Praise Update on the Airline Tickets

After speaking with customer relations from US Airways our excessive fee dilemma has come to a close. US Airways is going to give my family vouchers for our future travel and waive the change fees for each of our tickets! This is great news for our family. I was sweating bullets about the amount of money we had spent and I am so thankful for the willingness and kindness that US Airways has shown us during this time of uncertainty. Now, if I could just get the military to show the same willingness and kindness.... if only! This has been a big lesson for me, I am never going to buy a non-refundable ticket again (unless we are already on leave) and I am not going to book tickets until I see Chris leave on an airplane for the desert!

Chris and I tend to have the worst luck with things and whenever there is a mess up, it always effects our finances. I was very upset and angry with God over this, I know it sounds silly, but I was really let down after I found out about the problems with our plans. I was praying hard and looking for that last minute miracle, but it didn't come. After that point I was feeling oppressed by the enemy, he was trying really hard to pull me away. I felt really punished. I kept reminding myself that this may be a rough time, but at least I didn't have it as bad as Job! I think God knows just how far he can push you and he knows just the right time to give you sight of the light at the end of the tunnel.

The military changes its mind like I change my kids diaper

The Shishido family has been dealing with an impending deployment for the month of November. My husband was due to go on his very first deployment and would have been gone for  Christmas. Me and the boys were prepared for this and we went ahead and purchased airline tickets to join our family in Idaho. Fortunately and unfortunately, Chris' deployment was canceled (glad he is not going, but the tickets!!).

Our family was due to be separated for Christmas and it was not because of the deployment it was because of the airline tickets that I got for the boys and myself to leave. My main goal was to make sure our family would be together as holidays like Christmas are hard to come by being a military family. I went ahead and asked my husband if he would be able to get off for Christmas and join us in Idaho. He asked his supervisor and was told yes. Yay!! So I purchased him a ticket.

Well, Chris has been unable to fly the last 6 months because of his corrective eye surgery (so he doesn't have to wear glasses). He was recently cleared for duty as of November and in the month of November had been trying to process to leave for the desert. Here is where our problem hits! Since Chris has been unable to fly the last few months he is due for what is called a "check ride". All a check ride is, is when an instructor flies with Chris and evaluates his performance while he is doing his job.

Now let me stack up our bad luck. Normally Chris would be allotted 6 months to get this check ride, but because of a recent policy change, he is only given 4 months (we are in the 3rd month and in January there will be no flying for Chris' air-frame) and to make matters worse there is only one instructor that is able to give this check ride and he is booked. Not to mention that he could have got his check ride in the month of November, but he was very busy outprocessing for his deployment.

This series of unfortunate events has caused us a huge financial hardship and we are now separated for Christmas. And of course the airline refuses to help us with changing the ticket without having to pay the change fee and the additional costs of buying a more expensive ticket (if Chris is able to leave, IF he gets this check ride). 

These are the things that make me wish we weren't at the mercy of policies and constant changes. One lesson I have learned is, DO NOT buy airline tickets back home until he is gone!

***Update***I decided to of course stay in Tucson in hopes that maybe US Airways could waive the change fees. I spent about 1,200.00 on all three of our tickets and now US Airways is wanting us to pay 540.00 to change all the tickets to a later date. 1,200.00 + 540.00= 1,740.00. This is not even taking into account the possibility of our next tickets costing MORE. This makes me just sick knowing that I have wasted 540.00 that could have bought us food, clothes, an extra payment on our car. Sickening.

I am very thankful to be able to be with my husband and children this Christmas. I just wish it didn't have to include financial hardships.

October is Over, but there were some funnies in it.

Boy am I glad October is over! Unfortunately, Nickolas, Joshua and I were all sick for the majority of it. We are still fighting off the tail end, but we are feeling much better now. I wanted to jot down a few little funny things that Nickolas has said this month.
The first was, I was dropping him off at preschool and they were all allowed to dress up in their costume. Walking up to the door Nickolas was singing "You got a friend in me" and then would occasionally say, "Yeeehaw!" As we entered into the classroom, all of the children turned their heads and started saying, "It's Woody!" "Hey! He is Woody!" Nickolas stared for a moment and then said, "I'm not Woody.... I'm Nickolas!"
My second must jot down is, this last Sunday I decided I needed to file my nails and I had asked Chris to grab me my metal nail file from my purse. Nickolas saw Chris pull the file out and got a confused look on his face. He started watching me file my nails and then asked, "Momma, is that a sword?" The thing that made me giggle was thinking about it from his perspective. He sees Chris pull out this tiny, miniature sword from my purse and then he sees me start to file my nails with this mini sword!

