Us

Us
Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Psalm 127:1

Monday, May 31, 2010

So Much To Share, So Little Brain Power Left To Share...........

So much to share yet so little brain power left to organize it all and type it out for you.

Somethings you just plain wouldn't share cause...well, blogger would say it's a manners no,no! :)

The other stuff is just to energy sapping to have to relive. I can give you the readers digest version although it may be hard since Dan says I type like I talk. To many words for to short a story. Whaaaaaatttttt little ol' me?

1. Just finished reading two books. The first was sheet music. It's a Christian book about sex. Yup' I said it s-e-x! (Sorry parents if your reading this) Can I just say without totally making my husbands mom think I am a floozie.......the book rocked. Oh and one more thing; Dan is SUPER glad I read the book. :)
The second book was The Chickens Guide To Talking Cold Turkey With Your Kids About Sex. Do you see a pattern here? This was a Christ centered book about how to walk through adolescence with your kids and talk about all the "fun" technical stuff along the way. It was funny, frightening and enlightening all in the first chapter. His main point is that it doesn't have to be this "BIG" sex talk but more a lifestyle with your husband that teaches them. I like that perspective. Teach by showing how to love one another with respect and not being selfish. That alone speaks volumes. So with that being said I will tell you God must have known I needed that exact book last week cause right after I finished it Morgan comes running in and yells,"Mom, mom I found the hole the baby comes out of. It's right where you said it was! About 3 cm from the pee hole." Yup' this is my life.

2. My husband has been on lots of 72. If your a fireman's wife you know exactly what this means. If your not a Firemans wife run over and kiss your man when he gets home at 5pm tonight. A 72 is when they walk out the door at the crack of dawn and you don't see them for three days. Usually during this time lots of other "fun" stuff takes place; major injury's from bike wrecks. Rattlesnakes crawling up to the back door. 102 degree fevers in the middle of the night. Something major breaking, exlpoding, leaking or rolling away, falling over or spilling. Just to name a few.

3. Our friends down the street fell victim to the dying market and had to move this weekend. Their twin daughters and Morgan have been paling around the neighborhood since they were 3. You have to understand my girls LOVE these girls. They invite them everywhere and more often than not I have two extra (identical) little ones at my table for dinner and a ride to church Tuesday nights. I held Morgan as she sobbed Saturday night. We held each other crying and praying for their family and giving thanks that God let us meet them and love on them. They aren't going far but when you are little off the street is a million miles away.

4. The girls have been practicing for their end of the year circus show. 5 nights of practice next week. Then thankfully the show on Sunday.

5. Morgan started the process of getting braces. She has her first set of bands on now. Basically we are at the ortho every Wed. am for the next 6 weeks. The good news? She's super excited AND we had better insurance than we thought so they coverd all but $360 dollars of the over $2,000!! Thank you Lord!

6. We wrapped up our second year of Home schooling. Wheeewww! Loved it! Can't wait to do it next year! Mama needs a break! :)

7. Had so much fun in Hawaii a few weeks ago we are already planning next May's trip. Decided to go to the Florida Keys for a week and rent a beach house with some friends. Just researching it makes me wish we were there. Wait Hurricane season starts tomorrow maybe not. :)

I know there is more but darn it I've used up all my words for the day! Oh wait. Have a blessed Memorial Day. And if you are reading this and you serve/served or have family who serves then Thank you from the bottom of my heart!

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Everyone Needs One.........

Everyone needs one, a good belly laugh that is. Soooo I figured why not have one at my expense. First just let me say I had a rough week. I mean a really, really rough week. I will explain more later but for now with that being said what I am about to share with you compounded with a rough week was NOT funny when it happened. Now? OK ya' kinda funny. ;)

Morgan came in the office and brought me one of her Star Wars action figures and the super glue and asked me to fix something on the action figure. I thanked her for NOT taking the lid off the glue on her way to see me as super glue can be very dangerous if not used correctly. She asked me to dab a small drop on the cloth gown of this action figure and I of course thought to myself,"no problem." As I was holding the cloth the super glue seeped through and glued my fingers together. I panicked and tried yanking my fingers apart. As they ripped apart I instinctively reached up to brush my bangs out of my face and glued my finger to my forehead. After ripping my finger from my forehead I let my hand drop which then glued my fingers to my t-shirt.

You can't make this kind of stuff up people.

I do believe this is the part where I started to cry & continued crying for the rest of the day into the night when Dan called home. He,hheee!! Oh and just FYI my week ended much better than it started. God gave me peace about something specific that has been on my heart for months and like I said as it unfolds I will share what God is doing in our family in that regard.

Have a great weekend and remember, be very, very careful with super glue. Put in the wrong hands it can be VERY dangerous! ;)

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Hawaii Pictures

The girls sitting on our balcony. They got along so good the entire time we were gone. Even though we were all in one room and didn't have much personal space they were great! :)Here we all are at Volcano National Park. We were bummed because allot of the areas were closed due to high levels of smoke and gasses that are dangerous. I kept reminding myself that it was perfectly normal and safe that we were standing up top of an active volcano that was showing lots of activity that day. ;) He,Heee!!!
Here we are at black sands beach.
All of our marriage Dan has said I have Olive Oil arms (from Popeye) after seeing this picture I finally get what he is saying! ;)
Morgan took a Jr. Chef class while on the ship and here is her final product. A beautiful cake layered with yummy fruit. Our waiter brought it to our table that night for dessert and from what I can tell it was a major hit. :)

This little guy didn't want us to leave after we snorkeled with him so he decided to follow the boat. Oh they were way cuter close up than I ever imagined. And so curious. I loved them so much Dan bought me this little hand carved wood turtle for our mantle at home.

