Camping with the Kiddos Part 1

To begin my life at the beginning of my life, I was born…crazy. Then I had parents that were crazy, too. That explains a lot of things. So when you read some of this and ask, “WHY????” I will refer you to the first line of this post.

*Ahem*…So, I heard about this shindig that the Reeds had been invited to a few weeks ago. I had very little interest in going, partly because I didn’t think they were going and partly because I was high on trying to figure out a backpacking trip to the Catskills for our family and I didn’t want to “waste” the one trip Brandon would take on a “mere” car camping trip. (I will pause here to explain that “car” camping just refers to the idea that you take all of your gear in your car directly to the site you are to camp at and stay there. It involves no hiking, backpacking or canoeing, etc. to get to your camping location. Some of our dear friends refer to this activity with scorn in their voices and call it “cramping”.) Later I found out that the Reeds were in fact going and that it sounded like it could be a lot of fun. First of all, a couple that they know were throwing this camping get together and had just invited a bunch of people they knew, so it wasn’t as though the Reeds knew everyone, but there were about 80 people planning to attend.

I think suddenly this was exciting to me because it was a chance to get to know some new people and step outside of Fairwood life for a bit. Now, I love Fairwood and love being here, but I do wish sometimes that I got out a bit more than I do. So this was my chance and being the plan ahead, organized person that I am, I decided Friday at lunch time that I would go camping for the weekend and needed to be ready to leave by 4pm. Well, I didn’t quite make it and the good news was that the Reeds weren’t ready then either so, I had some wiggle room. As far as Brandon staying, he had just traveled the weekend before, doesn’t really relax by camping with little children, and absoutely doesn’t relax by meeting new people and being in an extremely social environment for 72 hours straight. So he stayed at home with Joseph and I was more than happy to go it alone with the 4 older kids. They were so excited and I knew that if I could just get there, I would have plently of wonderful people around to help me and make the weekend pleasant for all of us.

So, I packed and planned while the kids watched a movie…or two and was ready to go when the Reeds wanted to leave. We stoped at the grocery store for a few last minute items (the dinners were a combined effort for the entire group and we needed to contribute some things) and then we were off by 7:30. We arrived in Orford, NH, aside the Conn. River around 9:30pm. Just in time to pitch our tent, say hello in the dark and head to bed. The kids immediately had to go to the bathroom and I made the first mistake of the weekend and let them go on the far side of the van because they couldn’t hold it long enough to make it to the bath house. This was a bad habit to begin for the weekend I later discovered.

Our family had one tent for the five of us and we all had plenty of sleeping space. That tent has been through some great times in our family starting with our honeymoon which was a camping trip. Anyway, the three boys had one end and Rachel and I took the other end with a little walking space in between. We all had Therm-a-Rests to sleep on, so it was as comfortable as it could get for camping. The temperature than night was in the mid 40’s and that made it perfect for sleeping. A good snuggling down temp, not to cold to stay awake, but not so hot that you don’t want to be in your sleeping bag. The kids slept like rocks and I stayed awake most of the night. (The first half I was praying because Jeff and Fritha were at the hospital with Fritha in labor expecting my new little niece, Dani. The second half I couldn’t sleep because Jeff called, said she had been born and I was too excited to sleep after that.)

The children rose at 5:45am and were actually not the first ones up! But they were raring to go, so go we did.


To be continued…

Now I’m going to sleep in hopes that I can finish this saga tomorrow.

Quick! Quick! Before it gets Away!

Ok, here's the scoop. I took the kids camping last weekend. That would be me (Mary) took Jonathon, James, Jeff, and Rachel camping for three nights while Brandon stayed home with baby Joseph. We actually chose these particular roles, no one forced us. I WANTED to go and he WANTED to stay, so it worked out, but it does seem like a bit of a role reversal. Anyway, we went with the Reed family up to the little town of Orford, NH. It's on the Conn. River and is around 2 1/2 hours away. The Reeds were going because some friends of theirs were having a big camp thing (83 people) and we just sort of tagged along (with permission). Anyway, there are loads of stories from the trip and I hope to share some before I forget them all, but alas, I can't right now because I should be in bed sleeping. Sigh...maybe tomorrow. Great time was had by all though.

Oh, and lest I not remember in time, tomorrow, May 30th is my brother -in-law's birthday, so HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRYAN! and more importantly (if I may be so bold), it is my daughter, Rachel's birthday!

Rachel is 3!!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY RACHEL! I love you. Even when you decide to pour an entire quart of maple syrup all over you and your room and the track it through the house and get your brothers to help like you did today, I still will say...I LOVE YOU!

Ok, Happy Friday to all.

Happy Birthday Jonathon

It's hard to believe that I have a 7 year old, but yes. It has happened. Jonathon turned 7 today and I found myseld recounting the memories of his time as a baby amidst the groanings and laughings of the other children.

Some of the memories were:

When he had his first bath, he looked more like an alien than a person, cone head, long fingers and toes, skinny body, bug eyes...humorous.

When he was an infant he was so small that we bathed him in the bathroom sink! He was the smallest of all- at 6lbs. 12 oz.

He was my longest labor- 29 1/2 hours and that started with a 3 hour shopping trip at Sears.

When he was sad I could lay him on the bed and just turn on the vacuum cleaner to keep him quiet.

He also loved listening to the Messiah.

He is my most inquisitive, yet most tempered like me.

I love him very much! Happy Birthday to a wonderful son.

And on a different note...did you know that James can carry rocks that weigh 5 lbs. in his pocket? Just one 5 pounder. There were other things in his other pocket. It does make him have to hold his pants up when he runs or jumps on the trampoline though. It was a special "sparkly" rock though that was precious enough to become part of the "junk drawer" in his bedroom. (I can't wait for the day we clean that out!)

By Popular Demand

Ok, so for all of you who have been waiting patiently (some not so patiently) for pics of the house in a more finished state, here they are in all their glory. I will give a disclaimer that yes, there is "stuff" around, I did not clean up the house for these shots and the bedroom shots were taken after dark, with the children sleeping (or not) in their beds, so they aren't the best, but they'll have to do or you'll never get any. Also, the other disclaimer is that while it looks much better, we still have a LONG ways to go to finish the bits and pieces, but I won't bore you with the details. I'm so thankful for how much has gone on and how gorgeous it has turned out. Many thanks to Joe and Alouette for slaving away here!

With out more yapping:

The Master Bedroom

The Master Bathroom

The Hall Bathroom

The Upstairs Hall

Rachel's Room (with Rachel asleep)

Jeff and Joseph's room (with Jeff not asleep)

Jonathon and James' room (with both of them asleep...and buried in covers)

The Living Room (painted this past week)

note the new bow window!

The Kitchen

complete with cabinet doors and stuff behind them!

The Dining Room

recently painted, and still in progress also

Other areas not yet disclosed due to work still going on: school room, laundry, half bathroom, garage, basement, my heart...ok you get the idea. Here they are and hope you enjoyed it. Now I'm off to plan Sunday School.

A Quick Prayer

Today we discovered- after the snow had melted away- a dead animal carcass in our back yard. There are several speculations as to what it is with the highest votes cast to either dog or coyote. It's very disgusting and very skeletal in it's remains, save the intestinal fat still on it. Like I said, really gross. I'm not sure what we do with it. Bury it? Move it deeper into the woods? Call someone to get it? Anyway, we were letting the Bible School guys have a look at it this evening and Jonathon came and saw it too. He was pretty startled by it's ugliness. Later at bedtime after he was in THE bed and lights were out and prayers were said, he came downstairs.

"Mama, I am just so scared in my room. I just am so scared that there is an animal like that dead one in my room that I can't sleep. You shouldn't have let me see it."

So we had a little discussion about how the devil is the author of fear and how Jesus doesn't want us to be scared and we can pray and as Jesus to make the devil go away and we don't have to be scared any more. After talking, Jonathon prayed a long prayer, but part of it went like this:

"...and I resist the devil. You know, You're the only one who kicked Satan out of Heaven and you can just kick him out of New Hampshire too. And kick him out of our home. Please just kick him out of here...."

