Well....

It's been almost a month and a half since I updated this thing. I guess I should get on it!

Brad came home on the USS George Washington for 5 days at the end of September. It was the first time a U.S. nuclear powered ship has pulled into port in Japan. This caused quite a stir. Coming home from swim lessons that night took me over an hour because of all the protesters marching in the streets. They are peaceful protesters, so it's no big deal. In fact, I heard that most of them get paid to protest and they could actually care less that there is a nuclear ship here. Oh well. Here are some pictures from while Brad was home:

I have been keeping busy with school, teaching swim lessons on Tuesday and Thursday nights, staying active with my Family Readiness Group, and my Pampered Chef business. I started to get back into it this month after not holding a show in over a year. The day after tomorrow I will be doing a fundraiser for my FRG. It should be fun, and I hope to book some home shows off of it. I already got a recruit to sign on as a consultant under me! If I can get 4 more consultants to sign up, I can become a director. We'll see how that goes.

Last week Jocelyn had a temperature of over 102.5 on and off for a couple days. I'd give her Tylenol and it would go down, only to come back again in a couple hours. On the third day, it went up to 103.7 and she wouldn't eat anything all day. We went to the Emergency room and found out that she has a urinary tract infection. Don't ask me how a 6 month old gets a UTI, the doctor couldn't even tell me. Poor baby girl. Anyway, she is on antibiotics for 10 days now. Here is a picture of how she fell asleep in the ER while we were waiting on the Doc:


Oh, Jocelyn's first ad came out in CREA magazine on October 7th. It's not as exciting as I thought it would be, but here it is:


They also did a section, in the same magazine, about baby models in Japan. I can't tell if they gave Dean the photo credit or not, because it is in Kanji. But, it should say something like "My name is Jocelyn. I was born on 29 Mar 08. I like sweet potatoes and bananas and boob juice. I love to smile and play. My favorite song is 'You are my Sunshine'. And my favorite animal is a giraffe (at least until I am old enough to choose for myself." Who knows what they really put, but that is what I sent them. Here is that page:


Well, today was the Halloween festival on base. My friend Kharisa was planning on dressing her kids up as Tinkerbell and Peter Pan. Last night I was pondering what I would dress Jocelyn up as. I figured I would join in on their theme. I considered Wendy, a mermaid, Tiger Lilly, or even Smee. This morning, Tiger Lilly won because it would be the easiest to make in a short period of time. I got out some black yarn to make her hair, I cut up an old brown t-shirt to make the dress. I sewed on some excess pieces of dresses that I had hemmed...and we had a little Indian girl! Here is the end result:


















Here is a picture of Tiger Lilly from the movie, Peter Pan:


Well, my creativity paid off. She won best overall costume!!! We got a little stuffed pumpkin and ghost for her and two free movie passes for me and Daddy!

I don't know if you are all aware of the upset I suffered last year when I lost the balcony decorating competition on base. Anyway, I slaved over my decorations. The prize was $150. So, I didn't want to spend a bunch of money trying to win. I got a bunch of old boxes from the furniture store and drew, cut out, and hand painted a giant sleigh, 9 reindeer (complete with felt harnesses, jingle bells, and name tags), and each individual letter for 'HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT!" I attached reins from the sleigh to the reindeer. I hung up all of my extra lights. I twisted lighted garland around my drain pipe. I put giant, lighted candy canes in front of my sleigh. I went all out and only spent a couple bucks. When I found out who won, I about cried. Actually, I think I did cry. This person's balcony only had a couple of light up figures; a snowman, a santa, and an elf; and a couple strings of lights. Now those figures probably cost quite a bit, but it doesn't take any creativity to plug in a couple things and sit them out on your balcony! I was so disappointed. It may seem childish to be this competetive...but mine WAS the best. See below:

Anyway, tonight I proved that it doesn't take expensive things to win first place. I know there were people at this festival that spent a pretty penny on their kids' costumes. But, guess who got the movie tickets!!! Now, I am setting out to prove once and for all that I don't have to spend $500 on Christmas decorations to win this contest!!! It will be mine, oh yes...it will be mine!

