Pumpkins, Squashs' cousin

Look at this happy lil' thing! Where have the last 8 months gone!? She is getting quite the personality these days. We go to the Y quite often and she knows that mom is leaving her. The first few (okay lots of times) she cried for the whole hour. But now she is getting better. The girls in the nursery say she doesn't like to be in the baby side, she likes to be where all the "big kids are" which makes sense because of her loud big brothers.

This year we went to a nearby pumpkin patch for our pumpkins. I love Addie's face in this picture, just kind of hanging out, literally. It was really cold this night so we were trying to hurry so we didn't freeze. Matt has his usual CHEESY smile. We had a great time digging, scooping, and carving pumpkins. Owen loved getting all gooey and Matthew ate a few pumpkin seeds.

Again here we are trying to hurry so she doesn't do a face plant on the steps.

Here are Buzz Lightyear and Optimus Prime. Owen had his eyes set on being a transformer since he saw a costume at Costco. Matthew got his costume from Eva for his birthday. Since Steve was gone to San Diego for Halloween our very nice neighbors took out their grandkids and invited the boys to go along too. Addie and I stayed home and baked some cookies. We only had about 5 trick or treaters.Trying to get a picture of all three of them all by myself was tricky (get it) so this is as good as it gets. They were already trick or treating in the heads so their minds were not on picture taking.

Once they were gone I was able to get Addie in her ladybug costume. All she wanted to do was attack the camera! She is trying to crawl so bad but just scoots backwards, which she HATES!

We survived Steve being gone for 8 days, now we are gearing up for him to be gone again in Jamaica for his brothers wedding. We hope everyone else had a very fun Halloween!

Great Grandma and Grandpa: A look back

Our family was very blessed to have Albert and Norma in our lives. All three of our kids met them, got to be held by them, listened to them sing songs to them and even play a card game or two with them. Now we have memories and pictures to remember their lives. All these pictures serve a purpose: to show our kids what wonderful grandparents they were and how much they loved their family. This picture (above) was in April, the first time they met Adeline. When Albert met Adeline he perked right up and gave her a smile.

This picture was taken during Christmas time of 2005. Owen was about three weeks old. This was our chance to get a 4 generation picture: Albert, Dave, Steve and Owen. 4 generations of Kudrna boys.

Another shot of all four, this one cracks me up. Owen is so tiny sitting up next to Steve on the couch. Oldest to youngest.

Great Grandma Norma was always a sucker for babies. Owen was being a pretty fussy baby, being so little passing him around he was getting irritated. Norma decided to hold him and as you can see in this picture she just calmed him right down and he finally fell asleep in her arms. Once a mom, always a mom. I even remember a time when they were living in their Alzheimer's facility, letting her hold Matthew and he was crying a little bit she just sang him a little made up song. Sure was neat to see her eyes light up at the sight of babies.

Owen resting in Great Grandma Norma's arms. Nothing can really describe this picture so I'll let you make your own :)

Albert and Norma: Thank you for teaching us so much in such a little amount of time. Even though I only knew them for about 8 years I'll never forget some of their mannerisms:
"This (any kind of food) is deeeelicious!" (Norma)

"Getting old is the sh*&!" (Albert)

"Give me that fish!" (Norma)

Rest in Peace and I can't wait to see you again with a big party in heaven, until we meet again....

Still a learning process

I know what you are thinking: how technologically challenged am I? Ha. Obviously a lot! These pictures were taken with a sweet friend of ours, Deanna Gemmer, who did our family pictures last year. She know has her own photography business. My good friend, Eva, helped pick out our outfits and I think they turned out quite nice. My two handsome boys.

My sweet children. We did our whole photo shoot in downtown Port Orchard. It was a gorgeous morning and for the most part the kids were cooperative.

This is my favorite shot of the day. Deanna was great at getting the boys to have a genuine smile. This one is on our mantle and I am thinking of getting it on a canvas.

Sweet Adeline Rae, you can really see her red hair in this shot, so much like her daddy. She did very well too, virtually impossible to get her to look at the camera AND to smile. We'll take what we can get!

Oh, my little Matthew. This is my most favorite shot of him of all time. Please note: about two weeks after this photo shoot he had to have six stitches in his forehead, whew! Every time I look at this picture I can just hear his laugh and his cute little voice.My big Owen. I still can't believe he'll be six in two months and that he's in kindergarten! When he was a baby and old ladies would feel so inclined to talk to me at the grocery store, they'd say "enjoy this time because it goes by so fast"...yeah yeah yeah, whatever, I just want to get some sleep! Boy were they right! I turned around and saw this!!

