Happy Birthday To Me!

Well, on Thursday I had my quarter century birthday and I am officially half way through my twenties. :) 25 years old!  Can't believe it!  I was a little iffy about how my birthday would go this year without Kyle home...again.  Last year he was in the field and I wasn't even able to talk to him, but thankfully I was able to extend my trip home to Oregon to spend my birthday with family.  This year I didn't have that privilege, but I was definitely surprised with how well my Marine Corps family celebrated my birthday! Here is a glimpse of my birthday :)

I was getting ready for my work day at 7:00am and get a call from my lovely parents telling me Happy Birthday! :) Then I got this text message directly after:

I could NOT stop smiling after that!  That is my good friend Mandee and her daughter, Marcella, and son, Maddox.  Her husband Stu went to TBS with Kyle in Virginia.  They got stationed in Hawaii too, but Stu is deployed, so Mandee and the kids are with her parents in Ohio until they get housing on base.  But guess what?!  They FINALLY got a house and Kyle and I will be picking them up from the airport on the 3rd and they will be staying with us until Monday when they move into their house! I am SO excited and have been waiting for this day to finally come! :)  Thanks again for the text!  It made my day! :)

I headed to work to see the lovely children I work with.  I walk into the room that all the kids get dropped off in.  When I walk in they all scream, "Happy Birthday!" and then they started singing to me! :)  A few minutes later, two sisters (who may be some of my favorites :) ), Grace (8 years old) and Abigail (6 years old) walk in with their Dad and they have a BEAUTIFUL bouquet of flowers!  I looked at their Dad and said, "You did not have to do that...".  Then he responds with, "Last night they were BEGGING me to let them get flowers for Miss Brittney.  So I took them to Food Land at 9pm."  He smiled and I said, "Well, thank you! I appreciate it!" 

Abigail, Me, & Grace :)

Then after breakfast, we always meet in the gym to separate kids into their groups and tell them our schedule for the day.  I walked in and there was a big box covered in wrapping paper.  The kids started shouting, "Open. It! Open. It!"  I opened the box, dumped it out and there were hand written cards from all of the kids and birthday balloons!  It was such a surprise! 

Happy Birthday To Me :)

After that I took the box into the staff room and look at what I was greeted with!

  

After lunch I went with the younger group (6 to 8 year olds) to the pool on base.  This whole summer the kids would go to the pool once a week, as well as gymnastic (there is a gymnastics gym on base which is GREAT for kids!).

Belly Flop!!!

Now this is Hawaii for you! Sunny one minute and pouring the next :)

My coworkers (who are mostly Marine wives) made my day SO special! I was not expecting any of that! They truly made my day feel special even though my Marine was gone.  Thank you all!

After work I went to Starbucks to redeem my free coffee! It was delicious!

:)

Yum!

I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to talk to Kyle or not, since he is still on ship, but he CALLED! :)  Reception was going in and out because he was on the top deck of the ship, but they were close enough to shore to get a bit of reception.  It was so wonderful to be able to talk to him. :)

Last night I had the privilege of going to dinner with some close friends to celebrate my birthday.  We went to a restaurant in Kailua (right outside of base) called The Grove.  I am truly blessed with the friends I have made here...they are WONDERFUL Godly women that I learn from daily :) Thanks for a great dinner last night!

My delicious salmon!

Left side of the table starting in the front:

Stephanie (I met Steph in Virginia.  Her husband Patrick went to TBS with Kyle.  And this was her first night away since having her little boy, Evan, on June 1st)

Amy (I can see her house from mine :) I met her at Bible study and she is an amazing, passionate woman of God! She is a great mentor)

Valerie (I met Valerie back in March at Bible study.  She is a newly wed and we became friends quickly!)

Jenny (Jenny is the gal I lived with for a couple months while Kyle was gone and her husband was deployed.  We miss each other!  And don't tell our husbands, but we miss living together SO much! :)

Right side of the table starting in the back:

Rachael (Rach is my next door neighbor and we are almost one of the only wives with no children on our street :) We love it though!)

Jenny (I met Jenny at Bible study too! We actually had the same skydiving instructor! She's a blast!)

Me

Aimee (Now, this is an interesting story...Aimee's boyfriend, who is also named Kyle, moved to Hawaii a couple months ago.  Kyle's dad, Casey, is my Kyle's dad's boss.  Catch that? ;) My Kyle worked at the company for a little bit after we got married and he'd met Casey through my father-in-law Larry.  Well, Casey came out to Hawaii and Larry told Kyle to get in touch with him.  So we went out to dinner with him and his son, Kyle and his girlfriend, Aimee.  We've exchanged numbers and have been doing double dates which has been fun.)

Free birthday dessert.  Mango/Berry sorbet with blueberries!

Oh! And before Kyle left for RIMPAC, he surprised me with an early birthday present so I could spend my time alone to use it and get it all together!

Thanks everyone for all the birthday blessing and wishes, birthday gifts, and wonderful memories of a birthday I had to celebrate without Kyle!  Love you all!

Working 9 to 5

Well, actually 7 to 3:30, but it's still 40 hours a week.  I've been busy, but it's been fun! Here's a little bit from the field trips we've been taking lately.

Tiki Island is a little putt-putt and bumper boats place on base.  I've drove past it a lot, but never went.  It's great for kids! I went in the bumper boats and of course the kids want to spray the staff :) So needless to say, I got a tad bit wet soaked.

We took the kids to Pearl Harbor.  It was a rough day for the kiddos...probably won't take them there again, but it was nice to visit there again, since I haven't been since 2008.

Inside the USS Arizona Memorial.

God Bless America

Last week we took the kids to Chuck E Cheese's! I haven't been there since I was a kid! Exactly how I remembered it :) The kids loved it!

