Extreme Home Makeover... Avila Edition

We bought a bookshelf yesterday to putt all of our DVDs and books on. Emily LOVED the box and played on it the whole time after he bath until bedtime! I am not going to buy her anymore toys, just boxes.
She kept crawling from one end of the boxed to the other end. Back and forth. And she never got tired of it.
Thats the before picture. Actually its the before before picture. This is how it was when we first moved in back in October. Since then our DVD collection has grown. We used a small book case and 2 DVD holders and were running out of space.
Here is the final result! I think it looks so much better. It didn't take long to build at all (not that I helped much, Antonio did it all haha). The 1st shelf is just books, the rest are DVDs, and we had to keep one of the small DVD racks too because it didn't all fit on the bookshelf. In all, we have well over 250 DVDs. How sad.

More MEU training and Habachi!

The past 2 weeks Antonio was on ship to train for their deployment on the 22nd MEU. It was their last work up before they deploy in a few short months. He took some good pictures of raid that he didn't have to go on. But when he is on the raids, this is what he does.
Those are the AAVs. They pretty much ride on land and all the guys jump off. Here they are after the raid coming back on ship.
Just a closer picture of the AAVs coming back on ship.
After the raid, thats the AAV on the ship.
Last night we went to habachi with Maya, Mandi, and her sister-in-law Kristin. It was Emily's first time at hibachi. Here I am trying to show her how to use chopsticks, which was pointless because she can't even use a fork or spoon!
She was AMAZED at hibachi. The cook kept making her laugh because he was banging on everything. And when they did the fire, she ducked down and kept peeking up out of it! I wish I would have gotten a picture of that, it was too funny.
And here is Emily eating her very own plate of veggies, rice, and chicken! Yum.

Catching up

Not a ton of catching up to do, but here are some pictures from the last week that I just hadn't gotten around to posting.Last week, Emily ate a Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich for the first time! She likes it, but it was really messy!
One day Maya came over to play and I got a really good picture of the BFFs :)
And yesterday, Antonio went and got a new tattoo. That would make it a grand total of 6 tattoos, whats one more right?

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! We didn't do anything particularly "Irish" today. We both wore our green shirts, and Emily proceeded to get yogurt all over it before I could even take a picture! Oh well! Here are pictures from exactly one year ago today. I can't believe how big she's gotten!

Lack of posts

Sorry there has been a definite lack of posts in the last couple of days. It has pretty much been raining for about a week now, so we've been laying low and just hanging out around the house. It pretty miserable outside, and I've been totally unmotivated. Tomorrow we're supposed to have sun in the afternoon, I'm really counting on it because I have been putting off much needed errands for as long as possible!

Playing on the beach

Here are some more pictures from yesterday. Mandi took them with her camera (which take such better pictures than mine because she has one of those fancy shmancy ones). Basically there are just pictures of me and Emily messing around.


She thought it was the funniest thing that I was going to "drop" her in the ocean.
And this is just another cool one of the ships. If you click on it you can see all the different colors in the water and everything! Her camera is so cool!

Morehead City

Today Mandi, Maya, Emily and I went to Morehead City to see if we could see the ships leaving for another work up (Antonio is with them again). We also had alternative motives... Panera is in Morehead City, so of course after our stop at the beach we went and got some yummy lunch!Emily sitting down before we went on the beach. It was such a nice day, but there was a pretty strong breeze by the water!
We wrote in the sand, but I doubt Daddy saw it from all the way out at sea.
Mandi was the first to head to the water. Nuts.
Here are my feet in the water. It actually wasn't that bad! It felt pretty nice, but I wouldn't exactly go swimming just yet.
The water tower. Nothing too exciting.
Here is one of the ships on the MEU (if you click on the pictures it makes them bigger and easier to see). There are three ships, the USS Fort McHenry, the USS Bataan, and the USS Ponce. Antonio is on the Fort McHenry. I think this might be the USS Bataan, but I'm not sure.
The Fort McHenry? Could be! The third ship (the Ponce? Possibly) was still in the port. We saw it when were driving over the bridge, but I couldn't really get a picture when I was driving.
Maya in Emily's old sling. She LOVES it!
A great picture of Mandi and Maya.
Me and Emily on the beach! You can see the ships in the back. Emily was such a good kid today, and we had a great time!