Let's play Battleship!

Our family enjoys a good game of Battleship, well, most of us. I will find almost any excuse not to play, truly, ANY excuse. I'm no good at it and I can't stand that it takes a million years to play it. I need not say anything about Monopoly if Battleship is too long. Anyway, if we have to play, let's play on a real life Battleship! That folks, is exactly what we did! We drove for an exceedingly long time to go visit the beach and a battleship that is parked on a river. It. Was. Awesome! Not the drive of course, because anyone that knows me knows that I detest the car for any amount of time. I am way worse than the children. I actually have thoughts when we're driving that sound something like this in my head," How am I ever going to survive this car ride?! We are never going to get there. I want to just curl up in a ball and cry my eyes out while throwing a huge fit that I am still confined to this blasted car seat!" No that's not a exaggeration. You can ask dear hubby, he'll tell you that I have actually told him my thoughts about the car, on more than one occasion. Anyway, once the awful drive was over, and I quite literally jumped out of the car, I was so happy that we had made the drive. We were staying for the weekend, so the first stop was the beach. Another well known fact about me is that I do indeed hate the beach. The sand, smell and feel of the salt on my skin are just a few reasons I don't like to spend time there. But the littlest offspring had never been to the beach. Not to mention the other three members of our family love the beach. In fact they love the sand and the smell and the salt water that is there in abundance to play in. I was just happy to be out of the car, so I'll take the beach! The day had turned rather blustery, but we didn't mind. We tried for a little while to only have little feet go in the water due to it being windy and cold, but little B just couldn't help himself. So, off came his pants.

Even when it's the beginning of April and it's cold outside, the water on this side of the country is WAY warmer than on the west coast. He didn't even act like it bothered him at all. I wouldn't let the waves wash over his legs, so when they came, I stood him up. But he loved the wet sand. He would pick it up and throw it towards the water. He loved to hold it and squeeze it through his fingers.

When I stood him up he would stomp his feet and dig his toes into the sand. 

This young one had no use for the water due to it being too cold. Not to mention, we had seen a dolphin in the water. He was convinced it was a shark and so there was no way he was risking the loss of life and limb. Not to mention, he had found not one, but two trucks in the sand and was happy to play with them while staying dry. He really wanted to walk on the pier, so we went up there. We couldn't figure out how to get onto it. There was a locked gate, but we could see that people were out there. So, we went around the building that was on the end of the pier. There was no way out there on the other side either. We went into the store to ask how to get out there. There was a door in the side of the store, that was the only way to get on to the pier. We started to go out, but realized that you had to pay to walk on the pier. Lame! Since we had been on a pier before, we opted out of paying and walked under it instead

She could cartwheel her way through life. She did stand upright once in a while, but mostly she just liked doing cartwheels.

They loved being at the beach so much that we ended up staying for almost two hours. I will admit that it was cool to see and hear waves. That didn't happen in Florida, so waves are cool and so was seeing a dolphin play next to a surfer.

We went to the hotel and went swimming in the freezing cold pool. OK, I was the only one that thought it was cold. They all loved it and I will say that I love to people watch and there are always interesting people to watch at a hotel swimming pool. The next morning was the trip to the battleship.

This is most of the ship. I tried to get all of it in the picture, but if I had gone back far enough to get all of it, the ship would have been tiny.

This the propeller that was on the ship when it was in use during World War II.  This ship was big enough that it could hold 2300 men on it at one time. Some of the crew were only on it for a few months and other's were on it for a few years. 

It was raining when we got there, so we wanted to look at the stuff on the main deck before the rain got worse. It was freezing! It was cool to read all the little signs that were on the ship. It was cool to imagine this plane flying onto the ship and being able to land it safely. 

These guns were all over the sides of the ship. They were on both sides. 

These were all over the front, on both sides. If I remember right, it took three men to use this gun. They had it locked in place, but if it hadn't been locked, B would have been able to stand up straight with the rest things on his shoulders and move it around like it was meant to be moved. I think it would have been terrifying to be the ones to use any of these guns. One sign said that the ship had hit a Japanese plane and there were Japanese soldiers in the water. The guy that had written the thing said that he looked down and saw this Japanese soldier looking at the ship. He knew that the Japanese solider was trying so hard to memorize this battleship so that if he got rescued or made it out of the water without being caught, he could tell his Captain what the big American ship looked like. But the Japanese guy never had a chance, as he was floating there, someone on the ship took him out with one of these guns. How awful! I am thankful there are men and women willing to keep us safe, but it has to be such an awful job!

There were four or five of these big pot things. Can you imagine being the cook for a ship that can hold 2300 people? Everything in the kitchen was huge. It would have to be, I know, but it was still amazing to see pots, pans and ovens that were big enough that you could cook people in. 

This is at the front of the ship. Want to see the bullets they used for those guns back there? OK, I'll show you!

Crazy right?!

The whole thing was so awesome! We spent two hours on the ship. We could have spent longer but M was truly freaking out because she was panic stricken that we were lost in the belly of the ship and that we were never going to see the light of day again. She kept asking if we knew where we were and where the door was to get out. One time I made the mistake of saying,"I don't know." in response to K asking what something was for. M thought I was telling her that I didn't know where we were or how to get out. I'll spare you the details, but I learned not to say that again. Not only was M a basket case, but the young one attached to me really wanted to get down, me not complying to his request resulted in a few good smacks to the chest by his head. K wanted to know what every single screw and bolt was used for and most of the time we couldn't answer him. So, after M falling apart because I said I didn't know, little B slamming his head into my chest for the millionth time and K asking,"what's that for?" for the million-billionth time, I was really ready to leave. 

