Pictures from the trip

Okay... hopefully this will work
Here are some pictures from our trip, the dinner, the winging, my picture with Sheri Dew, pictures of the kids... any questions, just ask! Oh and you can click on the pictures to make them bigger. (just an FYI for anyone out there!) Enjoy!

Is it really the end of February already!?

Wow! This month is sailing by! Jonas turned 5 on February 15th! I can't believe he's 5! It's amazing how fast 5 years have gone by! I can't imagine my life without him! He's so sweet, funny, and handful at times, but I love him all the same! It has been an amazing experience to raise a boy. We celebrated by going out to dinner and he got presents and cake at home. We also had cupcakes at school so it was a sugar coated day!
We left on February 16th and headed to Florida to visit Josh's parents in Milton, FL. We had a fun time while we were there. We celebrated Jonas' birthday with the family, and he got more presents! We got to see Josh's Dad's Corvette
which he and Grandpa Hensley (our kids Great Grandpa, or Josh's grandpa) painted and put the blue flames on. (don't know if you can tell from the pictures) Josh stayed busy helping add on to the front of the house. They always seem to have some building or car project in the works! lol! Josh hasn't been down to his parents house in over 2 years because they've been up to see us more lately. So it was nice to go down there for a change. We also got the kids pictures taken, because we tried to take pictures of them ourselves by the lake near their house, and it wasn't happening.
Maddie and her cousin Jessalyn, had a great time playing and so did Jonas with his cousin Jeffery Jr. We also got to meet Jackson, the kids newest cousin, and he's such a cutie pie!
We then headed up to Enterprise, Alabama, to Ft. Rucker, to see Jon and Jenny. Jon is in the Army and had his winging. We had a nice dinner on Wednesday evening, and then Thursday was his winging, and he asked Josh to pin his wings on. It was really neat. Josh and Jon both fly the Blackhawk, but for different branches of the military. Jon and Jenny will be moving up to Kentucky where they will be at Ft.Campbell.
Then I got to go with Josh's sister Jenna and his Mom (Nori) to the Timeout for women in Orlando, Fl. I even got my picture taken with Sheri Dew! lol! I know she thought I was a little strange, but oh well! I really enjoyed the time out for women and am so glad I went. The speakers were wonderful, and it was so awesome! I also got to see my niece and nephew, Nick and Cami Wilson! And I realized I didn't get their picture! We were too busy talking! I'm so glad I got to see them, and just catch up. It's so fun to see them living their lives and Nick is in college now and working! I'm so excited for them, they are in one of the most exciting times of their lives! It was fun just listening to them talk.
We then drove back north and met Josh and the kids at a McDonalds. Then switched cars, bags, car seats. Josh gave back Jeffy and Jessalyn for me. It was a great trip, and now we are getting back into the swing of things. We only have a month until we know if Josh got into the Olmstead program! I will post more pictures when blogger isn't giving me problems loading the rest of my photos!

Being a stay at home Mom.....