I thought it was a great example of how we can just count on God to do what he says and then believe He will do it.

After he prayed we talked about how if he was tempted to be scared, then he needed to think about Jesus or sing Jesus Loves Me in his head or something to help him forget about being afraid. He said ok, went back to bed, and is sleeping quite peacefully.

Hmmm...A little bit goes a long way with God!

PS. I wonder...if God really did kick him out of all of New Hampshire, what state he's in now?

Feeling at home

Things are coming together...and I'm feeling more like I live in a home rather than a construction zone. Here's a little treat of what I've been staring at today:

3 Nights to Go

Well, here I am, about 2 weeks late, making good on my promise to post some more pictures on my blog of the house progress. I'm not sure how many pics I can put on here, but we'll see how it goes.

The first picture is of the outside of the house. We have quite a wood pile in front. This is not as much to look like a dump as it is because there is so much snow on the ground that we can't get to the burm pile right now. Hopefully as it warms up this pile will disappear.

This is a picture of Brandon's office. Originally we planned to do very litte in here, but as we continued to think about it realized that we really should pull up the thread bare carpet now and put some more down BEFORE we put his heavy desk and several big filing cabinets on it. It was quite a process to get the carpet up. It is cement underneath and was well adhered. Thankfully, I didn't have to do it all by myself. After 2 afternoons I had gotten up half of it, but Philip Reed came along and did the other half in about 2 hours! (I bet he had the easy side!) Just kidding. Anyway, we are hoping to install the new carpet tonight.

Another place we weren't planning to do very much was the area of hallway where the laundry was. As we got up the old flooring though we noticed some mildew around the sheetrock and so pulled it out. I wasn't thrilled to take more out, but there was lots of mold and mildew that we got rid of in the process and I'm glad I won't be living with that. So, in this spot we're eventually going to clean up the wall, put in a counter top and replace the floor for a nice place to sort and fold laundry. Our new laundry shoot comes into this area as well.

Ok, I know some of these pictures are hard to understand, but I'll try. For those of you who have been in the house before, this is the new wall that we put in between the kitchen and the "school room". On the left used to be some stairs and then there was a railing on the right that went around a little eating nook in the kitchen. Now it's a wall in the kitchen with a window to see from one room to the other.This is a picture of the kitchen taken from the living room. You can see our new beam and posts and the new sheetrock on the far side. Also there used to be a door to the right of the windows in the center of the picture. We walled up the door to the backyard and opened up the wall to the living room. The overall effect is that it feels lots more spacious and it really is going to give the kitchen a great flow instead of being sort of an intersection or thoroughfare as it was. We eliminated to entry points to the kitchen in favor of having more continuous countertop, a feature that was lacking in the original design. Joe has done a marvelous job getting things built right and Allouette has been the mastermind behind making sure it looks good.This is the view from the kitchen window. I suppose it's hard to see the pretty tree in the foreground, but it has little red berries on it. The other day while we were working, we all had the pleasure of seeing an opposum in the top of the tree helping himself to some of those berries. I think it's one of the few times I have seen one in a live and rounded state. Most of the time I have seen them as flat roadkill.

I bet I can't have a post without a pic of the pink room. Megan Adams painted some butterflies on the walls for Rachel and I'm thrilled with the results. It will go very well with Rachel's bedding and it's nice to have a could of little fun details done to keep the project inspiring and fun.

Here's a never before seen room. This is Jonathon's room. We moved walls in this room to extend the bathroom and then took some of the hall for the bedroom to compensate for what the bathroom took away. Neither wall is in this picture, but you can get an idea of the colors. The walls are colored "Raw Hide" and the ceiling is blue like the other room. I saw an idea for a room this color in a Pottery Barn catalog that I really liked and most importantly, the boys like it. I'm planning to have a navy and white bedding and they have light wood furniture, so it should look very boyish when it's done.

This next picture is a preview of the hall bathroom. We extended the east wall (right side) out into the boy's room by 1 foot and extended the south wall (with the door) 2 feet. That gave us 16 square feet more space in this bathroom for 5 kids and we also were able to make the doorway wider, from 21 inches wide to 30 inches wide. The countertop for the sinks went from a 4 ft. counter with two sinks to a 6 foot counter with sinks and from 18 inches deep to about 23 inches deep. Joe has crafted the cabinets and so the drawers are big, the cabinet spacious and then a specially designed laundry chute under one sink that drops to the launry area below. Allouette just put the grout in around the tile yesterday and the toilet and sink should go in this week. The tub is already in and functional.

This is the master bathroom and another example of Allouette's excellent tile work. She's done the wall tile and the floor tile in here as well, though the grout isn't in yet. It is beautiful! We are closing in on this bathroom as well. We took out a closet behind the bathtub to make this bathroom a lot bigger also. We also raised the shower head from 62 inches to 80 inches. Brandon really appreciates that and the floor which has been soft and rotten in places for several years has been completely replaced. Here's a another pic of the master bedroom. The doorway on the left is the new doorway into the room. It used to be where the second door is now. That area was just hallway that we made into a small walk-in closet. This was especially helpful since we took the closet away for the bathroom enlargement. The third doorway is the bathroom door and is several inches wider, which once again is a great improvement to the 23 inch opening that was there. So overall things are more open, spacious feeling and comfortable. I am so thankful for God's provision to make these changes and for the opportunity to fix the broken and moldy areas.

Finally, a new fun recipe that I made recently thanks to some beef from the Reed's cows: Beef Tenderloin and vegetables on Monterey Jack Cheese Polenta with Arbol Chili Sauce. It was so delicious! Cheese polenta- alot like leftover cornmeal cereal fried, only made with chicken stock and parmesan cheese and then with melted jack cheese on top. The vegetables are yellow squash, zucchini, and red peppers cut into strips and sauted. The chili sauce was super complicated, but was absolutely delicious and I won't bother telling you all how involved it was unless someone is really interested, but I will say it involved making a special broth from scratch to use in a special sauce that is also made from scratch that is then one of many ingredients in the chili sauce. A spicy, deep flavor that went well with the mild flavor of the veggies and polenta. It was yum. And of course, you can't forget moist, marinated, grilled, beef tenderloin medallions! Hope I've managed to make your mouth water.

Ok that's all for the day. Oh and of course, the title...We'll be moving, ready or not, on Tuesday. So you can be praying for us and the children, who, I think have been catching the brunt of this stressful living lately and will be glad when things settle back into a managable routine again.

Oh the Irony of it All

So here I am, Friday evening, the Sabbath. I've worked hard all week. In fact, for the last couple of weeks, I've been busier than I had ever imagined I was capable of. I know my children feel it and I feel it, but we must perservere to the end, or at least the middle. Anyway, the point is, that things have been busy. I've been making meals, tending children, trying my best to keep a clean house, school has pretty much flown out the window with hopes of appearing again later in the year, and then there is the house. That's where I've been in every inbetween time I can come up with and some not so inbetween. I have no idea how many hours I've put in up there, but it would definately be equivalent to a part time, maybe almost a full time job on top of the stay at home mom thing. I'm not complaining here, this is where we are and though it's stressful, it's what has to happen. All I'm trying to point out is that this morning when I woke up, my head didn't want to. I spent about the first 5 hours of the day trying to make my eyes feel like I was actually awake. They had that feeling like I hadn't slept for 48 hours, or the feeling you get after you've just sobbed your heart out and fallen asleep and then you wake up to swollen, puffy eyes. Well, I had slept and I did not cry all night. In fact, I don't remember crying at all, but I did spend the morning with puffy eyes and yawning every 30 seconds or so. Somewhere in there I had some coffee, but it was well before 10am and that helped. I spent a while trying to get ready for a clean all day before Sabbath day, but couldn't get thoughts of paint colors out of my head. So, up to the house I trudged to ask Allouette, my on-sight decorator consultant for help figuring out where to stop one color and start another. (I had no idea all the little decisions I needed to make, but that's another story.) I did that, then made lunch, and after lunch discovered that Joseph was sick. Some fever of some sort. I'm not sure what has been going on with him lately, but he seems to have gotten sick several times lately when no one else in the family does. Not sure what to think. Anyway, that shot my plans of vigorous activity for the afternoon and I spent most of the time doing research online for things like ceiling fans, bar stools, and countertop end cap kits and holding Joseph. My neck has also been out of line today. I'm not sure what I did to it, but it hurts. Anyway, all this gripe is to say that by the end of the day I was beat. Just plum tuckered out. Brandon and I were in bed at 8:30 with the lights out by 9pm and now here it is, 10:38, and I am not just unable to sleep, but wide awake. I couldn't sleep, can't sleep, and thus you get a post. So, since I've done all my complaining that I am entitled to for about a month, I'll bore you with house details and updates. My apologies for no pictures, but perhaps tomorrow while Brandon is plowing mounds of snow I can add some.

