Knudsen Family Adventures

Whew.............. What a Week!

2011-03-20T14:02:00.002-04:00

Have you ever had one of those weeks where you've had a foreboding feeling that there's something coming on the horizon? Well, I've been experiencing that feeling for a few weeks now, and I had gotten really good at pushing those feelings aside. Well, this week I got the answer. On Wednesday I got an email from my sil Gail telling me that they had to admit Mom to the hospital:( I guess she was having a lot of pain earlier in the week and then late Tuesday they noticed swelling in her feet. With her COPD that's never good so they took her to the emergency room. The Dr's spent hours trying to find a cause for her severe pain and taking x-rays of her chest and other things to try and figure out what was going on. The chest x-ray came back with what they thought looked like fluid in her lungs but I guess it wasn't a great picture because there was some question's later on that is could be lung cancer:/ Of course when that was brought up, we were stunned, but figuring the fact that she's 96 years old that there could always be that possibility. They figured that if is was cancer, that the cancer had spread to her bones so that was causing the pain in her shoulder and hip. Eventually the cancer diagnoses was eventually discarded after another set of x-rays and looking at everything else going on with her. The original diagnosis of heart failure was put back on the table along with the prognoses that she probably has about 4 months left. She has since been released from the hospital with good pain medication and with the start of getting her into "Hospice" care for the remainder of her time. Gail has a meeting with the hospice team on Monday their time, so I should be getting a whole bucket full of answers to a lot of questions we all still have late Monday or Tuesday Morning.

Now I'm in the process of making decisions of what I need to do and prepare for next. I'm thinking that I would like to fly over to the states to see her while she is still a bit well enough to hopefully remember me. With her dementia she doesn't always remember anyone in the family anymore. Most times she hasn't put together that Gail is Bruce's wife and thinks that she is "the help". So, I'm hoping that if I can at least have one more chance to see her and have her remember me just once that will be wonderful, but mostly maybe I can go over and just be able to help a bit with her care since Gail, Bruce and their family have taken care of it all. So once I get all the info and looking at everything I have going here we will talk about taking care of my travel plans. I'm grateful that my church calling will be taken care of and that I have people here willing to help with the family. The kids should be good with having the taxi taking them to and from school. The two older boys can take the bus to any of their extra activities such as tutoring and with Sheldon being here he can take care of Christian getting to the Vennerholms for his Thursday night tutoring. I will work hard with Christian to get him working on his seminary and have him keep a journal while I'm gone.

Life can change in a blink of an eye. We see it whenever there is a natural disaster that grips the whole world within a few minutes of total destruction. Granted I am not having to deal with the struggles as like those in Japan, but I have felt that I need to get my house in order lately, and have been fighting that urge and now with the prospects of having to leave for a few weeks wish I was farther along than I am. I know that no matter what everything will be fine, but I could be leaving with a little less stress if I just would have applied myself a little more;)

So now I will bid au-due and get a load of laundry in the washer so I can be that much closer to getting things a little more organized. I will also be making my list of things I wish I had here so that I can take care of that while I'm back in the states. Things that I want to work on for the rest of my time here in Europe and some of the things I wish I had on hand. I know there was a reason I was a pack rat and now I'm wishing I didn't get rid of a lot of things that the hubby said we'd never need again;) I don't have a Wal-Mart around the corner to get what I need:/ So................ I'm thinking my trip home might become very expensive?

So..........

2011-03-15T06:38:00.003-04:00

THe last day that I wrote on this blog was the 28th of February:o Talk about getting off track:( Well, things here have been a little interesting and really, there are just some days that I don't feel like there's much to write about. I guess I should take a picture though to commemorate the day? We shall see;)

The first week of March I pretty much spent that whole week learning a primary song in Dutch. I really need to take more time every day to learnt he songs, or at least be a little more familiar with them. After thinking I had the song down I was practicing in front of Shel when he informed me that I had a lot of the words wrong:( I listened to the CD and wrote everything down the way they pronounced everything but he informed me that the CD had singers from different area than the area we live in:/ So Friday night he helped me re-learn the words I had wrong and that gave me one whole day to be ready for the moment of truth:( Thing is, I will probably never get the words completely right, but that isn't the most important. It's getting the children excited about learning the song's and being prepared for the program at the end of the year. THank goodness they are patient with me and i have another adult in there pronouncing the words the right way when we sing;) So my job now is to look for a few more songs besides the one's for the program, work on as many as I can then be familiar with them. I figure if I can sing the primary program songs with the children without any cheat sheets in front of me then I have come away with more than I can ever expect. I truly love being in primary. THe children are so much fun and they want to learn and be taught. They always have a smile for you and you can't help but enjoy your Sunday!

The second week of March we decided at the last minute to drive down to Ramstein and get a few days of shopping in:) The boys had Carnival off for the week and I know that they appreciated getting out of the Netherlands for a couple of days and getting to eat American food. We were lucky enough to get a room at Ramstein so to be close to the mall and other things, but there's always a part of me that doesn't like staying there at the TLF's. The beds there are some of the most uncomfortable I've stayed in and we always end up roasting even if the windows are open:/ No one really sleeps very well there. We are thinking from now on that we'll stay at Spang and drive the hour to Ramstein. It was nice to be able to just take our time to get up and enjoy the day not having to worry about a drive, but if you can't sleep well, the day is just horrible:/ Maybe we should look at other places to stay while down there. If it comes out to the same price, if you factor in the gas then it might be something we would like better.

Anyway, enough of the complaining. Like I said we bought the boys some shirts, and games and other thing, enjoyed the food court and Macaroni Grill and the boys even took in a movie at the theater. This was the first time we have been able to do that since they actually had something we hadn't seen yet;) I spent the time grocery shopping since I had to be back by 6 pm for a Presidency meeting, but that was ok. I would much rather spend that time walking through the Ramstein Commissary than watch a movie I wasn't really interested in. I love seeing the different things they have there and stock up on the things I know we can't get here.

We got home Friday evening at 5:30 pm. We rushed to get the car unpacked, packed up Renata's things and then she and I headed out. I dropped her off at her place and was only 15 minutes late for my meeting:/ Thank goodness they understood and we had a great meeting.

We ended up not doing too much Saturday and Sunday because everyone was tired from the trip down. The men in the house did wash and vacuum my car:) They did an awesome job! I spent the day trying to figure out a lesson for Jr primary, since I looked at my schedule wrong and thought i was teaching Sr primary:/ I eventually came up with a plan and we were good to go.

Now I need to be getting some work done around the house. The boys will be getting out of school early today. Actually in 40 minutes:( I still need to pay bills, get some more laundry going and just general cleaning. There's always something that needs to be done. I should also be working on a song for Sunday. We'll see how that goes once everyone comes home.

The sun is out:) It's a beautiful afternoon and I think I'll try and enjoy some of that today too! These kind of days are so few and far between here in the Netherlands;/ You usually drop everything you have planned because you don't want to miss out on a nice day here. The summer will be better, but I am so ready for Spring and want to take advantage of it while it's dry;) Tootles......

4 days later.....................

2011-02-28T03:31:00.002-05:00

So I'm not doing too bad:/ I haven't been on but that's ok, I didn't really have much to say and with still not feeling good, I hate getting on trying to think of something to write.

Yesterday I finally went to church:) It has been a month since I've gone, been dealing with the boys and mine illness. I still wasn't feeling totally better but thought that this gunk will probably last and if I'm not coughing I don't have a real reason not to go anymore. I can take motrin to kill the pain in my head.

I had thought about going to see the Dr on Friday when I found blood in my ear late Thursday night, but I thought I'd wait because I just got off of the other antibiotics and wanted to see how things would go. Well, my ears started feeling the pressure again and when I told Shel he let me know that he never finished all his meds and had about 7 days worth so I started on his that is left over. It was the actual medication that I wanted in the first place that he got from the Dr so I will see how this will do. It's already been 2 days and I can actually tell a difference with my right ear. So here's hoping that this last round of medication will do the trick and I will start to feel better. I'm sure there is some other things I still need to have looked at, but if I can get this sinus thing licked then I would be a little happier!

So, next Sunday will be my first day of teaching a Primary song in a language I don't speak:/ Time will tell how this will go, but I will give it my best shot! Need to come up with some creative ways to get the kids excited about learning the songs.

So, after coming home from church yesterday Sheldon told me that one of the sister's in our ward pulled him aside to show him something that I posted on fb and she felt was offensive:0 Now I have to laugh at this because this sister is always on fb talking about how much she hates the sisters in our ward or "Mormons" for that matter whenever she doesn't get what she want's from the church. I never realized that calling sick people "sickos" was "offensive";) Sheldon tried to tell her that the word was all in jest but she felt that I needed to to be careful not to offend the members in our ward. Again this makes me giggle because this sister after a Stake Conference wrote on fb how when a new high council member was sustained and was going to be over the single adult program for the stake she professed publicly how much she "disliked" (she used the "H" word) this man and how she would never like him and blah, blah, blah.............. so you see how this can make me laugh. She is one of the sister's in our ward who expects people to jump when she throws her tantrums and unfortunately, some of the ward members let her get away with some of it. I think it's sad because I believe she uses the church as her personal banker:/ She has more worldly possessions in her home than most of the hard working and struggling ward members do and they give so much more and help so much more than she does. She has learned to manipulate the system here. It's such a shame really.

Oh well, I guess you can see that this is another one of my pet peeves. It's mostly about people who want to be offended! I believe that you cannot offend someone unless they want to be. You hear so much about how someone in the church was "offended" by someone, and most of the time the comment was not meant to be mean spirited or directed at the person who took offense! You can only be offended if you chose to be! There have been many times that things were said to me about how the ward here was catering to the "English speaking" sisters here and I could have taken offense to it. THey didn't want to go to a class because it would be given by someone who speaks "English" and they wouldn't get as much out of it. I just laughed it off because I know that the sisters who were complaining were just upset that I was trying to do something a little bit different and they weren't happy about it. The way things were said, I could have thought they were "attacking me" and that would give me the excuse to stop going to church here, but I didn't.

So............. with that being said, if I have ever said anything to "offend" any of you........ I'm sorry that you felt you needed to take the comment that way! It was not my intent on making you feel that you needed to be "offended";)

365 to 50

2011-02-24T15:26:00.006-05:00

I decided that since next year will be a milestone birth year for me I am going to post something every day until my next birthday. I know I still have things to update from what's been going on here lately, but I can add those as I go. I've had other friends who've are very good at keeping up on their blogs and thought this could be fun. So we shall see..............

Today ended up being the day after my Birthday. I awoke to a counter covered in ants, those little buggers will not go away:( They are coming up from under the stove top and it's hard to keep them out. I am still trying to figure out a plan of attack but nothing so far has come to mind. Just doing the usual, spraying and wiping everything down. Last night someone forgot to rinse the ice cream scooper after the Bday celebration so they were all over the scoop and looking for more:/ I should have taken a picture then but didn't think about it at the time. Last year it only took two times and I had them licked! So, this will be my nemesis for the next little while:(

We had Parent-Teacher conferences tonight for the boys. We are trying to figure out what we need to do to help Christian with a couple of his classes that are worrying him, and after talking with his teacher's we have some good ideas. We found a couple tutors that will be helping out out for the next couple months, one for math and the other for Spanish. We decided that Kai will also go for spanish since he's missed so much the last few weeks because of illness and it could only help him. Now if we can just get Kai to work harder on writing neater and taking the time to be a little more in-depth in his writing then he should do well. DJ is doing pretty well and his teacher's are pleased with his work. So all in all not a bad night, but there's always room for improvement;)

So today has been foggy and tonight it still hasn't let up. I posted a picture above of one of the roads I drive almost everyday and what it looks like to drive at night:/ This road has BIG trees right next to the street so there's really not a lot of room for error. You should see what happens when a big truck or oversize vehicle is on the road and I have to try and miss it.................... Not fun!

2 Weeks................

2011-01-19T14:05:00.002-05:00

So maybe this is progress;)

We had a great time on our "Honeymoon Weekend"! Just to clarify things, we had intended to go to Bruges, but the rain just poured and poured:/ Since we had to go to Schinnen for supplies and mail run, we headed that way after saying goodbye to the boys. On the drive down Sheldon and I started talking about how much money we would be spending for a room where we would most likely spend most of our time with all the rain that Bruges was to get, and thought for a fraction of the cost we could just go to Ramstein and stay in a nice "cheap" room and shop:) Well, once we got our mail, it was like Christmas all over again because of everything that hadn't arrived by that time, and once we talked more we abandoned our Bruges plan and headed south instead. Of course we were given the ole, "we have no rooms available at this time" speech but felt that things would work out so we pushed on. The drive down was a little intimating since we had fog for more than half o the trip, but once at Ramstein we checked in at the Inn, got a suit, and proceeded to the anniversary dinner. Macaroni Grill:) It was nice not trying to figure out what to get and have something yummy. We then stopped for some snacks and breakfast and headed to the room. It was a nice suite with a comfortable bed, small fridge and microwave. We had left overs so it was great to pop it into the fridge. We had a nice, low keyed weekend with lot's of shopping, sleeping in and just doing whatever we felt like doing:) We signed up for massages and I even got my hair trimmed. It's been since CA, and I can't remember the last time there I got my hair trimmed:/ I was able to find things that both I and the boys have been needing, and looked at bed mattresses and other things that we are wanting to get. I just love that area!!!

Monday after our massages we bought the boys dinner at MAcaroni Grill and headed for home. The traffic wasn't too bad and we made good time. We were home in time for everyone to have their dinner then scoot off to bed.

Tuesday as I was surveying the bags I needed to go through and food stuffs that needed to be put away, I got a message forma family that is here TDY for a couple months asking if I was ready for their kids to come spend the night:o I had talked to them in December about watching three of their four kids while they flew over to London to go see the musical "Wicked". I was glad she reminded me;) We only had the kids here for just a little over a day, but the days they were here was pouring rain and yucky and I have to toys to speak of so we watched a LOT of Disney movies:/ I know it wasn't as much fun for them, but we got through it and they were so happy to see mommy and daddy:)

Sunday was my first day in Primary and boys do I have my work cut out for me:( The president wants me to start teaching the music his Sunday so we shall see how this goes. Teaching I have a translator, but it's hard to translate while trying to sing. I hope that I will be at a point where I will be able to "mimic" the words from the cd that I have. I really need to get working on that but I have also been trying to get organized for other things pertaining to to my calling. Well, i=we'll see how this goes;)

Ok, need to get some things done and get some rest tonight. I have not slept well for the past few nights and really need to get my act together and get things organized! It's a dream I have, so no one take that away from me;)

Welcome 2011

2011-01-04T08:01:00.004-05:00

So by the look of things, I have not done very well with my blogging in 2010:/ So one of my New Year Resolutions will be to do better with informing other's of what we've been doing. Granted, not every day or week is an adventure, but living here in Europe has proved to be very "enlightening"? Enlightening about me, my family and how to really view our little "world" we are living right now;) I had served a mission in Australia so felt like I "knew" what living in a foreign country would be like, but I had forgotten that every foreign country is different, just like every state in the states is different and has it's own way of doing things. With that being said, there has beeeen ........ how to say this........... much GROWING..... living in a different country and dealing with the culture and attitude differences. I'm not saying that it's good or bad............ just saying it's different. I, on the other hand have to remember that I have a tendency to "pull inward" when I am feeling "out of sorts" and these the last few months, that is what I have been doing. With doing that, I don't communicate well with......... well.............. anyone. My family, my friends and just about any other associates. So with that being said, that is another thing I want to change for this new year.

We were excited this year to ring in the New Year with our good friends Monica and Jon Thiessen and they were accompanied with Monica's brother Kelly and his Wife Marlene Bird. They had gone on a Mediterranean cruise for Christmas and used our place as a "home base" of sorts as they flew to their "port of call" city Barcelona, Spain. Since we have Ryan Air that flies into the Eindhoven Airport and from here fly to Barcelona, they flew out and back from here after picking up the Bird's at the Frankfurt Airport in Germany. This also gave them the excuse to spend the New Years with us since we couldn't go on the cruise with them:/ It was a nice time having them here, Marlene quietly doing my laundry and washing my dishes every time someone ate, and I told her that she was always welcomed to come and stay with me for the year;) We played domino's, ate junk food along with some "good food" and rang in the new year with a BANG:) On the evening of New Year's Eve we also had the Van Eijk family Rob, Megan, Chris and Collin and Renanta and her daughter Angelique. Between all those who bought fireworks to "blow up", the men figured the total to be around 400-500 Euros, it was fun to be a part of the city celebration! Last year we didn't know anything about how European's celebrate the New Year and was pleasantly surprised by the "light show", so we told the boys that we would be a part of it and "blow things up" as they put it:) The night ended up being foggy so instead of seeing the city "all aglow" with the "light show" we were only privy to the neighborhood shows. It ended up that a neighborhood down the street had a pretty good show for the evening so it was a great night all in all. The boys enjoyed lighting their boxes and rockets and no one got hurt!

On Sunday I was released from the RS Presidency and put into the Primary Presidency. I could feel it was time for a change for me. I loved working with the sister's in the RS, but I guess the most frustrating thing was feeling like no matter what changes we tried, nobody here is really interested in doing anything:/ I did initiate a "book club" that some of the older sisters have really enjoyed and taken a liking too, but trying to get the RS evening activities (COSI) meetings going the way they should has really been hard, and a lot of the sisters don't seem really interested in helping others, just complaining that there's no one to help them. Some of the unrealistic "ideas" and how they expect the RS president or Bishop to change things is interesting. I'm not saying the whole ward is that way, we have a lot of people who go on their merry way never asking for help and keep within their own families or friends, but you know if you have a handful of people that are that way, they can can really put a strain on a ward:( It also gets frustrating because most of the "its always been done this way" and trying to change thing that thinking now and help them realize that it's not the ward's problem, well, they just don't seem to get it. I'm the kind of person that can only take so much before I just tell it like it is, and sometimes that can cause hard feelings. I don't want to be "mean" about it, but really, when do you become an adult and take charge of your life? So, I felt like broken record, counseling that if you allow people to continue they won't change, and you can only do that for so long before you just feel........... ineffective. Nancy, the RS president in this ward is an angel, and when people are rude and mean to her, she just loves them more. I hope to grow up to be like one day;) Alas, I'm not yet and might not ever be, but at least I have a role model to try and pattern myself after.

