Packing Away Another Boat Load of Memories

Stacia begged for more books. 

Josiah counted motion sickness pills. 

We couldn't stop the clock. Michael took the boys to the airport. The roads out where we are are TERRIBLE....no snow plows and lots of snow.  The rest of us said goodbye at home.

Note the manly 3 slap hug....

In the process we discovered Jared is taller than Jamin and Jamin is 6 ft. 

It's always such a joy to have the kids home. The house always feels a bit empty when they leave. 

These three were CHAMPS and took 90% of the decorations down while I dealed with some ministry stuff that had been put on the back burner during the Holidays. 

Our other big news is SNOW.....ironic considering the boys came in during a storm. 

Youthful exuberance

I didn't bake today. I was busy with emails, skypes, phone calls.... but I did make a ginormous pot of turkey broth and some "Italian Stew".....we watched a movie....Mike had a duty call....

Choosing Joy!
©2010 D.R.G.
~Coram Deo~
Living all of life before the face of God...

Cramming Every Minute with Fun

It started snowing yesterday, snowed all afternoon, all night and all day today (Friday). We decided to go to the Misawa Citizen's Forestry park..... This turned out to be our first use of the 4 wheel drive on the van.  Here are a few photos and  several videos.

 Josiah 

 Josiah and Stacia

Josiah, Jamin and Jared started out on two slides - first time down the hill produces the loudest screams. 

Jared has a most unique technique of climbing the hill

I got the names ALL wrong while taking this video and it's not the best as they came down SO FAST in quick succession...but the final group was priceless.  First Jamin and Jared. Then Arielle zips by and finally Josiah, Michael and STACIA on the front. As they hit the end, she flies off the sled....and Mike and Josiah start scrambling clear of her.

I had to take my gloves off to work the camera.  After this spill Stacia wanted to sit in the van. I was HAPPY to oblige her.

Next we headed for the base to go bowling.  

It was hard to let this day end as we knew it was our last before Josiah and Jamin headed home.  The snow was screaming for a repeat of last year's manly photo. 

Choosing Joy!
©2010 D.R.G.
~Coram Deo~
Living all of life before the face of God...

A Familiar Trip

Michael took Wednesday and Thursday off. He asked I cover a PWOC board meeting he would be missing. I was happy to do so as I am POC or co-POC on two big events coming up. First is a leadership workshop and second is a special night for deployed spouses in February, with a friend and mentor who happens to be a Christian Comedian.  Mike and the kids headed to Shipwreck Beach. 

After Shipwreck they headed for the Asamushi Aquarium. This is NOT the show. This is a little staging area where you can visit the "old dolphins". They seem to have a bit of the star still left in them. LOL 

They seemed to enjoy the long ride home. 

Back at home, I spent the morning cleaning, writing a bit more on "James" and working on hand outs for the Winter Facilitator Workshop I'm presenting on Saturday. (Leadership Training).  I went to a PWOC board meeting. I missed last month's and have been traveling so it was fun to see everyone.  I spent the afternoon with a few dear friends. All in all it was a great day. 

Choosing Joy!
©2010 D.R.G.
~Coram Deo~
Living all of life before the face of God...

Birthdays and Bible Studies

Tuesday was Jared's 17th birthday. What a blessing to have Josiah and Jamin here. Jared did NOT like the "new" pig hat one bit. Not at all....this could have something to do with Stacia pulling on the chin strap to make the wings flap. ::snort::  The kids played a lot of games Tuesday; wii and board games.

Arielle and I had PWOC Kickoff. It was a fun day and we had the afternoon to enjoy with each other. We met at Karinba's when Michael got off work for our favorite Chinese food in Misawa. We opened gifts and enjoyed ice cream - Jared's no fuss choice.

Stacia finally had pity on Jared and got the OLD pig hat. LOL 

Choosing Joy!
©2010 D.R.G.
~Coram Deo~
Living all of life before the face of God...

Life moves at warp speed when our older ones visit. Chicken Divan is in the oven, rice is steaming, a salad is made and corn will be steamed at the last minute. I have a few minutes to update. 


Sunday we had chapel, a soup and sandwich lunch, ran a couple of errands, bought more groceries (::grin::), and  watched Dawn Treader. Most of us loved it. Michael said he's a purist and wished they hadn't changed things but even he liked it fairly well. 


This morning I roughed out week 3's "prompts" for James. If I just had a bit more time to edit. 


I checked on a few loose ends from the boys' adventurous trip over. No one was sure if their return tickets to Tokyo had been cancelled. Jamin was refunded TWICE what Josiah was...but JAL here insists BOTH have return tickets to Tokyo. 


I made about a ream of copies in prep for the start of James tonight and tomorrow a.m. I hit on this idea for the cover.....filled up the stickies (which are now on the pantry door to remind us all)....took a picture.....

added "Real Faith" to the photo and wala - a cover for the notebook. We sorted and filled notebooks. Because we wanted to conserve chapel supplies, half the notebooks had other stuff in them that we removed, put in new folders and THEN filled with James. ::snort::  It was fun to have Jamin and Arielle's  help. 

The kids have searched for Wii games. No luck - but we are starting to remember WHO had them last. Or so the kids imagine.  They've played lots of games today on the wii - we do have Mario that the boys brought and the sports and sports resort that come with the Wii. LOL 

Michael should be home soon for dinner. Jared, Arielle and I will run in for Human Video, Youth Group and Bible study.  

It's been a full day. 

Choosing Joy!
©2010 D.R.G.
~Coram Deo~
Living all of life before the face of God...

1-1-11 - New Year's Day

It's always fun to have the older kids home.  I wasn't very surprised to be the only one up at 6 a.m. I finished writing the second week of homework prompts for James.  Zander woke up - writing waits. 

We started the day with breakfast. Stacia managed to work this out well. 

The kids had great fun changing our calendar to a new month and a new year! 

Today is the 8th day of Christmas  - and the day we had decided to have a family gift exchange. We started by talking about God gifting us with family and sharing what about family caused us to be thankful. 

 I asked Mike to take a photo, as I thought I'd be absent in many photos of the day. LOL 

Twenty lbs lighter, 35 to go....Lookin Great by 48? Feelin Great by 48?

Josiah and Jamin bought Zander and Nolan very cool RC helicopters. They are SWEET. 

No Comment....

 

 Can you tell there are earbuds in the strings of the hood? She was sort of saying, "Oh, that will be interesting." I told her you just stick the ends of the strings into your ears. I told her you put your ipod in your pocket...but Arielle doesn't have an ipod.  ::snort:: Wasn't that a great way to totally surprise her. 

Coin Rack to display military coins

 Jared and Arielle got me this stain glass.

We cleaned up. We played games and played with toys. 

Josiah enjoyed teaching the boys how to fly their copters.  

We gave the kids a Wii....they were SURPRISED. It was very affordable for us as that was IT - and for 5 kids, day after Thanksgiving sale....it worked well. We were surprised when we couldn't find their other gift ANYWHERE. We had given each child a Wii game. WHERE could they be????? It was a bummer - but Josiah and Jamin had given them a game, so they are enjoying. We realized the Wii isn't going to work great with the projector - thinking of work arounds. 

I worked on go-withs to accompany the slow roasting turkey. I'm trying to use up as much as possible from our chest freezer while the big guys are here. They eat - and I love it. 

They're ending the day playing Mario games. I'm going to edit as much of I can of my writing. I'd like to make copies tomorrow at chapel. I'm working on getting our James Study together. 

Choosing Joy!
©2010 D.R.G.
~Coram Deo~
Living all of life before the face of God...