Been a while...we are here.

So. We have been super busy. I feel bad for not updating the blog! Here is what is new that is going on. I am charging the batteries to the camera and will be able to download some more pictures to the blog. I will get better about posting! :)


* I am 18 weeks pregnant! ITS A GIRL!! I got an ultrasound done at this fancy place at 16 weeks. I have my big anatomy ultrasound here on April 1st so we will double check. The place I went to says they are 100% on gender identification....better be because I have bought some pink! I start the Progesterone shot once a week next week until 36 weeks. This will help lower the risks of me going into preterm labor. We all know my history with Ian & Blake. We want to keep this baby girl in the oven as long as we can!

* Ian is playing T-Ball. His first game is April 10th. That is opening day. He does pretty well running the bases, and hitting. We have to work on his aim. He enjoys hitting his baseball set that he got from Grandma for Christmas. It is nice to be able to play outside in the sun in a fenced in back yard and not have to worry about the kids!! :)

* Ian will be attending St Anne's Catholic School in the fall for Kindergarten. The schools are the best down here in the south and with Jeff and I both working in Ga - there is no after school program here in the elementary school down the road that would suit our schedules. So off to private school he goes. We will be taking donations for his education - please make payable to Jeff or Kristin Harmon. :) Also, the donations will go toward his uniform funds! haha.

* Blake is liking his K3 class at the Growing Room. He is learning a lot and enjoying his friends. They have a summer camp for his grade as well. He is enrolled and should have tons of fun. Once the pool opens up here at our housing complex he will be enrolled in swimming lessons! (As well as Ian)

* I have started working on the Pediatric Floor. I have enjoyed working there. A different adjustment to AK, but its fun! I have even worked in the PICU a few days which I hope to get more experience in. I am full time right now until the middle of April and then I will be part time/ PRN.

* Jeff has started teaching his students at the MCCC. He is enjoying his class and sculpting the minds of all these young CPTS. Also, some good news is that Jeff will pin on Major here in the next few months. More to come on formal pin ceremony and the promotion party in our backyard with great food and tons of beer for all.

Important Dates if you would like to come visit:

(of course everyone is welcome anytime!)

April 10th: Ian's opening day and 1st game of T-Ball
May 20th : Ian's preschool graduation 7pm.
June 19th: Kristin 30th BBQ Party!
July 17th: Blakes 3rd Bday Party!
Aug 14th: Ian's 5th Bday Party & celebration of 1st week in Kindergarten! (This is pending the birth of baby girl Harmon...not sure when she is going to come!)

Ok Wrap Up...

So I haven't been the best of updating the blog. So here in a nut shell is what has happened in a month.

* I'm pregnant! (Ian says there are 2 babies in my belly, one girl and one boy)
* I am hating Tricare!
* Going to do cloth diapers and breast feed this baby. (Ian & Blake were breastfed, but not cloth diapers)
* Jeff left me Atlanta when we were picking up his car at the military car place. He drove off with my keys...long story short and after a cab ride to the ATL airport to rent a car and he realizing he left me and a cab ride back to car place...he came and got me!
* Ian is signed up for T-Ball
* Ian went to Atlanta for neurosurgeon visit. Very nice office, MRI scheduled in May - everything looks fine. No problems.
* We traded in Jeff's Wrangler for a Land Rover (third row seating)... Love it!
* Both boys have started school. (Well daycare, but I like this school!)
* I'm waiting for my GA RN license so I can start working!
* Jeff will be teaching at the Captains Career Course.
* Blake and potty training are not going so well. I'm frustrated.
* We are going to grow our own veggies this summer.

I thinks that's about it. I will post pictures of our house very soon!!

Day Nine. South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa

Day Nine Wyoming, South Dakota,Nebraska, Iowa

We woke up refreshed and ready to go. Today was going to be a big day and we were very exciting. Our plans for the day were to see Mt. Rushmore, Devils Tower and the Badlands. We were only about an hour from Mt Rushmore so we saw that first! It is just simply amazing.


However; here is a funny story:

I research and call before we go to make sure the weather/roads are good to go and they are. I see that the park is free to enjoy! (Score!) I neglect to see that you do however; have to pay $10 to park your car. No biggie you think except when we go to enter the park we have no cash – again another no biggie- except for such a well known and highly visited national monument they don’t take credit or debit cards to pay for the parking! Even airports have the option to pay with credit card for parking! The lady agrees to let us in and makes us park the farthest away (outside the parking garage deck) and to go into the gift shop to access the ATM and then swing on by and pay. Which we did and come to find out that parking pass is good for a year – who’s going back after we have already seen it? I don’t think they are going to be putting any new presidents up anytime soon since the whole thing took over 13 years to carve!

