Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Christmas Letter 2011
a year in Mobile Uploads
I know, how can a year go by without the annual, three-page Christmas letter from Brigette? Well, here it is! This is the way I record the year’s events. And 2011 was not a year to forget!
The first two weeks of January were spent “stuck” in Indiana trying to get a military flight back to California. OH darn- the days of sled-pulling by gator in the snow, Dakota wearing his new guiley suite low-crawling around the farm and catching our cousins basketball games all while Wade was training at 29 Palms near Joshua Tree in California. January also marked our first real month with our new roommate, Annaleis. What an adventure that was! She took us to secret waterfalls with the top down in her jeep. She and I took turns making gourmet health dishes, taking boys to the skateboard park or bike park on the hill above our house, and catching all the episodes of Mad Men. Cousin Casey came to town as well. She got to see the Pierman traits come alive through he and I in one fun night with Casey Cakes!
February dad was still training in the desert, so Anne and Crickette came out to visit. We took Crickette for her first visit to Disneyland and she was a hit wearing her True Religion jean skirt from her Godmother (me)! Uncle Bart sent Afghani hats for the boys as he was practicing his diplomacy in many cities in the Khost Providence, only 30 miles west of where Bin Laden was discovered. Wade returned home the last week of February and we threw him a going away party in the garage. Our good friends gave him many well-wishes and well-drinks to send him off in grand style.
March was a month our family will never forget. We flew first class thanks to Anne and American Airlines to Kauia, Hawaii. (Actually Dakota and Wade flew in seats 1a and 1b and got food poisoning from the red sauce as Lincoln wasn’t old enough to fly in first.) Mom and Dad met us there. The boys spotted sea turtles on the sea wall with Grandpa and Wade as big as in Disney’s Nemo. Grandma and I still will never really know if it was true because none of them had a camera and when they ran to get us 20 minutes later, there wasn’t a trace of a sea turtle in sight. Could that have been another fishing story by Wade that they were “this big” or was Dad passing on the Lomont Stretch to his grandsons? This we shall never know. Although it was wet and flooding, we still had a great time with Grandma and Grandpa busting coconuts from the street market, watching the DVD “RV” in the timeshare, eating a lot of steak and spaghetti (what the boys ordered every meal out), drinking plenty of pina coladas (Dad and Wade’s drink of choice), eating Hula Pie at Duke’s and watching my 70-plus year old dad stand-up surf all afternoon in the ocean. When we returned, it was time for Wade to leave for Afghanistan. Although it was sad, we had Miss Brooke and Annaleis there to support us. We were so proud of our daddy as he left. Lincoln kept repeating, “We’ll always be here for you, Daddy. We’ll always be here for you.” As we watched the plane filled with 300 Marines lift off at March AFB around 9:30pm at night.
Once Wade had left, I got busy catching up on projects around the house. I built a cover for the pirate bed that would house Lincoln’s massive train set collection. Also, we went to play Nerf guns on the Paintball Park on Camp Pendleton and went Lincoln took horseback riding lessons there as well. We scheduled lots of gatherings for our Marine Team families and made a tight-knit community as our team consisted of less than 20 men. For Easter, the boys and I took a roadtrip to Cousin Casey’s in Arizona. As we drove into Sarahuita, the signs were all in Kilos and Spanish. I texted him asking where we were and he said, “Welcome to Mexico!”. I am still wishing I’d have taken more Spanish in high school as my French is not really helping.
Annaleis helped the boys treat me to breakfast in bed on Mother’s Day. Another tight-knit military family group was at Lincoln’s preschool. Only two families were not active duty at his school. So all of them helped celebrate Lincoln’s 5th birthday at the park right next to our school. Melinda and Shawn took me out for a night at the wineries where we watched a concert and eventually headed to Old Town for Karaoke. Geoff and Dawn also helped with the kids as Geoff threw a bbq and set up the tent in the backyard and took the kids while Dawn and I slept in the house. By this time, Wade had finally gotten internet service up and running in his base, so we started Skyping with him on a regular basis. The boys and I enjoyed that immensely. The Wives Club had a day at the Glen Ivy Spa which consists of over 12 beautiful pools about 30 miles north of here. My new friend, Deanna Gantt, braved paintballing on base as her two boys, Jack and Gavin, and Dakota were the only ones under 20 yrs old playing in the games. What does Dakota talk me into? Actually, I think we can blame that one on Annaleis as she is the one who took Dakota for his first experience anyways. Thanks, Leis! My dear friend and fellow military wife, MaryAnn Landin, whom I carpool with everyday, took us to Legoland for the first time. The kids loved the mini-cities made out of Legos and since have been obsessed with these expensive little blocks. In fact, that’s all they want for Christmas.