The new adventure will now be trying to work with children with no way to communicate:/ The Primary President is willing to try it so we will see how it goes;) I hope that I will be able to learn from her as well. We have a meeting on Thursday so it will be interesting to start this new adventure.

On Friday it will be Sheldon and mine's 22nd anniversary. We are going to spend 3 days in Bruges, Belgium. I have always wanted to see the place so we will go by ourselves because I don't think the boys are really interested about the lace shops and chocolate stores. We will hopefully take a canal cruise and other things while we are there too. It looks like the weather will be rainy, but we have umbrellas so we are good:) It'll be nice to get away. We want to do that more, and now that we only have about 18 more months before we are to leave here. The time will fly by! If we don't get order's to Germany then this might be our last time over here for a bit so we want to see as much as we can!

2010-10-12T16:28:00.006-04:00

A couple weeks ago I started a blog to catch you up on our summer, and had it waiting to add a couple pictures when one of the boys needed the computer for their school work. So I didn't save what I had written and let them work on their stuff when low and behold, they somehow froze the computer:( So as you can guess everything I wrote was lost and now I'm back to square one:/ Since I am not a typist in any sense I begrudgingly will start this again and catch you up on our family's doings these past couple months.

So after looking at the last blog I told you what we were planning to do since that was written before we headed off for the last part of sumer. I think it would be better to break it up into the trips that we took!

Germany Trip July 2010

We headed to Stuttgart Germany after church on the 25th. Christian had to be at his EFY conference Monday morning and we wanted to get a jump on the drive. It was a nice drive to Stuttgart and we stayed at the TLF there. We were abel to be in our rooms by 9 pm so that we could relax the rest of the night. Monday we got up early and headed to where the EFY conference was to be help. It ended up being a little over an hour from where we stayed so the drive there was not rushed at all. Once at the drop off place, we got Christian all settled in and signed up and left him with his group counselor. The kids that attended this camp came from al over the eastern European area's. Some where from Hungary, Slovenia, Czech Republic...... there was also a few German kids too. This camp was great making sure the kids had translators to help with the language and was small enough that it was more personal than the ones I attended at BYU at his age. We left hoping that he wold have a wonderful time.

After dropping off Chris we headed to Grafenwohr to spend the week with Jon. He has just returned from is TDY to Hawaii....... yea....... I know, rough huh;) Monica and the kids were able to go out and visit with him during his time there:) So we got to Jon's about 4 in the afternoon. We went food shopping, ate dinner at the food court and then went to his place to relax. Now you have to remember that Jon lives in a 400 sq ft apartment with one bathroom and a small kitchen isle. We were able to make the sleeping arrangements work for us tough. Shel, Jori and I slept in the living room on mattresses and the two other boys slept on the floor in Jon's room. We were able to make a walkway in his room so her could walk to the bathroom and not on the boys, and there was a small 10 in gap between Jori and my mattresses that Jon could squeeze through in the morning to get to the front door. It did really work out good for all of us.

During our time there we were able to visit with Jon, go to a neat place called Pottstein and also took a quick run to the city of Prague in the Czech Republic. In Pottstein they had a place where you could ride bobsleds, like the kind you ride for the olympics. Granted, since there was no snow they ran a a metal track, but is was pretty neat. They also had a slide that ran on a track more like one of the rides at Six Flags, and that was fun too. The day we were there they had only the track ride open because it was raining and there would be safety issues with the bobsled track but the boys really enjoyed the ride. After that we headed to a small cave they had in the area and Shel and the boys took a tour on of it. Jori wasn't interested and I knew if there was too much walking up stairs I wouldn't survive the tour. While the men fold went on the tour Jori and I drove to a roadside fruit stand to buy some berries. The berries were so tasty and we loaded up on blueberries, raspberries, cherries and blackberries. Talk about some yummy dessert!

One of the days there we decided to drive to Prague since it was under 2 hrs away from us. We didn't have any problems driving through the two countries, we parked at a monitored parking area next to a mall and train station and once we figured out the rpice for our tickets we headed to the city center. Once we got off the train it took us awhile to find the area we were looking for, but eventually with some other American's that were vacationing there they got us to the square we were looking for. It was so neat to be there. They had this old church that was so cool, and a really neat clock that turned 400 yrs old this year. We were able to hook up with a gyuded tour that showed us all the interesting area's but we had gotten there too late so this tour we couldn't just hop off to se everything. Once there we had realized we made a huge error in only going for the afternoon:( We now are planning to go back and visit another time when we can spend a couple days there and take in some of the cool architecture and other sites. That night before we left we were able to get some really neat pictures of the Tyn Church. DJ kept saying he expected a Dragon to be sitting on one of the spires, it was that creepy looking at night. We got the two boys some neat sweatshirts that had "Czech Me Put" on the front and some other souvenirs then we headed back to Jon's.

On Friday, Jacob finally flew in to be with his Dad. He had landed in Frankfurt around 11 am and then took a shuttle to a neighboring military base. Jon drove there to pick him up. He arrived, super tired, but excited to be there. We all went out to dinner, that ended up being a disaster, but it was fun to spend some time with him before we headed back home.

Saturday rolled around and we were off driving back to pick up Christian. We needed to get him by 10:30 that morning and arrived pretty close to that time;) He was pretty happy about this week, and talked about all the people he met. On the drive home we though about going to Ramstein to get a couple things and thought about getting a room there. Of course there were no rooms available so we told everyone to get comfortable and we headed for home. We got in late and decided to sleep in the next day. We were tired and needed to rest up after that day of driving:/ It was a good thing we rested up because, we only had 2 days to prepare for our next adventure......... England!

This is a look of the sleds from the bottom of the hill area. That yellow car has one of my kids in it.

This is the Tyn Church. At nights its pretty creepy looking but it's beautiful when the sun is starting to set!

Here is the Astronomical Clock that turned 400 yr old this year. When the clock strikes the top of the hour, the openings at the top have statues of the Disciples from Christ time rotate through them. It's pretty neat to see.

Tomorrow I'll post about our time in London:)

Well, what can I say?????????????

2010-07-23T04:45:00.002-04:00

I'm just no good at this blogging stuff:(

Since the last time I wrote we have been busy. Where to start, where to start?

I got Jori all signed up for her independent class for the summer, she hasn't cracked the book open once. In fact her time here has truly been a waste of time in my book. We could have left her in the states and she could have been working and saving money for school. I had hoped to take some small local trips, but that hasn't panned out like I wanted it too:( We still have a couple more years here so I'm sure we'll get to see everything we want eventually.

In June we inherited some new family members; Two more dogs and a schizophrenic cat;) Out good friends the Thiessen's were in the process of moving to Germany. Jon is already here in Europe, but Monica and the kids were planning on coming out in the middle of June to visit for the summer. Monica was also planning to stay and work for the Army at Graf and they were planning to get a place eventually. Monica had originally planned to bring the animals out with her when she came but the airlines initiated their "pet embargo" 2 weeks early which meant that unless you are on military orders you can't fly your pets until the summer is over:o Well, they sure didn't tell this to Monica when she was making her plans a few weeks before that:/ So the day before Jon was coming back to Germany from his vacation home, they found all this out and they had 24 hours to get everyone ready to fly out with him. Luckily for us his flight was going through Amsterdam so we were able to drive up there and get the animals from him before he headed off back to Germany. Then during that next week Monica was told that she would be put on disability for her medical problems so that stopped the job with the Army:( This is a blessing for her really, but just a hassle when it comes to getting her over here. So they had everything figured out to come and now the Dr's are now doing the ole, "oh hurry up then wait we have to do this now thing" game>:( It looks like it might be drawn out into a long battle for Monica and with Melissa and Jacob going on their missions at the end of the summer, things are really getting down to the wire here:/ They family had talked of going through the temple here in Germany with the kids but as of now they still are not here yet:( Jon had to go to Hawaii for a class so they took a family vaca there, and right before heading off to that Jon got word that they are planning to send him to Afghanistan in January>:( Can you say that this whole thing just inhales rapidly! Also Melissa found a lump on her thyroid and now has a biopsy right after they get back to the states. So, now we sit and wait to hear what is next going to happen. We are doing great with the animals, they have settled in nicely, but I know they miss their a "family" and we will just continue on with our summer plans.

So onto the summer plans..................

Christian has EFY starting on Monday in Germany. It looks like after all the hassle's that we had trying to get him and the Herleen ward kids into an English speaking conference, he was the only one to follow through adn do the paperwork:/ Go figure! So we head out Sunday after church is over and will drive down to stay at Ramstein that evening. The drive from Ramstein should only be a couple hour and he has to be there I think by 12 noon. After we drop him off we will head to Graf and spend the week there visiting with Jon and seeing all the cool things there is to see in that area of Germany. We are even thinking of visiting Prague since we'll be a couple hours away. We pick up Chris on Saturday and head home to a couple days before the next leg of the vacation begins.

Once home we have a couple days to gear up for London:) We are planning to go to England and stay there for about 11-13 days. If all goes well we will stay at a RAF base about 1 1/2 hours outside London. We can take the train into London and go see all the sights there but then also go visit other places in the local area. There are some church history sites and and things like Stonehenge and small villages in the countryside we can visit. We might drive up to Scotland and maybe even take a ferry to Ireland too? Right now we are in the planning stage still but what ever we decide to do we will be having fun! We plan on not getting back home until around the 14 or 15 of August!

Jori will then fly back to the states on the 19th, then the following week we will be heading back to Ramstein for Sheldon's language test. I need to try and get the boys set up for their physicals and med refills too. So the next few weeks will be full of lots of travel! We are grateful we have Renata who will stay here with the animals and take took care of everybody:)

So as you see, maybe there will be some updates and pictures to go along with the updates? We shall see;)

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

2010-05-17T04:03:00.002-04:00

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....

2010-05-14T13:52:00.002-04:00

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:(

Germany Trip March 2010

2010-04-03T10:26:00.015-04:00

Somehow the pictures are from topsy turvy. So if you want to get an idea of our little trip to Germany back at the beginning of March 2010 with the Thiessen's then scroll down to the bottom and work your way up. This is just the trip to see Garmish,Salzburg and a some castles. It was fun taking a couple days and having no kids to worry about. Of course they had it rough as they were skiing in the Austrian Alps:0 but oh well, we had some fun too;)

The boys doing what they do best! Defying the law;) In nice weather this path leads to a bridge that you can take some really cool pictures of the castle and surrounding area. Of course, these guys don't follow the rules, they like to make their own! Really, they didn't go up there, this was just for dramatic effects!

Us in front of the Neuschwanstein Castle. This is the castle they copied for the "Cinderella Castle" at Disneyland. We took a carriage ride up but we still had to walk almost straight up the last 10-15 minutes to get there. This is the half way point of where we got dropped off to getting inside the castle. Come ready to walk! Oh, the inside was gorgeous! There's even a "cave room" off the bedroom that you walk through. I never would have thought of having a cave room in my house before, but now I might need to rethink that;)

Picture of the Matterhorn from our balcony. Everything was so pretty the morning after the snow fall. Made the drive to the Castles so much nicer. No Really. The countryside was gorgeous during the drive.

When we got back to our hotel that night this is what we came home too. We took this picture from our room on the balcony. It was just beautiful!! Those are the snow flakes cought in the cameras flash. Pretty neat:)

Here is the outside of the church. You have to walk up a long tiled courtyard then through a gift shop before you can get inside. The lady at the gift shop will ask for donations but it is not madatory. When we left we purchase some bottles of holy water. You never know when you'll need some;)

Here is the inside of the Church that the wedding took place. The chapel was dark and cold, but had a lot of "flair" as catholic churches tend to. There are some really pretty paintings and stain glass windows in this chapel. When we were walking through there was someone playing the organ.

This is the countryside we had to drive through to get to the church that Maria and the Captain were married in. The country was beautiful and we had a great time talking with our guide as we drove to the small town of Mondees. It's on the other side of this lake.

Here is the Gazebo from the movie. THey had to move it from the back of the house from the movie because too many people would sneak in to take pictures. The house is a private residence.

Here is a picture of the back side of the Sound of Music house. This is the bacside that you see in the movie where they tip the canoe and play ball with the Countess.

Paris trip December 2009

2010-04-03T10:00:00.004-04:00

Here is a picture of the kids in front of the Louvre and one of the Eiffel Tower from our bus. We Had rain most of the days we were there, but it wasn't so bad. Sheldon and Christian had stayed back at the Arch de Triumph and we didn't catch up to each other until later that evening. Can't wait to go back this summer and hopefully get inside both of these beautiful buildings. Oh I did go under the Louvre! I used the bathroom and we ate at Mc Donalds while we were there. Only would we go all the way to Paris to eat at MC D's;)

It's been a long time

2010-04-03T04:23:00.002-04:00

So I have been neglectful on writing:( I guess I just figure I don't have much to write or just feel like it might be a little negative, or just don't feel like doing it!

I guess you can say it's a combination of all three. I should be writing this on the laptop because all of our pictures from our camera have been downloaded on there so I will need to post from that computer. I guess I can write on this one then go to the laptop and add the pictures later if I want? We will see.

So since February what's been going on? We spent almost the whole week down at Ramstein back in February. We came home loaded with exercise equipment and food's galore and really had a nice time. I was able to have my nails done, the boys were able to take in a day of swimming and rock climbing and we spent way too much money. We ate at some wonderful American style food places and just took it easy. We will be heading back down again in May for another week. Sheldon has a conference for work and we will hopefully be able to pick up Jori from their when she takes a hop from Travis. So that is the plan so far.

The boys were able to get some meds and the Doctor was great about giving me 6 months worth of meds for them. We will have to refill them in August so that will be right before school starts up. Sheldon had his medical check up that week and they said that he was having an issue with his liver counts. We are waiting to hear from the Doctor about what he should do next. So we will deal with that as it comes.

School has been school! The boys aren't doing too bad, but then again they could be doing better. It's just so different, and with the grading and how they grade. Malachi has one teacher that want's him to be "creative". Well to her she thinks that if the kids don't draw or paint like Picaso then they aren't being creative. In the states they were suppose to draw as well as they could to the example in front of them, here she want's them to look opposite. I just told Malachi to do his best and good luck;)

Christian is still having growing pains with the youth in the ward. He hasn't been to church or any activity for over a month now. It's hard to want to be apart of a group of people who make you feel unwelcome. That even comes from most of the adult leaders in the YM's presidency too. At least Marco goes out of his way to talk with the boys when they are there and gratefully there are some men in the ward who are taking the time to make the boys feel welcome. The good thing is that the kids from school are very accepting and the boys have some good friends from there. Church is only a few hours each week so at least when they go to school they have friends to sit with.

RS is going well. I taught a slow cooker class last week and we had about 12-15 sisters show up. I brought Chili for lunch with things to eat with it and everyone seemed to have a really good time. For the RS birthday dinner we did a taco bar with beans and rice as a side and that went over well too. I am slowly getting to know the sister's but there are so many more I would love to get to know better.

Well, I have so much more to get done today. I really want to work on the house these next few days. Jon Thiessen will be coming next weekend for a few days, and Jori will be here in a month so I really need to get rooms done.

Oh, we spent a few days with the Thiessen's in Germany when the boys were in Austria skiing for a week. We had so much fun playing dominos and visiting some castles in souther Germany. We even skipped over to Austria to take the "Sound of Music Tour" in Salzburg. It was just nice to go and do things with Jon and Monica. Can't wait to vacation with them again. The summers will be hard because I have the boys in School until July, but we are hoping to be able to do some things this summer before Monica heads back to Washington. We are hoping that her house will sell, then she can stay over in Germany for good! So we're keeping our fingers crossed;)

I guess I need to get better............

2010-02-12T08:50:00.002-05:00

but haven't felt much like posting. It could be the fact that I'm not really a typist and so doing this can be frustrating at times. Don't get me wrong I "peck away" with the best of them, but what I think in my mind and to try and get it down on paper are two different things.

There hasn't been too much going on really with us as of late. Mostly school stuff and typical family stuff, but there is drama that is happening within the ward.

There had been some things that had happened before we moved here. Not that I want to dredge up the past for some of the families, but there has been a few things over the past few years that have gone on that have really tested the faith of some of the members. It's hard to define now though what the real problem with the ward is. I think they have just decided to allow the contention to just take over.

A couple weeks ago the Bishop finally stood up and told everyone that if it doesn't stop, the area cannot grow and the ward will wither and die. I agreed with everything he talked about. There are too many people allowing their pride and anger to get in the way of forgiving and loving the other members. They expect the church to make everything right for them and want the Bishop to make personal and family decisions. That is not his job! His job is to help them, guide them, but when they stop trying to do the work themselves he cannot save them. There is so much good in this ward! They have a potential of accomplishing great things here. There are some wonderful families and if they could just learn to live together and love each other in spite of their differences and our shortcomings they can become so much more! So we pray for patience and love, and hope that the vision of what can be will come to pass.

This weekend marks the beginning of Carnival. So it looks to be an interesting week:o The members said that carnival is a week long excuse for everyone to drink and act stupid. I guess we shall see. We will be spending most of next week in Germany. Sheldon has his medical for the year and the boys need to have their meds re-evaluated and new prescriptions. It will be nice to eat at some "American" restaurants and do some "American style" shopping. Ramstein has that nice big mall to go shopping in so we are excited about that. We are looking to pick up a trampoline if we can, a treadmill and maybe a home gym. The boys would like the home gym, the treadmill is for me and Sheldon and the trampoline, well I need that so when I send the boys outside they have someplace to play outside if they don't feel like riding their bikes.

