Brian's Birthday

We celebrated Brian's birthday last week. I felt pretty good that although I didn't have a "gift" for him, I had arranged some things! He had been gone the week before his birthday so I called his office and talked to Don (his right-hand man) and said, "This may be a little unorthodox but Brian's birthday is next week and I was wondering if I could arrange for him to have the day off." He said, "Oh, yeah. I can work it. I'll talk to the boss and get back to you." So, later that day he called me and let me know that it was a go. Then came the task of deciding when I would tell him. I decided to bring in a cake to his office the afternoon BEFORE his birthday and tell him then that he had the next day off. Plus, I had arranged a babysitter for that night (the night before his birthday) so we wouldn't have to worry about him getting up to go to work the next day. He was genuinely surprised not only by the cake but also by having the next day off. It was fun to have time together in the middle of the week like that!

So, first we celebrated by taking cake into his office around 4pm the day before his birthday. Everyone really liked the cake. (Ian helped pick it out - cause he's been eying it for a while in the cake book at the commissary).

Then, he and I had a date night. We went to the Toasted Frog for dinner. We don't get to go there often because you have to be above 21 just to enter so we can't take the kids!

We were going to go to a movie but decided just to do some "shopping" - able to just look around without kids in tow! For a birthday treat (early) Brian wanted to go to Coldstone.

The next morning we were both surprised when Ian brought breakfast to Brian in bed. He made oatmeal, put some grapes in a bowl, had a hard-boiled egg and juice - not to mention planes to accompany the breakfast!

He'd also changed Ellie and put on her "I (heart) dad" pajama shirt and a pair of matching pants. Plus, two bows that matched.

From there, I got to go to the gym by myself and when I got home Brian had made waffles! I know, pretty neat that he made me breakfast on his birthday! After that we got ready to go out for a hike at Turtle River. It was a good little hike and we enjoyed it (well, at least Brian and I did). Ian did think it was cool that we came across a spot where there was blood all over the snow - like a predator/prey incident had happened there.

After the hike, Ellie and I did a little sledding at the good hill there. Then, we headed home. We put Ellie down for her nap then the rest of us watched Escape to Witch Mountain. It ended right in time for us to head to Wednesday night stuff at church. We got the kids to their classes then we were able to have a little time to ourselves and did some furniture browsing. Then, we came home, got the kids to bed, watched Psych and called it a night! All-in-all I think he had a good day!

Brian's Office

I meant to post these pictures a while ago but kept forgetting. I finally recovered them again and wanted to share. After Brian's recent promotion, he showed up for his first day back to an office covered in silver - silver aluminum foil that is!! It had to take quite a few rolls of foil plus a few man hours to make this happen! (Even the rock he has to hold the door open was covered in foil! Plus, I tried to show it but every coin in his coin rack was individually wrapped and replaced!) Made Brian feel pretty special. What's funny is that the rock and the handles on his chair are still covered in silver. It took him a few weeks to get the majority of it off.

Brian's Birthday

Well, I'm only a week or so behind but I did want to post a little about Brian's birthday. I feel as if it came up so quickly this year and I wasn't at all prepared! Well, I knew what his present was but I didn't have it for him and I'd been out of town the weekend before his birthday and our commissary is closed on Mondays so I didn't even have a cake ordered for him! Thankfully, though, we'd thought a little in advance and did have plans for his birthday. It just so happened that Brian's birthday was parent's night for Josh's school musical "Man of La Mancha" and we had dinner plans beforehand with some friends whose daughters were also in the show. We ended up going to a place called Sanders that I've been wanting to go to for some time now and it was a very nice dinner and we enjoyed the company very much. The show was also very well done and we had a great time. On the way home since he didn't have cake, we stopped in at Coldstone and picked up a pint to take home. YUM!!

I will say it was kind of funny, though, because at lunch on his birthday Brian and I were talking and he says, "Oh, you went to the commissary so I have cake!" and although I did go to the commissary and had intended to buy him a cake, they didn't have any that I wanted to buy. If you know my husband you know he LOVES store bought cake with buttercream frosting. He prefers it over me baking a cake for him!! I felt SO bad that I didn't have a cake for him but he told me I could still get him one! So, I went in and ordered him a cake. I wasn't actually pleased with the way it came out (I told the lady he loved frosting - especially the flowers and apparently I didn't specify the big roses with lots of frosting so I was a bit disappointed with their version of flowers!) but here it is:

Just in case you can't read it, it says "Here's your cake" "Love you". What's funny is the lady taking the order added the quotation marks I think so the people decorating the cake would know what to put but the person decorating also put the quotation marks!!! LOL!! It's about the saddest looking cake I've ever seen but it satisfied his need for cake!

