I Love Paying Our Babysitter!

  My husband and I have a date tonight!  We are going to have sushi for dinner, grab some drinks and see True Grit.  Now that we found a babysitter we can have more date nights!  It's so great paying someone to watch our children cause we don't have to feel guilty about taking advantage of someone doing us a favor for free.  I highly recommend finding yourself a great babysitter cause it makes all the difference just to be able to take that kid free time every once in a while.

The Most Dependable & Predictable Thing In My Life

  In this crazy, always changing life I'm living it's hard to find the predictable or dependable in each day.  I was sitting around the house realizing everything was clean, dinner was already prepared, the girls and Roger were at school and Brenden was down for a nap.  So I was bored thinking I had nothing to do and then I remembered I had a load of laundry in the washer and dryer!  Laundry, it is always there for me.  It's everlasting flow is predictable and dependable!  Seriously have you ever thought about it?  For the most part it never changes, something always needs to be washed.  If you ever think your completely finished you soon remind yourself of the comforting dependability it has by changing into your PJ's and tossing your dirty clothes in the hamper.   

Cooking New Things

It's so easy to get in the habit of cooking the same things week after week.  Grocery shopping becomes routine, the usual meals become the list you make out of habit.  For us ground beef is a must!  Tacos, Spaghetti, Meatloaf, and those are just favorites, ground beef can be dinner in so many ways.  I have always depended on my grill for most of my cooking.  I love grilling, makes for easy clean up.  Living in Vermont has changed my usual a bit.  Grilling really isn't a option.  If I really wanted to uncover it from the snow and stand in the -30 degrees it still wouldn't get hot enough to cook anything, except maybe a rare steak and that would be perfect for me, but not worth the work.  So this year I decided to change things up and try new things.  So far it has been great my husband is excited about the new meals and so are the kids!  I still keep in mind my family's likes and dislikes when choosing a new meal but for the most part they are very open so it makes it easy to do new things.

So far I have made: Seared Tuna on a Spinach Salad with Pomegranate & Blood Orange Dressing; Swiss Steak; Sausage Gumbo Pot Pie with Garlic Bread Crust; Thai Shrimp with Won Ton Toppers; Lemon, Soy Sauce & Brown Sugar Marinated Salmon with Spinach Salad and Wild Rice
 

 
     

Another New Begining

The life of being a Marine family is always a adventure.  We have just begun a new journey in Vermont.  Moving from 29Palms, CA has been a real culture shock but we are adjusting well.  I like to think of it as a adventure cause if it isn't the best place I remind myself to make the best of it cause we will be leaving before I know it.  We moved her in August so we got to enjoy the amazing fall New England has to offer (if anyone plans on visiting I would come that time of year).  The adjustment from living on base and living the life of a grunts wife to living among the civilians, with no local base to be a part of has been strange.  There is other Marines along with other branches of military going through the MECEP program at Roger's college (Norwich), so that does mean other wives but its just different.  I'm finding it hard to find my "Alyssa" , lol.  I understand the adjustment to a new place, it takes time to get everything in order from finances to friends.  Even with all the struggles of a adjustment period, I'm excited!  Like I said this is our next adventure and I am looking forward to making the best of it no matter what.  I am so thankful for this life style, the good out weighs the bad.  How many people get to travel, experiencing a new place every few years and share that experience with their children, it's amazing, not to mention sharing it all with my best friend/husband, the reason for my everlasting support through this adventure we call life.