Happy Easter!

In honor of Easter (even though it's few days late) I'll show you the Marines Easter care package.

So first you need your box.  I highly recommend you use the USPS Flat Rate boxes.  I use them all the time, in country and out of country.  I like USPS, I know a lot of people don't but I do.  You can get FREE supplies, not only that but they can send you these FREE supplies to your front door for FREE!  Ok, yes it can take up to a week to 10 days, but if you plan accordingly you don't have to hassle with the actual Post Office until you mail the package.  Another plus with the flat rate boxes, is when you ship to APO/FPO addresses, it's $2 off the flat rate!

Then you need to gather your supplies, goodies, and box stuffers.  Whatever you want to put in is fine.  The Marine got Easter grass (Nicole and Kyle say it's the devil), an egg puzzle, a small basketball hoop w/ball, soccer eggs, an animal balloon (think the first Shrek movie,) and of course candy!  Everything except the candy I got at Dollar Tree or in the Easter aisle at Walmart, but those items were about $1 each.  I like to think cheap, something that they can give away or toss and not feel bad about it.

Here a few pictures of how I put it all together.  I basically layered the Easter grass, and all the items.  I did fill the Easter eggs with jelly beans, and I taped them shut.  I didn't want loose jelly beans. 

 



Now, tape up the box, grab and fill out your customs form and your label.  Both the custom form and the label can also be ordered and sent to your house from USPS.  You don't have to use a label, but we perfer to use them.  That way the Marine can just take off the label and reuse the box, and to keep my name and address safe.  It's a PERSEC thing, everyone should know and use it in this day and age, not just military.

The Marine did get his package, and I told him he had to open it on Easter Sunday!  He said the white chocolate rabbit melted and it now looks funny.  He's going to take a picture for me.  He also said I ruined his diet, but what's an Easter basket without all the goodies!  I think he secertly enjoyed it though.

Here comes Peter Cottontail
Hoppin' down the bunny trail

The Dancer

Waiting

It's been an incredibly long day.  I found out this morning about the Marines cousin.  FIL said that he was going to email him.  We have a Google Talk phone number, and I called and left him a message, basically saying to give me a call when he can.  I didn't want to tell him in a message or in an email.  I'm sure he'll know before he calls me but I know we are going to talk about his cousin.

His cousin was one year younger than him and they used to hang out and play together before S and his family moved to Oklahoma.  I have only met S once.  That was about a year and half ago.  I also met his wife and little girl at that time. 

All day I have been thinking about if I can make it to South Dakota.  I think that is where it will be because that is currently where his wife, parents, and grandparents live.   I want to be there for the Marine and his family.  This is what I hate about the military life.  Sometimes you can't make it to events because of distance, deployments, moving, or even not getting leave approved.   I'm sure I could get time off from work, but then I need to find someone to watch the furbabies.  I have one extra pet right now, and I hate to have my normal petsitter take on another pet who is already a little stressed being away from her family.  So when I know more about the services, I'll figure something out.  I also need to discuss it with the Marine, see if we can afford it. 

But I'll be there no matter what, even if it is only in spirit.

Can miles truly separate you from friends? If you want to be with someone you love, aren't you already there?
- Richard Bach

The Dancer

Rough Day

We had tornadoes last night.  I'm ok, but Jacksonville and Camp Lejeune were hit.  From what I can tell all my friends are ok.  It was a pretty intense night last night.

I had gone to an event that my Jr. Company Dancers were dancing in.  After about an hour there, one of the moms got a call from her boss and he said that the town he lived in (near Wallace, NC) was hit with a tornado and that many buildings were destroyed.  So the moms and I went over to one of the brick buildings at the church.  The building we had been in was a big metal warehouse type building that they use for a gym.  So not the safest building.  One of the moms was on the phone with someone, when Skip Waters , he was suppose to emcee the event, said on live news that the storm was heading for us and to get in a safe place.  So she went over to the gym and let everyone know while we waited.  We hung out in the hallway of the Sunday School building, for about 15-20 minutes.  A tornado had touched down about 3 miles away from where we were.  I waited a bit longer because the storm was headed towards my house, and I didn't want to drive into it. 

I got home safely and nothing had happened in our area, not even rain, just some wind. But the clouds in the Jville direction were nasty.  We still had a warning for Onslow County so I kept my eyes on the news.  About 9pm Jville and Camp Lejeune were hit.

