Updating my Blog

Hello! I am finally getting a chance to update my blog. Several people have commented on how lax I have been so here goes. I am actually at home ill with little voice which is why I have this opportunity. :)

So much has happened since my last post that I will try to give a summary.

In June my dear grandmother, Marie Jeffers, passed away. My whole family flew to the states to be there for her funeral. It was so good to see everyone and sad that it takes something such as someone dying to bring people together again. But that is life.



We spent two weeks in the midwest and then flew to the west coast for my RAT travel (to non military that means my return travel to the states that I recieve every two years at the governments expense). We went to Disneyland which was a first for me and the boys. We had a great time there, also Hollywood.
Then we flew to San Fransisco to visit Grandpa "Bear" (Jeff's dad) and Grandma Marilyn. They had a birthday party for Ryan which was really nice and we were able to meet up with many of Jeff's old friends.
Next we flew to Seattle to visit with Great-Aunt Sis. We only had four days there and it was a whirlwind of a time trying to find a dog for Jeff, family photos, and finally a chance to shop for things we cannot easily find here.

Before we had left Jeff and I had joined the community softball league. Upon our return we had lots of practice to get ourselves ready for the upcoming games. At the end of the season the Men's league didn't do to bad but the Women had struggled the entire season just finding enough people to play and no coach. Oh well....maybe we will have better luck next year.

Jeff found a dog in the Netherlands and flew there to pick him up. He is a red tri Australian Shepard named Mackenzie River - "Mac".

Ryan finished first grade with quite a bit of drama due to the fact that we had pulled him out for three weeks. We had to go to truancy court and deal with that. It finally worked out but we learned that the German system is much less lenient than the American system.

School began for me in August where I was told I would get to teach Kindergarten again. I was very excited but have since questioned the greatness of this descision. It took 10 weeks for them to hire an aide and it has been quite a rocky ride. Things are settling down now but because of my switch and the downsizing of our school next year as the new school opens, I have now been informed that I will most likely be excessed. This means I will have a job but we are not sure where or what I will teach.

Ryan began second grade in September. He has been doing awesome this year and we are so proud of him. He is a happier child who now participates in Karate twice a week and guitar lessons once a week. He just finished a four month program through his school where he learned to ice skate. He has several classmates living very close to us so he has playmates close by.

Jakob is still going to Kindergarten and has found a talent in his art work. He loves to draw pictures and they are quite impressive if I may say so. For a four year to include such detail in his work would impress anyone I would think. Of course I compare him to what I have at school where so many 5 year olds are still drawing tadpole people. Maybe I will scan in some of his work to share:)

Jakob has not yet begun sports full time as he doesn't have much of an attention span for such things yet. If we can work it out in our schedule we would like for him to begin indoor soccer here in our town.

Jeff is still working at POV shipping. Right now he is trying to find a newer older car to replace the hooptie he currently drives. It never bothered him until he got to drive our NEW car. We just bought an Opel Zafira. It is so nice that now Jeff dreads driving the older car. He was somewhat excited that I have been absent for two days allowing him to drive the NEW car to work.

Well I think that pretty much updates you to today. For Thanksgiving we went to Garmisch with friends and had a very enjoyable time. My parents are flying in next Monday to spend Christmas with us. It has been about 6 years since we have spent Christmas together so this will be nice. The boys are very excited! Jeff and I went to the ball on Friday night. Jeff says he hates those things but you should hear him when the time comes and he is getting ready. You might think he is more excited for a grand night out than I!

Easter

Easter was more wonderful this year as some friends tried to make it extra special for the boys. A boy at Roll's school informed him that there is no such thing as the Easter bunny, tooth fairy, or Santa Claus. It is instead just the parents. Roll was a bit bummed to hear this but at the same time feeling very grown up in sharing his revelation. Of course we want the boys to know the true meaning behind celebrations such as Easter and Christmas but we also enjoy sharing in their joy as they envision a visit from mystical characters such as leprechans and Easter bunnies. I know many have differing views about this and I have no problem with parents teaching their children the facts of life but I really wish they would also teach thier child that all families are different and it isn't their job to inform the world of the facts they have learned. So a friends daughter who just loves our little boys decided she wanted to help put the magic back into the Easter bunny. We took the boys for a long walk with our friends family and ended up back at their house which has been visited by the easter bunny with all the wonderful eggs, candy, and chocolate bunnies to boot! I could see the wheels turning behind Roll's eyes as he tried to figure out how all that stuff got their to include their baskets when mom and dad never left his sight:)

Thanks Dunn Family!!

