preface:  i actually had all of these pix uploaded and ready to post via iphone while we were on the road last week.  i tried.  and tried.  and tried some more.  unfortunately, wordpress kept crashing the iphone’s browser so, no post.  hey, it wasn’t for lack of effort!  anyhow, without further ado, our fourth of july in pictures…

we walked to our favorite plaza to meet up with several friends for food, fun, and fireworks.

Tat showing off her new ‘stache

our full-moon view for the evening

hubby, faith, N, G, tat, o’neil, panda

hubby, faith, N, tat, o’neil, train, half of panda’s face

faith, N, G, tat

o’neil, train, panda, me

me and my boy

we did plenty of mudding in our jeep but this guy takes the cake

how?  just, how?

and the climax of the evening… a very respectable fireworks display.  we had great front row seats for the thirty minute show.  there were some powerlines in our view but they weren’t terribly distracting.  most importantly, cobalt’s fireworks scene mode is farooking awesome and i have some of the clearest fireworks pix that i have ever seen.  i heart my little cobalt!

i cannot properly express my gratitude for all of those who have fought, bled, and died for my freedom.

there she stands

a memorial street that went on for miles somewhere in AL

one of the many fields of graves in arlington national cemetery. so many brave men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom.

tomb of the unknown soldier - "here rests in honored glory an american soldier known but to god"

"beneath this stone repose the bones of two thousand one hundred and eleven unknown soldiers gathered after the war from the fields of bull run and the route to the rappahannock. their remains could not be identified, but their names and deaths are recorded in the archives of their country. and its grateful citizens honor them as of their noble army of martyrs. may they rest in peace. september, a.d. 1866"

is through the fitting room with a handful of bathing suits.  depressing, it is.  but, i did manage to find four bathing suits that that were not completely grotesque on me.  i really wanted to wait until i was slightly more svelte before making this dreadful shopping expedition but i’m down to one suit.  one suit just doesn’t cut it when you live at the beach.  so now i’ve got four potential suits and hubby has final veto power when he gets home.  i’d like to keep at least two of them but we’ll see.  here’s hoping that next time i have to go through that, it’s because i’ve shrunk.

yep, i finally got texting – unlimited, at that.  i excitedly started texting everyone who i know has texting.  i’ve been holding out for years but it was time.  and… it’s fun!  thanks to my new, pretty phone, it’s easy too.  my nephew even declared it cool.  that’s saying something!

what a great sunday.  truly.  i slept until about 09:00, got up and watched a bit of tv until hubby came home from his run, made breakfast, and then went down to the beach.  we laid under our umbrella for about four hours talking to some neighbors, people watching, reading, and dozing.  i love laying in the shade with a nice breeze and listening to the waves.  such a great way to pass a sunday.  we then went to our plaza to upgrade my phone at the at&t store and grab some dinner.  such a wonderful day.  it was so great that i almost didn’t think about hubby abandoning me again tomorrow.  i’ve got to take him to the airport at the insanely early hour of 04:30.  that means it’s just about time for me to go to bed.

we missed the bridge run last night.  we both layed down for a nap after work and slept right through the run.  it was nice to know we were missed as nightingale called to see if we were okay afterward.  this morning, we overslept again.  we’ve been sleeping in the guest room this week since our room is torn apart due to painting.  that means cell phone alarms which is generally hubby’s job.  last night, i crashed and didn’t even think to remind him.  apparently when he came to bed several hours later, it didn’t occur to him.  no alarm this morning meant i was forty minutes late to work.  not a problem since i didn’t take a lunch break but i am shocked that we overslept twice within thirteen hours.  and guess who’s still tired?

despite my painfully pounding head, i had every intention of getting my tuesday night run in.  i (not so) patiently waited for hubby to get off the phone (less because i was waiting for him to stop working so we could run and more because he’s a ridiculously loud talker and did i already mention my head?).  we donned our running apparel, went down to the car, and headed toward our plaza.  traffic in that direction was crazy on our road, which is fairly normal, so i headed in the opposite direction to go the back-route.  when i got to the back road, the traffic in that direction was just as terrible.  i’m not sure exactly what was going on but it appeared to be cutting down to one lane so i pulled an immediate u-turn and headed back home.  some would argue that i could have gotten out of the car and started running down the road.  however, after the frustration of a failed effort even though i was feeling bad to begin with and then the added frustration of being inexplicably unable to parallel park upon returning home, i was done.  i decided that it was better for me to come back upstairs, take a handful of motrin, and eat some dinner.  judge me if you will, but i stand by that decision.  and now i’m about to take another handful of motrin and go to bed.

thursday night, i enjoyed dinner and conversation with my friend katie and her family. 

friday afternoon, i was thrilled to get hubby back.  we were going to try to get out and do something for our anniversary but by the end of the day, i had coughed myself into a migraine.  instead, hubby helped BIL move and set up their new summer kitchen and i popped a bunch of motrin and dayquill.  just as good.  after dinner, the adults soaked in the hot tub a bit. 

saturday, sissy and BIL left town and we became honorary parents to three chilluns.  although one of them left after a few hours for a night out with his friend’s family.  we took the other two out for dinner, ice cream and a movie at the dollar theatre, which is actually the $2.50 theatre (stupid inflation!). 

sunday morning, we took the chilluns to church and then dropped the eldest off at a friends for an afternoon of boating.  we took the other two back to the house and spent the afternoon out at the pool.  nephew had a couple friends over so even though we lost one of our chilluns, we netted one extra.  sissy and BIL got home around 16:00 and, after a few minutes of catching up, we loaded up and got on the road. 