I have contacted my FRO's (2 because the Marine is an IA) to let them know that I'm ok.  The Marine knows I'm ok.  He had gotten on yahoo chat, and I let him know about the storms.  He also called later.  We are both concerned about all the Marines that are deployed from Camp Lejeune, because right now they are worried about their families.  Not to be with your family during a time of disaster is frustrating.

In other sad news, I sent an email out to all of my friends and family letting them know we were ok, my FIL responded back saying he just found out that the Marine's cousin passed away sometime during the night or morning.  S (cousin) was about the same age as the Marine.  They aren't sure what the cause was, but apparently he had a similar episode a month ago.  He had a wife and young daughter.  Please keep the Marine's family in your thoughts and prayers.

What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.
- Helen Keller

The Dancer

Mrs. Obama's Visit

Today Mrs. Obama and Dr. Jill Biden visited Camp Lejeune.  A week ago I received an email from my FRO (Family Readiness Officer) about their visit.  So I called my FRO to see if there was a spot available.  In doing that I had to sign away my soul...Ok, not really but I did have to give him my full name, my SS number, my place of birth, and my current address.  You have to do the same thing if you want to visit the White House, so not such a big deal since I did that last spring.  I found out two days ago that I was selected to attend.

So I got up at 4:20 am, let the dogs out (I'm dog sitting one extra dog), lock the cats up (because they don't really like the new dog, and new dog isn't sure what they are), get dressed, let dogs in, grab purse, and leave the house by 4:45am.  If you know me, I don't do well getting up this early so this is a huge feat for me!  You are probably wondering why I left so early.  Jacksonville and Camp Lejeune have horrible traffic in the morning on top of that there is some road work at the front gate.  So I didn't want to miss the event because I was in traffic for an hour and half.  I also picked up a friend who was also going to the event.  Luckily, I did miss all the traffic.  It was so nice!  But that did leave me sitting in the parking lot for a while.  So I did my make-up and read my book for about 30 minutes.  About 6:45 I headed into our units building to wait for the bus, got on the bus at 7am, then we headed over to the field house.  Then we went through security and were seated.

And then we waited...and waited...and waited...and waited. We sat and waited about two hours.  Thank goodness I brought my book, The Devil in Pew Number 7 (BTW, great book) and my iPod Touch which let me entertain myself by playing Sudoku.  I also chatted with two friends, one sent me an text saying, "I see you...in a non-creepy way, I promise."  LOL, I think she's pretty funny.  We weren't waiting for everyone to get through security and get seated for 2 hours, maybe we only waited a half hour for that.  But we were waiting on the White House people to be ready.

I also like to people watch.  While I was people watching I noticed that the majority of the voluntold Marines were single Marines.  So I felt that this event was wasted a bit right there.  I know there were more spouses that were interested in attending but each unit only had so many spots for spouses.  So that was a disappointment that most of the people there didn't want to be there because they didn't have families and didn't care about what was going.

While I am discussing things I'm disappointed with, let's talk about how they were telling people no kids, and then they had a select few (10 maybe 12) who sat with their parents behind the podium.  Basically they made it look like a family event for the news cameras.  Again, I had friends that couldn't come because they had children and couldn't get child care on such short notice.

Finally, the CO of the base made an announcement and let us know that we needed to be patient and that things would be starting soon.  And we waited some more.  He actually started walking around and was talking to the Marines and the spouses.  He jokingly told the people not to ICE him because we were waiting on the White House, and I said, "So we need to ICE the White House?"  He laughed and said, "Yes, ICE the White House!"  Honestly, I think the base did a good job with the event, and I know we weren't waiting on them. 

Finally, Major General Jensen got up and spoke.  He introduced the "First Dude" (the Governor's husband)of North Carolina, Bob Eaves, and he gave a short speech.  I learned from him that NC is the Most Military Friendly State.  He also spoke of Carolina Helping Heroes.  This program is about the local communities helping the families of deployed military members in NC.  Check to see if your state has something similar, if not start your own!  Then Major General Jensen introduced NC Senator Kay Hagan, and she gave a short speech.  Finally, the time came for Major General Jensen to introduce Dr. Jill Biden and Mrs Obama.  Dr Jill Biden spoke first, and she had some good stories of military families she has come across.  Her son is also military so she understands the military life a bit. 

