She's 9!!!

Happy Birthday my baby girl!! She did promise me that she will always be my baby girl!

She had her favorite for dinner- Pizza! and looks forward to a trip this weekend with her daddy and our neighbors to Stuttgart to see Wicked in German! Joey looks forward to seeing if the songs are in English or German! Wish I was goin' to but someone has to hold down the fort...

Tacky and outrageous night at AWANA

Outrageous is what he was going for with his night vision goggles and a frog on his back!

He had a great time!

Paintball

This paintball party has been promised a long time! It was kinda sort of a 13th bday party for both S and R... one a year late the other a year early! ... and a good time was had by all!

Moving forward

Funny, I have pictures of when we were first married like this! We actually did own one dresser, Joey's bachelor furniture (see photo below), but we were living in an apartment the first 6 mos we were married as we waited for a house to open up on base and didn't want to take shipment of our household goods just to move them again. So I used boxes. We didn't have a place to set our TV though so we Joey's old weight bench. It was lovely ...

But anyway, after being married almost 18 years, the bachelor furniture is now gone. It has moved on. It served us well... moving with us 8 times and holding up incredible well. As we make our move back to the states and we are always so close on our housing weight allowance we felt it was time to let it go. It just wasn't worth the $1.00/pound we will have to pay if we are over our limit. And we cannot take it to Moscow so after next year it would be stored for 2 yrs anyway... soooo... sorry... we go back a few years, old furniture, but now you must serve some other young military family just as faithfully as you did us!!

I am actually unloading quite a bit these days making frequent trips to the thrift shop and leaving more than I might find to buy for a change! But my new found way is this ingenious website http://www.ramsteinyardsales.com/. It is amazing! Everything I have listed here has sold within 24hrs for the asking price. The email traffic has kept me pretty busy this week but I can always manage email and do 100 other things at the same time! And then these nice people come to my door, pay me and take these things away!! I sold an old weathered rocker for $5! and I don't have to load these things in my car and run here and there... etc... etc.. it is wonderful. Yesterday I sold the turkey fryer and smoker... boom, gone!!! Wow, it was an awesome feeling!! Joey has gone to work everyday this week saying "...don't sell the house or the volvo... OK..." We sold his car today! Listed it at 9 am this morning...gone... well the new owner will actually pick it up in a few weeks right before he leaves... but gone, taken care of, load off his mind!

So anyway, we are moving forward! and in the meantime we will have a few boxes here and there... we always do when we move...

(at this point, be sure to check the post (Performances now online), as the links to M's Creative Connections performance are now available!!)

Performances now online

The Creative Connections performances are now up and going online.
(There is alot to see so if your time is limited take it in parts or go to my favorite which is the duet in part 2 of the talent show)

In order to access the site, you will need to enter the following user name and password:

Username: dodeateam
Password: achieve09

If your browser gives you the option to save your login username and password for the site, click on this option and you will not be prompted again when accessing doddshost.

You can catch M about 18 mins into the Performance 1 Show Choir (Medley from Les Mes)

then again about 24 mins into Performance 2 Show Choir (Gravity from Wicked)

The Talent Show is a little performace the students put on for themselves ( was the night beofre the main performance for the parents). But whenever there is a stage M is likely making her way on it. She did a baseball monologue (Part 1 about 28. 30 mins into the show) and then sang a duet "What is This Feeling" from Wicked with a friend (Part 2 about 12 mins in) but you cannot skip to her part (sorry), you have to watch the whole thing...enjoy!

Baby Chicks

One of the fathers in the kindergarten class brought eggs in an incubator for the kids to watch. It was so exciting last week as they began to peck at their shells! Today was the day the kids got to hold them. J began running a fever over the weekend so I took him to school just long enough to see these cute little chicks... then off to the doctor to find out he has atypical pneumonia. You can see in his eyes he is not feeling 100%. But boy did we enjoy those little baby chickens!!

S turns 14! Unbelievable!!

I think this is the funniest blow out the candles picture I have ever taken!

S had a great b-day! We had his favorite dinner, fettuccine Alfredo and asparagus. He got exactly what he hoped for ... a golfing hat and a hybrid golf club! Then we watched American Idol. What else could a teenage boy hope for on his special day?

We will actually, next weekend, celebrate both S and R's bday with a paintball party. They will each invite 3 friends and between them and daddy it should be much fun. I'll try to post any pictures I am able to get!

For now though I leave you with this precious one... taken from my bedroom window... he was driving in the backyard with practise plastic balls into a soccer net! and having a great time!