So, Brad will be home in time for Thanksgiving. He missed it the last two years and it is his favorite holiday. I can't wait for him to come home and see how much Jocelyn has changed in the short time that he has been gone. She is so adorable!!! Here are a couple more Jocelyn photos before you go:

Some Joey Photos

Quarter Century

Jocelyn and I have been keeping pretty busy with modeling jobs, swim lessons and school. She has been scarfing down any type of new food I give her! She loves sweet potatoes and turkey (just like her daddy) and bananas, apples and pears. She is happy almost all the time and the life guards at the pool love playing with her while I teach my lessons.

My 25th birthday is the day after tomorrow. It definitely doesn't feel like it. In fact I haven't really thought about it much until I received a card from Brad's grandmother today. As I was opening it, I was thinking, "why am I getting a card from Brad's Grandma." When I opened it and saw that it was a birthday card, I realized that my birthday is actually coming up. I fear that I have outgrown the novelty of the birthday. I wish that I could find some way to get joy out of it, but it's just going to be another day. Plus, I am saving all of my excitement for the return of my husband! Well, I guess I will be able to rent a car in the states now without paying the extra for being under 25! Whoopee.

Brad comes home next week! We are so excited. Sadly, he will only be home for about five days, and he'll have to spend the night on the boat two or three of those nights. It will be a true test of my fertility! Then he will be gone until Thanksgiving-ish. The good, scratch that, GREAT news is that once he returns in November...he will not be leaving us again for four and a half years! It's crazy! I don't know what we are going to do with so much time together. It's definitely going to be weird, but a good weird.

Look forward to some Team Hayes photos next week. We don't have very many of the three of us as a family.

Now, I've got to get my rear in gear and clean this house before he gets home!

Huge in Japan (almost)!

So, I got the music video job that I wrote about in one of my previous posts. I don't even have to audition. It's not exactly what I expected, however. It's kind of like trying out for the part of the hot girl and then getting cast as her mom. However, I like my job better, and it pays more. They were looking for a couple girls to do cheerleading dances in this video. I knew I wouldn't get hired because I am not skinny or hot enough, but they asked me to send them photos anyway. Well, when she called me today I was expecting to hear the usual, "Sorry you weren't selected." Instead, she said, "I have some questions for you." As you can imagine, this got me a little bit excited. She asked if I would like to play the part of the cheerleading instructor. I eventually interpreted this to mean that she wants me to to teach the girls, who are actually cute enough to be in the video, how to dance. She said that the girls have dance experience but have never cheerleaded, uh, led cheer...whatever. She said that her agency only deals with models and that they have never dealt with this kind of thing before. She asked me how much I would charge. I had no clue what to say! The model/dancer job was going to pay $150. I told her $250. She said that was definitely reasonable and then I hit myself for not quoting her more. I'm not going to obsess about the money, though. Hello?! I choreograph cheerleading dances in front of the mirror all the time anyway. She e-mailed me the song and I have been hopping around my living room for the last hour or so while Jocelyn has been napping.

So, I get to be the mom instead of the hot daughter. But, you know what? The mom doesn't have to deal with the pressure and scrutiny of being hot, and the mom gets paid more! :)

I tried to post a link to the song, but I couldn't figure it out. It's called 'I'm Alive,' and it is by BECCA. I think it's on iTunes.

Just Joey

Here is a video of Jocelyn just being herself.

I know Kylie would buy my book...

...actually, she would probably expect to receive one for free.

I am having quite a bit of difficulty in my online classes due to the fact that most of the other students seem to barely know English. I might not be the best writer, but I sure feel like I am when I read the assignments that some of these people have posted. It makes me sad to think about what is happening to the English language. These people are going to get college degrees and they don't even know how to capitalize the first letter in a sentence! Here is the exact copy of an introduction posted by my classmate, Cory (make sure to read the last sentence):

"Hello again this is Cory Sturdevant. This is my first Class in college, hopefully first of many to come. here are my two goals to help my college career,

1. not to get distracted during semesters and not completing my classes.