Well, I guess I should get some things done before the boys get home. Christian has his friend Robert coming over tonight. He's a great kid. I'm glad that Christian has one friend here that he gets a long with.

Recovering from the Weekend

2010-01-19T14:47:00.002-05:00

This past weekend our friends the Thiessen's came for the 4 day American holiday. They were able to leave Germany early enough that they were here by 9 pm. The boys were so excited about them coming that they wanted to stay up to see them, and by the time they calmed down it was too late for them to go to school the next day. We talked and played cards then went to bed late!

Friday we all went to the Eindhoven city centrum to get a couple things. We stopped off at the Media Mart to get a phone cord for our home phone, Jon and Monica looked around for some phone covers and I was able to price some table grills I've ben wanting to get. We also stopped at T-Mobile to get Christian's phone working again. We also ate at KFC then walked around a little longer.

We pretty much took it easy the whole weekend, playing cards, making crepes and fresh toast for breakfast, chili for dinner and snacking on chips and M & M's. It was a perfect weekend in our books. The older you get, the more you just want to sit around, talk and enjoy the company;)

They left just before noon on Monday so that they could miss driving traffic as they got close to Graf. I'm glad the weather was good so it didn't prolong the drive for them. It takes about 6 hours so it's not too bad, but it makes for a tiring one.

We made another play date for the first week of March. The boys will be going to Austria for their skiing trip so we will go to Graf this time. Jon has a small apartment, so it will be good that the boys aren't there this time. Jon is also going to look for a car around the base for us, then when we go over we will fix what we need too and bring it back. He was able to get a car for $400 this past week and he thinks he can find us something at about the same price too. We are hoping to have another vehicle no later than this summer at the latest.

With another car and Sheldon's motorcycle he will be set for driving to Breda for work. I will then have my car so I can take care of RS business anytime I need too, and go shopping when I need too. It will be nice to not have to worry about catching the bus, which isn't bad, more of a nuisance really.

I can't wait until Monica will finally move here this summer. She is hoping that she will get everything taken care of with her home and surgeries quickly. It will be so much fun to be able to plan vacations with them and visit them when we have time off. Party time in Europe!

So, I should be cleaning my house and getting things put away.......

2010-01-08T10:02:00.002-05:00

But I'd rather be writing on my blog instead!

Well, I really do have so much to be doing. We found out our good friends the Thiessens will be coming to visit next weekend so I want to make sure the boys rooms upstairs are clean and not stinky:( With us not sleeping on the same floor, I don't get to daily peruse their rooms as often as I should. I should do a daily check, but alas, I don't. I guess that's something I could work on for 2010.

Yesterday was mine and Sheldon's 21 year wedding anniversary! I look back and think where has the time gone? We decided to have a family dinner of herb grilled chicken, baked potato and salad but our grill decided to go on the fritz. After an hour the chicken was barely turning brown so we had to use the broiler in the oven to finish. It tasted pretty good, but there's nothing like grilled chicken baked on the grill. We realized that we've had that grill for quiet awhile now, so I guess it's time to be looking for another one:( We bought it in Nebraska right after we moved there and we've had to replace the burners. Suffice it to say, we got our moneys worth out of it. So I'll be checking out the grills at the AAFES store and seeing what we can get.

School has been in full swing this week. Jori made it home finally and her luggage only took a couple extra days to follow her home. I have so much I need and want to start with RS, but am feeling overwhelmed at the moment. I know baby steps with everything. I just hope I can get things figured out and going. I ope to be able to spark an excitement with the ladies here too. It's just a bit different with the cultures, and some of the attitudes need to change. unfortunately, the sisters who need it the most are not coming and it's hard to get the word out. I need to take it to the Lord and he will guide me. I just get impatient sometimes:/

I want to get my house in order. I think my goal for the first 6 months will be to get everything a place. I need more shelves, so I am planning on acquiring a new shelf every month until I get it done. Sheldon and I also need dressers, so I need to focus on that too. I don't know if it would be better to pay the Dutch prices, or buy them from the military furniture stores. I have seen advertisements from the base on some stores in the area of Schinnen so maybe I will start there.

OK, the boys will be home any minute and I want to get them done with their chores so I can work on mine too.

2010

2010-01-04T05:52:00.003-05:00

So I started a post then had to go back and read the last post I put up. I think my mind is officially gone;( If you ask my kids I'm sure they will tell you that it left a few years ago, but I'm just coming to that realization of it;)

After Christmas we decided to head down to Paris. Talk about waiting until the last day to do everything. Sheldon told me how he wanted to get the play room organized and the garage all cleaned out, but I'm sure I can tell you that never got done. He did get to watch a lot of his tv shows and sleep in. So I guess it all worked out for him in the end.

We went to Paris for 3 days, but it just didn't feel long enough. We weren't able to get into the Louvre or go up the Eiffel Tower because the lies were sooooo long....... but I have decided that I want to go back again. I felt rushed at trying to see everything and I just don't want to do that again. We did ride the tour buses around and talk about a great deal. They were open on the top so as we drove around Paris we were able to so much of the city. Now you have to ride ride the buses at least twice, once during the day and then another time at night. It's like seeing the city all over again. While we were there they had up Christmas lights so it was so pretty and festive. It reminded me of the Vegas Strip. We ate from the local vendors on the side of the street, yummy crepes and the bakeries had fresh bread and yummy tarts. I heard the bells toll at the Notre-Dame Cathedral, stood under the Eiffel Tower, drove around the Arch de Triumph and ate lunch under neath the Louvre. We walked the shopping center at Lafayette Galeries and bought fun stuff at the discount shops all around. We stayed at a hostel so we only had a 10 minute walk from the Notre-Dame. Even with the rain and cold, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Did I mention the tour buses? LOVED THEM!! So worth the money. They were awesome............. we drove by museums and other important buildings as they took us to the main sites. I even saw the Ritz hotel that Princess Diana ate dinner at just before she died:( That was a sad memory.

We returned home on New Years Eve night and everyone proceeded to jump back into life, getting on the computer and catching up with friends, then at midnight, with the beginning of the New Year 2010 we ventured outside to watch the sky light up from all the fireworks that were going off. I guess here in Europe they allow people to buy fireworks and set them off since the city doesn't do it themselves. As we watched the city glow from the fireworks going off it was amazing to know that it was from the local people, their own personal firework's. The fireworks lasted between 20-30 minutes! I hope next year that we will be able to join in the fun because I hope to remember to take my camera and take pictures of the show.

Now today, we patiently wait to see if Jori will be able to get out of Europe to get back to school. She left Saturday morning on the train bound for Amsterdam where her flight ended up cancelled because the plane broke and couldn't be fixed. After standing for hours to catch a flight she was told that she wouldn't be able to get out that evening and that she would have to stay at the hotel at the airport and they would fly her out the next day. On Sunday they got her on a Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt Germany where she was to connect to her next flight to SF. Her departure left 2 hours later than they were suppose to but that was ok because she had a 5 hour layover in Frankfurt, but when she got to the United desk in Frankfurt for her connection they told her she was on a stand by status, that she was bumped and that they couldn't help her out. They then told her to find a hotel and come back tomorrow and we will see what we can do for you! WHAT!!!!! I don't think so:( Some poor sole took pity on her and let her use his cell phone, but the battery was dying so we got cut off. So for hours Sheldon called airlines, chewed out airlines and then finally got a living being who was willing to help us. We were able to get her a flight out for Monday morning and had her upgraded to business class for her flight over the pond. When she finally got a hold of us, she said they gave her a voucher for a hotel close to the airport, some money for food but gave her a number to take care of her flight for the next day. We then were able to tell her that we took care of the flight stuff for her and all she had to worry about was getting some rest before heading back to the airport. She then told us her luggage got sent to SF without her, and so she pretty much had nothing with her. Luckily when she flew out she was bumped up to business class and they gave her a kit with a toothbrush and lotion and she had that with her in her backpack. The hotel had shampoo and conditioner so she was good there. I told her to buy herself a t-shirt and deodorant from the airport kiosk so she could at least feel a little better on the flight home. Her dad suggested a t-shirt with a saying along the lines of "I got stranded in Germany and all I got was this lousy shirt";) That seemed to make her smile. I just keep saying she will have plenty of stories to tell once she gets back to school. At least with this experience she knows that she can do just about anything.

The boys are back at school today. The regular driver Mr Ott is on holiday so we have another driver for the time being. I guess she's suppose to be really nice too. Amy Heymann said she drove last year a few times for her kids. They seemed glad to be going back to school, and I am glad to finally have my house back;)

Well, I have a ton to do and have gotten nothing accomplished this fine Monday:( I didn't know that the credit union was closed on Mondays and so I have to wait until tomorrow to get money and banking done. I might do some fancy transferring tonight if Sheldon gets home early enough, but we will see. I was hoping to take the Christmas decorations down and get some cleaning done but I don't see both of those happening today so will pick one and then go with it. I just might take a nap. It's been a stressful couple of days and I'm pooped!

Surviving the aftermath;)................

2009-12-26T06:25:00.002-05:00

We survived! Well, most of us has anyway;)

On Christmas Eve we hosted a dinner. We had 15 people over that night for Turkey, Ham, mashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole, yams and stuffing. We also made pumpkin pies, no bake cheese cakes and brownies. I think it was a huge success, well, I hope it was a huge success! Everyone ate their fill and we had a great time sitting around afterwards visiting with each other. The missionaries ate so much that they rolled out of the house later that night and most everyone left by 10pm. We had one group that stayed late and by the time I got home from dropping them off it was after midnight. WE had a couple of extra Santa helpers to get the main gift out and set up then sent them to bed so we could work on the stockings.

I have been battling a head cold since Sunday evening so I have been feeling pretty yucky. The two younger boys were up at 7am so I slowly got out of bed and found a comfortable spot on the couch and watched the boys come in and see the gifts Santa left for a second time;) They always get up in the middle of the night to see what was left, but they always try to show their excitement when they come down when we are there. they know once they stop being excited, Santa will stop coming:o

Everyone seemed very excited about what they got this year. We got DJ and Kai a new DSi, and they have been having fun finding out everything that little toy does. Christian got another IPod Touch. We told him that this was the last one we will get for him! We got Jori and new camera, one that is better than her old one and I ILuv for her IPod touch. Now she can listen to her music in her room. DJ and Jori got a book series they love to read and Jori has already started reading them. We were able to find Christian an XBox live card so that he can now be hooked up to play with his friends in the states again. Kai got a IPod dock that is a clock radio. Now they can wake up to the sounds on in IPod in the morning and listen in his room while he is doing his homework. Sheldon, well we got him a new suit a couple weeks ago now that he's in the Bishopric and I got him a case for his IPhone that will keep his phone charges all the time! I got a a digital picture frame and Thomas Kincade cottage. I had started collecting them a long time ago but we kind of stopped. I would like to concentrate on more of the church statues but you have to order ahead for those and with no church book store in the area that won't be happening since Sheldon doesn't shop for me until Dec 24th;)

We were invited to Renata's house for a dinner and that was fun! She had a whole bunch of meets that were cut into small pieces and you put them on these small table grills and cook them. I told SHeldon that I want those! They also had small woks that you could cook individual size servings of foods. The kids were a little hesitant but by the end they were having fun and getting some great ideas about what we could cook here at home. So I have a feeling that for my anniversary we will be getting those and will have to try them out:)

We are thinking of going to Paris for next week. Jori so far is the only person who has gone there and we would like to do something tourist like. We will go and see the old stand by's. The Louver, Eiffel Tower and whatever else strikes out eye. I just hope this cold will finally be gone so I can enjoy this trip.

Well, we're going to play "Are you smarter than a 5th grader". We're trying to figure it out so wish us luck!

2 Days and counting.......

2009-12-23T08:36:00.003-05:00

So it look s like Christmas will come wether I am ready or not;) The hubby is down at the army post picking up the last Christmas present for one of the kids. Everything got here in time:) Our new washer machine was delivered today, so hopefully this one will work properly and there will be no problems. I have only Sheldon's presents to wrap that will go under the tree and everything for the stockings should be in one place. I am also wrestling with starting to work on tomorrow's desserts so that will be done with.

Tomorrow we are planning on having about 8-9 people over for Christmas Eve dinner. It was suppose to be a smaller group and just kind of snowballed from there. I need to have the hubby call everyone tonight to give everyone a time that they should be here. We are planning on Turkey, Ham, potatoes w/gravy, stuffing, yams, green bean casserole and a vegie tray. I hope that will be enough for everyone. We are planning on pumpkin pies, cheese cakes and brownies for dessert.

I have been fighting a head cold the last couple days. I feel so yucky and hoping that SHeldon can find the right meds for me. I am suppose to go out for a birthday dinner tonight for a sister of the ward. I don't think I will be able to go. I don't think it would be wise to be out too long with everything I have to get done tomorrow. I will call

Renata and let her know. I feel bad for having to cancel. but I need to be well for tomorrow.

Well, I've stalled long enough and need to get some baking done.

Jori is in the house..............

2009-12-20T13:57:00.002-05:00

That's what I said, after 4 months Jori is now here with us for the Christmas holidays. I dropped off Sheldon and the boys at church this morning then headed off to Amsterdam to pick up Jori from the airport. Well, it's been snowing the past couple days so the roads were a little yucky this morning. After getting out of Eindhoven the roads were drivable but I had to stay well below the speed limit. About 30 minutes into the drive I got stuck behind the snow plows. How they do it here in the Netherlands is they have 3 snowplows that stagger the lanes so they make it virtually impossible to pass them at all. The only problem to me was that the roads were clear so there was really no need for them to to keep the road blocked like that. I had to follow them for over an hour and they only went 20 mph:( Talk about frustrating. Finally I was able to to get about 10 miles out then the snow started to come down really hard, almost whiteout conditions. I ended up being over an hour late getting Jori, and the poor thing was wondering what was going on since she couldn't call me to find out. Coming home we had a lot of snow up until 15 miles out of Eindhoven. Needless we got to the church with 15 minutes left for sacrament meeting. We missed the whole program, the singing and things. I guess half the ward knew I was on the road driving to get Jori and when we walked in fine they were all relieved. Talk about how sweet!

All day we've had snow coming down so after lunch the kids went out for a little while to play in it. We finally found some boots and gloves but this will motivate me to go and get the things we need for the kids this week. I'm sure once I get it all, the snow will melt and we won't have anymore for the year, but at least the boys are ready for their skiing trip in March. It sure is beautiful to watch coming down, and the fields around the house look so pretty. We really love living out here.

Some members in the ward are having a birthday party tonight but the roads are a little slippery and we are all really exhausted. Jori feel asleep on the couch and I have a tired headache from the little sleep I've had this week. I think I'll get to bed early tonight, and tomorrow get up early to make a list of what we need to do the next couple of days to get ready for Christmas.

We will have about 14 people all together for Christmas Eve. It will be a nice evening and hopefully the food will be good;) I just want to have a fun night with everyone. We are looking forward to it.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll get some pictures of the kids out in the snow and post them. I need to get better at that!

SNOW!

2009-12-17T04:41:00.004-05:00

Yep, that's what I said, snow.......

Well, at least with all the cold we've been having, now is the pay off;) I am one of those people who love's snow, yet it's ironic that I am also the least prepared with regards to having the proper attire to wear in it:( As I rummage through my closet I have plenty of capri style pants that are great for the summer months, but not much else:/ Maybe Santa will need to look into bringing me some pants this year?

I had to remind Malachi this morning that he might want to wear a coat to school. That boy has been wearing a sweatshirt to school this last week with all the cold weather. I just don't get him! Maybe I just don't get teenage boys? I figure that one day he'll get smart(or cold) and then he might wear the appropriate coat. A Mom can dream;)

Tomorrow we need to head to Schinnen Army post to do some shopping and pick up more Christmas presents. I'm hoping that everything we ordered for the kids will be here. I can go without, but I need everything for them to be here. Then I can wrap presents and get them under the tree:)

Well, I need to try and put together a synopsis of the year to send with the Christmas cards I bought this year. Maybe this year I'll get them out? We shall see;) I also need to get some cleaning done since Christian has a friend staying over tonight and we have the YM from church coming tomorrow for an evening of video games fun. I need to get some baking done and get my shopping list done so I don't forget anything when down at Schinnen. Too much to do and so little time. Looking forward to Dec 26th because I plan to sleep that day away!

Brrrr...........

2009-12-16T08:18:00.002-05:00

It has been down right chilly the past few days. You think by all this cold that winter is finally here;) I guess it is! I needed to go to the store this morning to buy gifts for DJ's teacher's and a gift for our taxi driver. I was able to catch the bus just a few houses away and go into the Veldhoven city center. The bus is actually a large shuttle van, but it was nice an warm:) The bus only comes through every hour so I have to make sure I'm there on time, even just a little before because her doesn't stop if he doesn't see anyone standing there. And DJ got out early today from school so I had to make sure that I was home before he got here. Now that I know the schedule a little better i will be using the service a little more often. The nice thing was that the center was not crowded at all. I would like to go and back, but know that the next few weeks won't be that easy. Once the kids get out of school and we get closer to Christmas that place will be crazy. I have just a couple more things I need to get for Christmas then I will be done.

Jori flies in this weekend. I was looking at the train schedule because I was thinking about taking the train to go up and get her, but they don't run as often on the weekends. So now I need to go over it with Sheldon then we can make a decision on what we will do. Jori also wrecked the truck driving on snow in Provo so we are waiting to hear from the insurance to find out what will happen with the truck. Monica happened to be there and she figured the truck was totaled, but nothing has been settled yet. I need to get a number for a shuttle service to pick her up from her apartment to take her to the airport on Saturday morning.

I am baking 2 ham's right now or the RS dinner tonight. I hope that all goes well with them. The one in the crock pot is doing fine, hopefully the one in the oven will be good too. I think I ruined my crock pot from the states. I used the transformer like I usually do but then it started smoking:( It would just be best if I buy another european crock pot then I will have two again. I'm so mad about the other crock pot. Oh well, that just means I get to buy a new one when we move back.

