Pierre... Not this year.

Well, we hoped for several years, then we planned loosely for a year or so, then we Seriously planned in a very Hard-Core way for another fifteen months or so-- including buying our own house back last summer from the people we sold it to when we moved in 2003-- that was really pretty damn amazing thing all by itself.  That hard-core planning also involved a lot of help and assistance from people in Pierre.  But, sometimes just when you're ready to swing on that final fast ball to get that "home"run, God pitches you a curve ball that catches you off guard.  Such is Life-- right?

Our Pierre Home during our fun Winter Vacation last January. Yes. Pierre South Dakota can be Fun in January. :)

So, what's up?  A family problem prevents us from moving-- and family needs will always supersede.

I know this is disappointing to many people.  I want to say thanks to the many, many family and friends in Pierre (and elsewhere in South Dakota) who have been looking forward to our return.  I know I pumped you guys up with "We're Coming!!!"-- and I want to let all of you know that I firmly believe Pierre is still in our future.  I just can not say for certain the means by which we will make that happen, or exactly when.  I guess I need more batting practice hitting curve balls. ;)

For our California friends, I know this is "happy" news for you as you hear that we are definitely staying for the time being.  Between the amazing group of caring people I work with out here, and the incredible friendships Mary has developed, we feel truly blessed.  Thank you all for being supportive.

In the meantime, even though we are not moving this year... NO-- we are not selling our house in Pierre-- I remain that hopeful & resolute.  On the other hand, we will be looking to rent it out soon.  Do you know someone who would like to rent from us and take Wonderful care of our Wonderful house?  I will be in Pierre taking care of some things at the house next week (~ Thursday, 5/30 to Tuesday, 6/4, and it would be great if I could get a renter set up during that time.  Please send me a message if you know somebody!

Thanks people! :)

Keith, Mary, and the girls!

Welcome to the World, Alfred!

My oldest daughter, Katie and her husband Andrew have given us our third grandson.  We now have Charlie, Lexie's son; Henry, Katie & Andrew's first son, and now Alfred.

He was born March 1st at 9:38am.  22.5 inches long, 9 pounds 11.5 oz, 14.5 cm head circumference.

Katie called our house phone at 5:15am. I answered the phone in a groggy haze and had no idea who would be calling at that hour, so I said "Who is this?" in my grumpiest morning foggy voice. I forgot to sleep with my cell phone and I know the house phone is just for telemarketers.

Once I heard Katie's voice, I forgave the phone for ringing and waking me up. She said she was in labor and I should plan to come down to San Diego. Ok, I can do that. I laid back down wondering if I could sleep for another hour, but I couldn't. I tried, but I just tossed around thinking about how to handle the day.

I would have to drop the girls off somewhere and I have people lined up to watch them, but who do I call so early in the morning and leave them with. It's a school day which means someone has to transport Gracie to school and back. I'll need to give someone both carseats in order to get this transportation done right. Keith can't stay home, it's a school day. I juggled carseats around in my mind for a bit and then decided to just get up and get ready while I figure things out.

I showered, dressed, and started packing Gracie's lunchbox before waking the kids and then Andrew called. It was 6am now. He said, "you better hurry". Ack! School doesn't start until 9am and I still haven't figured out what I'm going to do with the girls! I was starting to think about dropping them at different places so that one friend wouldn't have to squeeze her own kids and mine in together. I decided to ask Keith to take the day off.

He wanted to, he thought about it, paced back and forth a bit and finally said he just couldn't. Lexie wasn't home either, and her phone is broken so I couldn't get ahold of her.

I decided to just take them with me. Forget taking Gracie to school today, it just wasn't going to work. I have two people in San Diego who offered to watch them so I can call them later and that would work out better than trying to get Gracie to school and back. That sounded like a good plan.

I poured a to-go cup of coffee and grabbed a bag and filled it with clothes for the girls. We woke the girls and tossed them into the car in their pajamas.

I got on the freeway just before 7am. I don't know where that last hour went, but it was gone. Traffic was thick, guess I was on the road with all of the people who commute to work. Good thing I brought the girls so I qualified for the carpool lane! I got to the Birth Center at 8am. I was hoping I made it on time because Andrew said to hurry and I really got the feeling that he meant it.

Henry was playing with a barn and some animals behind the receptionist's desk, happy as can be. I got the girls dressed and they started to play with Henry too. Everyone was happy and Katie was asking for me. She was in a birthing room up the stairs from the waiting room. All I could think was, "she had to climb these stairs while in labor?"

The nurse said "right at the top of the stairs", um ok, there were 4 closed doors at the top of the stairs, and it was silent. Great. I tried calling out to see if anyone would come see who the loon was lost at the top of the stairs, nothing. Nobody. So... I started opening doors and yelling. Hopefully, I wouldn't disturb anyone else, but I was just standing there for such a long time trying to figure out where to go. Finally, a nurse came out of one of the doors and she said Katie was just through that one. Ok, I opened it and no, it looked like a waiting room so I went in there. Finally found her, I had to go through that waiting room and down a little hallway. She was laboring in a warm bath tub and Andrew was fully clothed and in the tub with her.

Katie really wanted to tell me to take Henry and go do something fun with him, he needs to have fun, just take him somewhere fun, ok, go, just go and make sure Henry has fun. Then she waved me out.

The midwife, or nurse, or someone, I couldn't tell who was who, anyway she said it would be soon, very soon. I sure didn't want to leave if she was going to have that baby in the next few minutes.

The kids were having fun in the waiting room, playing in the toy corner and having fun just being together. My job was easy. I decided that I was honoring her wishes without going anywhere, besides, I forgot to grab the other carseat. It's sitting at home in the garage. Now I have three kids and two carseats, not sure if that's such a great idea to be running around San Diego like that. Plus, I had time on the parking meter. We'll just wait it out for a bit and see how it goes. I kind of want to hear from the midwife or doctor about how Katie is doing.

I caught one of them coming out of the stairwell and asked about Katie and was told she's doing great and it will be soon.  Eh, that's not really helpful news, but it's good to hear. 