Oh Joshua...

Joshua, my little baby Goo, as much as I love him, today is one of those days that he is... well, driving me nuts! I knew even before he was born that he would be a handful. People say you always get the opposite of what you had the first time, I agree. The moment he exited his womb home he was a crier. He cried and cried and cried until he was in my arms. I remember sitting in the bed as they were cleaning him up and thought to myself, "Oh man! He is going to be "that kid"!"

Nickolas was my first, and boy was he a walk in the park. Nickolas was very mellow and would be content doing just about anything. He slept like clockwork, ate at set times during the day, rarely spit up, and hardly cried. Now I know that every child is different, but Joshua is the polar opposite. He will not sleep unless he is held standing up, he eats sporadically, spits up all over his clothes, and cries.... all... day.... long! Joshua is high maintenance…

When my family came to visit us, I had told my mom that he was a very emotional, whiney kid and of course he acted the complete opposite while they were here. During their visit he was given constant attention and for the first time in his life sat quietly under his play tent just playing. I am beginning to think that he may need the constant attention. He wants to constantly be talked to and stimulated, which is fantastic, but as a mother of two, I have to make sure Nickolas is getting the same love and attention. I notice as soon as my attention is diverted to Nickolas, Joshua begins his crying fits. I actually can’t even get ready in the morning without Goo throwing a fit. In fact, I think the only stable routine in his life is his crying schedule. He cries in the morning right when he wakes up, he cries until I hurry and make that bottle, he cries as I get dressed, he cries when we get back from dropping Nickolas off at school, he cries when I lay him down for his morning nap and then again when he wakes up from it; all that crying in the span of what? 4 hours! What does a mom do with a baby who just, cries?

100 Google Friend Connect Followers

Hey there readers. I think it is time to get things moving faster and see if we can get the blog to get to 100 Google Friend Connect followers! Remember, the more followers Nini and Goo gets, the bigger and better the giveaways.

So here is the deal, once Nini and Goo reaches 100 GFC followers I will release a cloth diaper giveaway.

"What is in it for me" You ask. Once we have reached 100 GFC followers and have released the Cloth diaper giveaway, I will be adding it as an entry for the giveaway! That means, for every person you refer to Nini and Goo, you will get +10 entries per person you refer.

"How do you keep track of the people I refer"? That is easy! Simply have your referred friend GFC Nini and Goo and comment below letting me know that they were sent by you.

"How do I tell my friends about Nini and Goo?"

Have them visit the blog at: http://terrashishido.blogspot.com/
Like the Nini and Goo Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Nini-and-Goo/261579780538673
Have them follow us on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/#!/NiniAndGoo
Put Nini and Goo's button on your blog
Blog about Nini and Goo on your blog

The faster we reach 100 GFC followers the sooner we get that awesome cloth diaper giveaway!!

Wholesale Costume Club Review

Halloween is right around the corner and you guessed it, time to pick out that costume! I always wind up making mine the day of, last minute, with things I find around my house. One year I was a soccer coach, an 80's girl, and last year I dug out my kimono I bought while in Japan (I was very authentic!). 

I wanted to start my search for a costume for my Nickolas early and I bumped into Wholesale Costume Club. They are BBB Accredited and have hundreds of costumes for adults, teens, kids, toddlers, and infants! Oh and did I mention pets too?! Wholesale Costume Club also offers must have costume accessories, wigs, mustaches and beards, shoes, gloves, glow-sticks, jewelry and much more; they are your one stop costume shop that you can visit from the comfort of your home. And the best part is, the prices are very reasonable.

