Party On Valdez

Besides our own family's celebrations this month we had time to go to even more parties like the squadron pig roast, the Rubado annual Halloween pumpkin carving fest, and a surprise visit from Aunt Jen. Now you all understand why October is our absolute favorite month of the year!

Yup, dressing up again. This time for a squadron pig roast. Show them legs honey!

Aunt Jen made a surprise visit to Virginia and Ava was finally able to meet Ainsley. She was thrilled. She was so gentle and soothing talking to her. It makes me so proud of what a great big sister she is.

The girls would give Ainsley some space.....about a foot. They were so excited to see Jen's mom Ms. Pam again.

Jen being the super mom that she is had a craft for the kiddos to do while we visited

 Ainsley even got into the fun!

TADA!

Besties

Park days with the beautiful weather

The standard for relaxing. HAhaha. As I said, NEVER a dull moment.

GiGi came for a visit and played lots of Candy Land

Nanny and PopPops came for a visit and gave cupcakes to the girls for their birthdays

Favorite place in the house- PopPop's lap!

Our dear friends the Rubados had their annual Halloween party and the kids had a great time

painting pumpkins

Uncle Eric stayed with us for about 2 weeks while he was apartment hunting. We loved having him around and are so excited to live close to him for a few months

The kids excited to hold baby Aubrey

The adorable bambinos of the group - many more coming next year!

These are our friends from Greg's training squadron in Oceana. We have all become dear friends and the ladies have been a great support especially when the guys have been gone. We are missing one key friend here, Patsy!

Our Rag class- The majority of the class are expectant parents!

Cari is our baby whisperer of the group. This is her sweet sweet newborn Aubrey.

Ellie pumpkin carving with Uncle Eric

Ava carving with Daddy

Doesn't this look like a doublemint gum commercial? How much do Ava and Ellie look alike here and Eric and Greg look alike?!

It was fun, controlled, chaos! 

Great results! Thank you again Rubados for always being fantastic hosts.

Cake Month

Our family's celebration month is October. We literally eat cake all month for the many celebrations that occur during it

Celebrating our 5 year anniversary with a weekend in Annapolis. It was neat to come back to where it all started. I still love my Midshipman.  A big thank you for GiGi watching the girls for us, Aunt Jeannie and Uncle Dan for the football tickets, and for Nanny and PopPops for treating us to our favorite steak restaurant in the United States

Mids marching on

Valdez Men showing Navy Pride

The steak was bigger than his head! yum yum yum 

Making easy mac (they were so excited to make their own dinner and then making Daddy's cake

Decorating Daddy's Cake

One of my all time favorite pictures of Mini

Happy Birthday Daddy!

 

Happy Birthday Mini

Opening presents with Sissy

A hide out Tent

So excited for her baby stroller

Daddy gets into the fun

Cake! Mini's favorite part of her birthday are the cake and balloons. The presents are a nice detail but she isn't that into them yet

Worn out from partying at school

Ava was so excited to wear her fairy costume for her Halloween Parade at preschool. As you can see she is not nearly as shy when she is wearing fancy clothes

the 4 year old classes. Miss Ava front and center. They sang Halloween songs for us

Love our Fairy! Coming soon to the blog....Ava's birthday, Halloween, and celebrating both girls birthdays at Great Wolf Lodge. Stay tuned!

While we were gone....

          The other half of the Valdez gang had a great week in Virginia while Ellie and I were in California. It was a full house of rotating guests between Eric, Nanny, and PopPops. We were able to go on the trip because Nanny was so sweet to rearrange her schedule to come and stay with Ava during the week. They had an action packed week full of bike rides, the pumpkin patch, the zoo, the movie theatre, and garden projects. Ava is still talking about how much fun they had. Thank you again for Nanny and PopPops coming to help do projects around our house and taking care of Ava. We are so blessed to have them live so close and be so flexible. 

                Greg was very busy with the change of command events with the squadron. He was selected this summer as "JOPA" which is the leader of the Junior Officer Protection Agency (Basically he is in charge of instigating fun and shenanigans for all the Lieutenants and below at squadron events). As part of his reign as JOPA he has started having a tradition of the JOPA dressing up for different events. You may recall from past blog posts where the guys dressed up as super heros after CONA ball and when they dressed like the Beastie Boys for Strike fighter golf. This time around for the change of command dinner the JO's all wore dinner jackets over their button down shirts. After the cocktail hour before sitting down for dinner, the guys did a big "reveal" by taking off their jackets and showing their "cut off" dress shirts. This was at an upscale restaurant so the other dinners definitely gawked and whispered. They all had a great time. 

I love summer whites! Greg is in the second row at the end on the right. This was at the change of command ceremony.

At a patching for new JOs to the squadron

Redneck JOs!

Oh yes he did

Always classy

Biking around VA Beach with Nanny 

Nanny with endless energy!

Zoo trip

Garden project

The pumpkin Ava painted