The kids did great playing in the waiting room, but it was 9am now and Henry was starting to get rowdy, Libby was hungry and Gracie was bored. I told the receptionist that I was going to take them all for a walk around the block and we'd be back shortly, but they need some fresh air. She said there was a park two blocks away. Ideal!

I walked them to the park where they had a great time. I recognized the park, it's on the edge of Balboa Park. Felt nice to get my bearings and know exactly where I was. I get lost so easily!

Luckily, I had Gracie's lunch box packed and had the presence of mind to bring it along. I didn't bring water, so the kids had snacks but nothing to drink. Oops it was 80 degrees and sunny. We were there for about half an hour and Andrew sent me a text. Alfred was born!

We walked back to the Birth Center and after just a few minutes, Andrew came downstairs to get us. Henry jumped up into his arms and then wanted down. "Ewww, wet." We herded the kids up the stairs and through the labyrinth to the corner room where Katie was in a nice bedroom with beautiful sunlight, and she was holding a perfect little baby with lots of black hair.

She looked great! The girl didn't even look like she was in labor a few minutes ago. How does she do that? My daughter is a natural beauty. She said she felt fine and she was very happy to see all of us, especially Henry. He loved meeting his new baby brother and it was such a joy to be there and witness that moment with the four of them were together for the first time.

Gracie was super excited and curious. She wanted to touch him and she was concerned about Katie and asked a bunch of questions. I don't even know what all she asked; I tune out her chatter a lot and I think the moment was just so beautiful that I didn't allow her chatter to interfere. Libby was excited too, but she was just a happy little observer. She didn't get in the way or ask any questions, she just absorbed it all in her own way.

We went back to the waiting room to wait for him to be measured and assessed. Katie wanted food and wanted it NOW. She also wanted chocolate birthday cake. Andrew volunteered to go get it, in fact, he insisted, so off he ran. It took him forever to get back!  He finally came back in dry clothes, with a fruit and cheese tray and a sandwich wrap for Katie and chocolate birthday cake that looked like cookie monster. Very cute. And very very blue!

Thankfully, my friend Audrey had just given me a package of diapers and they were still in the trunk of my car or Henry wouldn't have a nice clean bum. I was very thankful for that fresh diaper supply, as was everyone in the waiting area. Henry suddenly had a bout of diarrhea. 

When Andrew arrived with the food we all went up to see Katie and Alfred again and watch him get measured. The midwife measured his length and said, "Well, that can't be right." and she tried again. He's a big boy: 22.5 inches long!  Everyone guessed he might be a nine-pounder, she put him on the scale and it turns out he was almost ten pounds! At this point she mentioned that they would need to check his blood sugar to make sure his size wasn't a result of gestational diabetes (his sugar level was fine). He's just a big healthy boy. I herded the kids back down the stairs so that Katie could eat without the kids all begging for her food, they were pretty hungry at this point and it was close to noon already. I also didn't want them to see Alfred have his sugar tested and get his Vitamin K shot. No need to traumatize the kids by seeing a newborn get a needle. Who am I kidding, I didn't want to see that needle!

I was about 2 hours past my parking expiration on the meter, whoops, but luckily no parking ticket! Score! I put Henry in Libby's carseat, Libby in Gracie's booster seat and Gracie in the middle without a seat. Illegal for two of them, but it was the best I could do aside from walking in an area I didn't know well. Libby isn't legal in a booster seat until she gains 4 more pounds and Gracie isn't legal to sit on the actual seat of the car until she is 8 years old, she's got another year to go even though she is bigger than all of the 8 year olds in her class at school. I've broken so many laws today, what's a few more?  (Speeding, parking meter ran out, didn't feed the kids very well so far, took small children to a birth center, probably more.)

I took the kids to Costco and fed them pizza and fruit smoothies. Filling, yummy and cheap! Then we walked across the parking lot to Ikea and I checked the girls into the play area. They love the ball pit! Ikea offers an hour of free babysitting and the kids love it. They needed to burn off some energy anyway. Henry fell asleep in the carseat and was still asleep so I strolled through Ikea while he napped in the stroller.

It was 3pm now so I called Katie and told her we're on our way back to the birth center to see her one last time before heading home to Murrieta. She said, "I'm home now" What? Really? That was fast!  I drove to her house instead.

Andrew cut cake for everyone. It was cute and festive, but I just couldn't bring myself to eat that blue frosting. Katie opened presents from her friend and poor Henry had two more yucky diapers.

I grabbed a fresh outfit for Henry and his carseat, and took all three kids home. Andrew said he would come and get Henry tomorrow. I know they need this night alone with Alfred, especially since this would normally be a night in the hospital for Katie.  Henry loves coming to our house anyway.

Poor Henry had one more nasty diaper in the morning and started to run a little fever. Not bad, and he seemed to be eating and playing well and he was in good spirits, but he has a brand new baby brother at home so I called Katie to warn her that he might be hosting a germ. His diapers were fine the rest of the day, maybe he worked it all out of his system. Katie decided to let him stay one more night to keep Alfred safe.

I babysat for a friend so she and her husband could attend a retirement party, and the kids had a fabulous time together! Henry hung out with the kids and wasn't at all acting ill. Whatever he had, it was gone and he had so much fun with all of the kids. We had 6 kids from noon till bedtime.

In the evening, he was still fever free, playing hard, eating great, smiling and no more signs of diarrhea except for the rash it left behind. A bath nearly cured that though. Just when I thought he was all better, the blue frosting worked it's way through. Yuck!

When Henry woke up in the morning, he had a big smile on his face, looked at Keith and I and said "Yes!" Funny boy!

Andrew came around noon and poor little Henry had to go home. He was having so much fun playing with his little aunties and cousin that he didn't want to go home. He covered his eyes with his hands to hide from his daddy. What an attitude! I'm sure that once he got home to his mama and his new baby brother he was happy. I'm so glad the four of them can have this family time together. I know a lot of military families do not get this opportunity so it is extra special.

