John was found.

I want to thank all of you who passed on the information about John. He has been found. There is nothing else that can be said right now since an investigation is taking place. Thank you all again.

Help Find John Alley

My friend Emily's husband is missing. No one has seen him since Friday afternoon in Milton, FL, and they found his car totaled on Saturday morning in Pensacola, FL. He left his wallet, keys, and phone in the car. We believe he may be hurt and wandering somewhere. I know most of you don't live anywhere near me, but if you have the time to post this on your blog or email this info to friends, I would greatly appreciate it. They have a website set up for him. You can find it at: www.helpfindjohn.info

If any of you know anything, please email: info@helpfindjohn.info

Thank you!

Family photo shoot.

For ages now, my sister Andrea has been begging me to take photos of her family. And finally, this last time I was visiting her we had time to do it. Unfortunately, her hubby couldn't be there, so we had to make do with her and the kids.

We went to a really picturesque spot by an old bridge. The sun was a bit bright, but we worked around it.

The kids were a bit wary of me sticking a camera in their face at first. So I did a couple shots of just Andrea and the baby.

Aren't they cute? Then after letting them run around for a bit...

they finally warmed up.

Such cute blondies.

These boys sure do love their little sister.

This one especially.

Then we wanted to get a cousin shot. We sat them all down in a line, and no one wanted to cooperate.

Mom, he stole my rocks!!

What? Smile?

I'm really not having fun. But finally:

I had to photoshop 2 heads into this picture to get everyone looking half decent, but at least it was something. I laid down on the ground to get a better angle and all the kids copied me.

Silly goofs.

Ella, ever the model. But I'm glad they did because I got one of my favorites from the whole day:

So serious. I was trying to get him to smile in his pictures and I told him to think funny thoughts. This is what I got from that:

So I just went along with the serious theme and told him to act like a man instead. That got me a couple good ones:

Then it was both the boys' turn. Andrea was telling them to stand like her:

She didn't like that they were making fun of her, but I think it made for a cute picture.

Being the younger one, this one didn't like to hold still much at all:

I was lucky to get one head shot of him.

And during the break between shots big Cousin was so nice as to pick the bugs out of Alex's hair:

Nothing like reverting back to our simian roots.

Andrea offered to take some photos of me with the kids, but Alex had had enough.

Please, no more pictures, he says. So I'll just make do with this cutie:

And finally, a few more shots of the cousins:

White t-shirts on a bright day was not the brightest plan. Okay, that was a really lame pun.

I wish I'd had more of a zoom for this one, but never fear, I will soon!!

And that's that.

Stimulating the Economy

I have been ordered by my Commander in Chief to stimulate the economy. Not one to disobey an order that is followed with a check, I felt it my patriotic duty to obey. So today, I spent a lot of money. Wanna see what I got? Okay, cool. Shall we start with the least expensive and move on up? Sounds good.

Here we have a New Zealand guide book. Since the Navy keeps putting off letting us out of the military we figure we may actually be able to go to Anton's brother's wedding in New Zealand in November. And if we're already going to be in New Zealand for a wedding, you better believe I'll be spending a couple of weeks traveling around, without kids. So of course we need a guide book to tell us all the cool places to go to.

Next up we have:

A Nikon 50mm f1.8 camera lens. I've been wanting one of these for a long time so I can take photos in low lighting situations as well as those great blurry, depth-of-field type shots. I did have my eye on a much more expensive one that would autofocus on my camera, but I decided to give the much less expensive manual focus one a shot. Plus if I ever upgrade my camera it'll focus just fine.

And last but so not least:

The Sigma 18-200mm with optical stabilizing. I really wanted to get the Nikon branded version of this lens, but with a savings of a couple hundred dollars, we figured we'd give the generic a shot. Since we are fairly casual photographers, I don't think we'll notice. This is the lens that will stay on our camera most of the time. It's got all the zoom we could possibly want with optical stabilizing to keep our shots from being blurry.

I am sooooooo excited to get these. I actually thought that maybe I should have ordered them a week apart to give myself time to play with each of them. So be looking to see A LOT more photos from me in the near future. And you can all thank me later for helping stimulate the economy.

We have finally heard something!

Anton came home from work yesterday with a piece of paper that actually said something about separation!!! Unfortunately it wasn't his actual separation paperwork, but I'll take anything at this point. All it was was a paper signing away his rights and agreeing to the terms of his separation. Now the whole thing has to go up to the Secretary of the Navy and come back down. We also finally got the phone number of a person who actually knows what is going on and he told us this process can take 45 days, 90 days, more. So in other words, more waiting. But at least there's an end in sight this time. Though Anton will most probably not make his school starting date of June 23. But hey, by now we're used to putting off life plans. Oh well.

The Bi-Annual Trip to the Dentist

Now, I fully understand the importance of visiting your dentist every six months, and I am completely paranoid of losing all my teeth by the time I'm 30, but when you move a whole lot, you tend to put off things like finding a new dentist. I have been to some major quacks in the past and so I am a bit jaded when it comes to the world of dentistry. But the pending loss of medical insurance motivated me to get all my dental needs taken care of now, while they are a bit less expensive.

My biggest complaint was that I've had a tooth that hurts like it's cracked. It has been that way for over 3 years but no dentist could ever find the crack.

At first I was a bit leery of this new dentist office. I had made the appointment over 2 months ago and yesterday was the soonest they could get me in. It was all fancy with flat screen TVs all over. It makes me think they overcharge.

But once I met my dental assistant, all was changed. She spent over an hour x-raying and photographing my teeth to try and find the crack. Then she did all sorts of other crazy poking and prodding to check the health of my teeth and gums. It hurt like the dickens, but that's my own fault for not taking better care of my teeth. Then finally she cleaned them. But it wasn't that old fashioned spinny rubber polisher thing. Oh no. I got a baking soda pressure wash. It was messy, but so much better than nasty tasting gritty dentist toothpaste.

When the dentist came in he looked at all the pictures and x-rays and within a minute had found the crack that had eluded 3 dentists in the past. Hooray! I am so happy. Plus he says they will try and fix it first rather than crown me. Happy day!

When all this was done another lady took me back to her office to schedule my future appointments and set me up with a tooth guard (I clench my teeth, which is what's causing the cracking). And the coolest of all? I got a printout of all my teeth pictures:

I know you all wanted to see them too.

Final diagnosis: 2 cracked teeth and 1 cavity. Not too bad, I guess.

We figured it out!

See this cute little girl?

Well, for the longest time we thought she was a very obstinate, headstrong, stubborn child. She doesn't listen to a word we say. She ignores us and pretends like we haven't even spoken. It drives us CRAZY, to say the least.

So yesterday I took her to the doctor. And you know what? She has hearing problems. The doctor didn't expound upon exactly how deaf she is, but enough that we're getting referred to an ENT. It may just be something as simple as getting tubes in her ears. Who knows. But at least now we know she's not ignoring us on purpose. She really doesn't hear us. Though it will probably still drive me nuts.