Well, I still need to get into the shower. I'm still freezing:( I think I might just have to buy me some long underware for when I go out. I also want to get a couple more things done before I have to go tonight. I will be glad when this week is finally over.

Saturday Musings.......

2009-11-28T17:02:00.002-05:00

Today ended up being a lazy day around the house. We ended up not going to Belgium like we thought we would on Friday. Sheldon and I drove with the two younger boys down to Schinnen Army post to get gas, food and anything else we could think of. We bought a new Christmas tree since the lights on the last tree we had stopped working. I think Kenzie bit through the wires that first Christmas we got her, and since we didn't need to have the tree up last year because of the move it was time to get one. I was hoping to find something before we came here, but no one thinks of selling Christmas trees in August, so we were out of luck;) I put the tree up today and tomorrow we will start decorating that and other things around the house.

Tonight we had a dinner at the church with all the High Priest group from church. There is a chinese family who are investigating the church and he owns his own restaurant. He was asked to cook the dinner and we were able to sample all the different foods. There were about 8-10 different foods choices all together. All in all it was very good. There were a couple things that I didn't like or wouldn't try, I just have a thing about tentacles, but it was a nice evening. We got to sit next to the Bishop and his wife and talked and laughed all evening. The Bishopric ended up being assigned the clean up and we ended up being there late. Unfortunately the men have to be back for meetings in the morning so it doesn't seem right to make them have to stay so late into the night cleaning. Sheldon and I are used to staying and cleaning up after activities so we didn't think much about it, but the other wives seemed a little frustrated.

Well, I have some white's almost done that need to go into the dryer, and I have to get up early so I can take Sheldon to his meeting in the morning. I guess my nap tomorrow will feel really good depending on how tired I will be tomorrow.

The rain has been coming down everyday. There are moments when it stops, but I guess this is what they mean by it raining all the time here;) Oh, Sheldon was able to finally get the Armed Forces receiver to work so we have American TV in the house. The boys watched sponge bob tonight and there are other shows that they used to watch in the states on the family channel so they are happy about. The older boys in the house are very happy to see that football is on there too;) One day when after all the men leave I might actually get to see if there is something on there that I miss watching? Then again, I haven't really watched tv for so long that I really don't care much for it now.

We are connected!

2009-11-24T09:02:00.002-05:00

That's right! Just as it is stated above, we are connected to the internet at our house!!

Where to start?????

Well we got into the country as stated below on the 14th of August. From that day, we literally took two months to get everything done, paperwork that we needed, to look for a house and move into it within the 60 day time frame. That I can tell you was no easy task. We had problems with sofie numbers, the dutch version of a SS #, getting phones and banking, that you can't do without the sofie number in this country:/ and then trying to get a Makeleer to help us look for a place to live. We called and visited a couple of the Makeleers and while they sent us some pictures and addresses of places to look at , we just didn't get the response we had hoped for. Eventually we found on young man who would call us back and preceded to show us a few houses in the Eindhoven area. I felt like Goldilocks some times as we visited each home to see how we could "fit" our family in each place and each time there was just something not right. Some were too old, which means outrageous heating bills in winter and too hot for the summers, some were tiny, with stairwells that twisted up and up and there would be no way we could fit our furniture in any of the upstairs room then one that practically had no kitchen at all:0 Can you imagine a four bedroom home with hardly ANY kitchen counters, cupboards or oven to speak of? Just when we were thinking that we might not find something the young Makeleer found 2, yes 2 places that we could really move into. One home was older with a kitchen that would rival any american kitchen in the states, big rooms and beautiful marble floors that had double doors that opened from the living room to the covered porch out back. I have to say it was beautiful. It was an older home, but really very nice and big. The other place was newer, big and next to open fields that belong to the city which means no neighbors anytime soon. After looking at them both, we had to make a decision because we were coming to the point where we needed to get things going. We only had a couple weeks left at the bungalow park and it would take that long to deal with all the paperwork we would need to take care of. With both houses being great it was hard to make a decision. We took the weekend to think about them and on Monday we decided to take the house by the fields. Even though the kitchen in the one house was wonderful and the back yard was beautiful the house we took is open and free standing quiet. Our neighbors are sweet, even though they don't speak English and I no Dutch, but they are older and have an immaculate yard. She brought over a card right after we moved in, but unfortunately I had come down with a bad cold and not in the mood for socializing. I need to get over and say hello with the hubby these next few days so that I can say thank you and that I appreciate her welcoming me into the neighborhood.

Okay, enough of the house........

Just some other things that have happened since being here,

I was called to be in the RS presidency:0 I'm guessing it was the only place the Lord felt that I could serve at this time without hopefully causing too much trouble, and Sheldon was called as second counselor in the Bishopric! Yikes!! We are trying really hard to get to know the members of the ward, and hoping that we will be able to serve them the best way we can. There is so much more, but as I see the time is getting close, I want to get the dishes started in the dishwasher, get some more clothes in the dryer and pick up a little before deciding on what to do for dinner. The boys get home in an hour and everything here will be chaotic with everyone wanting to get on the computer now that it's up and running here at the house. You should've seen everyone dancing around the house last night when we found that it had finally been turned on;) Homework will be easier to do and with having 3 computers in the house we should have no problems with those wanting some FB time;)

The Netherlands

2009-08-28T13:26:00.002-04:00

Well, what can I say? We've been in country for 2 weeks now and sometimes feel like we're just not getting what we need to get done accomplished:(

We were able to ge a lot of paperwork done on the first day we flew in. Our sponser Juergen took us to the bases that we needed to have new ID cards made, had us talk to the driver license people and housing people and a few other things. We got into our Bungalow Park with some minor problems but the people here have been great. Due to the militaqry not taking into account that we would need our credit limit raised on our card, we've had some interesting phone calls. Needless to say, Ellsworth AFB really can screw you over since they don't have the same urgency at getting the military credit card paid off as quick as we need it. We were finally at a point where it looked like we could be evicted from this place before we were finally able to get them to raise the limit on our card to 15 thousand dollars. Once they actually start making payments on his card we will be ok.

This week we went to get Sheldons sofi card, the NL social security #, and they kept telling us that we didn't have all the right information. The guy even tried to call Brunssum the Nato base, and they said they lost our paperwork "temporarilly"! That didn't help our cause at all. When we talked with our sponser again, he told us we got "screwed over" not only by the sofi people but the nato base as well. We did have all the paperwork that was needed, and them not having our paperwork handy was "not cool". Well, what could we say? We have been trying to get back in to get eh number, but now have to wait until next Tuesday. Once Sheldon get's his sofi number, we can get a Dutch bank account then that will make it possible for us to rent a house and get our cell phones. Needless to say, there have been some frustrating days, but really nothing too bad.

I have to say we have been enjoying the cooler weather the past few days. The area is beautiful! Everytime we are out driving it eminds us of the different places that we've lived in or visited in the US. It's been fun to just soak in the countryside and watch the people.

We are really excited about the ward we are in here. The first Sunday we got here everyone was so friendly. Christian already had boys from the YM inviting him to come and play on their Rugby team. Jori had the YA inviting her to their activities too. We have had dinner invites from other families as well. One family, The Van Empels were not at church our first day there but she was so excited to meet us called and invited us for dinner. We went and ended up being instant friends. They have been just wonderful to us. We found out she has a daughter at BYU so Jori plans to go back and meet with her once school starts. They were even great enought to take Jori to Paris tis last week. They just happened to be going and we wanted Jori to be able to see Paris before going back to school. We wanted to go but have been dealing with all the problems with the military card and sofi number we just didn't feel like we could go. Jori came back so excited about her trip and it sounds like the 2 girls, Jori and Catherina are planning to go back next summer when she gets back in country.

Jori flew back to the states this morning. We ended up having her take the train to the Amsterdam Airport instead of driving her up. We're trying to conserve the miles on the rental car. She was fine with it since she felt more sure of herself after the Paris trip. I guess she went to a couple places while in Paris on the metro there by herself since the other ladies were tired, so she is feeling confidant that she could get off the train at the airport and get inside on her ;0 I really hope she had a good time for the couple weeks she was here. I know the first week the kids were stuck at the Bungalow Park while Sheldon and I went down to Germany to take care of his paperwork, but this last week has been a little better about getting out and seeing things.

Next week Sheldon starts work and I have to start dealing with the schools to get things ready for the boys. I hope things there go smoother than some of the things we've dealt with so far, but no matter what, it has been a good adventure and we are taking things as they come.

It's been awhile!

2009-08-01T10:37:00.002-04:00

Wow, a lot had happened the last two weeks so I'll try and catch you all up.

Like I said in the last post we had just seen the doctor and turned our paperwork in. We took the papers to the special needs coordinator and she faxed them in. At the end up that week heard from a Colonel in Germany in charge of the program that the Doctor from Geilenkerchen still was going to deny the orders. She said that was her standard protocol for that area because of the Doctor situation. He then said that their had to be something we could do. Well, she told him if we were willing to waive using their medical facility and go on the economy for the boys medical then we could bring them. We would have to use the Tri Care Europe program. Well, we were going to have to do that anyway because of how far we are from the hospital . We just shook our heads because she was denying us being able to come over as a family and we were never going to be using her medical facility anyway! So Sheldon signed the papers and we we faxed them back and we had everything done by that Friday afternoon. On Monday morning we were told we were approved from the Germany side so we needed to hound the people here at Bolling to sign off on it then we could get our orders. Sheldon went to he special needs coordinator, she signed everything then gave him the paperwork to take to our outbound assignments guy to we could get our orders cut. He of coarse was not in that afternoon but working at a special assignment that day. We tried hard to get someone else to help, but no go. We were told that we could have the the next day, Tuesday and we would be good to go. We were also told that afternoon that we were still suppose to be there by the 15th of August! That would give us 2 1/2 weeks to get there:0 So we have 2 weeks really to get out of here, going overseas, to be in place by the 15th.

Tuesday morning rolls around and we are waiting for the call but haven't heard anything. Finally around 11 am, Sheldon goes down there and the guy's there, just hasn't done it yet:( SHeldon stresses to this airmen that we only have 2 weeks to take care of everything and we can't do any appointments until we have those orders. He stands over him while the kid protests that he doesn't have the clearance from our end when Sheldon shows him that paper and he gets that "dum" look like, oh, I guess that is the paperwork I need. He finally gives Sheldon his much needed papers and he's off. We scheduled TMO (the movers), housing (gave our notice of moving) and set up out times for our pre inspection and final out. I was able to get the pets their appointments for their health check for the flight over. We also turned in our port call paperwork to get our flight information. Not bad for half a days notice;)

We made some decision during this time of a couple hours too. We found a regulation that stated that they had to fly round trip any dependent that is a student in the states once every fiscal year! Since Jori was being fired on Friday, not anything due to her performance but just because of the economy, she would really have nothing to do for the next month and become an expensive sponge for a month or more. We decided that it would be best for us to take Jori with us:) She will stay with the boys at our bungalow park while Sheldon and I go to Germany for his in-processing. It won't be a major vacation for her, but at least she'll get to see the country side of the Netherlands and Germany a little before she comes out at Christmas. She can take back some candy for her friends and pictures! At least we get to see her. It would have been a whole year if we waited until the holidays and that was too long. Jori flies in late Tuesday night just as all the fun begins here. We hope if we work really hard she will get the chance to take in the sights here at the DC Mall too. It would be a shame not too.

Well, I know I have more write but I'll try to catch up when I can. I can't wait to start adding pictures to this blog. I need to do better with that, but right now at least keeping up with the writing will just have to be enough and once things settle down I will get to that.

Looking up......

2009-07-21T21:03:00.002-04:00

Today we had the two younger boys appointment with the pulmonary specialist. At first he seemed a little gruff and I was worried that he would get impatient with us trying to explain everything but as the morning progressed, he had more of his coffee and he became like a little teddy bear by the time we left. I have to remind myself that the attitudes of the Army are really different from the Air Force and that even goes with the doctors too.

He throughly looked through the boys medical records, and then examined them himself. He said their pulmonary function tests looked good and said if it was up to him and if we were staying here for a couple years he would work at seeing if he could wean the boys off of some of the meds they are on. He had them also have an X-ray done. There was a little spot on Kai's x-ray on the left side but he said that was normal for a kid with his symptoms. It shows a little thickening in the bronchia, but nothing abnormal and it could disappear in a few years.

The report he wrote for the appeal was that he was positive that the boys were well maintained and there should be no problem with them being over there. He also said that they could be seen by a regular pediatric doctor and just have their regular 6 month check ups to make sure the meds are doing fine.

We are hoping that the docs in Germany will change their minds and say that they can come over after all and we're hoping that they will do it before the weeks out, but they have 7 days to make up their mind so we won't hold our breath. I guess once we know then we will have a good idea when we can leave this place. It's just waiting to see which way we will be going, East or West?

It's Friday and we're going into the weekend with....

2009-07-17T20:41:00.002-04:00

no word yet of what we will be doing. We got an email from the USAFE guy in Germany asking us to be patient and that they are trying to talk with the Dr that rejected us. I guess she's on leave for this week so they won't know anything until they talk with her on Monday. We went today to Walter Reed Medical Center to have the boys do a pulmonary function test and the lab tech there said that they were doing great with their lungs. They are stable and as long as they stay on their medications and take them like they should that we shouldn't have any problems with them overseas. We were able to go through a Spring here with all the pollen that was floating around and pooling in the streets when we had a rain and the boys never had any problems at all. We will see the specialist on Tuesday morning and then we will submit our appeal papers then. We can only hope that all this will work out.

Today is my Mom's birthday so I need to try and call to talk with her tonight if I can. She is 95 yrs old. I sent her some flowers for her birthday so I hope she enjoys them. I couldn't think of anything else to send her. I want to get some pictures printed up then we can send them to her in a book so she can look at them when she wants.

Joe Revas came over for dinner tonight. He will be going in for his stomach surgery at the end of the month and with us not know ing how much time we will have he wanted to have an evening with us. That man just cracks me up. He is so excited about the gospel and he enjoys sharing it with other. Too bad we're not all like them.

Well, I need to take care of some things and then need to get to bed. Kai has a swim meet in the morning and we need to go for that. I hope tomorrow will be a nice morning. Tomorrow we need to really go through the garage and get some stuff done in there. I want to be ready for whatever comes our way.

Tuesday again...............

2009-07-14T10:47:00.002-04:00

It's been a week since I posted and we are still sitting herein limbo so to speak. We are waiting to hear from Germany what they are thinking about this whole thing.

We went to see a new doctor yesterday to see if she could put accurate info on the paperwork and she is reluctant to change it. She wants us to take the boys to get pulmonary function tests and the last time I tried getting an appointment I couldn't get any answers from the clinic. Hopefully she has better luck. She was looking at the boys medical records on the computer and said that they boys had info on their charts that was inconsistent there too. So I guess it would be good to have a look at all of their charts. Anyway this has turned into a major hassle.

Sheldon said that Christian was texting his "new" girlfriend and Chris was saying he was hoping we'd stay in the US instead of going to Europe. The talk too over in Germany is that they might not have Sheldon come over by himself because of the troubles with the last guy. I guess the last guy's wife didn't like it there and didn't do well. They ended up getting divorced and he had to deal with all of that and ended up leaving a couple months early. The difference with that for Sheldon is we are used to this kind of stuff unlike a younger married couple and its us;) We are always looking for another adventure, though, its not the perfect adventure, but it could prove interesting. So we shall see.

So lets recap, a week ago today we found out that the boys were denied going over to Europe to live. As of now, a week later, we still have nothing resolved. Such as the life of the military:(

Been a loong time............

2009-07-07T09:49:00.002-04:00

Wow, I have just had so much going on and so many things popping up that I haven't taken the time to sit down and write.

Let's see, first of, I've been feeling tons better. Saw the doctor she did blood tests. Had to go and redo one of the blood test because I was a bit anemic, but haven't heard from them since. I'm suppose to go in next week for a follow up so we shall see what everything says. Since I haven't gotten a call, I'm figuring that there can't be anything major bad with me or else they would have called me to have more test done. I'm wondering if it was just my reaction to the meds?

Spent the 4th hanging close to home and watching the fireworks show from the banks of the Potomac river. There was no music and once the show stopped we could still hear the percussion sounds from the blast of the fireworks made for about 10- 15 seconds longer. That was impressive. The wind was blowing our way from the show, so we did have the smoke to deal with when watching, but they were still very pretty. We also took the boys to see Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. It was cute. Definitely better than the second one.

Sheldon just called to tell me that the medical portion for our request to go overseas has been denied. We are having problems because of what the doctor here said about Malachi. We have never had a problem with him, he's never been hospitalized or he has never had an attack for asthma, even as I write he's been doing swim team with no adverse problems at all. We would have flair ups in the winter time or when he would catch a cold, but nothing really. So she wrote that he was chronic and the AF doesn't have a doctor close enough to take care of him in the NL. So this afternoon we have to go and see what our options are now for us. They will most likely send Sheldon over for 1-2 yrs and we will have to stay here in the states. We are going to see that if the asthma will be the problem and all we need is to have a Dr close by, maybe they could send the family to Ramstien AFB and then Sheldon could come home on the weekends? They said we can appeal the Dr's notes and get a second opinion. So this afternoon we will be off to the assignments office to find out what our options are and go from there.

Well, I guess I better get off and get dome work done around here. I have a feeling these next few weeks are going to be crazy;(

So much to tell, so little time

2009-06-20T09:40:00.002-04:00

I had started a post on Saturday last week to try and get up to date with everything, but ended up not posting because we had to leave quickly.

Last Saturday we ventured down to Richmond for Tasha Hendersons class graduation. We decided at the last minute that we would stop off at a JC Penney outlet that was on the way down to exchange the boys jeans that we bought them a few weeks before that didn't fit. We ended up getting the boys a few more pairs of jeans, a shirt that DJ thought he had to have and Sheldon bought another pair of Levi's 501 for under $20 dollars. How can you not go wrong with that? Now I have some clothes taht I ordered and need to send back, I just need to put them in the car and get that taken care of when I can.