We're so proud of Katie and Andrew. They have two beautiful boys now, what a wonderful family! Katie had that big baby after only 4 and half hours of labor from start to finish, and delivered without any medications. She is feeling great and doing well. Andrew is taking extra great care of her and the boys too. They are they kind of family you hear about, but are afraid to believe that much happiness could be true. They are living proof that dreams come true. Welcome, little Alfred.

Hybrid Homeschooling

Gracie goes to this really amazing school. It is a charter school that is run by the school district, so it is a public school, but has that private school feel to it.

The school has two programs, well three actually.  The third being a full time homeschooling program where the student does not participate in a classroom. The other two programs are homeschool/classroom hybrids. The first program they offer is called Classical Minds. The kids in this program attend class on Mondays and Tuesdays and homeschool on Wed, Thurs, and Fridays.  The second program, the one we chose, is Montessori and meets in the classroom on Wed, Thurs, Friday and homeschooling is on Mondays and Tuesdays.

So, Gracie is in the first grade and goes to school three days per week. She has homeschool when she's home. Homeschool work is no different than homework. In fact, if she went to a five-day school, she would still have this much homework.

At home, she does Language Arts, Math, Handwriting, Spelling and a monthly project. It seems like a lot of worksheets to do, but she's managing to get them all done, so I guess it isn't so bad. It was overwhelming at first though. I got her a storage clipboard and I load it with a few worksheets at a time. She can take her clipboard with her in the van, or wherever we go, and work on her papers. I take out her finished work and put in fresh worksheets as the time goes by.

Last month her monthly project was a poster "All About Me" and this month her project is a history report. Upcoming monthly projects include a science fair project, art history, and a healthy recipe. They vary quite a bit, and you can put a lot into the project or a little. It can be tailored to the work level of the student too. I love how you can make it your own.

She also has to do two hours of online work each week. She spends one hour (all at once or a little at a time) on reading and an hour on math. The school provides the website information and keeps track of her progress. All I have to do is keep her on task. I'll admit, that's not always easy.

The only other thing we have to do for homeschooling is 100 minutes per week of physical activity. Per week, that's super easy!

In the classroom, she works on a lot of the same things plus she has music, art, French, science, history, and I'm not sure what else. She plays games, stands in line, socializes, and learns. They do all the traditional classroom stuff: say the pledge, calendar, weather, recess, lunch, wait for the bell...  They also have a behavior color coded chart. This is a hard one, she has to remember to stop talking! Some things are very hard to learn.

I'm so happy that Gracie is in a Montessori school. It emphasizes hands on learning and student lead learning, which basically means every kid can work at their own pace. No waiting for classmates to catch up and no holding others back while trying to catch up. The kids are very sweet about working at different levels and not making a big deal about it. Gracie is super competitive at home, so I figured this style of teaching might either work or be an epic fail. So far, pretty good. She's saving the competition for home I guess.

One of the best things about Montessori, and I don't know if they do this in the other program or any other program, but I love it: the classrooms are mixed grade levels. They have "Lower Elementary" which are classrooms mixed with kids grade 1, 2 and 3. And "Upper Elementary" which are grades 4, 5, and 6. Gracie is always surrounded by smaller kids, and in school she finally gets to experience being social with kids her own age and kids older than her. The older ones help the younger ones and I'm sure Gracie is learning more than just the curriculum with this experience. Plus, she's not the tallest kid in her class. She might be one of the youngest, but when you see the kids all lined up, there are a few that are taller than her and she doesn't stand out one bit from the other kids. She blends right in. I think the older kids also motivate her to learn more too. I don't know what it is like for the oldest kids in class, but I sure do like having her in class with some older kids.

The classroom doesn't have rows of desks. They have a couple of group tables, but mostly the kids work in small groups or pairs on the floor. They have little rugs that they lay out and work there, or on the big rug in the center of the room. Looks so casual and laid-back.

Another amazing thing her school does is they communicate! I know, that sounds like it should be a normal thing that all schools do, but no. Not true. Gracie is my third kid, I've been through the whole "oh, I assumed school and parents would communicate effectively" thing before. I'm always wrong about it. But this school, they really do communicate and they seem to enjoy it! One of the best tools we have is the syllabus. Yup, a first grade syllabus for the entire year. There is a curriculum map and a project outline complete with expectations, project details and due dates. All the way to the end of the school year. Guess how much this helps a mama plan? I love this!

The knowing ahead of time thing works so well, because you never know when inspiration for an assignment might strike. Gracie was inspired to learn about a piece of art, now half of her May monthly project is done. If we hadn't known about the assignment, we wouldn't have known which way to guide her learning about this piece of artwork and to save pictures and resources.  I am loving the communication!

Since we only have to send her to school three days a week, we have two weekdays to play! We try to do the homeschool work on the weekends so that we have Mondays and Tuesdays to run around and have fun. I prefer to go places during the week to avoid the weekend crowds and traffic. Plus, weekends are "Daddy time" and I like the kids to be home when he is so that they can get all of his extra time that they can. He works a lot, so we might as well go on our outings while he is at work rather than when he's home.

We go all kinds of places. Museums, parks, Seaworld, the zoo, beach, shopping, playdates, just anywhere and everywhere. Gracie usually brings her clipboard and gets a little bit done on the go. Three days of school: four days of fun! Love that class to homeschool ratio!

Trying to Name the Baby

I had all four kids at my house the other day, and we all sat down with a paper and pen and determination to name Katie's baby.

Katie is halfway through this pregnancy and she'll soon find out if she's having a girl or a boy. She said they've already chosen a name for a girl, but they haven't selected one for a boy yet. And, they are waiting to discuss the matter until after they discover the gender. For their discussion and selection purposes, the kids and I made a boy name list. Just in case...

I hope they have an easier time choosing a name than my husband and I did. We had rules. Lots of rules. Very strict rules. I refrained from imposing my rules on the kids' list. These were their suggestions!

