Happy 12th Birthday to Jared!

Today is the day. We’ve ordered a big balloon bouquet that we’ll go pick up. We have decorations, presents and such. We plan to spend the day celebrating….wow…12 years. Seems like yesterday he was born in the hospital beside the park in Hardin, MT. He gave us quite a scare when he developed RSV and it was back to the hospital at 4 weeks old. Times does go fast. He is maturing into quite the young man. He loves to run with Jamin and has begun lifting weights (low pounds and well-supervised) with Josiah and Jamin. He loves the Lord. He’s a good kid/young man.

We’ll post pictures later….

Back on 7 January.

Wednesday went well as far as birthdays go. We have the week off of school; an extra celebratory bonus for Jared. {grin} Early in the a.m. Josiah drove to retrieve Jared’s balloons.


As Cy came in the back door, I called Jared and told him I wanted a 12 year old picture….it was funny that he was posing in front of the French doors leading to our library and Josiah and the balloons were in the background unbeknownst to him.


After finishing a couple of projects at home we headed for Kids Kingdom on the Concho River. This is the favorite park of the younger children and I had promised them last weekend when we were down there geocaching that I’d be sure to bring them back this week. We all went. Jamin took a book and found a secluded nook. Josiah went to the downtown library to return books for me and Jared watched the little ones. Have you noticed that 12 is a great age for sitters because they still like to PLAY??? When we walked up we saw a boy that reminded us of Craig, a friend from AK. This got me to wondering if school was out or if there were homeschoolers at the park. It turns out that there were two homeschooling families there. The moms popped over to the shade where I was encamped and I stayed and visited with them. They had babies nearly the same age as Stacia. In fact, one little girl is only 2 days older than Stacia. They had planned an informal park day for Thursday and invited us to attend. After speech, we did just that. The kids are excited that they may have made some new friends. Even the older boys were able to visit with a 17 yo who sort of “understands” them. Andrew’s father is retired military. He just finished seminary and has moved here to be the assistant pastor at a local church. They homeschool. God taught me a lesson on this one…I was stressed that my list of “projects” was being put off for park days….but a greater prayer for friends may have been answered…who would guess we’d find families at the park with children who range from newborn to out of the home – just like us????

The evening found us eating at Jared’s choice of restaurant :::drum roll::: International Buffet. We then went home for gifts and our family’s famous signature ice cream cake. Was there ever a family as sold on ice cream as this one???

Jared was excited to have received a paint gun (so he is no longer Cy’s target practice), paint gun “stuff”, a sling shot and a few other odds and ends.
I forgot the “pig hat” girls…but the pig will live in TX once again. {grin} I think he’ll live again AFTER my birthday. {smirk} Yes, I regretted the noise makers but at 8 for a dollar after New Years who could resist??? I did save them for the remaining 4 boys birthdays coming up. Finally Jared called ENOUGH PICTURES! {grin}

My Misadventure Last Night

Have you ever wished you could relive a moment in history? Have you ever wished you could go back and act differently? I had one of those moments last night (3 Jan). I was heading to Bible Study with JUST enough time to arrive at 6:15 as I’d agreed.

I was driving Mike’s Honda. I pulled off the loop and onto Christoval road. This road is a bit dark at dusk and the speed limit is 50 or 55 mph. A silver truck was nearing me and then…..I’m not sure what happened. It sounded like hundreds of rocks had been thrown at the wind shield. I was trying to process this (have I been shot?, what could I have hit that would throw that many rocks up – was it a dump truck that lost it’s load…no it was beside me not in front of me) and I glanced in my rear view mirror in time to see the car behind me do a u-turn and give chase to the pick up. At this point my conditioned flight response kicked in. I thought “get to the base so you don’t get mugged”. It was only later that Mike figured out what I should have immediately figured out. The passengers of the truck had thrown something at the Honda. The windshield is FULL of those dings with spider circles and pits all from one side to the other. He reminded me that the best course of action would have been to pull over and dial 911. I could only think “do I also give chase or run”? I chose to run. I did call the police (OK MIKE called them and put me on) and told them the story. They said I did well not to follow as there is no telling how those situations end up. They also said that if the second car turns in a report they will call me back to be a witness.

I’m praying future Bible Studies do not begin with this much excitement nor end as abruptly as mine did last night (Stacia calling me home). Oh and for those wondering, I’m not teaching this study. We are studying Breaking Free and there were 14 women present!!! YES….we’re off to a new start in the New Year!

3 January – PROJECTS

As previously noted we decided to delay the start of school until the second Monday in January. This is our typical start date as Jared’s birthday is 4 Jan. This year we are using this date to finish a few school projects as well as home projects.

Are you surprised to hear that I made a master list? The list has things from “polish term papers” to “play at the park”. I know….sad, sad, sad….but it isn’t that I’m an over the top list lover….it’s that my memory is going. I FORGET that I promised a play at the park if I don’t write it on a calendar or list somewhere. I’m making a deliberate effort to strengthen my memory this year. I’ve begun by working on memorizing Scriptures.