We got to the Graduation just in time to be seated and once that was done, Kai rode home with the Hendersons so he could celebrate with Tasha, they were going to Sonic, and we headed home. We took a back route that ended up taking us forever, but it was fun to see some more areas of Virginia. We were worried because we had the house locked up and didn't know what Kai would do about getting in the house, but when we arrived home the Hendersons had just gotten home themselves so it wasn't a big deal after all.

On Tuesday I went in to get the rest of my root canal done and talk about an adventure there. I ended up being 20 minutes late for starters because of road construction. Then once in there this second half of the procedure was a bear. I forgot they had to put things inside my roots so the won't get weak. I was starting to feel it a bit but just wanted it done. Starting that evening when I got home I was feeling some pain. I took my motrin but nothing really helped. I looked inside my mouth and saw a white pimple on the tissue behind the tooth. By the next morning I was hurting pretty bad. I called, went back down to Waldorf, which without traffic is a 40 minute drive and they said the abscess in the tooth flared up. No kidding:( So they gave me a prescription for antibiotics and pain. I went to the pharmacy, got them filled and started the regimen they prescribed. I was told if the motrin and tylenol wasn't working to go ahead and use the percocet to help me get through the night. Well, I woke up the next day thinking something was definitely wrong. Cyndi Henderson ended up having to drive me to the emergency room because I was feeling so ill. I guess I ended up having a bad reaction to the percocet even though I have had it before. My blood pressure at one point they said was 152/55. Now I've had hight bp before when I'm sick, but nothing like that before. I thought maybe I was having a heart attack for a minute. They didn't check my heart or anything, just said that I was having a reaction to the meds and sent me home telling me to call the dentist. Well, the dentist just told me to not take the pain killers and ride it out with the other meds until the infection goes away. I am slowly feeling better, but boys that was wild. I still think I'll go in next week and have them re check my bp so I can make sure there's nothing going on there too. I need to have a once over before we head to europe anyway.

I have had a hard time getting all the stuff I need to get done this past week. I have boxes to mail back, papers to send overseas and just a lot of organizing so I know that I have everything and where its at so if I need it I know where to go. We still have so many boxes to go through in the garage. I just don't don't have the energy at this time to want to do it.

We've been getting rain almost ever day still. The boys have been troopers going to swim lessons and swim team practice even though it's down rite chilly. DJ is so proud because he has finally earned the coveted blue band at the pool. He took his swim test and passed. He is really enjoying swimming now, and I feel better about him going with Kai by themselves when they do go. He can dive off the diving board and swim to the side all by himself with no help. My little boy is growing up. He is my most cautious child out of the four and to get him to do anything that he thinks might hurt him or kill him, he just won't do it. So this is a big deal for him. Now if we can get him to ride a bike. Then we will feel like we've been good parents;)

Thursday morning musings................

2009-06-11T09:54:00.002-04:00

I hope that's how you spell it? So it's Thursday June 11th and we are one month away from Sheldon graduating his Dutch language class. We are still in limbo with orders, since it has taking forever for the medical people to get their act together:( We were able to get Christian's paperwork all dealt with, finally. Talk about a pain in the backside for that. Somehow, and I don't understand how, but somehow the fax machine between Bolling AFB and Travis AFB wouldn't work together? They could send out and receive faxes from everyone all over the world, but not between those two? Hmmm..... I don't get it, but we figured out a way around it. It took Sheldon going down to the Bolling office and standing over them to figure out a way to make it work. Christian had his briefing yesterday and they are sending the paperwork back this morning with all the correct signatures. *Fingers crossed* Jori has her briefing this morning then we are done with all that. She isn't a problem since she's not flying over with us this summer, but we still need her to have the clearance just in case. It also makes it possible for her to use hops to come see us so it will be cheaper for us to fly her over.

The boys are taking their test for school this week. In fact it's been drawn out for 2 weeks actually. DJ will still have one more to get done, and Malachi, well we'll be taking tests up until he starts school in the Netherlands. I'm trying to figure out a way for him to do that and still enjoy the afternoons this summer. If you think about it they spend so much time wasting their summer days with video games and sleeping, but if we can get done at a reasonable hour he can have most of the day for playing anyway. He won't get to sleep in, and with swim team starting up, well, we will make it work.

I had to cancel my dental appointments for this week because of the cold. I should be all better by next week so we will start up again. I will be glad to finally get all this done and behind me. I should have all the crowns back by the 20th of July. That will be good.

Gail emailed me last night to let me know that Mom had a small fall last weekend I guess. Somehow she it the top of her head and was bleeding pretty bad. They ended up taking her to the hospital and she stayed over night. Since Irene's passing they say her mental state has really faltered. I feel so bad that Gail is having to deal with all this on her own. It should be us taking care of her. I just hope that everything will work itself out for the best. Whatever that my be. I just hate having to see Mom in this state. I know she hates it too.

Well, it looks like it might start thundering again. I think I should go and see if Kai needs a ride home from the swim team. He's afraid of lightening since a boy in the DC area was hit last weekend and died from it.

Here's hoping that we finally get some answer about when we can start to think about leaving. Yikes!

Sunday

2009-06-07T11:05:00.002-04:00

Well, yesterday I woke up with the boys cold:( Talk about hating life. I think summer colds are the worst. DJ started on Monday with the coughing, and though I told him to cover his mouth there was a couple times he coughed all over my food. I knew it was coming so I figured there wasn't much I could do at this point but wait. I was hoping that it wouldn't hit until next week, but nope, I woke up Saturday and felt like doggy dodo.

Yesterday was Sheldon's birthday. He and DJ decided to head down to Mt Vernon and check out the place. Sheldon has been wanting to go there for awhile now so when better but his birthday. I guess DJ had a blast. They were chosen to help lay a wreath in George Washington's tomb. DJ wanted a picture, so when they got one and he made sure that he had his finger touching the tomb so there would be no mistake that he was actually inside! I guess the tomb is closed off to the public, and only a couple people get to go in every day. So DJ thought he was pretty special to be able to do that. He was even excited to go though the house there and walked all over the farm. This was a fun time for him because he's never done anything really just one on one with Sheldon before, so this was a good day for them both. Another thing that was fun for him is that he's been reading about George Washington in his history lessons this past week and then he was able to see where he lived. How much fun is that. To see where they planned some of the battle's during the Revolutionary War and hear facts about that time. What a great way to follow up on a history lesson.

I stayed home from church today. I don't have the energy to sit through 3 hours of church all the while coughing. It's not that I'm coughing a lot, I just feel like I have a big phlegm ball at the back of my throat and once I get it up then my throat hurts. Oh well, in a couple of days it'll all be over. I hate missing church though. I get a calling then I don't show up for two weeks. I'm also suppose to help sing in the stake choir this afternoon too. I think I'll send Sheldon then have him bring the music home so I can look over it during the week.

Well, I need to go and lay down again. I need some more rest.

Just another rainy day in DC!

2009-06-04T18:57:00.002-04:00

It seems like that all we get around here. Yesterday Kai called me at swim practice to say that there was lightening and he needed a ride home. It was storming pretty good up till about 10 pm. It has been great to hear the thunder these past couple months. I love a good storm when I'm warm and safe inside my home;)

Today I had my first crown one at the dentist. It wasn't too bad actually. I'm sure I'll feel a little tender, but all in all, I did ok. I'm sure by the time I'm finished with all this I'll be a pro with the dentist;) NOT! I'm just counting down the weeks till I'm done with all this. He took care of the tooth above the the root canal tooth. We figured that I should have at least one side I can chew with this next week. I've not had too much pain with this so I'm hoping that this is a good sign and won't have that much on the other side either. Next Tuesday I go in for the last part of the root canal, then on Thursday I go in for the other crown on the lower left side. A couple weeks after that I get the last two done together. I'm not looking forward to that one. It's going to be long morning. All I know is that once I'm done, I done for awhile.

The boys are slowly getting their tests done this week. It's so hard to keep them on task some days. DJ only has one test left then he's done with school. Malachi still has a four more to take. I think tomorrow I am going to email the school in the Netherlands and give them a heads up with what is happening with Kai. I want to make sure he will be able to go into the 7th grade once we get there. If not then I will have to really think about what I'm going to do with him. I want him to get done this summer, but he needs to work on the work too so I will have to figure something out? I know it will work out, but I haven't figured this out for him yet.

Well, Burn Notice starts tonight. We love that TV series and we're excited about it starting up again. I have something to look forward to tonight;)

Nothing new to report.................

2009-06-03T09:16:00.003-04:00

and though there's not much new going on here I guess I should write something.

On Sunday I wasn't feeling very well, so I opted to stay home from church. I guess there was a lot of changes that happened, a new Bishopric, other's getting callings and so forth. I know more changes are coming in the ward, so it will be interesting to see how everything works out in the end. Tasha came over after church to have dinner with us. I made spaghetti for everyone. It was easy and something I knew they would eat. I never got to go food shopping on Saturday because we spent the afternoon buying boots for Sheldon for his birthday that is coming up.

That turned into a major ordeal, but it was a fun day when it was all said and done. Talk about taking a ride through the area and getting to see more than you thought;) We had headed South towards Woodbridge, VA to look for a boot store and ended up on the other side of Manassas, VA at a Red Wing boots store. There was also the adventure of stopping at a JC Penney's outlet to buy the boys some clothes, and lunch at a Red Robin. It was a nice day to drive and fun to just get out. I have to say though the traffic really bites, and the day would have gone by much faster if we hadn't all the traffic.

Malachi is starting swim team practice. He sounded like he was interested is doing it this year and since the programs at the youth center are free, well then why not? We also signed DJ up for swim lessons that will start in a couple weeks so I am looking forward to him learning to be a better swimmer. He is my most cautious kid. I know he won't get into the pool without a life jacket on, but I really want him to be able to swim. I mean I was a late swimmer and I was on the swim team by his age. It really takes a lot to get him to do things. He seems fine with the lessons. I guess in the primary school they will go swimming every week so I think he will be great at it when we leave the Netherlands.

Well, everyone is getting the stomach thing I had. I hope that it will go by quickly and quietly and be done. The two boys are nursing a head cold on top of it so I need to really be on top with their meds. Other then that I no biggie week. I'll be glad when school is over for DJ, but then it won't be for Kai so the summer is shot. Guess I need to go, it's a test week.

Middle of the week.........

2009-05-27T12:40:00.003-04:00

and the day is just dragging on:( I went to check on the boys about their schoolwork and it wasn't even lunchtime yet:( Talk about dragging on!

For Memorial Day we spent a quiet day at home with just the family. Sheldon had pulled his calf muscle on Saturday and the doctor wanted him to keep off his leg. It's not like we had any plans with anyone anyway, but it was nice to not have to worry about having people over. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy having fun, but sometimes I just like the peace and quiet and not hurrying to get the house clean or lots of food done.

Yesterday I headed down to Waldorf to see the Endodontist to decided what to do about my tooth. After talking with him, he decided he had time to start my root canal that day! Yikes!!! It wasn't too bad, he was really good with the numbing and other things. The only problem is the price. He pretty much took all of my money alloted for a years worth of dental care! Wow, so now everything I have to have done is coming out of pocket for all the other work. I was wondering if I could talk to Dental Concordia and see since I haven't really had any work done over the last 10 years that they would pay their part for all the rest of my procedures I need done then I pay the co payment. I don't know if that's even possible, but what's the worst they could say? NO! Oh well, that's what I get for not going regularly like I should have. Even though we've paid thousands of dollars in insurance payments I doubt they will bend. I have had some pain with the procedure, but it's nothing that vitamin "M" can't handle.

The boys will be done by the end of the week with another section of schoolwork and be ready to take their section test next week. That makes for a long week for me. I need to get their study sheets together for them and figure out how to help Malachi with his grammar diagrams. Talk about frustration for him and for me. I hope that by the end of the summer we will have that mastered.

Well, I guess I've played long enough and I need to get back to work. I still have so much to do to prepare for the move, and just wanting to keep up with the regular house work. Need to get............

End of the week...........

2009-05-22T10:38:00.003-04:00

is finally here. Yippie!!!!!!!!

I don't have a lot of time because I need to get ready to go. We bought ticket's to go see the movie "Night of the Museum and the Smithsonian" at the Air and Space Museum in DC. The boys are getting ready as I write and I still need to finish up myself. They are so excited!

It's been a good week. The boys are coming along with their schoolwork, I still have some appointments to make for medical and dental, and I've been getting emails from new friends I've meet that are from the Eindhoven area where we are planning to move to. I wish the school would have emailed me back, but they haven't so I might have to break down and call them, but I don't know how much that is going to cost with my phone plan. I was hoping to do this by email, but if they won't respond what am I to do? I might just mail the paperwork in and see if they write back?

I found out last night that my Aunt, my Mom's sister is not doing too well, and not expecting to live for more than a few more days. I guess she fell and broke her hip last week, and now it's just the waiting. I wish I could be there for my Mom at this time. I sent her a quick note to let her know I was thinking of her. I hope that she will take this well. She will be the last of her family once Irene is gone.

Sheldon and I decided to go out to the Mongolian BBQ place we went to with the Henderson's last month. When we got there we found out that they didn't have the Chicken wrap recipe any more:( We decided to stay and try the other recipe's they had up there and realized that we really didn't like the food. In fact it wasn't good at all! We were so disappointed that we couldn't have the chicken wraps. Mc Donald's would have been 10 times better. It took us 4 hours all together to go and eat at this place with all the traffic. That will never happen again.

Well, I guess I should get going. Looking forward to a long weekend. Sheldon has Monday off! Like he works so hard anyway;) Maybe we'll get some things done in the garage? We need to find the boys shorts and I know there's a box out there that has some in it. Just need to go look:(

A New Week

2009-05-18T09:27:00.002-04:00

It's the beginning of a new week and I was hoping to get the morning off and running early and instead, well.....at least we are up now and getting started;) Maybe I should take my own advice and not stay up late writing on FB and IMing my daughter. I keep telling her how she needs to get more sleep and go to bed earlier and I just haven't adjusted to the east coast times myself.

We had a great day at church yesterday. I really love this new ward we are in. When I walked into the building, a couple of our old ward members were there this week, and we were so excited to see them. I'm hoping they will really feel the love that this ward has for everyone. I ended up playing for primary during the second hour of the block and pretty much found out that I will be doing that and teaching the younger age kids for the next couple months that we are here. I have an appointment with the Bishop on Wednesday so I'm sure I will get the official notice then. It will be nice to be busy again at church.

Wow, it just hit me that we really have only a couple more months before everything starts back up again. I have so much I need to do still. I have a feeling that in this next move, we are going to be very transit for a few months so we are going to have to think about how we are going to deal with that. It could possibly take us 2-3 months before we move into a home in the Netherlands and that's 2-3 months after we get into the country. We are also trying to figure out if we can get back to the west coast before we move to go visit my Mom and our other good friends in Washington. We had thought we would not worry about it and leave from here, but I feel like we should try to see my Mom before we go.

The boys are excited about this week going by fast. On Friday we will be going to see the movie the Night at the Museum Smithsonian at the theater in the Air and Space museum. How fun will that be. We bought the tickets when we visited with Christian and now the time is finally here. This also means that for the past month, we've seen a movie every weekend. Wolverine, Start Trek, Angels and Demons and now the Night of the Museum. That's a first! I think we are trying to get in all our movie watching before we head overseas;) I just don't know what to expect once we get over there. I'm sure we will see movies, but I have a feeling it will be more at the military bases then on the economy. Oh well, that's why we have a big screen tv and surround sound system.

Well, I need to get off and check and see how the boys are doing with school. Malachi is really struggling with the grammar, and I need to figure out a way to help him better understand it myself. Need to hit the books!

Tuesday May 12, 2009

2009-05-12T16:24:00.002-04:00

When I woke up this morning, I thought it was Wednesday. I was laying in bed going through my head all the things that I needed to get done today. I was also thinking about all the things I need to get done for this upcoming move and how it's just a couple months away and we don't even have our paperwork in yet, yada, yada,yada...... Then it hit me that somehow this week has gone by fast because I can't even remember what I did on Tuesday and how I'm really getting forgetful. After I went through some more things in my mind I realized that in fact it really was Tuesday and that I hadn't lost a day, but I must have had some really rocking dreams to think I had already gone through the day;) Hmmm......I wonder if that is what happens when we get older. My Mom is always talking about how she doesn't know what day it is, and how time just seems to fly by and she's always wondering what day it is and now I am starting to sound just like her:/ Don't know how I'm feeling about that, but anyway, I'm glad that I have an extra day for the week to get things done.

We finally have all the paperwork we need to turn in for the medical part. Now will come the part of having to go through the dental for me and the medical for the boys. I know I can get the dental stuff done before we leave here, but I hope the asthma will be something they can deal with in the Netherlands. I guess we will see.

We finally got a live person at one of the military passport places. We ended up having to tell our go to guy we needed a good number and name. So I'm thinking tomorrow we will take care of the military passports and be done with that.

This morning Amy Heymann (she is the Mom of one of the American families that are over there right now) called from the Netherlands to give me a heads up about getting the boys applications in to the school they are going to be attending in Eindhoven. I guess they are in the middle of taking the applications for the next school year so it would be good that I submit ours now. I will need to finish a couple more things then I can get those off by the end this week and we should be good for that. Then I guess the waiting will come. That's the worst part.

I guess I don't have much to talk about. Things here are pretty much the same. School every day, the boys grumbling about chores and just trying to figure out how to fit more ours in the day so we can get all we want done, done. No matter what happens, there will be a move, one way or the other. I guess I'm resigning to that fact. Just starting to get excited about the dates and what we will finally do before we leave.

Sunday musings.............

2009-05-10T18:37:00.003-04:00

Ok, so I can't spell , but hopefully it's right.