Ian walks up and is amazed – he keeps saying look at those big heads! And as we walked closer, the heads kept getting bigger. He really enjoyed the binoculars that were kid size and just the perfect size for him to get a better look at the ‘Big Heads.’

We took a ton of pictures! And then off we went. The next major thing we wanted to see was Devil’s Tower. It was off the road quite a bit but we were sure that we could see it while we were driving – which was the case. I was all excited, because I loved the movie The Close Encounter! I saw it, grabbed my camera, focused and had a perfect shot but then we were going around a bend in the road so I had to wait – got it focus again and clicked so very excited I got the shot – hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Jeff especially liked driving through and seeing the Badlands. This is where his favorite president, Roosevelt, initially kicked some butt. It was covered in snow, but still pretty neat to see.

South Dakota is very boring, and flat. Really not much to see. I joked with my friend Kaisa about living out here. I texted her as we were passing her hometown. I even asked her about the World Famous Tractor Museum that we kept seeing signs for. Even a native born and raised didn’t know what on earth I was talking about. Must not be that World Famous then! Haha.
Since SD is so flat and the rest stops are few and far between we thought we found a bigger stop that had food and gas. Well, come to find out it was just a gas station with no food available for 45 miles. At this point the kids are starving and crying for food. As a good mother what did I do? Let them loose and said pick what ever you want to eat for lunch . (At this critical point I was about to have a melt down. The kids rarely get candy and or chips, so this was an exception to make everyone stay happy at this particular point in the trip!) So there lunch was doughnuts, chips and water! Oh so healthy I know – you would have done the same thing!! Haha.

We also passed the hometown of Laura Ingalls Wilder. I grew up on Little House on the Prairie, and Jeff was so lucky we were traveling with the boys because if it was just us two we totally were stopping there and taking a tour and taking tons of pictures…instead we just drove by the exit and I just wondered what it was like to see!

Another funny thing we saw (I think it was in SD) were all these signs for the McNasty Brothers. It was a two person band what looked to be at a jazz joint. That would have been interesting to see if we were kid free.

We ended up in Souix City, Iowa. We just briefly entered Nebraska for a mile and then back into Iowa – but we are counting it as a state!

Next stop: ST Louis!

Miles Traveled:
Lost count… I think we are up to 4000 at this point.
Animals seen:
Birds, horses, cows.

Day 8. Rest of Montana, Wyoming.

Day Eight. Rest of Montana, Wyoming

Montana is a friggin' huge state. Over 600 exits! I thought we would never make it to Wyoming. There were some interesting things in Montana that we noticed. Signs for a Testicle Festival! See the picture for proof.

You make have to click this to get it larger!

We can only wonder what in the world they do at this interesting gathering! Im sure this is a normal thing with a funny name but I can’t imagine anything that isn’t disgusting or terrifying. Also there was a town called Smeltyville which coincidently smelt like onions when we drove by it on the ole' famous I-90 East. Last but not least we passed an exit for Crazy Woman Creek (or something along that lines, can’t really remember) but Jeff said he would gladly drop me off here. After 8 days of close quarters and traveling over 1500 miles together, you can only love that person so much!! Haha.

I really wish I kept up with typing along the way because I would have remembered all the funny stories that happened, but we were so crunched for time or tired or the kids were going wild that I didn’t have time to sit and type every day at the end of the day at the hotel room. I am kicking myself for not doing this.

This was a bad day for the kids. I shouldn’t say bad because they are terrific travelers. We had to stop quite a few times to pee and have lunch early because we ran out of snacks in the car. Our friend Scott that was traveling with us decided to go ahead and not stop because he was feeling good and drive on down to Gillette, WY and find us a nice hotel for the night. After lunch the boys took a long nap and we were able to cruise right on to Gillette. Scott found us a nice and inexpensive hotel for the night. It was a Fairfield Inn (a branch of Marriott). It had everything we needed, a laundry room, King Bed with a Queen pullout sofa in the other room, 2 TVS (this meant we could watch the news and not cartoons!) FREE breakfast in the morning (all the hotels we stayed in provided continental breakfast..the only way to go!) and last but not least a WATERPARK inside the hotel! We actually checked in around 7ish and Jeff went to Applebee’s to get curb side to go (finally a decent place to get a salad!) and I took the boys over to the water park. Ian loved it he was fearless ready to jump in the three foot deep lazy river. I opted to stay on the baby side which was only 1 foot deep. The only problem is Blake HATES showers, and there was water squirting everywhere, and dripping everywhere…very shower like. He hated the water park. He kept telling me to go home. (The boys now refer to home as whatever hotel room we were staying in at the time!)
All the showerlike items in the baby area!

