Farewell to the Families

Weeeell, since these lastest posts are catching everyone up, I'll start by saying we are now in GERMANY!!!  Yaayy!!!!  We are living on post in a 3 bedroom apartment.
Buuut, before we get to that, we made some trips to say our farewells to the fams before we left.
First we went to Houston to visit the hubs' family. It was the first time in years that all the kids were all together, so took the oppurtunity to take family pic :)

The brothers, I love this pic :)

Then after Houston, later on in Aug before the big move, I flew home to Canada to see my family (Curtis had limited leave days by then)

And since we were all home there as well, we took family pics too!  Except we got really fancy for them.....

Here is my Mom & Dad on the left, and my Aunt & Uncle on the right.

Here are the cousins:

and my favorite, the Grandmothers (one is a pimp!!!)

We had a ton of fun! 

While home we I also go to join in the fun of celebrating my Mom's big 5-0. We rented a hotel dining area and had a fabulous party!

I miss them all so much and can't wait for their visit to Germany!

Update #1 - Just a little homecoming

Well it's been quite a while since my last post, and A LOT has happened. I'm going to try and update everyone in a couple of posts. Starting with...... drum roll pleeeease......
HE'S BACK!!!!
My husband is back from a year long deployment to Afghanistan, thank God! He actually came back at the end of April, but it still feels new. I'm not sure if I'll ever get used to picking up after him and cooking real meals. Wait, scratch that, I may get used to it, but I highly doubt I'll ever enjoy it.  But don't get me wrong, I would much rather be picking up after him than have him gone again for a year.
Anyways, the homecoming day was extremely exciting and probably the longest day ever! We decided to take his leave days and go on vacation to Hawaii!!  We stayed at the Hale Koa, the military resort. At first when someone mentioned the military resort to me I smiled and nodded politely, but in my head was saying "Why in the world would I go to HI on vacation and stay at a military hotel!?" But later when I looked it up online I was shocked.  It was like an actual resort! AND they have a redeployment/ R&R deal, 30% off your stay, food and festivities going on at the hotel. I priced it out and it ended up being a really great deal. We flew to HI in early June and stayed for 10 days. We stayed on Waikkiki Beach at the  Hale Hoa for 5 dyas and night, then stayed on post with friends for the last 5 days.  We had the most amazing time!  I reccomend the redployment deal to everyone!
We did lots of hiking, lots of beach'ing, swam with the sharks, saw huge sea turtles, went snorkelling, hore back riding, went on sunset dinner cruise topped with fireworks, toured the Dole Pineapple Plantation, and eneded our trip with a Hawaiin L'uau.

After HI, we also took a few small trips to Big Bear, CA, Houston, TX and to see my family in Cobourg, Ontario.  More about these trip in the next posting.