Its been a busy time here in the Hensley household. Last week we took a quick trip up Wednesday evening to Washington D.C.. Josh had his interview with the Olmstead people. It went well, and so now we wait for March, and I'm calling it the magic month because a lot of our friends as well as us will be finding out where we will be in March, and our lives will be changed as soon as we know... like magic. So, Saturday night Josh and I attended a Change of Command Dinner. It was held at the Nauticus in Downtown Norfolk. It was a bit strange they set up tables in the museum, and served us dinner. So not really a dining hall, but we were at tables. It was way too tight, and they always do a video and they couldn't turn the lights off, so that stunk too, the dinner was $55 dollars (per person, so for us $110) and it wasn't that great honestly. We did have a good time... BUT, I was sitting at a table with several other Moms. One of the Ladies had two kids, and to her she said it was very overwhelming, which I agree it is to be a Mom. So for her, the choice was easy, she went back to work. Which made me go, WHAT?!?? I really don't understand how working and having kids is easier? I would love an explanation! Basically to me she said, I am willing to pay someone else to raise my kids. She does not have to work, trust me, we are just fine (our husbands make around the same pay, and we have more kids!).
She chooses to work. I really don't understand if you have the option to stay home, you choose to work? I think about all the things that I get to do with my kids that if I worked I would miss out on. Yes there is a lot of stuff I'd love to miss, all the poopy diapers, and occasional disagreements between siblings. I have never missed seeing my kids first steps, heard them say their first real word, I watched Eliza climb up (and scared me to death) the stairs! There are so many great Moms I know who would give anything to be able to stay home with their kids, and can't financially, and it just kills me that someone who has kids would give up all the great moments she could be having with her kids to work a job that really isn't as important as being a mom. I have a college degree, I could be working, but I think the most important place for me to be is at home. My kids need me. Honestly I think the world would be a better place if all Mothers were able to be at home with their kids every day, be there to take them to school, be there when they got home, and just be there. I know it's not easy to be a Mom, trust me, I get it. Jonas is turning 5 on Thursday, and it seems like just yesterday he was this brand new tiny little baby, and I was trying to figure out how to find time to get myself showered, dressed and fed around him. Five years has flown by and pretty soon he'll be 10 before I know it! So I guess my message tonight is, IF you can BE home, be home. Enjoy your children, I know I complain sometimes, but really I do Love them. I have learned so much for them, and never knew I could love people the way that I love them. It's amazing. Whew! I'm done venting about that I feel better now.

THE COLTS WIN, THE COLTS WIN!!!!!

We are the Champions. Colts beat the Bears 29-17. It wasn't a pretty game at all, but it was a typical Colts game. Wow! After all the years of watching the Colts, and knowing they were the best, and not seeing them get to the big game, they got there and they WON! It was a wonderful victory, and it's so nice to know that dreams (mine in particular!) can come true!

Getting ready for the Superbowl....

Okay, if you don't know this about us I will let you in on something. We're HUGE Indianpolis Colts fans. I used to watch before Josh and I were married, but back then they weren't so good. We kind of made it our tradition after we got married to watch football together. I love football, and know few women my age that love it as much as I do. So for 8 years now, we have watched Peyton Manning (the quarterback for the Colts in case you didn't know) through all the good times and the bad. We know all of those disappointed looks he has, and trust me he has them, and we don't like it when he shows those. But, we have over the years hoped that someday that they would go to the Superbowl, and now they are there. We have some Colts flags on the windows of our car, and I have received lots of comments about being a Colt fan. Most aren't supportive, but it's funny to me. The funniest one by far was going through the McDonald's drive through and the Lady at the window said, "Have a nice day, even though you are a COLTS fan." She was a Saints fan, but too bad they got beat. Then going through the gate on base, the guy at security was giving me grief, but this time I said, well the Colts are going to win. I've even had dreams of being surrounded by Bears fans and shouting that the Colts are going to win and then they will see who's the better team. It's funny I'm becoming almost obsessed with this game! Tomorrow the Colts play in the Superbowl, we will all get decked out in our Colts stuff as we do every Sunday the Colts play (our tradition, you have to wear your Colts shirt when they play or it's bad luck), and win or lose (we hope they win of course!) they are still our team, and we will still be their biggest fans. (although we do think the BEARS Stink!)
GO COLTS!!!!

Kids say the darndest things....

My friend told me a funny thing Jonas said in primary (at church) yesterday. Apparently they were doing a spotlight of a certain child, and they have everyone stand up and say clues about the child to help everyone guess who the person they are talking about is. And when it's not the person they sit down until the person the spotlight is about is left standing. Apparently the child being spotlighted had 2 brothers and one sister, but Jonas kept standing, and they told him to sit down since he didn't have any brothers.
But he told them he doesn't have a brother now, but he's working on it! My friend told him, good luck on that! lol! He must be saying little prayers that he will get a brother someday!
By the way, I am NOT pregnant, so I have no idea where he got that!

Home from Dubai...

I'm home! And all I can say is WOW! Everything that happend before I left getting ready for the trip is all a distant memory. The trip to Dubai was so needed.