Sparkle Bathroom

This is the sparkle bathroom. (For those who have visited, I know it is hard to believe, but it is!)We refer to this room as the sparkle bathroom... not because it is sparkly clean all the time, but rather because there are these little sparkles in the tiles...literally (zoom in, you can really see them)! Truth is we have never really used it as a bathroom (it has only a large tub and a sink). It has this huge tub (which is hard to really see the size in this picture) with no jets and until this week the chair was actually in the tub with boxes and things stacked. It does have a sink (which I use), but really we only used the room for storage. Anyway, this room was the last one for me to really tackle... and it took me only 1 yr and 7 months to actually get it completely unpacked and organized. And just in time too, as next week, a small shipment of goods will be packed up and go ahead of us.
Yes we must begin to wrap things up here. Clean out and trim down. Start saying our goodbyes. It is all hard work. Not always fun. The hardest part is the goodbyes to so many dear friends, and many times they begin too early. J was talking to one of his buddies at the kindergarten and he told J that he was glad J was leaving to go back to the states, then he would not have to invite him to his birthday party! It didn't phase the 6 yr old boy, but C is beginning to see and feel the same thing from her friends. I told them both not to talk anymore about moving. We live here now... and will for the next 3 months. So lets live and not move just yet!! Then just like the memory we will all have of this funny "sparkle bathroom" our friends that we must leave behind here will always remember us with a smile on their face and in a good way.

Happy 12th!

Cool dude turns 12!!!

Class Dismissed

M returned from ISLI (International Student Leadership Conference) in time for opening night of this year's high school production, "Class Dismissed". They did a wonderful job.

S the Percussionist!

S was selected by his band teacher to go to Honors Band Festival this year. It was a 2 day program for the top middle school band students from Baumholder, Bitburg, Kaiserslautern, Landstuhl, Ramstein, Sembach, and Spangdahlem to come together and learn and work on their skills. We saw the end results last night which were impressive. He had a wonderful time... and we were shocked at all the percussion instruments he played! He did it all... snare, bass, xylophone, cymbal, triangle, timpani! Every song he played something different! Here are just a few clips (sorry they are short but between J leaning on me and talking to me and my lack of camera operations this was the best I could do.) He really had a good time!

Ramdom thoughts and "Crisis of Belief"

M left this afternoon for a International Student Leadership Conference in Oberwesel. Another week away from home and out of school! She's having a wonderful school year!! We sold the weight set and yesterday Joey got it moved so my office is now just an office! We moved a "homework table" in which will hopefully help S and R finish this year strong academically!
The sun came out today so we took a hike by a lake in Kindsbach. We found that R only has two pairs of shoes that fit. One for basketball and one for school. So we were scrambling to find an old pair for him to hike in... (trails are kinda wet and muddy this time of year). Well, he ended up wearing pair of Joey's! They were just a tiny bit big... but not much! He turns 12 in one week!!!!
We are in the big clean it out mode and this past week I finished the guest room and utility room (in addition to the weight set above) so making progress. According to my list only 13 rooms to go! I knew the house was big... but wheh!! I love having 6 bedrooms and an office though!!! No complaints here! 12 weeks till the moving truck comes though (minus one week for spring break where we will go somewhere!) so I'll have to keep the pace of one plus rooms a week to make it!
At the same time we are intently praying and looking for housing in the DC area (so many choices, but so many needs we have to consider... and it is a good time to buy! but do we want that responsibility??). As well as we are interviewing Au Pairs for next year so I can take advantage of the training offered me in DC in preparation for our move to Moscow 2010. Today's sermon was very powerful as the chaplain spoke about the inevitable "crisis of belief". God shows himself faithful to us daily but inevitably in that moment when we have to trust Him there is always a time where we have to believe in His grace and power or give in to the doubt that creeps up on us. (God brought his people to the promise land and when they sent spies in they doubted they would be able to take the land, even after God had brought them through many things, and provided all their needs up to this point!) I have seen God work in amazing ways throughout our military career! When I remind myself of those times when God was so faithful to us, I am excited to see what He has in store! The chaplain reminded us that when we pray be prepared, not for the answer your hoping for, but for a struggle... a "crisis of belief"... because ultimately He will bring a situation which will call you to depend on Him, to trust and believe, bringing you closer to Him. Please pray for us as we must make some very big decisions these next few weeks... pray that He will make it very clear to us what He would have us to do. There are so many things we cannot see, we cannot anticipate. He has faithfully made our path straight with every assignment we have had...every place we have lived. Help us through this crisis of belief so we can hear Him clearly lead us to this next place.