Ski ball is an all-time favorite! Kids were much more well behaved than Pearl Harbor, but there was one little accident...a boy came up to me and said, "I have to use the restroom!" I told him, "Okay, go ahead."  Then he looked surprised and said in a desperate voice, "I'm going!!!"  I look down and he's peeing! Poor guy, I tell him to "Come on! Hurry!" and we rush to the restroom.  And on top of that, it was super hero day for spirit week and the little guy was in a spiderman suit! I think he just got so excited he didn't want to stop playing, that by the time he realized he had to go it was too late :(

Friday was sports team day, so I wore Kyle's Oklahoma Thunder jersey of Kevin Durant.  The kids loved it!

I had a 6 day work week this week.  So for Saturday, we had something called a Summer Splashdown on base.  It was free to families.  We had a bunch of water activities like inflatable slides, a dunk tank, water balloon toss, big bubble toys, football toss through a tire, ladder golf, egg walk, potato sack race, free ice cream, and free smoothies from Orange Julius! They also had prizes for the games.  The kids and families seemed to love it.  There was a huge turnout!  It's wonderful that the base puts on such wonderful free activities for military families. 

Skydiving!

Well, a week ago today, Kyle and I went skydiving! I am still feeling the adrenaline rush!  We drove up to the North Shore to try a once-in-a-lifetime experience...and hopefully not our last experience, if you catch my drift ;)  We went skydiving with Ken, who is the Australian Captain, staying with us.  He also had three other "mates" who are here for RIMPAC, so they came with us too! At first we weren't going to pay for pictures, but then we found out it was cheaper than we initially thought, so we paid for a photographer for me on my jump! I wish Kyle would have had pictures taken too, but he's not as obsessed with pictures as I am :)

Here are a few shots from our AMAZING experience! Family and friends, if skydiving is on your bucket list, then you should save up to do it here!  It is a beautiful view!

Here are some snapshots from our experience:

A little anxious before takeoff!

Here we go!

Clockwise from top left: Me and Kyle waiting our turn...eeeekkkk!!! Kyle and Ken excited to jump out of a plane. Beautiful view. Am I ready for this?! Ken jumping out of the plane! 

What a rush!  They scoot you out of the plane so quick, there is barely time to think, "I'm about to jump out of a plane" so that's a good thing I guess :)  The initial free fall is a blast! I couldn't stop smiling! Then about 30 seconds in I realized I wasn't breathing...I tried to breathe and couldn't! I sorta remained calm in a panicky sorta way ;) Then I remembered someone said to breathe through your nose and that helped a TINY bit.  Once the chute opened it was perfect :)

Beautiful ocean view

Shaka! :)

Preparing to land.  Scott my instructor was awesome! He even let me steer when we were parachuting down!

We survived! A check off our bucket list, which gives me an idea, I should definitely do a post about my bucket list!

I don't know if I'll be doing this again any time soon, but I wouldn't mind doing it again someday.  I would most definitely, recommend this for those of you who have never jumped out of a plane!

"Today we celebrate our Independence Day!"

Name that movie! One of Kyle's favorite B list actors and two of mine...Jeff Goldblum (Kyle and me) and Bill Pullman (me), are in it. :) Independence Day!

Before I fill you in on how we celebrated our 4th, I need to fill you in on our house guest.  We are hosting an Australian Captain at our house for 10 days, the 1st through the 10th.  He is going on RIMPAC (RIM of the PACific) with Kyle.  They are going on a Mexican ship called the USS Essex.  It's an amphibious ship that can load ships and most importantly, AAV's from the water :)

The Essex

Ken has been a great guest.  He has taught us a lot about Australia, like their government, people (specifically, aboriginals), and places to see.  I'm getting a great little history lesson about Australia, while he lives here.  He's got a great accent too, that I actually need to pay close attention to cause it's hard to understand sometimes.  It's just crazy how we both speak English, but the vocabulary we use can be so different.  For example, he uses "cheers" to say "thank you", "blokes" for "idiot", "mate" for "friend", "petrol" for "gasoline".

So, for our 4th of July, we wanted Ken to experience a typical 4th.  In the morning we got up and went to Pyramid Rock, a beach on base, so Kyle and Ken could boogy board and I could catch some rays.

Pyramid Rock. Beautiful Independence Day Morning.

After our relaxing morning, we got ready and went to a BBQ at our next door neighbors, Rachael and Derek's.  They BBQ'd ribs and they were de-licious! They are both from Texas and know how to BBQ :) The food and company were great! :)

Relaxing till the ribs are ready

Rach pulling the tasty ribs off the grill.

Ribs, watermelon, coleslaw, chips and queso, and cake.  What could be better? :)

When it was time to eat the cute American Flag cake, we took it inside because it started drizzling.  The movie, Independence Day, started playing and we asked Ken if he'd seen it.  He said yes with a little smirk. So, we told him there's nothing more patriotic than watching America fight Aliens :) 

After a traditional 4th of July BBQ, we wanted Ken to experience a firework show, so we drove into Honolulu.  Boy, was it crowded! But Ken enjoyed the show and said it was one of the biggest he'd seen :) But Kyle and I kept comparing to last year when we were in Washington D.C. on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial...that firework show was AMAZING! I'll definitely want to go back and experience that again someday.

Before heading into Honolulu. Happy 4th!

Kyle and Ken being nice and posing for my picture :)

Beautiful buildings with the sun reflection

Spectacular evening!

Before the firework show at Ala Moana Park

I LOVE FIREWORKS! :)

I think Ken enjoyed his first ever 4th of July.  It was fun being able to give him an American holiday experience.  Hope you all had a fun and safe Independence Day!  I'll leave you with one of the best speeches from a movie and what I opened up with :)