The kids involved in this suggestion process are:  Gracie, age 6.5 and in the first grade. She can read and write so she was the secretary for the meeting.  Libby, just turned 4 yrs old but has the wit of a middle schooler.  Charlie, age 2, terrible two. He's loud and knows how to voice his opinions.  Henry, or Hank, age 16 months. Hank is the big brother of this nameless baby so he has a special interest in providing a high quality entry on the list.

The kids were naming names faster than Gracie could write them, and each child added at least one name to the list.  The list, in no particular order:

(oh how I wish I would have taken a picture of the actual list)

1.  Thomas
       Gracie thought of this one. She insists that the baby should be named Thomas because it's cute and easy to say and she just likes it. I like it too; Thomas was our boy name for each of the girls but we never had a chance to use the name.

2.  Choo-Choo
     Henry's contribution to the baby name list.  Every time someone said "Thomas" Henry followed it up with "Choo-Choo".  Therefore, Choo-Choo made the list right behind Thomas.

3. Chicken Nugget.
      Libby's idea. Seems that the easy to heat and serve something the kids will eat type of dinner is also a baby boy name. Might even be fitting. Actually, I like the name for the fetus stage, but I'm not sure if Katie and Andrew will send this one to the top of their list. We'll see.

4.  Dolly
     Now, what's wrong with a boy named "Dolly"?  He might be adorable!  Libby thinks Dolly is a good name for any cute baby, boy or girl. Dolly makes the list.

5.  Fergus
    Gracie suggested this fine manly name for a little baby boy. Fergus is the King and father of the very popular red-headed Scottish princess in the movie "Brave" that the girls are all obsessed with this season.

6. Charlie
     Guess whose idea this name was? Yup! Charlie came up with this one. It's a good name and he likes it! He pronounces it "Chaw- Wee".

7. George
   My only contribution to the list. I was trying to steer Libby to suggesting more traditional boy names and gave "George" as an example.  Since it's the name of a cute little monkey, Charlie and Henry cheered for it, so it's on the list and now I can say I thought of one too.

There you go, kids, a great list of boy names for your new baby, should you need a list of boy names.  Hopefully you will find out soon so that you can choose a name for that little chicken nugget. In the meantime, the kids have come together and provided this list of their favorite names for you to think about. Ponder.

The Big Blue House and our Questionable Future

We moved to California in August 2003 into the same house where we live now. We've been here for nine years! That's the longest I have ever lived in the same house in my entire life! While living here, we raised two teenage girls, had two more baby girls, hosted two exchange students, had two baby grandsons, and I got my Bachelor's degree. It's been great!

For years now we've been looking for a bigger better newer house that would better suit our large family. This search has been difficult and we only found one home that really fit the bill and our budget at the same time. We were totally in love with that house, still are, but right at the last minute before funding, the sellers backed out and we didn't get the house.  We haven't seen another one like it, so the search to improve continued but without much enthusiasm.

Earlier this summer, my husband was having coffee and checking things on his computer, just a sleepy summer morning around here. Suddenly, he was yelling for me to come quick so I ran out to see what was the matter and he showed me what he found online.

Our house was for sale.

Not the dream house here, but the dream house we built in South Dakota. The house we lived in before we moved here. The very same house! Our house!

Karma? Fate? God, is that you?

We decided to call the realtor and just inquire, find out what the story is, get the scoop, have a friendly chat. That phone call quickly turned into an offer. The realtor thought our interest in buying our old house back was pretty cool! She was a little surprised at first to have a guy from California on the phone who knew so much about the house and didn't need to see it to put in a firm offer. There was already an offer on the house and another offer came in after ours. Three total.  We were put into a wait-and-see mode, typical house buying game.

After being on the market for two whole days, the sellers considered the offers and accepted ours!

While on vacation, we stopped to see our new old house. The front door still had the knocker on it engraved with our name. Whoa! We met with the realtor and a friend and had a tour. The memories were good inside of those walls and it really felt like home. The people who bought it from us, and now selling it to us, finished the basement very nicely. They also added a back deck and finished the landscaping. In fact, they made all the home improvements in the same way we envisioned before we sold the house. Mind readers! How great is that!

Click here for photos and information about the house from nine years ago when we moved out.
Click here for photos from this past summer when we went to see the house.

We jumped through all of the lending and funding hoops, and closed the loan. The property is now ours again. Now what? Jobs?

We will need jobs! Keith has a pretty good shot at becoming employed at his previous school, but nothing is concrete right now. Plus, he has his job here. Keith is teaching here and teachers do not simply give a 2 week notice and move on. Job offers and contracts usually come out in Feb/March, which means job openings are posted in March/April; we won't know until spring if Keith can get a contract to teach at the school there (if there is a position available). I will have to work full time to live there, which means I need a resume and start a new career search.

We can keep ownership of the house as an investment or we can move into it. The decision  has not been made yet and won't be made until we have a teaching contract signed for either a California job or a South Dakota job next spring.

My guess is that his old school will make him an offer of some sort; I hope it is reasonable. If so, I imagine that we will move in June after the school year ends. Like I said, that is tentative until contracts come out. Such is the life of a teacher.

We don't want to give the impression that we think a teaching job will just be handed to us like we're entitled or something. We are realistic and we know the risk. But, we wanted to buy our house back just in case it does work out. We also do not want the house purchase to serve as a termination notice to his current employer. We don't want to count our chickens before they hatch, but it is nice to be sitting on a nest. We'll just enjoy keeping the eggs warm for a while and see what happens. Either way, we have a home to live in and an investment home. Win-win.

If we do move back home, it will be pretty cool to have our littlest girls living in the same house that we built before they were born. Their big sisters lived there and the little ones will go to the same school that their older sisters attended. Some of the same teachers are still there! We will live closer to family and we have lots of good friends there already. We will miss California, but we'll always have our friends here and a fabulous vacation destination! I will have to learn to drive in the snow again, yuck. Oh well, can't win 'em all.

In the meantime, we are done with our house search! We own a nice house in California where life is good and we own a nice house in South Dakota where life is good. We are very blessed!