We had hoped to get one big project done a day…but we excelled on the 3rd. We began speech therapy (I’ll write some thoughts on that later); Josiah and Jamin cleaned and prepared the pop-up to go back into storage now that its stint as a guest bedroom is over; the older 3 boys moved a monster shelf out of the main garage area into the pantry and loaded it; Jared raked our yard; Arielle and Nolan helped with a VARIETY of household chores – most notably they sorted through Zander’s dresser in preparation of blessing another family; we went birthday shopping; we wrapped birthday gifts; I cooked dinner and headed for Bible study. Back at home Mike and I corrected rough drafts of research papers; studied (him for a sermon and me for my power-walk. {Grin}) And called it a long and profitable day at 11 p.m.

What did Zander and Stacia do during all this activity. Stacia played and Zander…continued to play with his favorite Christmas box. He told us all he was playing “Dog in the Box”.

This has proven Mike’s contention that no matter what toy you buy the kids will set the toy aside and play with the box. I suspect he’s making plans to reduce the Christmas gift giving budget for next year in keeping with this observation. {Grin}

STACIA RINGS IN THE NEW YEAR!

Stacia rang in the New Year with a few new tricks.

She woke up 1 Jan blowing raspberries. She would blow; look at my response and then laugh. This game has continued for three days now.

Stacia loves to roll. However, she wants to go places. She rolls to her stomach, pushes her head and chest up and looks around and then gets MAD. She is frustrated that she can do nothing else. Often she begins to fuss at this point. I thought it hilarious to walk into the living room one day and find her on her back with couch pillows on either side of her. An enterprising older brother had decided he’d keep her from rolling to her tummy and having to listen to the resulting frustration. Hmmm…parenting by straight jacket? {big grin}. We are all looking forward to Stacia being able to do something other than face plants on her tummy. On 1 Jan she rolled from her tummy to her BACK. Now she CAN roll and get places but she hasn’t quite figured that out yet. She always seems to be surprised to find herself looking up at the ceiling….but soon I suspect she’ll begin rolling across the living room. This calls to mind Arielle’s first Christmas: She couldn’t crawl but she would roll across the room to get into the gifts.

Stacia’s third trick manifested last night when I was at Bible study. She actually had this “trick” in months past. She switched to the arsenic hour – as our pediatrician calls the nighttime for colicky babies. She’s not done this for several weeks. She cried so long and hard that I was finally called home from Bible Study….not a good trick but a trick nonetheless.

An “almost new trick” is sitting. She leans way to the front so we aren’t counting this yet. We are in no hurry for this little girl to grow up. {grin}

Stacia Stats: slightly over 4 months old; approx 17 lbs; aka as “Sugah”, “Lady Bug” and “Sugah Bug”.

Vacation is over!

It had to come to an end…and it did this a.m. at 6:00 when we left the girls at the airport. Wow…the security personnel and all the airline employees were on edge. I sure wouldn’t want to be traveling this afternoon.

When we arrived home from the airport everyone but Jamin and I went back to bed. At some point Zander woke up. I went into the kitchen, not knowing anyone was up and saw THIS. It gave me a start! Wouldn’t you be surprised to find a dragon in your kitchen? Evidently, this was a very hungry dragon. Zander and Jamin had a good laugh while I ran for the camera.

We have decided not to begin school today. We have a lot of new things beginning this week. We also have a few jobs we’d like to finish and preparation to begin a new school “year” in good form. We’ll spend the rest of this week finishing a few home projects, planning for the next few months (De’Etta), restocking our library book selection and polishing research papers (Josiah and Jamin).

I won’t say that this leave taking was much easier than the last one…but we keep telling ourselves it’s a “good ache”. At odd times my heart seems to cry out on its own “I want my babies home” and then I quickly remind myself that this is a beneficial leave taking. {sigh}
We spent the afternoon taking Christmas lights down outside. This is a wonderful job in 80* weather. We are shocked at this weather. The girls always organize our decorating so it felt very odd to be taking things down without them. We were excited when we set up because it meant they’d be home soon. Now it meant they were gone. Arielle and I were a bit weepy….the boys were very sweet. We got everything done in 2 ½ hours – outside and inside. Stacia slept through it all and seemed very puzzled to wake up and find all the Christmas finery had disappeared.

Mike was off work today so we HAD to do something fun. For us that meant dinner at Schlotsky’s and then a trip to the Concho River. We fed the ducks and musk rat.

We had a huge laugh when Zander found this piece of bamboo with fishing line attached. He had a blast “fishing”. At one point he called me over to see the baby fish. When we’d all gathered he began flailing the water and saying “See that HUGE fish? It’s doing this”. It’s very apparent that he’s been spending time with fisherman! {this picture just won't upload so I'll try to put it in a different entry}.

The kids had a choice of renting a Hollywood video or trying to find a cache. They voted for a cache. We found two more making our total 8. We are trying to find 20 by the end of this month. Nolan found his first cache. It was hidden well; this is helping us all to be more observant. We found a new fancy neighborhood, a new park and a new cemetery today. We’re bringing the day to a close by watching a few episodes of Hogan’s Heroes….a Christmas gift of Jamin’s.


