tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89394952024-03-06T21:12:35.017-08:00Psalm 127Our blog is a description of one family's adventure in homeschooling and life, as we seek to honor Jesus with all we do.Bob and Clairehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17948514246811431207noreply@blogger.comBlogger1630125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939495.post-27892485285569759102020-03-19T17:52:00.000-07:002020-03-19T17:52:33.384-07:00What a Long, Strange Year It's BeenIt's been almost a year since I last posted. Just 2 months shy of the anniversary of the tornado that hit our neighborhood. The intervening months have been doozies! <br />
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After the tornado, we really couldn't focus much on the damage because we were thinking about our Virginia house. A week or two after the tornado we had an offer on that house, and so we had to focus on getting everything out of there (garage mainly) and finishing up the items the buyers wanted from the inspection. We ended up closing on that house on July 17, 2019, which was our 26th wedding anniversary. That was fitting because on our 25th anniversary, the moving van came and picked up all our stuff to move to Ohio, so it literally took us a year to finish up with that house! We were relieved to be done with it!<br />
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The summer was spent dealing with contractors but not getting anything fixed on our little house. We ended up having the tarps replaced because they were wearing out! All the contractors were just so busy. Bob spent many long hours on the phone and emailing with USAA as well as various companies. Very frustrating!<br />
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We started looking at bigger houses here, but nothing really jumped out. Eventually it was the end of August, and all our activities were starting to gear up again. Interest rates were low, so Bob said if we were going to move, we really should do it then. The thought of another school year crammed into the tri-level pretty much sent me through the roof, so I went through all the houses for sale with 5 bedrooms or more again with a fine tooth comb. We found one that Jonathan and I had driven by, but that we had never looked at. It had 5 full baths and 1 half bath. Most of the houses we were seeing had 3 "kid" bedrooms upstairs, but only 1 bathroom for those rooms. We were planning on having 8 kids in those 3 rooms, and that's just not an ideal number for one bathroom, especially when 3 of them are teen/preteen girls. So this particular house had potential. We called our patient realtor and went through it. The house looked like it would work well! So we went under contract with that house the beginning of September and closed the beginning of October, but we couldn't move in until November. The people we bought it from, a retired AF couple, travel all over the place all the time, and they were going on a cruise to Greece in October and needed the rest of the month to finish getting all their stuff out. <br />
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So we moved in Nov. 9. We were so thankful that Nathan, his fiancee Elena, and Luke were all able to come home for the weekend to help out. Nathan's summer working for the moving company paid off in spades! He loaded the 26 foot truck like a tetris game, wasting no space. It was amazing! People from our Bible study also provided much muscle power and help. We could not have done it without everyone's help!<br />
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But it turns out that November is a TERRIBLE time to move! We were deep in the throes of all our classes and extracurricular activities, including having 5 kids do winter swim. Nothing stopped just because we moved! And then it was time for the holidays. We sort of got things into a reasonable state so kids could come home for Thanksgiving and Christmas . . . and that's where everything stayed because we couldn't do any more. <br />
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We did have a lovely and refreshing week in VA over New Year's, and while we were there, a friend from way back texted. Dawn and I had been in the same moms' walking group in Colorado when we were pregnant with our first babies! They live in Ohio now, and they were looking for a house to rent while they sold their current house and had a one-story one built in a neighboring school district. Well, we definitely had a house that was empty (sort of). It still had all the junk that we didn't want to throw away but obviously wasn't crucial for living, as well as most of our garage stuff. At least we had *finally* gotten a new roof (begun the day before we moved out!), new gutters, fascia, soffits, and 2 new windows. We still hadn't replaced the fence, shed, or deck rails, but our friends said they didn't care about that. So we hustled to clean out that house, as well as change ceiling fans that didn't work and some other little things, and they moved in the end of January. What a God thing! We were thinking it would at least be March before we got the house ready to rent out, but more likely, since we were so busy driving around everywhere all the time, we would have just continued to put it off, lol. We definitely needed the motivation!<br />
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So here we are now in March, and we are undergoing a pandemic from the corona virus! Everything has been shut down that we normally do during the week, except for our usual online classes, Anna's algebra class (small group of homeschool kids that meets at the teacher's house), and Anna's weekly PT appointments she's been going to since the end of November for hip problems she was having! Our schedule has completely cleared! Bob is still going to work, but the rest of us are here at the house 24/7. The one thing I have thought over and over again is "Thank God this didn't happen last year, when we were all crammed into the little tri-level!" In the new house, there is a nice sun room that we use as a playroom so the Little People and Matchbox cars are not in the way all the time. There's a full basement with a separate room for the Legos and Lincoln logs--we can just close the door on the mess! The kids can watch videos downstairs and we don't even hear them on the main level! The desktop computer where the girls do on-line classes is in a study with a door we can close so they can concentrate and not have the teachers ask them to quiet the background noise! This much bigger house is such a blessing during this time of "social distancing".<br />
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We also have room to store extra food! I've been watching the whole coronavirus thing since someone started a thread on the Well Trained Mind forums about it back on Jan. 24. I even got out a book called <i>The Great Influenza</i>, about the 1918 Spanish Influenza, so I could brush up on my virology as well as just get a historical sense for how epidemics spread. It was very interesting! When I finished the book mid-February I had a much greater sense of the devastation and loss of life in that pandemic. Absolutely mind-boggling. I was left wondering if we as a nation had learned anything from the public health decisions that were made back then and led directly to such high death tolls (continuing to move troops around, and not canceling huge parades as well as smaller gatherings like church and school). With that in mind, I started gradually stocking our pantry back up again. With 2 moves in a little over a year, I was letting things get way lower than I usually do. I was very thankful that I was ahead of the game and missed what seems like absolute mayhem in the grocery stores as apparently every other person in the world starts stocking up! And I am glad that it seems like we *did* learn lessons, and that's why everything has been shut down. We are praying for a vaccine or effective treatment to come quickly though.<br />
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Now we're just enjoying the time at home. Since I'm not driving people all over the place, we're able to spend more relaxed time doing school with the littles. Since I'm here, I can more easily direct them to all the fascinating things people are posting online, like Mo Willems' doodling lessons and the Cincinnati Zoo daily animal podcasts. We've played more games the past week than we have the past year! We finished one 1000 piece puzzle, and we've started another one. I feel like I'm slowly relaxing. It feels like when the older boys were young. Our big weekly outing was TNT on Tuesdays, but otherwise, we pretty much stayed home and played and did school. I miss those days! Things definitely change when you start having kids in junior high and high school. <br />
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I will say though, that I am hopeful that things settle down now . . . we're waiting to see how the isolation phase is going to affect graduations, commissioning, Nathan and Elena's wedding, etc. It's crazy that we're even wondering about these things! I am thankful now more than ever that we trust a sovereign God who holds all these things in his loving hands.<br />
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Bob and Clairehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17948514246811431207noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939495.post-64443615459337405752019-06-04T14:32:00.001-07:002019-06-04T14:32:58.321-07:00Tornado AftermathTuesday was kind of a blur. We were all tired, and with no air conditioning, we were also hot. We waited around for the emergency tarping service to come cover our roof, and Bob and I walked around our neighborhood, surveying the damage. Seeing houses with no roof or garage that would need to be condemned certainly put our situation in perspective!<br />
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I wondered what to do with the 2 loads of laundry that were not done. The partially wet one in the dryer was getting all the skanky camping smell back again, and the one in the washer, stewing in the non-drained water, wasn't any better. I was so thankful that my friend Amy let me come over to her house to rewash them AND to take a hot shower! <br />
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Bob and I went out to eat for dinner with some of the kids, and then we decided we would take our friend Allison up on her kind offer to have us stay with them. We got home and loaded up sleeping bags, sleeping pads, air mattress, clothes, Luna's crate and food, Luna, etc. in the big van. Then we discovered that the big van didn't actually start. It seemed like it would, but then it just wouldn't turn over. Now we were down to one car, the Odyssey, and it didn't even fit all of us. I think this was the lowest point for me. <br />
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We made 2 trips over to Allison's house, and we got everyone all settled in there for a cool night of sleep. When we got up on Wednesday, I drove Bob into work so at least we would have one car. The kids had an absolute ball playing with Allison's 4 boys. They would have been happy to stay there forever! I started to take Luna for a walk, but it started thundering and sprinkling. As I was turning around to go back, I saw a lady on a bike riding by. She turned to look at me--and we recognized each other! Sandy is the wife of a retired Air Force chaplain, and they are very good friends of my parents! It turns out that they live just a few houses down from Allison, and that they were going out of town the next day for a few days. She offered to have us stay in their house and for Bob to drive their second car. What a huge blessing! It was definitely a God thing that we even ran into each other!<br />
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Wednesday afternoon the kids and I went back over to the house. We attempted to start cleaning up all the stray shingles and trash in the yard. We knew there wasn't anything we could do about the huge trees without a chainsaw. We worked for over 4 hours, and you couldn't even tell we had done a thing, which was very discouraging. The kids did have a fun time playing on all the downed trees though.<br />
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After we ate dinner with Allison and her family, Bob and I test drove a used Sienna. It needed a new transmission, unfortunately, so we weren't any closer to getting another used car, which was also discouraging. But on the way back home, our next-door neighbor texted us the wonderful news that our power was back on! Yay! Since it was already 9:00, we decided we would just sleep another night at Allison's house and move back over to our house Thursday afternoon.<br />
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Thursday morning was the first day of swim team practice in the water (since it had been cancelled Tuesday and Wednesday). Practice was actually at a pool in a neighboring town, so I had to make some back and forth trips to ferry people (and Luna) around. I was SO thankful that Bob could drive himself to work in our friends' car--that was such a huge blessing! Drew and Verity are doing swim team for the first time this year, which just means that they will hopefully learn to swim by the end of the summer. Since we didn't do swim team back in VA last summer, Drew missed out on learning, and everyone else felt like they would be behind. But it turns out swimming is kind of like riding a bike, I guess, if you've done it for quite a few years, so the girls did just fine. <br />
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Thursday afternoon we packed up (which took hours because it looked like we had permanently moved in there...), the kids had another play date at different friends' house, and we had Bible study after dinner. Everyone was fried, but we were all so happy to be sleeping in our own beds that night. Especially Bob and me, lol. A week on an air mattress is much harder for us old folk than it used to be!<br />
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Friday morning we had swim practice back at our own pool. Yay--no more driving all over! The kids can walk there, which is super nice.<br />
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During Drew and Verity's practice time, the big van was towed away. I was glad they were able to get it on the truck. That thing is a behemoth to try to push around.<br />
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There was one bright spot. A robin had nested on the window sill of our bathroom/laundry room/pantry, which had seemed like a foolish place indeed to next. She got startled and flew away every time someone went in there, which was approximately all the time. She laid 4 eggs, but only 2 ended up hatching. Anyway, the nest miraculously survived the tornado, and we then thought the mama bird was not looking so dumb after all, given how the trees fared. Our next door neighbors found 11 dead birds in their yard!<br />
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Friday afternoon, a young man knocked on our door and said he was from a local church. He had a crew of 18 people with him, and they wanted to know if we needed help clearing away all our trees. Boy, did we ever! I gratefully accepted. These people rushed around like busy ants, and they chopped up and cleared out all of our downed trees in about 40 minutes. It was simply amazing to watch! I about was crying when I explained to the younger kids that these were Christians being the hands and feet of Christ to people like us who needed help, and that this is exactly how the Body of Christ is supposed to serve others. It was an amazing testimony. Groups from various churches, as well as some companies and other places, have been all over the affected neighborhoods, helping, and they have made a tremendous difference. <br />
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This is our cleaned-up front yard.<br />
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Just one pile of branches and tree parts.<br />
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The big pile on the other side of our driveway.<br />
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Our newly cleaned up back yard, with the downed fence as a back drop.<br />
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We lost the middle apple tree--isn't that weird??--but maybe having one less will help the other 2 grow better, and be easier to mow around. It was pretty crowded in that corner.<br />
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This is all that is left of our beautiful linden tree in the front. I wished I had the presence of mind to ask the chainsaw guys to cut off that part too. The back is really jagged, and a flat stump would be a lot nicer.<br />
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Saturday we helped our neighbors with their multitude of giant trees that had fallen in their backyard. Thankfully a church group came to help them in the afternoon, or I don't know if it ever would have gotten done. So. Many. Trees. Then I was able to go to a birthday party for a friend, which was a lovely break. While I was gone, and after everyone finished working next door, the church crew came over and took down the maple tree in our side yard, Many of the branches had collapsed on our side fence and crushed it. Since the main trunk part had snapped off, the tree was going to die anyway, so it had to go down. Here is a picture of our new backyard view:<br />
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It's so open! Also, we have an "ark" in our back yard because the guys from next door pulled it off our neighbor's shed, and the roof came off. Who knows how long we will be looking at that eyesore. Insurance will pay for the shed to be rebuilt, but it's a low-priority project, compared to all the other damage.<br />
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This is the only picture I could find of our side yard before. This is the maple tree that had to come down, and you can see 2 of our neighbor's trees that now are gone.<br />
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This is our park now. The trees have been decimated, although the playground equipment looks fine.</div>
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Here is a closer view I took when we first moved here last summer, just for comparison. So much biomass lost!<br />
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Other than feeling depressed when I drive in the neighborhood or walk along no-longer-shaded streets, I'm fine, although I'm still kind of off-kilter. I find myself saying stuff that doesn't exactly make sense. Like I had a big conversation last Friday with our neighbor's dad, who had come to help out. He mentioned our "big maple off the deck", and I firmly corrected him that it was an oak. The conversation moved on, but the next day, I was standing at the sink when I remembered the conversation, and I couldn't figure out what I was talking about! That tree is most definitely a maple--there are tons of samaras all over the deck, which the kids play "helicopter" with, and I've spent so much time raking up leaves from the tree. Leaves that are definitely maple leaves and not oak leaves. Plus, trees are kind of my thing, and I love identifying them. I certainly know the difference between an oak and a maple! So things like that. I'm just off a bit. Hopefully a few more good nights of sleep, and things will be better, and I'll feel more myself. It's just been a weird week all around.<br />
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Oh, and good news about our big van: it has something called an "inertia switch", and in case of a rollover or something, it shuts off fuel to the engine. The high winds evidently triggered that, so it just needed to be switched off again. I'm SO thankful nothing was really wrong! And we just picked up the Odyssey from getting its windshield replaced, so we are back to 2 vehicles. Now we are praying the Lord will lead us to the right one to replace the Sienna!Bob and Clairehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17948514246811431207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939495.post-56348807836273275692019-06-03T12:00:00.000-07:002019-06-03T20:30:09.428-07:00TornadoOne week ago we were on the way home from our annual Memorial Day weekend camping trip with our wonderful VA homeschooling friends. We had a great time, as usual, and it was even better because both Nathan and Luke were able to be there with us. Those times where all 12 of us are together are getting rarer and rarer, so we really appreciate those times when they come! There were some thunderstorms, so we had some wet, skanky laundry to deal with, and of course everyone was exhausted and filthy. We were looking forward to showers and sleeping in our own beds!<br />
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At some point in the drive, I realized from facebook maybe that there was severe weather predicted, but it looked like it would all be "north of I-70". We are south of I-70, so I didn't really pay any attention to the weather after that.<br />
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We arrived home around 7:00 PM, and we unloaded the big van and the "stow-away" carrying thing that goes into the hitch on the back. Everyone took showers, and I worked on laundry. By 11:00, I had finished 2 loads, and another one was partially dry in the dryer, and another load was starting the final spin cycle in the washer. The little kids were sound asleep, and so was Bob.<br />
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Right around 11:00 I got the first alert on my phone from the National Weather Service. It said a tornado had been spotted in our area, and we should seek immediate shelter. I promptly ignored it and went back to my book. About 5 minutes later I got the same alert again, and my mom called. They live just a few streets away from us, and she said her neighbors, who have a one story house with no basement, were heading over to my parents' house with their 2 little kids, and that we really should be down in our basement. So I reluctantly got up Bob and the 3 littles, putting them down again on the futon in the basement, and I went out to the garage to bring down our camping lanterns and flashlights, conveniently located where I had put them just a few hours before!<br />
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I texted my mom at 11:16 to ask if the NWS would let us know when the danger had passed because it seemed quiet, like the storm was moving off. Right after I sent that text, the lights started flickering and then went out. And then it became obvious the storm had most definitely NOT moved off! Things started hitting the windows and pinging the fireplace. There were loud noises from upstairs, and the pressure was really weird. I shouted at everyone to get into the bathroom. We put Luna in the shower stall, and the other 10 of us crammed into the super small bathroom.<br />
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Verity was scared, but she settled right down. The little boys asked what if we died, and we talked about how we knew we would be with Jesus because we trusted that He paid for our sins when He died on the cross in our place, so we didn't have anything to worry about. I tried to post this picture on facebook, but my phone no longer really worked. I couldn't text, call, or get online, which was frustrating. We were probably in there for 15 minutes or so. It seemed like forever, all squished and uncomfortable!<br />