 I let Nickolas pick out which costume he wanted this year and he wanted to be the "Cowboy" (as he says) from Toy Story. I really like how the costume looks detailed, but it is pretty simple. It is a light material which is great for the hot trick or treating weather we have here or it is light enough to stick layers underneath! It looks really comfy :) The hat is made out of foam and is a great completion to the outfit.

 Such a character! He was so excited to be woody that he kept trying to run away from the camera! He wanted to find his toy gun.

You can find the Toy Story Woody costume here .

Your toddler not crazy about the Toy Story theme? They have tons more infant and toddler costumes found here!

Wholesale Costume Club offers a 5$ annual membership that gives you access to even better deals on your costumes.

They ship to the U.S., Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, France and New Zealand.

You can find them on:
Twitter:  @costumeclub When you "follow" their twitter page you get a code for a free membership!
And you can look them up on Facebook under: Wholesale Costume Club

Please like their page and let them know that Nini and Goo sent  you by tagging us @NiniandGoo and telling them which costume you like (this is one of our secret entries in some upcoming giveaways! Save permalink!!!!)

What we've been up to

I wanted to take the time to explain a crazy week we had here at Davis-Monthan in September. Saturday September 10th we had a huge lightening, thunder, wind-storm that knocked out a transformer. We lost power late in the evening and were expecting it to come back on while we were asleep. To our surprise the power remained off all night... and all day Sunday! We went without power for 24 hours. Unfortunately, our food spoiled and we had to throw it all away :( I hate wasting food! While the power was out however, we got to spend some quality family time and later in the evening we purchased Dominos pizza and shared it with our neighbors on our street. The total came up to 80$, but Chris and I only paid 40$! Dominos was nice enough to give us half off our order knowing that we were without power on the base (we were the only people in town without power). The other positive note was our homeowners insurance through USAA covered our spoiled food! I love USAA...

Now onto Friday, September 16th, yes, this all happened in the same week! Due to an impending deployment in our future, I decided to sign Chris and I up for a COPE roadshow for families that will be going through a deployment or have gone through a recent deployment. This will be Chris' very first deployment and I wanted to be very prepared... If you are a military wife you know that what can go wrong, will go wrong, when they are deployed :P

So, we started off the roadshow at the chapel on base where we dropped Nickolas off at the childcare they were providing in the same building. Around 11am we headed across the street to the education center building where our couples class was to be held. We were in the middle of class and Joshua (who I had with me since they only offered 1 year of age and up childcare) started to get a little fussy. I stood up to leave the room so I would not disturb the other couples and I barely get out of the room before I see two men in the hallway, one with a walkie talkie, both in ABU uniforms. I started to walk to the bathroom and they stopped me and said, "You need to get back in the classroom." Taken back and offended I said, "I was just going to the restroom." The man with the walkie talkie told me, "You need to get back in the classroom there is an active shooter on base." I stood there for a brief moment and went to turn to the door, but turned back around and asked him, "Should I tell everyone in the room here?" He told me that I could, but they may panic. I turned around and opened the door and interrupted the couple heading the class. "I don't want anyone to panic, but they just told me that there is an active shooter on base and they want us to stay inside the room here." Even as I was making the announcement the reality of my situation hadn't quite sunk in until someone said, "Are you okay? Are you worried about Nickolas?" That is when I got slapped back into reality and it finally hit me that there was some person on base with a gun and here I am stuck in an education center while my son is across the street not in my care, not in my sight. I started bawling. I felt really helpless and I just wanted to run across that street and hold my baby. My mind kept going through all the awful scenarios of what could happen to him and I absolutely could not stand the fact that I was not there with him; I felt helpless.

We were stuck in the education center for 6 hours where I tried to keep calm about my son being in a different building. Thankfully he was with people he knew as we attend the chapel on base for church, AWANAs MOPS and other activities. On another positive note,there was a snack bar there where we all tried to grab something to eat and tried watching the news, but they knew nothing more than we did. I think I spent most of my time in the hallway waiting anxiously to find out any sort of information that I could about what was going on. Finally after 6 hours of agonizing waiting we were told that we were allowed to go across the street, get Nickolas and go home. I was so relieved to be able to get him and hug him. We went home (on base) and waited to see what was going on. The base commander came on and told us that no one was hurt and there was no shooter. What a day we had!