overall, it was a nice week in orlando.  not the best for getting out and visiting around since i felt so crummy most of the time we were there but i had some good quality time with my sissy’s family and my cousin.  mostly though, i wanted to be home.  it is so strange that, after all of these years of being on the go, we finally have a home that we don’t like being gone from.  it was beyond wonderful to get home last night.  and even more wonderful today when we awoke to find a lovely cold front and clear water in the gulf.  i don’t ever want to leave!

it’s been an off week for orlando visiting.   between being sick and hubby being gone, i’m just not super motivated to be social.  i’ve spent a lot of time hanging out with sissy’s family, which is always a joy.  yesterday, i finally started to feel better.  the sinuses cleared up and i coughed a lot in the morning but even that was lessened throughout the day.  last night was poker night at my cousin’s which is the night i look forward to most when i’m down here.  i am honored that stryker always shows up when we’re in town even though i hear he never shows up anymore. 

i choose to steal the pic writersblock posted because i'm so amused at all of us geeks with our laptops open while playing poker (although the pic was taken before the cards and chips hit the table)

yes, we were all partaking of our various geekyness throughout the poker game; my cousin and i played a game of scrabble on fb while taking everyone else’s poker chips (she finally won when we all went all in, with four side pots, and a bunch of nothing cards).

when i got back to my sissy’s i briefly visited with her and BIL before heading to bed where i was up until 01:00 unable to sleep.  and then i awoke out of a sound sleep right around 02:30 for a severe coughing fit that lasted until close to 04:00.  i’m sure i had the whole house awake listening to me hack up my spleen.  after coughing myself into a massive headache, raw throat, sore chest, and pulled muscle in my back, i finally broke down and took some OTC cough medicine.  within fifteen minutes i had quieted down enough to start trying again for sleep.  it was just a miserable night.  i guess hubby is lucky he wasn’t here as i would have certainly kept him awake.

it seems when i’m sick, i sleep even less than normal.  this means that twice in the last three days, i have been wide awake at 06:00 and willing to go running.  unfortunately, i can’t seem to breath in the mornings.  either i’ve been all stuffed up or, like this morning, i started to get up and went into a major coughing fit.  these conditions are just not conducive to running.  i wonder if i’m so willing because i know that my lungs and sinuses will win?  i am, however, mulling over the idea of going over to my cousin’s ridiculously early on wednesday to run and then spending the rest of the day utilizing her house as a satellite office so that i’m there good and early for poking!

i gave an awful lot of consideration to doing my tuesday night run tonight.  really, i did.  and then the whiny laziness won out.  my throat hurts.  my head hurts.  waaahh, waahhh, waaahhh…  i did go to the plaza but instead of going to the park to run the loop, i went to target to buy some sympathy cards and then walked to penney’s for some towels.  just as good as a three+ mile run.

here are some snippets of things that made me LOL this weekend…

• saturday i called my cousin-in-law to ask him about a photography website that he had sent me.  a few minutes later, hubby’s phone rang.  he was outside so i got up to answer it.  it was my cousin calling her cousin-in-law.  i laughed while she asked for hubby, i said he was unavailable, and she said she would call him back later. 
• on the way to the naval base to pick up shaw saturday night, he called and said to pick him up at the burger king across the street as he was starving.  we got to burger king to find shaw standing in front of the drive-thru menu, seemingly arguing with the sign.  we pulled up behind him and he jumped in grumbling about them not serving him.  we pulled the car up a couple feet so that his window was in front of the sign and… they asked to take his order.  i thought it was hilarious that he stood there begging them to take his order for at least ten minutes before we arrived and yet he had food in hand less than a minute after we picked him up.
• background: we drink boxed wine.  people make fun of us and i don’t care because i like the taste of it.  i don’t subscribe to the philosophy that wine has to cost $$$ to be good.  cargo shows up yesterday afternoon with a bottle of wine, like a perfect gentleman dinner guest.  he hands it to hubby and says, “it’s the cheapest wine i could find in a bottle.  hopefully you’ll like it as much as the box stuff.”
• background:  scooter talks all the time about the feasts that sunny prepares for dinner every night.  i am known to downplay my cooking.  it’s not that i don’t/can’t cook, it’s just that i am married to a man who doesn’t really like food so my everyday cooking is pretty simple.  heck, i usually end up making two dinners, one for hubby and one for myself.  sunny and i are laying out on the beach yesterday and she’s telling me about scooter informing her of the plan to come over for dinner.  she said to him, “but arcanai doesn’t cook!  what are we going to eat?!”  she laughed as she let me know that she had visions of showing up to find boxes of cereal sitting on the table.
• we apparently have the most exciting trash disposal ever.  when kids are here, they all fight over who gets to take out the trash because it is just that fun to listen to it go down the twenty-two floors of metal chute.  i don’t get it, but whatev – as long as i don’t have to take it out.  apparently, the trash chute is just as much fun for adults.  scooter and cargo were equally entertained by it.  i think they took the trash out no less than five times last night, throwing away bags with next to nothing in them, just to be able to enjoy the chute.  on their way out, they bargained with each other over who was going to throw away what.  cargo, a hugely emotive person, let out a jovial “are you kidding me?!” as scooter dropped a large glass bottle down the chute.  they listened for the few seconds that it took to reach the bottom and scooter let out a “ooh, that’s breakage!  you could hear it break!”  i’m so glad our chores are entertaining for our guests!  now how to make shower/tub scrubbing fun so that people will want to do that for us too???

i finally got a bit of sleep last night.  i laid down around 23:30 and only woke up a little while before the alarm went off at 06:30.  it was wonderful.  unfortunately, it didn’t do much to alleviate the massive headache i went to bed with so i’m still enjoying that this morning.  oh well, whatchya gonna do?  on the bright side, my hubby should be home in the next eight or nine hours!!!