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When we came out, the first thing we noticed was that our upstairs hallway attic access panel had apparently come up and then down again, but it landed sideways, and a bunch of nasty old insulation had fallen into the hallway. We cleaned that up as best we could with a flashlight and broom and then got kids back to bed. Bob headed out to look at the house, and he came back in saying it was a pretty significant storm, with pretty significant damage. He noticed a lot of trees down and damage to the house, but it would wait until morning for us to really see the extent of the damage. Neither Bob nor I slept very well, and he was on the phone with USAA at 2:30 AM.<br />
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When we got up Tuesday morning, we could see the damage. For one thing, the windows were blown out of the minivan Caleb had been driving to school and work (which is my parents', but we hadn't gotten around to replacing the Sienna yet, after it was rear-ended and totaled back in the end of December). All the cars, as well as the house and any other surface, were absolutely coated with insulation, cottonwood pollen, and various other mess.<br />
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Trees were down everywhere. Our neighborhood was built in the 70's, and so it was full of beautiful, huge mature trees. Those are pretty much all gone now. A few are left, but even those lost many branches and are much scragglier. We lost our beautiful Littleleaf Linden tree in the front, as well as a maple tree, a pine tree, and an apple tree in the back.<br />
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We had a ton of other debris all over the yard. There were big 4x8 pieces of plywood with shingles on them, probably from our roof, as well as other random things like patio cushions, 5 gallon buckets, mailbox pieces, and other junk. We had a king size top sheet dangling from a branch in our big maple tree off the deck.<br />
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The back yard had branches and junk all over it. All of our deck furniture blew off, as well as our grill.<br />
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This is the smaller maple tree in our side yard. One of our neighbor's tree fell on our fence and destroyed it, with branches from the maple tree also damaging it. The fence has been on our list to replace because Luna had discovered she could jump over it, but I am SO glad we hadn't done it yet. It would just have been destroyed!<br />
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Our shed was crushed by our pine tree, which landed on it. Our neighbor had 7 huge pine trees and 2 large maples (all at least 40 feet), and every single one was lost. Most blew over, but one just lost all it's branches. It was like that everywhere, and it was so crushingly sad to see these majestic trees just uprooted or stripped bare.<br />
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Back in our yard, here is the hole in our roof. We also lost much of our gutters and a lot of siding, plus soffits and other random things. Two windows cracked and broke, but only the outside layer. None of them shattered. We attributed that to our old inefficient windows that clearly allowed the house to weather all the pressure changes, lol. Also, none of them took any direct hits, fortunately.<br />
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Our poor deck had a lot of the deck railing blown off. Our grill blew right through it into the yard! You can see the pine tree on the shed better in this picture too.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbVToFiJ7AWiBlQDAgKsFWgWvanLo28jMQmS3qvqEzVh_M_SepZoXK9-tp_yh2lTyDUHlWqW2btbmUdqd2Zw_KZ9_KsWyJldKhAVe64Y2P1Yzj16Vs-7a1Nh2LCvih4LjnVbgswg/s1600/IMG_1784.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbVToFiJ7AWiBlQDAgKsFWgWvanLo28jMQmS3qvqEzVh_M_SepZoXK9-tp_yh2lTyDUHlWqW2btbmUdqd2Zw_KZ9_KsWyJldKhAVe64Y2P1Yzj16Vs-7a1Nh2LCvih4LjnVbgswg/s320/IMG_1784.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
This is looking at into the park. You can't really tell in a picture, but there are so many trees down. Just devastating.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsEyaWM-sVDPNvxXGuy1J38pwtdp6x-sKJkslMg_z8ojYI_oKEmsOD5hLOeNQK4tRePKhHwGHwCIFQP11KBL9cWFTb_dkQrcFp6SRnW_xPw2N8JmQAw1XMRibHlkSUoZXj4dHiIQ/s1600/IMG_1787.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsEyaWM-sVDPNvxXGuy1J38pwtdp6x-sKJkslMg_z8ojYI_oKEmsOD5hLOeNQK4tRePKhHwGHwCIFQP11KBL9cWFTb_dkQrcFp6SRnW_xPw2N8JmQAw1XMRibHlkSUoZXj4dHiIQ/s320/IMG_1787.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
This is my parents' house. Their entire front porch blew off. One of the porch supports actually blew through their front storm door, knocking open their front door, and spraying glass and leaves all over their entryway and even into their family room and down their stairs.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBmUatGDnZLg1-HubEgZG1tqgpKnivL0XNlwaa6ZIWrdWat2nltOi4T9BXYPi5EGVGJKCGiw4-rkZThzft_nhCQZLcAvZneQLF48iv5VPGEoPtOOxfeFnDv-MppsIrlrS-Nbvg8w/s1600/IMG_1789.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBmUatGDnZLg1-HubEgZG1tqgpKnivL0XNlwaa6ZIWrdWat2nltOi4T9BXYPi5EGVGJKCGiw4-rkZThzft_nhCQZLcAvZneQLF48iv5VPGEoPtOOxfeFnDv-MppsIrlrS-Nbvg8w/s320/IMG_1789.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
This is a guest bedroom in my parents' house. The window shattered glass all over the room, and something slammed into the outer wall as well, because it made a hole and pushed the insulation through. What a mess! Fortunately the man that is staying here wasn't home--but he was actually driving in the storm. He thought he was hit by a crazed semi-truck with no lights on because all of a sudden, he felt a huge impact which spun his minvan around several times, and the car was lifted up and carried a quarter mile down the road and set down in a ditch! It was a miracle he was okay!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhezp4HM-dnxNE4kDB6UJqg1h7fdunUCTQVBxOjW4K_zkjhJuXFEruknYyP8F5-sxlKAO54r6J2yHAdEwdVlA9rkwqJm47lZbXIZM4-Gp2rcttITrPMxwQApWy17Mbfrcm6cYxOww/s1600/IMG_1798.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhezp4HM-dnxNE4kDB6UJqg1h7fdunUCTQVBxOjW4K_zkjhJuXFEruknYyP8F5-sxlKAO54r6J2yHAdEwdVlA9rkwqJm47lZbXIZM4-Gp2rcttITrPMxwQApWy17Mbfrcm6cYxOww/s320/IMG_1798.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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By Tuesday evening, our roof had been tarped, but the power was still out. We were all still kind of reeling. It was just so unexpected!</div>
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And now I can say I have survived an <a href="http://psalm127.blogspot.com/2017/01/emergency-landing.html">emergency plane landing</a> AND an EF-3 tornado! I am hoping not to add anymore to this survival "bucket list".</div>
<br />Bob and Clairehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17948514246811431207noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939495.post-4212586781943419312019-04-15T15:52:00.000-07:002019-04-15T15:54:35.396-07:00Another Unexpected HaircutI haven't blogged for awhile, even though wonderful things have been happening, mainly because the huge thing overshadowing all other things is getting our house ready to go on the market in VA. That is definitely the subject of another post, but suffice to say, it is not convenient to try to fix up a house from 8 hours away. Some portion of us have been making the drive back almost every weekend since the beginning of March.<br />
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Bob and I decided kind of last minute to drive back Friday afternoon. Although we would only have Saturday and some of Sunday to work, we are really so close to being done, and this past weekend was one where I could go back as well. Bob went in to work at 5:30 and worked until 12;30, and then we left.<br />
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Before we left, I gave Micah and Drew haircuts because they had been looking a bit shaggy. That was on my agenda for Friday evening, but with me not going to be there, I fit it into the morning. Verity kept saying she wanted a haircut, but I told her no. Her hair grows *extremely* slowly, like all our girls. Other than trimming off scraggly ends, her hair has never been cut these 4 1/2 years of her life, and it still is only about chin length.<br />
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Everyone can see where this is going, right? Saturday night, after a long, hard day of working on the house, both Anna and Caleb texted me to say Verity had taken matters into her own hands and given herself a haircut. Bangs! She gave herself bangs. I was NOT pleased. Again, these bangs will take years to grow out. Christine said it was a good thing we weren't coming back until Sunday night, to give me time to cool off, lol.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim0nHnuxhNxUXzk5XfA8CrIDDq_whp1fPtFvDvNn0eLIu-o9F33AsqL-P6-1h7RG55PvgxsW1nGJjUg_Tjki8fhEJI0aqT1t_cKWyFid9QVH7cB0YO44osv10FTxSbF2egH51avw/s1600/IMG_1540.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim0nHnuxhNxUXzk5XfA8CrIDDq_whp1fPtFvDvNn0eLIu-o9F33AsqL-P6-1h7RG55PvgxsW1nGJjUg_Tjki8fhEJI0aqT1t_cKWyFid9QVH7cB0YO44osv10FTxSbF2egH51avw/s320/IMG_1540.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
Here is what Verity looked like. She actually didn't do a terrible job with the bangs, except on the right side of her head.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3zH51tJSNkLPDJFtCu0Jpg03SOwhYNKcfx8ZZZ4mdaQfJs5hYdrD1tLCjhRzhfFVXz5196CYmlzSe58_xjv020kAIAN6QGAGlI82hVEZBfBRqY2Hm8LlAT5D5VmSQK6PHSakisg/s1600/IMG_1541.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3zH51tJSNkLPDJFtCu0Jpg03SOwhYNKcfx8ZZZ4mdaQfJs5hYdrD1tLCjhRzhfFVXz5196CYmlzSe58_xjv020kAIAN6QGAGlI82hVEZBfBRqY2Hm8LlAT5D5VmSQK6PHSakisg/s320/IMG_1541.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
That must have been her first cut, and she went very close to the head!<br />
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We have had some experience with child-given haircuts. Back in February, 2011, when I was heavily pregnant with Micah, <a href="http://psalm127.blogspot.com/2011/03/infamous-haircut.html">Grace gave herself a hair cut</a>. She was almost 4. Hers was worse--she took a huge chunk off the back of her head, in a big vertical line. Anna reminded me that we always have said that Verity takes after Grace! For Grace, I decided to work on it myself, but with Verity, I took the coward's way out and took her to Great Clips.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_JDdG2m2MxRFwYGYqzMWciIk1aalkqbPIWm78xvPRqRWCZXdthX18uuEqFip3HPfVrxKOh4tiZcPL9IuLYgrASVYcfUd0Ug5WA6AxJ6J6gQyNCvgS9nSO5ZVwzRU_SphAiip8HA/s1600/IMG_1542.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_JDdG2m2MxRFwYGYqzMWciIk1aalkqbPIWm78xvPRqRWCZXdthX18uuEqFip3HPfVrxKOh4tiZcPL9IuLYgrASVYcfUd0Ug5WA6AxJ6J6gQyNCvgS9nSO5ZVwzRU_SphAiip8HA/s320/IMG_1542.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
The older lady who cut her hair was very nice. She kept telling Verity, "Only we can cut your hair--not you!" Hopefully Verity will listen.<br />
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Verity looks cute now, so it could have been worse. Whew.<br />
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The weekend's surprises weren't even over with the haircut! Bob and I got back home Sunday night at 12:45 AM. We fell into bed--and were awakened suddenly at 3:00 by a disoriented Micah, who stumbled into and around our room for a minute before vomiting all over the carpet. Ack! So today's adventures for me also included trying to get a big vomit stain out of pretty new, good quality carpet. Sadly, it will never be the same again, I think. One house is getting beautified, the other house is getting ruined. Circle of life . . .<br />
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<br />Bob and Clairehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17948514246811431207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939495.post-86213746019707831432019-02-02T07:33:00.000-08:002019-02-02T07:33:26.101-08:00Making Room in a Small House<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
When we bought this house, we knew we could fit the 10 of us who would be here full-time into rooms. There are 3 bedrooms on the upstairs part--the master, which is pretty small for a master bedroom, a bedroom that's almost as big that the 3 girls are in, and a pretty small one for Micah, Drew, and Verity. There's one small room in the basement that Caleb and Jonathan are in with no extra room. </div>
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That just left Nathan and Luke. They're not going to be here all the time, but they are here sometime, and we wanted them to have a place to stay that wasn't just out in the open, like on the futon in our lego/TV/treadmill room downstairs. There was one last space--a tiny narrow sort of mudroom area where the basement door outside was, as well as the door into the utility room. We measured, and it looked like we could (barely) fit a set of skinny bunkbeds in. Fortunately my parents had an old metal set in their basement, and they were even more perfect because the ladder was on the end. As I'm sure you can see, there would not have been room for a ladder on the side! </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyA0nTGX03bW5VFGDPu93R2xIK4pR88IkH_JjkgZGG5kcxT9DHmBDOghO2q-N5OkZ9ojquJFgwqPNmODgt-rMb4g5hYBcIrNPnx3JdQ681-Ovw-t8rjd99xsR_KtAZ9mdEduY1Sw/s1600/IMG_0583.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyA0nTGX03bW5VFGDPu93R2xIK4pR88IkH_JjkgZGG5kcxT9DHmBDOghO2q-N5OkZ9ojquJFgwqPNmODgt-rMb4g5hYBcIrNPnx3JdQ681-Ovw-t8rjd99xsR_KtAZ9mdEduY1Sw/s320/IMG_0583.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
I'm standing in the doorway to the basement hallway, and the wall to my right goes several feet until in turns in a few inches, and there is the door to the utility room. The only outlet in the entire room is halfway up that wall, guaranteeing that anyone trying to slide by the bed will knock out anything plugged in there! We put an extension cord there so at least the boys could charge their phones by their beds on that tiny bookcase.<br />
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We also realized we could (barely) fit in a dresser at the end of the bed. We went out to the garage, where we had 3 extra dressers, and we uncovered and dragged out the smallest of the 3 (no small feat in and of itself!). At least it gave them a place to put some of their stuff over Christmas break. We hung an over-the-door closet bar on the door to the utility room (facing into the utility room) for their hanging clothes. Fortunately there weren't many of them! We also put an over-the-door towel hanger on the back of the door too the hallway for a towel. </div>
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So the room worked, although it was pretty cheerless and crowded. At least it has a door so the little kids didn't wake them up in the mornings! I call it "the cell" because it looks vaguely prison-like, or at least what a monk might have in a monastery. I'm sure the people from whom we bought the house had no idea that space could or would ever be used as any sort of a bedroom!</div>
<br />Bob and Clairehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17948514246811431207noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939495.post-7580150846000635902019-01-30T20:35:00.001-08:002019-01-31T05:42:18.076-08:00My Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad DayToday when I woke up, I could hear the wind whistling around outside, and I *really* did not want to get up and let Luna out. She doesn't like physically going outside by herself, because she is a giant fluffy baby, so to get her to go potty, someone has to accompany her outside. and first thing in the morning, that's me. Today was (hopefully) the coldest day of the year for us. It was -7 not counting the wind chill. Silly me, I thought having rambunctious kids stuck inside a small house all day would be the worst thing I had to deal with today!<br />
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After I dealt with Luna, I got something out of the fridge and remembered how the kids had been telling me that the milk never seemed all that cold. We had kept turning down the temperature, but as I stood there with the fridge open, nothing really seemed all that cold--definitely not 33 degrees, which is what it was set on! So I got out my oven thermometer, and lo and behold, the fridge was actually reading 52 degrees. Ha! No wonder left-overs have been spoiling more rapidly than I was expecting! It is a testimony to how fast we go through a gallon of milk (one a day) that it never spoiled, lol. Fortunately we have a spare fridge in our laundry room, and with how cold the weather is, our garage can serve as a walk-in fridge right now too. But still--that was unsettling. It seemed like a newer fridge, not that that means anything anymore.<br />
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After making muffins, playing with Luna outside some (brrrr, but no walk at least), helping people with math, etc., I headed up to take a shower about 10:30. I was shocked to discover no water at all. The pipe had frozen?!? Our shower in the master bathroom doesn't have the faucet on the outside wall, so I had not even given it a thought when deciding what faucets to leave dripping the night before. I was much more concerned about our kitchen sink, and the sink in our laundry room bathroom. Plus the bathroom stays really toasty warm at night when I close the door into it. It's a small room with a heat vent. Of course, these sorts of things happen when Bob is TDY, and in fact, he is in DC for the week, so we had to have many quick phone consults instead of him being able to come home and deal with the issue.<br />
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So I got out my hair dryer and started blowing hot air at where I thought the pipes would be. When I needed to give the dryer a rest, I went down to the basement to check out the little room under our bathroom. It's the room Nathan and Luke sleep in when they are home, and we call it "the cell" because it's really small and narrow. There was a panel on the ceiling in that room already, conveniently located under our shower. Hmmm. We had assumed they had a leak or something, but perhaps the previous owners also had to deal with frozen shower pipes?? Anyway, I left the panel opened, dug up a space heater from the garage, and put it in there to try to really heat up that space. Obviously not much school was happening from my perspective, but Grace and Anna did help the 3 little kids do their math and phonics, and the 3 girls did most of their stuff, so I guess the day was not a total loss.<br />
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My parents stopped by, and my dad pulled a ton of insulation from the hole in the ceiling. It was really cold behind the insulation--but that's where the pipe disappeared to. I had realized that the top level actually overhangs the bottom by about a foot or 18 inches, so that was where all our pipe issues were. We used the hair dryer in that space some more (I fried my hair dryer at this point, and so that was the end of that. It was about 10 years old, so it had a good run.) I heated up a "rice bag" and wrapped it around the shower head, since that was the only place I could see to wrap it. I kept running upstairs every 15 minutes or so to reheat the bag.<br />
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Finally in the middle of the afternoon, I ran upstairs and yay! I heard the sound of running water! My joy was quickly overcome with horror, as I saw that the shower seemed to be completely clogged, and water had filled the bottom of the shower and was pouring over the sides, flooding the room. Ack!! I turned off the water, yelled for kids to bring me towels, and started mopping up everything. We have a tiny shower, so it did not take long for it to fill up and overflow everywhere. What a mess!<br />
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I immediately thought that the shower must have been clogged with hair, although really that made no sense at all. I had taken a shower just yesterday, with no water rising up on my feet, so it would have been quite unlikely that in the space of one day, the shower completely clogged with hair! But I wasn't thinking too clearly at that point, and Jonathan and I started poking around in the drain with a knife and a coat hanger. Unfortunately, nothing happened except we stirred up whatever gunk and hair was down there, but the water did not drain. Not one tiny bit. Clearly our drain pipe was also frozen. Is that even a thing?!? I had never even heard of that! I hoped that the water would gradually thaw the blockage or something, but after a few hours (with me pouring out cupful after cupful of water into the sink, trying to make the water level go down), still nothing was draining. And I was still accomplishing nothing, schoolwise, even though I was supposed to be doing AP biology with Caleb and Jonathan. Sigh.<br />
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So my dad stopped by again, this time bringing his shop vac to suck out all that nasty water. Then I heated pots of water on the stove, and he poured hot water down, a cup at a time, while trying to snake the drain. At first he could only go a few inches, but eventually he could go 1 1/2 feet. It took a few hours, but thankfully, he was able to get it draining again. Hallelujah!<br />
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We also looked in on the basement bedroom. The beds were wet, as was the carpet in some places, but we really couldn't get a good feel for where, exactly, the water was coming from. There was a water line on the ceiling, but it looked more like where water had flooded the bathroom floor upstairs than anything else. I moved the space heater to the floor so hopefully it would dry.<br />
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After dinner I ran to Walmart to buy another hair dryer, and then I finally took a shower. After I dried my hair, I ran back down to the basement to check on the heater. I'm so glad I did, because we were not much time away from an electrical fire! I had used an extension cord because the one plug is in a very inconvenient place, and that was clearly not the right thing to do. The cord was soo hot to the touch, and it smelled terrible in there! Ack! I ran the cord outside to cool, and left the heater off. Good grief!<br />
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While my dad was over the second time, Verity picked out a book for me to read to her. It was a book by Richard Scarry called <i>Mr Frumble's Coffee Shop Disaster</i>, where Mr. Frumble pretty much broke everything he touched, and it was a huge mess. I have never related more to that book, and I have never been more glad to have a day end! I am praying tomorrow is a better day. A less exciting one, for sure.<br />
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<i>"Because of the Lord's great mercies, we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness."</i> Lam. 3: 22-23<br />
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Bob and Clairehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17948514246811431207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939495.post-32356429329808006612019-01-21T09:19:00.001-08:002019-01-21T09:19:06.531-08:00End of a Very Long, Very Good BreakWell, our Christmas break is officially over now--everyone has gone back to school, even the college kids! <br />