So, let's see, what has been done...
Rachel's room- the pink one, now has some whimsical butterflies on the walls. Megan had some work time and added her artistic touch to the room and wala, it's transformed! I'm really excited about this as her bedding and curtains and such will tie into this theme perfectly. You know it's the parts of the project like this that really keep me going. I don't have to get this detailed on much, but just one or two things here and there really keep me inspired!
The purple room- that's the master bedroom, has paint on all the walls and trim. There are some very minor areas of touch up, straighten some lines and fix a couple of drips, but other than that it's done. Oh, and something is funky about the ceiling fan and the way it is suppose to hang, but doesn't go flush up to the ceiling. By the way, while we are on the subject of ceiling fans, I must just say- watch out for light fixtures these days! The green people get you so bad that you can't put a light bulb in there bright enough to see by anymore! The vent fan for the bathroom is suppose to take a 13W bulb! Ok, that's a good...uh...NIGHTLIGHT!!! Anyway, the purple room looks great. Allouette finished the painting in there around the wall areas that we closed in and some stuff we had to remove for ease of putting things together. The new master mini walk-in closet is all enclosed, mudded, and caulked and ready for paint and then we might put in some rods for clothes! I will add here that Tim has done a masterful job at figuring out all sorts of electrical issues. I would have been at a complete loss as to what to do about that stuff, but he has conquered the upstairs completely and is now tackling the main area.
The master bathroom has the tub set in, the walls back on, the subfloor down, primer on the walls, and the ceiling painted. Next for there is vanity, tile, and toilet. The drain lines need to be completed for that as well, but Dan Reed has been doing that and can get at them from the garage below.
The hall bathroom has the tub, all the paint- it's gorgeous, and the light fixtures. Everything is ready in there for the vanity and the tile and toilet. Allouette knocked that out last weekend and I was so thrilled when I went in on Monday and saw it, I burst into tears!
Jonathon's and James' room has walls and ceiling with primer on it and is soon to be blue ceiling with "Raw Hide Laces" walls, that's sort of a orangy rust color. They are really excited about it- especially Jonathon. One of the "little" things that happened this week was that the doors and frames got on. We were able to salvage a lot of parts from the old ones and mismatch them together to get whole frames. Some did have to be purchase because the old ones were either too banged up, or became that way when we took them off, but it's all back together now and we can close people in if we want. (Maybe even ourselves...)
The hallway is mudded and almost ready for primer I think- another one of Allouette's areas of beautification. She has sanded, and skimmed, and patched and sanded on those walls to get them flat and nice looking. I think she is not far away from having it ready and it looks great even without paint! Nice, smooth, straight lines. She has really done miracles to a wall that had a couple of layers of wallpaper before.
Oh, we also have baseboards in all the rooms! Whooohooo! You have no idea how happy it is to see those. I wasn't sure if we would even do them before we moved in, but Allouette convinced me and I've discovered that nothing else really makes the room feel done like having all the trim there.
Joe and Brandon installed a pull-down stair for the attic space. That was wonderful! I was wondering how I was going to easily use the attic when I had to get an 8 foot ladder every time I need to get up there, but now, I can just pull the string and bam! stair appear for me to meander through my stuff. Later I hope it will not be as big of an issue, but when we first move in, I think we will be storing a lot of stuff so we can keep the work zones free of too much clutter.
I think Joe is planning to do some serioius cabinet work this week for the bathrooms and the kitchen and we are hoping to squeek into the house just before the feast. It still remains to be seen if it will be possible, but I've been boxing up this house with that in mind, and I may just move anyway and cook on a hot plate if needed. It will certainly simplify meals!
Now, moving to lower level of the house (I'll save the best for last) we have torn out a wall in the back room to get at the plumbing so as to move the laundry into the room rather than have it in the hallway. The old sticky tile has been taken up in favor of new sticky tile. The old stuff, half was stuck firm and half had completely lost its adhesiveness. Much was broken and cracked, so it was ready to go. The hall to that area had a partial wall removed, some old wainscoating taken off and the floor taken up. It's was all concrete under the vinyl sheet floor, so we are slaving to get the adhesive up so the next stuff will sit flat and stick well. There apparently had been some sort of leak at some point that wicked up the sheet rock and it was pretty gross back there, but no longer. Also, we have good reason to believe that there is or was a mouse that lives there that is addicted to nicotene as we found mouse droppings, nut shells, and a cigarette butt all stowed away between the studs and insulation in the wall. That made for some amusing speculations regarding rodents and their habits, but I won't take time for that here. That area still has some more ripping out to go and pipe work and electrical work needed before we can make it into a real live laundry. There is a good chance I will be washing clothes elsewhere for a while after we move in, but hopefully not too long.
The school room got a new wall where the stairs to the kitchen used to be and that's about it so far. We are planning to put a light in the center of the ceiling and perhaps over the area that will have a desk of some sort, but that is on the back burners for now.
Brandon's office is going to have the carpet pulled up, but we haven't decided what to do with the floor under it yet. And hopefully we can get some better lighting for that as well.
Now for the kitchen...well, it doesn't look like a kitchen yet, but there are wonderful things about it. First of all, the wall that is in the school room is also in the kitchen, just the other side (pretty tricky huh?). Most of that was thanks to my father-in-law, Andy, for coming over a weekend and helping out. There's a window in it to look through and tell the child with the rubber cement not to paste his brother to the door quite so liberally. Anyway, it's there and I'm really glad we did that already. I've gotten used to not using those stairs and it really doesn't seem like too much extra effort to go around, plus it gives the kitchen space a LOT more continuity that it lacked before. Joe also took out the back door and filled it in with insulation. We'll probably brick it up later when it's not a blizzard outside, but for now it's sealed from the inside well and from there, you'd never know it had been a door. The sub floor has been replaced and Tim has installed some can lights. The best parts are the wall from the kitchen to the living room is GONE and the beam that goes across the top and the posts are installed. It's beautiful! It's so open and airy and it feels so spacious! I can't wait til I can use it to have all of you over! The other marvelous thing is the heat pipes. Before, we had those baseboard heaters all the way around the dining area and the kitchen, but no more! Joe and Brandon put radiant heat underneath and now it just magically stays warm! The pipes run back and forth between the joists and once we get some styrofoam, it will send most of the heat up through the floor. It already feels different than it did. Every room is starting to look so nice it's hard to decide what my favorite is!

Ok, I do have to tell one funny story about the heat pipes- especially if you've listened to me ramble on this long. I wasn't there, but this is how I heard it. Joe and Brandon worked on those pipes yesterday afternoon and into the evening. When they completed them and turned the water on, they discovered a leak- in, of course, one very difficult spot to get to and fix. But they did have to turn off the water and drain it all back out to fix it. So, to save time Joe encouraged Brandon to hook up the air compressor to the bleeder valve upstairs and blow the water out. So he did and it worked like a charm. When it was all out and he took it off, though...he didn't know that he should do it slowly. See, the pipes were under pressure and when he just popped that thing off, all the water that was in the pipe the other way just shot up into the dining room like a geyser, hitting the ceiling and wall with hot dirty water. Joe said that Brandon just stood there and stared at his creation in sort of a dumbfoundedamazed state of "I can't believe this is happening, what do I do now?" kind of look. I did see the remnants of the fountain all over the wall and that was proof enough that it must have been a great sight to see!