Annaleis announced that she would be moving out unexpectedly June 1st because she had a great opportunity to move into a beach house closer to her work. I was so sad and wasn’t sure how the rest of the deployment would go without her but faith told me God had it all under control and that we would be provided for. We finished off the school year and headed to Indiana for three weeks of pond fun, catching up with our Valparaiso friends, and celebrating Dakota’s birthday. (Instead of a birthday party, he wanted an IPOD so that he could FACETIME his cousins on his own.) Just as we were getting ready to go to the annual Pierman Fourth of July Picnic, Wade Skyped and said he might beat us back to California. He needed immediate medical surgery in the States and they were sending him home. He arrived back to California July 9th and we had just beat him by two days, arriving July 7th back into California. Instead of telling the boys, our good friends Tom and Brooke Petrich (Annaleis’ parents) helped create a surprise homecoming that the boys would never forget. Tom and Brooke are Chaplains for the Lake Elsnore Storm Baseball team (AAA Padres feeder team). So they coordinated for Wade to ride in on a quad behind the mascot during the pregame warm-ups in his dress blues. The boys were down on the field waiting and wondering why they were getting so much special treatment; getting to sit in the dug out, going down on the field, getting team memorabilia, etc… Then as their dad pulled up, they stood in awe and confusion not knowing it was him since he wasn’t expected for 4 more months. Miss Brooke actually had to tell them it was Wade! It was such a joyous occasion and one that none of us will ever forget. Such a blessing that he had arrived home safely.
Once he got back, we celebrated by going to a Trampoline Park in Costa Mesa, renting a beach house with Dawn and Geoff and neighboring with Landin’s on Del Mar Beach and hiking trips to the Falls. His surgery was a success and he started back to work August 22nd.
When he checked back in, he was immediately informed he would be running the next team to deploy to Afghanistan in March. So he started training again. I continued with this new frustrating news by going to Bible Study on Wednesday with Miss Betty and going to Military Wives Bible Study on Tuesdays with Miss Brooke. The boys started Second grade and Kindergarten and loved their new teachers. Now they were at the same school and I could volunteer in each of their classes one day a week. I also continued going to PEO twice a month and got to sneak a weekend away to Indiana for my 15th High School Class Reunion. The boys started playing on a basketball league and I coached Lincoln’s team. We got to go Rving for the first time to San Onofre Beach. The boys wanted to move out of our house and into an RV permanently. It was a lot of fun. Bart arrived safely home from Afghanistan and orchestrated another surprise homecoming. He had the local news team come out to the farm to “interview dad” and as they were taping, out popped Bart in his cammies and surprised Dad for his birthday. It was such a relief to have both my military men home!
One fall day, as we walked back from our new neighbor-friends’ house(Landon‘s), Lincoln broke his thumb and had to get stitches. He was riding Dakota’s bike and fell off. It was my first ER visit for the boys. It was awful! But as Lincoln proclaimed 6 weeks later, “Mommy, God healed my thumb!” And the rest is history with notsomuch as a scar to show for it. We got to go camping with the Wolves for Cub Scouts as a family with several other fun families. Dawnielle took me to Xanadu for my birthday. The boys ran in the Buffalo Alley 1k and 5k at Camp Pendleton.
Janet and her kids came to California for a week in October. Scott was supposed to come but due to house flooding, he wasn’t able to come. We went to Disneyland for their Halloween Night all dressed as Angry Birds. (Lincoln’s choice) We also had fun going to the Zoo, Waterfalls, Legoland, Legoland Waterpark, and Legoland Aquarium. Janet is a Zumba instructor with excellent endurance, and I had a hard time keeping up with her during this trip! Whew! It was a lot of fun though and probably the boys favorite week of the year! Lisa surprised me with a quick visit to San Diego in November. It’s so nice to have such great friends all over the map! Bart and Anne and Crickette spent Thanksgiving with us. Lincoln did the Nutcracker Suite for his holiday show and Dakota sang “Christmas in the West”. It’s been a fun year with many blessings and unforgettable memories. Wow! 2012, what will you have in store? Christmas Blessings!
Love, Brigette, Wade, Dakota and Lincoln
I know, how can a year go by without the annual, three-page Christmas letter from Brigette? Well, here it is! This is the way I record the year’s events. And 2011 was not a year to forget!