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We left to drive to VA Dec. 27, and we were there for about a week. A whirlwind week of social activities! I went out to lunch Friday with my friend Lynnea, and then out to breakfast Saturday with my friend Rabia.<br />
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Saturday night was an open house at the MC's, welcoming Isaac home and celebrating his birthday. I got to catch up with a ton of friends I might not otherwise have been able to see, and it was so much fun. I was hoarse the next day from all the talking!<br />
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Isaac's party was the first time that Nathan's girlfriend Elena and Luke's girlfriend Elissa had been able to meet each other, as well as a lot of Nathan and Luke's friends. So fun!<br />
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The younger friends had play dates too, like this one Monday morning. Luna had a play date here too, wrestling around with Denver the whole time.<br />
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Monday night was New Year's Eve, and we went over to the L's house for our usual New Year's Eve party! We brought Telestrations and Code Names, both of which were well-received. The Telestrations game was hilarious, as always.<br />
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We counted down at 9:00, like we usually do. Verity was not scared at all this year, and she participated fully in the noise, lol.<br />
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It was so fun to have all these guys together again. <br />
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New Year's Day we headed down to Richmond, where we spent the afternoon with Nathan's girlfriend's family at their beautiful house in the woods! We helped them eat leftovers from their own VT bowl game watching New Year's Eve party the previous day, and we really enjoying getting to know them. Here Micah is showing off his newly-learned cornhole style. Luna was also invited for this get-together, and she had an absolute ball running around the whole time with their dogs Ivy and Clementine. This tired her out so she slept like a champ when we drove back to OH the next day!<br />
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On our drive back to Ohio, we were able to stop by in PA to see Bob's dad for a little while.<br />
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Back at home, we did start school (in a somewhat desultory manner) again. The whole reason we had to rush back on Jan. 2 was because Jonathan's beloved electronics class started again Jan. 3, but the rest of us started the next week. We left Luke in VA to drive back to AL from there, but Nathan was still with us in Ohio, so it was hard to feel like we were entirely back to our normal routine. For this break, Nathan worked as a Lyft driver. He made a nice bit of money, and he was able to just work when he wanted to, which was great.<br />
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The weekend of Jan. 11-13, Bob and Nathan headed back to VA to work on the house. I decided it would be fun to have Amanda and Elissa come out Saturday for dinner, since we would be so lonely here. I started hearing rumors of snow, so I told them to bring stuff to spend the night. They drove out Saturday afternoon in a bit of a lull in the already-falling snow, and we had a real snow slumber party! Hot chocolate, chocolate chip cookies, sleeping late on Sunday--so fun! We ended up getting about 9 inches, so it was a good storm!<br />
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The kids had a ball playing in the snow. Luna loved it too--as long as there were people out there with her!<br />
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We had to do a lot of shoveling so that Amanda and Elissa could get their car out to go back to Cedarville Sunday afternoon. Also, I had foolishly not even thought about the big van, and so it just stayed out on the street where we normally park it. This meant the snow plow plowed around it, so it was really buried, and also we had to dig out our mailbox. Grrr. I won't make that mistake again! We had the same experience several times in VA, so I can't believe I didn't think about it here! I think I really didn't take the forecast very seriously, lol. <br />
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Jonathan racing around with Luna. <br />
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The kids built snow forts in the back yard with neighbor kids on both sides of us.<br />
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Amanda and Elissa preparing to venture out back to Cedarville. They made it back safely, praise the Lord!<br />
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I even found our snowshoes in a box in the garage! I bought these after the <a href="http://psalm127.blogspot.com/2016/01/snowed-in.html">great snowstorm of January, 2016</a>, but then we never got another huge snow like that to use them in. Well . . . they were okay, but I don't know that they really helped me stay above the surface much, lol. I still felt like I was wading through snow, except now I had these giant things on my feet as well! But it was fun.<br />
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Luna, snow-loving Newfie.<br />
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While we were frolicking in the snow, Bob and Nathan were busily getting things done on the house, and on their way home, they stopped in PA to visit Bob's dad again in the new place where he is living! Bob's sister Ann and her husband Wally were also visiting.<br />
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Last Wednesday night we had one last big dinner, inviting Grandma and Grandpa, and Aunt Claire and Uncle Jim over to say goodbye to Nathan. He left Friday morning to drive back to college.<br />
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But wait! Things still weren't back to normal! Luke doesn't have classes on Friday, and with Monday being a holiday, he also left Friday morning to drive up here for the long weekend! He went to Cedarville and picked up Elissa Friday night, since word was another winter storm was on the way.<br />
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We baked a ton of ginger snaps, at Luke's request. We had also gone to the library Friday afternoon to pick up a bunch of movies, so we were set! Lots of games of Mastermind were played, as well as some other games.<br />
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Drew and Verity have really been into our "I Spy" books, and they spent a lot of time with Luke and Elissa, pouring over the pages. Those books are actually pretty darn tricky. Good thing both Luke and Elissa have sharp eyes. <br />
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Church was cancelled this week, so we missed a second week in a row. It was very relaxing to sleep in, and I made a breakfast casserole (for "brunch", lol). Sunday evening, we headed over to my parents' house for dinner. I had made spaghetti sauce in the crockpot, so I brought that, plus bread and salad, and we cooked the noodles over there. Even though we were disappointed by the outcomes of both games, it was a lot of fun, and we also made tons of progress on a puzzle, which is really fun and relaxing for me. Such a nice weekend!<br />
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Luke took Elissa back to Cedarville last night, and he left this morning. So now we really are ready to get back to our usual routine, even though no one wants to. Sigh. What a tremendous break! Now--to hang on until summer . . .<br />
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Bob and Clairehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17948514246811431207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939495.post-71521639638875550652018-12-26T14:07:00.001-08:002018-12-26T14:10:13.570-08:00Christmas BreakIt seems like I'm only blogging on holidays anymore . . . We've been having an absolutely lovely Christmas break. Luke got home really early, on Dec. 4, early enough to go Christmas caroling at the VA hospital with us and the chapel/OCF Bible study group.<br />
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Nathan came home the next Tuesday, and after that, we basically went on break from school, at least for the little kids. The older kids just kept doing math and grammar a little longer, and Caleb finished his last exam that Friday.<br />
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The next week the girls and I made a zillion chocolates. We made caramels in the square dark chocolate molds, and we made a creamy filling, which we divided and flavored half maple and half raspberry for the bells. The milk chocolate bells were maple, and the dark chocolate ones were raspberry. But we ended up having some shells, because we were too ambitious in our mold-painting, so we needed more filling, but I didn't have enough fondant sugar to make more. I decided to make ganache and use that as a truffle filling. It worked really well--but then we had too much ganache left, so I needed more shells . . . but I had no desire to keep painting more molds. So I ended up filling the bell molds like I do when I make peanut butter cups (which we did not do this year)--squirting in melted chocolate, dropping a rolled ball of ganache in, and then squirting more chocolate to cover. The result is not as smooth as when I paint the molds separately, but it surely is a lot less work.<br />
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On Wednesday, Dec. 19, Bob took the afternoon off, and we went skating! He had won some tickets at a work silent auction. Nathan was the only one who didn't go. This rink allows you to rent a little plastic frame for beginner skaters, so we did that for Verity, and by the end, she was doing great! Maybe she will really get the hang of it if we go more than once a year, lol. We really missed the annual skating party with our VA co-op.<br />
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Saturday was a wonderful day! It started out with me meeting 2 of my closest friends from high school, Amy and Julie, for breakfast. We spent 3 hours catching up and laughing, and I'm sure we could have spent at least 3 more! The waitress had to come back at least 3 times before we could even stop talking long enough to look at the menu enough to order, lol.<br />
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Next, we had a very special promotion party! My cousin and his family had driven up late Friday night, and we were able to have his pin-on ceremony to lt. col. at my parents' house Saturday afternoon! Bob and my dad both put on their uniforms again (I didn't think we'd be unpacking THAT box anytime soon, lol), which was really special, and Bob administered the oath to my cousin. My dad had commissioned my cousin originally, so it was special for us all to be together for this promotion. It was neat to think that Nathan will be commissioning in a year and a half as well, continuing our long Air Force history!<br />
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After the ceremony, we had pizza to celebrate. This table right here was where the action was! All sorts of witty repartee ("My name is Chandelier!" "My name is Ice Crust!") and hilarious banter (at least, they cracked themselves up!). Verity held her own with the 3 boys, lol.<br />
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My cousin's wife Sarah helped all the girls do their nails with Christmas Color Street strips, which they loved. Even Verity got her nails done--such tiny strips!<br />
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This was the first time my kids had met my cousin's 2 boys. This is a picture of the "second cousins". They all got along very well, and we hope it will not be this long before we can visit together again!<br />
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Monday (Christmas Eve) the 2 boy cousins came over to our house! They had a very busy day: they played with toys, Anna took all the younger kids plus Luna on a walk to the playground, Anna and Grace got everyone set up with wax paper stations to make Christmas cut-out cookies, we ate homemade mac and cheese for lunch, and then they decorated the cookies. Whew!<br />
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Everyone came back to our house for a spaghetti dinner before the candlelight service. We were able to seat 21 people!<br />
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Our annual picture at the front of the chapel after the candelight service. We were just missing my brother and his family!<br />
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Christmas morning we woke up to snow flurries and a bit of snow on the ground! It wasn't much, and it didn't stick around long, but it definitely made for great Christmas ambiance.<br />
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We hung the stockings on our downstairs mantle. It's longer than the one in our house in VA, which is good, because we got a stocking for Luna too. Maybe next year I'll actually buy a stocking holder for her--at least we know it will fit!<br />
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We have no room for our regular 9 ft. tree, or even a smaller tree, in this house. But a few weeks ago, Jonathan and I were in Sams, and we saw this cute 4 1/2 ft. tree at Sams on sale because it was mid-way through December, so we bought it. We had it in our dining room (you can see it in the picture of us eating spaghetti), but Christmas Eve, Nathan moved it to our school room table, and we put the presents under the table. LOL! It only has a few token ornaments on it, but it was better than nothing.<br />
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We had a really small Christmas. Part of that was because I just couldn't get my act together (I still haven't even sent out our Christmas cards, even though I have them!), but also, we just really can't fit much else into this house of ours. </div>
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After we finished our presents, we went over to my parents' house and exchanged presents there. Verity was so happy with this Christmas Minnie Mouse from Aunt Claire and Uncle Jim, and new Minnie Mouse panties from my parents!<br />
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The boys got some nice sweaters from them too. There were also lego sets, books, ornaments, and lots of other fun things!</div>
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Then we had a delicious dinner for 23 people, including both ham and turkey, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes, my mom's squash casserole, green beans with almonds, cran-apple-pear sauce, my mom's orange jello salad, and a green salad. We were all stuffed! I was ready to never cook again after all the making of it, lol.</div>
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Then we had our usual birthday party for Jesus, going through Scriptures about the promise of a savior, the place where he would come, how it all happened, and his preeminence. Doing that allowed us to make some room for dessert! We had a chocolate birthday cake (of course!), chocolate pecan pie, two chocolate pies, a pumpkin pie, and lots of cookies.<br />
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Then we played games--2 rounds of Telestrations, which we played for the first time <a href="http://psalm127.blogspot.com/2018/02/ludwigsburg-and-visit-with-friends.html">at our friends' house in Patch Barracks on our Germany trip</a> (just as hilarious this time!), and Codenames, a new game Nathan and Luke gave to the girls. It was a bit hard to explain, but very fun to play. I liked it because it was a thinking game, but not a classic strategy game (which I'm terrible at and don't enjoy at all, lol). It was so much fun!<br />
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For some reason, Anna decided to wear this dirndl in the morning. After we opened presents, she was going to go up to change, but I told her to leave it on, because I knew my mom would love seeing her in it. The dress used to be my mom's--she bought it when she and my dad were stationed in Germany before I was born. Then I wore it in junior high and high school to Halloween parties, and especially for international nights at White Sulphur Springs. Now Anna is wearing it, which is pretty fun and special.<br />
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All too soon, Christmas was over. People had to go back to work the next day, my cousin and his family needed to leave early the next day to drive back, and the kids were getting very overtired and overstimulated. It was really such a very special Christmas time, capping off a wonderful Christmas break. Bob and Clairehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17948514246811431207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939495.post-10872961406682391322018-11-26T07:27:00.002-08:002018-11-26T07:27:53.640-08:00A Happy Thanksgiving<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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We have always said that the way to have a child who travels well is to do a lot of traveling with them, especially when they are young. Now, apparently, we are trying that same tactic with Luna. Tuesday afternoon we loaded up the big van again and took off to VA for Thanksgiving. <br />
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A few weeks ago, Bob had come home saying he had some training to do that he could take with him over Thanksgiving, so I made all these lovely plans for us to be there for a week. We'll see friends! We'll spend a day down in Richmond with Nathan's girlfriend's family! <br />
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Unfortunately, I completely neglected to realize that Caleb's community college in fact had classes last week, so alas, my wonderful plans were for naught, and we left Tuesday afternoon, after his last class. <br />
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This picture is of Luna on the floor of the big van, sort of behind and in between the driver's seat and passenger seat, by the feet of the passengers in the first row. It's her favorite place, and we moved our snacks to a smaller, thinner box, so she has a little more room. She will scoot under the bench seats and go visit people in the back rows though. It's like her own "Clue" secret passages! She really has been a rock star traveler on these long trips. <br />
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Nathan got there Tuesday afternoon, about the time we were leaving Ohio, but Luke didn't fly in until Wednesday, a little before noon. We cleaned up the yard at the old house, and I was able to get an updated "stair steps" picture, even including Luna! I was so sad to realize that only the last 5 are stair steps anymore. For the older ones, the second in each "pair" has passed up their older sibling in height, even down to Grace passing up Anna! I guess our even-numbered, narrow-jawed kids also have the superior height genes, if you can call them that, since none of us are actually what you might call "tall", lol.<br />
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We had to supplement our folding plastic table with the card table, and our folding chairs with some camping chairs we had left for use at cross-country meets, but we were able to have a family meal at the old house with all 12 of us Wednesday night! I made spaghetti in our "extra" smaller crockpot by bringing frozen browned ground beef, and by already cooking up 3 pounds of noodles and bringing them from Ohio. <br />
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Thursday we went over to the L's for Thanksgiving dinner, like we've been doing for the past 14 years. It was wonderful as usual! I think it was the easiest Thanksgiving day for me personally, because I did pretty much everything in Ohio. I roasted and mashed the sweet potatoes (12 cups of them!), and then mixed them into the casserole, and I brought them in 2 gallon ziploc bags, with the topping (minus melted butter) in another ziploc bag. I also made the cran-apple-pear sauce and brought it in a bulging ziploc bag. I did make a pan of cookie dough brownies in VA, but that was easy. Anna had to cream the butter and sugar for the cookie dough topping by hand, since we didn't have any kind of mixed, but that was fine. <br />
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We really enjoyed catching up with our "friends who are like family" all day long. We were able to bring Luna and her crate over, so we didn't have to keep going home to let her out, which was really nice. We could just keep right on visiting! It was so relaxing, we ended up staying until after 8:00.<br />
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It was especially nice to have all the older boys home and back together with their friends. They were able to spend a lot of time together--well, not Nathan, because he drove back to VT the next day to go to the football game, but everyone else! When we started Rivendell, Christine and I had taken Proverbs 27:17 as our verse: "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another." There are a few boys missing from this picture, but I know that these friendships have been the "iron sharpening iron" friendships we prayed for, and I'm so grateful for the Lord's answer to our prayers!<br />
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Friday was another really relaxing day. I even did a crossword puzzle! Wednesday I had rushed out to Costco first thing (I got there at 10:20, and already all the spaces in the entire lot were filled except for a few on the side close to the road. I do NOT miss that Costco!) and bought one of their big chicken pot pies for Friday. Usually the Friday after Thanksgiving I cook my own turkey (since Ed L. always smokes turkeys for everyone on Thanksgiving day), and then we have that along with leftover of the stuff I usually bring to the L's--sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce most years. But this year there was no way that was happening, so instead we had the chicken pot pie plus leftover cranberry sauce and sweet potatoes, and it was so good! And easy! I'm thinking that will be a new, good tradition, lol.<br />
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Saturday we went over to the Mc's for dinner and stayed to watch most of the Clemson game. They had a houseful too, and we got to facetime with Isaac, so that was wonderful. But all too soon we had to head back to the house. After church on Sunday we packed up (always takes longer than I expect), battled the crowds at Dulles to drop Luke off, and then started the long drive back to Ohio. We were so glad to be heading west instead of east. The traffic on eastbound I-70 was much thicker! We didn't get home until about 11:45, so it was a late night, and everyone is still recovering this morning, lol. I'm not planning on getting much done except laundry! It was a wonderful Thanksgiving time though. I definitely don't take the times we can all 12 of us be together for granted, and they definitely don't happen very often anymore! Bob and Clairehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17948514246811431207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939495.post-37963088955218637592018-11-09T07:02:00.001-08:002018-11-09T07:02:32.044-08:00End of a SeasonA season of driving maybe? Actually the cross country season.<br />