Uh...in the children world, superlatives go to:
Most Likely to never be a successful barber: Jonathon (failed at two attempts- his and James ugh!)
Most Likely to write a children's book: James (who had a dream about a little girl who stole a train track piece and got eaten by a monster that he (James) was riding on and then she stole some donuts too)
Most Likely to get dressed incorrectly: Jeff- who has put his pants on backwards almost every day, his shirt on backwards several days and once had his pants on inside out and backwards
Most Likely to be found doing something involving clothes: Rachel- her clothes, her shoes, her dolls clothes, her little Cinderella's clothes, any clothes that can be swapped. She also figured out on the one day I tried some potty training that if she wet her underwear she got to wear all the different ones in the bag in one day! I don't really think she did it all on purpose though because she was sad when she "got Cinderella and Snow White wet".
Most Likely to be found with something in his mouth: Joseph! Oh, those people- whoever they are write books about kids that have to go to the hospital because they have a marble in their nose or throat or something. Well, one of these days he's going to be it. Do you know that he can get at least 7 Cocoa Peanut Butter sugar bomb cereal ball thingies in his mouth at once? and still smile at me!

Should be famous quotes:
"Today, I'm taking my backpack and just going some place else!" -Jonathon, on running away from home (my childhood haunts me) He was carrying only 5 story books as his possessions
"Can we please, will it be ok, may we...and don't interrupt me, can we please have just a little water fight outside today?" - Jonathon ( it was currently 3 degrees outside!...the answer was no)
"I win!"- Jeff, while playing air hockey against Vanlora at a restaurant and intentionally shooting the puck into his own goal over and over again.
"NO!" - Joseph, on being told to sit down in his seat at the table. (He doesn't say it quite on purpose yet, but it's close I think)
"I'll just take a sword and shoot it with my bow that goes with arrows and if I shoot her with a bomb canon, she will say, 'please get this off my face' and she'll take the bomb off her face...." -James, more on the girl stealing the train track story
"Poor Cinderelly, she never get her dress done." -Rachel, on being obsessed with Cinderella and her friends, the mice.

Ok, enough for tonight. Perhaps I will try sleeping again.

Happy Birthday to Joseph!

...with cake.

His first birthday was on Friday. It seems to have flown by. But here he is in all his glory and his "car" cake as requested by his older brothers.

House Update

Just thought some of you would love to see an update on our massive project. We have been puttering in the house and the more we putter, the more we actually tear down. Don't worry, it's all good. We just have to get to a good place to start. But I"ll add some pictures here so you have a visual of what's been going on. We've been focusing on the bedrooms and the two upstairs bathrooms and they are coming along well. The Andersons are here and it is exciting to see more done every time I go up there.

The above room is Jeff and Joseph's. It's pretty much done with the exception of a few touch up spots of paint and some baseboards. It's a great BOY room. We have repainted all the walls (green), ceiling (blue) and trim (almost white), replaced the light fixture with a new fan, and we have new oak floor. So, this one is pretty much checked off the list except for the little stuff for someone with a lot of patience. Maybe I'll pretend for that role sometime soon.

Next we have Rachel's room. It's PINK. She knows it and LOVES it! This room is at about the same place. Mostly done except for some picky paint spots. New paint, fan, and floor. The chair rail is also new, but I love how it really adds some fun to the room to be able to put both colors on the wall. For those of you who may doubt your eyes, the ceiling is actually pink also. It gives a really smooth flow to the paint from wall to ceiling and avoids the stripe look that white would give it. This is a very happy room and I never walk in here without smiling a little. Rachel already talks about "her" room and looks forward to being in it.This is a room in progress. We have put the initial round of color on the walls. A dark purple accent wall and a lighter lavender on the other walls. This is the master bedroom. Since I took this picture, the flooring has been completely finished, the doors moved (not pictured) and a closet added (using up some vacant hall space). There is still a tub in the middle of the floor as we are working on the plumbing in the floor in the master bath. Hopefully we can show some pictures of the bathroom soon.

This is our new bathtub in the hall bath. We are thrilled. Of course none of you can see all the pipe work that went on before this went in- it looks so simple in a picture. One of the highlights is that the shower head was raised from 72 inches to 80. So for all you tall people that come to visit, no hitting your head on the shower head now! And, you must come and visit- but wait a few months if you don't mind. Since this picture was taken we have all the sheet rock back on in the bathroom and a new bathroom fan. There are outlets, and light boxes in the walls at the right places for the vanity and there are pipes sticking out for the sinks to go in. Some of this may seem minor to some of you, but for us all those little details are really great to see happen. I think one of the reasons is that most of these things are things that Brandon and I are not familiar with, so others have pitched in and helped with. Then we come back and just like magic it appears.

Other things you can't see that are going on:

We got our new appliances- a stove, washer, and dryer!

A lot of demolition has gone on in the kitchen area. Walls are removed and railings as well as flooring. We have vanities and sinks, light fixture and tile for the bathrooms just waiting to go in. We've been sanding baseboards and will be priming them soon for going in the bedrooms. And there is a little of the flooring started in the last bedroom upstairs. I'm looking for some sticky tile for the laundry floor that matches a FREE counter top that one awesome friend picked up for us. The garage, basement, and workshop areas have been cleaned out, swept, and are ready for someone elses stuff to be stored in.

One of the fun things about going up there to work right now is coming home. When I remember, it's marvelous fun to take a sled with me and then when I get ready to walk back home, I can sled almost the whole way. A bit of a chance to be a kid at a time of my life when many things are entirely too serious!

So, hope you've enjoyed the update and we'll keep plugging away and try to give you another one soon.

When the going gets tough...

So...my Grandmama has a saying posted on her fridge (or used to) that says, "When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping." I suppose that fits me most of the time though today, the tough going shopping was out of necessity rather than desparation to get away from home- though I'd have gone for that too. Last Thursday Jonathon and Jeff had a fever. Not really anything to be too concerned about, just a fever and no other real symptoms. I thought I could handle that. But it didn't GO AWAY! It just stayed and added a runny nose and irritability and a sore throat and aches and pains and a headache and coughing to it until finally it was some sort of full blown cold/ flu thingy. Of course they had to share. So Saturday I actually had all five children sick. Monday Brandon decided he felt left out. Now they are all sick and cranky and snotty and picky about food and they smell sick. (Did you ever have the sick smell?) Maybe that last one is just a weird thing that only I deal with. If so, just disregard that last statement and you can go on blissfully thinking I'm half sane and thus not completely gone...yet.

Ok, so I'm really glad the government hasn't banned a limit on things like Tylenol, Motrin, and Triaminic cause I think I've ended up purchasing about 6 bottles this week. With 5 kids on various combinations of the syrupy stuff around the clock for a week straight, I start wondering why they don't package that stuff in gallon containers instead. I mean, if I go through it as fast as milk, why can I buy the bulk version of Children's Tylenol, grape flavor.

I don't mean to seem too discouraged here. I do thank God EVERY morning when I get up. "Thank you that I'm not sick too!" Jonathon asked me yesterday, "what if we were all sick?" and I told him that was a nightmare I'd rather not ponder. Well, I didn't say it that way, but that was the general idea.