I needed to get away, have some fun and be with my husband for a few days. Josh's Mom and Grandma arrived on Wednesday Jan.17th in the afternoon. The kids had a lot of fun with the Grandma's. I honestly wasn't worried at all when I left them since I knew that Grandma would spoil them rotten, and she did! I flew out of Norfolk on Thursday around noon. I flew to Detroit, and then from Detroit to Amsterdam. The flight to Amsterdam was 8 hours. It was a long flight, and honestly I didn't sleep at all. I tried, but I really was too excited to sleep. I arrived in Amsterdam at 7a.m. the next day and had a long layover there. So while there I found out there was a little tour you could go on where they drove you around town in a shuttle bus, and they made a few stops and you could see Amsterdam. I got to see how they make the wooden dutch shoes, really cool. I bought a pair for Maddie, which she loves to walk in and then tap dance (or stomp depedning on how you look at it!)on our hard wood floors in the dining room. Here's me in the giant wooden shoes outside the shop.

Amsterdam is definately a place I would like to return to and visit, there were a lot of cool museums I would love to go and spend hours visiting.




Doing the tour definately helped the time pass quickly and then it was off to Dubai.
The flight to Dubai is 6 hours. Oh and if you're wondering, Amsterdam is 6 hours ahead of the Eastern time zone, and Dubai is 9. So, I arrived in Dubai a little later than planned because of some glitch in the check in with security getting on the plane. So we arrived at 12:30a.m. on January 20th. It was so nice to walk out with my bags (we figured out Josh couldn't meet me at the luggage there for some reason!) and immediately see Josh waiting among the crowd of people. We got into a taxi and drove to our hotel. We stayed at the Kempinksi Hotel which is attached to the Emarites Mall. I highly recommend this place, it is so nice. Our room was HUGE! Here are some pictures of our room, the hall, the awesome swimming pool, and the view from our room of some of Dubai.






We did a lot of walking around the Emarites Mall, and around several other malls.


We went because each of the malls are different in architecture, and the designs, which made them fun to go to.


We went on a dessert safari that we got to be driven wildly through the dessert, up and down hills.

Watched the sunset in the desert,

rode some camels,



rode on some 4x4's in the desert, ate a barbeque, and got to watch a belly dancer. We took lots of taxi rides to go around town.

We shopped at the local markets where all the tourists go to make deals for t-shirts, drank drinks that were cold fruit with the top cut off and a straw stuck in it,



and we went to the City of Gold

where if you want to get good deals for nice jewelry this is the place to go. Shops upon shops of Gold. On our last night we went on a dinner cruise,

which had us going up and down the Canal. All in all, the trip was fabulous! We had so much fun together. We ate lots of unique food, and found that they have some of the best fruit drinks I've ever tasted! We also got up at 3:30a.m. Dubai time to watch the Colt win the AFC Championship game... We're going to the SUPERBOWL baby! We probably woke up our neighbors with our shouts of joy!
We also got some news while over there, Josh is now an "Official Olmstead candidate" which means he has a greater chance of getting into the program. His interview is scheduled for Feb.8th!! So we will know after that if he will be in or not.
The kids are so glad to have Daddy home, and of course so am I. Jonas was so cute when he hugged Josh, and said "Daddy I really missed you." I really could've cried when he said that, it was so sweet.
I took Josh's Mom and Grandma to the airport this morning, so we have our little family together again, and it's wonderful.

Funny faces..

I realized as I was looking at some photos that I have some pictures of the kids making some really funny faces. I realize I don't post these pictures because they aren't smiling all cutesy or anything, but thought it might be fun to share some of these funny faces with you.




Josh's Mom and Grandma will be arriving tomorrow afternoon! Then Thursday I'm headed out to see Josh! I'm very excited! I will definately post pictures when I return! I'm sure I'll have some good one's to share!

You know there's trouble when....