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I know people thought we were crazy, but we decided to have Anna and Grace run cross country with their team back in VA. Since we really weren't in Ohio until August, there was no way to make anything happen with a team here. We've been running with this VA team for the past 7 years (through several name changes), even since Nathan and Luke started running with them. We have so enjoyed the team members, and the coach is one of the godliest people I know! The older girls on the team have been such good examples and role models for Anna and Grace. I am often saying things like, "How would Tess talk to that person?" or "Do you think that is the attitude Annie would have?" or "How do you think Carol would act in that situation?" It is such a blessing to have older girls in our lives that demonstrate such wonderful character qualities! I wanted to keep that connection as long as possible.<br />
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But it wasn't all easy. We drove back for meets and a few practices, but mostly the girls were running the workouts of their own back here in Ohio. Anna and Grace are not really the same pace, so Anna was definitely by herself. It is hard to really push yourself when you are running on your own! That led to some frustrations in the beginning of the season for Anna, but she was able to push through, and by the end of the season her times were faster than the ones for last season. And it definitely made her and Grace appreciate all the more the times when they were able to practice with the team!<br />
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Faith was the rock star for Grace. She ran with Grace for pretty much all of the workouts, which was a huge help and motivation for Grace, who was much less enthused about this long-distance running plan than Anna was. Faith is going to be an amazing runner, I think! She's got a good start anyway. Grace really is a social runner, it turns out. In the meets, she always chose to run with a friend of hers because "we have really good conversations, Mom, and she's just so nice to talk to." Hey, that sounds like fun to me! <br />
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The last meet was last Saturday, Nov. 3, and all the little kids plus Luna came with us! Bob, Caleb, and Jonathan were at a VT football game with Nathan and his girlfriend, so we couldn't leave anyone at home!<br />
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It was a really great experience for Luna. She got to meets TONS of people, as well as some other dogs. Pretty much everyone stops to pet a cute puppy, and Luna really does like people a lot. She's scared of other dogs, so all the more reason to have her meet a lot! She was pretty tired after all the walking around though.<br />
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The meet was held in a park with a lake, so there was a sandy "beach" part. The kids had so much fun digging and building sand castles, even though it was actually a fairly chilly and windy day! When the sun was out, it wasn't too bad, but Verity (of course) got her shoes and her jacket sleeves all wet, and then she was less than happy.<br />
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Luna enjoyed digging in the sand, and she kept gazing out over the water like she was thinking about diving in. I had no desire for a wet, sandy dog in the van, so I kept a firm grip on her leash, lol. Some other time she can explore her water dog ancestry!<br />
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You can see Faith here acting like it is a warm summer day. Do not be fooled!<br />
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The season was a good transition help for the kids, I think. It really was so nice to go back to VA so many times to see friends, and to work on the house. It made the move seem like a much more gradual transition process. I will say I am glad for a bit of a break in the driving now. In less than 3 weeks, we drove 54 hours of long-trip driving, most of with lots of kids and a dog! Good thing Luna turned out to be such a great traveler!Bob and Clairehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17948514246811431207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939495.post-1488621378453020932018-10-30T07:15:00.001-07:002018-10-30T07:15:31.662-07:00Fall Break and a Special WeekendWe have been traveling quite a bit during this fall season, and it all came to a head over these past 2 weeks! The 6 younger kids and I drove back to VA on Tuesday, Oct. 16, for 2 cross country meets. Bob ended up coming for the weekend, so he bought the 3 littles back to Ohio with him so they wouldn't have to do so much driving at once. The girls and I drove down to Williamsburg for a meet Tuesday, Oct. 23 (about 6 hours round trip), then we drove back to Ohio the next day (8 hours). Thursday we attempted to get the house back in order, did a million loads of laundry (the only drawback to staying in our VA house is we don't have a washer and dryer there!), started packing again, baked cookies, etc. All this activity meant we really got no school done last week at all. I've never before taken a "fall break" but we did this year!<br />
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Friday afternoon we left to drive down to Huntsville, AL, to see Luke. We left later (2:45) than I wanted to because I just couldn't get everything together. As a result, we had soooo much traffic in Cincinnati and through Kentucky. The drive ended up taking 9 hours in a drizzly, depressing rain. <br />
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It was Luna's first long car trip, so we were very curious to see how she would do. She was pretty nervous at first, and she sat on the middle seat, in between Caleb and Jonathan. We stopped for dinner at a McDonald's right off a busy road, and she was so scared of all the cars and trucks whizzing by. Bob and the kids ordered while I walked her around in the rain, but we ate in the car, so it wasn't a very long stop. The only other time we stopped was for gas and bathrooms, so the 9 hours was not because of stops! Anyway, Luna was so thankful to be back in the van after all the noise of the McDonald's parking lot. The rest of the way she slept on the floor, under the van seats.<br />
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When we got down to Huntsville, around 10:30 central time, we drove straight to the house of a family we had never met before! They had been at WSS this summer and so met Luke there. Their oldest daughter was at Camp Caleb with Anna, so we had that connection too. They had just PCS'd down there in June, so when they realized Luke was close by, they had him over several times during the semester, and they told him our whole family was welcome to stay there! They had a huge, lovely house, with plenty of room for all of us, including Luna, and we had so much fun with them! Luna bravely met their ancient dog Kodi, and also had tons of fun running around their yard with the kids, and also taking walks around the big lake in the middle of their subdivision. <br />
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We had planned on stopping by the college to see Luke first, but when it got so late, we sadly realized we just couldn't. But we were so happily surprised when the doorbell rang not long after we got there, and it was Luke! Everyone was so thrilled to see him! He ended up staying the night too, which was fun.<br />
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It was actually Family Weekend at Luke's college, so there were a lot of activities planned for Saturday. After Bob took Luke's car into Costco to deal with a tire issue, we all headed over to campus.<br />
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Verity was especially happy to see Luke. She has really missed her big brother!<br />
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We stopped by Luke's dorm room, and we met his good friend and workout partner that is his suitemate. <br />
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Then we headed back over to the student center, where they had bouncy houses, and all sorts of other activities for family members. Here the kids are stuffing mascots to take home. Caleb and Anna also made some sand art.<br />
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We got cotton candy, and we also ate lunch at some food trucks. We had some BBQ pork sandwiches, and we also got a plate of kabobs from a truck called "Highway Kabobbery", which made us laugh. <br />
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They had facepainting as well, and Drew and Verity picked up some NASA tattoos from the Space Hardware Club booth.<br />
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After watching Luke play an intramural game of ultimate frisbee, we headed back over to the B's house for a delicious dinner of chili and pork steaks. <br />
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Then it was time for the hockey game! We had a bit of a time getting our family weekend passes exchanged for the actual tickets (which we hadn't realized we needed to do, lol), but it all worked out just fine. Hockey is really a fun game to watch, and I brought tootsie pops for when little people got too antsy, so we had a great time! <br />
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Sunday we met up with Luke at his church. It's a primitive Baptist church, which means they don't have instruments with their music. I found it amazingly refreshing. We sang a ton of beautiful hymns, and everyone just launched out into parts! I had read an article on facebook talking about how people no longer learn to read music or develop any kind of an ear in churches anymore because the music is usually so loud, and no one looks at hymnals anymore. You have to be able to hear the people around you if you want to learn how to sing in parts! I was also amazed at how much more engaged Micah was in the singing because he was actually trying to follow along in the hymnal. Now that he can read, he is reading a lot!<br />
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After the sermon, it was time for Luke to get baptized. This was actually the reason that we came down this particular weekend, and I'm so glad we were able to be there. Luke gave his testimony in front of the church, and it was very special to hear. I'm so thankful for all the events and people the Lord has used in Luke's life these part years, especially the people at WSS this summer. Such a blessing!<br />
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His church has an actual permanent baptismal pool!<br />
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After the baptism, everyone filed up and shook his hand or hugged him to welcome him into church membership, which I thought was neat.<br />
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Then we went over to the pastor's house for an incredible Sunday dinner of pulled pork, mac and cheese, green beans, sweet potatoes, and salad, with brownies and ice cream for dessert! It was really great to get to know them better, and we had such a fun time! In fact, we didn't want to leave to the drive back, lol. Eventually we knew we'd better get back to our friends' house to collect Luna and our stuff, or else we would never get home! But first, they took a nice picture of 11/12 of us!<br />
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So by the time we got loaded up and actually left, it was almost 4:00 Eastern time. We knew there would be less traffic on a Sunday, but still--we didn't end up getting back home until after midnight. We did make a longer stop for dinner, though, stopping at Culvers. Luna was much friskier on the ride home, trying out several spots, including Bob's lap before we could get her back into the back! <br />
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But eventually she settled down back on the floor. By the time we got close to home, she had decided the best place was on top of backpacks and our snack tub in the middle of the driver and passenger seats. It looked a bit uncomfortable to me, but she was completely racked out! She was sooo happy when we got home though. Yesterday she had the most energy she's ever had, racing happily around the yard and frolicking around the kitchen! She is definitely a homebody.<br />
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But unfortunately for her, we are not, lol. She's going to be taking a trip to VA this coming weekend for the girls' last cross country meet! At least she travels well and doesn't get carsick! Bob and Clairehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17948514246811431207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939495.post-42926365494514819822018-10-10T18:46:00.002-07:002018-10-10T18:46:31.264-07:00Introducing Luna!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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We got a puppy on Saturday! This seemingly sudden decision was actually a really long time in the making. The kids have been asking for a dog for a long time now--years, for sure! I have always said, "Not until I am all done potty training!", and that kept things at bay for quite some time, lol. But Verity was potty-trained last summer, thus ending over 20 years of diapers, so that criteria was done.<br />
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At that point, however, we were contemplating taking a space-a trip over to Germany to visit our friends the C's in February, and I knew we did not want to have to deal with what to do with a dog, especially since we had no idea how much time it would take us to get out or get back. We did end up making the trip, which was amazing, and I was indeed relieved that we weren't worrying about a dog. It was bad enough worrying about our bunny Mocha!<br />
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By then, however, we knew we were moving to Ohio in the summer, since Bob had actually started working out here in January. And who wants to deal with a new dog *and* a move?? Not me! So again, we put it off. But the thought of getting a dog was a big incentive for the kids to want to move, especially since we ended up giving away Mocha (to a wonderful fellow homeschooling family who are taking fabulous care of him!). So we have been praying for God to bring the right dog into our life for a long time!<br />
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Bob had joined a local area "pet classifieds" facebook group this summer, and he had noticed that someone local was selling a litter of 10 Newfoundland puppies who had been born on July 15. We talked about it, but we didn't move on it right away. The girls and I had to go back to VA for a meet, and it just didn't seem like the right timing. But then last week the guy posted that he still had 3 puppies left, and so Bob and I decided to go see them. We've always liked big dogs--when we were stationed in Colorado, we had a lab/malamute cross as well as a Great Pyrenees--and we had actually tried to adopt a Newfie from the pound before we got them, but someone else was ahead of us. I knew that Newfies tend to have a really steady temperament and are really good with kids, which obviously was important to us. <br />
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So Bob and I went over to this guy's house Friday night without any kids. The puppies were so cute, and the parents were really nice. The dad wasn't as big as the Newf that friends of ours in VA have, and neither parent was very barky or jumpy. The mom didn't bark at all, even when we rang the doorbell and she saw us looking in a window! We decided to take the plunge, so we came home to order a ton of dog-related stuff on Amazon. We came back the next day, Saturday, Oct. 6, and we picked out a gray female we named Luna!<br />
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She looks black here, but she really is a little lighter than that. The hair on her head is really neat--it's almost frosted a lighter shade at the tips. I've never seen anything like it, and I don't know if it will stay that way, but it's really pretty! She also has a white blaze on her front, and on the front of her 2 back paws.<br />
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This girl is about the most chill puppy you can imagine! She is not the stereotypical "inquisitive puppy looking for mischief and getting into everything" at all. We haven't let her into the carpeted areas of the house, which means she just stays in our kitchen/dining room area. We have 2 sets of 70's-era doors that close off this area from the rest of the main level, but even if they aren't closed, she just sticks around in the dining room, mainly. She's very happy napping under our big table, and so far she has only tried to chew on Micah's croc!<br />
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She doesn't jump all over you or nip or anything. She's been great for Verity, who was definitely the most scared of dogs in general, especially dogs who jump up on her. The family we got her from had several kids, so she is very used to kids, which is good, lol. She occasionally will mouth your hand or arm as you pet her, but we're working on that, and she's really gentle.<br />
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The only problem so far (other than house training, which she is improving in, but we can't wait until she can go through the night, and she doesn't have any more day time accidents, lol) is that she really is not a fan of walks. She loves our yard and will romp around there quite happily with the kids--but she has no desire to leave it ever! When we try to walk her around the park behind our house, she is so reluctant. She pulls backward on her leash, and tries to just flop down and not move. We've started giving her those little training treats to get her to walk at all! I've never seen a less curious dog! <br />
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When we actually get to the playground, which is at the opposite end of the park from our house, she enjoys seeing people there and being petted. But after a little bit, she is pulling on the leash to go back to our house. She has like a built-in compass, and she always knows which way to go to get to our house! We've taken her out to the street in front of our house, and she dislikes that even more because of the occasional car. So far we've made it all the way to the end of our next-door neighbor's house, lol. I was really looking forward to walks with a dog, so hopefully she will get over this quickly! Now it is just an exercise in frustration because it takes forever for us to make just one lap around the park (which is only 1/3 mile!)! <br />
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I think part of the problem is that the breeder guy was a little overwhelmed with all the puppies. He told Bob they weren't expecting to have puppies, although I mean, he had a male and a female, so you'd think he would not have been shocked, lol. But anyway, they didn't *do* anything with them (other than handle them, which is definitely super important!), like take them anywhere or even take them on any walks or anything. So I think that is contributing to her timidity in new places. Also, she's now 12 weeks old, so we did miss a good part of the window where she is open to new experiences. We are trying to remedy that by doing a lot, like not giving up on walks! We've also visited Petsmart, and tonight we took her to Sonic with us while we ate. If you are local and want to meet her, stop by! Or we'll come visit you, lol. New experiences!!<br />
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So Luna is settling into our family quite well, and the kids are thrilled with her! She really is such a sweetheart, and I am so glad for a quiet, calm puppy. Now if we can just get her to like walks . . .Bob and Clairehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17948514246811431207noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939495.post-25751835253517867012018-09-14T11:38:00.000-07:002018-09-14T11:43:37.624-07:00Schooling in a New PlaceWe started school 4 weeks ago, in the middle of August. This is the first year since we moved to VA back in the summer of 2004, that we have not been involved in nay co-ops. Now the co-ops we were involved in in VA were amazing, and they benefited my kids so very much. But I was also so very tired and burned out, and this season of not being involved in any outside thing is actually very refreshing for me. Our time is our own! No one else is depending on us! This is definitely not sustainable long term (Anna especially is missing getting out of the house and doing things with other people), so we will be looking for a co-op or something for next year, but for right now? Just what I needed.<br />
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Not having to go out any morning (or having to teach classes for older kids) has meant that school is getting done more consistently every morning than it has for a long time with the younger kids. This is perfect timing for Micah, since as I mentioned in my last post, he has finally decided that reading is something he would actually like to do and would benefit from. I am astounded at the progress he has made since early July. Now he is reading books with no complaints! He even read our Bible story out loud for Drew and Verity a few nights ago! When I think about all the frustration and tears from working with him last year . . . ha, I could have just let him play all year long, and he would probably still be right where he is now! Ironically, I realized his nature when I was <a href="http://psalm127.blogspot.com/2014/06/micah.html">potty-training him</a>, and I waited until he was 3, and he decided he wanted to be a "big boy" on his own. Then he was my easiest to train and had almost no accidents. I should have used the same gameplan for reading, but I didn't want to reward his bad attitude and lack of cooperation. It's a fine line, I guess. I really didn't need any more stress last year though, and I could have saved myself a boatload! Ah well, I'm just thankful for where he is now.<br />
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Verity has been wanting to do her own school for awhile now--all of last year, really--and she would sit with us and "write" in her coloring books. She has pretty good fine motor skills, so she drew lots of little lines and circles. It was so cute! But anyway, I figured she was the opposite of Micah, and she actually was interested (and she is a girl and much more motivated by workbooks, etc., lol), so I got her Saxon 1 math workbooks, and the (Veritas Press Phonics Museum) phonics workbook we have always used (since I started it with Nathan and bought the big kit--we've definitely gotten our money worth out of that investment, lol). She is happy as a clam! She loves doing school, and she's actually pretty good at writing "M", B", and "A", which are the letters she's covered so far. She's not as good at recognizing which of them starts a particular word. because she pretty much just happily answers, "Yes!" to any question you ask. Such a happy girl! If I didn't have all this morning time, I probably wouldn't have done anything official with her until next year.<br />