Our North Dakota Weekend

Well, the cold has definitely come to us here in North Dakota and to top it all off, we were expecting the worst blizzard they'd seen in 10 years starting Saturday. And, wouldn't you know we had a ton of things going on Saturday! But let me back up a minute to Thursday and I'll go from there (and include pictures as I go)!

Brian and I were able to attend Josh's performance on Thursday thanks to a friend volunteering to come watch Ian and Ellie for us. We really enjoyed the show and seeing him get to be the lead! All the pictures I tried to take of just him came out blurry but this one of all of them during the play turned out okay - he's got a pretty serious face going!

Friday night Brian and I went to his squadron Christmas party. It was well done and we had a good time.

Here's the run-down of our Saturday: Josh had the ACT at 8am, Ian had dress rehearsals for the church's children's Christmas musical at 10am and hockey at 12:15pm. Josh then had the final performance of his play that evening at 7:30pm. We were able to accomplish everything on Saturday plus finally get a tree before heading home that afternoon! The wind was definitely starting to pick up but the roads were still fine. I wasn't crazy about Josh still having his performance that evening and Brian taking him but it worked out okay and they made it home fine. (In the picture Ian's the one on the left in the white helmet.)

In my mind, a blizzard is getting dumped on with a bunch of snow and not being able to go anywhere. It turns out that a blizzard must just mean the roads are not able to be traveled on due to visibility. Because it's so flat out here and the wind is so fierce, it kicks up all the snow that is on the ground and blows it around so hard that you aren't able to see in front of you. That's how Sunday was. We were in road condition red which meant we were only able to be on the roads if we had to be at work or something like that. So, we stayed in our jammies all day, decorated the tree we'd gotten, finished decorating our ginger bread house, watched movies, did our advent devotional and had a nice quiet day at home. What got canceled Sunday due to the weather was Ian's first piano recital and his Christmas musical at church. The musical is rescheduled to this Sunday but I don't know yet if his recital is being rescheduled.

Here's a picture of our house today and you can see the snow drifts in front of our windows! The sun's out and it's simply beautiful - even if the wind chill is supposed to be near -40 degrees!!!

North Dakota Adventures

I keep thinking there are a few stories I want to share but they aren't specific to anything but then I realized they are some of our North Dakota adventures! So, I have a few of those I want to share now and I'll periodically share more as more come up.


The first adventure I want to share actually happened the day after we arrived here - the 4th of July! We were on our way home after the fireworks. We were on this stretch of open road (imagine that) that we believed was a speed limit of 70 the whole way. Well, after a little bit Brian starts to pull over to the side of the road and I was asking, "What's the matter?" and he says, "I think I'm being pulled over." I looked behind us and, sure enough, there were flashing lights coming from the car behind us. The officer came up to the window and says, "Do you know why I pulled you over?" To which Brian replies, "No, sir." He says, well you're doing 73 in a 55. Brian said, "Oh, we just arrived here yesterday and I thought it was 70." The officer says, "Well, there are these signs they're about "yay big" (using hand motions) - you'll see them if you're looking for them!" He ended up just giving us a warning but we still joke about the signs and our first and, hopefully, ONLY run-in with the local law enforcement!



The second adventure happened a few weeks ago. Brian is training to run a marathon in a couple of weeks in Ohio and because his knees started having issues the last time he tried to train he only does one big run a week. He was at the 16 mile run and he was getting all of his stuff together the night before when I asked him if he was going to take his phone with him and he said, "I wasn't really planning on it." I reminded him that he's always talking about safety and with as far as he was planning to go I felt like he should have his phone. So, although still reluctant he rearranged things so he would have it. He leaves EARLY to run before work and I sleep until my normal time. Well, the next morning I was awakened by the ring of the phone, answered it and heard the voice of my husband saying, "Joy, it's about to start storming, would you please come get me, I'm too far out to beat it home." So, I hopped in the car and went to rescue my husband from being struck by lightning. By the time I got close to where he said he was, it was POURING rain and lightning. I had slowed down to find him and finally saw him when he poked his head up from the ditch where he was croutched down. I finally got to be HIS hero (since he always seems to rescue me)!




