coming in from behind

oi! i feel so behind on getting things posted. the day i got back from cha in florida, my inlaws came into town. two hours after i got back, to be exact! it's been pretty nonstop since the first of july! so friday when i landed, i plugged my phone in and got the news about stan making chief. picked up my sweet baby girls and came home.

i ended up crashing for a little bit, but woke up when the command master chief from stan's squadron called. now, i was pretty out of it due to the extended lack of sleep... so I didn't exactly catch who it was on the line. i did eventually figure it out when he was congratulating me for stan's accomplishment. i hate feeling like i've missed something really important like that. i think i might have given him just a small piece of my mind. i'm blaming extreme fatigue. lol. we're pretty protective of our family time, and the chief initiation is pretty intense. i may have mentioned to him, that i wasn't into sacrificing our family time with a deployment coming up for their little initiation... oops. good thing i'm not the one in the navy. i did meet with him on monday, and i'm pretty sure it was all ok. apparently even i need *some* sleep to function properly.

saturday morning we headed out to our annual town parade & fair. the girls marched in the parade for our good friend, john koster, with their cousins and several friends. then we headed to the fair with stan's dad for lunch & rides. the girls are tall enough now to ride all of the crazy fun upside down rides. woohoo! emma likes the upside down ones a lot more than torrey does, so her and i hit those together. torrey was more into the spinning ones that don't flip you around quite so much. there are a bunch more pictures here.

sunday was a little more of a lazy day. stan had to fly, so the girls and i headed off to church, then home for a family afternoon with the inlaws. nothing too exciting, just playing, relaxing and dinner. i caught a quick picture of torrey in the middle of an intense session of webkinz.

monday was stan's first day of chief's initiation. i headed to the base to meet with his cmc and find out why it was so important for him to go through all of this. i did leave feeling like there was a purpose to it all, and that really helps a lot. being apart a lot, we tend to keep our commitments lower so we have plenty of family time. i've heard, as crazy as it is, that this whole process is quite the moving experience steeped in tradition. i'm really looking forward to his pinning ceremony at the end of it. we're so proud of him!

while i was out meeting the cmc, stan got to take his parents & the girls on a tour of his plane. i can't believe it but i forgot my camera! nuts! it was fun getting to see him tell his parents all about what he does. i'm not sure they've actually had a tour of the inside of his plane before.

tuesday we headed out to a local farmer's market called snowgoose produce for some of their immodest ice cream cones (homemade waffle cones, that is). we sat out on their deck overlooking the skagit valley farm fields while licking the drippies off our cones. then we headed to laconner to walk around some of the fun little shops they have there. we stopped by one of my favorite stores childhood bliss. the girls are pretty much too big for everything in there now, but i just love the owner, and always love seeing all of the fun goodies she has stocked up in there. i've got a bunch more pictures, including some of our fun finds here.

today was another one of those lay-low type of days. i got a couple of scrappy project/assignments done this morning. we spent most of the day at home. torrey played scrabble with grandpa and emma played paper dolls with grandma. i quite enjoyed watching the whole process. something special about those magic moments that last a lifetime. they watched princess bride for the first time ever. i couldn't believe they'd never seen it. it's just one of those movies you never grow tired of watching. tomorrow is our last day together before they take off toward home. so we'll be living the moments up tomorrow to last us until next summer.

forgive the sleepy writing today, i'm still recovering from my trip... i wonder how long i'll be able to use that excuse?! :)