The first two weeks of January were spent “stuck” in Indiana trying to get a military flight back to California. OH darn- the days of sled-pulling by gator in the snow, Dakota wearing his new guiley suite low-crawling around the farm and catching our cousins basketball games all while Wade was training at 29 Palms near Joshua Tree in California. January also marked our first real month with our new roommate, Annaleis. What an adventure that was! She took us to secret waterfalls with the top down in her jeep. She and I took turns making gourmet health dishes, taking boys to the skateboard park or bike park on the hill above our house, and catching all the episodes of Mad Men. Cousin Casey came to town as well. She got to see the Pierman traits come alive through he and I in one fun night with Casey Cakes!
February dad was still training in the desert, so Anne and Crickette came out to visit. We took Crickette for her first visit to Disneyland and she was a hit wearing her True Religion jean skirt from her Godmother (me)! Uncle Bart sent Afghani hats for the boys as he was practicing his diplomacy in many cities in the Khost Providence, only 30 miles west of where Bin Laden was discovered. Wade returned home the last week of February and we threw him a going away party in the garage. Our good friends gave him many well-wishes and well-drinks to send him off in grand style.
March was a month our family will never forget. We flew first class thanks to Anne and American Airlines to Kauia, Hawaii. (Actually Dakota and Wade flew in seats 1a and 1b and got food poisoning from the red sauce as Lincoln wasn’t old enough to fly in first.) Mom and Dad met us there. The boys spotted sea turtles on the sea wall with Grandpa and Wade as big as in Disney’s Nemo. Grandma and I still will never really know if it was true because none of them had a camera and when they ran to get us 20 minutes later, there wasn’t a trace of a sea turtle in sight. Could that have been another fishing story by Wade that they were “this big” or was Dad passing on the Lomont Stretch to his grandsons? This we shall never know. Although it was wet and flooding, we still had a great time with Grandma and Grandpa busting coconuts from the street market, watching the DVD “RV” in the timeshare, eating a lot of steak and spaghetti (what the boys ordered every meal out), drinking plenty of pina coladas (Dad and Wade’s drink of choice), eating Hula Pie at Duke’s and watching my 70-plus year old dad stand-up surf all afternoon in the ocean. When we returned, it was time for Wade to leave for Afghanistan. Although it was sad, we had Miss Brooke and Annaleis there to support us. We were so proud of our daddy as he left. Lincoln kept repeating, “We’ll always be here for you, Daddy. We’ll always be here for you.” As we watched the plane filled with 300 Marines lift off at March AFB around 9:30pm at night.
Once Wade had left, I got busy catching up on projects around the house. I built a cover for the pirate bed that would house Lincoln’s massive train set collection. Also, we went to play Nerf guns on the Paintball Park on Camp Pendleton and went Lincoln took horseback riding lessons there as well. We scheduled lots of gatherings for our Marine Team families and made a tight-knit community as our team consisted of less than 20 men. For Easter, the boys and I took a roadtrip to Cousin Casey’s in Arizona. As we drove into Sarahuita, the signs were all in Kilos and Spanish. I texted him asking where we were and he said, “Welcome to Mexico!”. I am still wishing I’d have taken more Spanish in high school as my French is not really helping.
Annaleis helped the boys treat me to breakfast in bed on Mother’s Day. Another tight-knit military family group was at Lincoln’s preschool. Only two families were not active duty at his school. So all of them helped celebrate Lincoln’s 5th birthday at the park right next to our school. Melinda and Shawn took me out for a night at the wineries where we watched a concert and eventually headed to Old Town for Karaoke. Geoff and Dawn also helped with the kids as Geoff threw a bbq and set up the tent in the backyard and took the kids while Dawn and I slept in the house. By this time, Wade had finally gotten internet service up and running in his base, so we started Skyping with him on a regular basis. The boys and I enjoyed that immensely. The Wives Club had a day at the Glen Ivy Spa which consists of over 12 beautiful pools about 30 miles north of here. My new friend, Deanna Gantt, braved paintballing on base as her two boys, Jack and Gavin, and Dakota were the only ones under 20 yrs old playing in the games. What does Dakota talk me into? Actually, I think we can blame that one on Annaleis as she is the one who took Dakota for his first experience anyways. Thanks, Leis! My dear friend and fellow military wife, MaryAnn Landin, whom I carpool with everyday, took us to Legoland for the first time. The kids loved the mini-cities made out of Legos and since have been obsessed with these expensive little blocks. In fact, that’s all they want for Christmas.