Your four year old comes downstairs and says it's snowing in his room! So I go upstairs and He and Maddie, and probably Eliza had taken out this foam packaging out of a box for a statue I was given for my birthday, and ripped up the foam packaging to make it look like it had snowed! And it had snowed, all over the entire attic room upstairs on BOTH sides! I wasn't thrilled at all since I had just gotten the entire thing cleaned and vaccumed yesterday. And so I had to do it again because Eliza was trying to eat the snow. GRR! It's funny now, but at the moment it wasn't.
This has been a nice quiet weekend at home for us. I have spent a lot of time cleaning and trying to get everything ready for when Grandma Nori and Great Grandma Betty Hensley come to watch the kids for me to go on my trip.
The Colts won yesterday, and for the first time EVER, I'm hoping the Patriots win against the Chargers so the Colts will get tp play the AFC Championship game at home. We shall see, the Patriots are trying to lose right now!
Josh said something cute in his e-mail to me yesterday before the Colts played. If the Colts won we'd be able to watch the game together next week... and now we will! YEAH!
UPDATE- THE PATRIOTS WON, so the COLTS WILL BE PLAYING AT HOME!!! WOO HOO!!!!!

I would've been on an airplane right now...

But due to bad things going on in the world, my flight to see Josh had to be changed since they wouldn't be in Dubai, and since I didn't want to go there alone, we changed it! So I'm now leaving Thursday afternoon. I'm getting excited, and now thinking of all the things I need to have done around the house before Josh's Mom and Grandma arrive on Wednesday to take care of the kids. Not only am I going to see my husband in a week, but he's going to be returning home with me!! I'm so glad, and the kids will be so excited too! And, on our flight back we'll be in Minneapolis for a longer layover, so we will be meeting up with my longtime friend Eli and his wife Tiffane, I can't wait to see him again and meet his wife for the first time! I'm just looking forward to spending a weekend at home, and getting laundry washed and put away, and me starting to pack for my trip!

Walk a mile in her shoes....

I realized something about myself today that I'm not proud of, but I'm going to admit it and get it out there. I have been judging someone I go to church with because of her sons behavior, now not to say that I know she's not trying, or that our sons are exactly alike, because they aren't. I'm sure she is trying, but I have been judging her thinking she's must not be doing enough, since he still continues to act up. I realized that I'm being a hypocrit. Yep, there it is. That's what I am, a hypocrit. As the saying goes, walk a mile in their moccasins. This woman puts on a brave face at church, but no one sees (I'm just guessing here) the tears she cries, or the prayers that are said to receive some guidance on what to doto help her son. No one knows (until it happens to you) how humilitating it can be to have your child brought to you for misbehavior at church or to be told your child was terrible at school.

Recently Jonas has been acting up/or out if you will. I know he misses Josh a lot, I'm not saying that justifies his behavior, but I do know that every child deals with things differently. He truly does miss his Daddy. This deployement has been difficult for him. He's had a handful of incidents at school, but the majority seem to be happening at church where he misbehaves, and no matter how many timeouts were given during the block of church time he has continued to act out. Recently I've taken a new approach, that I'm hoping will work. What's the new approach, grounding him from his favorite things. Before now I didn't think it was right to ground as he wasn't old enough to really understand. When he realized yesterday that I was actually going to ground him as I had warned him would happen, it definately sunk in. (instant remorse was shown, but of course didn't soften my heart to change my mind) It will take time, he is a good boy and wants to be, it's just learning to control all that energy and all of those emotions that he has and seems to freely express. That is the challenge that I face, and have been facing alone for now. Jonas and I will make it through this. Now don't get me wrong, I love this kid so much. He's really so much fun, and says stuff that cracks me up! And it's so fun to watch him learn new things, and see that look of enjoyment on his face. I just have to remind myself that he is only 4 and still learning, and honestly so am I! IF you read this far you deserve a medal for reading my ramblings.

So we're outside when...

Maddie says, "Mommy take my picture!" Well who can pass up an opportunity like that when your child wants you to take their picture! So I got my camera out and snapped some cute ones of the kids! It was fun.