We can't stop kissin on this bebe! Everyday she grows and everyday there is an extra roll to clean! She's getting quite the chub going on and hardly fits in her bumbo anymore!

These two are so funny together. She's got her daddy wrapped around her finger, it's disgustingly cute.

Mom and her boys. I don't know what it is but there's nothing like it and nothing can duplicate it. At this point in the shoot everyone was getting tired and hungry so this is why this picture is this way but it shows what my life is like as a mommy of boys.

We wore out miss Adeline. Our little sleeping beauty.

Thank you again to Deanna Gemmer Photography we now have beautiful, updated pictures hanging in our house and so do all of our family. Now if they just wouldn't grow so fast....

USS Bowfin and USS Parche Submarines

All of the pictures were taken from the USS Bowfin Submarine and some of the USS Parche. It was very fun to tour this boat with Steve, he was my own personal tour guide. While we were looking at the Parche Periscope he was explaining a few things and another man had asked him if he worked there and Steve was like not here but yes? So Steve had a little group and talked to them about how most of it worked. It was very funny.

This is looking the other way (can't rember if it's aft or stern) looking towards the ocean and in the direction of the USS Arizona.

We were on top of the sub looking towards the shore and towards the periscopes and radar systems.

This is inside the Bowfin. They only used this "wheel" in emergency situations and when diving. There were so many buttons and controls, I don't know how they knew which to read and which one not to. Thank goodness they knew what they were doing, and still know what they are doing for us! I was wearing headphones because there was an audio tour, which took us through the boat and talked about which rooms did what and what happened where. There is very little room, but more room than I thought. It was very neat to finally go onto a submarine with Steve and see what he does on a daily basis.

This is the periscope and radar systems of the USS Bowfin. Since this is a World War II submarine it is much different than the submarines of today. But it was still cool to hear Steve tell me all about how submarines can communicate while under water and how they can search and attack at certain depths (sorry it's classified, I don't even know that info).

This is the USS Parche periscope on display at the USS Bowfin Submarine tour. The Parche was a submarine that served as a unit of the United States Atlantic Fleet. She was decommished on July 18, 2005 she was scrapped at the Shipyard in Bremerton and her research and duties has been assumed by the USS Jimmy Carter. So as you can see a lot of these things that have taken place with this submarine have links to Steve and what he does at the shipyard.

USS Arizona

This is the USS Arizona off in the distance. There are a few other memorials out there (notice all the other white "boxes"). The USS Missouri was another boat that you could tour but we opted to just tour the USS Arizona and the USS Bowfin Submarine. The USS Missouri was a battleship, she was the sight of surrender of the Empire of Japan which ended World War II.

This was inside the memorial: the list of names of all the men who died on December 7th, 1941. It reads: "To the memory of all the galliant men here entomed and their shipmates who gave their lives in action on December 7, 1941 on the USS Arizona."

We had to take a boat out to the memorial and that's where this picture was taken. If you look close enough you can see the rusty parts of the boat sticking out of the water. The memorial is just resting on top of the boat. It was a very moving and emotional experience.

This is us right before we entered the USS Arizona Memorial. It was an amazing display of honor for the men who gave their lives for us on December 7th 1941.

Testing 1 2 3

This picture is a little bit better about showing the bay. The darker areas in the water are the coral. The fish in the water were very pretty. We were hoping to see a turtle but we never did.

These pictures were from Hanama Bay. This is a Nature Preserve of volcanic coral. After we arrived and parked the car we had to walk to the entrance and pay the fee for both of us and then we had to watch a short 15 minute video on how to treat the coral. There was a lot of people out but the bay is so big that it was still very comfortable. We rented some snorkel gear and went snorkeling a few times. We lathered up with sunscreen and went into the water. After we were done we can back dried off and laid in the sun. Little did we know that we should have put on more suncreen, we were both so red and so sore at the end of the day. Steve was worse of than me but we think it was worth it :)

Fadagaled Blog

Okay, after messing with this blog all day long I have decided not to fight with it anymore! I can't figure out how to load pictures on with the text next to them about the picture. Anyway. These are some (well 2) pictures from Hawaii. The first one is us on a drive up to see the whole city of Honolulu and the second one is just the city itself with Diamond Head in the background. I'll try to do more with this tomorrow. Enjoy!