 2008. I thought I would do a little reminiscing of the year. As I looked back over all of the photos I realized that we had alot of fun along the way. The one sad spot has been Lee's absence throughout quite a bit of the year. His ship deployed this past Fall and the workups leading up to that caused him to be gone for bits and pieces of almost every month. So here is a glimpse of our 2008 in pictures.

JANUARY
Wrigley was born on Dec 31st 2007-Happy Birthday Wrigs!
Gracie turned 9-Happy Birthday Gracie!

FEBRUARY
The whole family took a trip to Disney World

MARCH
Holly turned 13 and we had a 50's style birthday party complete with a wild scavenger hunt.

APRIL
Mimi and Papa drove up for a visit bringing a new bedroom suit for Caitlin.

MAY
Caitlin turns 16 with a silly Olympic birthday blowout with friends.

JUNE
All about friends!
Sleepovers, sleepovers and more sleepovers

More friends, Ali comes to visit and discovers her aversion to roller coasters.

JULY
Aunt Pattie and Uncle Isaac drop in for a visit and the Browns move from N Suffolk to S Suffolk- into the country.
Abbie turned 12

AUGUST
Daddy/Lee leaves for a long deployment

SEPTEMBER
I met Lee in Italy for one glorious week.

OCTOBER
I became 1 year older and the girls and I braved the crowds to try to get a glimpse of Sarah Palin

NOVEMBER
Thanksgiving month was spent traveling and eating yummy food at G&G's house in Georgia.

DECEMBER
Our second Christmas spent without daddy. We've been blessed to be able to spend it with family and friends here in Florida.
Wishing you ALL a very blessed 2009!

It's Official

When there is a severe lack of biological cousins to play with in your family, sometimes a kid must find her own cousins. In our case the girls have hit the jackpot in the cousin department. 7 kiddos all related to each other ranging in age from 15 to 4. We've known our adopted cousins since they were all very little. This Christmas we were so excited to be able to spend a week of playing and laughing together. Yesterday we were sent an "official" cousin adoption certificate.
We love our adopted cousins!

Cousins in birth order Caitlin, Hannah, Jeffery, Holly, Hunter, Haleigh, Abbie, Jordan, Hudson, Gracie and Jenna

Military Monday

The New CO of Lee's ship has begun publishing a weekly newsletter. If he keeps it up every week then I will be able to publish them here on Mondays. I've wrestled for hours with how to convert the PDF format into something that can simply be copied and read exactly as it was published right here on the blog. I think I may have done it. Lets keeps our fingers crossed. If the newsletter is too small, you can click on the link above it and it will bring it up on a different site a little bigger. Happy Navy Reading!

This Week on San Antonio

Publish at Scribd or explore others: US Federal Government san antonio newslett

Sunday Suppers

Hot Pizza Dip

2 blocks of cream cheese
14 oz jar of pizza sauce
chopped up pepperoni
2 Tbsp Italian seasoning
chopped black olives
3 Cups cheese (at least half needs to be mozzarella)
2 cloves of garlic pressed

Cream the cream cheese, garlic and Italian Seasoning together and spread the mixture into the bottom of an oven safe pan.

Pour the pizza sauce over the cream cheese mixture. On top of that sprinkle on the black olives and pepperonis.

Sprinkle the cheese on top until the top is completely covered.

Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes and serve with warm bread or Tostito chips.
Today's recipe is for a party pleaser. I figured with New Year's eve approaching that everyone needed a yummy dish to take to a bash. I doubled the recipe because no one wants to take a piddly little dish to your best buds.
Have a blessed New Year Ya'll!

Papa's Harley Shirt

My dad is a Harley guy. He rides a Harley and he wears Harley stuff. His wardrobe consists mainly of blue jeans and a Harley T shirt. He likes it that way and he LOVES his Harley T-shirts. Over the years we have collected as many as we can from places we have visited all over the world. We even brought one home for him from Bali, Indonesia. He has Guam, Hawaii, Mexico, Alaska and many many other places. His friends all know he collects them so they pick them up too on their travels. This past summer dad was in an accident with his Harley. He and some buddies were out riding and someone carrying huge inner tubes in the back of a pick-up truck had not tied them down properly. One tube flew out and caused a bit of a pile up. Dad and his buddies were injured but they are ok now thankfully. When I got the call that there had been an accident, dad had already been taken to the hospital and was awake and ready to tell me himself that he was fine, just a little banged up. The first words out of his mouth were "they had to cut off my Harley T Shirt". I knew that all was well when his biggest concern was his shirt and jeans. I will admit to panicking just a little in hopes that they had not cut up the Indonesia shirt. That one would be hard to replace.
For Christmas his riding buddy Danny replaced dad's Seminole Harley shirt with Chief Osceola on the back. All is now right in Dad's Harley world.

Friday Funny

Santa's evil twin

If only the bakery had spellcheck

Today I have to push one of the sites that I go to for a laugh. Check this out www.cakewrecks.blogspot.com scroll through some of the older entries. You'll find your self laughing uncontrollably at some of these professional cakes gone horribly wrong. Here are a few samples of some Holiday Cake Wrecks.

Our Photos from Christmas in Florida

Christmas in Florida 2008