2. to keep a steady workload for myself but not to over burden myself and get burned out also not to take up a light workload in the process and drag my feet and take forever to complete college.

my strategies for goal number 1 is to cut back from television , video games, and the internet until my daily weekly assignments are completed. Also try and go to a quiet place and study. Push my assignments back until the last second to complete them.
Now on to my strategies for my second goal to make my workload not to tough or weak is i know my weak point is math so i would probably just take a math class one semester and thats it. also English is one of my strong points so i would probably take a few classes along with my English classes in a semester."

Oh my. I am completely flabbergasted (yes, flabbergasted) that someone would submit that for credit in a college course! How did he even graduate high school? Any English teacher who gave him a passing grade should be fired. Eighty percent of my fellow students have identical writing styles. I chose to share Cory's with you because English is one of his strengths. In each of my classes the instructors expect all of us to respond to our classmates. This is so difficult for me! Please, wish me luck and pray that I can maintain a professional attitude. I will try to make it through the course without being too honest with my responses!

I have a feeling that I will encounter this in all of my future classes. I think I might start keeping track of the worst ones and eventually publish them. Is that legal? I would definitely make it a point to cite my references. I would title the book, "You're Dumb, And Your Dumb Is Showing: The Online Classroom And The Ignorant College Graduate."

busy busy

Well, I'm not terribly busy. But, I haven't updated this blog in about two weeks so I thought it was about time.

Jocelyn's first modeling Job went very well. She loves the camera. I cannot wait for the magazine to come out on October 7th. She's got a few more auditions and jobs lined up this month. We actually went to an audition in Tokyo today and she did great. I even passed the photo selection for a music video audition that will be happening next week! I submitted some photos upon request at the modeling fair in April, but I have never passed the photo selection board. We'll see how that goes.

In the mean time, my second term of online classes started this week. I am taking biology, biology lab, libs, and principles of effective learning. My neighbor, Moriah, is also taking the biology classes so we saved some money by sharing the $120 book. We did our first lab together on Monday. This term is going to be harder than the last term, but I think I should be able to stay on top of all the work.

Tomorrow I will start teaching swim lessons again. I will be doing group lessons on Tuesday and Thursday nights and a couple of private lessons here and there. The aquatics staff doesn't have a problem with me bringing Jocelyn to the pool, so it will be nice to not have worries about child care.

The base schools all started last week so I stopped by the high school to let them know I was still available to sub this year. I had originally planned on not going back to subbing so that I could stay home with Joey, but I figured that a couple days here and there wouldn't hurt. One of the girls that taught swim lessons with me graduated from the high school last year and will be here until November. She said she had no problem with me dropping Joey off with her on the days that I have to sub. I don't have any days on the schedule yet, but with all of the away football games coming up they will be needing tons of subs every Friday.

Brad and I hired a contractor to fix up the house back in Nebraska. He should be starting next week. He will be installing all new carpets and all new windows. Replacing doors and painting everything. It's going to cost us about $16,000. We still haven't heard from our lawyer about the tenant's response to being served. We will probably never see a penny from this woman, but if we have to force her into bankruptcy that is still a win for us. We are vindictive like that. We listed the house on a military housing website and have already seen some interest. However, we need to find a new property manager and wait for all the repairs to be done before we can show it to anyone. We hope that it will be ready for new tenants by the beginning of October.

Brad will be home at the end of the month (hopefully). He is so excited to see his baby girl, even thought it will only be for four days. He will have to leave again right away for a fall deployment and we hope to have him back by Thanksgiving. After that, he shouldn't have to go out on a ship for over four years! I am so excited to finally be able to be with him. We have never spent more than three months together consecutively in the 5 years we have known each other. It will be a welcomed change. In case you don't already know, we got orders to Hawaii. We will be moving in May and we will be there for four years before having to go back to sea duty.

Team Hayes is doing swell for now. I just wanted to keep you all posted about what is going on with us.