I think after taking care of them for 7 days straight I am starting to twitch everytime someone coughs. And tonight when one of them complained about having box mac and cheese for dinner (keep in mind that menus in our house for the last several days have contained dishes such as maple pecan salmon, roasted chicken with a fond de veau lie sauce, alfredo penne with fresh tomato and basil, Thai Chicken salad with peanut dressing, Grandma's corn casserole, biscuit and gravy for dessert, and a few pb&js) I actually think my head exploded and flew off my head in a million different pieces, each one finding it's own way to a crater on the moon, and I fell down dead, and twitched. Well, seriously, I lost it. It's not fun to find yourself in the position of treating your kids in a disrespectful way that you know you have to apologize for later, but I did. Both the treat unkindly and apologize parts. I think in the end all was well. That particular child and I had a full recovery from the incident, hugs and kisses all around and hopefully I can better keep my cool and he can better keep his mouth shut the next time. :-)

The other thing about sickness is that it makes people make disgusting noises. I've never been so grossed out at someone slurping snot, snorting coughing, hacking, gargling, sneezing, and what do you even call that noise where someone is breathing out and at the same time making some monstrous noise down in the way back of their throat bottom and then up comes that green stuff. I thought that was something like "hocking a lugi" but my vision of that activity is much more pleasant than the one I'm describing here. Anyway, it's gross and when you get it in surround sound and see the remnant of said activities hanging on the remnants of their faces and then you see them attempt to notice it's there by smearing it across both cheeks, up across one eye (which instantly bonds the eyelashes together better than any super glue) and into the hair and part of the ear, it gives me the super duper squirmy heebie jeebies. Let me go vomit...oh, wait, I'm not sick. AND I DON"T WANT TO BE! So children are gross, and must be held- always and must watch movies- always, and must never eat the food in front of them but be hungry every other second of the day- always. You know, James actually has consitently begged me for food and then holds it for a good hour before I threaten to take it away unless he eats it- twice, and then he takes a nibble. Arg!

Rachel is extra sick because she not only has all the body fluid issues, she also walks around with this plastered grin on her face saying (in a hoarse raspy voice, coughing), "I have a good attitude, Mama. I being good." *smile* She says it so much I can't always be happy that she is actually being good. It's particularly disgusting when she does it in the face of Jeff throwing himself down and wailing in the kitchen floor because I won't let him pour water out of the cup repeatedly or roll the toilet paper directly from the roll into the toilet!- all of it.

So, that's life right now. I think we have passed the climax of this issue, but I'll be glad when we can close the case completely, seal the box and put it on a high shelf in some nether region of the cellar to await some poor soul given the job of spring cleaning years from now when we don't live in this house any more.....

hmmm.....bedtime is calling.

The Little Princess

Rachel wins the day for cuteness. She has pulled out some great lines and funny actions. Not the least of which was this picture I caught of her eating snow. She wanted so badly to eat the snow, but alas, it makes her hands cold. So she came up with this bright idea.

Another cute thing she did today was this conversation

(Mom in the kitchen cooking. Rachel climbs up to the stove and turns towards Mama.)

Rachel : (bending low) Your maaaaaaajeeeeestyyyyyy!

mama: (laughs) You're priceless!

Rachel: (in an offended tone) I"m not Priceless. I'm Rachel.

Ahhh...yes, but she is priceless anyway.

She knows what modest means and regularly checks to see if her skirt is down. She loves to play house with her little playmobile people and her doll house. She is very particular about having all things pink. She loves to read aloud to herself even though she doesn't know how to read the real words. Quite the girly-girl, she more than makes up for her brothers boyishness.

Thoughts on today

Ok, so some things I was reminded of today...

Communication is key. When you miscommunicate, communication is still the key.
Perceptions make reality and thus an accurate perception is necessary for accurate reality.
Life is hard, but God is able to grant grace to meet it and succeed.
There is time to do everything you need to get done (according to God's plan) and if it seems like something needs to happen and you can't do it, He can make a way.
Chest freezers are a pain to clean out.
I don't mind dogs in small doses. One of the guys I met with today about our house project had one and she was cute.
I can accomplish a lot when I a) Go to bed on time, b) eat right, c)exercise, d)have my devotions.
I love having a daughter. She came into the living room and said, "*Sigh* We need to clean this up." She began right away, only pausing long enough for Cinderella (her little doll) to get her work dress on.

Ok now for the go to bed part (not necessarily on time).

Oh Yeah...Happy New Year...

Ok, so this year rolled around almost without notice for me. I actually have not acknowleged it except to change my habitual '07 date to '08 what I need to write the date. It's just that it has been a bit busy around here.





Right now I have about 62 irons in the fire and all of them need immediate attention. The children are doing well, but energetic, in need of schooling and proper discipline and supervision. Then there is the idea that I'm suppose to be "keeping house". You know, general cleaning, laundry, cooking, etc. I've also been trying to keep up with a regular exercise plan (which I'm doing ok on) and a diet (which went flying out the window when Jane donated a full grocery bag of dark chocolate to my cupboard). Actually, while I HATE the exercise, it makes me feel great the rest of the day, so if I can drag myself out of bed and do it, it works wonders. Then there is the house. We are suppose to move in about 4 weeks from now, but right now the water is turned off, I have no electricity in 2/3rds of the upstairs, the walls are missing from my son's bedroom, I have no tubs, toilets or sinks on the upper level, 2 rooms are missing parts of the floor, and I can't find the living room because it is buried under debris to go to the dumpster. Things are going along ok and I know it has to look worse before it can get better, but I REALLY hope we are almost done with the worst looking stage and things can improve from here. Some things are improving. Jeff and Joseph's room is almost finished. It needs one more coat of paint on the walls, a touch up spot on the ceiling, the fan installed and the blinds put back on and it's good to go. The floors (new oak hardwood flooring) are beautiful and the paint is looking good. His room is a green color. Rachel's room is getting there. Everything in there needs another coat of paint, and some will probably need two coats. We had to remud some areas in her room where the paint actually didn't even stick to the wall! But the floors in her room are also done. Oh, I guess both rooms need baseboards, but that seems simple. So it's moving in the right direction. I spend every spare minute up there and then some. My not spare minutes are usually used to double up on tasks like making lunch, washing dishes, and trying to organize some sort of schooling for the boys all at the same time. And hold Joseph.

(I know this isn't a great picture of the "green room" but you'll just have to take what you can get!)

Ok, so that's what's going on. Busy! If anyone gets bored and wants something to do, we will put you to work! But if that means that by working you wouldn't want to come visit us ever again because we "wore you slap out", then you are welcome to stay away and come when we can entertain instead.



Now it's bedtime. Goodnight.

2007 Dessert Banquet II

Ok, I'm just having blog issues, so you're going to get everything backwards and in sections. ARG! Anyway, read the other ones for today first if you want this to be in order.

So the next thing is Sesame Crusted Chicken Salad Sandwiches. These ended up being a big hit and were all gone less 2 at the end of the banquet. These are basically a chicken salad containing chicken (obviously), chopped red grapes, pecans, and some seasoning. I used some mayo to hold them together and then sprinkled sesame seeds on the outside for appearance. The regular recipe calls for more sesame seeds, but in order to get them to stick you have to slather the sandwich sides in butter and I did not want to do that.

Numero six is Baklava. This is a distinctly Middle Eastern dessert and I did enjoy some in Israel during my stay there several years ago. It is a combination of crisy buttery phyllo dough, macadamias, pecans, coconut, sugar and honey. It's crispy, sweet, nutty, and yum all in one. I have made these before and they never last. I think they are one of Brandon's favorites.

My last dish is Meringue Mushrooms. These were fun to make because they were super easy, they came out super cute, and they were super melt in your mouth yummy. They didn't go to hot at first because some people thought they were real mushrooms. Others thought they were mushrooms covered in something sweet, but those who indulged got a cotton candy feel of meringue with a hint of dark chocolate in the center. Nothing more, just a meringue cap and a little "hershey kiss" looking bottom attached with some melted chocolate. Lots of fun.

And last, but not least, here is a picture of the table and it's fare. We had more desserts this year than ever before, though until the last two days, there was a question as to whether we had enough. We also had less people due to a threat of a snow storm so there were plenty of leftovers. It went well though and I look forward to the fun next year as well.

Merry Christmas!

2007 Dessert Banquet Offerings

As requested, here are pictures of the things I made for the dessert banquet. They aren't the best pics because I forgot to take pictures until they were almost ready to serve, so forgive me.

First, we have Peppermint Bark. This is the traditional white candy with crushed peppermint in it, only I used white chocolate, and finely crushed candy canes (and not as much as called for) and instead of placing it in a pan and breaking it up it went into candy molds- shapes of hearts, stars, roses, and little wheels. They were easy, cute, and yummy.