On our way home Zander said, “Let’s go find Krista and Bre”. He thinks we left them at the airport and lost them. Oh boy. He’s always feared being left behind somewhere and now is sure that we left Bre and Krista behind. I’m not sure how we’ll play this one through. Prayers are appreciated.

Good-Bye

Ever thought much about that word? Growing up as a missionary kid I became very familiar with cyclical goodbyes. Goodbye to friends in OR to go overseas. Goodbye to that country to come stateside. Goodbye to parents to go to school. Goodbye to school friends to spend the summer at home….I quickly learned that many of the things people say about “goodbyes” are plain silly!

“Goodbye doesn’t mean forever” – oh really? I have plenty of dear friends who I said goodbye to 24 years ago, that I’ve never seen again.

“Friends Forever” – hmmm.

“Don’t think of it as goodbye; think of all the hellos you get to say”. OK now…but how does that help the pain of leaving the current friends? The goodbyes are not any less real for thinking of the hellos. If you want to be completely cynical about it, every hello is simply a goodbye waiting to happen.

MK’s learn at a young age to get good at saying goodbye. Don’t think about the parting, smile; don’t cry….life goes on. You’ll make new friends.

Then Mike entered the military. Spouses are told at deployment briefings, “Smile, when your spouse leaves. The worst thing you can do is let your spouse see you crying as he goes into battle, he needs to know that you are strong and can handle things.” I’ve noticed, however, that many, many men/women do not LOOK back when they are leaving…maybe they are told to look straight ahead as the “worst thing they can do is let their spouse see them crying as they go into battle?”

I’ve gotten good at stoically saying goodbye. This was brought home to me by Corinna last summer. She drove the kids and me to the airport when we left AK. She later wrote to me that we were so “strong” she and I. Both Third Culture Kids…we said goodbye, no tears, and quick hugs and quickly walked away…never looking back. I got good at it…until last September when the girls left for WA. Who would have guessed how hard it would hit this expert farewell taker to say goodbye to two girls? I’d been told for months “at least you have a houseful to keep you busy” and had come to think that the children at home would insulate me from the pain that mothers most often experience when children leave home.

It didn’t.

Those who know me will guess this is coming…I did a word study on this one. Good means beneficial. Bye means leave taking. I stated last week that it seemed that many of my goodbyes haven’t fit the definition…but this goodbye does. It IS beneficial. It has been a JOY to see how the girls have embraced God’s call for their lives. It has been a blast to see how they have grown and matured and flown strong these past few months. It has been beneficial. It has proven that our lifestyle of parenting…releasing them when they were strong was valid for our family. They were ready to soar. They were not social misfits who wouldn’t fit out in “the real world”. They have had no trouble learning to interact with new authority figures.

And so we prepare to say goodbye once more at 0 dark thirty. This time for eight months. We entrust them to God’s care as they return to Master’s Commission. We eagerly look forward to seeing the growth and work that will occur in their lives in the next eight months.

There is a quote that has spoken volumes to me for years. Elizabeth Stone says, “Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body”. It has never spoken as loudly to me as it has since September of 2005. Even with a houseful of children, parts of my heart are walking around WA. Think of it though: parts of my heart are touching the hearts of others for His glory! This is beneficial…good even.

And so the time has come. Back to feeling that things are not quite “right”; though they are perfectly right. Back to counting heads 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8, 9 in WA. Yes, Donna, you were right. I survived the goodbyes this fall and then they came home, and now they’ll leave again and as you warned me it will hurt all over again…but the hurt is good. The season is good. The day the girls left in September I seemed to be surrounded with 50 year old ladies and their 80 year old moms. I was feeling bad about all the duos and felt God speak to me that it is about seasons. We’ll be together again in the same house…and this time THEY’LL get to be the care provider. {Grin} This goodbye really isn’t forever. This time we really are forever friends. It is a beneficial leave taking.

And now the time has come to say – Goodbye!

Day Twelve of Vacation – 1 January 2006

Today was another nearly perfect day.

After the a.m. activities we headed out to find some more “treasure”. We are really enjoying this new past time. We discovered 2 new areas of town today and 4 more caches. Mom, you’ll be interested to know that Nolan has volunteered the use of his “lizard box” as the family “cache box” or “treasure chest”. We thought that the items we keep which the kids don’t want to play with, will go in there. Today we found a military Operation Northern Watch coin, a Euro coin and a cool wooden TX cut out that a fellow geocacher uses as their signature. I was excited that kids and I were able to find one on our OWN. Then I kept the younger 4 down below near a river while Mike took the older 5 to charge up a hill in search of a difficult find. They found it. Zander had been sleeping when we did this a couple of days ago. He was DAZZLED by the treasure in the little boxes that kept popping up on our hikes! I think he will expect to find boxes on all hikes from here on out. {Grin}

After we had found the four cache’s we’d hoped to find we headed for Dairy Queen….the real treasure of the day was getting out in the sunshine and spending time together. Can you believe it is 80* here on 1 Januaray????

The girls are packing, we will play Night Sky Monopoly, and that will neatly bring the day to an end.

Geocaching Photos:

Can you see the cache? Bre & Arielle did

Jared discovers his 1st Cache

Feeding Frenzy...

Sunset at the last cache site