Today is Mother's Day and so far it's been a great day. I got breakfast in bed from the men in my life, went to church and got so many hugs from the new members of the ward and really enjoyed the lesson's and sacrament meeting. Stayed for choir practice and enjoyed singing with the other's and then came home to get a quick nap followed by my Mother's Day dinner of herb grilled chicken, baked potato and salad. Before dinner Jori called to wish me a Happy Mother's Day, and we got to talk a bit. It was nice and we filled her in on what we've been up too. Now I'm hoping that Christian will call and we can see how his weekend has been going. Life has been great today and I'm really wishing for another day before we have to get back to the grindstone of school, but I know I have to get Malachi going on his lessons so we can be done before we leave for the Netherlands.

We meet an elder at the new ward who is leaving this week for the Netherlands. It was so funny that we were talking with him and found out that he was leaving this week. We gave him our home address and email addresses to give to the Bishop when he gets to Eindhoven. He was told that Eindhoven was going to be his first area he will be assigned to over there and since that's where we'll be living we asked if he would let the Bishop know we are coming at the end of the summer. I also need to talk with him before we go over so I know what we're going to do about Christian's seminary classes for the next couple years and how to contact the CES director.

Malachi is trying to have some people over for a movie tonight. It's only him and Tasha who moved to this new ward so at least they have each other to pal around with during church. I guess they were hatching the movie thing today between classes.

I think I'll try and call my brother's house and see if I can talk with my Mom. I know she won't hear me, but it's the thought that counts.

I hate............

2009-05-04T09:42:00.011-04:00

when you spend almost an hour writing on your blog then accidentally exit out of the site before you post it.

SERENITY NOW!!!!!

Well, I'm too tired to try and write everything down again the way I did and I have school to concentrate on too. So I will give just highlights of the past coming event's.

1. We are going back to the Anacostia ward that we first started attending when we got here. Stake realigned the ward boundaries and Bolling AFB and the Naval Annex are going to that new ward now. Yeah for Anacostia!

2. We moved our reporting date back 2 weeks to August 15th. That gives us a couple more weeks to get paperwork done. We are waiting for the paperwork from the DC school district to come back so we can turn in the papers to get the medical clearances.

3. I'm waiting for my birth certificate to come back so we can go and get the official AF passports done. The 3 boys all got here last week.

4. Need to get my dental stuff going so that my teeth will be fixed for the PCS. Dreading that part completely!

5. Tons of housework to do, but then that's not really unusual. The never ending pile of laundry and picking up my room is top priority.

6. Need to get to the store today for some shopping. Had too much going on this weekend that only got enough to get through to today. If I get a list together I might send Shel to do that when he gets home today;)

Well, need to go and get some schoolwork done. Finished tests last week so back to the old grindstone so to speak!

Blue Wednesday

2009-04-22T11:11:00.003-04:00

It's the middle of the week and you would think that it's Monday again:( Today has been a day that just doesn't seem to want to get going. Everyone is tired and trying to get school started. There's just no motivation. The morning is gray from the rain clouds over head, and the I have at this time is to go back to bed and lay under my warm blankets and listen to the rain gently come down on the roof. Yesterday evening we had a storm blow through with lightening and thunder, but that only last about 20 minutes before it turned back into just rain. I was so happy to hear the thunder and it was pretty exciting for those few minutes but unfortunately for Sheldon he had to drive the kids to youth night through it. I was able to sit and review some of DJ's science books so that he would be ready for his test today which ironically had a section on lightening safety, but now I'm thinking I will wait until tomorrow to have him take it.

I have not been able to sleep well this past week. I have had nightmares about leaving my daughter here in the states while the rest of us go gallivanting off to Europe for the next couple years. Jori has decided she wants to stay in Utah for the summer instead of going to Kathy's house, and will be staying with a friend of hers who lives in Alpine. The girls father has agreed to let Jori stay there rent free so she can save up her money while working this summer for school. I am grateful for this family who has graciously accepted Jori into their home, but I can't help feel that we somehow are abandoning her:( Of coarse this is not true, it's just how things are right now with living in the military and moving to our next assignment but this is a delicate time in a younger persons life and having your parents close by is important. She should be able to come home, work for the summer and save up her money, enjoy the time with family and rejuvenate herself then be able to head back to college to tackle another year of school. With us having the move this summer, it makes it difficult for her to be able to do that. But with me and the boys not planning to leave here until August now it would be possible for her to come here for most of the summer, but I don't know if she would able to get a Job that would pay her enough for next year. The other thing is that we will not be seeing her until some time next year:( I know that we have joked about getting her out of the house for college, but I wonder if she might feel a bit abandoned by not really having a permanent home to stay if she needed it? Sheldon talks about how she's adult now and needs to learn to take care of herself, and I do agree with that, but how many times were we able to come home if we needed to when things weren't working out well for us? With the way the economy is right now things are very unsteady. I know that she has plenty of places she could go to if she needed to, it's just hard that to get her home will be twice as hard and super expensive flying her to Europe unlike being able to drive a state or two away to get her. She knows that she can come anywhere we are if she really needed to, and that is good.

Well, I still need to jump in the shower and go to the store for some things. The dog is out of food and we need milk and bread. The boys are being great about reviewing their work and since I don't hear any thunder over head now would be a great time to jump in.

2009-04-18T13:58:00.003-04:00

The last 3 days this week we took the boys down to the DC Mall area. The weather has been beautiful and with only a couple more days before Christian heads back to Cali, we wanted some pictures with the boys. We haven't gone too hog wild at sightseeing since the first few days that Christian got here it rained. We were able to take care of our passport pictures and paperwork and had them done at the Ben Franklin branch on Pennsylvania Ave just down from the White House. After that we ventured up the Post Office Clock Tower, and got a neat view of the downtown area. We were really high up and it was fun to look around and point out all the places we could recognize. It was nice that they had point's of interest pictures up there too to look at so we could use a a reference;) The boys then headed underground to ride the subway so Christian could say he did, then they headed to the monuments. Unfortunately Christian's camera needed to be charged so he wasn't able to get any pictures of the monuments. So the next day we headed back down with 3 camera's in tow so there would be photographic evidence of the days trip. I dropped the boys off at the Lincoln memorial and headed off to find a place to park around the Air and Space Museum where we intended to finish off the afternoon, and it took me forever to get down Constitution Ave. By the time I was able to park the van the boys had walked from the Lincoln Memorial all the way to the Air and Space Museum. The traffic was horrendous and it took me 1 1/2 hours to go about 2 miles. Anyway, we went inside the museum and started the tour. After looking at the exhibits the men in the family decided to do a simulator ride to fly fighters so while they did that I spent the time talking with people from Italy and Germany. When they finally came out Sheldon and Christian were not feeling too well because Malachi and DJ decided they liked flying upside down most of the time. Too funny;) It took awhile with traffic to get home, but we decided to stay home for the evening to relax. Today is the Earth Day celebration, so we have no desires to go down to the mall today and fight the crowds. When Christian comes out this summer we will hit the other places that we didn't see this time around.

Easter Sunday

2009-04-12T18:45:00.002-04:00

As I sit here writing, my 3 boys are sneaking around the house with nerf guns shooting each other. It has been a long time since all three of them have had this kind of fun together. Earlier today before we went to a BBQ at a new member's house, all the men in the house were trying out their Easter gift. We got them the Nintendo Wii Nerf game. They had to make sure it was ok before we left. They tried the game out ion the game system and the neat thing is that the guns also can convert to regular nerf guns and can shoot darts too. So now they have found all the guns we have collected the past couple years in the house and with the new bag of darts we bought, well, let's just say the darts are flying by my head as I type;)

Joe Revas a new member of the Capital Ward had invited about half the ward over for an Easter BBQ. We had BBQ ribs and chicken, fried chicken, fried fish, sweet potatoes, potato salad, macaroni salad, hamburgers, hotdogs, baked beans, corn, cabbage and ham. Talk about a feast! He bought and cooked everything and we all just showed up. Finally last night we asked him if there was something we could do to help for today and he said we could get some drinks and hotdog buns. It was nice not to have to make a big meal for once. We stayed long enough to help fold all the chairs and tables before we left. Once we started heading out his family all showed up to eat. It was fun to meet them.

Today at church we put together a double quartet and sang the song Gethsemane. Then for young women's Sheldon and I were asked to portray Mary Magdalen, and Thomas the apostle for the lesson. Right before we were to speak our parts I was asked to read the account of Christ's crucifixion on the cross. Well I could hardly get through that reading before I was to portray Mary visiting the tomb on the morning of the resurrection. I'm such a big cry baby. Needless to say I was able to get through the part then Sheldon and I sang "I Know That My Redeemer Lives". We sang the first verse then the last 3 verses with the young women. It was very nice way to end the day at church and I hope they felt the spirit that was present in the room as I did. Teaching youth to recognize the spirit is so crucial in this present day. There's so much out there that is negative and vile, and we only get few moments now days to counter act those that.

He's Here!

2009-04-11T09:18:00.002-04:00

Yesterday my oldest boy finally got to Washington DC! He flew in around 7:15 am after coming on a red eye flight from San Francisco. His plane was only delayed about an hour, so it was nice to not have to lave for the airport until around 6:15 am. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get much rest the night before due to anxiousness and phone calls all night from other's. You see, we had flown Sheldon's niece to San Francisco the same evening so she could drive the truck back to Utah so Jori could have the truck for the summer, and her flight was suppose to arrive at 8:15 that evening. We thought we would help Kathy out by not having her have to drive to the airport more than once that week. Since Christian was to check in around 8:30 that evening we thought how perfect it would be when we found that one flight into SF. Even though it was a little more money, we would have given Kathy gas money to get Karli anyway, so it was about the same so no worries right? Well, Karli's flight ended up being delayed 4 hours!!!!!!! Talk about how horrible. We felt so bad for Kathy having to stay and wait all that time. I guess her father drove down with her that night so they wouldn't have to pay for parking so he just parked someplace and read a book while waiting for Kathy to call. So now I feel twice as bad because her poor father had to sit there and wait too:( When Karli finally was able to get to SF, she had accidentally locked her cell phone and didn't know how to call out to find Kathy. So Lori called me for Katy's number, then called Kathy to let her know where Karli was waiting. I guess once Kathy found here, the poor girl was so happy to be found. I'm sure she was tired and the delays made for a very tired girl. Kathy called the next morning to let us know that Karli slept in then headed off to Utah. So now we need to call and see if she drove straight through and how tings went. I figure that so far nothing bad must have happened since we haven't gotten any phone calls. Now I need to find out how Jori is going to be able to get up to SLC to get the truck.

Once we were done with getting Christian, we headed home. I was impressed at how little traffic there was on the road. I don't know if it's because we were going in the opposite way of the flow of workers, or since Friday was a "kind of" holiday being that it was Good Friday and all, we were able to get home without too much trouble. I bought the boys breakfast at Burger King, then it was time for home. The boys were excited about Christian finally being here so they showed him around the house and then got to work playing video games. I decided after awhile that I was in need of a nap due to the lack of sleep the night before, so I tried to get a nap in. What was I thinking? I might have gotten an hours sleep before the phone started. This time it was Shel. He wanted me to pick him up at Anacostia instead of waiting for the pentagon bus. So I groggily got up and waited at the train station for him. Once home we decided to take Christian to Golden Corral for lunch since he hasn't eaten there for almost 4 years. He was so excited! We'll have to go once night for dinner before he leaves so he can get some steak.

Then in the evening we went out to eat with the Henderson's from the end of the block and their kids came and ate pizza and watched movies at our house. It was a fun night for us, and I think that kids had fun too. Some of the boys that live in the neighborhood went on vacation for spring break so we are hoping Christian will be able to meet some of the older kids in the area. Tasha, the Henderson's daughter is Christian's age so she can get him aquatinted with everyone. Well, off to the commissary for some food. Everyone is complaining of not having anything to eat.

2009-04-07T09:45:00.005-04:00

Yesterday was my baby's 10th birthday! He woke up with a smile and kept it the whole day. A few weeks ago we asked him what he wanted for his birthday and he thought for awhile then asked, "can I have breakfast in bed?" Well, thinking that was a bold move on his part and no one else in the family has ever asked for that request we told him sure. So Sunday night I asked him what he wanted and he asked for "pancakes, sausage and bacon!" That morning when I took his breakfast to him he was determined to eat his food in bed!!!!!!! Once he realized it wasn't as easy as he thought, he asked for a TV tray and he sat on his bed as he ate. We ended up not doing much for school, since we knew daddy was coming home early to take him to get his ID picture, so he took a shower, got dressed in some nice clothes then he watched a little TV.

Once daddy showed up we headed out for our afternoon of shopping at Toys-R-Us. He had been eyeing some night vision goggles that he could wear at night so he wouldn't need a night light in his room anymore and we figured we could find them there. Once inside the "mecca" for kids he quickly changed his tune. He looked up and down all the isles and decided that there was more for him to choose from than he thought. He did have a budget, but he wanted to get the most bang for is buck;) He ended up eyeing some Star Wars legos, and with the sale they were having was able to come out of the store with 4 boxes, a Limited Edition Separatist Spider Droid, an Imperial Dropship, an Assasin Droids Battle Pack and a Rebel Scout Speeder. I think my boy is a "Dark Side" follower? The ships also come with the little guys to fight, so he has hours of enjoyment ahead of him. Since the Lego's were on sale he was also able to buy a video game so he got the Lego's Batman for XBox 360. I'm seeing a theme here? He is a Lego's man!

After leaving the store we headed to Outback for his "B" day dinner. The boy loves his ribs and has decided right now that Outback's are his favorite. He also got his free Birthday Sundae which he gladly shared with all of us and we gladly ate;) All in all I think he had a great birthday! Oh, and daddy enjoyed it too because he got the job of putting all the pieces together;)

2009-04-03T19:27:00.006-04:00

Today we took the boys to the Cherry Blossom Festival down by the Tidal Basin in the DC Mall area. We were able to find a place to park about a mile away in the marina and East Potomac Park area. While looking for a place to park we saw a miniature golf area and the two boys talked about wanting to go back and visit when Christian comes out to visit next week. I hope some of the trees will still be in bloom then.

We were also able to see the Jefferson Memorial, and they had some entertainment for those visiting. It was a group of Indian girls performing traditional Indian dances.

As you can see in the picture's above the trees look just beautiful and the walking path is lined with them. Like the tree behind us some of them have branches that touch the water. It's like walking into a flower tunnel.

Where's the Ark?

2009-04-03T10:19:00.002-04:00

Since April has gotten here, it's been, rain, rain and more rain! It's been a long time since I've seen rain like this. Usually in California we get the rain's like this in January, but since we left before that, we never got the opportunity to enjoy the those downpours. I don't mind the rain too much, but I hope that it will be dry tomorrow because we have plans to get some things done in the garage and get some boxes out this next week for the big trash pick up. I want to be able to go in there during the weeks now to go through my boxes and get things organized before we leave there.

Yesterday Christian called to let us know that his throat wasn't getting any better and now his ear was starting to hurt more. He went in because he had a swollen tonsil and the took a strep test. They gave him some 800 milligrams of Morton and sent him on his way. Well, he said he came home ad found blood on his bedding which means he had some discharge the night before from his ears. So I called Joe Erbe, our old friend and neighbor in Cali and asked him what he thought. Since Christian seems to be having more pain then when he went in he thought it would be good for him to go back in and get checked again. Since we moved here, Christian has been moved to our tricare area on the east coast, so they won't let him get a Dr's appointment there on the base, but they will let him see the doctor's there at the ER. So Sheldon is going to have to transfer his paperwork back to the western side. It is such a problem. I thing we will have the same problem with Jori now too. He called about 2 am to let me know that they found that his ear was starting to get infected, and gave him ear drops and some stronger beds for night time. I'm wondering though if I will need to press this even further. Joe said he would try and go in tomorrow and see if he could pull up his test records and see what they say. It might end up he might have to do something from his end? I just don't know. I hate when I'm not there. I hope whatever is going on won't affect his flight out here too. Hopefully this will resolve itself quickly.

We are also waiting for our registration tags to show up for the truck. I guess the DMV in California is too slow to understand that when I sent the change of address to them that the "mailing address" that if put on there was real? Anyway, supposedly they sent it to our address here, and we still haven't' received it. We need to get those tags so that Kathy can take the truck to the firestone place on base to get the front ends balanced. Talk about stressed! I'm really going to be upset if they mess things up for us. We have one of Sheldon's niece's flying out from Utah to drive the truck back to Utah for Jori. Since she is planning on staying there for the summer she will need the truck to get to work. Hopefully this will help her in finding a decent job to be able to stay there for the summer and put some money away for housing next year. Anyway, she is flying out next Thursday, the same day that Christian is flying here. Kathy will pick her up at the airport, send Christian on his way the Karli will sleep at her house and drive back. It will give her a couple days to so that before they go on their family vacation. So these things need to be done, and the DMV is really playing games with me right now. GRRRR.................

DJ is writing away on his book report. He hates writing so this is a major chore for him, and Malachi is doing his science experiments with blue dye in the sink and really enjoying it:0 Next week DJ will be done with his next test and Malachi should be finishing up for the next week of test's. With Christian coming we won't be having school as usual, but since Sheldon will only be at class until noon, I think I will have the boys do some work in the early morning then we'll be off the rest of the day to go and explore. If I make up lunches we can take it with us and see a lot of DC. I just hope the rain goes away for that week!

April Shower's

2009-04-02T09:48:00.003-04:00

Well, spring is here with all the rain. So I'm figuring that the saying April shower's bring May flowers holds true to this part of the country? I know some of the trees have started blooming, but the flowers I haven't seen too much yet.

I was hoping that the days would be nice and sunny so I can take the boys down to the Jefferson Memorial to look at the Cherry blossom's. The trees are in full bloom and just beautiful right now. I accidentally found my way by that area on Tuesday when I went visiting teaching on of my sister and was glad I got to see the area. The day I drove by there were a lot of people out in paddle boas in the little basin there, so I would love to get the boys out there to enjoy. I also hope that everything will be there when Christian comes so we can take him there too.