Finally, Mrs Obama spoke.  I did not feel that this was politically motivated, and this isn't in response to what happened last week with the possibility of the military not being paid during a government shutdown.  This event had been planned before the possible shutdown.  This was about helping military families during times of peace and during times of war.  This is something that Mrs. Obama wants to last beyond her husbands term as President.  She wants this for our Veterans, our current service members, and our future service members and their families.  This is something that Mrs. Obama has been interested in for awhile. 

She spoke of a new initiative for military families called, "Joining Forces."  Basically, it's about getting the communities, businesses, and other organizations involved with helping military families.  This can be education assistance, job assistance for spouses and service members, wellness, basically anything that can help a military family out big or small.  Small, your neighbor's husband is deployed, offer to mow her lawn.  Or in my case, my friend wanted to head home for a couple of weeks shortly after her Marine deployed.  I offered to watch her sweet Chloe dog, so Chloe didn't have to be boarded for 2 weeks.  Sometimes the little things are the big things.  Big, businesses like Sam's Club offering job transfers when military spouses move due to orders, or Chamber of Commerce's having job fairs for Veterans and military spouses.

If you are in a military community you may already be seeing a lot of this type of thing.  If you are aren't, go to your bases website, talk to your FRO, and check with your local Chamber of Commerce.  If you aren't in a military community, you may have to look a bit deeper.  Also check your Chamber of Commerce, and maybe check the VFW and the American Legion.  If you aren't finding something then start your own organization to help military families.  If you want assistance and aren't finding it, create it. 

Be Proactive Instead of Inactive! (I say that a lot!)  That's something I learned with our first deployment.

The Dancer

Out of the Mouths of Not So Babes

So the real saying is, "Out of the mouths of babes."  Well, I got the opposite tonight.  One of my girls said "va-jay-jay bagging" tonight. If you are giving the computer a weird look right now, then it's probably the same look I gave one of my older students tonight.  I'm pretty sure my mouth dropped to the floor.

She asked me if there was such a thing as "va-jay-jay bagging, you know because guys do tea bagging."

WTF, seriously!  She is 14 (turned 14 recently), and asking crap like this!

Then one of my sweet innocent girls was like, "What's tea bagging?"

Of course I refused to answer, and some of the other girls were saying, "You don't want to know."  Thankfully, they left it at that.  I'm just stunned that they know this stuff, they are so young!  Ugh, the things they say sometimes.  These girls are all 14 and younger, I'm just blown away by the things they know.

I do believe that our society and technology is causing our youth to know about things they shouldn't.  Or maybe I was just super innocent at that age and in high school.  Maybe it's a bit of both.

I used to be Snow White -- but I drifted.

MAE WEST, The Wit and Wisdom of Mae West

The Dancer

To Far Far Away and Back Again

Well a few days ago, I jumped into my trusty Charger and we went on an adventure to Durham, NC, to then go to the land of Far Far Away.  If you didn't catch that, I went to to Shrek the Musical at DPAC in Durham, NC.

OMG, what an amazing show!  It has some beautiful moments, like the ones that make you tear up and it touches your heart.  It made you laugh, a lot, and I wouldn't expect anything less from something that is Shrek.  The set was eye candy, the costumes were amazing, the lightening was perfect, the make-up was great, and the puppetry was fabulous.  There was so much to this show I'm not really sure where to start.  I'm going to warn you this blog is going to be long.  And if you don't want to read about my opinions and find out certain things stop reading after the next two paragraphs.

Actually, I do know where to start.  I LOVE the Shrek movies, except for the third one.  The first two are the best, then four, and I would just like to forget that they even made the third one.  I love Shrek so much, that I quote it fairly often, "Really, really." and I usually pick it if the Marine asks me to pick out a DVD.  We actually started dating the year the first movie came out.  Gosh, now I'm showing our age, kind of.

What do I love about Shrek?  Well, I love the writing, the story is great, but I think what made me really fall in love with it was the use of music.  They picked great songs for the soundtrack.  It's one of the soundtracks that I always have.  It has a lot of the music that makes you want to dance, but if it's not the dancing type of music it's the type that you just want to sit and listen to the lyrics.

So lets talk acting.  For the most part the acting was great.  There were a few times the actor that played Shrek sounded more Irish than Scottish.  He also had a few time when he was hard to hear.  It wasn't because of his accent.  But I'm not sure if it was because of the sound people not bumping up his mic (the first time I noticed was the first few minutes of the show) or if he just wasn't being loud enough.  Both maybe?  Everyone was great, I mean they had to be bears, fairies, witches, Peter Pan, etc.  They really got into their characters.  Many of them had to play multiple characters.  You know the "fairy tale things" as Shrek calls them, towns people, the Duloc singers, mice, the guards, etc.  This a great show for the actor that wants to be a chorus member.  So many options.

