A Good Day

Today was a good day. Since the beginning of the year I have been trying to figure out this new schedule. With Zeke still being in school till the end of this year while homeschooling Russell it is a little hectic. Zeke was home sick from school a couple weeks ago and the whole house, including me, got to sleep in until almost 8. It was so wonderful. I cant wait to have Zeke at home next year. It has been difficult to get the scheduling of homeschooling down along with Russell's mindset. He finally seems to be settling in but at first it was a struggle. As much as he wanted to home school all I heard everyday was: If I was at school I wouldn't have to do that. What are they doing at school. My teacher usually does this instead. All of that combined with his mental attitude of -- I'm at home it mus be play time not work time and it has been a rough couple months. However, days like today really make me excited about the coming year and having Zeke home too. I am finally getting things running smoothly enough that I was able to start back into my regular workout routine this week. I actually got the utility room ( where our English Mastiff Kadiy calls home ) painted today. So, I am making progress towards all my clean up the house to get it ready to sell projects. Hopefully the progress will continue this weekend as it will just be Caden and me hanging at the house all weekend long.

Adventure Race

Last fall I was able to participate in an adventure race. It is something I have been wanting to do for a few years. To make it all even better the team was: Chris and I and Joel and Stephen ( my brothers ). It was a fun and challenging time. When it was all over we all decided we would like to do it again. So, I have been looking for another race to run this year. It is extremely difficult to come up with a weekend that fits the lives of 3 different families with 3 different work schedules, budgets, and geographic locations. I have confidence that we will find a new challenge this year in addition to returning to the race we did last year. Hind sight being 20/20 and all we discovered after rehashing and rehashing and etc. . . the race, many areas where we are confident we can skim time of our race finish time ( 12 hours, 12 minutes, 12 seconds ). The race was billed as a 6 hour race. The winning team came in after 7 hours and the second place team around 8 and a half (both these teams were paid professional teams). We are hoping to get down around the 9 hour mark this year with the improvements to our fitness and race strategy.

I've included a picture of us at one of the aid stations on the course.

Gymnastics

All the boys are taking some form of Gymnastics right now. Rusty is taking Trampoline. They actually have trampoline competitions. His instructor wants him to take the tumbling class too so that he can work on handsprings and such. We will see. Ezekiel is taking regular gymnastics with all the boys events and is having a lot of fun. They both have decide that they would rather take more gymnastics than play baseball this year. I am not sure how it is everywhere else but the politics in baseball down here has just gotten to be too much for us all. So, the boys are starting to take more of an interest other than main stream sports. Rusty still has his football, and who knows maybe he will do something with this trampoline stuff. Ezekiel likes gymnastics but it is more of a hobby for him. He is really interested in swimming. He is our little fish. So, this year we have promised to finally take him to swim team practices and get him on the team. Then, there is Caden. Caden and I are in a mom and tots gymnastics class. I have been amazed to see how quickly he actually pics up on things. Today we were at the school picking up Ezekiel and talking to a couple of the teachers who are friends of mine, when one of them asked what Caden was doing. When I looked, there he was in the middle of the sidewalk in the ready position, or as we call it at gymnastics "the triangle" waiting patiently for me to roll him over. It was so funny. He wanted to do it over and over and over.

Progress?

After a very hectic day Friday (that really started Thursday night when Russell's friend David came over), Chris got finally got home for the weekend a little before midnight. Russell(Rusty) and Zeke both had friends over to play Friday and so there were five kids in the house. It went pretty well and everyone survived the day. We found out that Auri, a classmate of Zeke's, is an amazing artist. She drew lots of pictures for us, and they were all well beyond her 7 years. Maybe sometime I will scan one in and post it.

Saturday morning Rusty had a basketball game. He is really starting to get good at it and is learning to be a leader instead of being so upset about the lack of experience on his team. After the game Rusty and Zeke went to their fathers and Chris and I just hung out for the rest of the day. We arranged a babysitter for Caden and had dinner at one of our favorite places (Copper Grill) that night. We had a really good time but stayed up way too late and were both hurting all day Sunday. Sunday after noon we drove all the way to the outlet mall because Chris needed new jeans and Caden needed shoes. We went to the Stride Rite store first to get Caden his 5 and a half Extra wide shoes. He has the biggest foot. However when we went to get Chris jeans we found the old Levi outlet is gone. We will have to look again next weekend. Oh well.

Although we made a few more decisions about things we want to do around the house and actually bought a few more things, we have made no forward movement. No PROGRESS. Tomorrow, I have determined to get something done.

Today Chris took Zeke to the bus and they had a special breakfast together, so after Rusty finished most of his school work for the day we took him for a brunch to Cracker Barrel. We said goodbye to Chris for the week at around 2pm, and I am prepared for the hectic weekly schedule. This week I have one goal. Progress. I will make progress on at least one project around this house.

I'm Buggy for You

Chris and I had a funny discussion the other day about Holidays and why people need to have them to show affection to each other. I guess when you spend as many holidays away, apart, or working as we have they just become dates on the calendar just like any other day. Personally, I prefer for my husband to show he loves me through random acts of love throughout the year not per the prescribed holiday schedule. At least that way I know he is doing it because he wants to not because he thinks I expect it.