Morgan getting ready for round two of our snorkel trip. She looked so cute all geared up and swimming around the fish. She would come up for air and try to yell at me through her snorkel to come see something. By the end of the trip Dan had her diving down pretty far with him. It was funny cause even though we were out in the middle of the ocean I wasn't worried about her one bit. She was in heaven! Water is where she is happiest.

Got to visit with one of the dancers at our luau, really nice guy. They did an amazing job.
Ryanne sporting one of her dresses she picked out in Kauai. :) So cute!








Tuesday, May 11, 2010

We're baaaacckkkkkk!!!!

Aloha friends and family we ARE home. I have been trying for the past hour to download photos to my blog and I officially give up today. Sorry. :( I will tell you we had the BEST time. It was such a good time for our family to get away, so badly needed. Just the break from phones, computers, T.V., work etc. was priceless. We got back Sunday afternoon and are having a hard time with the fast paced week ahead of us. Laundry everywhere, sleep messed up from changing twice in the last two weeks and just trying to finish our last two weeks of school and all that entails. I kept a daily travel journal while on our trip so I will leave you with a little bit of what I wrote. :) Have a great week and I will try with the photos again tomorrow when I have more patience.

Sunday April 25th-Beautiful day in San Pedro to sail away in. Warm sun and in the 70's. Fun to see our family down here before we left.

Monday April 26th- Woke up to rough seas, poor Morgan was so pale and sweating through her clothes with sea sickness so we spent the morning in the Dr.'s office on board. They gave us good drugs and so Monday we slept the day away and woke up feeling much better. Ryanne LOVES kids club and is there ALL the time. :)

Tuesday April 27th- Much calmer seas and so everyone is feeling good. We LOVE our cabin, the people on board and the kids are loving all the salads and fresh fruit.

Wednesday April 28th- Weather warming up fast although its a bit rough today, not to bad though. Accosted a women in a bathroom stall thinking it was Ryanne as I flung open the door. Opppssss........Then later in the day Ryanne locked herself in my mother in laws cabin bathroom and the lock broke so as she freaked I called for help.

Thursday April 29th-Calmer seas all night, thank you God! 4th day at sea and we are starting to wonder what the rest of the world is up too. We got so excited when we saw two cargo ships pass by, sad really. ;) We are loving having a balcony and sleeping with it open every night. We got a complaint from the front desk informing us the people below us don't like our kids so up and about early in the morning. Ooppss, sorry they are on CA time still. :(

Friday April 30th Hilo- Best day every! We went to the volcano and walked through a lush rain forest area and through a lava tube. Amazing! Then we went with friends to black sands beach and watched the turtles swimming the surf. Must have been over a dozen of them. They loved watching us just as much I think. I won't even begin to tell you how Dan and John smuggled a little black sand off the beach for our jar. Yikes! On our way back to the ship we stopped in this little coffee mill and met the nicest people. We stayed and chatted for an hour and bought lots of yummy organic coffee for Dan and his crew back at work. As we dropped off the rental car Ryanne informed us she "lost" her gum and with 84 degrees and leather seats I will let you do the math. Enough said right?

Saturday May 1st Kauai- This was one of those days that won't do me justice even trying to relive for you. I will say the kayaking up a fresh water river for 2 miles rocked my world and I just kept thanking God that physically I was there and present and able to do this amazing thing. What a treat. We then hiked through the jungle/rain forest for over 2 miles stopping to check out coffee beans, birds and allowing Morgan, Becca and Ryanne to catch enormous frogs. We stopped at a waterfall and rope swing and had a blast launching into the water. Oh Ya' so much fun!!!! We ended our day at Duke's barefoot restaurant right on the water. Then walked over and swam and played on the beach. We were so tired we could barely eat dinner that night. This is my favorite island so far and I told Dan we are SOOO moving here someday. ;)

Sunday May 2nd Honolulu- We pulled into port just in time to meet a huge storm front. Still warm and humid but man did it rain HARD all day. It didn't stop us from completely enjoying our time over at pearl harbor and swimming at Waikiki beach. Then off to a great luau where Betty and the girls got on stage to dance. ;) Oh and FYI I am up at 4am since I am on CA time still. Uggghhhh!!!!!!

Monday May 3 Maui-Today the sun was out as we headed into Maui to meet our snorkel boat. We headed out to Molokoni crater to snorkel but not before this little girl Katie puked on the boat as did Ryanne and a couple other guys in the back. Blaaaahhhh! Sea sick meds were flying like crazy. ;) We then headed over to this AMAZING barrier reef and swam with the turtles. I can't say enough about that experience. I felt so small out there with all those fish, turtles and so vulnerable to the sea and all it held. Once I pushed that aside mentally I was so in awe and felt small in a good way. the girls LOVED this time and I could barely get them back in the boat. We even saw two mama whales and their calves. Thank you Lord! We ended our day by shopping, playing in the surf and collecting sea glass. Blessed time!

I won't bore you with any more journal entries. Those were just a few. Maybe later I will tell you how Ryanne told this man on the boat who had a long beard and round belly that her Grandma said he looked like Santa or the time she thought our waiter was in our bathroom when it was really Dan and she had this full conversation with "Armindo" through the door. ;) The girls made lots of new friends from all over the globe and Morgan even got a chance to share the Lord with her little friend Lauren from London. So fun. :)