The set and lighting, wow.  Moving trees, tread mill effects, great back drops, there is just so much to the set I can't explain it all.  The colors were eye catching.  Really, it brought Far Far Away and Shrek's swamp to life.  When you came in they had the curtain drawn but it made you feel like you were about to go into a forest (I was 4 rows from the front of the stage.)  Now, lighting made the set even better.  They were great at creating the sun and the moon (if you remember both are important in the movie), the darkness that a forest creates, and the doom of the castle.  The lighting definitely set the mood, but also created the time of day.  I think they hit every point they need to hit with lighting.

The music, that's what makes Shrek, right?  Well, it was great!  Most of the songs are original.  They do sing What's Up, Duloc which the first part of it is in the movie. You know,

"...Please keep off of the grass,
Shine your shoes,
Wipe your...face,
Duloc is, Duloc is
Duloc is a perfect place!" (ok the last half is my favorite part of the song and that's why I posted it and not the whole song!)

Then at the end after the Curtain Call, they sing "I'm a Believer!"  Which was basically like a concert.  Everyone was standing up, dancing and singing.  Seriously, one of the best shows I have been too in a long time.  My favorite song, Freak Flag, because there is a little bit of a freak in all of us.  At the end of it Pinocchio says, "I'm wood, and I'm good!"

Costumes and make-up, without those this show would be a bunch of people pretending and the audience trying to pretend who they are.  If you didn't have a good imagination you would be lost.  The costumes and the make-up brought the "fairy tale things" to life!  They were meticulous with things.  Like Pinocchio's costume, I could see the grain of wood they painted into every inch of his costume.  The costume designer probably had a lot of fun thinking these up!  The make-up was great  Shrek, Donkey, all the fairy take things, the mice, and the Duloc dancers.  They did a great job with getting everyone made into what they needed to be and then back to their other character/s.  Even Fiona's transformation at the end they were able to do in a matter of minutes.

The puppetry and special effects were very good and pretty ingenious.  First let's talk Dragon.  OMG, she was beautiful!  Everything that she was in the movie she was in the musical.  She was a giant puppet.  If I remember correctly she had 3 people creating her motions.  When they opened her wings she really flew across the stage.  She definitely owned the stage when she was on it!  "I'm a real boy!" and Pinocchio's nose grows.  It really grew.  He had a mask contraption over his nose, and they had it set up somehow to grow on cue.  I'm guessing it was either remote control or maybe Pinocchio had a button that he had to push somewhere on him.  Lord Farquaad, ahh, what a fantastic character.  Let's hope that he has good knees!  He was a full size man that did most of his acting on his knees.  Lord Farquaad was a bit of puppetry and costume all tied into one.  He was always fun to watch and they did some great choreography with him and his "little" legs.  Fiona's transformation from human to ogress at the end when she is lifted into the air.  Just like the movie.  I could not see ANY wires or cords.  We went to Marry Poppins last summer (great show also) but we could see the wires they used.  I don't know what they used, or if it was just the lighting, but she just levitated.   It was magic.

I loved this show.  I want to see it again.  I might see it again soon too.  It's going to be in Charlotte in June.  I suggest that you go see it if you ever get the chance.

I leave you with one of my favorite moments from the show, it was when Shrek and Donkey were crossing the bridge to go save Fiona.  They changed it from the movie, but Shrek is ahead of Donkey, and Donkey looks down and realizes how high it is, and he freezes and won't move.  He asks Shrek to help him and not let go, and Shrek takes Donkey gently by the leg and softly says, "I won't let you go....I won't let you go."  And he guides him across the bridge.

That is a true friendship.

The Dancer

Running Through My Head (Singing)

Remember that song from the around 2003?  It's actually called All the Things She Said (caution video link) and it's by t.A.T.u, but for some reason the lyrics, "running through my head..." are what I remember!  Haha

Well, I have a lot running through my head.  Things I have to write about Kings Dominion, Shrek the Musical, care packages, and unit family days.  Those are the ones that I remember right now.  So keep your eyes open for them.

(keeps singing) Running through my head, running through my head, running through my head...

The Dancer