I got a phone call from a woman who's family just moved to the Netherlands in January. Her husband is the KC 10 pilot that flies out of Breda. Anyway, she heard about us from Andy, the guy Sheldon will be replacing, and was asked by Andy if she would act as our shadow sponsor. Since Andy is our "real" sponsor but he doesn't have kids there the age of ours, he thought they would be more helpful in helping us prepare for the move. Well, I have to say, she definitely was and is going to be helpful. She has children around the same age as ours and her kids will be going to that same school as ours. With all the things that they have had to deal with and have learned from I think we can make this move over to the Netherlands with very little problems. We had started thinking about sending Sheldon over first to take care of his in processing and me and the kids coming over a few months later after he got things settled and found a place to live. Now, I think we'll let him get over and take care of in processing in Germany, then go to the Netherlands to get his SS card then we will come in August just before school starts. By then we will have what we need to get started looking for a house to live in. I know Shel won't won't want to pick a house before I get there, but it takes about 4 weeks for the paperwork for his SS number from the Netherlands to go through and we need that before we can even start to look for a house. Once it's ready we will get there then we can have the fun of looking for the house and moving in. She told of of a great place we can stay in while we are waiting and they will let us take our pets there with us. That is huge, because I was trying to figure out how we would do that while we were at Ramstien AFB with Sheldon's in-processing. Another thing we found is that the DOD will pay for the kids to have a taxi to pick them up for school, so I won't have to drive as much once we get settled. I really wanted to not put too much mileage on the van, so that will be helpful. This will make it easy to find a nice place to live so we don't have to live right in the city and if they will pay for the taxi, then that opens up a huge possibility of where we can live. So, thank goodness for Amy, and this move won't be the huge nightmare I thought it was turning out to be. Amy was great, and we talked for hours, so now I am a little more excited about this then before.

Well, I need to get working with the boys on their school work and shower. I have a commissary run to do today. We are in dire need of food in the house and I have put it off long enough.

2009-03-28T14:42:00.002-04:00

Here is the family picture we took while at Disneyland. I wanted to start learning how to get picture's put up on the blog so here is my first attempt.

Watching the clouds go by

2009-03-19T10:26:00.002-04:00

For the past couple days the weather has been playing tricks on us. We have been getting clouds but no real rain so to speak. Not that I'm saying I want the rain, but every now and then I do love a good thunder storm. For the last 3 1/2 years we lived in California there was never a really good storm so to speak of and after living living in the state of Nebraska and seeing how gray and black the clouds would get, and how they would swirl in all directions above our heads, there was a beauty, yet terrifying sense all in one during those storms, and I just couldn't help myself, staring out the windows, wondering what was happening up in the clouds and if it would somehow affect me and my family? Once we started living in the mid West, I had become fascinated by the weather and have spent hours watching the weather channel much to the chagrin of my husband. I guess I felt that if I could understand the weather a little better that I would know when there would be danger and would be better prepared to protect my children if needs be. Being a mother, that is my job, to protect my younglings and keep them safe at all cost! I have spent half of our married life if not a little more living in area's that the sky could drop down at any minute and swoop us and everything I hold most dear up into the sky and they would be gone just like that. I know that this is a control problem which I need to over come, but I am I mother and I mean to protect my children at all cost. So I look out today, wondering what the day will bring, and hope to see a little more than a drizzle.

On a side not, DJ got his first test back from the school today and he is quite pleased as our we with his results. He got a lot of 1's and a couple 2's. There were a couple things that he knew and just somehow got put the wrong answer down and when we went over it, he couldn't figure out how he had done that, but all in all he was happy. He seems to really enjoy being homeschooled. It has been fun to find those things that he enjoys and get to know him a little better. I don't think I would have really ever known about some of this if we hadn't homeschool. We are starting to wonder if I should homeschool in the Netherlands and then we don't have to worry so much about living in a particular city and can go to one of the smaller towns. My only worry is I would love the kids to get to know other's in the area, and if we do that they won't have that social interaction with the youth as much there. Here it's easy because there are so many homeschooled kids in the area, and they have a lot in common, but that will not be the case in the Netherlands. Add on top of that the fact that they will be foreigners, so how will that work out? I still have a few more months to work this out, but I need to know what I'm going to do. That's the control freak side of me.

Guess I should get back to school. DJ is learning about Antarctica today in geography and needs help. I don't have the answers off the top of my head;)

Wet Weekend

2009-03-15T20:41:00.002-04:00

Just a quick note to check in. We decided to take the boys skiing one time this year before the ski seasons ends and ended up being rained on the whole time. Needless to say it wasn't the weekend we had hoped it to be. I was able to walk around a bit to get and idea of the resort village and shops that was there, but with the rain and no umbrella, well it was easier to stay inside. DJ had his morning lesson on the slopes and did pretty well his instructor told me when I went to pick him up. Of course he didn't want to go out after lunch, but who could really blame him with the way the weather was acting. I was surprised he even agreed to another lesson, but I'm glad he did. I want him to get a foundation so when we go skiing in Europe he'll have something to go off of.

I guess Kai did pretty good on his snow board. After lunch when he and Sheldon hit the slopes he came back early because of the rain making the snow slushy and hard to maneuver. I guess he twisted his knee and wanted to rest it up. That evening after dinner at a pizza place we took them to the swimming pool at the Resort and let them swim for a couple hours. The pool had a couple slide, one inside and one out, and a small water fall. There was a lot of kids their age so they had a pretty good time. I couldn't believe how much time they spent in the outdoors part of the pool, but hey, when you're young you don't think of things like that. I finally wrestled them out of the pool and went back to the room so they could take a warm shower and watch some tv before turning in. When we woke up Sunday morning they boys were going to head out and get a couple hours skiing in before heading home, but sure enough the rain started so we packed up and left a little before 11am. It rained the whole way down the mountains through the valley's and into DC:( Talk about a bust! For the money we spent we could have gone up to New York and seen some cool stuff! Oh well, it was nice to get away for the weekend. As we drove into the city and started dealing with the traffic I could feel the stress, and tension start in my shoulders and neck:( I really don't like the traffic here, and for everything else am glad that I only have to be here for a few months. don't get me wrong, I have really enjoyed the ward and people we've meet, but i really don't like the area that much. Well, mostly it's the driving. If something happened and we ended up not being able to go to the Netherlands, I would definitely be trying to make sure we got orders to anywhere but here.

Anyway, tomorrow things start back up so I need a good night's sleep. I hate hotel beds. I never sleep very good so I am pretty tired.

What can I say........

2009-03-04T12:54:00.002-05:00

There's not really a lot of things that have changed since I last posted. Well, we did get some snow. It started Sunday night and snowed until Monday afternoon. It sure was pretty. I had the kids do some of their work for school that Monday morning, but then let them have the rest of the day off to go and play in the snow. The neighborhood was hopping with all the kids playing outside, so I told the boys to go and enjoy the afternoon. We bought Malachi and DJ new boots so they got to break them in. I know that their feet will not get cold when we go skiing next weekend.

I decided I needed to get Malachi moving on his school work so we are doubling up his work so that we will be taking tests every 3 weeks. He has been getting his daily work done by lunch time so I figured if he is able to do that then we can buckle down a bit for the next couple months and get through this year before we leave for Europe. He's not too happy about that, but he needs to understand that this has to be done.

DJ is taking his first test with the course so he will be done with that by the end of this week. This is a learning process for me on how to review for the tests. I hope I get it figured out so that the boys will do well:)

The boys started guitar this week. A young man who is home schooled on the block plays so he is teaching the boys. They have the lessons on Monday afternoon then I get to listen all week to them practicing. It's cute to hear DJ play the first stanza of "Smoke on the Water";) I figured they can get some good basics before we take off the the Netherlands. I know Malachi will be able to build from that if he practices.

Jori i guess headed for LA today for 4 days with the ROTC group from BYU. She was so excited about going. Her birthday is Sunday so she this will be fun for her on her "B" day. I remember having a youth trip to Mexico on my 16th birthday, and there was a young men from Hermisillo who had the same "B" day so we shared a "B" day dance. Wow, that was too long ago;) We gave her her money early so she will have some to spend on the trip.

Well, DJ is done with the first half of the tests. I guess we are done with school for the day so I need to get some laundry done. I guess I should try and be productive with something today!

A quiet evening alone!

2009-02-25T20:10:00.002-05:00

Ok, not really alone. The two boys are getting their teeth brushed and going to bed and I think I just might follow them. Sheldon had to go to ward council tonight. I think this is the first night in a long, long time that I can actually control the remote, but alas, I'm tired and will not waste the evening channel surfing. I know that next month it will come again and maybe I'll be better prepared for it;)

The day today ended up being nice this afternoon, so after school was done, I threw the boys outside and they stayed out for 3 whole hours! My cricut machine came today so I have looking over the manual and seeing what neat things it can do. I'm so excited I don't know where I want to start. I'm not a really big scrap booker, but I would like to start since I think it will be great for when we are over in Europe, but the vinyl cutting thing is really exciting to me. I want to do some testing with that to put on the mirrors and walls. I know it will only be up for a few months, but at least I'll get some practice in. This way I'll know what I want to stock up on before we leave.

I got a letter from my mom today and I can tell in her letter that she is a little bit confused. I'm hoping that things are going better for her now. I'm really hoping that things are going better for my brother and his wife who she's living with. They are such great people. She is truly blessed.

I got to talk to one of my best friends in the world today. It breaks my heart right now because her husband is over in Iraq right now in the thick of things and that is just so scary. I can tell she's trying to not worry but you just can't help it and she's being so strong. I wish there was more I could do for her right now. If only I lived closer. Her family has had to endure so many deployments with him over in the desert it's just crazy. I hope that this will be his last one. They deserve him staying home for good.

We also heard from Lori, Ivan's wife (Sheldon's brother) that he's on his way home from Kuwait, but somehow got put on the slow boat to China again. In fact, that is such a huge mess, but I know I couldn't type the way I need to to really tell the story right, but gosh darn it, there needs to be some changes in the command group over the Utah National Guard. I'm about ready to leave an anonymous phone tip to some news agency to see if they could get him some help with his situation. I have to stop because I really feel like saying some gosh dang words when I think about what is going on with him.

Ok, I need to be nice, so.............

I'm looking forward to tomorrow. It's suppose to be even warmer than today and I'm hoping that maybe I can enjoy the outdoors a bit myself. I have been so cold since I've been here. It's just weird. I'm looking forward to spring weather so I can open the windows and flush out the old winter air and let in the spring air! Ah the Cherry blossoms should be coming out soon?;)

Birthday Girl

2009-02-24T09:36:00.002-05:00

Yesterday was my birthday. It was low key but nice. When I first woke up I didn't even remember about it. That must be the age thing kicking in I'm sure;) I walked out to get the boys ready for school and Malachi and DJ had written "Happy Birthday" on the white board with all the kids names on it. It was so sweet of them. Since we really couldn't take the day off from school we got busy with the days activities. Sheldon called me during his morning break to send me his wishes and then informed us that he was getting out early. oh, before I forget I also want to thank all of the sweet people who left me birthday wishes on facebook and by email. It was great to feel loved. Being in a new place and not really knowing too many yet, it really made my day to have the recognition. I was thrilled that my older two remembered the day also and both of them called. Of course Christian seemed more thrilled about the lunch Kathy Troub brought to him and his girlfriend Danielle for their 3 month anniversary, but he did take time to call me during his lunch;) Jori had her FHE group sing to me over the phone later in the evening.

For dinner we drove out to Bowie, MD and ate at a Texas Roadhouse. They have the best ribs I've ever eaten. The meat just falls off the bones. It's hard to bring the bones back for the dog to chew since there really isn't any meat left, but we did get a couple with a little bit on the ends so he had his treat last night after we got home. Now I have to watch out for the bone shards in the carpet:(

I booked a ski weekend in the West Virginia mountains for next month. The boys in the house are really wanting to ski one more time and the place we are going to has an awesome military special going on. One of the guys from Sheldon's language class told him about the place so after looking at the info I called and booked a weekend. It will be nice to see West Virginia since we didn't get to drive through it like we thought we were going too on the way here. Now we need to find the snow gear that's packed away in the garage. Thank goodness we have a couple weeks before we go.

Well, the boys are about done with their individual work so I need to get off and go learn some more;) I keep reminding myself I love 6th grade math and 4th grade grammar. I can only get smarter right!

Saturday is a special day....................

2009-02-21T20:52:00.004-05:00

It's suppose to be the day we get ready for Sunday not driving around all day looking for Sunday shoes and gravy mixes. I guess you can say that what I did today was to prepare for Sunday, but I wasn't able to accomplish much more than that.

Since we arrived, we have only been able to find one of DJ's Sunday shoes that I got him before we moved out here. Coming to the realization that the other shoe was probably eaten by the sock monster who likes to eat the boys socks, I decided to give up looking and go out and buy him a new pair.

We started out just before lunch on the adventure of looking for some shoes, and exploring the area some more, so we headed south towards the town of Waldorf, MD. Now Sheldon and I we have discussed about venturing down that way since we found out they have a Red Robin and also a Costco, but still haven't taken the opportunity. It's a nice little drive and ended up being a nice little town. It reminded me a lot of Vacaville, CA. There are a lot of nice shopping areas and the mall was a good size. I decided to go to JC Penney since we seem to have good luck there finding shoes that fit and on sale too. It's nice to have a wide selection and be able to stroll around looking at other things. After finding the shoes that fit without anything hurting (the kids the worst at trying on shoes) I told him we could have lunch at the Mall. He got excited about the possibilities of what they had at the food court, and the court was really good size. He decided to try an Hawaiin BBQ place after they gave him some samples of their chicken, and was so excited about having leftovers so he could share with his dad when he got home. We also tried to find me a chocolate B-Day cake for tomorrows dinner, but non of the stores had any:( We drove a little more around town seeing what else they had down there, a Toy-R-Us, a funstore that sells pokemon cards, and other memorabilia and lots of food restaurants. I never was able to find the Costco because I knew we had to go and get Sheldon from the train station, so we headed home. As we were buying the paint for his pinewood derby car Sheldon called so we headed off to pick him up.

I wasn't able to get much else done around the house today that I had wanted to today, but one thing is for sure, tomorrow when we go to church DJ will be wearing his new Sunday shoes and not his ugly, smelly tennis shoes. I will be happy about that;)

The phone calls begin?

2009-02-18T18:45:00.004-05:00

Last night I got a call from the Bishop saying it was important for him to meet with both Sheldon and I this afternoon. Well, of course Sheldon just thought that it was about the calling for me, so he was feeling pretty calm. We get to the church and he states that he has a couple more papers to print up and he will be right with us. When he sits down he first says that he has never had to do an interview like this before being a Bishop, so of course our Brains start wheeling a bit. He then proceeds to tell us that actually the calling should be extended through the Stake, but because of time and other things they asked the Bishop to extend it and once they knew the answer they could take care of things on their end. So now both Sheldon and I are fascinated at what this could be. He then turns to Shels and calls him to be the Executive Secretary. Sheldon seemed a little stunned, but the word yes did come out of his mouth and the Bishop kept on rolling with the duties and what he needs to get done by this Sunday and yada, yada, yada. So even before any sustaining he is starting the ground running and expected to have all the appointments and other things set by this Sunday. Unfortunately my poor hubby will now have to be at church on Sunday mornings by 6:30am! Yes, that's right 6:30am. For those of you who know the hubby well, that is pure torture for him;) he does love his sleep, especially on the weekends. He seemed a little more excited as we drove home. This is one area he has not worked yet, so he is excited about what he will learn in the next few months.

In another Phone call this morning, my brother called to tell me that things were going wrong for Mom the last couple days. She got the flu really bad and then had adverse reactions to some med the Dr. put her on. He was beside himself on how to keep her in her bed so she won't hurt herself, but how do you tell that woman to stay still. He said she fell this morning and they are afraid she might have broken a rib so they were trying to talk with her doctor to find out what they should do. It sounds like they are pretty tired with everyone being sick, and trying to get her to behave. I feel so bad for them. I pray that things will settle down for them, and she will listen to the Dr. and stay in bed. I hope to hear from them soon to find out how things are going. If you have some time say a little prayer for comfort.

Eight days and counting.......

2009-02-16T19:44:00.004-05:00

So, it took me 8 days to get back here. I wanted to write last week but I had pulled a muscle in my neck that traveled down the shoulders blades and right arm so it was a little uncomfortable trying to sit and type. Homeschooling is plugging along and everyday we get a little better at getting the work done. I think we will need to double up a little with Kai on his work so I can get him done before we leave in July, but all in all it's going well.

The boys are having a great time playing with the kids in the neighborhood. I can usually send them out in the afternoon and have some quiet time for a few hours. I hope that once the pain is completely gone in my neck to get back to working on boxes and other things in the house that I want to get done.

We have really enjoyed attending this new ward. People have been so nice to us. There is this cute older philipino woman who always tries to sit by me in RS every Sunday. We were put together for a discussion group the first Sunday I was here and ever since then no matter where I sit she come and sits next to me and makes her friend come too. It's so cute. She calls me her friend:) This past Sunday she was in a wheelchair but she was there next to me in the row.

We have also had some opportunities to help the missionaries with some of their investigators this past week and have met some really nice people. Friday Sheldon drove a couple up to the temple's visitor's center to visit and see some videos and then in Sunday we picked up a young woman with her adorable little girl and took them to church. I took the young girl with me to SS so the young lady could go to gospel essentials and not have to be interrupted, and then held her as she slept during RS. Malachi and DJ tried to keep her entertained during Sacrament but I had to keep them from getting her too excited;) We've really had some great experiences here and I think the boys will be better for it. They are really realizing how much they do really have compared to a lot of the people they have meet here, and they are so eager to try and help other's when they can.

Well, the neck is starting grumble a little so I think I should get going. Back to the grindstone.

Change is inevitable?

2009-02-08T19:19:00.002-05:00

I know it's been over a week since I have written. This week has been busy with school and other things.

