Ringing Rocks

Once upon a time I picked up a silly book about oddities in Montana, Montana Curiosities: Quirky Characters, Roadside Oddities & Other Offbeat Stuff. Fun little book, with all kinds of silly, neat places to visit. One of the fun things that's really close to us is the Ringing Rocks outside Whitehall, Mt. It's only about a 20 minute drive down the freeway and then up a dirt road. So why not? 
What are ringing rocks? well they are some rocks with a weird geological feature. When you hammer on them they make more of a bell tone that rings, as opposed to just a "bonk" or a "tink" from the hammer.
So back in March, While Paul's mom was visiting us we made a family trip out there. It was pretty neat, the rocks certainly made different noises, I even took some videos, but the sound quality is very poor and you can't really hear the pings and pongs. 
There was also lots of rocks available for Paul to climb on. Because that's what boys do, right?  

Oh my gosh E was so tiny 6 months ago!

You are doing a good job mom!

It's nice to hear this from family and friends, that you're doing good, but It's really nice to hear it from strangers. 

I had to take E to the urgent care last week, I thought she had an ear infection, she doesn't, she was just being cranky. 

But as I talked to the doctor and she asked normal questions, I was a bit hesitant to answer honestly. One of the questions I got was what am I putting on her teething related, diaper rash? I use coconut oil, no zinc, no creams, partly because we cloth diaper and that's what is safe for the diapers. I was nervous because I am a member of several "natural mom" groups on facebook and I read a lot about moms being judged, or being told they are wrong, for raising their kids naturally. Everything from continuing breastfeeding beyond a certain age to skipping baby rice cereal, I read about women being told, that it's not a good idea and they are wrong. So I was hesitant to answer her question with my natural remedy. But I was getting a good vibe from her, and she's not my regular doctor so what's the harm? Do I even care what she thinks about diaper rash treatment? So I told her. Much to my surprise she said that coconut oil was great, and then she recommended other natural things that I may have lying around incase I didn't have coconut oil, like unsalted lard. 

I talked with her for a bit, we talked about cloth diapering and breastfeeding. More than once she said I was doing a great job and I was being a good mom. Not just my natural approach, but even as we were leaving, she told me I was a great mom. It's so nice to hear, especially from someone who has raised several kids of her own, and sees sick kids all day long. She made me feel good, good about my choices in raising Evelyn, good about being a mommy. 

I think more moms need to be told they are doing a good job, especially first time moms, I know I often wonder, especially taking her to urgent care, I was worried that my babe was sick, and what if I waited too long and she had some raging infection? The doctor was so calm and kind, even though nothing was wrong, except a cranky baby recovering from teething, she didn't make me feel like I was wasting her time for worrying. She didn't rush me out once she saw that my baby wasn't ill. 

So moms, you are doing a good job, if you baby is safe, warm and fed you are doing a good job. Keep up the good work. 

*while googling for images for this article, (of which I didn't really find any, sorry) I came across this great article, for any moms looking for more natural treatments for common ailments check it out!*

Daily Mom

and I'm linking up a day late, because I didn't post this yesterday. 

Evelyn: 36 weeks

Just standing around watching Sesame Street

Fluff Mail! 

Baby Shark

mmm. Carrots

New This Week: 

Can stand unassisted for 5-10 seconds! 

Bye guys! 

Military Monday Link-up

This weeks questions: Do you live on base/post/fort or away from the military world?  What factors did you consider when deciding where you would live?  Was one more affordable than the other?  Did it help/hinder your family situation?  What things would be helpful for others to know before they potentially move to your area?
Great questions! But they don't really work in my situation. If you are a new reader, My husband is on recruiting duty for the USMC, and our nearest Active Duty base is about 3 hours away, Malmstrom AFB. So we obviously just live in town. Our current location Paul works at MEPS, we moved here from Helena, where he was a Recruiter, in February. Finding a rental in a small town, that allows cats is hard. So our biggest considering factor was can we live there with 2 dogs and a cat. That drastically narrowed our search window. Then can we fit our stuff in it. We have a king size bed and monster size entertainment centre. The town we live in is an old mining town, and a lot of the houses are OLD, and SMALL. I really thought we would never find a home, but alas this one fell into our laps, and at a very reasonable rate. We save quite a bit of our housing allowance, even after utilities.  Helpfull info about Butte? Well despite the fact that it's highly unlikely that anyone reading this will be moving here, ever, I would say don't judge a book by it's cover. Butte has lots of run down shanty little houses, especially in my area. In fact there is a vacant little shanty house about 20 yards from mine. But I live in a great neighborhood, and I have pretty quiet neighbors. Everyone is really nice, and keeps to themselves.  I was nominated for the top 50 Military Mom Blogs by VoiceBoks, you can vote here. Thank you for your support.