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I should mention that Drew is plugging along too with his reading. He is much more like all the rest of my kids have been with reading--slogging along, until it eventually really clicks and gets faster. But he's pretty cheerful and motivated, and like I said, that's how everyone else has been, and they are all quite good readers.<br />
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Anna would have been going to a junior high co-op if we had stayed in VA, but instead, she's doing everything here with me. I am teaching her life science, along with Grace, and that's been going really well. I don't have her in a writing class or a German class because I wasn't sure enough of what the year was going to look like to get her into those before they filled up. So she's taking a break from German, unfortunately. Hopefully next year . . .<br />
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I have started Latin with Grace on down (and Anna usually is around, listening in). I haven't done Latin with the kids since I was so frustrated with Caleb and Jonathan the year I had them take the Latin 1 National Latin Exam (2014 maybe?), and neither did as well as I thought they should have, given the amount of Latin we had done, if they had just devoted a tiny bit of their brains to studying. But I really love Latin, and so it's fun to get back to it. Plus, this is the easy stuff, lol.<br />
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I had mentioned that Caleb is taking his math and English classes over at the community college that is close by us, and those are going really well for him. I am teaching him and Jonathan AP biology and AP psychology. I've never taught AP psych before, but there is a lot of bio in there, and I have always really enjoyed reading books on neuroscience, so I'm finding it very interesting. Since it is just us, we can be completely flexible for class times! We're doing the classes in the afternoons, usually Wednesdays, but we can move it around as needed. SO nice! Jonathan is doing literature by himself after I worked up a nice reading list from the Tapestry of Grace Year 1 recommendations, plus some books Nathan and Luke had read that he hadn't. I'm looking for prompts on these books online for him to write essays with, so that is working out nicely. They are both doing American history on their own, since they already have had a lot of it through TOG, but not as a particular class. I had the bright idea of having them take the Am. history CLEP test (either 1 or 2, I haven't decided yet) at the end of the year, so they can have some validation of all they have learned over the past few years. I took a ton of CLEP tests to get out of pretty much all my gen ed. requirements many moons ago, but I haven't really looked into it recently because AP credits are so more readily accepted in places. But I don't want to prep APUSH or deal with the reworking of that test, so I think CLEP will be a fine way to go.<br />
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As a real answer to prayer, Caleb and Jonathan are taking Spanish 3 with a friend who goes to church with my parents! She and her husband are from Puerto Rico, so they are native Spanish speakers. She had been wanting to teach her 2 kids more formally, so the 4 kids are all together, and it's been so very nice. I think the boys will be a lot more comfortable actually speaking Spanish after this year. Caleb had said that at WSS, they had a "Spanish table", where everyone only spoke in Spanish, for international night, and he sat there. He could understand a lot of the conversation, but he never felt comfortable saying anything. Hopefully that won't be true next summer!<br />
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I had been thinking we would put Jonathan in a classical Christian school maybe 2 days a week for a few classes, but after looking into it, I just couldn't see how doing that made my life easier, and it certainly would have complicated things by having one of us drop him off and pick him up even twice a week half an hour away. He is taking an electronics class that I found out about from a facebook post someone here made. An older man who worked as an electrician for 44 years and is now retired teaches the class to only 4 boys, and he is so enthusiastic about the subject! Jonathan is REALLY enjoying this class, and he's learning a lot too. He's soldering circuits and stuff already, and working with the equations. It's a highlight of his week!<br />
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Hmmm, we're of course doing other subjects, but those are the main points I want to remember when I look back on this year. We're getting into a good routine, I think, and we're enjoying this break where we are a little more family-focused, instead of doing so much outside with other people. It's been a long time, and this break has been so needed by me! <br />
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Bob and Clairehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17948514246811431207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939495.post-54410562896764412512018-08-26T21:05:00.001-07:002018-08-27T08:07:30.112-07:00Summer Summary: We MovedNow, for a few more details, since I haven't seen fit to blog since April, and there were several unanswered questions in my last post that now have been answered . . .<br />
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<li>I drove down to Alabama to pick up Luke by myself May 12. I had a fabulous drive listening to a fascinating book on tape called <i>Candy Bombers</i> about the Berlin Airlift by Andrei Chersky, and the miles flew by! On the way home the next day, it was wonderful to catch up with Luke, who had just gotten back from a Reformed University Fellowship conference down in Florida and was very tan and relaxed. </li>
<li>Nathan came home from VT sick with what turned out to be mono. He was so miserable! A steroid injection helped the throat swelling go down, and he recovered quickly, thank God. </li>
<li>Caleb took his first AP exam, microeconomics (got a 5, thanks to Mrs. Mc's pushing, lol)</li>
<li>I finished my seventh year of being in charge of testing for our large co-op. It went off without a hitch, but it was Micah's first time to test, and I knew he was not ready or motivated. I was right, in that he refused to even try to read anything more than a single word, and the occasional short sentence. He was in the 26th percentile, and believe me, I was not shocked, but i have never actually seen those numbers in front of me before, lol. But amazingly, that is in the 4th stanine, so I sent in the results to the county--and then later in the summer, Micah decided reading was something he actually did want to do, and now he's reading his readers like a champ. Boys!</li>
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<li> Anna and Grace finished track season. They mainly ran the 800 and the 4x400. I think Anna would be a better mile runner, since she's such a great xc runner, but she was way more interested in the shorter distances, lol. It was a super fun season--I love track meets!</li>
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<li>I became a "hurdles coach", of all things at this stage of my life. At one of the early meets, I mentioned to the coach that I thought Anna would be a good hurdler because she has a lot of core strength and because she is interested, and Coach answered, "Oh, would you be able to coach hurdles? We have several kids interested, but no one with any experience!" Never mind that my experience was a good 25 years ago in high school, ha! [ETA: Okay, I actually thought about it, and it was 30 years ago, seeing as how I was married 25 years ago, and I wasn't married in high school!) I watched youtube videos and read articles for hurdle coaches to bring it all back. It was actually really fun, and the interested kids made great strides! Anna ended up running the 100m hurdles several times, and the 300m hurdles just once, in the last meet, since the other meets didn't have 300m hurdles for middle schoolers. This picture was from that 300m hurdle race, at one of the last hurdles (which is obvious because the hurdles are in a line at that point, of course . . .), so she was tired and her form has suffered. But overall she did great, and I am excited for her to keep going in hurdles! Grace had zippo interest, lol.</li>
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<li> We went on our annual Memorial Day camping trip with all our homeschooling friends. Nathan and Luke were both able to come, which we no longer take for granted! It is always so nice to be all together. We drove the 2 minivans, and other friends drove our big van with our 5 kayaks, so that was a new fun activity! </li>
<li>The day after camping, Luke left to go up to WSS in PA to work as the co-boys' staff supervisor. He also had to leave for a weekend in early June to compete with his Space Hardware Club CanSat competition team in Texas. He had a lot of great stories from the competition, and their rocket did better than they expected when they first got down there, but he was glad to get back to WSS and the rest of the summer! </li>
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<li>Jonathan got his wisdom teeth out on May 31, just 2 days before his 15th birthday! A few weeks later in June, his jaw was all swollen and tender again on the right side, so he had to go back again for them to cut it open again until they found a little sliver of bone that had been missed and was causing all the problems. Then they cut it even more, to make sure they got it all. This is not an experience Jonathan ever wants repeated, lol. </li>
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<li> June 4 we drove to Ohio, both to pick up my nieces who had flown in from TX for a month, and to be there for the inspection on a house we had put an offer on without seeing! An older couple had moved into a new house across from my parents several weeks prior, and it turned out they were moving from the tri-level in the same neighborhood, just a few streets away. My parents told them we were interested in buying a house in that neighborhood, so a few days before they listed their house, they let my parents know. Unfortunately, this was the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, and Bob was in VA as we prepared to go camping. So my parents went through the house with our realtor facetiming me! Ah, technology. So we put an offer in, they accepted it, and we were in business! </li>
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<ul>
<li> The house was small--2300 sq. ft. compared to the almost 5000 sq. ft we had in VA, but it had a wonderful back yard with nice climbing trees, and this big, leafy tree that shades the really large deck. It also backs up to a park, which is amazing. As long as the weather is nice, and the kids can be outside, life is very good!</li>
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<li> Emily and Elia flew in, and we had time for a quick trip to Youngs before we headed back to VA with them. </li>
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<li> Most of the time, I was busy packing and trying to declutter, but we did manage to fit in a time at IFly! The kids all did great, even Verity--except Drew. Even though he had gone 18 months before, he balked and wouldn't go. Of course, as soon as we gave his time away and he couldn't go--he threw a big temper tantrum and was super upset. Ah well, may he remember this lesson later in life, lol.</li>
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<li> The girls all went to Camp Caleb at WSS. First Faith and Elia went. It was really special because Faith's closest friends Elena and Amber went too. I was worried about the dynamics, and that maybe they would leave out any other girl, but no, everyone got along wonderfully, and they all became fast friends with the one other girl who was there.</li>
<li>Grace and Emily went the next week, and they also had a lovely time with good weather. Caleb was there working on staff both those weeks, so it was fun to see him during the drop-offs and pick-ups. He smashed his middle finger with a sledgehammer while splitting wood, and the rest of the summer we all watched with interest as the finger turned different shades, and the nail eventually fell off. </li>
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<li> We made another quick trip back to Ohio to close on our house and to say a sad goodbye to Emily and Elia, who had to fly home. The van sure was quiet after they left! They also moved this summer, to Seattle, so we're not sure how much we'll see of them anymore (but you can't say that to the girls because that will bring on immediate tears . . . thank the Lord for Facetime!)</li>
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<li> The kids and I drove back to VA so Anna could go to Camp Caleb July 8. When we picked up on Friday, we went up to Bob's sister Rose's house on the lake in NE PA for the weekend. We rode in the boat, went tubing, and went fishing! It was a great weekend! </li>
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<li> We also participated in the 5k to raise money for the volunteer firefighters. Anna and Rose both won their age divisions! In the afternoon, there was a parade with tons of fire engines and other emergency equipment for districts all around. The kids had been looking forward to the parade so eagerly because they knew they would get tons of candy, and they did!</li>
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<li> Grace got her braces off July 16! Our orthodontist had worked to speed up the process since we found out we were moving. He did a great job, and now she just had to wear her retainer. The orthodontist's office said how much they would miss all the kids--but maybe they will just miss the rest of our narrow-jawed clan! Ha!</li>
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<ul>
<li> The moving van finally came on July 17, our 25th wedding anniversary! What a way to celebrate! Bob was in Ohio, and I pulled an all-nighter the night before to finish boxing up as much as I could. Nathan actually worked for this moving company, JK Moving, for the summer, and his experience proved incredibly valuable. He helped me get the kitchen packed up that night, and I couldn't have done it without his help because I was so mentally done! I highly recommend JK Moving, if anyone is looking to move from VA. The estimator was right on, as far as weight, and they did such a good, careful job of wrapping everything and loading it all. Nothing broke! Plus the crew was super nice. Nathan informed me that I should have gatorade and water ready, and not to buy pizza for lunch (because that's what everyone thinks of, but on hot, humid days, you don't want a heavy, greasy meal like pizza!). It was approximately 1000 degrees, so I bought a sandwich platter from Costco that was well-received. Christine watched the other kids, which was a relief to have them all out of the way. Plus, with the doors open all day, I turned off the AC, and it was like 86 degrees in the house. I was melting, and SOOO tired! But I survived. Whew! Next year will hopefully involve a nicer anniversary celebration!</li>
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<li> We drove back to Ohio July 20, and the Mc's were there to wave goodbye. That was such a sad day! Words can't express my thankfulness for such faithful friends. Well, family, really! So good thing it wasn't goodbye forever!</li>
<li>The moving truck delivered our goods Sunday, July 22, and we started trying to figure out how to cram all our stuff in! We made it mostly work, although it is tight, but our garage is definitely full too!</li>
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<li>In fact, we were back in VA 2 weeks after we left! We came to say goodbye to Nathan, pack up more stuff that I just couldn't get to, watch a production of "Beauty and the Beast" that friends were performing in, and greet Luke as he came back from WSS! Oh, and we made a trip downtown to visit the Museum of the Bible with Bob's sister Ann and her granddaughter Jasmine! The museum was fantastic--highly recommended! Unfortunately, I dropped my trusty almost-6-year-old iphone 5 that I got September, 2012, after toddler Micah microwaved my old Motorola one in a hotel in St. Louis. The glass shattered, but it was time for me to get a new phone anyhow. The old one was VERY glitchy, wouldn't turn off and on anymore, only stayed charged for a few hours, etc. Bob and I went to Costco that night and got me an iphone 8! </li>
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So now we are back in Ohio. Luke drove back with us so he could pick up all his stuff, and then he drove himself down to Alabama. We are attempting to settle in, and I at least got all the books unpacked and organized so we could start school last Monday. We were also able to get Caleb registered for community college classes (just math and English this semester, since we weren't even sure the whole thing would work at all!), and we decided not to do anything else outside with anyone else. It's actually been kind of a nice change of pace to not have to go anywhere in the mornings, but just focus on school here at our house. I'm sure that will change as we get more involved over the upcoming years!</div>
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There . . . all caught up!</div>
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Bob and Clairehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17948514246811431207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939495.post-41417291443889649652018-05-02T11:54:00.000-07:002018-05-02T11:54:02.567-07:00Moving . . . Slowly . . .People have been asking me how moving is going. The answer is most definitely, "Slowly".<br />
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In the past month we've had at least 3 donation pick-ups at our house, and many, many bags and boxes of stuff have gone out in those. Bob has been driving back here to VA most weekends (in fact, his company was so kind of to send him out here for a week's TDY in the middle of April!), and so I have boxed up tons of books (probably literal tons, lol), as well as other random things (like a space heater that has been stepped on in the middle as well as all our sleds, as you can see below), to fill up his car to take back to Ohio where he puts them into my parents' basement. (Side note: liquor boxes are so great for books! I like them way better than "book boxes" from moving companies. But it does make it look like I have a serious drinking problem!)<br />
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Getting rid of the boxes, plus all the donations, seems like our house would be feeling empty, but that is not the case! It turns out we have way too much stuff, and me packing away what we won't need for a few months is just a drop in an endless sea of stuff. Alas! We do have a few bookcases that seem less full, although I can never fit everything from a bookcase into boxes, so each shelf still has some random books that don't fit. Now we just look like unorganized book clutterers, lol. I think it will help once this school year is officially over, and we can pack away all the books we are currently using. Although I have to somehow figure out what I'll need for next year, and pack that last, or at least in a way that it will be easily found . . .<br />
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I still am not sure exactly how the end game is going to work. At some point in mid-June, we will have a moving truck move most of our big furniture. Then we can hopefully do what we need to do to this house to get it ready for the market--paint, refinish hardwood, and re-carpet--that we can't do while all of us are living here. There's not really very much time between now and mid-June, however, and what time we do have is pretty full! I have to finish up teaching chemistry and physical science, the girls have a few more track meets, Nathan and Luke are coming home (and I'm driving down to AL to pick up Luke), I'm in charge of standardized testing (but Micah is still not reading where I think he should be, so I can't really slack on his school), we're doing our annual camping trip, and Grace and Faith are going to Camp Caleb two different weeks in June with their cousins. Whew! <br />
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Another question is what will we do for a house in Ohio? That is an excellent question! I still don't have an answer though, lol. Our original tentative plan was to buy a cheap house we would squeeze into for a while so we could sell our house here and find a more long-term house there. But it turns out the housing market for those kinds of houses is, surprisingly, really tight right now, and we don't feel like fighting millenial first-time home buyers with escalation-clause contracts for houses that aren't even our long-term plan. So we might stay with my parents for a bit, and we are definitely praying our house here sells quickly. But anyhow, short answer is, we have no idea where we will land as of yet!<br />
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Another popular question is have we figured out what everyone will do for co-ops or whatever for next year in Ohio? The answer to that is simply, no. I have had many very helpful contacts give me a great deal of very helpful information. But it's like I'm stuck in molasses, and I just don't have the mental margin to explore deeper and actually make progress in any one direction. Ack! Then I have moments of complete panic, until I make myself not think about it anymore. And honestly, I'm pretty overwhelmed in a lot of different areas, so I am able to just worry about something more immediate! So, lots of room to work in that area, ha! I am praying the Lord will hold open space in whatever places we need, until I get my head back in the game, especially for Caleb and Jonathan. I think it would help if I was actually there in Ohio, but it may be too late by the time June rolls around. So, yeah . . . this area is definitely the biggest stress factor weighing on me right now--much greater than moving logistics or where we will live!<br />
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In just a little extra note, we got a new (to us) car in April! Like I said before, Bob was home for a week, and so we were able to drive to Dover, DE, to buy this used 2006 Honda Pilot on April 14! The plan is for Nathan to drive this and pass the CR-V down to Luke, but right now, Bob has been really enjoying driving it back and forth to Ohio (well, enjoying how it drives, not necessarily all the driving, lol). Hopefully it will be a good, faithful car, like the CR-V has been! And it has been really, really nice for there to be the 2 minivans here at home. That means that both Caleb and I can drive minivans, instead of me having to take the big van when he needs to go somewhere too.</div>
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So there's an update of where we are. It turns out it is really hard to uproot and move 12 people when we have lived in a house 14 years! Who would have thought?! </div>
Bob and Clairehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17948514246811431207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939495.post-66598815122854171302018-04-03T13:09:00.002-07:002018-04-03T13:09:44.299-07:00MarchHow about a month update at one time?! It's been a different, and also difficult month, with lots of change.<br />