Next we have what our family has for years called, "Aunt Bertha's Apricot Nectar Cake". I use the phrase "what we call", because once I got the recipe from Aunt Bertha's cards and discovered that it originated with a friend of hers, but Aunt Bertha (who is 104 years old and still kicking) is the one that made this cake famous. It's similar to a pound cake in texture, but much more moist, has a bit of tart flavor thanks to a combo of lemon flavor and apricot nectar and is incredibly easy as it begins with a box cake mix. AAAAAAAAAH! Scandal! You say....well, don't knock it till you try it!Third is Ye Olde Bloated Cheeseball. I did a little different recipe this year and wasn't as pleased with it. It had less cream cheese than I remembered and the seasonings, while good weren't quite right. So, I'll definately be taking this one back to the kitchen for some more work. I definately prefer the extra sharp cheddar flavor of this one, but I think it will take some tweaking to get it just right in taste as well as in texture. It was a little crumbly and I prefer a smooth spread.

Fourth is Jerk Chicken Sandwiches with Mango Chutney. I think these were my favorite thing to make because of the combo of yummy flavors, nostalgia from days in Puerto Rico, and cuteness. Jerk chicken is a Jamacan dish and features chicken with a "jerk" sauce, which is by definition and sauce rubbed on the meat before grilling. It is pasty in texture and the flavor is a variety of cinnamon and nutmeg mixed with onion, jalapenos, garlic, and cilantro. Delicious! The mango chutney is also spicy and is a cooked mango sauce also containing red bell peppers, jalapenos, and some herbs and spices. I was a little disappointed with the selection of mangos, but it didn't seem to ruin the sauce even though I felt the mangos themselves were pretty much a disaster. Sometime I will enjoy making it with some properly ripe, not overipe, sweet as candy mangos and I'm sure then I will see how my earlier attempt pales in comparison.

Now for the nostalgia part. The chicken and chutney goes inbetweeen two tostones, which for the ignorant out there are fried plantains, which are similar looking to bananas, but are more starchy in taste. They are always eaten cooked and when fried in circles and smashed and fried again, taste like french fries (only better) and you would feel quite at home to dip them in ketchup if you adorn your fries in such a manner. Ok, so tostones and then they are tied with a blanched chive to hold it all together. A sensational package and best eaten right out of the pan. Someday, I will do this meal for my family on a non hors d' ouerve scale and I will relish this heaven on earth again.

Long Overdue Update in Pictures

This is our costumes at the Harvest Party at the end of October. Brandon and I are a couple that live on the prarie and the children came as, well...themselves- a bunch of wild indians. Joseph had a little head dress to wear also, but he ended up in bed for the entire thing and thus was not present for the picture taking session. They had a great time with their rock and stick tomahawk and their drum. They played with the headdresses for several days afterwards. Many thanks to my mother for her unending costume collection.



Next we have Joseph at nine months (mid November) and he is now in fact ten months. He is crawling, standing up, drooling like mad and being a generally happy baby. His one fault is that he thinks he is the center of the universe and until I manage to let him know that is my spot, we will be having a few unpleasant times. He's a cute cuddly little boy and sort of feels like holding a little ball or rolly polly, though he is not fat. I love him very much! He's a lot of fun.



Here we have the monthly toilet episode. What you cannot see in that rubbermaid container is actually the entire toilet bowl from the down stairs bathroom. You see, we have had issues with it for quite some time. Actually, it wasn't the toilet's fault as much as it was the 3 yr old's fault. The seat was clogged in before the feast in September and so after begging on my knees someone replaced it, desite their busy schedule. We had been unable to keep it unclogged. So we had the feast and the new one worked beautifully during that time and the few days after. Then we went on vacation and from the time we returned from vacation, the toilet refused to flush properly. Since I have been taught by my father that I can fix anything if I want to bad enough, I decided that after plunging it and getting others to plunge it and seeing that unsuccessful and others VERY busy, I would attempt to fix the problem myself. I pulled the toilet up and worked on it for quite some time. I got a toy purse out of the toilet and then assuming that was the problem, put the thing back together again. I was quite proud of myself, but when I flushed it, I immediately felt more in the failure category as it managed to remain clogged. SO, I PULLED IT UP AGAIN!!!!! And after hours of working on it, discovered that their was a clog in the drain pipe AND something else still in the toilet. I unclogged the pipe fairly easily, but the THING in the toilet wouldn't budge. I tried everything. A "snake", a piece of hose, a coat hanger, Brandon and I even tried to bribe the kids, "If you can reach your hand in that pipe as far as it can go and pull out a toy, you can have a prize. " Alas, all children participated in the bribe and none came up successful. The closest we came was James who said he felt something like a block in their but he couldn't get it out. At this point I was ready to use a sledge hammer. Brandon saved the toilet's short life and tried another tactic. He took it up to the tub, put the toilet bowl in a rubbermaid container and filled it full of soapy hot water. After letting it soak for a while, he went up and plunged on it in the bucket. When that didn't work he resorted to plunging the toilet up and down in the water, thus, in a way, plunging the toilet backwards and up floated a little toy- the playmobile treasure chest, complete with lid. After a thorough scrubbing and a nice LONG soak in hot soapy water and and nice LONG soak in lemon juice, we returned the treasure chest to the pile of toys (so we know where our toys have been and now you do too) Wanna come play? Bwa hahahahaha!


This is the celebration of the holiday, "Pile on Mama Day". Actually we celebrate this numerous times in the year, but there are only one or two days that I find the energy to enjoy it. And as with many other things in life: why do we do this? Answer: It feels good when I stop.



And finally for this post, we have Joseph at 10 Months. Complete with food on his face.

The Bug that won't Go Away

Just a quick note to say that I am not dead....yet. The family has been sick now for almost 2 and a half weeks. Brandon started it...for the record. He came down with some sort of nasty flu and cough and such that kept him virtually in bed for a week. We drug him to Thanksgiving at his parents and there he began to recover after getting an antibiotic for a sinus infection. Jonathon is on his second round of antibiotics for two ear infections that were so bad they didn't get any better with the first round and in fact he couldn't hear hardly at all. I was practically yelling at him to hear me at all, James also had ear infections, but one round of antibiotics took care of him and he has been doing well every since. Jeff got an ear infection and it's too bad because he only has one to hear from anyway and it is not working right now. Rachel took a visit to the ER for and ear infection (I couldn't get a dr. apt.) and thus joined the crew of those on ammoxicillin. The latest was Joseph and he got his drugs today. I got sick on Tuesday, felt better Wed. and Thurs., felt miserable Friday, had a fever and felt yucky on Saturday. better on sunday and better today, though my throat feels like is was scraped with a serated knife. So, we are continuing on and I think we are over the hump, but we still have a ways to go.

And on that note, I must retire from this excitement to match socks.

A Great Duo

Just a picture for your pleasure.

Here are Jeff and Joseph and their favorite fingers.

Back in the Saddle Again

We are in fact home from our long relaxing trip to the South. We did have a grand time and after reflecting on it a bit, I have come to the conclusion that, in spite of all the fun we had on the way down with sick children and then ourselves being sick, I think this was one of the best vacations ever! We really did have a good time, a good balance of activity and rest, good visiting with friends and good alone time as a family, and great food and beds! Therefore, I deem thee: A SMASHING SUCCESS!

Now back to the real world we have gone and we promptly were on duty three days after we came back. It hasn't really been that bad. Probably the worst "get back into the groove thing" was pulling together a Sunday school lesson in about 36 hours, but it went well and the kids had a good time and I think they learned something. We talked about the Ten Commandments.

Ok, so duty week, the week that I look forward to and don't all at the same time. I enjoy interacting with the students and eating meals with them and planning a meeting for Thursday and stuff like that. I even enjoy the times I work with them in the afternoon, but I am amazed at how much emotional energy it takes me just to keep track of things and I haven't quite learned how to be "ok" with not doing everything "right" because there isn't enough time to do it right and pay attention to my family as I should. Like one day I wasted 1/2 an hour of 4 people's time because I didn't have the women's work planned out ahead of time. I HATE THAT! And yet I realize that if I had spent the time planning it, it would have taken time away from Jonathon's school time- that is required afterall, so somebody looses either way! I don't mean to complain, I'm not having a bad time with it, I'm just in a learning curve and I'm not quite on the home stretch of it yet.