After pool time was over it was time to do some wash…. I went to grab my wallet and grab some quarters….wait where was my wallet it was nowhere to be found! I left it in Missoula, MT!! In the hotel room!! CRAP! I called there and they said I had to wait until morning to talk to the head housekeeper lady that was in charge of all lost and found. I set my alarm, called & verified my wallet and belongings were still in there as well as Jeff’s workout shorts – and they said they would mail it to Alabama for me! Thank goodness. Four loads of laundry and a bedtime of 1145 – we were exhausted. Next stop Iowa!

Miles Traveled:
To many to count! Just A LOT
Animals seen:
Horses, Buffalo, Cows, birds.

Day 7. Washington, Idaho & Montana

Day 7. Washington, Idaho & Montana

We finally got off that god forsaken vessel. Driving off was fine – just waited our turn and off we went. The only bad thing is – the itinerary kept saying we were going to arrive at port at 8am. There was a confusion that the purser behind the desk (read: who didn’t speak much English) was trying to tell us the time we were getting in and we really couldn’t understand because the boat ran on AK time except when in Bellingham….so arrival time, in AK time or WA time? Long story short, we arrived at 1030 – 2.5 hours behind schedule.

Washington sure does have a variety of terrain. One minute there would be snowy mountains and curvy roads, then the next looked like a dessert with shrubs and a dusting of snow.
When we stopped for lunch, we were looking for a BBQ joint, but it turned out to be a gas station BBQ and we opted to skip that because we were trying to limit our bathroom breaks! We found a truck stop/family restaurant that suited just fine. When we pulled in we looked over both of our cars. Scott noticed that he had a metal spike sticking out of his newly bought Blissex Tires! So after we stuffed ourselves full of fatty foods Jeff and Scott changed the tire (read: with NASCAR like quickness) while the boys ran in a grass pasture collecting pine cones and doing who knows what with them. They had fun – and it pooped them out – they slept for a good portion of the trip!

We then drove into Idaho. (entering the state horrible, horrid windey roads !) Nothing much to see, then exiting the state same thing….scary roads. (per Kristin).

We tried to get every state sign that we drove through. But I couldn't get the correct camera functions to take it...so here is Idaho

Montana was snowy on and off. We forgot about the time change, so finally we got checked into the hotel in Missoula at 10pm. All the kids wanted to do was run around the hotel, so when we sat down to eat we had to get it to go – which was fine with us. And our dinner was so awesome. ( I had put scrumptious but Jeff is making fun of me, so I changed it just for him. Haha)

Yummy!!

View outside our hotel room in Missoula, MT.

Day Three-Six. The Malaspina.

Day Three-Six. The Malaspina.

Driving onto the Ferry
Nothing exciting to report been on the boat now for 24 hours. Stopped at Juneau at midnight – we were all sleeping and then another stop at 1130 at Sitka, AK. Nothing much to see, just connexes on the loading dock and a terminal. The view, however; is always great! The biggest problem is keeping the kids occupied by coloring, playing cards and playing adventure on the boat. Ian is pretty good at navigating his way back to our room – 137! Good thing, just in case we lose him on the boat.

Scott has once again amazed the kids by his juggling ability and Jeff fascinated Ian by the money behind the ear trick with a bouncy ball.

One exciting event that did happen today was that during our naptime a crew member knocked on our door and I answered. She asked are you Kristin our Pediatric Nurse. I said yes. She was like come to the Purser Desk please. Oh crap I was thinking. Turns out a 7 week old had a bump on his head and the new mom was concerned. This mom we also found out has 3 strains of DNA. 2 regular and one strand of complete crazy. She kinda followed us around the ship saying she was looking for us. She invited herself into our game of Texas Hold them, stole a chip or two from the boys. We just couldn’t shake this chick.

Our routine was practically the same every day. Wake up at 8am, Jeff and I would shower we would wake the boys up at 9am – go to the café – which was an exciting event for us. Out of the 50 or so tables there were about 6 “special ones”. These included illustrations of variety of Alaska Animals. One table was full of different whales, another birds, under the sea animals, bears etc. Heaven forbid that someone was at a table that we didn’t eat at! (read: major meltdown by both boys!) We would try to instill learning time and teach the boys, but it ended up which one was the biggest and he was going to eat all the other animals on that particular table. Then there was a movie usually playing shortly after breakfast. Then off to lunch, then nap time (read: peace and quiet to read a book, or actually take a nap, since when have we been able to do that?), then up to the café to stare at all the weird species of humans that also are traveling on this public transportation (read: defiantly not cruise like!) vessel.