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The first change was a big one, and actually started back in January--Bob started a new job, and it's not here. We are finally going to be moving back to Ohio, where my parents live. In some ways, this is so exciting, and in other ways, it is extremely sad and also overwhelming. Since Bob has already started the job, he is actually already in Ohio during the week, coming home for weekends. As he says, he took his week of long commutes here and now he does them all at one time on the weekends! So that isn't much better, but fortunately it should be temporary. I've been trying to go through things and declutter, but we have miles and miles to go before we are ready to move. The house definitely looks like a family of 12 has lived here for almost 14 years. I'm also trying to get a handle on what we will do for homeschooling next year, which is another overwhelming prospect. Thankfully friends there have been giving me things to check into and people to contact, which has been very, very helpful. We are trusting the Lord will lead us to the right things to get involved with!<br />
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Another very sad change was the passing of Bob's mom Ann. I am so glad we were all, including Nathan and Luke, able to see her and Bob's dad over Christmas.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitiGp-NOwQd03w0A8VOh2pdjldlDLQl2i2pwefzp_BJijE8CMYyIT0c51sAqk5Ee9JRW1Pay5_GoXGZyxmNqLJ536pN_nBSfCUSUdGtErArYlt_EBEMxnZ4ylGz8mJd_G37_WtQA/s1600/IMG_5407.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitiGp-NOwQd03w0A8VOh2pdjldlDLQl2i2pwefzp_BJijE8CMYyIT0c51sAqk5Ee9JRW1Pay5_GoXGZyxmNqLJ536pN_nBSfCUSUdGtErArYlt_EBEMxnZ4ylGz8mJd_G37_WtQA/s320/IMG_5407.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
Here is a picture from October, when she celebrated her 91st birthday!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXVQQhLfdLa9Xe8I4uj69sYgA3yh2aWrbRCjAT5N85U5Fg4aHsGiGeYoxki6a9tFxRqienU4mawFnubffD3Tn6eZPTNiV2KVzhtQDm0r_Emi70C-0UV01tUQotlUO5_1VL34RPIg/s1600/IMG_4973.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXVQQhLfdLa9Xe8I4uj69sYgA3yh2aWrbRCjAT5N85U5Fg4aHsGiGeYoxki6a9tFxRqienU4mawFnubffD3Tn6eZPTNiV2KVzhtQDm0r_Emi70C-0UV01tUQotlUO5_1VL34RPIg/s320/IMG_4973.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
Although she was 91 years old, she and Bob's dad have been in honestly amazing good health for people in their early 90's. Until the end of February when she was taken to the hospital, they were living by themselves in the house Bob and his 5 siblings grew up in--the one with one bathroom which is on the second floor. Obviously going up and down those stairs for so many years must have kept them young! But then she got some kind of infection and had to be taken to the ER on Feb. 27. The next night she actually had a heart attack, but they were able to get her breathing again and intubated her. She was moved to a rehab center a few days later, and we thought she was improving. For the past 3 weekends Bob and his siblings have been visiting her, which was really good, but added even extra driving for Bob, as he fit in those visits, plus trying to see us.<br />
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Then, sadly, last week she slept a lot more and just seemed weaker, and then she peacefully passed away on Tuesday, March 20, just a month before her and Frank's 70th wedding anniversary (April 17). There was a lovely funeral service and mass for her yesterday that Bob, Luke, and I were able to attend. The timing worked out with Luke flying home for spring break on Friday night, so he drove up with us early Saturday morning. It was really nice to spend the time with him, and also for him to be able to see his cousins, many of which are his same age. We ended up leaving the younger kids home with Caleb. Since we left at 5:00 AM, we knew it would just be a really long day for them, and we wanted to be able to focus on everyone there, not worry about them throwing a temper tantrum or being uncooperative at a bad time. I think it was the right decision. We were able to visit with family without interruptions, and the kids here at home took it upon themselves to thoroughly clean the main floor of the house and their rooms. It took them 5 hours, and the end result looked like the cleaning ladies had been here! What a huge gift! We thought we were walking back into the wrong house when we got home!<br />
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What else has been going on this month . . . Anna and Grace are running track this year, and so practices have started. So far they prefer cross country, but they haven't actually had a meet yet, so that opinion might change. I ran track in high school, and I always thought track meets were really fun!<br />
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Also, Caleb got his driver's license on March 17! He was eligible to get it after Feb. 8, but we were in Germany, and when we got back, it took me a few weeks to get him scheduled for the last thing, his 14 hours of behind-the-wheel training. But finally I got my act together, and he was able to finish up everything. We are SO excited to have another driver again! So far Caleb has taken the girls to track practice, and gone to McDonalds with Jonathan. He also plotted with Anna and Grace to buy donuts Friday morning, March 23, which were very well-received here! I am definitely looking forward to him being able to drive himself and Jonathan to CAP meetings.<br />
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It also snowed for really the first time this entire winter on Wednesday, March 21. It's hard to believe this will be the last time we enjoy this beautiful view off our back deck! The kids played outside all afternoon, making a snow fort at the end of the street and sledding down the hill a zillion times. Then we broke out the hot chocolate machine.<br />
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Micah, Drew, and Verity were so thrilled with the snow that they even went back outside after dinner onto the deck for a little more playtime, since we knew it wouldn't last long! They built a few small snowmen and threw a bunch of snowballs (it's all fun and games until someone comes in crying, lol). I'm so glad we had at least one snow this winter!<br />
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We celebrated Anna's 12th birthday on Wednesday, March 28, with not one, but two cakes! She made the carrot cake herself. We had the McC's over for her birthday dinner, which was pulled pork sliders, but we didn't open presents until Friday. Nathan drove in for the weekend that day, so we were all together, which was so fun!<br />
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On Thursday, March 29, we had this big dead oak tree in our back yard cut down. I was so worried about it a few weeks ago when we had a big windstorm one night. I was outside Thursday afternoon checking the mail when a truck drove up and some guy asked if we wanted to have the dead tree cut down. Fortunately Bob was home to talk to them, because he did computer training all week and was able to do it here and not in Ohio. So they agreed on terms, and the tree came down. Hallelujah! I was so happy and relieved! When I took the picture, the guy had already cut off higher parts. We enjoyed watching the show from our family room windows! The tree was pretty tall, and I was so worried it was going to crash into our house--or one of the neighbors. We had a fire in our fire pit Friday night, but we could conceivably have a fire every night for years before burning it all up. We used the 4 large pieces from the trunk to make benches around the fire pit. And the kids are happy to have a stump to play on!</div>
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So that was March, in a nutshell. A sad month, but also good memories in there too.</div>
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Bob and Clairehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17948514246811431207noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939495.post-65443176646550553702018-03-04T13:20:00.001-08:002018-03-04T13:20:37.509-08:00C-17 Flight OutSunday morning, Feb. 18, found us once again at the terminal. This time things looked positive, however--the flight to McGuire was releasing 53 seats, which is all of them on a C-17. I assumed it must be an empty plane. <br />
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Roll call was at 9:30, but it took a long time. They would call off several names, and then have a period of waiting while those people went up and got their luggage weighed and received boarding passes. Then they would call off more names. We knew it would be iffy for there to be room for all of us, but still, we were happy so many people were being called, since we knew we would have an excellent shot at getting out on the next flight to Dover that evening. There were several more flights to Dover the next day, so things were finally looking up!<br />
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FINALLY they called our name. We were one of the last ones. We made our cumbersome way up to the check-in desk to get all our bags weighed and our passports/IDs checked. At the very last minute, I realized Micah was wearing crocs, which is a big no-no on military aircraft--"No open toed or open heeled shoes allowed". Praise the Lord, I realized it when I did because I was able to grab his tennis shoes out of the suitcase for him to put on. Whew!<br />
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We also bought 4 box lunches for the flight at the desk. These cost $5.50 each, making the grand total for this leg of our trip $22.00. It doesn't cost anything for the actual flight when you are on military aircraft, so we saved a lot of money by not getting on the Rotator! I think that costs $36.20 per person for the flight from Ramstein to BWI because the airport tax is much higher than when you fly from BWI to Ramstein.<br />
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After we got our boarding passes, it was more waiting. But at least we were excited about heading back to the US! We started thinking about what on earth we would do once we got to McGuire, which is a little under 3 hours from where our van was at BWI. I messaged with Joanna, a friend from Maryland, but we had no idea when we would take off, or when we would land. In fact, the computer screen at the terminal said the flight was going through Gander International Airport in Newfoundland, so who knew how long that would take?! <br />
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Finally we got in line to go through security. It was there that we realized Caleb had packed his full-size tube of toothpaste in his backpack instead of his suitcase. Oops! Oh well--plenty more of that at home!<br />
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This is what a C-17 looks like (although this is not the one we were on). We had ridden on them before twice--once to Travis and once back to Dover in 2014 on our big Hawaii adventure. They took us by bus out on the flightline to the aircraft. <br />
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When we got on, I was surprised to see it was most definitely not empty! There was a big pallet in the front, then 4 big propellers, then more pallets in the back. On our previous C-17 flights, we had been able to spread out all over the middle of the plane, but that was not the case here! It took awhile for people to move around to we could have 10 seats together. I would have been happy to let someone else sit by Micah, Drew, or Verity, but apparently, no one wanted that opportunity. Ha!<br />
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Better picture of all the propellers and pallets. It is definitely a cavernously huge aircraft!<br />
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Verity fell asleep really quickly. We taxied for approximately forever, and she might have fallen asleep before we even took off, lol. No, I think she waited a little bit longer. They provide plastic-wrapped bundles of blankets with pillows, which are nice because it's cold at first. The door stayed open for a while, so it got pretty chilly.<br />
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We broke open our 4 box lunches fairly soon after take-off, since it was lunchtime. I think we took off around 2:00 German time. The lunches are pretty nice, which we remembered from our other trips and was why we didn't buy one for each person! They included either 2 Uncrustable peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or a submarine sandwich or a box of chicken tenders. We also had the rest of our lunch meat and cheese, which some remaining brotchen, so the rest of us had sandwiches with that. Then there were also chips, and various snack options like rice krispie treats, granola bars, bags of mini cookies, candy bars, etc (at least 2 options in each box) and a water bottle as well as either a can of pop or a bottle of gatorade. Plenty of food to go around!<br />
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Faith had her Christmas headphones (a present from Anna and Grace) to listen too. Everyone else had to wear ear plugs. I had thought ahead and ordered of amazon <a href="https://smile.amazon.com/Howard-Leight-Laser-Earplugs-50/dp/B003628ODO/ref=sr_1_10_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1520196795&sr=8-10&keywords=ear+plugs">squishier, nicer ear plugs</a> than the ones they give out. They worked great for those of us with more adult sized ear canals, but I still struggled to keep in Micah's, Drew's, and Verity's! I wished I had thought to bring one of those stretchy hair headband things--something like might have helped the earplugs stay in Verity's ears. I had even cut in half a bunch of pairs the night before so that I could use skinnier ones, but they still were not a perfect solution!<br />
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I made the little kids wear their hats, since that was all I had, to try to keep the earplugs in, but they were not incredibly successful. Next time, I'll have a better plan . . .<br />
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Right above the girls' heads was the only set of plugs on our side, so people kept plugging things in there to charge them. Again, a perk of military flights! On previous flights, people brought aerobeds and blew them up with the electric outlets!<br />
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There was no room for aerobeds here. You totally can't see in this picture, but we actually did spread the 2 sleeping bags out in the aisle right by our feet. The kids liked to lay down there, although no one slept there! The good thing about the C-17 is plenty of leg room for everyone! The seats really aren't too uncomfortable, although 9 hours is a little bit long. When people were in the sleeping bags, that opened up extra seats, so I laid across 2 seats with a pillow in the gap. I fell asleep a few times, but boy, I must have been interrupted 20 times by various people and various complaints! Very trivial ones, I might add. Plus, It was pretty much impossible to hear anyone since the plane is so loud and we all had ear plugs in, so I would be awoken by violent shaking, and then someone would lean over me and move their lips. Eventually I would sort of understand what they were saying (usually things like, "I need to poop, but I don't want to go to the front of the airplane by myself" or "I can't sleep" or something earth-shattering like that). I made many trips to the tiny bathroom up front with people because I was the favored escort. How special, lol. <br />
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You can see that the lighting is different in the above picture. At some point (cruising altitude maybe?) they turn off the nice bright lights that run along the sides of the aircraft and just have this green lighting. I had thought before it was because it was night time, but it turns out that is just what always happens! It made reading hard for me, but I persevered. I was able to finish <i>Blink</i> by Malcolm Gladwell, about making good snap decisions. It was very interesting, as I have found all his books to be, and I really enjoyed it. <br />
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Verity did fall asleep again, and she stayed asleep until we landed and taxied in. She had pulled her hat over her eyes in a sort of "do not disturb" sign. She was not real happy about being woken up! </div>
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By the time we got into the McGuire terminal, it was 5:15 eastern, which is 11:15 PM Ramstein time. We got our passports stamped, got our bags, and went through customs (which consisted of a guy standing in the middle of us all and asking us if anyone had anything to declare? No? Okay, free to go.)</div>
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So . . . where to go?? Since it was after 5:00 on a Sunday afternoon, all the rental places were closed. Someone told us we could take a train down to BWI, but that would be very expensive, and we would have to get ourselves to the train station in Trenton. But Joanna came to our rescue! She drove up to McGuire, which was 4 hours from her house, to pick us up! We were SO thankful! While we waited for her, we had a lovely chat with some of the other retirees that had been waiting with us for the week at the Ramstein terminal. Space-a travelers are so nice! </div>
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Finally they left, and we had the terminal to ourselves, except for a few guys who work there. We were just thankful it is a 24 hour terminal! We ordered Dominos Pizza, since they were allowed to deliver on base, and they brought it right to us. It tasted so good! The kid played in the big kids room, which was really nice. </div>
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Joanna got there about 10:45, and she drove us to BWI so we could pick up our van. Words can't express our relief when she drove up! She is an angel! She and I had a lovely visit on the way to BWI, and then we each got home around 2:45 AM. Bob and I had been up for about 26 hours, and we were so tired! It was so good to be home and in our own beds!</div>
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Funny afterthought--when I was helping Drew write a birthday letter to Luke, I asked him to tell Luke what his favorite thing was about the trip. Drew said . . . his snack bag. Yes, the gallon size ziploc bag I filled with snacks (a gallon bag for each person!) was his absolute favorite thing! I guess they were really amazing snacks . . . even better than palaces and Roman forts! Haha! I hope that's not the only thing Drew remembers about this trip!</div>
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Bob and Clairehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17948514246811431207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939495.post-38102546135567686232018-03-02T14:33:00.000-08:002018-03-02T14:33:16.742-08:00Last DayWe woke up thinking that Saturday was fairly likely to be our last day in Germany. There was scheduled on Sunday a flight to McGuire mid-morning, and a flight to Dover in the late afternoon. There had actually been a flight to Andrews with roll call early Saturday morning (as in 0300). We had been debating whether we should try for the Andrews flight, but then it came out with 0 seats being released, so we figured we shouldn't even bother. As it turned out, it ended up releasing 10 seats, but only 2 people were there to get on, and we *might* have been able to get on (sometimes they will release another seat or 2 if there were just a few more needed), but it was a pretty big risk and would have messed up the entire next day if it hadn't worked, so I was glad we didn't worry about it.<br />
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We had been planning to visit the ruins of Nanstein Castle Saturday for one last hoorah of sightseeing, but when we woke up, it was cold, gray and snowing. So walking around ruins sounded particularly miserable, lol.<br />
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Instead, we decided we should go out to a German restaurant, since we had never actually done that. It was intimidating with such a big group, which is why we had never done it before. I got to work googling restaurants in Ramstein, and we decided on "Maxi's". There wasn't a huge selection right in Ramstein, but neither of us really wanted to drive into Kaiserslautern. We ate a big breakfast and went for a late lunch--around 1:00. We figured the restaurant wouldn't be busy then, and we were right. We were pretty much the only customers, except for a big table of what looked like regulars right by the door!<br />
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We ordered 2 plates of wienerschnitzel and 4 plates of jagerschnitzel. They all came with salads, so we divided those up among us all. We got fries with the wienerschnitzal and yummy potato croquettes with the jagerschnitzel. Everyone tried some of everything, and they were big platters, so we had plenty! Everyone like the croquettes a lot. I think it was Jonathan who said they tasted like pierogies with a crunchier outside! The only bad thing was paying 3.50 euros for each carafe of water. I had a water bottle in my backpack, which I used to refill glasses so we didn't need to buy anymore carafes. I love my free water!<br />
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You can see the snowy landscape outside. The restaurant was all windows--very bright and airy, even on a really cloudy day!<br />
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Afterwards we drove further into the small town of Ramstein to Venezia Eiscafe, which got great reviews on yelp. And it definitely lived up to the reviews! One scoop of amazing gelato in a cup or a cone was just 1 euro! There were lots of different flavors including strawberry (which was SO delicious--like a fresh strawberry but even better!), hazelnut, coconut, cookies and cream, mint chocolate chip, and chocolate (and more that I can't remember, lol). With so many of us, we were able to taste a wide selection of flavors. <br />
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I personally had chocolate, which was also absolutely delicious. The older boys went back for another scoop since they had brought their own money!<br />
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That night we went back to a grocery store Bob and I had been to by ourselves--Globus. It was definitely the biggest grocery store we had been in over there. It was more like a Super Walmart or something because it had more stuff than just food. It also had some little shops like Super Walmarts do in front of the cash registers, as well as some food places. We bought pizzas there, and Bob also bought half of a rotisserie chicken. <br />
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We also bought a beer! Since the legal drinking age in Germany is 16, Caleb had been dying to try some. Here was his big chance! He was not impressed. We actually let all the kids try a sip, and none of them liked it. They were actually astounded that some people struggle with drinking too much it I guess it is an acquired taste, lol. I think we left it 3/4 full on the table when we left. But it was an experience!</div>
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Then we headed back to the TLF to finish packing our stuff up (again)! Maybe for the last time??</div>