This is how he felt about the ship-not impressed. He's the only one that didn't love one thing about this ship. The rest of us really liked it and are amazed at it's size and that it was used in real life!

 

Already?

We aren't sure how, but the last 365 and a fourth days went from this:

  To this!

Yes folks, a year has already come and gone. No one knows just how it happens so fast, but it does. One night you're up all night with a crying teeny tiny one and it seems like the next day he's pushing a car as he walks behind it. This little dude makes everyone in our house happy. He laughs really hard when M and K act like hooligans, which is basically every day! He loves all food and would be so happy to eat all day. He adored his bottle so when it was time to switch to a sippy cup, he declared mutiny and wouldn't drink milk for at least two full days. We tried to trick him by warming the milk up before we put it in the sippy cup, but he wouldn't have it. Finally, he gave in and no longer wants a bottle. He. Loves. Cars! Just like K! If you put a wide array of toys in front of him, he will pick the cars every time. He crawls around while he pushes them all over the house. He doesn't like to be cuddled. The other day he was crawling on the kitchen floor. His hand slipped and he face planted onto the tile. When I picked him up to love him, he pushed against me. He just wanted to be held while he cried, but he wouldn't look at me or let me love on him at all. He says, hi and waves, well it looks more like his arm in broken and he flops it around, but he does it while he says hi so we're saying it's a wave. He loves to say whoa! Especially when M and K are being loud and crazy. He'll look at you and with big eyes he whispers/forces the W sound out while he says "whoa!" It's awesome! He just started saying uh oh and will say it about a million times a day. In the car he just says it over and over. He does NOT like the blow dryer or the vacuum. Both of those send him into instant tears. We're not talking a few tears. No, he cries like the lid on the solid wood toy box just came down and smashed his finger. It doesn't matter if you are vacuuming or blow drying your hair in another room, he will start crying and trying to crawl away from the sound. He loves to wake M and K up in the morning. I usually get him first and then take him into their rooms. He stands next to their beds and hits their pillows or mattresses all the while jabbering away that it's time to wake up. He loves to be outside and when we go to the park or go on a walk, if he gets a snack whilst being outside it's like the best day of his life! He loves primary songs and at church on Sunday's when he's totally exhausted and ready for a nap and we still have 2 1/2 hours to go until church is over, if we go into the primary room where he can hear the kids singing, he'll calm down and just listen. He is such a chilled out happy little boy. We all love him so much and are so thankful that he came to our family!   

kitchen chairs

I don't normally like to toot my own horn, but TOOT TOOT is all I have to say about our kitchen chairs! We bought our table and chairs a meager 6 1/2 years ago. They survived the move from Utah to Florida with only minor damage. They survived the move from Florida to here with only a little more minor damage. Little by little, the fake leather has started to peel away. It doesn't help when little fingers see that the stuff is peeling off and they can't help but help with the shedding process. I thought that it would be so cool to be able to recover the chairs. But as we all know, I am less than handy and I just saw dollar signs as my trying to be handy and recover the chairs turned into us buying all new chairs because I totally destroyed the ones we had. Every day when I would see little pieces of fake leather on the kitchen floor I thought more and more about figuring out how to recover the chairs. I was talking about it whilst standing in a group of ladies from our ward one night. When I mentioned that I wished I knew how to do things like recover kitchen chairs, J perked up and said that she has in fact recovered some chairs before. She said that it was really easy. That the cushion of the chair screws on with little screws. All I would have to do is unscrew the cushions, buy material and using a staple gun, staple the material around the cushions and then screw them back onto the chair. She made it sound so easy but I know myself too well. I know that when I do things that should be easy, like add oil to the lawn mower, it never goes smoothly. What usually happens is I add too much oil and when I try to turn the lawn mower on the oil cap goes shooting skyward as the oil rains down on the grass, mower and me. Then we have to spend a good chunk of our day researching how to drain oil out of a lawn mower without the whole thing exploding. But who's talking about oil and lawn mowers? Let's talk about kitchen chairs. After J told me how to do it I went home and flipped our chairs over. No shocker, I didn't see any screws in the bottom of the chairs. A few weeks later J was over for something and I remembered to ask her about the chairs. She looked at them and after some deep investigation she found the screws. I played it cool and told her that I was sure I could recover the chairs now that the screws had been found. That night I said a quick prayer and turned the chair upside down. I prayed and unscrewed chairs and prayed some more. I called my mom to ask her how much material I should buy. She told me to find the area and double it. I did, but the answer told me that I needed something like 27 yards of material. Now, I'm no rocket scientist, but that seemed like way too much material. I did the next smartest thing I could think to do. I took one of the cushions with me to Jo Ann's where I met J and she led, guide and walked beside me as we put the material on the counter, put the cushion on the material and rolled it over to see how much it would take to cover one cushion. That scientific method told us that we didn't need near 27 yards, so we went with that way instead of my mom's way. Later that night J gave me a brief tutorial on how to do it. I took her staple gun and staples and went home. I'm not gonna lie, I was so nervous,I was sweating profusely.

These are the before pictures. This is what they looked like from each side. Poor sad little seats.

This is what they looked like when I was done! Not too bad for my first go around with covering chairs if you ask me! B was a huge help. He would hold the material tight while I used the staple gun. We're not expecting these chairs last through the millennium, but we wouldn't mind if they did!