Calebisms

Just some things that Caleb says. He talks all the time and very well. These are just some things he says on a consistant basis.


"I Quincy." After proclaiming that he's Quincy he then assigns the other Little Einsteins characters to the rest of the family. Our identities change, but he's always Quincy.


"What your doin?" (in a very Southern accent)


"Your b kay?" when someone gets hurt


"I fine." when he gets hurt


"I better now." while wiping tears when he's been in timeout for a couple of minutes and is ready to come out.


SO. He says things like "I SO sleepy." "It SO funny." " I SO excited." "It SO dark in here." "It SO yummy."


He loves to assign ownership to things as well. Everything belongs to someone whether it be mine, your, mommy's, daddy's, or lolo's.


"E are you?" When he's looking for someone.


Yesterday he melted my heart when he said, "Mommy, your the princess."

He also has his own made-up language that only he knows. He thinks it hillarious to use it though. I will have to video it sometime.

Choker Whites

With Aaron's promotion into the officer ranks comes new uniforms. He will no longer be able to wear his enlisted uniforms. The Navy will give him $400 to purchase new uniforms. That seems like a good deal...until you look at the price of uniforms. The white shoes alone cost $80. White shoes...when is he ever going to where white shoes except when he's on duty. Even then, he will mostly be wearing the brown shoes that he will wear with his working uniform. Maybe he can start a new trend of wearing white dress shoes. :)

Last week he ordered his Choker Whites uniform. For those of you not familiar with choker whites, think Top Gun or A Few Good Men. The white uniform that buttons all the way up the neck with gold buttons is called the Choker White uniform. Now, most people would say that this uniform is called a choker uniform because it does button up the neck. After ordering Aaron's uniform, we now know that it is called that because you choke over the price. This one uniform was over $400. That does not include the $80 white shoes. Thankfully, he will be able to use his dad's sword rather than purchase one of his own.

It looks like our stimulous package check will be going to new uniforms. Thanks, Mr. Bush. He still has to purchase his khaki uniforms, working blues, dress blues, and working whites. The Choker Whites is the most expensive uniform, but still.

G & T

That's our baby girl. She has been selected for the Gifted and Talented program here in Littleton. We are very proud of her. She had to qualify in three of six categories to be accepted. We were not at all surprised by the categories she was chosen in. Her scores in the 97th percentile for Verbal and Reading were two of her qualifying scores. Her third area was the fact that she reads at least 2 grade levels above her current grade.

Our concern now is getting her into the Gifted and Talented program down in Colorado Springs. Hopefully we can plead well enough.

(I had actually written up a much better post but misplaced the post so it's been replaced with short and sweet. Either way, we are still very proud of her and lover her very much!)

Weekend in Pictures

Walking through the zoo.


























Hopefully these herbs will grow.

Get the Zantac ready!

We have made the decision that Aaron will take the contracting job. He has turned in notice to work and all. He has worked at Aimco for 8 years so it was very bitter sweet for him to turn in notice. He surprised them with the news. Apparently there was a pool at work as to who would leave and when. He wasn't even in the pool at all. They didn't expect this. That to us was a good indication that he probably made the right decision.

So, he starts his new job on May 5. The job is in Colorado Springs which is about 40 miles south of us. He is going to commute for the first month. Then at the end of May when Campbell gets out of school we will all move down there.

We are all excited, and a little nervous, about this change in our lives. Campbell is very excited that she will now get to take her ice skating lessons at the World Ice Arena "where champions skate!" Caleb of course has no idea what we're about to do. As long as the pirate ship and the space ship are with him, he's happy. Mommy and Daddy however will be popping Zantac here soon.

Decisions, Decisions

A few weeks ago Aaron's work did so layoffs. Even the CIO was laid off. Aaron has been with this company for 8 years now and every year they do these layoffs. He has always been very lucky (knock on wood) to not be hit with a layoff. This time was no different. He is still gainfully employed.

In light of these layoffs though, we decided it was time to put some resumes out there and see what happened. First he was called by a headhunter. She wanted us to pay her $6000+ to fix his resume and train him to interview. We decided we'd be better off to pay a resume writer a couple of hundred dollars to clean up his resume. He was also called by a company that works on government contracts. He went on the first of these interviews yesterday.

The interview went great, apparently. So well infact that within an hour after the interview he was offered the position. We are still thinking about this. This position takes him out of management and back into programming (but for a good bit more money). He's not sure he wants to do that. The biggest issue however is that it is a contract position. It's only slated at 6 months right now. It could be extended and it could become a permanent position. But, right now it is a contract which means we would lose all of our current benefits i.e. health insurance, 401-K, vacation, sick days, pay while on Reserve duty, etc.