I'll update you in March or April and let you know where we will be living and working.

It's Mid-June? How did that happen?

Slow down, Calendar! Where are you going so fast?  June 15th already, sheesh.  Well, must be time for a mish-mash blog post about little things just to catch up. Every paragraph is totally unrelated to any of the others, thus making this a multi-post blog post! I'm catching up!  You'd better sit down for this one with a full cup of coffee, you're going to be here a while.

School is over for the year. Keith finished his middle-school year at the end of May and I was completely caught off-guard. I thought it was over at the end of June. I forgot that they adjusted the school calendar. So nice to have him home! I love it! I'm pretty sure he does too.  He's still teaching evening classes at APU. Fenna was done on June 1st. Her last week of school was kind of strange; it was all half-days and she didn't have to go for every class so some days she only had one hour or nothing at all. But, her high school exchange year came to an end albeit a fizzled out finish. I think she had a good year and I'm proud of her for all of the hurdles she encountered and all of the good things she squeezed into her one school year. I think she enjoyed it and learned more than she thinks; the classes were fairly typical American and the school structure was very typical. She had a lot of friends in school and I'm sure she will miss them all very much. Gracie's school ended June 7th. On the 6th she got to have lunch with her future 1st grade teacher and some of the kids from that class. She's excited and she already made a new friend who has the same birthday. Her teacher is tall and as Gracie said, "She looks like she is 23 years old."  Hmm, well, I have no idea actually. Age is so important when you are six. On the 7th, the kindergarten class had a picnic at the park. The kids all played together for 3 hours! They had a blast! It was nice too. So, that's it, no more school.

Libby is reading. School is out and she decided to have a burst of brain growth. She can read small words and we practice the same ones over and over so that she'll have them memorized with ease. I'm going to go ahead and keep working with her on reading small words since she seems to love it so much.

Both girls have a reading poster in their rooms now. It is just a sheet of poster board and we are putting nametag stickers on the poster for each book they read. Gracie has to read a book and Libby has to listen to one. When they get a million stickers (this rule will likely change as we approach vacation time and they need a new toy for the roadtrip), they will each get a Merida doll. It's a very good incentive!  Right now, I'm telling them 50 stickers, which is doable in 10 weeks of summer. Plus, they want those dolls!

We went camping. It was awful but we made the best of it. We planned a two night tent camping adventure and it deserves it's own blog post. You can read all about our interesting camping adventure HERE.

Fenna is packing. Ugh. I don't like the idea of letting her go.  She's having a hard time trying to squeeze it all back into one suitcase and one carry-on. I told her to take another suitcase home or ship some boxes, but she wants to minimize how much stuff she takes home and not have the added expense of extra things. She said she'll get rid of some of her clothes and things and I asked her if she would like to donate some of it. Also, if she has some clothes that she will be saying goodbye to, I'd like to make dresses out of them for Gracie and Libby so that they'll have their own "Fenna Dresses" and they can get Fenna hugs when they feel sad for her. She loved that idea. We've been running errands and trying to tie up loose ends. We went to La Jolla for her final doctor appointment. Got her gym membership cancelled. We have to send in for reimbursement from her insurance company for the meds we paid for, and we have to settle up her Fed-Ex bills for the tariffs on the boxes she received, just business. We have a little list of places to go, favorite foods to eat and things to shop for. And we have a lot of things done that needed to be done. She took her piggy bank to the bank and cashed in her coins. She didn't think she had much, but it counted out to over $37. Pretty good! I'm glad YFU let her know when she leaves and got her e-ticket to her in a timely manner. When she arrived, they gave us barely any notice of her arrival date and time (luckily, we talked to Fenna and didn't wait for YFU to notify us!). We'll get things done soon and next thing you know it will be time to decide what to do with her empty bedroom. Ho hum.

My camera has dust or sand in it again. I want to throw it in the ocean, or run over it with the van.  That wouldn't get me anywhere would it? Sigh. It just isn't as nice as the Canon powershot cameras that I had, the  pictures are not as clean and clear and it has trouble focusing. Plus, it gets crap inside the lens all too often.  I'm noticing people aren't using cameras anymore unless they are using a big elephant professional camera. People are using smart phones as cameras now. I'm not going to get a smart phone, they are just too expensive for what I would use it for. But, I would love to get back to using a Canon Powershot.

Charlie has a new game. He loves to take his diaper off and run around half naked. He can shed his jeans and diaper before you can blink. Streaking in the back yard is his favorite.

Speaking of the back yard, the neighbors just spread fertilizer and now we can't open our windows. The kids can't play outside and we have to hold our breath between the van and the door to the house. Isn't there a law against stinking up the whole neighborhood? Why don't Californians put straw down over the manure? Ugh. It just stinks!

Another back yard item to note: Keith cut down another tree. It was huge. Luckily, he got it down before the neighborhood started to smell like crap. This tree was ripping up the fenceline and the neighbors were more than happy to see it come down. He's taken 11 trees out of our yard since we moved in.  We still have plenty left too. Who planted that many trees anyway? Wow.

We went to Scout's graduation party. I'm probably not supposed to mention this online, because the invite list was secret but now you know. Don't tell anyone. Her parents are both teachers at the same school where my husband works, and there is so much drama among the teachers and staff there so the invite list was to remain hushed to avoid hurt feelings. I'm glad they invited us, the family is such a wonderful family I can't get over it. Amazing teachers who have amazing kids! They are sending Scout to college in Switzerland. I googled the college; it looks amazing! Of course. It's an accredited American college in the middle of Europe. Perfect! I wish I would have had clear cut goals and objectives when I graduated from high school. Of course, my life would have been completely different and I probably would have skipped that whole living-in-a-trailer-house-while-collecting-food-stamps stage, so it's probably best that my life went the way it did. I am blessed and I'm happy for Scout and her family for her opportunity to start her adult life with this great adventure.

We took Henry to the graduation party. He loved it and made a new friend. George was especially happy to see Henry since he married Henry's parents. Hard to believe it has been three years ago that Katie and Andrew were married.

