One Month . . .

Where did the month of June go?  I thought that since we are in a new place with nothing to keep me busy outside the house, that I would be able to get this place unpacked quickly.  Well, the house is livable with no boxes inside the house (just the garage is FILLED!), pictures are up on the wall (thank you DH), and it is clean (thanks MOM!)  I still feel unsettled because of all the things in the garage.  I also thought that I would spend some time by now getting some school things done with the kids.  We did wrap up school before we left, but we still plan to work on math concepts, writing, handwriting, and a few other things.  Well, the plan is to start tomorrow then of course have a break for the 4th of July holiday.  Oh well . . .

Well, besides the unpacking, I think I know (thanks to a few pictures) where the time went . . .

The kids participated in VBS at our new church.  We are used to such a big commute to church, but now it takes us 5 minutes -- even less if all the stoplights are green!  We have enjoyed this part of our move.  Being close to a lot of things.  We also celebrate A guy's birthday as well as my mother-in-law's birthday . . .

 

My baby is 5!

  

We celebrated with DH's parents, my mom, and DH's brother and family.  It was a great day.  It's nice to be close to our family for the first time ever.

My mom was here for close to 2 weeks.  She helped clean the house.  There were some really disgusting, dirty things like the outlet covers, windows, etc. that I would not have gotten to for a while.  We went out to eat several times while she was here.  One notable dining out was to the Outback.  DH was running late so he met us at the Outback.  He was still wearing his uniform.  When it came time to pay, our waitress thanked him for his service to our country and gave us a HUGE discount on our meal -- nearly 40% off!  We were so surprised.  

We went to Griffith Observatory one afternoon after VBS.  The smog was thicker than the last time I was there so you couldn't see as far.  It's a beautiful spot to go and admission into the observatory is free.  There is a lot of fun things to do.  The kids really enjoyed it.  The trip home was long, long, long.  We got stuck in traffic moving about 5 miles an hour for at least 7 miles.  I guess that's the LA area.

 

T-man really enjoyed the view of all the roads.

On Friday after VBS, Mom, the kids, and I drove out to the desert to visit my aunt and uncle who live out there.  It was a long drive because of traffic, but it wasn't too bad.  It's amazing that only 120 miles from our house it was more than 20 degrees warmer.  My aunt has a pool, and it didn't take long for the kids to get in the water.

 

After swimming for an hour or so, we headed out to eat.  Then my aunt drove us around the area.  It was beautiful there, but really hot! Mom stayed at their house while the kids and I were at a hotel.  After sleeping in a bit later than usual and enjoying the great breakfast at the hotel, we headed back to my aunt's house where the kids spent most of the day swimming.  I was in the water for a good amount of time also.  They live on a golf course near a pond.  I was amazed to see several ducks.  The ducks even got in the way of the golfers.  Ducks in the desert?  I was wondering how they ever got to this location.  Anyway, the ducks were very entertaining for the kids.

The beautiful view

 

While we were out in the desert, DH was busy putting up pictures and getting things organized in our house.  The city where we live was holding a block party with fireworks at night.  We were too exhausted to go to the block party, but we were able to see the fireworks from our house.  Again, we didn't have to drive anywhere!  

Mom had wanted to go to the beach before she left so Monday was the only day we could go.  It ended up being a cool day (I think it got to 70 degrees) with the low clouds hanging around most of the day.  We just went to the beach that was the closest to us.  It was nice -- a good place for the kids since they don't like the big waves.  It will be a good place for me to take the kids again though we'll need to take mom to a different beach to show her the waves and a different view.  We were close to the port.  Even though the water was really cold, the kids didn't mind at all!  T-man spent his time digging in the sand just like he dug in the snow back in VA.  J-girl and A-guy enjoyed the water much more than I thought they would.  It was a good time.

So, the month of June has come and gone.  We'll see what July brings.  On another note, we have decided to send the kids to the church school at our new church.  I really struggled with what to do, but DH and I feel that the program here is a good fit for our kids.  Today, after the kids did some testing there, I felt more comfortable with our decision.  So, now I am praying and thinking about where God will use me while we are here in CA.

Blessings to your day!

Across the Country

The big move across the country is now behind us, and the task of settling in seems to never end!  As much as I dreaded driving across the country with 3 kids and 2 cars it turned out to be a blast.  Here is a quick summary of our trip . . .