Brandon did help at the beginning of the week with a couple of things- like he watched the kids so I could spent most of Sunday afternoon unpacked the entire world- which just happened to all fit in our bags in the back of our 12 passenger van. And then he gave me a pep talk on priorities. He listed about 4-5 that I had and said I could only concentrate on 2 per week for the rest of the year. Since homeschool was one of them and another was duty week, that took care of what I was suppose to think about this week. I confess, my brain still wanders to packing and house ideas occasionally, but I'm trying really hard not to let it get in the way.

So far school this week has gone pretty well. In fact, if we could have this good of a school week every week, I'd feel like I was a half way adequate teacher. Of course then I probably would give the credit to God as often, so quick- Praise the Lord for a great week of school! We've hit reading and math every day, some science and history and literature some days and most days we've gotten a good long Bible devotions in. So, things are going well. Well, we did do one experiment that flopped in science. The lesson was on elements and how when you put two things together they can create something new. Our examples were: oxygen and hydrogen= water (we just talked about this one), the old baking soda and vinegar thing, and leven and gluten= rising bread. I did some pastry dough with the kids and put baking powder in Jonathon's and none in James' and then baked them. Then I really played it up about how Jonathon's was going to be bigger just because of that one ingredient. WELL, they were the same size- in fact I think James' was actually a bit bigger. I think I just put too much crisco in and so the dough was too heavy to rise. Oh well.

The other exciting event of note is that Jonathon lost his first tooth today. He has been wiggling it for weeks and today it was pretty loose. So he came to me and asked if I could just get it out. Ah...note....this is NOT MY OFFSPRING! I never would have let my parents pull my tooth! I checked and recheck to be sure this was what he wanted and the short story is that a few minutes and a piece of dental floss later, it popped right out and "didn't hurt at all". So now he has it under his pillow and even though he knows its just a pretend game, the toothfairy has a job to do this evening. He does sleep in a loft bed and he did put it under the far side of his pillow, so I may have some interesting acrobatics to do when the time comes.

Ok, last tidbit...favorite school activities right now: Dot-to-dot for math, a reason for Handwriting letter writing sheets, memory matching game for number recognition, Little House on the Prarie.

Gotta go...

Ending up Back Where we Started

Well, as much as I thought I would be able to write more on my blog during vacation, I have failed and thus I am left to write something on the return trip home. We stayed relaxed, then completely off the electronics and then so busy I had no time for the computer. There I have ended my lousy excuses why you have had nothing to read. I hope you haven’t been sitting around drumming your fingers for information.

We have had a wonderful time. After the nightmare/ ridiculous to hilarioius trip down with children throwing up so much and getting the entire city of McDonough Georgia sick, things started looking up. Brandon and I left the children (ah, complete bliss) to head to Florida where we took a couple of days to remember that we love each other and enjoy being together. I don’t mean to say that we don’t love each other most of the time, but rather that we just get distracted with other things in our life and have very little time for our own relationship these days. It was nice to have a little of that newly wed feeling again. After I’ve been holding kids, spit on, tugged on, and generally mauled over all day, it’s hard for me to feel especially cuddly, but the break was nice and since Brandon doesn’t usually make a habit of tugging on my skirt hard enough to risk it coming off, I don’t mind the closeness.

Ahem…ok, so it was lots of fun. The next thing we did was take the kids over to the Andersons for a week of fun with just our family. I am learning that sometimes at home it’s hard to find time to be our own family unit, but this week we made time. We stayed in their basement apartment where we were furnished with two lovely rooms for sleeping, a great room with a functional kitchen and living area and two bathrooms with toilets perfect for 3 year old clogging adventures. Actually, Jeff only clogged one toilet and we got it fixed with a top rated plunger, but he did manage to clog my parents bathrooms several times with an overabundance of TP, a large selection of paper towels, and at one point I caught him trying to flush a medium size plastic side salad disposable dish down the hole. Arg! Ok, so back to the Andersons,…

We stayed there for 4 nights with the idea that we would not see anyone, go anywhere, or have anything to to with electronic entertainment for that portion of time. It turned out to be one of my favorite times of the whole trip. Each day we did a little bit of school with the boys, and then did something fun. In the upstairs portion f the house is a room with a closet designed into a playhouse. That was the highlight of one afternoon. Another afternoon it was the treehouse in the woods. We also took a tromp in the creek and pulled out leaves, built dams, and rerouted the water in a couple of spots just for fun. The boys caught “a big pile” of lizards, saw beetles, stomped on scorpions, spiders, and centipedes, and played in the dirt. Jonathon learned how to shoot hoops and was hoping for a chance to beat his Daddy at a game, but we’ll have to save that one for another trip.

In fact, we liked it so much, we based the last week of our trip from their house. We slept really well there with the children waking up after 8am many mornings and then went to my parents and visited others during the day. Several of our favorite activities this past week were: church on Sunday with waffles being the theme for the potluck lunch. Our children LOVE waffles! We also had a great time with Dan and Pari- relatives of Brandon. Pari is Tamil (Indian) and she blessed us with some of her “mild” chicken curry which turns me into a glutton everytime. It is SO delicious I always wish I had enough room to finish off the entire pot. The children had a great time playing with their cousins Joshua and Rebekah. Another big hit was going fishing. We bought some worms and crickets from the Bait Store and the “fishing grandpa” was true to his name and took them out to wet a hook. My parents have a lake in the back yard and so it makes going fishing a relatively simple task. We had to wait for the weather to cooperate since it managed to rain for the second time in months (record breaking droughts) but it did eventually and we had a lovely sunny afternoon to stand on the dock and play with fish guts, worms, and bugs. The boys actually caught about 8 fish. We have always called them Brim, but they probably have a longer name that I don’t know. They are small fish, but taste great and even though some of the ones we caught weren’t bigger than my hand, Grandpa cleaned and fried up everyone and we had them for breakfast- something his mother used to do for him when he was younger. In all the fishing excitement, Grandpa got a bit distracted at point and left the scene and I was left to pull out my fishing techniques and bait their hooks, cast the line, and take the fish off the hook when caught. I recal the last part being my least favorite as I have been stuck more than once by fish fins in my time, but my courage prevailed and I successfully got about 4 off their hooks and into the basket without being cut to pieces or even pricked.

The last grand adventure was put on by our friends Nate and Penny who in an effort to visit with us and keep the children entertained at the same time, treated us to playtime and dinner at Kangaroo Kids. This facility is home to several large blow up jumping cages, slides, and climbing things. The children a lot of fun and got some wiggles out after a very rainy day and we had some great food delivered there from a restaurant nearby. So a winning combination: occupied children, great food, wonderful company!

The other major accomplishment during our trip was that I managed to pull my natural Southern accent back out from some dark closet in the back of a cave and use it excessively. It is quite unintentional, my accent doesn’t change at my command except to slaughter a British one or when I pull out my baby talk or duck quaking talents, More subtle ones change depending on who I am talking to and around. If you have never heard me speak so thickly Southern that you can’t hardly understand what I say, then you must come to Georgia for a visit with us sometime and I will demonstrate how my tongue simply runs along without me in its more red-neckish rambles. There are times when I do things that make me wonder how on earth Brandon put up with me long enough to get stuck permanently.

And now, my dear friends…we are headed home via I-95. We left this morning shortly after 6am and then stopped for breakfast at Cracker Barrel (a favorite that is quickly becoming tradition). The children had pancakes and bacon and devoured almost all of it. Brandon and I had eggs, grits, bacon, biscuits, and gravy. I added a cup of coffee and all of it was delicious!

I thought of two more things to mention- the campout, and some things I’ve learned this trip.

