Summer of Dresses

I love dresses, always have always will. There are so many out this summer, I love it! Here are a few from Nordstroms I have my eye on:

There are about 10 on their website I love...I'm trying to narrow it down to just 2!

Other than online shopping, its been pretty quiet around here. Rob comes in on Friday, so I'm just finishing last minute things around the house. Oh, and I got a letter from my biological father yesterday. It was very nice and it made me happy, which is about all you can ask for :)

Picture Post

Pictures as promised!

I took all of these on the base before Dad's deployment:

Here he is in his desert camo bdu's. He didn't put on all of his patches because the higher the rank, the more attractive you are to the enemy... not a comforting thought.

Connor & I posing with Dad.

Mom & Dad

Dad and two of his good friends that are also going on this deployment. They look so old because this trip was mainly supervisors (aka "the old guys) :)

McDonald's came and brought Happy Meals for the kids and food for the soldiers & families while we waited. Connor took advantage of the free juice boxes- like 8 of them :)

Dad's badass boots. He said the gov't issued boots are horrible so he bought his own. They're actually Converse and he said they're really comfy.

Shots from the base:

The F-16's that he works on.

These last few pictures were all taken as the soldiers were walking to the plane...

I love this shot of Mom, Dad & Connor.

Mom & Dad spending a few minutes before he leaves.

Off he goes!

Dad flew from Tulsa to Baltimore, then Baltimore to Germany, then Germany to Qatar, and finally Qatar to Balad.

He called us from Baltimore Friday night and emailed from Qatar on Sunday. He should be in Iraq today. When he called from Baltimore he said how touching it was that when they landed at 1:00 a.m. there were groups of Blue Star Mothers waiting on them with care packages. Such a nice gesture and greatly appreciated by the troops.

I miss him and can't wait till he returns safely!!

Random-ness

Lots of random little things happened this weekend. Dad left and we got some great pictures, I'll post later today. I got to spend time with my Mom and brother, which was so fun. We saw Ocean's 13, went to the casino and just relaxed. Mike apparently played xBox 360 with Dane Cook. Seriously! They played a game of online poker together-- maybe I can get Mike to blog about it later!

Every morning when Mike gets up for work, I wake up and make his lunch (awww-how cute!). Anyway, I can never get back to sleep so I've resorted to bad tv @ 6 am. Its become a habit to watch 2 episodes of Saved by the Bell and then Dawson's Creek. Its really funny to see Katie Holmes "pre-Cruise" :) Did anyone else watch Dawson's Creek in college? I think I watched the first season and then just stopped...

Oooh, Mike's brother (and my brother-in-law-- still sounds weird to me!) Rob comes into town this weekend. SO FUN! I know Mike is excited and it will be great to have him here for a few days. So, thats it-- I'll try to post pics later today!

today is the day.

I'm leaving for Tulsa in a few hours to go to the airport and watch my Dad head to Iraq. I have so many emotions going through me right now. I'm proud of him because he feels like it's his duty to serve his country. I'm FURIOUS because I feel like we're just spinning our wheels over there. I feel helpless because there is NOTHING I can do to keep him safe.

Those of you who know me, know how much of a Republican I am. I'm a hardcore Republican to a fault! But this administration is KILLING me. Its so fucking hard to defend policies you don't believe in. This week has illustrated my point...Its not just us STILL being in Iraq...what about stem cell research? I am ready for a change. 2008 can't come soon enough.

No, I don't plan on voting for a Democrat... but I would love a Republican (or Independent) candidate who doesn't bow down to Evangelical Christians.
Most (of course not all) Republicans I know are pro-choice, ready for us to get the hell out of Iraq and pro-stem cell research. So frustrating!

Enough of my ranting. Here are a few pictures of the base Dad will be deployed to:

He'll be at Balad Air Base. And, no I'm not giving away any big military secrets :) Its been on the news that Dad's group is going there. Check out that map above: doesn't it look like a great place to go? *enter eye rolling here*

So thats it. If you made it through all that above, thanks :)
I promise all my future blogs won't be political or militant. Hopefully I can get back to reality tv and cooking and bad celebrity gossip :)

The Next Best Thing??

I recently found out there's a girl out there whose sole job is impersonating Paris Hilton. As if one annoying airhead Paris wasn't enough...we now have two. She's a Canadian girl named Natalie Reid and here's her pic below:




She looks pretty similar and I heard her on tmz.com and she sounds just like her. Apparently she's been getting a lot more attention from the papparazi with Ms. Hilton behind bars. Seriously LOL!!

Martha in the Making

We made the drive to Tulsa yesterday for Father's Day/Going-Away Party/Connor's Birthday. We had such a great time! I was placed in charge of making a "patriotic dessert". :) Since Dad leaves on Friday for horrid Iraq, I made this:

Of course I forgot to take a picture you'll have to deal with a fake photo :). It was so yummy, there were 3 other desserts there and everyone ate more of mine! I consider that an accomplishment.

My Mom made her amazing tabouli and I took home tons of it. So far I've had it for breakfast and lunch... I love it so much! Dad also smoked ribs and brisket, which we took home tons of. We'll be eating really well for the next few days.

Thats it...I'm making yet another damn trip to Tulsa to go to the airport Friday evening and see Dad off :(

Watch This!

You might have seen this already, but I've watched it over and over...and I love it!

So Proud!

Just wanted to say congratulations to my awesome husband. After only 4 months on the job, he was given a promotion yesterday!!
He is now an "Advanced Programmer". Way to go :)

Here's the official announcement:

"It is with great pleasure to announce the promotion of Michael Solano to Advanced Programmer on the Real Estate Team.