Driving through VA, rolling hills, lots of trees, foggy mountains, up and down these hills and mountains following DH pulling a trailer, night in TN, flat driving (finally), rivers, a weekend in Little Rock,

 pictures by Meg, relaxing, sightseeing and visiting in Little Rock, church,

 

on the road again, hills, trees, to flatter land, wind, rain, hail in Tornado alley, then more wind, rain, hail, night in OK,

 flat driving, Rudy's, Route 66, another storm,

  County Line, tram ride in Albuquerque, night in NM,

 getting closer to our destination, red rocks, desert, lots of dirt, up to Flagstaff, staying on Route 66,

 Grand Canyon,

 desert, desert, and more desert -- HOT, mountains, arrive at in-laws -- we're in CA!

As we begin our adventure in CA, I thank God for my wonderful family who have helped us along the way, my friends in VA (and across the country) that I miss dearly, and for the new things we will get to experience here!  

Blessings to your day!

Moving

So, as soon as I start to re-post and use my blog, the busyness of moving has begun.  Tomorrow we are closing on our house and will rent back from the new owners for a couple of weeks before leaving.  Next Monday is the start of our pack up though we still don’t know who is packing us up yet.  It’s because of some new system, and they have to re-enter our information.  We’ve been told that they will have someone here to pack us next week, but I’m still not convinced.

As we prepare to move, we’ve been busy finishing up school stuff.  Both T-man and J-girl are mostly finished with their curriculum for the year.  This week is a light week, thank goodness, and next week will be testing for them.  I’ll be running around a lot next week, but that will keep the kids and me out of the house while the packers are there.

I am at the point that I am ready to go, yet not ready to leave our church home.  So, now if I’m not posting for a while you will understand it’s because of the move.

Blessings to your day!

Catching Up . . .

Now that I got the hang of this, I feel like my time is starting to get taken up with move stuff.  So here’s a quick recap of life in our home:

March

• House on the market – got an offer the first weekend; closing (hopefully) soon!
• Kids have been working hard!  They have been plugging along through their school stuff.  We are set to finish up our main stuff next week!  Then, the following week they will have testing.
• I had a chance to attend the Women’s retreat sponsored by our church.  I am going to miss this!  I would love to fly back next year to join them.

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April

• We enjoyed a nice Easter.  We didn’t have any big plans which was nice because a friend was in the hospital so I had a chance to visit with her.
• Since we are moving soon, we decided to go and visit Philadelphia.  Though it was a quick trip, we had a great time!
• Trying to see some more DC sites, we ventured downtown after church on Sunday.  I think I should start a list of all the fun stuff to do in CA, so that I can make sure and see them well before we move again.

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So, now that we are caught up, let the crazy time of moving begin!

Blessings to your day!

Moving Forward!

I figured it out – all by myself!  It took me quite a while, but I think I’ve got the hang of it so I’m ready to give you a quick catch-up to this month.

February:

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February arrived with LOTS of snow!  We still managed to go out for J-girl’s birthday as the snow arrived.  Thankfully we had no plans the next day so we were able to enjoy the snow for the day before heading out to FL.  We were glad we were driving because no flights got out the day we left.  While we were gone more snow fell!

We left this snow to go to The whole trip was cool, but it was filled with family, friends, and fun!

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We returned home to a winter wonderland.  We missed another dumping of snow.  T-man is definitely a snow guy.  I think he will miss this when we move!

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The end of February brought family and craziness – two separate things, really.  DH’s brother and family visited us which was great fun for all.  The cousins all had some great fun together.  The craziness was that we got our orders which meant getting on house on the market.

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Our busy and fun, family filled February led to a busy start to March.  This is enough posting for one day now that I’ve finally figured this all out.

Blessings to your day!

Behind in Blogging

I’ve been finding other things to fill my time these days.  Blogging has been put on the WAY back of that list.  There are various things that have kept me away from blogging, but one has been the time it consumes in adding pictures and such.  We got a new computer for Christmas, and I just discovered a tool on it that appears to help me with this process so I’m going to try to get my blog caught up to April.