Our last stop before our long 30+hour voyage of pure sea to Bellingham, WA was Ketichan, AK. This stop we were at port for 5+ hours so we thought we would wonder around this town to get off this ship! Ate lunch at a diner, went to the local pharmacy for some nail clippers (read: boys nails were turning into shears!) and then to a local grocery store to pick up some gossip magazines and a sailing one for Jeff (read: he thinks he is going to invest and pick out a sailboat and take me around the world) and a calling card – which this town had none. I was trying to call the HR lady in Columbus, GA because she sent me an email wanting to schedule an interview for a Pediatric and High Risk/Special Care Nursery position. AT&T Tower was down, but able to use internet….its all set up! Wish me luck on December 30th.

Then back on ship and more sailing……

Miles Traveled this trip:
Who knows – a lot of nautical miles!
Animals we saw:
Sea GullsSpecies of birds
And weird species of humans wondering this ship!

Funny Story: Scott had told Ian that a whale was going to come on board and eat him. So Ian was preoccupied of staring at the window trying to find the whale before we came on board. It took us lots of explaining that it would NOT happen!

Day Two

Day Two. (Pictures to come, have to download them to the computer)

Day two went pretty well. We woke up in Haines Junction, Yukon Territory, Canada to no fire alarm which is always pleasant. The hotel we stayed at, The Alcan was pretty decent. 2 queen beds, a microwave, coffee maker and a small fridge. Best of all when we arrived it was pitch black and in the morning the view was spectacular! Simply amazing; snow cap mountain ranges for miles. After a quick bite to eat at the attached restaurant we were off. Unfortunately we slept in late and weren’t able to use our loonies, so we kept them :)

The rest of the drive through Yukon Territory was uneventful except driving thru Destruction Bay. The roads turned a little icy and the wind was horrible. But despite that - not to bad. However, when we entered into British Columbia, it seemed to just have a dumping of snow. It was a complete white out, the road was white, the mountains were white – the only thing that was telling you where the edges of the road were –were the pole markers spread out every few feet . Entering back in to the United States the guard actually scanned our Passports. We drove through no problem and then 45 min later we stopped to stretch our legs right before Haines, AK. This is where we saw TONS of Bald Eagles. Too numerous to count, they were everywhere. We were lucky enough to pull in and one fly in a tree right in front of us and eat his prey. We captured some terrific pictures of this giant bird eating some type of fish!

Haines is a small town, with a main street and an IGA, VFW and a couple of cute little mom and pop shops. We ate lunch there at an old timy Saloon made of wood. It would have been straight out of “North to Alaska” except it was painted blaze orange and had the interior décor of something from a 1970’s elevator, and then were off to the terminal. We got there super early primarily because we didn’t want to drive in the dark and have the roads completely frozen for us. We got our tickets parked our car in lane 2 (which was labeled lane 3 for some reason) and waited inside for almost three hours. Jeff and I were about to kill the kids, but what can we do, they have been cooped up for a long time in the car and all they want to do is run around. We have misplaced the case of their Disney DVDs and the only one we have is Ice Age which has been watched million times this trip and they are getting sick of it. The kids read a dinosaur book and played tag with some other children in the terminal.

During the nighttime meltdown of both children we drive on the ferry and board our room. (read: box) of 2 bunk beds and our sitting room is a ratty old chair in the middle of the bunk beds. We do have a window though, which comes complete with one of the best views of the Alaskan Wilderness. Maybe Alex Supertramp should have taken the ferry instead!!

Once on board an announce was made that if any Doctors, Nurses or Medical were on board and willing to volunteer their services, please give them your name. I gave them my name at the same time thinking, please no emergencies this trip but secretly hoping to do something exciting!
We should also mention that our good friend Scott, Jeff’s fellow company commander is on this trip with us. He is headed to Phoenix City to spend the holiday with his family then heading up to Huntsville, AL to work with Space Command as his next assignment. He is great with the kids and most of all can entertain them by juggling any three toys in their toy bag!

We ended the night by Jeff telling stories to the kids before bedtime. Then Ian and Blake told their own haunted story. Blake’s was this: “The monster. Haunted House. Bad monster, took snacks. ROAR. The End.” (read: with hand motions, like he was holding a book, turning pages)

Funny Sayings:
Kristin: “Blake did you poop?”
Ian: “Yes he did.”
Kristin: “Well how do you know?”
Ian: “Because his butt stinks”
Day Two:
150 miles this leg
Animals seen this trip:
CrowsBlue eyed black dog
Eagles- too numerous to count
Dead Buffalo (in guys truck at hotel)