Old Friends and Great Conversation

I had a great day of catching up with old friends this week, and especially today on the phone. It is so good to hear from everyone and know that they are doing well. Talking to some people made me a little nostalgic, but then talking to others made me eager to move forward to new adventures. It was nice to share new happenings reminisce and forget about all of the stresses in my life right now. What I have been reminded of in the past 2 weeks: Although a times I miss it horribly, I am glad that I am no longer in the AF. I am glad I no longer have to play the politics of it all. I still really want to get my private pilot licence. I love teaching my children, but I am excited to see Russell achieve what he wants to by going to school next year (at Fork Union Military Academy) if we can find a way to make it happen. I am so excited to get more involved in adventure racing especially in racing with some of my girl friends (Joey-my best friend from Nav school, and Tierney my friend and midwife with Olivia).

I can't wait for the holidays and at the same time I can't wait for the holidays to be over.

The dreaded cold

Well, Olivia woke up sick yesterday and Caden and I woke up with it this morning. Now if only Russell and Zeke can get sick then we can officially call it a sick house.

School has been moving pretty slowly for the last couple days, but we have still been getting things accomplished. Russell is working hard on his new research project. He is writing a paper on New Foundland Canada. He is also trying very hard to get ahead in his Math and History so that he can take a couple weeks off and go to Alaska with Chris in December. He is very excited. Zeke is about to write his first full blown book report. He is actually doing very well in all of his subjects this year (except Spelling). He is also thinking of taking Clarinet or Sax lessons. He has been taking Drum lessons for almost two years, and I have been teaching him the recorder(flutaphone?) at home. He is really starting to enjoy it and has mentioned maybe taking lessons. Swimming lessons are going great. I can't wait to see Zeke swim after he has started private lessons in the New Year.

We went to the Craft store in Haggerstown and the boys bought the stuff they needed to make Grandma's Christmas present. Yes, the boys are already thinking about Christmas. When you build/make things for people for Christmas it takes a while. Both projects are pretty cool and should take a couple weeks to finish. I would tell you what they are but then GRANDMA READS THE BLOG. After we finish Grandma's they will decide on the next project.

A Very Bad Day

I have lost the memory stick to my camera. I am so upset I'm sick. I had not downloaded information from that memory stick in about 6 months. It is always either in the computer for me to get pictures out of it (for the blog) or in the camera because I am taking pictures. I have lost so many pictures. All of my pictures of Olivia since she was about 8 weeks old, all of the summer pictures from everywhere we went--including Gettysburg and everything we did this summer. The only pictures of these events that I have are on my Blog. The one good thing is that I already downloaded the pictures of Olivia's birth and first few weeks so we didn't loose that. Also, the vacation pictures from Philly and NY were all on Chris' camera and already downloaded. I still can't believe it is lost. I keep telling myself it has to be in the house somewhere, but so far I haven't found it. I have cleaned and reorganized four drawers already.

To make my frustration level even greater, Olivia woke up yesterday with a cold, and did not sleep well at all last night. She barely napped yesterday, and is grumpy and clingy, making it very hard to get anything done. Oh yeah, did I mention that I am tired. I am glad that the boys have mostly independent school work to do today.

Good News and Bad News

Let's just start with the good news. So, Chris and I went to Vegas for a friends 25th wedding anniversary party. We had a really enjoyable time together. The party was fun and we really enjoyed getting to know our friends family. I think the hardest part of the entire weekend was trying to decide on a gift for them. We finally found a beautiful framed photograph. While we were there we also visited with one of my best friends from my flying days. I had not seen her in over 3 years. She is stationed out there now. We had a great dinner together. She has gotten married since our days together and it was nice to meet her husband. We stayed in some nice hotels, and ate dinner at a really good steak house. Now the bad, I must say that although we had a good time together -- Vegas is definitely NOT my kind of town. First, I am not a gambler. I can think of sooo many other things to do with my money. Second, I really did not find any of the shows out there very appealing. Third, although there was a lot of shopping and some pretty cool places -- I am not really a shopper. As a matter of fact I would say that I am not a shopper at all. Besides anything they have there we can find around here -- or maybe even NY which is a much nicer city to visit. They did have a lot of nice places to eat, and I can always appreciate a good place to eat. Of course, once again, we can find plenty of good places to eat right here at home. Finally,add to the lack of appeal: second hand smoke galore, drunks everywhere, legal prostitution, etc. . . And then there was my all time favorite part of the trip. All of the Mexicans lining the streets handing out pornographic cards trying to sell women. I actually hit one guys arm because he reached across in front of my face with it and tried to hand it to my husband. I could not believe they would be so disrespectful. I think I could never go back to Vegas and it would not hurt my feelings.

While we were gone to Vegas there was more good to report about. My father and my two older sons built me a sidewalk. I will eventually have pictures, but have not found time to take pictures yet. For those of you who have been to the house you will remember that we had only a dirt path to the back door. This was because the people before us put a brick pathway down incorrectly and we had to take it up. It was a hazard. My new sidewalk is so beautiful.

Also while we were gone, the boys played football. I can't wait to see Grandpa's pictures. The quarterback on Russell's team broke his thumb before the game, and is out for the rest of the season. So, for those of you who remember from past blogs, in comes the utility player. As of last week, Russell is the kicker, the punt returner, the quarterback, and the middle linebacker. He actually got a 31 yard run off a quarterback sneak in the last game,and completed 2 of 4 passes. I wish I had been there to see it. He only had one game left, but it should be fun.

