Hello . . . Hello . . . Anyone there?

Hey, it's me again! We haven't perished in the wilds of Ohio! We've been having a great time, and I have just not been on the computer at all. We had 480 emails when I finally checked this afternoon!

Bob got a Priceline deal and flew out here last weekend, which was a nice treat. He got to go with us to the birthday party of Amy's younger son Jacob on Saturday. It was at a place called "Pump It Up", which had a lot of those big, inflatable bouncy things and slides. Needless to say, the boys had a wonderful time and bounced out a lot of their energy. Anna was in a grumpy, "nothing will please me" mood, so she didn't has as much fun, LOL. Ah well, you can't please everyone.

Sunday we went to church with Mom and Dad at the base chapel. It was nice to see old familiar faces, and we got to enjoy their monthly fellowship meal after the service. The only sticky part was during the special number. The chapel doesn't have a nursery, so Anna and Grace were both sitting on my lap, sort of playing with each other, and very nicely I might add. Until Grace stuck her fingers into Anna mouth, and Anna chomped down. Grace let out a very loud and indignant cry, so we had to make a hasty retreat to the cry room.

We've had a bunch of playdates too. Monday afternoon a Turkish woman and her one year old girl came over, along with a Korean woman and her one year old boy. Then on Tuesdya morning, the German wife of an American officer came with her one year old girl. Anna and Grace have never had so many little playmates! All the adult conversation has been nice for me, too.

Amy and I met at her mom's house Tuesday night to scrapbook. when we lived here, we would do this about once a month. No wonder I was so caught up back then! It's just so much harder to be motivated when you're doing it all by yourself. We had a great time, and I was able to make Anna's little album--the one where I have a birth page, a family page, and then either a 2 page or a 4 page spread for each year. I have one for all the boys, and I was really getting worried since I didn't have anything for either girl!

We all went back to Amy's house yesterday to play. The weather was so much cooler and more pleasant. The boys played outside the whole afternoon, and they didn't look like they were going to keep over from heatstroke either. Amy and I did some more scrapbooking, and I finished Jonathan's book for this past year. I still have Nathan's to do for this past year, but now I'm going to do some in my regular family album. The one where I'm stuck back in November, 2005. Sigh.

Tomorrow we're going to move over to Amy's house for the weekend. That will be fun! Then we'll come back here Monday so I can do laundry and regroup, and we'll leave Tuesday to drive back. So only a few more days of this wonderful vacation!

You know, the nicest part is that I didn't even bring any schoolwork, which I usually do. I'm sure it will be hard to get back into the swing of things, but actually I have 2 more weeks before I need to think about that. When we get back home, we have an orthodontist appointment, my first OB appointment, and we have to put the final details together for our big annual party, which we're having on Aug. 2. It's going to be an Olympic party. We don't have individual birthday parties during the year--I just make their special cake, which we bring to Bible study, where we celebrate. But we try to have one big party in the summer. This year, I have been very unorganized about it, and I haven't even sent out invitations. We're going by word-of-mouth, LOL. So needless to say, I have quite a few more details to take care of.

Then Nathan and Luke will leave for Camp Caleb Aug. 3 and be gone until Aug. 8. (Is that the week you mean, Joelyn? Is so, that would be great!!). I guess we'll be back to our normal routine that next week, at least school-wise. It's been a nice break, though, and then I'll be through the first trimester. Yay!

P.S. Please excuse any typing mistakes on this post and the last. I am a bad typist on a good day, and for some reason, I can NOT type on my parents' keyboard. We have a nice, ergometric one at home, which has the keys separated a bit more or something, but here I am always bumping other keys and not noticing. And I'm in too much of a hurry for spell checking, LOL.