Mike joined our team in February. He hit the ground running in our Energy area. He was immediately tasked with assignments to provide enhancements to our Facilities alarm management (WARP) system, using Informix 4gl. He has shown an accelerated rate of picking up this language and applying it. He has been involved in configuration of hardware for our Sub-Metering efforts. His understanding of the business processes has allowed him the opportunity to meet with the customers to perform walkthrough’s and gather requirements for other efforts. Mike has also been involved in providing coding solutions using Java. He is just doing an awesome job!!!

Please help us congratulate Mike on his well deserved promotion!"

Yeah, that basically just means he's awesome :)

I'm really glad its Friday! Mike works a lot and I love our time together on the weekends. Sunday we'll be making the trip in to Tulsa for Father's Day. We're having a cookout at my Grandmother's house to celebrate Dad's Day and Connor's 20th Birthday, it should be fun!

Come on November!

Mike and I have been planning our anniversary trip (its only 5 months away!) and we've decided on Destin, Florida. He and I both took family vacations there as little kids and we both have fond memories of the area.

The pic above is the condo we'll be renting for a week.

Here are some beach shots:

Thats about it... Oh, did anyone else watch The Sopranos? Any thoughts on the finale? I lurved it, Mike hated it :)

Really Dreading Next Week

Sunday is Father's Day and it couldn't come at a better time. I'm hoping we can make it really special for my Dad. He leaves for Iraq next week. I've known he was going to be deployed for a while now, but its really starting to hit me now. It was a lot easier to deal with when I was thinking in terms of "Dad will be deployed next year", instead of "Dad will be deployed next week".

I know everyone has their own opinions on the war, and thats fine. Just keep my Dad and the other men in his unit in your thoughts. I know he'll be fine, but it still makes me sick to my stomach to think about it.

Bulldog Fever

I know some of you have baby fever. I, on the other hand, have bulldog fever. Not only have I convinced Mike that we need a bulldog puppy, like right now, I've convinced him we need 2!!

I sent him this picture (with a little doctoring by me) a few weeks ago. Thats when he got as excited at the thought of a new puppy as me!

We even have names picked out!! We want our first bulldog to be a male puppy with similar coloring to the one above. We're going to name him Porterhouse! The second puppy we want is all white and we want to name him Sir Loin. (haha get it? sirloin?! yeah, we're dorks)

So thats the plan. Of course we'd wait a year or two before getting the second puppy, but it will happen!!

welcome to the jungle!

So the gift of choice when you don't live in the same state as your family...flowers! Since I think there's nothing better than getting flowers, I was really happy:)
The top plant is from my family and the bottom is from my In-Laws.

This one is about 3 feet tall! The cool thing is that once the flowers die, I can remove them and I still have a beautiful green plant. On her last visit, Mom was appalled that I didn't have any plants in our house!

This one is gorgeous and girly and I love it!

Our house smells so nice with all the flowers!

I had something pretty insane happen on my birthday... After 10 years of us not talking, my biological father called my mom and told her he wants to reconcile with me. I have a lot of mixed emotions right now. I decided to give him my address. I figured we could exchange letters first. I'm definitely not ready to talk on the phone or in person. There's a lot more to the story and I might share more of it as time goes by. Some of you that read the blog know all the dirty little details and some of you don't. This is one of those times I wish I had a password protected blog.

I'm Old!

Today is my birthday. Mike has a great night planned- he's cooking dinner, steaks on the grill, he ordered a yummy cake it should be wonderful! Thats really all thats going on...oh, i did sleep in this morning! Thought It would be fun to post some pictures:

My first picture!

This one was taken right after I gave myself a haircut. Check out those bangs!!

I was not happy to pose at the pumpkin patch!

Thats it, enjoy the day!

P.S.-- why do I look like a different ethnicity in every picture??

my husband has good taste!

So after about a dozen attempts at trying to take a decent picture of them myself, I decided to use the picture from the internet!! Mike took me shopping on Saturday for my birthday and bought me these:

I love them! He was at a total loss as to what to get me for my b-day and we found these aquamarine princess cut earrings and both loved them. I've always loved aquamarine and I've wanted a piece of jewelry with them ever since I wore his mother's necklace at our wedding. My birthday isn't until tomorrow, but I'm wearing the earrings already!

My Mom & Dad already "surprised" me with my gift too: 12th row tickets to the American Idol concert on July 13th in Little Rock. Its a tradition that my mom and I go together to the show and its always FUN!

It is weird not having my family to celebrate with here in Arkansas, my family is big on birthdays... so I'm taking myself shopping today and for a mani/pedi.

COMH!

Ahh, I'm SOOOO ready for the weekend! I have a hair appointment tomorrow with a salon in Fayetteville. They were voted the top salon in NW Arkansas last year, so I figured I'd treat myself for my up-coming birthday :)
I have no idea what I'm going to do, but it might be quite a change!

I don't have much else to blog about, so I thought I'd do a COMH: MY CLOSET! (lame, i know!)

This is the tackiest room in the house, and I love it. Mike generously gave me the master bedroom closet, he uses the walk-in closet in his office. This thing is pretty big: 10x10. I think I've lived in dorm rooms smaller than this!

I decided to use all the girly stuff from my old apartment since Mike would hate it in any other part of the house. (And, yes... that is a Jessica Simpson poster and a Kelly Clarkson calendar!)

I kinda use this as a closet/dressing area.

What you can't see are the three racks of clothes on the opposite wall. Coming from our 1930's house in Tulsa which had zero closet space, this is a huge change!

Can you see the "Absolut Hunk"poster in the pic below? I love all the Sex and the City stuff in here!

Nothing too exciting planned for the weekend. Just out trip into Fayetteville on Saturday and maybe a movie on Sunday. Have a great weekend!!