And now for the much awaited, long promised

PICTURES 

We begin with Madie's birthday Luau.  Like I told you all before, it was a huge success for Moo, a learning curve for us.  But even with the learning curve, we had a great time getting it ready and coming up with games for the party and the cake.  Alan is in charge of the cakes, everyone should know that right from the start.  I always try to manipulate my way into the cake design, Alan and I always get bent out of shape because he won't listen to me and I end up having to give up the control of ONE thing.  I don't take it well.  You would think eight years into this we would, okay I would get the picture and let the poor man have this one itty bitty thing.  NOPE.  This year same thing.  I just can't get over how much more I know than Alan....It is a shame I mean if he would just give me total control OVER ALL...I had to stop myself there, I felt an evil cackle coming on.

Now, this year was a huge turning point for us.  I really did just let Alan go with the cake.  He and Madie talked about the cake for a good two weeks and I left my opinion out of it.  They asked questions, I told them what I would do, and they ignored me only to ask the same blessed questions again.

So the week of Moo's party came and Alan still had no idea what to make.  He ended up making the famous strawberry cake he is famous for and he tried to make a coconut cake, but it never came cleanly out of the pan.  So he switched to a pineapple cake for the second tier.  Both were delicioso...He began the decorating process, covering teh bottom cake with blue to look like the ocean and the round coconut cake he iced and then covered with a brown sugar/graham cracker mixture that looked a lot like sand.  That was as far as he could go.  He was stumped this year.  Of course throw in there the fact that he has been swamped at work and getting time to plan decorating the cake was impossible.  Now I step in.  Here is where we both learned the terrific life of being perfectly suited.  He handed the cake over to me after we talked about what we could do.  He really was at a loss and I had some vague idea of some sort.  So he stepped back and started to clean the house while I was given free reign.  Did I mention that I love this man of mine. 

As you can see we already had the island in the water theme, but I went from there.  The rocks around the cake are fondant and that little purple thing in front is an octopus.  The bushes by the volcano are leaves from a pineapple and the leaves on the table, Banana leaves from the front yard.  The "waves," the white around the rocks really did look like crashing waves up close.  The best part?  Not that Alan and I finally got our act together and worked as a team.  No, the best part for me was seeing Madie's face.  She loved this cake.  She helped Alan bake it, helped me decorate it and she says it was exactly what she wanted...A success...

When each guest came into the house we greeted them with a lei.  The girls got grass skirts and a flowered braclet, the boys got a grass bracelet.  This is a picture of our friend Katie.  She went home and told her mom and dad that it was the best party she had ever been to.  GO TEAM C

This is a picture of our friends Gail and Lori.  Gail's daughter Rachel is Madie's closest friend, sort of her Alana here in Cuba, and Lori's girls love Maegan and Me.  Lori is our local photographer and you will be seeing her talent here soon.  She took our family portaits, both wonderful women.  Oh and the other part of this picture, the fruit.  We had the guests make fruit kabobs.  I saw some very interesting creations.  One little girl came walking in with a kabob that had pineapple, star fruit, chesse, and pepperoni.  Um Yumm I guess.

Maegers looking adorable.  See that shirt in the back ground.  Not Alan but close to what I made him wear.  We all had Hawaiian shirts on.  Alan shed his as soon as he could.  Weeny..

Moo getting ready to open gifts.  She had such a good time.  We truly are blessed here, well we have been blessed everywhere we have lived.  Thank you God for providing us with love...

Brownie Patch

I know I mentioned Madie getting an Emergancy Preparedness Patch, well now here are the pictures.  The entire troop, from Daisy's on up participated in an emergancy preparedness patch.  Apparently President Obama on Sept. 11 challenged all Girl/Boy Scouts to get involved in their communtiy by learning about being prepared for emergancies in memorium of our fallen.  So, our Girl Scout troop got on the ball and had our ducks in a row by the end of that week.  We are one of the first troops to get their patches, go Gtmo...

Each girl had to demonstrate her ability to be prepared.  Whether that meant having a disaster kit, an escape plan or what have you.  Then the girls presented their projects to the emergancy corrdinator here on base.  He, along with our Command Master Cheif then held this special ceremony for the girls.  Of course this is not a picture of Madie getting her patch, nope this is a picture of two proud parents loving their exceptional girl, she is just dealing with us...

Awww isn't she cute?  She is the only Brownie that has her full uniform and knows how to wear it.  Thank you Daisy's...

Madie shaking hands with Jan Chilson, the emergancy corrdinator on base.  GO MADIE,

Oh what's that, you want to know what her project was?  She made five contact cards- cards that we each have to carry in our backpacks or purses that tell us who to call in case of an emergancy and where to meet each other in case we get seperated during an emergancy.  She helped us come up with good meeting places, and even an evacuation plan for how to leave the house in an emergancy...

Tree Lighting and All That

The following pictures are the best I could do.  I told you I have a horrible camera, and well I am not that talented when it comes to picture taking.  So please bear with me.  I am still working on getting the Flip videos up loaded to the computer.  We have given up on my computer and are about to try Alan's laptop.  I am keeping my fingers crossed.  At any rate...

This is the sign welcoming visitors to Holiday Hill.  I know you can't see it well, but under Seasons Greetings is the island of Cuba complete with saying Guantanamo Bay. And in the back ground is our brand new lighted tree.  It is huge and you can see it just about anywhere on base.  We love it...

No spirit fingers but she is still so tickled about being a cheerleader.

Madie's squad.  They are the GOLDEN SPIRITS....Whoo Hooo

Maegan lookin cute as a button

I swear this is the best picture I got of our boy singing.  He was too too cute, but I mean we all think he is adorable, my little bowling ball head..In case you have forgotten what the little man looks like he is third from the right

And you thought that picture of the lights was bad.  Madie is the tall one in back.  Yep, that is the only picture of her. 

I gave up trying to get pictures of him singing, but here is a great one of him up close, maybe too close

Birthday Gifts

And last but not least, a quick look at the kids enjoying the gifts.  We haven't baked yet, so none of those with Moo, only this one in an outfit Gamma got her along with a pompom pen.

And this is a picture of all three kids playing the Vtech games Dad has bought Maegan.  He bought her this Vtech last year I think.  She played it twice.  He got her another game for her birthday, the kids play it all the time. Go figure

And that my friends are the pictures for now.  As soon as Mom's box gets here we will pull out the camera and get pics of that.  Did we remember to take pics of her opening our gifts?  Nope....did we take pics of our Thanksgiving? Nope.  Ah well there is always next year.  I send you all my love