Lexie quit her job at Shakey's. Yes, again. But this time I think she's really done and never going back. She was so stressed out this last month and her schedule was crazy. I was on her case too, mostly because Charlie was spending the night too often and when he spends the night, she goes home and sleeps in while I have early morning babysitting duty. So, I told her that if he spends the night she has to spend the night too. Between that and the stress of the craziness at work, she decided to just leave Shakey's. She'd been through enough. She seems happier now and she's enjoying her time with Charlie. She's going to run out of money though.  But, she is launching a new photography business and I know she will do well! Starting a profitable business is always a slow process, but she is off to a great start already! And she has a natural talent for the art of photography.

The other day we had spaghetti for dinner and we all ate too much. So, we went for a short walk. Keith, Fenna and I took Libby and the dog.  Libby rode her big wheel. It was so nice, we walked an extra block or two and then decided to take a hilly walking trail behind the elementary school. I've never taken it before since I am usually pushing a stroller, so we went exploring. Up on top of the hill was a big rock that stood alone. Keith told Fenna to climb up on top and she wasn't sure she could climb it. I thought I could do it, so I kicked off my flip flops and climbed up.  I'm like a squirrel! Getting down was another problem. We made it though. It was hilarious! Keith took some pictures which turned out to look a bit deceiving. It's hard to tell that the rock was hard to scale. A walk around the block turned into a fun little adventure.

A friend of mine is pregnant with twins. I am sewing receiving blankets for her and she asked me for burp cloths.  I made 20 burp cloths out of plain white handtowels. I bought a package of 12 white bar towels at Sams Club years ago thinking they would make great bibs, but I never did use them. So, I cut a few of them into fours and serged up the cut edges. They look like washcloths now, but they'll be really handy I'm sure. I have time to put some cute appliques or trim on them. I want to sew princess dresses and kick off a little boutique, but it isn't happening with all the other sewing I seem to have. I'm storing up a lot of ideas though!

Father's Day is coming up soon. The girls and I picked out a gift for Keith and it's been hiding in the van for a while now. Libby picked out a card a couple of weeks ago to mail to her new Grandpa and it's still just sitting here. Now it will be late. Darn. The Mother's Day cards are still sitting here too. I won't be winning any awards for being a good post-office patron, but the sentiment is there. The cards are here. Maybe I'll make it my New Year's Resolution to be better about honoring Mother's and Father's Days next year. Yeah... next year.  :)

I don't know why June feels like it went so fast already. Probably because it did. I just don't think we did much though. The days have just been going along rather quickly without any outings to speak of (except for the doctor appointment and the camping trip).

Your cup of coffee should be gone by now, this was a long catch-up blog post!

An Interesting Camping Adventure

Fenna called it. She said "going camping is going to be interesting". But, she really wanted to go so Keith planned out a two night trip and we packed up and went. Keith and I both promised that yes indeed, it would be interesting. I believe we were true to our word on that.

We planned a two night tent camping adventure on Mount Palomar just two miles from the observatory. It is a nice beautiful pine tree covered mountain. Lovely!

 
We drove up there and the flies were so terrible that we were all frantically waving our arms around our heads after a minute. We walked around a bit and decided that we wouldn't be able to cook or enjoy ourselves with the fly population so hungry for us. They acted like we were the biggest and best turds who ever set foot on the mountain! After 10 minutes, we were done and headed back down the mountain to a campground closer to town near a lake.

We were going camping with our friends, the Block family and their dogs and when they called and said there were too many flies in the campground I thought, "oh he's exaggerating."  Unbelievable!

We ended up at Lake Skinner, a nice lake that you cannot touch. It is illegal to touch the water because the pollution from your human body might be harmful to the fish. The fish have the same view of us that the flies do.  This is the event site of the Temecula Balloon and Wine Festival, and the site of the new splash pad where I took the kids a few weeks ago. This might be good.

This campground is only 20 miles from town. It took us over 3 hours to get there after going up to Palomar Mountain, back down, stuck in traffic on the freeway, across town and out the other side. The kids were sick to death of being in their carseats. They sensed it was taking way too long to get to our campsite. These kids of mine are geniuses!

The original plan was that we would leave the house at 1pm, go set up camp and then I would bring the girls back to town for their swimming lesson class and head back up. Well.... that didn't happen. We left around 2:30 and arrived at our campsite at nearly 6pm. Swim lessons were pretty much over by then. They missed the first lesson of this new session, oh well.

Lake Skinner campground is nice enough, but they don't have tent spaces. The camping spots are designed for RVs and it's set up like a parking lot. There were other tent campers there too, but like us, they had to set up on a hard packed dirt pad.

We set up our campsite on the tiny pad that was our assigned camp spot and got to work with cooking dinner. Things were looking up! As long as there is food, there will be happiness, right? Right! I made Dollywood Potatoes over the propane burner.

Fenna was very worried about the size of the tent. She mentioned it a million times and we kept telling her that it was a 4-person tent but it would hold all of us and the dog fairly comfortably. She knew that if it was a 4-person tent, it was really a 2 or 3 person tent. She was pleasantly surprised when we popped it up!  We set up the little girls' tent too, just for fun (and elbow room since Fenna sleeps like a starfish).

The tent campers in the next parking, er, camping row were loud. We got to hear some very colorful language and dogs barking all evening and into the wee hours of the morning. At least they were happy people. Loud happy inebriated campers.

Our friends camped in their luxurious hotel on wheels.  They had a bathroom, running hot water, electricity, tv and internet. The probably slept great too.

I couldn't sleep. We finally laid down in our tent around midnight. We kept waiting for the campground to settle down and become somewhat quiet, but that wasn't happening so we caved and tried to sleep through the racket. Finally, around 2am, a little Spanish lady yelled "Would you please be quiet! Thank you!" There is something about the voice of a little Spanish lady that scares people. It worked too, the entire campground was dead silent after that.  Lady, I thank you.