Annaleis announced that she would be moving out unexpectedly June 1st because she had a great opportunity to move into a beach house closer to her work. I was so sad and wasn’t sure how the rest of the deployment would go without her but faith told me God had it all under control and that we would be provided for. We finished off the school year and headed to Indiana for three weeks of pond fun, catching up with our Valparaiso friends, and celebrating Dakota’s birthday. (Instead of a birthday party, he wanted an IPOD so that he could FACETIME his cousins on his own.) Just as we were getting ready to go to the annual Pierman Fourth of July Picnic, Wade Skyped and said he might beat us back to California. He needed immediate medical surgery in the States and they were sending him home. He arrived back to California July 9th and we had just beat him by two days, arriving July 7th back into California. Instead of telling the boys, our good friends Tom and Brooke Petrich (Annaleis’ parents) helped create a surprise homecoming that the boys would never forget. Tom and Brooke are Chaplains for the Lake Elsnore Storm Baseball team (AAA Padres feeder team). So they coordinated for Wade to ride in on a quad behind the mascot during the pregame warm-ups in his dress blues. The boys were down on the field waiting and wondering why they were getting so much special treatment; getting to sit in the dug out, going down on the field, getting team memorabilia, etc… Then as their dad pulled up, they stood in awe and confusion not knowing it was him since he wasn’t expected for 4 more months. Miss Brooke actually had to tell them it was Wade! It was such a joyous occasion and one that none of us will ever forget. Such a blessing that he had arrived home safely.
Once he got back, we celebrated by going to a Trampoline Park in Costa Mesa, renting a beach house with Dawn and Geoff and neighboring with Landin’s on Del Mar Beach and hiking trips to the Falls. His surgery was a success and he started back to work August 22nd.
When he checked back in, he was immediately informed he would be running the next team to deploy to Afghanistan in March. So he started training again. I continued with this new frustrating news by going to Bible Study on Wednesday with Miss Betty and going to Military Wives Bible Study on Tuesdays with Miss Brooke. The boys started Second grade and Kindergarten and loved their new teachers. Now they were at the same school and I could volunteer in each of their classes one day a week. I also continued going to PEO twice a month and got to sneak a weekend away to Indiana for my 15th High School Class Reunion. The boys started playing on a basketball league and I coached Lincoln’s team. We got to go Rving for the first time to San Onofre Beach. The boys wanted to move out of our house and into an RV permanently. It was a lot of fun. Bart arrived safely home from Afghanistan and orchestrated another surprise homecoming. He had the local news team come out to the farm to “interview dad” and as they were taping, out popped Bart in his cammies and surprised Dad for his birthday. It was such a relief to have both my military men home!
One fall day, as we walked back from our new neighbor-friends’ house(Landon‘s), Lincoln broke his thumb and had to get stitches. He was riding Dakota’s bike and fell off. It was my first ER visit for the boys. It was awful! But as Lincoln proclaimed 6 weeks later, “Mommy, God healed my thumb!” And the rest is history with notsomuch as a scar to show for it. We got to go camping with the Wolves for Cub Scouts as a family with several other fun families. Dawnielle took me to Xanadu for my birthday. The boys ran in the Buffalo Alley 1k and 5k at Camp Pendleton.
Janet and her kids came to California for a week in October. Scott was supposed to come but due to house flooding, he wasn’t able to come. We went to Disneyland for their Halloween Night all dressed as Angry Birds. (Lincoln’s choice) We also had fun going to the Zoo, Waterfalls, Legoland, Legoland Waterpark, and Legoland Aquarium. Janet is a Zumba instructor with excellent endurance, and I had a hard time keeping up with her during this trip! Whew! It was a lot of fun though and probably the boys favorite week of the year! Lisa surprised me with a quick visit to San Diego in November. It’s so nice to have such great friends all over the map! Bart and Anne and Crickette spent Thanksgiving with us. Lincoln did the Nutcracker Suite for his holiday show and Dakota sang “Christmas in the West”. It’s been a fun year with many blessings and unforgettable memories. Wow! 2012, what will you have in store? Christmas Blessings!
Love, Brigette, Wade, Dakota and Lincoln
Monday, December 12, 2011
Christmas Photo Shoot Boys 2011
Of course, a mother loves them all! But I just had to post some on the blog because i could only pick one for the Christmas card! ugh! here are some more of my favorite guys!
Friday, March 27, 2009
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