Olivia went for her 6 month well baby Tuesday. I can't believe she is already 6 months old. Anyway, she is 25 inches long and 15 pounds. Still a little petite girl. She is crawling, pulling herself up onto her knees, sitting up by herself and getting to a sitting position on her own. She is doing great. She has no teeth yet, but has finally taken to solid food, and is eating well. Because she keeps having wheezing spells(I think they are linked to allergies), the doctor wanted to eliminate anything wrong with her esophagus. So, we went to the hospital on Wednesday to do a Barium test with xrays. Thankfully we found there is nothing wrong with her. I still think it is allergies, but we can't test for that at this age.

Bad news. . . Chris left for Afghanistan Tuesday night. He is only gone 30 days this time, but as always Chris' departure leads to problems. This time the problems were not with the house, and they started Wednesday night. On the way home from football practice, in the dark, we found out exactly what happens when you hit a large deer (buck)with a Lincoln Navigator. Thankfully, the Lincoln is a really well put together vehicle. It tore/dented a little section of the bumper, but that is it. Even though it hit the lights it didn't break them. Everything is still functioning. So, at least I can wait till Chris gets home to get it fixed. I will have to post pictures when I get around to taking pictures of the sidewalk.

The kids are . . .

. . . doing great.

Olivia is crawling everywhere. She loves to stand up in her little entertainment bouncer, but spends most of her time crawling around her room or the living room. She is constantly pulling up to the coffee table and trying to eat my magazines. In addition to crawling around and getting into everything, she is sitting up really well on her own. In other news, I have finally figured out how to get her to eat. She hates cereal of any type,and won't drink any juice that we give her. Until a couple days ago I couldn't get her to eat anything, and she was starting to drink way to much formula and too often. I could get her to eat food like soup, yogurt, ice cream, etc. . . off our plates but no baby food. Then, I had an epiphany -- warm the food up. I don't know why I never did that or even though of it until now. I mean you would think with four kids I could remember something so basic. Oh well. She is eating now. She is in general, a very happy baby. She smiles and talks all the time. Although she sleeps well at night, she really doesn't nap well. About once a week she takes a good nap, but the rest of the time we are lucky to get her to take two 15 minute naps all day. I guess it is a good thing that she is a happy baby. LOL. We have had one accident. About a week ago I sat Olivia in the middle of our king size bed with pillow all around her. Somehow, she managed to move herself off the bed in the amount of time it took me to walk to the other side of the bed to pick something up. I have no idea how she managed, but I think she was a bit startled by the hard stop at the bottom of the 3 foot drop to the floor. Luckily she hit nothing on the way down and had no marks from it. Needless to say she is either in something or on the floor from now on.

Caden is doing really well. He is starting to get most of his colors down and counts pretty well to five forwards and backwards. Little Einsteins taught him the backwards and I have had a heck of a time teaching him to count forwards. He is mostly accident free at nights now. This would be a better thing if he was holding it all night. Unfortunately he is waking up at 3 and 4 in the morning and needing help to the bathroom and then back to bed. He is riding his bike so well that we raised his training wheels a bit so that he would have to balance more. Hopefully by next summer he will be able to get rid of the training wheels all together. I have started doing a little school work with him. He always talked about doing his work like brothers so we have been doing some numbers and letters and colors. He does really well at matching games, and learns really fast. He recognizes his name now when it is written, and pretends to be writing it himself all the time. He has also started to "read" books a lot. This is exciting. I am really hoping to get him reading early since he has such an interest in it.

Ezekiel is screaming through third grade. He really loves history and his math is doing so much better this year. Spelling is still his worst subject. I am still not sure what to do about his spelling. Spelling never came naturally to Russell, but he always memorized easily so he would just memorize them. Not only does spelling not come naturally to Zeke, but he has a really rough time memorizing anything. Spelling makes me tired. His drum lessons are really coming along. It is actually beginning to sound like he is playing something, and not just hitting the drums. He is really enjoying himself. Because sheet music for percussion is so different, I am also teaching him how to read music and play the flutephone(recorder). He really does enjoy music. I am excited to see him do more with his music. The boys took the Presidential fitness test with the local homeschool PE class. Unfortunately we were on vacation for half the test but Ezekiel did get to do the run and scored the highest getting a "Presidential" mark on the run. Very Cool!

Russell is working his way through seventh grade. I am really trying to force him to be more independent and manage his time better this year. He has learned a couple of rough lessons already, but the key is that he actually learned from them and is improving. We have a new policy in effect now that he is in "middle school". No Pass, No Play. Meaning that if he does not complete all of his weeks school work in a fashion acceptable to Mommy then he does not get to play in his football games. This has been a major motivator for time management. LOL. Football is going awesome this year. His team has actually managed to score a couple times and even win one game. He is still playing the part of "utility player". He plays whatever position the coach needs him at, so he is constantly moving. I cannot wait to see him on a team where he is more focused. He has one more year with this team, and then it is off to high school football. I can't believe he will only be at home for school one more year after this one. It is going so fast. I can't believe in a couple very short months -- I will have a teenager. He is still playing guitar, but we are not sure how much longer he will take lessons. After he has finished the book he is in now he will know all the notes and chords. Then, he will just be working on techniques etc. . . . Russell also took the Presidential fitness test. He scored National one category and Presidential on another. He didn't do bad on the mile run (right at 10 minutes), but you have to do in around 9 minutes to rank on the run for his age.