He has a couple more phone interviews to do today. There is one in AL and one in VA. He also has a lead on a job back in Greenville, SC. There's also one right here in Denver. So we have choices and decisions to make. The big question is do we stay with what we are comfortable with and hope we don't get a layoff or do we take a leap of faith and move on?

A Sunny Weekend

Aaron had his Navy drill this weekend, so the kids and I decided to enjoy the sun without him. With snowfall on both Thursday and Friday we were really in need of the sunshine. Friday night we cleaned up the house so that we could be out all weekend without the guilt.

Saturday morning started with the Butterfly Pavillion. This was only the second time we've been there. Both time we have had a great time but I have a hard time justifying going more often. First the Pavillion is on the North side of Denver; we live on the South side. That's a long drive. The other reason is the cost. It only costs the kids and I $12 to go in; but we end up being there less than an hour. There is not much to look at outside of the butterflies. Inside the butterfly cage it's hot and humid so we can only spend a few minutes before we are all sweating and ready to leave. Despite these reasons, we went this weekend to look at the butterflies. We had a great time just walking through the exhibit. Caleb was such a big boy! We didn't even take his stroller in. He really enjoyed the freedom.

After the butterflies we headed over to the big mall near the Pavillion. We just found this mall a few weeks ago. Everyone kept telling us how nice it is. It is a nice mall, but not worth going that direction unless you have another reason to be over there. It will be nicer in the winter time when the ice skating rink is open. Campbell is thrilled at the prospect of going shopping and ice skating at the same place.

Sunday morning the kids and I packed a picnic lunch and headed to the zoo. The last time we went to the zoo was during the Christmas lights in December. Sunday was a much warmer visit. It was so nice to be walking outside in the warmth of the spring sunshine. The geese were in rare form perching on lamp posts and rocks. There were also a few sitting on eggs. We will have to return in a few weeks to see the fuzzy little gosslings. We spread our blanket in the grass over by the camels. The kids really enjoyed watching the camels and the peacocks while we ate lunch. We ended up spending a wonderful 3 hours at the zoo. This is on our list of must do's again for sometime soon.

Finally!

Campbell has done a few sporting things in her short life. She has done ballet, gymnastics, and ice skating. She has incredible balance on all of these. She is even doing some simple jumps in ice skating now. The one thing that we as parents have failed her on is teaching her to ride a bike. She is 9 1/2 years old and still does not know how to ride a bike.

Last week we went out and purchased a properly sized bicycle. She has her helmet that she got at the bicycle safety event in South Carolina. We also made sure to get her some elbow and knee pads. Friday evening we took her out and got her started on her riding lessons. We didn't even put training wheels on. We told her all or nothing.

She did pretty well. She does have some balance problems. I still don't understand how she can skate on one foot ON ICE but can't balance on a bicycle. Oh well, I'm sure she will eventually figure it out. We will be spending a lot of time outside over the next few weeks trying to learn this new activity.

Ensign Select

Aaron first joined the Navy in 1992. From his initial enlistment way back then it has been his goal to put on khaki. For those of you who don't know, there are only certain ranks that wear a khaki uniform. On the Enlisted side, he would need to become a Chief Petty Officer (E-7) to put on khaki. The other option was to become an officer.

He never reached that goal during his active duty enlistment. He made it throught the ranks just fine he just didn't spend enough time in the Navy to reach those levels. Since joining the Reserves in 2002 he has been working towards this goal. Last year when we first moved here to Colorado he put in a package for the Officer program. Unfortunately, the recruiter who was handling his paperwork did not do his job and missed an important piece of paperwork for Aaron's package.

This year he was given the option for an early promote to Chief. In February he took his Chief's exam (you have to take a test for promotion) and turned in two officer packets. Once those things were done he just had to wait for the results.

Monday night he got a phone call telling him that he did great on his Chief's exam and was now board eligible. After passing the test you have to send a package of paperwork to the Chief's board and then they decide if you will become a Chief or not. He was thrilled and started making a list of things he needed for his packet. Tuesday morning he got another phone call. This one was from his officer recruiter telling him that he was selected for Officer from one of the officer boards. They are still waiting on the results for the second officer board. Either way though, he is now becoming an officer.

He is so excited about his accomplishments. Officer was his ultimate goal so he will be taking that option not the Chief option. He has some more paperwork and a physical to complete. He also has to go to Rhode Island for a 3 week class. Then we will be doing his ceremony. We also now have some new uniforms that we have to purchase.

Springbreak '08

Last week was Campbell's springbreak from school. We decided to take some vacation time and go to Moab, UT. There we visited Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park. We all had a terrific time.

We drove tehre on Sunday. The Easter bunny delivered their baskets to the car seat and filled them with lots of fun travel stuff. We stopped in Silverthorn for breakfast which started our week of restaurant food. Our next stop was in Grand Junction for some leg stretching and lunch. Only 2 meals out and we already felt the effects of the restaurant food. Finally we were on our last leg to Moab. the drive was absolutely beautiful along the Colorado River.