To our suprise there was another visit to our house when the boys got home. We have an idea where they came from but it was nice to hear the boys exclaim with merriment that the Easter bunny had visited their house as well!

Camping indoors

J really made Rock and Roll's night Saturday. I was out with the girls and when I came home, I saw this....

J really made some brownie points with not only the boys but me. He sure is a great dad! The boys really enjoyed the indoor camping experience and wanted to make their "tent" their new bedroom:)

Here she is!

Sophie is now 13 weeks old! She is a little pirahna with a toy chest of her own:)
We do so adore her though and she is growing so fast! She is getting heavy as well which makes it difficult for the late night bathroom breaks:( She also thinks my pants need more venilation so I have several new stylish holes in the ankles:)

CHECK OUT THOSE BEAUTIFUL BABY BLUES!

I will keep adding photos and of course more of my two favorite boys!

Sophie is growing!

Well I promised some updates on Sophie so here they are. Her coloring is deepening. She is a little pirahna with a toy chest of her own:) I have several pairs of pants that she felt needed venilation holes.

Family Update

Sorry it has been awhile since I have updated. Our new puppy joined us about three weeks ago and she is adorable! Roll was blessed with naming her and he chose Lady Sophia. We call her Sophie. The whole house has been turned upside down but you would find the way J acts quite hilarious. It is truly as if a baby girl has joined our family. We have had pups before but J was never so caring, patient, or willing to take the 2 am nature calls. Wait a minute, he didn't do that with the boys either! :)

Roll is doing very well at his studies and I am very proud of him. He decided to stop with Boy Scouts as that was adding a bit too much pressure with so much to learn at school. I hope that he will have more interest next year but I think it would help if we start to "play" with some American boys as well. The weather has broke finally so Roll is out on his skate board and roller blades. I hope he will finally let me teach him how to ride his bike.

Rock is entertaining as always. He takes the world by force and sometimes it isn't always pretty but usually he brings a smile to those around him. Rock loves to do what his brother does and this causes quite a bit of trouble between the two of them. Some times I think he is growing up so fast and then I catch him when he is tired twisting his hair and sucking his thumb. (Yeah that is a future battle.)

J is doing well but as most know him he likes to complain:) Present complaint is that I am on the computer rather than folding laudry. I just so hate housework and I am much better at finding other things to do. J will begin softball season soon and we are about halfway through our winter bowling league.

I began community level volleyball. Right now the team is a bit disorganized and I hope it will be straigtened out before our first competition. School is crazy with class sizes in the mid twenties and counting. We are currently over enrollment by about 120+. I have received a new student each month for the last 5 months. Last week I started a new student and was supposed to get another on Thurs. I dodged by a lucky colleagues generousity but I am expected to get one next week. We are drowning in kids while waiting for the new school and more teachers to arrive.

Well I not uploading photos but I will try to make time to update more often. It always brings me to check out my other friends blogs and see what they are doing. Sophie has grown so much that I will put on a new photo but I need to upload it from my camera later.

C-ya!

We're Adopting!!

By the time we bring our little girl home we will have waited nine months! Much as if we went through a pregnancy ourselves. We haven't decided on a name for her and she doesn't get to come live with us for another week. We have visited her often though and she is very adorable, energetic, and a bundle to be loved. We have had to work with our schedules, educate the boys and ourselves, and really prepare for her presence in our family and the changes she will require of us. We know that she will will try our patience through her baby/toddler and later teenage years but she will also bring us much joy. Please welcome our newest addition!

When it snows.....IT STORMS!

Well today we were awakened to a 3am call from school informing us that we are on a two hour school delay. Grrreat! I was surprised since the German street crews are usually on top of things and although we went from 0 to about 6-7 inches in a few hours, they seem to handle such things. Well when the time arrived to drive in I was very disappointed. The roads were declared red and they were! It was trecherous in several places and most roads were not cleared, even main roads!