Here’s a start:

January seems, well, like a long time ago because it WAS a long time ago.  We celebrated J-girl’s birthday early because we headed to FL just after her birthday.  Because of snow – not the BIG storm – we had to postpone her party.  Thankfully most were able to come the next day.  How to celebrate?  With Build-a-Bear of course.  I bought some kits from Costco that turned out to be more work than I had first anticipated.  It gave me a chance to reconnect with my sewing machine. 

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We also celebrated DH’s birthday too, and that wraps up January.  Now, to see if this new tool is helping my blog time go faster . . .

 

Blessings to your day!

Still Catching Up

So, I'm back to catching up to the new year. Here is a review of November and December.

November

Just a couple of days after arriving home, we found out that we will be heading to the Los Angeles area. This is not at all what we had expected, so it really caught us by surprise. DH is from Southern CA so for him it is like going home, sort of anyway. Although there was some initial disappointment about the assignment, and when we would move but that seems to be falling into place. Right now we are planning on taking off around May 14. This will give us some time to finish up classes, testing, school, piano, etc. although we will miss a couple of weeks of things. So, for much of November we were wading through the information that came our way before the move. Most of the rest of November is a complete blur to me. The only other memorable part of November was the in-laws here for Thanksgiving. Here are a few pictures of November:

Boys building a bird house

The finished product


Our Thanksgiving tree

Grandpa and Grandma come to visit.

Pillow fight!

Japanese Steakhouse -- a new experience for the kids

A-Guy was a little unsure of all the entertainment

Reading together before bedtime

Tall ice cream with Grandpa

We had a great time celebrating Thanksgiving with family and neighbors and making plans for next year since we will be able to gather with family again! We had fun hosting our family during our first ever Thanksgiving together in 10 years!

December

December didn't begin with anything memorable either! I remember being super rushed and busy. I tried hard not to overdue it so the house cleaning was what I was slacking on!

Air Force Band concert in DC with our homeschooling group

Mt. Vernon for DH's Christmas party

New PJs

Decorating cookies

Mom arrived early -- December 12. T-man came down with some sort of virus the day before she arrived. By the night she came, all three kids had come down with it! T-Man had it the worst -- affected his breathing. He went to the doctor, the others didn't need too.

Mom and I went to church, Mike's Grill, and Wegman's partly to keep us away from the germs! No one else got sick. The following week we laid low for a couple of days to make sure everyone was feeling better, then we were busy with our regular routine + throw in a few Christmas parties and activities too. We met DH for dinner on Friday evening. Traffic was crazy as everyone was preparing for the "big" snowstorm. Here it seems like there is craziness every time we get flurries. This time, however, it actually proved to be the big one! We had nearly 2 feet of snow!

Here is DH with the kids on Saturday. It had started snowing on Friday evening and did not stop until Saturday night!

After a day of fun in the snow, here is A-Guy with Grandma with his hair sticking up!

By Saturday evening, Mary and Joseph were buried up to their heads in snow! Baby Jesus was completely buried.

Sunday was a beautiful day. Everything was canceled, even church! A-Guy was a bit under the weather so he didn't get to play. No worries though because this snow stuck around for a long time! Here Grandma, the expert snowman builder, is with the kids. A plow finally came through our neighborhood on Sunday evening. After talking to others, we were lucky. Some didn't get plowed out for days!

Here's the sled DH and the neighbor built

T-man LOVED playing in the snow. He loved building tunnels, roads, etc. He spent HOURS in the snow during the next several days.

If he wasn't building things, he was shoveling. He shoveled a great deal of sidewalk on the other side of the street!

On Wednesday, we headed downtown for a tour of the Washington Monument. We arrived for our scheduled 9:45 tour to find that they weren't opening until noon because of the ice. We were able to exchange our tickets so then headed to the American History Museum until that time. We had a great time!

Christmas Eve with Grandma

Our family Christmas picture

DH built this stoplight for T-man. It now hangs in his bedroom.

A-Guy with some of his airplanes

J-Girl loving her bear and Leapster game

We had a wonderful time with mom here. DH had took some time off while she was here then had the week between Christmas and New Year's home too. We had some wonderful family time together. Now we'll be getting back into the swing of things AND preparing for our May move. I thank God for my wonderful family and extended family and for caring for us in 2009.

Blessing to all of you in the new year!