Sunday Social

It's been a long week, Paul and I have been doing our T-25 workout every day, I've lost about 3 pounds. Which is awesome since I am not following the diet. We haven't done our measurements yet, probably should before my coffee bloat sets in.
Today I am sitting here uploading all the videos off my computer onto Flickr because I have no room left on my computer. Looking at pictures and videos from Okinawa makes me sad still. I remember our sunday thing was going to the Officers Club and have the most amazing brunch spread that ever existed. They had everything, from sushi to waffles, crab legs, smoked salmon, omelet bar, fresh carved roast beef, even had adult beverages! We went about once a month, because it wasn't cheep, like $20 a person not cheep, but so worth it. Yummmm.
Aaannnnndddd now I miss Okinawa even more.



1. What do you miss most about being a kid? not having to pay bills

2. Did you have a nickname growing up? What was it? Alana Banana

 3. What was your favorite thing to do at recess? dig holes in the playground, I think I tried to dig to China every day, or we would dig up indian clay and play with it.

4. What did you want to be when you grew up?
I don't remember.

5. Did you participate in any school activities?
I tried out for soccer in 6th grade but got cut real quick. All through highschool I was in drama and I was a Student Athletic Trainer.

6. What is the funniest thing you did as a kid that your parents still remind you about? 
Well not so much a kid, and not really funny more stupid as hell, but when I was like 17 my parents went out of town and I was to stay at my grandparents. I was driving their Bronco, taking my sister to and from school, that was supposed to be it. Well over the weekend my friend Tam and I decided to take the Bronco up the mountain and go "4 wheeling" down the back side (yeah, hella dumb) long story short we ended up blowing a tire in the middle of nowhere, I couldn't find the jack, so I drove about 30 miles on a dirt road on the rim until we found help and got the tire change. I then had to explain getting a flat. Instead of, "I dunno I ran over a nail" I concocted this elaborate story that made no sense, even though I stuck to it, no one believed me. It was a few years later that the truth came out, My dad still won't let me drive any of his trucks. I'll never live that one down.

I'm a Famous Published Photographer!

okay, that's a slight exaggeration.

Last fall Paul and I went on the Gates of the Mountain Boat Tour. I took about 32 hundred pictures.  And loaded them up to Flickr.

Well, this was one of them:

entrance to the canyon i.e. Gates of the Mountain

Then a couple of months ago I was contacted by AllTrips.com, the wanted to use my photo for their Gates of the Mountain page.
So I'm now a famous, published, Photographer.


 I was nominated for the top 50 Military Mom Blogs by VoiceBoks, you can vote for me here. Thank you for your support.

Most Embarrassing Moment

I'm Co-Hosting! Go Link Up! 

My most embarrassing moment of my life, unfortunately came after two too many beers. 

The lesson of the story is don't drink too much when you first arrive in a foreign country or you'll make an ass of yourself. 

So let me set the stage:
Paul and I arrived in Japan and the bases were almost immediately put on lockdown because some service member screwed up really bad, and then another one did, and then another. So we were all grounded and not allowed to go to off base establishments, like restaurants.  Shortly before we were put on lockdown though, we had the chance to experience eating out Okinawa. Paul and I decided to walk out to the nearest main street and find somewhere to eat. We found a lovely place that served Yakiniku. They also had pretty cheep beer. We were new to Japan, and this was one of our first times eating off base, we were also alone, no other friends who were more familiar with dining Okinawa were with us. 

Among all the new things we were discovering, there was this round egg shaped thing on the table. 

Me being the curious girl that I am, I started to play with it. 

This is very similar to the one I was screwing around with. Source

The more I drank, the more I wanted to know what this thing was, so the more I played with it. 

Anyone who has lived in Japan is either cringing or laughing because they know where this is going. 

It took me my whole dining experience to realize that when I squeezed this, it made a ding overhead, this ding sent a server to our table. I had squeezed it about a gazillion times. Each time turning the server away, I am sure I was thinking the service was amazing because they returned to the table every 5 minutes to see if we needed anything. 

I tell myself that the staff probably laughed at me later because I am a silly American, and I didn't know what the thing did, and that I didn't piss anyone off that night. I hope that's the truth. 

I found the actual post from that night, with pictures and all.
You can read it here: What's it like to cook your own food

I'm Co-Hosting Bloody Marys Count as a Salad Link-up!