The real kicker was arriving into work and receiving and email from our boss that stated though the students were on a two hour delay, the teachers were NOT. Evidently she was upset that teachers were not at work at 7:55am. AFN (our local radio program) announced the delay and stated red road conditions. They followed that up by clarifying that any non-emergency, non-mission essential military and civilian personnel were to be on the roads. Normally the message only applies to military but they did include the term civilian today. They even joked about how happy this would make the teachers.

Needless to say that the staff was extremely upset. Why call us at 3am if we are expected to report at the normal time? The tone of the message implied that we were not doing our job. This was offensive to all. As anyone knows teachers are not given enough planning time and often are found coming in early and leaving late. We have however noticed that our boss leaves before we do. Interesting... We were also expected to remain after school for committee meetings even though the weather has only deteriorated. That said, this is her first year in her current capacity so she is sure to learn by trial and error. As it is still snowing and doesn't seem to be stopping, I do hope she uses better judgement.

As for my own homeward travel, the throttle cable clip broke on my way home! This means that my car would only idle, no gas! Fortunately J was almost back from Schweinfurt and was able to pick me up. What a day! I will have to upload more photos.

I took Jakob to the doctor today and it is possible that he has chicken pox! We will know for certain in a couple of days! When is snows....it storms!

Back to Normal???

I have found that recovering from the holidays can be as overwhelming as preparing for the holidays. This year our break lasted two weeks into January. It has been difficult to get back into the swing of things. We find that we have less time for relaxing without worrying that something needs to be done. Rock and Roll both returned to school and are doing quite well. Roll has been very busy with Boy Scouts. J and I returned to dancing on a different night. We also returned to bowling but also no a different night. We still have some holiday decorations up that need to be packed away but by the time the weekend arrives, J and I just want to relax and haven't found the energy required to get the house back in order.

Just after Christmas I found that my Christmas tree had been home to a few spider nests and the warmth of the house tricked them into thinking it was time to hatch. We had hundreds, possibly more, of spiders covering every available limb of the tree. A friend kindly rushed to my house to get it outside since J was at work with no desire to come to my rescue. I was alerted to the problem when Rock began screaming while I was cleaning downstairs. I ran upstairs to his frantic yells that a spider was in his plate. I couldn't understand how a spider got into his food until I looked down and saw several walking around on the tree skirt. Anyone knowing me, understands that this is my worse nightmare come true! J wasn't sympathetic then or now.

On a different thread....Roll has his first loose tooth!! Unfortunately it doesn't appear to want to come out on its own. The permanent tooth has aready come in behind the baby teeth with another soon to erupt as well. I was hoping that the baby tooth would come out on its own but now I worry that if it doesn't come out soon, the permanent tooth will remain crooked. I need to make an appointment this week.

We had a terrible wind storm this past week. J and I laughed with the way the locals were reacting as we have had some pretty bad wind storms on the WA coast. I have since revised my opionion as over 40 people were killed due to accidents caused by the storm. I was called during the day Thursday and told that all German schools had been closed due to the upcoming storm but that my Nanny would get the kids until I could get home. Next we heard that the American school in Hohenfels was closing early. We ended up canceling all afterschool programs in order to keep people off the roads. Teachers were told to leave as soon as the busses pulled out. I picked up the kids and and storm was still not here but the wind was picking up. We called out dance studio to learn that they didn't expect people to come so we should stay home. We cancelled out babysitter. The storm arrived that evening and while I was on the phone with my family the power cut out. The boys started freaking out although they were supposed to be in bed. After getting them calmed and getting settled in bed ourselves J came running in yelling that Roll was sick to his stomach. We used candles to try to avoid the mess and get him cleaned up and resettled in bed. Fortunately he had made it out of his bed but what are the odds that he would get sick after the blackout? The power came back on around 10ish but went out again for a shorter period about half hour later. It stormed severely all through the night. All German schools were cancelled on Friday so our Nanny once again took the kids. The drive to work was interesting. There were many trees that had fallen in the night but the city had obviously been hard at work and most was off the roads already. There were two trees that had fallen on the newly built section of the church next to our school. They considered the wind storm to be equal to that of a hurrican force and named it Kyrill. It is now Sunday and there is still much to be cleaned up but not a lot of damage to be seen here. Still terribly windy though!

I do hope that everyone else has recovered nicely from the holidays. Give me another week or too and maybe I will feel more caught up on things!