After our arrival, we checked into our hotel and walked the town. The town itself is not real big but was just enough to stretch our legs. We went to the welcome center to pick up some pamphlets. Then we found a place to eat. Campbell said she wanted pizza so we went to the pizza place. She then decided that she didn't want pizza, but instead wanted salad. We made her eat pizza with her salad anyway. Once it got dark we headed to the hills to see the stars. It was an amzaing site. I only wish that I could have gotten a picture of it.

The next day we went hiking through Arches National Park. Our first hike was around 3 miles. We hiked to Delicate Arch. These arches are amazing. They have all been naturally formed. The park itself has more than 2000 documented arches. After the Delicate Arch hike we went on a couple of smaller hikes. We went to Balanced Rock, Windows Arch, Parade of Elephants and a couple of others. We then went back to the hotel where we ate some sandwiches and took a nap. Once everyone woke up we headed out to do another hike. This one was a 4.2 mile hike to the Double O Arch. Along the way we saw Landscape Arch. The views were amazing. After that hike we went to dinner where we learned that Moab is not known for its dining facilities. The food was just OK and the service was terrible.

On Tuesday we headed over to Canyonlands National Park. We were only able to see the Island In the Sky portion of the park. This park has two other portions but they are way south and just too far to travel to try to get it all into one day. We stared with a small hike that was more of a walk along the rim of the canyon to see the canyon views. Aaron liked making me a bit nervous by stepping too close to the edge of the canyon for my taste. These things were hundreds of feet high. We then went over to the Gooseberry trail. This trail was a 5 mile hike. We were all excited for the hike until we looked at it. The trail was very steep with a 1400 ft elevation change in just 2.5 miles. We decided that we would not do that hike. Instead we went to Upheaval Dome and did a nice 2 mile walk. After that we headed back to Arches and went up to the Double Arch. Caleb even got to do some rock climbing on this one which totally thrilled him. After Double Arch we went back to the hotel for naps and a leisurly afternoon. We all needed it badly. Our bodies were aching from all the hiking the previous day.

That evening we went and picked up a Jeep. We rented a Jeep for Wednesday. It was a 4 x 4 with all the goodies for climbing rockes and driving through mud. Wednesday morning we started our trip through the back country. We got to see a deer and Caleb's beloved baby cow. Caleb loved the idea of the Jeep but he couldn't stand the wind blowing on him. He would close his eyes and hold sister's hand while the truck was moving. After about 3 or so hours we headed back into town to the gas station. The kids played in the tee-pee while Aaron gased the Jeep. Then we loaded up and prepared to take off. That's when the Jeep wouldn't start. It wouldn't turn over at all. We tried everything we could think of and nothing worked. Aaron called the rental place and they brought us a new Jeep. We just know that we are very lucky that it was at the gas station and not out in the bottom of the canyons where we didn't have cell service. Once we got loaded into the new Jeep we headed up for some more driving. We got to see the Gemini Bridges and Musselman Bridge that we otherwise would not have been able to see without the Jeep.

For lunch that day we grilled hotdogs at one of the Campsites. Caleb got do dig in his "beach" while Aaron cooked. Anybit of sand he calls a beach. At the end of the day we got to see ancient Indian art on the rocks near Moab. I found the artwork to be amazing. I don't know how they got them so high on the rocks or how they lasted all this time.

Thursday we headed south to Mesa Verde. It was there that we got to see ancient Indian cliff dwellings. We even got to walk upto and into one of them. Again, it's amazing that these have survived all these years. We then headed back north to Grand Mesa, CO. We were planning on doing some fishing there on Friday. Along the way, we had to go over several passes with avalanch warnings. Rocks and snow falling in front of you as you drive is not fun, trust me. As we were getting close to our destination we started to realize that maybe we wouldn't be doing any fishing. The snow was several feet deep. We finally arrived at the cabins and knew we would not be fishing. The people who run the cabins insisted that we could do ice fishing, but we are not the ice fishing type. We instead decided to just have some snow fun.

We spent that first evening sitting by the fire and putting together puzzles. The kids were over the moon to be sleeping on a futon. The silliest things can make kids happy. We all loved just sitting together as a family with no tv. Friday was spent digging out a "snow house" for the kids. Aaron had a great time in the snow. He even included two snow slides for the kids. That evening we went to the main cabin where we watched some tv. They played "The Princess Bride". Campbell had never seen the movie but absolutely loved it!!

Saturday morning we got up early and headed home. The entire vacation was absolutely wonderful! This was the first time that we have taken a full week of vacation with kids. We need to do it more often.