Having said that, Zeke and I did his Valentine cards tonight for school. He bought 3-D BUG Valentines. Hmm. Of course we couldn't just write names on them we had to pick who got which card. The stink bugs for people who are mean to him and the dragon flies for people he likes. Then, as he is choosing he asks me which bug girls liked the best. I almost laughed. I had to tell him that most girls probably don't like bugs too much but that if I was going to get one I would like a colorful one best. So the girls got the colorful ones. Oh yeah, and the ones that said "I'm buggy for you", because as Zeke put it "that is a girl card". At least he realizes he should be buggy for girls not boys. HA HA.

All Quiet

All the boys are in bed, and Chris is somewhere between here and D.C. It's quiet.

Yesterday, we got out the BB guns and shot. Russell was having a particularly bad day shooting, which was hard since his friend was over and shooting very well. Zeke had a really good day shooting too, but I think it was beginners luck since it was his first time.

We did some more yard work, and then went to Home Depot. We needed to get more stuff for the inside of the house repair/fix-up. I have so much to do, but it seems my motivation to do "remodeling" comes in little spurts. It's just that it requires some cooperation from the boys to get things done, and Cooperation from the boys has been pretty rough lately. Right now it seems the two older ones cannot be in the same state, much less room, for 5 minutes without having a disagreement of some kind. Then, throw in a very happy, but strong-willed 15 month old and it can be difficult to get things done at times.

Luckily, with Chris home for almost 3 full days I feel refreshed and ready to get things done this week (I even got to take a nap this afternoon). If only I can find some of that elusive cooperation.

Yesterday, we bought train tickets for Spring Break. The formal dinner for Chris' unit is the first Friday night of Spring break(up in D.C.), so we are actually going to get to go. Wow! Chris is flying home that Wednesday night, and we are taking the Amtrak sleeper train to D.C. Thursday. We thought it would be fun, and who knew that it would be cheaper than flying. We get 2 bedrooms with private bathrooms and 2 beds in each, and meals are included. On the way back the bedrooms we have will have showers too. It takes a little longer but we don't have to change planes or go through airport security, or try to feed 5 people in an airport all day or . . . all the other things associated with air travel these days. Oh yeah and it is one less day we have to pay for a hotel, since we will sleep on the train.

The coolest thing is that we looked it up and we can travel home to see Grandparents for $120 a piece round trip once we move to D.C.

Well, the boys gave Chris some Hot Tamales and cards for Valentines day since he won't be here on Wednesday, and then off he went again. Caden was so cute waving bye bye as the truck drove down the rode. That is after I had to pry his fingers off the steering wheel so Chris could leave.

I hope the picture turns out ok on this. It was my first attempt to post a picture.

Busy Day

Chris got home late last night. He is home early from D.C. this week because he has to go back on Sunday instead of Monday. The day was really nice today ( in the 70's) and Chris felt especially motivated to get things done, so we did. He got out the new chain saw I bought him for his birthday last year and cut down and cut up the dead trees on the property. We will have a fire some time this weekend or next to burn it all. He also got to spend a lot of quality time one on one with each of the boys. They really need that with as much as he is gone. After Russell got all of his school work done he went out to help Chris with the yard work and then they played football for a while. Ezekiel was in school ( I will start homeschooling him next year) so Russell got to do some real "grown-up" stuff with Chris without his little brother getting in the way or feeling left out.

Meanwhile I managed to get the grocery shopping done and most of the laundry for the week. Yeah! It is so much easier to get things done when Chris is home and we all get to have fun at the same time.

Last night Ezekiel tested for his orange belt in Tae Kwon Do and he did really well. Tonight Russell has basketball practice and then has a friend coming over to spend the night. Since Russell has a friend coming over it will be Zeke's time to hang with Chris and mommy -- not sure what we will do yet. Caden had a long day and went to bed about an hour earlier than usual. He was a very tired baby. I think we are going to go through the terrible twos early with this one -- his little "personality" has really been coming out lately.

My First Blog (Johanna)

After reading the Blogs of several friends over the past year or so I decided that it might be fun to write one of my own. It could be a quick easy way to keep friends and family up to date with whats going on. Besides, it might be a nice way to unwind after a particularly hectic day with the boys. Since I currently have my evenings to myself 80 percent of the year, I could use a little distraction from the household chores. Hopefully, it will work out and will be something I stick with even after we finally move north.

For those of you who don't know we currently live in Florida where I had been stationed with the Air Force for the past 6 years, until I separated in October of 2006. Talk about your huge life adjustment. I went from flying combat missions to being a stay at home, homeschooling mom. WHEW! It has had its ups and downs, but although I miss the excitement I do not regret the decision I made to leave active duty. I will be starting up my Reserve work soon enough and finishing up my retirement points that way.

Chris is still part time in the Mississippi National Guard and has just for the second time in 3 years NARROWLY escaped being mobilized. His regular job is as a DOD contractor and part of the Asymmetric Warfare Group or the Joint IED Defeat Organization. The nature of his work had him deployed for 21 of the past 29 months and only at home for 4 more as he travels around the States teaching when he is "home". In December the organization offered him a more "stay at home" kind of position (at least for a year or so). Oh yeah, stay at home means work out of D.C. and go home to Florida on the weekends. So, we are now working steadily to get the house in Florida ready to go on the market in the hopes to get moved North ASAP. Then, for the first time since he took this contract, Chris will be able to come home at night after work. Maybe then we will resemble a "normal" family. I doubt it.