First off, we found out after 3 weeks, that we were actually going to the wrong church ward. When we first arrived we called and asked everyone if we lived in the ward boundaries and they finally convinced us and themselves that we did. We had a couple missionary companions over for dinner and one of the elders who had served in the ward we were suppose to be attending asked us why we weren't going to the other ward. Come to fins out that the RS President lives 5 doors down, and the EQ President lives across the street. So we called the new Bishop to get some counsel and when it was all set and done, we are now attending the new ward. We felt so bad for having to leave the other ward. We really enjoyed being there and were so looking forward to being able to help the little time we were going to be here. I really felt sick to my stomach about all this. I also felt that since we are only here for 6 months what harm would it be to go to the other ward, but as the Bishop stated, that by going to an out of boundary ward you have to get approval from Salt Lake, and we didn't want to cause any hard feelings or problems down the road for the ward we were in.

Malachi was finally ordained to be a deacon today. Next week he will pass the Sacrament for the first time. I hope he is excited about starting this new chapter in his life. He just doesn't talk to us about things like that. He always looks like he's going to get into trouble or found out about something;)

We like the new ward we are in now. There are about the same amount of people as in the other ward, but more of the families have cars and there are more youth that are active in this ward. I feel very welcomed here. The scouting program is lacking somewhat, but I kind of felt like that was going to be the case so I will need to get on the ball and get DJ going and finished with his Bear. This will be how it is until we get back from Europe I guess. Just trying to figure everything out still.

I need some sleep. School comes early now that I have to stay awake now and teach the boys. I hope that I will feel better about this as the weeks go by. I really do like the program we are going through, but I hate feeling like I have to rush through it. I decided not to so we will see how it goes.

Morning musings......

2009-01-29T09:46:00.002-05:00

if that's how you spell the word?

Last night Malachi had his interview with the Bishop for turning 12. I guess he passed, YEA!!!!!!!!!! so on Sunday he will be ordained to be a Deacon in the Aaronic Priesthood and will be able to pass the Sacrament this Sunday! Wow, I'm starting to feel old here. That's two in Young Mens now. We also had a sit down with the Bishop and he asked a lot of questions. Mostly, how long have you been members, are you active members, what kind of callings, blah, blah, blah......... I guess with everything they have going on with this ward, he has some important areas to fill. The ward has a lot of new members so there is a lot of growing and learning that needs to be done, but since we are only here for the next 6 months, I feel we should be used more in a supportive callings. Primary is struggling, the Elder's Quorum President doesn't even live in this stake anymore, and just support for the members in general is a big thing for right now. The missionary couple who is in this ward are just so excited that we moved in. I guess every Wednesday night, besides being youth night, the ward holds a scripture study class for the adult members or for anyone who wants to show up really. We spent the hour before class last night driving around picking members up who don't have a vehicle, which is also a huge problem in this ward, and then shuttling everyone home afterwards. We told the missionaries that we could also help on Sundays since the couple missionaries have been picking up most of the members by themselves. Since church doesn't start until 10am and I am hoping to teach piano to anyone interested in the morning before church, Shel will drop us off early at the church and go around and help pick up families who want to come to church. Between the two cars we hope it will help a bit. Since my driving has cut down considerably since moving here, we feel we can do that without an extra strain on us.

I also talked with the Bishop about cub scouts and said that I needed to get DJ done with his bear requirements before his next birthday, so I would come on Wednesdays and hold cub scouts and if any of the other kids wanted to join along we could get that going. The Bishop excited to get this going and said the stake had been pushing him to get something going in the ward as well, so Sheldon will work with the Webelo age boys, and I will do the wolf and bears. He told us that he would make it an official calling on Sunday, but I don't think that this will be the only calling we will be getting in this ward? He needs teachers, ward missionaries ect, ect, ect........... the list goes on.

I kind of feel like I'm on my mission again. I worked in some area's that was a lot like here. I can say that this has really brought home the true need the church has for couple missionaries and the great benefit they are to struggling areas, even here in the states. I always thought that it would be fun to go to a foreign mission as a couple, but I can see us wanting to come back here and work too. The ward members have been so open to us here and have made us feel welcomed and wanted. We truly have felt blessed.

Just a comment......

2009-01-27T18:40:00.002-05:00

It's been almost one week since I wrote on here. Things have been slowly coming into place with school and other things in the house. We still have so much to do with going through boxes an things. I need to set a goal for one box a day until we are in full swing with this homeschooling. After Monday's stressful start I started wondering if Malachi would be able to pull off doing a full years work in just a few months. Today went a lot smoother so I'm thinking he won't have to much of a problem with his math, science, history and spelling. It's the writing that will be the beast. Hopefully, we can tackle the beast with as little frustration as possible.

I am learning that DJ is a lot smarter than he lets off. I don't know if he just gets a little bored with school, or just has to have some down time, but the things he remembers and the answers he comes up with is surprising to say the least. It's really sad that a 4th grader is better at grammar than his adult mother;( I guess homeschooling will be a good for me too. We have been reviewing a few areas in grammar and will add some math review and spelling this next week. I have to say I am mentally exhausted at the end of each day and can't wait to crawl into bed. I went to sleep early last night and I'm thinking it will be an early night tonight too.

Tomorrow we are to meet with the Bishop in our new ward. Malachi will also have his 12 yr old interview with him too. Wednesday night is the night scheduled for youth night and the missionaries schedule that night for the adults to come and study the scriptures while they wait for their kids. They also are starting up a choir but that will met on SUndays as usual. I guess they have done a lot of negro spirituals in the past, but are trying to follow the church approved guidelines that the church has stated in the church handbook and are looking for more Sunday appropriate music so I need to look through at what I have so far. They are really trying hard to follow the handbook here. I commend this small struggling ward. It will be a wonderful experience to work with members who are more concerned in building up the kingdom of God, than promoting their own personal agendas or spend all their time gossiping and tearing down others.

Sheldon and I have felt that this will be a great experience for us as well as the two younger boys. They have taken all this change in stride and are have not complained once about the move. In fact on Sunday DJ was being his typical self and was talking to me about, well mainly nothing important as usual, while we were waiting for Sacrament Meeting to start he placed his arm next to mine and said, "it's funny how I'm the darkest here, then he stopped, paused and corrected himself saying, well, I'm not the darkest "HERE" as he looked around a bit, but I'm the darkest in my family and the youngest too." I had to chuckle. so, I guess he has noticed that he is the only white 9 year old in primary right now.

It snowed today. We probably got about 2-3 inches in all, The kids played all afternoon with all the neighborhood kids and had a lot of fun. There's some great kids in the area and everyone plays well together with no problems. This afternoon they were all out having a massive snowball fight and trying to find ways to build a mound for sleds. It's nice to have a group of kids for my boys to play with right out the back door. Don't get me wrong, we had a neighbors at our last place, but it seems like everyone here is more into playing and getting along with one another than teasing younger kids. All in all, we've had a great experience here so far and it's nice to just not have to worry about any negative stuff. It's a nice change.

Mid- Week

2009-01-21T19:32:00.000-05:00

Well, it's hump day today, and I am looking forward to the weekend already. Sheldon worked really hard this past 4 day weekend and got all the boxes in the rooms dealt with. Not to say everything is put away, our room looks as if a tornado went through it, but you can actually walk in there without trying to kill yourself. The play room looks great and it is clear of boxes. Some of the neighborhood kids came over last night and they were like "whooo, where did everything go?" They were finally excited about getting in there and playing. Not to say they didn't play when there were boxes everywhere, but now they can comfortably play and site and enjoy their time. Malachi has befriended a boy who moved into the neighborhood a week after us. He is 14, but he acts like Kai. They seem to get along just fine, and they have been riding around the place. Kai, got a ripstick for his birthday, so he has been on that. He can't walk anywhere. He uses the ripstick to do everything. He was putting some boxes out for the recycling bin and riding his stick as he took the boxes. Of coarse it took almost 3 times as long to get the boxes out, but at least he had fun doing it;)

We heard from Calvert school today about the boys tests. I guess I am going to go with them instead of the church teaching one. A frind of mine told me that her SIL used them and her kids ended up being so far behind it was horrible. After looking everything over, I just don't feel good about it. Love the gospel centered teaching, just not crazy about the rest of the curriculum. After talking with Calvert today, found out the the CA schools are about 2 years behind. THe interesting thing about this is that DJ will be able to start at the middle of the 4th grade course in all his subjects with just some review in a handful of areas. Kai on the other hand has to start from the very beginning of the year for the 6th grade course. His math is on par and he will start mid course there, but all the grammar and English stuff we'll have to start at the beginning:( She said that he tested almost 2 yrs behind, but felt if we started at the beginning of the year some of it being like a review that he should be able to get through the first half pretty fast and it could only help him with his test for the end of the year. Since he is to be going to Jr High next year over seas we figure it is best to go that route. So I'm hoping that he will be done with school by the time we head to Europe. You have to wonder what happens between 4th to 6th grade in the classrooms so that I will have to start him over. Scary! At least a lot of it he can work on by himself, and since there isn't a classroom full of kids, that means we can really focus on him and get this done.

Well, my goal tonight is to get the piano room totally organized so it looks pretty. I have two more days before the books get here so I'm sure this weekend I'll be studying everything to get an idea how to work everything and setting up my schedule for the day. Fun for me!

It's the Weekend!

2009-01-16T20:23:00.000-05:00

I can't believe it's Friday already. This week has really flown by. Sheldon has a 4 day weekend with the inauguration so we are hoping to get a lot of boxes taken care of this weekend. At least we want to get the bedrooms all done and organized.

The boys are in bed tonight already. They went out to play and forgot to tell me what they were up too and I had to go out looking for them after dark. I found them finally and sent them to bed without dinner. I hope this will remind them that the next time they will tell me what they are up too. It's so cold I was afraid that something could have happened to them and they could have been laying outside in this freezing cold weather and and me not knowing about it.

I think we are going to end up going through the Karl G. Maeser Academy for the boys school. I don't have the patience to wait for Calvert school to finish with the boys tests I sent them, and I really need the boys starting school this Tuesday. With us using the academy they use gospel principle to teach some of the subjects and that could only help the boys with knowing more about gospel principles. When we go to the Netherlands there will be a lot they will miss because of the language barrier. I have a lot to do to get everything ready this weekend for school starting and I need to get physicals for them so they can go to PE at the youth center. I can't wait to get some time to just do nothing one day.

Well, I guess I should get some other stuff done and stop stalling on this computer.

Still unpacking...........

2009-01-13T19:59:00.000-05:00

Yes, we are in DC and yes we're still unpacking boxes. We pretty much have the living room, dining room and kitchen done. The beds are up in the bedrooms, but we still have boxes to go through. We told the boys since they have small closet's we will only have a container that will fit in there and what fits inside the container will stay and everything else will have to go. It seems that as they get older, the toys get more expensive but smaller, so that does seem to work in our favor.

With Christian staying in CA, we will have a play room and we will keep video games and a TV in there. We have only two TV's hooked up with cable, so if they want to watch something, they can watch on our bed. They have to ask, so it's well monitored.

Malachi and DJ have spent the last two days taking test for their homeschooling placement, and they have gotten some individual reading done too. Tomorrow I will get the 36 plus pages each they both have worked on and send them to the school. I'm hoping that the test's will benefit them in the long run. It will come down that if they are needing advanced work for their grade we will go through one program, but if they are just at grade level, then we will go with another group that will let me pay for just the last half of the year. Dealing with the writing portion today with both boys, I have to step back and remember what is acceptable for their age and let everything else go.

Both boys have worked really hard on their test and around the house so we took them out to Golden Corral for dinner tonight. I just didn't have the energy to cook. I also was needing some supplies to get ready for school, and just wanted to get this shopping out of the way.

I guess I will get off and get some things done before I go to bed tonight. I still have to write my responses on the papers that I need to send back to the school. Mom has homework too:( I really am looking forward to summer already;)

Up and running............

2009-01-10T11:29:00.001-05:00

Well, t least the computer is now finally up and running. We still have a lot of boxes to go through and I have to figure out what I'm going to do about the boys schooling by tomorrow night. So, I don't have a lot of time but to say that we are alive, and we are slowly getting our house set up! Hopefully I'll be back soon to tell you about the adventures of getting here.

So Little Time........ARRRRRRGH

2008-12-14T15:16:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I sit here knowing that I have all tis packing to do, and I decide to sit and write for a bit. I've been organizing the bedrooms for he last couple days, and now just to the point that if it's not important, it's being thrown away. There is so much left to do, but a lot of stuff is Sheldon's and I have to wait for him.

Sheldon and Mom made it to Yakima yesterday. I guess Mom ended up throwing up the last few minutes f the flight, then on the drive home. I feel so bad for her. Shel helped her get her things unpacked, then had dinner with Monica and her kids. Jon won't be back until next weekend from his schooling. After dinner, they meet up with James and Sherri Martinez and visited. We found out the the Martinez's are going to be at Disneyland on Christmas Day so we are going to hook up with them. Talk about fun for the kids and us:) I'm still waiting for more info, but it will be a great vacation.

Well, I need to get going and get the everything done before Shel comes home.

To Share

2008-12-09T16:00:00.000-05:00

This is a wonderful video to share with anyone who wants to see.

http://www.youtube.com/swf/l.swf?video_id=snAjZ8mfoYw&rel=1&eurl=&iurl=http

Enjoy!

2008-12-08T23:56:00.000-05:00

Wow 2 days in a row! This is a record for me.

Today I had to go in to work and ended up being let off an hour early:) My boss is trying to follow the owners rules that if we are not busy, then work by yourself. They have been wanting her to cut daytime hours so since this is my last week, she feels ok about letting me go early.

I have spent this evening packing up most of Mom's stuff. I think we might be able to get away with 2 suitcases and 2 medium size boxes. That's pretty good since we moved her down in a small moving truck. Granted it wasn't full to the top. She seems really sad about leaving, but I know she is so happy about seeing my brothers too. I just need to get through this week. I keep telling her that we will write to her, and send her pictures of all the places we visit. I hope she will get to enjoy some of our adventures.

2008-12-07T21:38:00.000-05:00

Well, another week down.

This upcoming week will just fly by, I can already tell. I work 3 out of the 5 days, and with getting Mom packed and all the Drs, dentist and ortho appointments for the boys, well, I hope to try and get through the week without going too crazy. My boss is also planning a party at work for me on Friday, so I need to get my stuff together for the ladies.

Sheldon was released today from both of his church callings. He wasn't feeling too well this morning, so he wasn't there to see who is replacing him. I guess Tom Burger will be the 1st counselor in the Elders quorum. He's a good choice.

Next week I won't be able to teach my primary class, but I am planning on having the kids over on Saturday for the class party. I hope most of the kids will be able to come.I promised them pizza candy and carmel apples. Sheldon will be flying home on Sunday during the middle of church, so I will drop the boys off at church then figure out how they will get home. My last teaching day will be Dec 21st. That is going to be a hard day to get through my lesson with them.

Off to organize my week!

2008-12-04T18:29:00.001-05:00

So if you look to the right of this blog you will see some clocks. I decided to put these up so that we can see all the different time zones we are now living in or will be living in this next year. All four of them will stay there until our whole family is finally reunited. So by the end of the summer we will be down to just two clocks then. I thought that this would be a good way to get myself excited about this up coming move. Unfortunately, I just can't seem to get excited about the Bolling AFB move, but I'm hoping that that will change once I'm there. I am excited about being able to visit some historical sites while their, so it isn't all bad I guess.

Well, I'm off to look for a blood pressure cup for my mother. I need to monitor her for the next few days.

One day off this week..................

2008-12-03T23:42:00.000-05:00

and I spent it trying to figure out how to make my blog look nicer. I guess once I get to DC I'll have more time to worry about it. It's not like I didn't get anything done, but I have 12 days before the packers show up, and I have done nothing to get ready for that. I guess I will just try not to worry about that and make the best of this next move. The one thing I keep telling myself is I only have to see them for the 4 days, then I will never see them again. So, why should I be embarrassed if things are not totally organized. Unpacking will feel like Christmas, and it will be very interesting to see what kind of things I'm still lugging around after all these years. I guess we will have a garage sale in the spring if there is anything worth having one.

Mom is doing a lot better today. I have a feeling most of her problems are having to do with her meds. The doctor had changed her pain killers to another less potent brand, and she was just having so much pain that it's hard to walk straight if you're not 94 yrs old. Also, it looks like her blood pressure it low, so we are trying to get that looked at. We will see the doctor tomorrow afternoon, then we will go from there. I will need to buy a blood pressure cuff and take her blood pressure everyday. If her pressure is too low, then I can omit some of her morning meds. I feel bad that Bruce and Gail will have to deal with all this, but I think once we get things looked at we will be able to get her on a regimen that will be good and she won't have too much of a problem. I thought yesterday that she was a going to be gone by the end of the week, that's how much she scared me. She really had a good day today:)

13 days til P-day! (Packers that is)

2008-12-02T23:56:00.000-05:00

OK, it's now December and before we know it the 15th will be here and I will not be ready.

We told my Mom during Thanksgiving that we were going to be moving and that she will be going to live with Bruce and Gail in Selah, WA. Since that day things have slowly been going wrong with her. It's like she has lost her will to live. I was hoping that with only a couple weeks of notice that she would be OK, but I guess it would have been better to just give her w weeks notice. She has fallen a couple times and each time she hurts her back. Now she can hardly walk without assistance to get to the bathroom. I told her that she just needs to lay in bed for the next few days and let her back heal. I might have to have someone come in for the last of this week to watch her so I can finish out my week at work. Maybe if she's feeling better by next week I will be able to keep working, but if she's not, then I will have to either quit or have someone come in those days too. Maybe there would be someone from the ward who would like to earn some extra money for Christmas? I have tomorrow to get this all figured out.

Just Beginning

2008-11-18T22:58:00.000-05:00

Since our family will be starting an adventure above all that we've experienced so far, we have decided this would be the best way to share it with friends. This way we can post what we're up to and if you are interested you can sneak a peak anytime.