Tunnels

Over the past two days, Ricky has been in school in LA, and I have been forced to drive for the first time in Virginia.  I have driven in Honolulu, from GA to Colorado Springs, through Atlanta and Orlando and never had any trouble, but Virginia has Tunnels.  These are under water tunnels that you have to go through to get in or out of Norfolk, Chesapeake, Virginia Beach, and Portsmouth.  These tunnels scare me to death.  At first I made Ricky drive all of the time and I just kept my eyes shut going through these tunnels.  

Ricky had to get to the airport and I had to take him during rush hour.  Not only did I have to keep my eyes open for the first time in a tunnel, but I had to drive it.  To make matters worse, this was a tunnel, that first you had to drive over a long draw bridge and then through the tunnel, and guess what was happening that day, yep, stupid draw bridge, IN THE MIDDLE OF THE INTERSTATE, was up.  So I sat, in about 6 lanes of traffic, each way, waiting on the draw bridge, so I could finish the bridge and get through the tunnel.  I was pretty sure I was lost anyway and not on the right road, turns out I was on the correct road, just in the wrong lane.  After I got through the draw bridge and through the tunnel, I had one mile to get accross all six lanes of traffic, in my large mini van and get off my exit.  

I am pretty sure I will never, ever, drive in Virginia again.  Atlanta is so much easier to navigate.

Emma on the other hand, thinks my yelling and cursing is quite funny and erupts in fits of laughter everytime I start up again.  I am not sure thats a good thing.

Just thought I would share.

Hope your roads are clear and your days are warmer.

Christmas

Well we finally made it to Virginia and it is COLD!!!!  We miss everyone in GA but we are happy to be near our family here.  

Christmas was great.  We spent it with the Bowman side of our family.  For a month we were with Ricky's dad and mom and our neices and nephews, Mikey, Christopher, Jackie, and Brittney.  Then their older sister and her son came for two days along with their parents, Mike and Marie.  We had such a great time and can't wait to see them all again.

We are able to spend a lot of time with long missed friends who have now relocated here to Virginia as well as Ricky's parents.  We have also finally gotten our house, which was just built.  Not two days after we moved into our house it started snowing.  Ricky says I can not call it snow because it was not visible on the ground, but I saw snow falling and thats enough for me to call it snow.

Michael has started with a homeschool program here because the school systems are not the best.  He is really liking it and doing well.  Next year we are going to try to get him into a private school system for high school.

Ricky has started back to work.  He is working for the ORSE board at Fleet Forces Command.  He really loves his job and it has allowed him a lot of free time.  He is leaving tomorrow to go to LA for three days to finish up his training and then he will be home for the duration of his tour here.  He is very excited to not be going to sea six months of the year.

Emma is doing well.  We have decided to wait until next year to put her into school.  She has been through so many changes already with the move, we just don't want to push our luck.  She is growing like a week.  She even has enough hair now for a little pony tail on top of her head.

I am posting some pics of the house for everyone to see as well as some other posts.  I will try to update again soon!!!