Saturday, July 15, 2006

Only picture from yesterday - your's truly caught in the act of blogging by ONE of several local mad photographers! {vbg} Disclaimer: the granny glasses are used ONLY for reading and computer work!



Zander, seated to my right, is informing me that Elephant one is not happy...guess he doesn't like a whale tank with an arctic birch tree for a habitat. :::snort::::
PRAISE CRAZE

For those in the local area be sure to come out to the Lake today between 1:45 – 7:45 for Praise Craze! There will be about 7 local bands playing. There will be food booths from various base organizations, if you choose to buy something. The Red Cross will be out there if you want to give blood. There will be crafts and bouncy thing for children. There is also the pool and playgrounds. It will be a great family day.

The bands will showcase a variety of music genres. The 180 (our student contemporary band) is Christian alternative, there will be Gospel, Tejana, Rap – a little bit for everyone. Proceeds from the booths will benefit various base organizations, a love offering will benefit the base chapel.

This should be a fun family day for those with families and a great day for the students of the base as well. Event brought to you by – yep – your local Air Force Chapel.

We plan to bring a cooler of foods that are “mom approved”. We plan to play, veg, and swim alternately throughout the afternoon. Hope to see some of you there.
The Boys are HOME! They had a great time. We haven’t gotten to talk much as they got home late – but we stayed up for about an hour and chatted. It was fun to hear of the friends they saw etc. Thanks to all who made their trip enjoyable…especially Dayton.

It seems that Jamin came in 3rd in a “July 2nd/4th” race in Hoonah. It was funny to hear the boys talk about it. The announcer was saying “In first, here comes Cooper; in 2nd Cooper’s father; and I don’t know whose in 3rd”. The only disappointment to ME on this trip is that they did not go Halibut fishing and thus my stock of Halibut is down to 3 measly packages. The chapel Halibut fishing trip is *TODAY*. {sigh}

While we waited for the boys to get home last night we watched a couple of ORIGINAL *Star Trek* episodes, *Chicken Little* and a few *Hogan’s Heroes* episodes. Poor Arielle, Stacia and Zander fell asleep and have not seen the boys yet.

Friday, July 14, 2006

Kwame has gone to pick up the :”boys” – young men! Well, OK, so he’s going to get PORSHE but he’ll pick up Josiah and Jamin too. {g} We are VERY excited. I teared up this morning when Jared and I were talking and realized the girls will be home in about 3 weeks…that means for a bit of time we’ll have EVERYONE home again! Yippee!!!!

Mike is home – his boss told him to “go home”. I love it when Father Jim does that.

More later.

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Forgot to mention that all but one of the photos on today's blog were taking by Jared....he's becoming quite the photographer. In fact I had no clue what we'd done today until I saw his pictures. LOL
Thursday...

The biggest happening of my day was finding a tube of tooth paste in the washing machine. The pictures Jared took of Zander below may validate my suspicions as to how this happened.

I received our first box of cloth diapers today…and two proraps. I’ve been researching diaper pails and laundering methods this evening. One suggestion had me totally perplexed. They said to fill your washing machine ¼ full, and put soiled diapers in it. On the 3rd day you are supposed to add detergent and wash. Now if you have dirty diapers in your washing machine HOW ARE YOU GOING TO WASH YOUR CLOTHES?????? Mike solved this for me by reminding me that most families don’t do 3 – 4 loads of laundry every day. Ah….mystery solved. {bg}

Jared has decided this week that he is interested in attending the Air Force Academy. He has spent lots of time researching the requirements to be accepted. This led to him deciding he’d like to attend a science workshop this week. He also requested information on the Civil Air Patrol and has told me we need to do lots of English, Match and Science in the next six years. Ya’all KNOW that Math and Science are my forte! Expect lots of exploding eggs in the next six years. Anyway, today was the first day of the science workshop. The goal of the workshop is to help the kids come up with an idea for a science fair project. Any great ideas out there? He wants to do some experiment on the human body….and the teacher said we’d have to find a real scientist to o.k. the project or they won’t allow it at district competition. I had no clue we were considering district competitions…..I think Jared has drug us into a whole new world of learning!

While Jared and his friend Cian were at the library, I took off on a mission to find Wholesome Foods. This is the only organic whole foods store in the Concho valley. I had been told that several items were cheaper than what we paid through Shop Natural. I went armed with a clipboard and my last order (4 pages long). I didn’t get through the list and may well be doing this during the remaining workshop days. We had a blast in the store. Stacia has come alive in the last two weeks. She played with clerks and grannies in the store. So far most the groceries are cheaper through Shop Natural. I found our sprouted bagels are cheaper at WF…..and the Organic Valley ricotta cheese is a bit cheaper but many things were a LOT more money. I was a bit sad. They seem like they want to work with me….we’ll see. At least I know that they are in town for times like today when I was out of the live culture yogurt we buy from Shop Natural…we picked up a quart in town. I also picked up some wonderful chocolate covered almonds….only to discover that NO ONE would eat them with me except Cian. Hmmm…..maybe that was always my subconscious plan.

My bike tire is fixed. I doubt I’ll reach my goal of 500 miles by the end of July….but I should begin moving that ticker again soon.

The boys will be home tomorrow night! We are excited. Please continue to pray for my friend Adrienne’s little daughter. Her leg has got to be bothering her and she is supposed to be “immobile” – come to think of it pray for Adrienne too….I can’t imagine trying to keep a 2 ½ year old immobile for a week. They’ll be casting it on Monday…maybe hot pin k or tie dye…..

OK it’s late and I’m rambling because I’m totally EXHUASTED!
Stacia has discovered Bre and Krista's old school desk (which sits in our living room as an end table these days).
Look what I found INSIDE the desk!

Ah....climbing on TOP is even more fun!



"Rrrrr" - Stacia's pirate look

I'm gonna JUMP!