Bob and Clairehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17948514246811431207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939495.post-34136344951435264182018-03-01T20:25:00.001-08:002018-04-05T20:10:13.304-07:00On Base LivingThe temporary living facilities, or TLFs, are housing units that families can live in for up to 30 days (longer if they need to and there is room) when they are PCSing into or out of a duty station. There are 2, 3, and 4 bedroom units. For space-a people to stay there, they are all the same amazing price--$63 a night! We definitely could not have fit 10 people anywhere else for such a price! Because they are actual housing units, they have a full kitchen, washer and dryer, and pretty much anything else you would need if you were having to live there for a month. Housing units on Ramstein are wired with both 110 and 220 electricity, so we could pick which outlets we wanted to use because there were both in each room!<br />
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This is the back of our unit. Bob is on the back balcony. We had a front balcony too in this unit. Four buildings made a square around a big grassy playground area with picnic tables, a shelter, benches, etc.<br />
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Our family room. You can't see the TV in the left corner, but everyone was thrilled that we could watch the winter Olympics on it, both in English on AFN, and in German! Sitting there watching them brought back memories of our stay in the TLFs at Travis, where we got stuck there on our way back from Hawaii 4 years ago. We watched a lot of curling because that always seemed to be on when we were ready to watch! I guess I have a better understanding of the game, but I'm still no expert, lol.<br />
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The couch pulled out to a full bed, and the 3 girls slept on that. Down the hallway, there was a master bedroom with bathroom (that's where the washer and dryer were too--it was a pretty big bath room!), and a room with 2 twin beds where Micah and Drew slept, and Verity slept on the floor in a sleeping bag we brought on the 2 cushions from the couch. There was actually a pack-n-play in the master closet we could have used, but she did fine. There were also 2 rooms with one twin bed in each where Caleb and Jonathan slept.<br />
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This is looking over towards the table and the kitchen. They had 5 place settings of dishes and silverware, so we had to eat in shifts, lol.<br />
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This is the playground area. There were several other families in the TLFs, and so there were plenty of kids around to play with, which was fun.<br />
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Micah, Drew, and Verity LOVED the playground!<br />
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Wednesday was Valentine's Day, so we went out to lunch at the Chili's on base. We really NEVER go out to restaurants like that as a family, so that was a big treat for the kids. Kids meals with drinks! Woo-hoo!<br />
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Celebrating over 25 years of being Valentines!<br />
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Verity was appropriately dressed in her red Minnie Mouse outfit she got for Christmas and loves to wear.<br />
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When we were stuck at Travis, there were not many food options on base--Burger King and a few choices at the BX food court like Anthony's Pizza and a sub place. Ramstein, however, had a lot of food options besides just Chili's. In fact, I am happy to report that we did not once have to eat at Burger King this entire trip! I don't think I have eaten there anytime in the past 4 years, once we got back from Travis either!<br />
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But I digress . . . there was also a free-standing Subway by the bowling alley, a "Pizza Galleria" that we never tried, and a "Flying Pig" BBQ place that we got take-out from Thursday night. We liked the pulled pork the best, but we also tried the sausage, and the brisket because we got 2 big sampler plates. Lots of food!<br />
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At the KMCC, they also have a smaller Chili's, plus a Macaroni Grill, and then a huge food court by the BX with Taco Bell, Subway, Popeyes, a fish place (like Long John Silver or whatever), a Chinese place, the ubiquitous Anthony's Pizza, and a Johnny Rocket's. Lots of choices for everyone! I think we ended up eating there 3 different times because there was something for everyone, and it was pretty cheap!<br />
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The KMCC also has all these little shops outside the BX, like a little mall, and we were happy to find some more souvenirs there--2 beautiful Christmas ornaments.<br />
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Thursday was another disappointing day at the terminal as we waited for flights that were moved or didn't take many passengers, or just didn't have room. The last flight to BWI for the week was that day, and it wasn't a 747, so there just weren't very many extra seats. Again, they didn't even get down to CAT V, which are dependents of people stationed over there trying to get back to the Sates without their sponsor. Caleb and Jonathan did more Potters classes at the terminal. Wi-fi was spotty there, and very spotty at the TLF, so that made it challenging.<br />
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When we knew we didn't get out, Bob trudged back over to the lodging front desk, and fortunately we were able to get another 4 bedroom unit for 2 more nights, since the next scheduled chance for flights looked like Sunday. It was exactly the same as the first one, except the dryer was wonky and would only run for about 5 minutes before shutting off. We finally just ended up spreading out our laundry over all the radiators, and things dried quite nicely, although it looked incredibly messy with clothes strewn everywhere!<br />
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Friday we went bowling. Usually we only bowl in Ohio when we are visiting my parents, so (most) people were pretty excited by this bonus bowling opportunity! Bowling on base is really nice because it is quite a bit cheaper than bowling off base, and since it was work hours, it was almost empty!<br />
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If you look closely in the picture at the back of the chair behind Drew, by Bob's arm, you can see another figure who was there with us:<br />
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Sebastian the Rubber Ducky. Apparently rubber duckies like this are a big thing, and Jonathan picked this guy up when we were in Wiesbaden. He participated in all our activities after that.<br />
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After we got back, some of the kids and I went to yet a different playground just a block away.<br />
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This one was really neat--like an obstacle course or something, but you really could climb all over it. It was very challenging, and there were ways to make it challenging or easy for all levels.<br />
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If it hadn't been so cold, I am sure the kids would never have wanted to leave! We stayed there a good while anyways, and Faith even ran around in short sleeves, but don't be fooled--it was actually pretty chilly!</div>
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While we were at the park, Caleb and Anna walked over to the base library to see if the wi-fi there was better than that of our room (yes). Everyone really loved how safe the base was, so they could do things like walk somewhere by themselves, and how close by everything is too. It's totally like a small town. Anna came back saying, "When I grow up, I want to live on a base like this!'</div>
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I told her, "Well, just marry someone in the Air Force!"</div>
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She just looked at me and said, "Why would I do that?! *I'M* going to be in the Air Force!"</div>
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Haha! I remember having those same thoughts when I was her age, though, and look at me now, lol. We shall see! I was really glad the kids could have this experience of life on a base, since it is very different from life in northern VA. It was also a surprisingly restful time for me--there was really nothing to do, since I wasn't really cooking, and we simply didn't have that much stuff there to mess up the place! Bob's back was still really bothering him, so that is why we had to take a break from sight-seeing. </div>
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I did drive to 2 different German grocery stores, and it was just my car, not Bob's! I can definitely say I have done my fair share of Autobahn driving now--hours and hours of it! And I finally became somewhat comfortable with the speed limits in kph instead of mph. (Cool trick I learned: drop the 0 from the end of kph speed limit, then multiply by 6 to get an estimate of MPH speed. So 30 kmp is like 18 mph, and 120 is 76.) I still felt like I really had to concentrate while driving, especially at night. There were just too many unfamiliar signs out there, plus I was always struggling to read the GPS!</div>
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We became quite adept at finding our breakfast and lunch favorites in the grocery stores. Everyone loved the German yogurt ("joghurt") with this chocolate muesli mixed in, and we also bought several varieties of cereal during our time there. We did have to buy a bunch of milk cartons because they are tiny there--a liter, I think? We rationed milk very severely while we were there! Caleb in particular fell in love with "golden toast", and we actually went through 3 jars of jam to put on the many loaves of "golden toast" that we bought, lol. That bread made the most perfect toast . . . yum! For lunch it was lunchmeat--ham (schinken) or chicken (hanchenbrust) with good Kerrygold cheddar (or good old American processed cheese, which we surprisingly found in both Hit and Lidl, for the philistines among us) on brotchen. Siri told us they don't really eat turkey over there, but it was okay, because I just called the chicken "turkey", and the younger, pickier, non-readers were non the wiser, lol. </div>
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So we hung out on the base for a total of 5 days, by the end of it, and it was really pretty fun. Once, when Anna, Grace, Faith, Verity, and I were coming back from Lidl, the gate guard told me there was a problem with my ID card because it wasn't "registering in the system". I got all panicked--but then I realized what he meant was it wasn't registering because I am not stationed over there--of course I am not "in the system"! He obviously didn't look very clearly at my ID card, which very clearly says "retired" on it, but he did carefully peer into the car to see several young kids, and he just assumed we were stationed there! From then on, I made sure to tell the guards we were there on vacation, "hoping to space-a out soon", and no one said anything else. Fun times!</div>
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Bob and Clairehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17948514246811431207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939495.post-78302822082399774792018-02-28T17:43:00.000-08:002018-02-28T17:43:07.107-08:00Space-A DisappointmentMonday, Feb. 12, we cleaned, did laundry, and packed. That took the whole day, lol. Bob did take the younger kids to McDonalds for a special treat for lunch, and they brought home fun "Happy Meal" boxes in German, plus some Snoopy toys. You can tell it was a fun special treat because we *never* get happy meals at home!<br />
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Tuesday morning we packed up the car and headed back to Ramstein, leaving at 9:00. I had checked the Ramstein terminal space-a page earlier, and it said 50 seats were being released, so we were all feeling pretty good about our chances!<br />
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After we got gas in the rental cars, we even had time to stop by the Officers' Club to take a picture! This is where my parents met, back in 1963!<br />
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But then we got to the terminal. After signing in and being marked present, we started talking to the others waiting around. One group of retirees had been trying to get out for the past WEEK! They were actually on an airplane to McGuire earlier that morning, and it took off, flew out for 1 1/2 hours--and then turned around and headed back. There was some mechanical problem, so they took off again and limped on back, but they weren't allowed to take passengers or extra luggage. How disappointing for those 30 space-a passengers! So all those people, plus many, many more were waiting to get on this same flight we were. And we were at the very bottom of the list. There were at least 70 people ahead of us!<br />
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My one regret this trip was that we hadn't really gotten any souvenirs, other than the books from the bookstore and the items from the Roman fort. But in all our walking, there was no "souvenir shop" that we passed, and even in Ludwigsburg Palace, their gift shop was closed for the winter!<br />
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Because we were early, however, Caleb, Jonathan, Anna, and I ran across the street to the big KMCC complex, where there is a little Express Shoppette that retirees are allowed to shop at (we can't use the regular BX and commissary or get gas on base because we're not stationed here). They had some fun little things, so we bought another magnet for our fridge, plus Caleb and Jonathan got these nice glass steins (which were much, MUCH cheaper than the lovely ceramic ones). So we came back over and managed to fit them into our suitcases (after Caleb and Jonathan inaugurated their steins with coke from the vending machine).<br />
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The USO upstairs in the terminal was having a special Valentine's Day brunch, so we all went through the line and got scrambled eggs, hash browns, french toast, and cupcakes.<br />
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But alas, after waiting around for a long time, the plane only ended up taking 25 passengers. Not even all the active duty people got out. And there were no flights on the horizon for Wednesday, so that meant all those same people would be waiting for the net flight to BWI on Wednesday, same as us. Sigh.</div>
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We decided to see if we could stay in a TLF ("temporary living facility") on base, so we would be close as we tried to get out. Bob went across the street, and yes, there was a 4 bedroom unit available! Retirees can stay on a space-available basis in lodging on Air Force bases in Germany, but not on Army posts, because ... well, no good reason except the Army is interpreting SOFA differently and more stringently. We also stopped by the car rental office (we drove there this time, which was much nicer, lol) and were abl to extend the use of both cars. Whew! We were disappointed to not get out, but at least we had cars and a close place to stay!</div>
Bob and Clairehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17948514246811431207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939495.post-68169802144507378982018-02-22T19:47:00.000-08:002018-02-22T19:47:10.555-08:00Ludwigsburg and a Visit with FriendsSunday morning, Feb. 11, we decided to do one more big day of sightseeing. ONe place that was on my Germany "bucket list" for this trip was Ludwigsburg Palace. A good friend of mine is from not far from there, and she and her husband had stunning formal wedding pictures taken in the palace. I had seen the pictures, and I really wanted to see the palace in person! <br />
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It is about 2 hours from Wiesbaden. Once we got into the town, we had a bit of trouble finding a good parking garage, so we had to turn around. Then we missed another turn, so we sort of took the scenic route around the palace, lol. Eventually we found the parking garage. Incidentally, both this parking garage, and the one in Trier, had a public restroom right there, which was so convenient for those of us traveling with people with little bladders! I had been worried before we got to Germany that we would never be able to find restrooms, but that fortunately did not turn out to be the case!<br />
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Here we all are in front of the palace gates. Bob flagged down a random stranger to take this picture, which was mortifyingly embarrassing to the teen/tween portion of the family. But we wanted at least one picture with all of us! You can barely see Drew though--just his Minion eyes, lol.<br />
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We got there with just a few minutes to spare before the English tour. I had looked at the website earlier to find out the times, which was very convenient. But then it took a little bit for the guide to get there, so we really didn't need to rush. Again, the palace gave us the family rate, even though we definitely had more than 4 kids!<br />
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This is a picture down the hallway where we were waiting. Once the tour started, we couldn't take any pictures inside the palace. Our tour guide, Martina, spoke excellent English, and she was funny! She thoroughly knew the palace and the history, as well as lots of extra little fun tidbits, so it was a really interesting tour. Bob's back was really hurting by this time, but what we found in several tourist attractions is they have these little folding chairs that you can just bring with you. They fold up much smaller than what we think of as folding chairs, and are much easier to carry. So Bob carried one of those around, and he just sat whenever we stopped for awhile in one room.<br />
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For just a brief history, the palace was originally built as a hunting lodge back in the 1600's before getting razed by French forces. Then Duke Eberhard Ludwig wanted to rebuild it in the early 1700's in the style of Versailles. He had a rather scandalous life, leaving his wife back in Stuttgart and installing his long-time mistress at this palace. But his legitimate son died, and so he needed to reconcile with his wife and try for another son, so the mistress was kicked out. But alas, the wife was in her 50's, so nothing happened, and a Catholic nephew became the duke. Eventually King Frederick of Wuerrtemburg and his wife, Queen Charlotte, used it as a summer residence.<br />
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You can see the wall coverings and furnishings, pretty much just as they were back in the 1700's, when Frederick was living there, which is amazing. The contrast between those rooms, and those of the servants, was quite striking. The had the room in the inside of the palace, with no windows and really low ceilings (two rooms on top of each other in the space of one royal room!) The chapel and the ballroom were probably my favorite rooms. The palace was SO cold though--no wonder it was just used as a summer residence by the king and queen!<br />
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The little kids were amazingly well-behaved on this tour, and we got several comments about them. That was a big relief, because it was a large tour group, and if they had been fussy, it would have been hard for anyone else to hear the guide! The kids must have been awed by either the cold or all the lavishness, lol. Fortunately the stories of romantic entanglements and parties of the various residents went right over their heads!<br />
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More pictures of the outside from the courtyard, where we could take pictures.<br />
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I'm sure this is a very stunning fountain in the summer when it is turned on!<br />
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This is the oldest wing.<br />
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The place where we met the tour group was in that portico and up the stairs.<br />
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The outside of the palace from the garden, which we didn't take time to look through because it was cold, and Bob's back was really hurting.<br />
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After we got back to the car, we had another quick lunch in the parking garage of lunch meat/cheese on brotchen. Then we headed down to Stuttgart to visit an old friend whose husband is stationed there. It took less than 30 minutes to get there, and we didn't make any wrong turns!<br />
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Verity was thrilled that Lisa and Ramey have a daughter the same age as her! Her name is Anna Claire, which is neat because that is exactly what our Anna's name is! They ordered tons of pizza, which we all enjoyed.<br />
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They live on post, on the 4th floor. I know all those steps get annoying, but they had a beautiful, light-filled 4-bedroom apartment! We really enjoyed catching up with them.<br />
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Later we played a really fun game called Telestrations. It's sort of a combination of "telephone" and pictionary. You can play with up to 12 people, and everyone picks a word off their card. Then they draw a picture to represent that word and then pass the book to the next person. They look at your picture and write the word they think you are drawing. Then they pass the book to the next person, who draws a picture of that book. By the time all the books get back to their original owner, the pictures/words have morphed hilariously! We all laughed so hard! <br />
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Micah and Drew had a great time with their youngest son Zach and all his toys! It was really a great evening for all of us. We didn't want to leave, but we had to drive back to Wiesbaden! Fortunately it only took us 2 hours on good Autobahn roads, so it was an easy drive. <br />
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I was so glad we got to visit them! Lisa and I go way back to 1984. Both sets of our parents went to the AMCF World Conference in Seoul, Korea, that year, so we met in the kids' program. Then Lisa and I were on summer support staff at White Sulphur Springs during high school, which was tons of fun. I think the thing I like best about facebook is being able to keep in touch with friends from way back, whom we have never really lived anywhere near. Then, on the rare occasions when we do meet in person--it's like we had just seen each other yesterday! So fun! Military friendships are a real blessing!</div>