First, the campout was, I think, a smashing success. The food was delicious and not just because my Dad employed his secret technique of cooking (wait to eat so long that it doesn’t matter what it tastes like- and eat it in the dark). We had stew cooked over the campfire, salad, and bread. We slept out, saw lots of people and then had eggs, bacon, and grits the next morning for breakfast. I got to see Roy- who is looking really good these days I might add, several of my friends from different times in life, and meet some new people I look forward to knowing into old friends. My music director from the church I attended as a little girl was there, a friend from my teenage years came by with her 6 children, another mother of 6 I met for the first time and we hit it off great. My grandmama was there and a bunch more. I think the total was just under 70. If you missed it- it was a highlight and you should come next year, they have it every year. We did cheat a little on the sleeping part and let Joseph sleep inside the house with my mother, but the rest of us had a fun time (don’t ask Brandon if he had a “fun” time sleeping in the tent) outside.
Oh, another thing we did was we went to the Bethany Baptist Church picnic Sunday Afternoon. That was a step into the past for me. I sort of enjoy being able to see those people and be a testimony that God straightened me out from what I was before. It was so good to see people that my parents and later, I became friends with as I grew up. There were a lot of memories- good ones, that came to mind and I enjoyed seeing people who I knew as a teenager did care about me. I felt very loved and cared for and that makes them special to me.

Ok, the last thing I’ll talk about is the things I learned on our trip and I’ll try to put them in the order I learned them:
- I have decent balnce while standing backwards in the moving van, going around a curve, and catching vomit at the same time.
- Always carry several trash bags.
- I know now that I can do a lot more that I think I can when I’m sick, but I’ll never admit it unless it is absolutely necessary.
- When I have too much to do I wish I had nothing and when I have nothing to do I wish I had something, thus it takes some effort to make myself relax.
- Never underestimate God’s ability to stretch the penny.
- I don’t really mind lizards as much as I thought I did, but I do mind beetles.

For a Limited Time Only

Ok, now don't get hooked. Just because I post twice in a week doesn't mean that it's going to be happening on a regular basis. Actually, we are on vacation and as I have now taken "off" from my regular duties I am free to kick back, relax, and merely wash dishes, clean, do laundry, and ....well, actually it's better than that.

So far vacation has been an interesting mix of pros and cons. The first con being packing, or thinking of packing. Every time I get to the part of actually putting the family in a bag and sending us somewhere I think that I am really quite happy where I am and that perhaps we don't need a vacation after all! But the pro is that I had lots of friends to help out. People came in and helped pack (I had a VERY BAD cold and was feeling like I'd been hit by a truck and my face needed a plunger.) and get food ready, and kept the children away, and made dinner, and all sorts of things. I think one of my favorites was one of the Bible School girls ran in on Thursday and with a big grin said, "I have...(look at clock) 6 minutes. What can I do?" She did half the dishes on the counter and 5 times blessing my heart in those 6 minutes. I felt very loved. So we were sent off...hmmm....maybe they were just happy to see us leave...(just kidding).

We left Fairwood at 2 am planning for another record breaker to GA. SO far our family's record stands at 18 hours 45min. We did not break it this time. We tried, but got a little distracted by the mess that came around 5 pm.

(INSERT WARNING ABOUT GROSS THINGS MOTHERS HAVE TO DEAL WITH)

Ok, so at 5, Jonathon decides he has to throw up. The short story here is that in the space of 45 min. He had thrown up 4 times and soiled the car seat and his pants twice. The boy really felt miserable. I had one bucket in the car for him and he couldn't use it for both ends at the same time. I told him he had to pick one or the other and he did, but his body did not cooperate with his brain. SO we stopped to clean up at a McDonald's with a playground.

Jonathon sat outside and I cleaned the seats and found clean clothes for him while Brandon took the rest of the children to play. I got Jonathon cleaned up and the van as clean as I could, begged a few bags from Mickie D's and thought we were good to go. By the way, if you ever want a tip on great methods of effective vomiting receptacles for a road trip I have a plethora of ideas, the best being a small garbage bag in a large cup. Catch, tie, throw into a large bag, reline cup, repeat. Anyway, just before reloading the van, Jonathon threw up again and so we cleaned up again. After loading the small children- anyone under 4, and Jonathon, James was waiting his turn feeling rather left out, so he just exploded onto the parking lot with a ream of liquid. I have never seen a child more calm during such an event, but he just bent over, hurled several times, stood up, wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve just like all boys were taught, and said, "Please can we keep going to Georgia. I don't want to go back home yet." I said ok, as we were actually in South Carolina at the time. I might have reconsidered in Virginia.

So James got in, said, "I think I won't throw up again until we get to Georgia." and he didn't. He made it just across the state line. But I'm getting ahead of myself. We're still in the parking lot at McDonald's. Ok, so in the car went James and Brandon and I climbed in and off we go. At the light to return onto the interstate Jonathon says, "I think I have to do another stinky." Around the block we go, back to the parking lot where Brandon and Jonathon rush into the bathroom and I sit in the car and think to myself: WE ARE GOING TO BE HERE FOREVER!

We weren't. Actually, we left after that and I told Brandon that if he would just keep driving and not stop, I would be the hurl patrol. I lost count of how many rounds we went, but it was quite a few between the two of them. Our total trip time was a sad 20 hours and 15 min. But considering the circumstances, I think a pretty good effort.

Let's see the next thing we did was unload the van into my parents' house. After that things started to settle down a bit. We all headed to bed and things were ok- sort of. Rachel threw up in the night- all over herself, but Grandpa cleaned up and left Brandon and I to sleep...ahhh...and then somewhere between Saturday afternoon and Sunday night, Brandon, Mary, James- again, Grandpa, Aunt Amy, Aunt Diane, Jeff, and Joseph (just bad diapers) got sick. My poor mother became the bucket brigade while Aunt Ruth kept the well children entertained.

As of today, everyone seems on the mend- except my Mom. She has been running a fever, but nothing else. I say she gets off great if that's all. Ruth hasn't been sick either. As far as the family competitions go, Diane wins the prize for most rounds, topping out at 16. Daddy gets the prize for loudest noises. Brandon gets the honor of most likely to be lifted off his chair while throwing up. Rachel and I get the one time only prize, though I felt like all sorts of bad words while I wasn't vomiting. Jeff, Joseph, and Grandmother seem to have squeaked by with just mild symptoms and avoided the unpleasantries of buckets altogether.

Now that we have been on vacation for um....5 days, we can start having some fun!
Some of it has been fun. Like my mom is Laundry Queen and I haven't had more that a small pile of dirty clothes for the entire family the whole time we've been here and that's pretty impressive considering the sickness stuff. I've enjoyed my Dad cooking and cooking with him a little. Ruth organized the playhouse for Rachel and it's fun to see my daughter play in the house that I wanted but was built after I was "too big" to play "house"-or so I thought. Apparently, I'm still not too big cause I play house every day. But she gets to feed us sand and that's way cooler! Ok, and the children went to the playground with Brandon today and left me home to reorganize our junk. Jeff and Rachel have fun in the Little Tykes cars here and Rachel calls them "Jeff's bowling green and Rachel's bowling green". (In order for that to be funny, you have to know that the place at home where we occasionally have little kids cars is called the bowling green.)

And umm....we are relaxed, albeit in a different way than I had expected, but in some ways nice. Had we come down here completely well, I would feel obligated to be out running around seeing people that I haven't seen in at least a year and since we've been sick, we've been forced to sit back, play video games, watch movies, and play together for a while. It's been good. Though if that's what God wanted us to get, maybe he could have just sent us a little letter in the mail with an itinerary or something. I don't think the stomach bug was really all that necessary.

uh....I better go to bed. But I should have free time in the near future to continue our saga and perhaps it will continue in a positive direction, or like most of life, perhaps I could just CHOOSE to see it that way. Goodnight for now.

Happy Birthday to Brandon!

I think he's pretty much the best guy in the world. A great Dad, a wonderful husband, and all around marvelous person. He is ever my leader, my friend, my counsel, my help, my love, and my laughter.

A VERY HAPPY 30th BIRTHDAY to you, Brandon.
I love you.