Keith and Fenna slept great. Sandy slept with us in our tent but she was all over me, laying on my legs, then pushing up against me, stealing my blanket, and then she ended the night by sleeping on my pillow. She's going into the pink tent next time!

At one point, I forgot who was sleeping where and I thought Fenna was Keith, but she was in her own sleeping bag so I was very confused. I thought I stole all the blankets off of him so I patted her down thinking she was Keith, and I just wanted to know if he was cold laying there without any blankets. Then I was grabbing her wrist to see his watch to find out what time it was. She wasn't cold, had no watch on, and wasn't Keith. She let me know it too. Whoops.

I wasn't comfortable at all. I tried and tried to sleep and I was dead tired, but I just laid there on the hard ground with my eyes wide open. I slept on and off from 2ish until nearly 5am and then I was awake for the day. I think I got 3 hours of sleep with 23 wakings in there, it was ridiculous! Around 5:30, I decided to quit trying and I just got up.

Gracie woke up a little before 5am and she said, "I wish I had some tape so I could tape up those birds."  Keith was making gun noises while looking at the door of the tent. She is her father's daughter.


After heating up the tea kettle for some instant coffee.. I wandered the campground and my husband took some great photos while I snapped some sand-spotted pictures to start the day. We were going to need some decent photos to pretend the camping trip wasn't a complete failure.

It was great to wake up so early and see hot air balloons! (Can I say I woke up if I never really slept?) They were off in the distance but we were able to see them well enough, even through the morning fog. It was a lovely way to start the day! We saw three balloons in the sky. Very pretty.  Keith saw a chicken hawk too. He thinks that's why the birds were going crazy around 4am; the chicken hawk had breakfast.

The kids had a lot of fun playing in their pajamas on their scooters and on the playground. Then we went for a walk to the untouchable lake.  The water is used as a public water source, so fish and waterfowl can poop in it but we can't dip our toes in. Libby's feet stunk so bad she would have killed the fish anyway. Those polka-dot shoes are almost 2 years old and she loves them, but they smell horrid.

The walk to the lake was nice. The fog lifted and the sun came out and heated things up pretty quickly.  It was still fairly early so the splash pad was not operating yet, which was fine by me. The kids were disappointed though. I promised them we'd come back another day when it's working. I didn't bother to inform them that the water turns on at 10am. They don't need to know everything.

Now that it was nearly 10am, we'd come to a unanimous decision that we were done camping. We had lunch (hey, breakfast was 5 hours earlier), took down the tents, packed up the gear and drove the short distance home. We were home at 11:15am.  So much for our planned two nights of camping, we camped for 16 hours.

After such a short campout, there is still a ton of cleanup to do after arriving home! The van doors were open most of the time in the evening, and the smoke from the fire went into the van stinking up the whole works. I have to rug dr the interior now. Joy.  Camping in dirt makes everything dirty. I'm still cleaning from our little excursion.

The first thing we all did when we got home was to ask ourselves, "Am I more tired then dirty or more dirty than tired?"  We all decided we were filthy but more tired, so we slept. Everyone slept four or five hours. Apparently I wasn't the only one who didn't sleep well in our parking spot!

Now that this interesting camping adventure is over, I can honestly say that I have RV envy.

Keeping Secrets

Shhh! Don't tell on me!  I have secrets. I go secret places, do secret things, and I can't tell my kindergartener.

While she is at school, she's so afraid that we are going to do something without her. What if she misses something? I always promise that we will just wait until school is done, that's all we will do. Just wait. We won't go anywhere, we won't have playdates, we won't eat cookies, we won't see any of our friends, we won't watch any good movies, we won't read any good stories, we won't play, we won't have any fun. Promise.

It's a promise I cannot keep, but it makes her feel better to know she's not missing out on any of the fun.

Sometimes she'll ask me what we did while she was at school and I reply with some truth and some things that I just wish I would have accomplished:  grocery shopping (she hates to tag along for that), laundry, mopped the floor, cleaned the toilets, and watched the news. 

Yesterday, I went to the zoo. Shhhh!  Today, I went shopping and we ate at Shakey's Pizza. Shhh!  It's a secret! At least once a week my three year old and I go to a park. Sometimes we take the dog too. We'll never tell!

Funny, but I keep these same secrets from my teenager too. She is exactly the same as my kindergartener! When I pick her up from school and she says "What did you do today?" sometimes my brain freezes for a moment and I leave out a few details of my day.  Umm.... nothing special. Tee hee hee.  Shhh!

The Neglected One

It was recently brought to my attention that my blog is all about me. I looked back and it's true, I am the center of my own little world.  There are other people in my little world; they don't call me "Mom" for nothing!  This post is all about my blog-neglected teenager, Fenna.

Sometimes I forget that Fenna isn't really mine. She fits so well into our family that the family dynamic doesn't feel like it changed, it all just fits. She slipped into our family and found her place immediately and we're all quite comfortable.  I do not encourage her to call me "Mom" but rather by my first name because I am not really her mom, I'm her host-parent. Exchange students are often told to call their host parents "Mom and Dad", but I like the distance that using first names provides. We are her hosts, not her parents.

Having her call us "Mom and Dad" would emphasize the  a parent/child relationship in which she'd be the child. I already have enough of those! I think when a teenager is old enough and responsible enough to travel abroad for a year, she's old enough to be treated like a young adult rather than a child. So, we start with the names. I hope that using names instead of parenting titles is a good reminder that she is doing her own thing, independent, older, wiser, and all that jazz.

Of course, I am the mom of the house and I am her parent while she's here. I'm not shirking my duties by much just using my first name, just playing a little headgame with myself.

I think I neglect her in my blog because I don't want to spoil her fun of telling her parents and other stalkers about her grand adventures in America. So, I give her plenty of time to post on her own blog, or tell her people back home what she's been doing. By the time I have given her a chance to tell people before they hear it from me, then its old news and we've all moved on. That's my excuse anyway, and it sounds good so I'm going with it. 