Bob and Clairehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17948514246811431207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939495.post-81737171917080029812018-02-20T13:16:00.000-08:002018-02-20T13:16:09.246-08:00Down DaySaturday, Feb. 10, was a day where we didn't do too much. After our big cold day in Trier the previous day, no one wanted to go anywhere or do anything! By this time, Bob's back/leg was really hurting him, and he could barely walk. He had been having some back problems for a little while, but they were really exacerbated by all the walking we did in Germany. He hoped a day of rest would be helpful, although it ended up not really helping. But I needed to do laundry, and we needed to go back to the store to stock up! Siri had told us that pretty much all stores are closed Sunday always, and most stores, like the grocery store, would also be closed Monday and Tuesday because they were holidays--the 2 days before Lent started! Brian said that Germans aren't all that religious, but they like to celebrate the fun parts, lol. But that meant we needed to get enough cereal, (tiny) cartons of milk, yogurt, lunch meat, cheese, and bread to sustain us until we hopefully we got a flight back on Tuesday!<br />
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We did need to get the kids out of the house though, so we went on a walk around the C's neighborhood in the afternoon. We were hoping to go to the nearby park Siri had told us about, but alas, it was locked up for some reason. Ah well, it was still good to get out of the house, and we had a nice walk.<br />
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This is a church a few streets up from the C's house. There is also a church below them, and so they can hear the bells from both churches when they toll! I really liked hearing the church bells throughout the day. It's kind of an audio reminder that the day is passing, and I think they sound pretty.<br />
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This is the C's house. It is surprisingly big as far as German houses go! There are 2 main stories (with 4 bedrooms on the second story, and 2 full bathrooms), plus a beautiful, light-filled attic with a big room and a small room, where we stayed. There is also a big basement with 3 more rooms that could be bedrooms, a large laundry room, and a bathroom with a shower. It was very nice! <br />
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The stairs are really compact, space-saving spiral staircases, which I liked a lot because they just don't take up too much room. Drew, struggled with them, though. He fell down them, not once, not twice, but 3 times before he got the hang of them! It turns out he was letting go of the rail at the same time as he would move his feet, and that just wasn't working for him, poor guy. His back was so bruised!<br />
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*Artsy picture looking up the spiral because I just thought it was so cool!*<br />
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Some things that jumped into our cart at the grocery store were these Milka chocolate bars, which were on sale, as well as these "Toffifee" things that Anna had been dying to try out. Verdict was, they were all delicious! We got several options of chocolate bars. The ones that were "triple" caramel and "triple" chocolate were really neat--each row had 3 different sections, one with a solid crunchy caramel or chocolate part, one with more of a nougat thing, and the last with a more liquid-y filling of either caramel or chocolate. Yum!! </div>
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Even though we got some flavors that weren't specifically nutty, Caleb didn't end up ever eating anything chocolate because we just weren't sure. We made sure he had gummy stuff to make up for the lack. It was definitely hard, since we couldn't accurately read labels, and no one wanted him to take any chances! Plus, he doesn't love chocolate, so it was not such a huge loss. </div>
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A day of relaxing, which ends up eating yummy chocolate, is a good day in my book! </div>
Bob and Clairehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17948514246811431207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939495.post-26637796854286638132018-02-17T13:45:00.001-08:002018-02-17T13:48:21.532-08:00TrierLast Thursday, Feb. 9, we visited Trier, which is about 2 hours away from Wiesbaden. It was a cold, dreary day, which was probably not the best weather for tromping around an old city! Bob and I had been to Trier on our honeymoon, but at that time I was really not remotely interested in Roman history, so I didn't pay that much attention. Now, after all my years with Latin, I have become much more interested, and this was probably the place I wanted to visit most. Others were not that interested or excited, however.<br />
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When we got to Trier, I was in front, which is never a good thing, and I didn't turn at the place where I had wanted to go to find parking. So we parked further away, and when we came up out of the garage, I was completely disoriented. All we had was a tiny map Siri had photocopied from my library copy of Fodor's Guide to Germany, and it didn't have that many street names on it! We found 2 street names and launched out in the opposite direction. Unfortunately, we veered too far in one direction, so we ended up way off course, once we found another street name on our map. Oops! The younger set was tired and cold--and we hadn't even gotten anywhere yet! Caleb really shined with his map reading skills, however, and he got us back on track. Eventually we made it to the Imperial Baths (<a href="http://www.trier-info.de/english/imperial-baths-info">Kaiserthermen</a>), which I had remembered seeing on our honeymoon. Now they have a nice visitor's center with a movie. They were doing construction to preserve the ruins.<br />
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We were allowed to walk under the bath ruins.<br />
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The tunnels were creepy for the littles, but I thought they were actually neat. There were "skylights" every so often, so it didn't feel too dark. There were water passages in here, and this was also where the slaves heated up the water.<br />
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It all reminded me of some of Jonathan's mine craft mazes!<br />
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A look at the part of the ruins that remain above ground. It was an enormous complex back in the 300's!<br />
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I had wanted to visit the amphitheatre, but alas, it was flooded and ice-covered, so it was closed. Instead we walked down towards the center of town, towards this pink palace and huge basilika. I took a picture of Bob in this same place when we were here on our honeymoon 24 1/2 years ago, so it was fun to take a picture here again, with 8 of the kids!<br />
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Right after this picture, we stopped at a cafe that was attached to the Landesmuseum, which we did not tour (but seemed like it would have been really interesting, with all sorts of Roman artifacts). We again got hot chocolate. They offered both white chocolate (the waiter said it was Swiss white chocolate), and brown, so we got a cup of both. The consensus was that the white chocolate tasted like warm milk and wasn't very good, but the brown chocolate was pretty good, and we ended up getting 2 more cups of the brown. Again, not as good as Saalburg, however. It was a nice break for us though, and everyone warmed up.<br />
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This is the south wing of the Electoral Palace, which was finished in 1756. It is very detailed and beautiful!<br />
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The palace was added onto the Basilika of Constantine, which he commissioned as a throne room in the early 300's. It's being used as a church now.<br />
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At this point we were trying to find the parking garage again, since everyone was ready to head back home. We remembered we had parked by a church, so we headed toward a steeple. That steeple turned out to be the great Dom of Trier, the Cathedral of St. Peter, the oldest cathedral in Germany. It was so massive--it's actually 4 basilicas joined in the middle by a baptistry. It was built on the foundations of a Roman palace, and the church got burned down several times before it was restored around 1000 AD. Interestingly, it is the resting place of several relics--the skull of Constantine's mother Helena, the soles of St. Andrew's sandal, a nail of the cross, and the "seamless garment" Christ wore while being crucified. I'm not sure how verified these are, but they are in the treasury, which regretfully we did not see.<br />
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Another part of the Dom, built in a completely different style, so it looks like a completely different church.<br />
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That part was open, so Jonathan and Bob peeked in. Bob said it looked like the cathedral in his hometown. The doors are pretty neat!<br />
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We headed in a new direction, and this led us to the main old plaza in Trier. Again, I remembered seeing this with Bob on our honeymoon!<br />
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The buildings are so neat. The corner one has a McDonalds on the bottom 2 floors.<br />
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Another church, another steeple ("Be vigilant and pray" is what it says by the clock, if I remember my Latin correctly), and more cool buildings.<br />
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This was a neat archway.<br />
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Hey, look, a store just for me all the way over here! My parents used to be stationed at Spangdahlem, which is not too far away from here before I was born, and my mom said this store was definitely new since then! Ha!<br />
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And lo and behold, we made it to the Porta Nigra, or the Black Gate! I was so happy! We didn't go to the other side, because everyone was very much done at this point, but I was glad to see it. It was built around 170 AD. It is so unreal to think about how old these things are that are still standing solid and strong! Amazing!<br />
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We were also happy to see "Fleishstrasse", which was a street we recognized from when we got out of our parking garage (if only we had taken it then!). We walked down it, passing another cool square with this Roman-y statue in it. And then--hooray!--we were back at the corner where we started our day!<br />
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This was actually the church the parking garage was next to. It seemed plenty big when we were first in Trier, but after seeing the Basilika and the Dom, it seemed quaint and tiny!</div>
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We had the long drive home, made longer because once again I failed to read the GPS correctly, and I got off at the exit before the one it actually wanted me to. (In fairness, they were close together, and it is really hard to look at the GPS and look at the ever-darkening roadway!) So we had to wander through a cute little town, and then do this pretzel-like maneuver to get back on the road we were supposed to be on. I was glad it wasn't dark yet! Bob said it only took 3 minutes to catch up to their car, but it seemed like it took longer to me! That is the downside of driving 2 vehicles. The upside is being able to park in parking garages and other small places, lol. So we made it home with no further incidents, but we were all pretty fried after the long, cold day. We got frozen pizzas from the store Hit and cooked those, since the C's had headed off to a previously planned ski trip to Garmisch. Then we collapsed into bed, exhausted!</div>
Bob and Clairehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17948514246811431207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939495.post-45126282985888067372018-02-16T13:49:00.000-08:002018-02-16T13:49:57.469-08:00WiesbadenThursday was Faith's birthday, and we decided to stay more local. We headed into Wiesbaden.<br />
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Siri gave us great directions right to the parking garage, which came out in front of this beautiful church. We were surprised at how much graffiti was on the church though--we hadn't noticed it on other churches.<br />
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Our first stop was a gigantic 3 story book store. We wanted to get Anna a few German books for her to practice with at home. We looked around for awhile, but finally we settled on 3 kids books (one was a children's Bible, so that should be easier to translate and understand, since she is already familiar with the stories). We also got a family cookbook, and a fantasy kids book that was bigger and harder for later. Oh, and one more "seek and find" kids book that conveniently has vocab under the things you are supposed to be finding in each scene. We were sorely tempted by a Nutella cookbook, however we passed. We don't actually have all that much room in our suitcases!<br />
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Then we wandered toward a fancy tea room that Siri had taken Christine and Elena for Elena's birthday when they were over visiting. She had given us clear directions, and I had looked at a map on the computer too, so it should have been easy, right? This part of the town was really cute, and they had this handy model map for us to look it!<br />
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We found the street she gave us, and walked up it . . . but we couldn't find the restaurant. Eventually we got to a part that didn't look like anything Siri had described, so we turned around. Fortunately we spotted it on the way back down--they were doing construction on its facade, so we had completely missed it! It's a good thing we found it too, because people in our family were literally dying of hunger, fatigue, cold, etc. It was tragic.<br />
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It was pretty crowded in there, but amazingly there were several tables open. The waitresses fended off some other people so we could take all of them. We definitely felt a little awkward as a big group in this restaurant filled with little tables, so we were glad to sit down and be out of the center of attention!<br />
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Anna and I went up to the counter to order our desserts. We decided to sample 3 things.<br />
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We got a cream puff thing with blueberries in the middle of the cream layer (just okay), an adorable petit four which was perfect for Faith's birthday, and a little round thing of chocolate mousse, which was in a chocolate shell (this was the best!). They were all so beautiful!<br />
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Bob also ordered a terrine of soup and 2 hot chocolates (not anywhere as good as the ones at Saalburg). The waitress had to help us figure out what soup to order. We ended up choosing a "goulash" soup, which was a thick beef stew like soup. It was so good, and it hit the spot on a cold day! We passed the terrine around, along with the hot chocolate. Then we split all the desserts so we each had bites of each kind.<br />
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Here we are outside the restaurant. They had a display with these fake old ladies in the window.<br />
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On our way back to Siri's, we drove right by the Wiesbaden Hotel! It used to be a US military facility, but we have since given it back to the Germans, and now they are using it to house refugees. It played an important part in my story though!</div>
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Back in 1963, my dad was in between his sophomore and junior year at USAFA. Back then, the cadets went on an overseas field trip that summer, so my dad was in Germany, and the cadets were staying at the Wiesbaden Hotel. But then President Kennedy came through, on that trip where he gave that speech with "Ich bin ein Berliner" in it, and his entourage needed the Wiesbaden, so the cadets got kicked out. They all headed over to Ramstein to stay there, but they didn't have anything to do. The wives club kicked into action and organized a dance at the Ramstein Officer's Club. They invited any and all single young ladies in the vicinity--which included my mom.</div>
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My grandpa was assigned to a small radar station near Ramstein the summer before my mom's senior year of high school. She did NOT want to move to Germany for one last year of high school, so she lobbied heavily to be allowed to stay behind in Springfield, VA, where she had been for the previous 2 years. But my grandpa was adamant that the whole family stay together, so they all went. My mom had just graduated from high school and was waiting to head back to the US to go to college at Vassar. She went to the dance, and when she walked in the door, one of the hostesses selected my dad out of the group of cadets, and introduced the 2 of them! And that was that! My dad even came back and visited her family after he and some friends had taken leave and traveled around Europe by themselves after the official trip was over. So my parents really have Pres. Kennedy to thank for them meeting! </div>
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After another delicious dinner, Siri had made a horse cake for Faith, as well as a second caramel one with crunchy caramel frosting that was so good! I think Faith had a very special birthday that she will remember forever!</div>
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Bob and Clairehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17948514246811431207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939495.post-23526173289934158102018-02-14T11:57:00.004-08:002018-02-14T11:57:51.833-08:00Saalburg Fort (Feb. 7)Last Wednesday was my birthday! It was SO fun to be able to celebrate it in Germany! Four years ago, I celebrated it with the C's in Hawaii--I wonder where they will be in 4 more years?!<br />
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It was still cold, but it was sunny, so we decided to venture out to a reconstructed Roman fort originally built in the early AD 100's called Saalburg. The guy at the front desk was very kind and gave us the family rate, even though that usually means for 2 adults and 2 children, so we obviously were way over that, lol.<br />
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Here we are at the entrance. It was so neat, set up on a big hill (which totally makes sense, given that it was, in fact, a fort)!<br />
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It had 2 moats or trenches.<br />
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I'm guessing this is Emperor Hadrian, since he was emperor when the fort was constructed?<br />
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Group shot inside! Then we went in the big building right behind us, which had many artifacts, some of which were found at this site, and some that were just from that time period.<br />
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The boys were particularly interested in the weaponry. These are some reconstructed spears of various types. You can see the pile of spear heads at the bottom there. We bought a souvenir magnet for our fridge like that shield in the top left.<br />
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These were leather shoes. The ones that look new were obviously made recently to look like ones from back then, but the dark ones are fragments that were found. They looked just like you would think Roman sandals would look like, straps and all!<br />
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Then we walked around to other parts of the fort. Again, we were able to watch the movie in English, and it was very interesting, detailing the history of the fort from so long ago. All this talk of the Germanic tribes made me want to break out my Henle Latin books again!<br />
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This was a room for soliders, probably high-ranking ones, since it was so beautifully decorated, even on the ceiling. (In this part of the fort, nothing was translated into English, so we were just sort of guessing, lol.)<br />
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The crenellations on the walls were really nice, especially against the backdrop of snow.<br />
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This was a side gate.<br />
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We spent a good deal of time in a big room that had lots of hands-on activities. They had a huge game board for "muhle" (pretend there's an umlaut over the u), which is called in English, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Men%27s_Morris">"Nine Men's Morris"</a>. Caleb is taking a computer game design class this semester, and so he had actually studied several Roman games, including this one and also "tabula rasa", so he had an idea of how to set up the pieces and play the game.<br />
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They had a bunch of other old games set up for kids to play as well, including checkers.<br />
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Verity industriously colored away on a picture of Roman ladies all dressed up in their stollas and pallas.<br />
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This was a model of the fort, with the outbuildings shown as it was in its heyday.<br />
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There were all these dress-up Roman clothes. Some people were more enthusiastic about dressing up than others, lol. We had a hard time figuring out exactly how to make all the outer shawl-type things work. I remember having this problem during all the TNT ancient history units where I attempted to dress up. At least I wasn't using a sheet this time!<br />
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Caleb took this formal portrait of a family from Roman times. So authentic, lol.<br />
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We ended up in the "taberna", where we bought one cup of hot chocolate (Anna says that in German really well) to split among us all. But the guy was so nice, and he ended up bringing out that mug, plus styrofoam cups half-filled for all the kids AND, as we were preparing to leave, he offered us all fresh, home-made butter cookies that were so yummy! Everyone has just been so nice here! It has been so wonderful!<br />
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Then we headed out to the gift shop where we bought our souvenirs. There were so many fun and pretty things, but we restrained ourselves. We did buy this beautiful little glass "flakon" (flask or bottle) that looks like it could have perfume or something in it. As we were buying it, along with our magnet, tiny model of the fort, pewter Roman soldier, and a book, the lady rattled off something about it in German, but it was way past Anna's level of understanding. We should have had her write it down!<br />
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Then we headed home again to another delicious dinner from Siri, as well as a delicious chocolate cake for my birthday! What a wonderful way to celebrate!</div>
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