Since it's Monday...............

I thought I would start the week with a post;)

I am thinking I will use Sunday as a weekly post but come here if I think of something, but we shall see. I don't like to come a dribble on about things, but I do want to use this as a family journal and journal our travels so to speak, so alas I already start with the dribbling...........

Yesterday it was ward conference for the Eindhoven ward. I received an email from the RS secretary that we had to be at the church at 9 am. Well, we got there and of course it was false. She has signed us, us being the RS presidency on a website to try and help us be more organized;) Good luck with that.......... anyway I guess it defaults if she doesn't place a time in the heading so we were there bright and early and then had to wait:( The kids of course, now being used to sleeping in a bit more were a little grumpy to say the least, but then again, they need to get back into the idea that church does start earlier in the real world;) For the ward conference they decided to change the meetings to starting with RS/Priesthood first than so forth, well let's just say we have a lot of "acronym" kids in our ward and changing their schedule really makes for a hard day for them. Most did pretty well, but a couple by the time we got to sacrament were done! After church we had soup Sunday. The stake leaders ate in one room and the members in the big church area. I didn't understand the meaning of this because i would think the leaders would like to mingle with the ward members? Oh well, we had our soup, with little pieces of yummy bread and then stayed and mingled for a bit after the fact. We didn't get home until well after 3 pm. Yes it made for a very long day, but it was fun talking with other's.

Sheldon worked on the back yard Saturday and we got my new patio furniture all set up on the little stoned area. I think we will get an umbrella from IKEA that we saw and then we should be done. I also ordered some replacement cushions for the older patio chairs that I had and they should be here in a couple weeks. I will be happy to have all my stuff up and then when we bbq we will have a nice back yard to sit in. Once we find a trampoline and basketball set the yard will be complete in the boys eyes;) We'll have to take the trampoline apart every winter but that's ok. At least they will have it again.

We will be having Nancy and Nathalie over for dinner this week, then the van Emple girls wanted to come for a bbq at the end of the month, we invited Daniel to come too and then the Bishop and his family over in June for Sheldon and Nelly's birthdays. We have a lot to look forward too. Well, it's almost 11 am and I still have some things I want to do before I have to take Jori to the Houssian's for "Jori and Ezra" time;) She's helping the family who's boy has autism with a special program they found and that will help give her something to do during the summer. She also signed up for an independent study class for the summer so today we need to buy the books then she will have that to work on too.

Till later I guess....................

Been too long....

Well, I just realized that it's been long time since I posted last. I guess thats not unusual for me huh;)

April came and went before I really thought about it:/ Not too much really happened that month. Boys had school and Sheldon work. At the end of April Jori was finally able to come for the summer. We were hoping to try and have her take a hop out through the military, but ended up buying her a ticket at the last minute. We were able to get a pretty goo deal with just a couple days notice. She ended up only being in California for less than a week. I know she wanted to spend more time there, but we needed her here so we could head to Germany again.

The conference that Sheldon was scheduled to go to at the beginning of May ended up being canceled because of all the problems with the Iceland volcano and the ash cloud that it was producing. They didn't want to take a chance that people would end up stuck mid travel. We decided that even though the conference was cancelled we still wanted to go down for a few days of R&R. Really I don't know why I call it that because I really don't get much rest and relaxation, but I have to say I love going to Ramstein AB and just soaking in some "American" culture;) We were able to go down for five days and would have loved to stay a couple more, but Christian ended up needing to come home for a couple practices and games this week. We were able to let the boys swim for a couple times while there and see some friend from Cali and as usual pretty much ate ourselves through the food court and restaurants. That's the most fun for me:) We decided to eat at Chili's this time around and it wasn't too bad. We had heard horror stories, but I'm hoping that that is the past. Of course Macaroni Grill was fantastic and we ate there within the first hour we got into the air base.

We were able to get in a little shopping and Christian and I had a couple medical appointments. I unfortunately ended up finding out that I need glasses permanently now:( I guess I should be thankful that I had 48 great years without them. I was able to try some frames and ordered a pair from the optical center at the base mall. This way if I have any problems, when we go to visit I can have them take care of everything. Since we will be back in the end of June, I should have them by then and have them adjusted. I might order me a pair of sunglasses next time so I have a pair for driving.

We came home Monday evening just in time to celebrate Elder Stringham's birthday here at the house. Renata and her daughter had everything ready and we had about 2o minutes to unload the van before everyone else got here. It was a traditional Dutch bbq, which had different styles of meat and sides. We also had American baked beans which the elder's loved and American chips and soda. After dinner the men went out to throw the aerobe around for a bit then came in for cake and ice cream. We had about 10 other people here so it was a house full. It was a nice evening. Renata decided to stay one more night then on Tuesday early afternoon I dropped her at home. I'm glad that she seems to think that our house is a mini vacation for her. She is so good with the animals and Baxter is starting to come around and not growl as much;/ They are working out their relationship;)

The rest of the week has been a waste pretty much. We've mostly been taking it easy and catching up on some shows and movies. What can I say...... we are a family of slugs:(