Welcome to Bloody Marys Count as a Salad # 7

<center> <a href="http://www.aboyagirlandthemarinecorps.com/bloody-marys-count-as-a-salad/" target="_blank"><img alt="Bloody Marys Count as a Salad" src="http://i1300.photobucket.com/albums/ag87/imjust_agirl1/bloodymaryhop_zpsb6ebdcbd.png"/></a></center>

What's with the name?  We named it Bloody Mary’s Count as a Salad, because anything goes in this hop! Need to vent? Go for it! Need to say something snarky? DO IT!  Or do you just want to share your blog and/or a specific post?  We'd love to read it!  Anything you want to share, we want to see it!

And introducing a social aspect of the hop! Each week we will feature a different social media linkup. This week is Twitter! Link up your blog in the first linkup and your Twitter page in the second linkup!

Of course, there are a few rules, we aren't going for hop chaos here!

1. Follow your hosts and each weeks special guest co-host.
2. Link up your blog or specific blog post.  Whatever you’d like to share is ok with us!
3. Visit 3-4 other blogs and say hello!  Try to be nice and follow those who follow you.  And don’t forget to say hi to your hosts if you are new!
4. Grab the link up button and put it in your side bar, in your post, or put our link on your link up party page.
5. Not mandatory, but we’d love to have you share our hop with others.  Tweet it, post about it, or share it on Facebook.  We’ll love you forever if you do… And it might help you grab a co-host spot next week.

Don't Forget to follow your Hosts and special Co-Host:

A Girl- A Boy, A Girl, and the Marine Corps

Kara- Ramblings of a Marine Wife

Erin- Unconventional Mommy Tails

Special Guest Host: Alana- Fractured Fairy Tales

Tweet

Military Monday Link Up

Linking up over at Eights on the Move for Military Monday:

Pack it up! 

To kind of go with my theme of prepping for my PCS this weeks prompt seems appropriate. This week is all about packing, how do you do it? 

Well. I don't. 

I suck at packing. I hate packing. I let the movers do it. They are much quicker, and much more efficient. Plus I noticed with my last move they repacked most of the stuff I pre-packed anyway. 

Unless you are doing a DITY (do it  yourself) move, you may have the movers re packing anything you pack because they are liable for anything that breaks while moving. When we moved back from Okinawa they repacked everything I packed except my rubbermaid tubs, they just opened them to see that they were just blankets (with alcohol hidden, shhhhh) and then taped them up. 

But to a very small extent I am already packing a little. I have a shit load of big blue rubbermaid tubs that I am filling with stuff I have no use for for now. Curtains, bath mats (I have enough for 3 bathrooms, here we only have 2), extra blankets, baby clothes that Evey has grown out of, (but we are saving for number 2,) maternity clothes, purses (because I only carry a diaper bag right now) . I need to repack my sewing stuff, fabric, yarn, odds and ends. All of our holiday stuff is finally out of cardboard boxes and into rubbermaid containers. Mostly I am doing this because I can stack these tubs out of sight, but you could call it packing. 

So that's it, my big secret to packing, let the movers do it. 

Well except your underwear, don't let anyone touch your underwear, that's just creepy.

You can find my PCS/Moving tips here

Just a friendly reminder, I was nominated for the top 50 Military Mom Blogs by VoiceBoks, you can vote for me here. Thank you for your support.

Sunday Social

This Weeks Questions:

1. What is something you’ve always wanted to do but are afraid of? 

I see a lot of people answering this question with Skydiving. I guess I am one of the few that have gone skydiving. (BTW- it was amazing!) I can't think of anything I wanted to do but was afraid of. I can think of things I wanted to do, but didn't make the time for, like scuba diving. 

2. Where do you see yourself in five years? 

On a beach with my husband and two babies. 

3. What are you looking forward to before the end of 2013? 

Moving. and the several family vacations we have planned. 

4. What are your hopes for your blog? 

That people will continue to enjoy it, and once Evey hits a year I would like to have all of her weekly/monthly posts published into a book for her. 

5. Do you always see yourself living in your current town/city? 

Nope, We'll be outta here in a few months. We'll come back to Montana someday to show E where she came from though. 

6. What is your morning routine?

Get E up, feed her, change her diaper. Put her in her bouncy seat and make coffee and 2 eggs. Feed dogs. Eat my eggs while she serenades me with her screechy baby calls as she talks to her toys. Change her again. and then we do what she wants, feed her again or put her back down with toys while I internet, sometimes a walk..



Just a friendly reminder, I was nominated for the top 50 Military Mom Blogs by VoiceBoks, you can vote for me here. Thank you for your support.

Evelyn: 35 Weeks

new this week: 

Evey started CRAWLING!

and two teeth!