A typical day with Fenna starts like it always did with my older girls and our last exchange student.  She gets up super early and gets herself ready for school, fends for herself for breakfast, packs her own lunch or snacks, takes her medicine and does her nebulizer treatment, finds her jacket where she tossed it the day before, gets her homework out of the printer and stuffs it in her bag... or not.  I roll out of bed when she's almost ready, just looking for her shoes and trying to decide if it is an A or a B day; I slide into my slippers, grab my coffee and we head out the door.  She looks fabulously awake and ready for the day (sometimes) and I am in my pajamas with my eyes barely open.  We leave for school shortly after 7am and she's there by 7:15ish. Classes start at 7:30 so we are doing pretty good considering I'm not awake yet and getting anywhere on time is a life-long challenge for me.

According to the teen, this is very different from how her days started at home. She says that her mom kept her organized, laid out her breakfast, reminded her to take her meds, and made her the best sandwiches ever to take for lunch. This is what happens when a kid from a Type A family comes to live with a Type B family. I might even qualify as a Type B- personality. I try to pass it off as a cultural norm. "Yes, American moms drive their kids to school while wearing pajamas and pillow-hair." I think she's buying it.

I hear a lot of wonderful things about her mom. She sounds like the most wonderful lady in the Netherlands! I am not in the Netherlands which makes me exempt from any form of mom competition. Good thing too, I wouldn't win many awards. I hear that Fenna's mom is a wonderful chef, spotless housekeeper, has a successful career, did well in college, makes financially responsible decisions, is hyper-organized, generous, charitable, loving and kind. I'm fun.

To Fenna's mom:  I promise to only believe half of what Fenna tells me about you if you promise to only believe half of what she tells you about me. Deal?  The hard part of this deal will be wondering which half to believe!

Usually, I have a van full of runts when I pick Fenna up from school. As soon as we are on the street in front of the school, they are all pointing and screaming "Fenna's school!".  They search for her in the mob of teenagers that pour out of the campus gates and when they see her they all bounce in their carseats screaming her name. The second she opens the door, there is complete silence. Every time! They are super excited to have her back with us and she misses out on all of it. Maybe they don't want her to know how happy they are to see her again. Six hours is a long time to the little ones. I think they miss her.

This kid has the lightest school schedule! I'm sure all of her friends are jealous. She really only has two classes, the rest of her schedule is fluff.  Pretty nice since she's not interested in studying for hours every day after school. And, the fluffy classes give her a chance to learn life skills and develop interests in other areas besides lectures. She seems like a creative person and a hands-on type of  student. I applaud her school counselor who recognized her personality right away and gave her a class schedule that fits.  She has American Lit, American History, Video Production, Digital Photography, Foods, Drama and Dance. She had Colorguard too, recently she switched that class to Foods. The high school here provides a PE class period to all athletic teams so Colorguard was an actual class as well as an after school activity.  She's having fun being an American High School student. I think she'll have a lot of fond memories of school.

Fenna has some pretty cool friends. They are a worldly bunch. Really! There are six official exchange students in the high school, and a few unofficial kids from various countries, their host siblings, native Californian friends, and kids from other local schools.  They all like to hang out together, especially at the mall and the movies. They all seem like great young people so I'm not at all worried when she is hanging with her homies.  I'm happy that we don't have a parade of boys knocking on the door. Fenna is cute, but the boys are keeping their distance. Maybe she took my "kick 'em in the balls" advice. They might be frightened. That's ok.  She isn't a wild party girl neither. I can't even tell you all how much I appreciate her lack of a crazy irresponsible wild side! Whew!

When she's not in school or at the mall with her friends, she's mine mine mine all mine! What a lucky girl!  She gets to tag along with me on my many adventures, or not. I leave it up to her but she usually comes along even when we are going somewhere that isn't very exciting for a teenager. She's really a good sport. We go to the park several times a week. Guess how many pictures I have of Fenna going down slides? No. More. More. You are getting closer, but I'll bet it's more.

Aside from visiting an outrageous number of parks, she's come with us on other outings too. Places we've been together include: Disneyland (6 times!), Knott's Berry Farm, San Diego Zoo, San Diego Safari Park, Balboa Park, Seaport Village, Scripps Aquarium, La Jolla beach, Sea World, Pumpkin Farm, Queen Califia's Magic Garden, Bainbridge Circle, hmm... that's about it. Unless you count the malls: Escondido Mall, Fashion Valley Mall, Promenade Mall, Dos Lagos, La Jolla UTC Mall... there may be more. We have more places to explore, more adventures ahead! 

Since we are out and about a lot, we eat out a lot. I hear that people in Europe do not eat out very often. She loves to eat! I do too, so we're having fun trying lots of different eating establishments. We've been to Starbucks more times than I have been in all the years I've been in California. We've hit up every food court in every mall, ice cream shops, fast food, and my favorite the sit-down restaurants. We haven't been to a buffet yet; I'll be sure to take her so that she has a complete American dining experience.

It's fun having a teenager in the house again. I miss the teen girls being around. Keith and I both enjoy discussing the homework topics, hearing the quick-wit of a teen mind, and those one-liners just crack us up! She helps me out a lot too, which wasn't part of her exchange deal, but she does it anyway. Homework and chores aren't her favorite activities, but she makes up for it by helping me with the little kids. And when I thank her for helping, she usually doesn't realize she did much. Those little things are so nice though! She stays with the kids in the van while I hop out and run to the ATM, she opens the bathroom door for Libby when I 'm in the kitchen, she tells Charlie "No!" when my back is turned, she plays dolls, she watches Gracie when she is yelling "Watch this!" and she tells them "You can do it" when they are trying something new. I wanna keep her.

None of us are looking forward to June. We have to let her go back to the Netherlands whether we want her to go or not. Of course we don't want her to leave us! She's fun and funny and we love her! She loves us too. This has been the best exchange student experience we could have imagined, even better. I'm not just saying that because she's going to read this, we are all genuinely loving this year of having Fenna in our family.  Now, if we could just get a decent family photo before she leaves, we'll be able to say we had the perfect year.