Finally the last story I have to share isn't really much of a story it's just a point of interest. The boys got to go plow a wheat field a week ago. Brian has a lady that works for him who farms in the area and she invited us to join them on the combine. Well, it was later in the evening close to Ellie's bedtime so I stayed home while they went. They had a good time riding on the combine and thought it was pretty cool.

Our Ten Year Anniversary

Well, it's been almost a week but I thought I should post something about our anniversary. We celebrated our ten year anniversay with a trip to Minneapolis and the Mall of America. Our actual anniversary was Friday August 8th - yep, 08/08/08 the same day the Olympics began. Rather than go into gruesome detail about our trip, I made a little Smilebox scrapbook since I know how much you love them! :) Before I do, though, I thought I would also say that our anniversary gift to each other arrived the day before we left on our trip. What romantic item did we select for our 10 year anniversary gift to each other? A bedroom set!! It's a long story but suffice it to say that we've never had one and we thought it was time. I'm attaching a picture so you can see it. It's not the best picture because I took it as we were literally running out the door to go on our trip but you'll get the general idea! So, we are spoiled now because we have a new comforter set and a new bedroom set! Exciting stuff - no, really, I am excited because I do love it!!

Neither one of us can believe we've been married this long but have agreed that we would happily do it all again. Three kids, five moves, and we wouldn't change a thing!

Make a Smilebox photobook

WHEW!!!

WOW!! Can you say extremely busy? That's what sums up the past week for us. It has been filled with fun things but VERY tiring. For about 3-4 days in a row, Brian got about 5 hours of sleep each night. Ian and Ellie didn't see Brian from Tuesday morning until Friday evening when we attended a family BBQ for Brian's class. The reason for all the busy-ness was Brian's participation in what's called the Gathering of Eagles for his class here. They had 14 "Eagles" come in who each had done amazing things to advance Air and Space power. They were: Brig Gen Harry "Heinie" Aderholt, Dr Roscoe Brown, Jr, Iris Cummings Critchell, Kenneth Dahlberg, Col George "Bud" Day, Col Charles "Chuck" DeBellevue, Gen Charles "Chuck' Horner, MSgt Edwin Weston Horton, Jr, Eugene "Gene" Kranz, CWO5 Lance McElhiney, Alfred "Paul" Metz, Capt Dolphin "Dolph" Overton, Ken Rowe and Col Walter Stewart. To read about each of them and to read a little about the program, click here. Brian's "Eagle" was Dr Roscoe Brown and we really enjoyed getting to know him (and his son who accompanied him) and hear his stories - it really is important to hear them and learn from them. I also had the privilege to take my mom to hear Mrs. Doris Day speak about what she endured while her husband, Bud, was a POW in Vietnam for almost 7 years. Saturday night we had the graduation ball and although we were exhausted from the week, it really was a lot of fun to see our friends one last time before we head in separate directions. The picture I've attached from the ball is of us with the guys (and their wives) Brian met with once a week as an accountability group. This morning was the end of all the craziness (well, at least that kind of craziness!) as Brian graduated this morning. Now we begin the craziness of movers and packers and driving across the country! We would not have been able to do all the things we were able to do this past week with ease without the help of my parents who were here since last Monday. We are so thankful for all they did for us - it was so nice to know that although Brian and I weren't around a whole lot, our kids were in good hands. Thank you, Mom and Dad, for all you did - in the middle of your stress, too!

Our Weekend

Last weekend went by quickly and slowly all at the same time! We stayed busy but it wasn't without some downsides! Last Wednesday Ellie had a fever all day and it, at one point, got to 103 degrees so we had to keep giving her Tylenol about every four hours just to put it under 102. Finally by Thursday morning it had leveled off to right around 99 but boy was she cranky! I really thought all of it was signs of teething but, here we are a week later and still no teeth! Well, her crankiness continues and that's how we met last weekend!

Brian and Ian had baseball practice and Josh was at a friend's so it was just Ellie and I and she would get so cranky that the only thing that seemed to make her happy was going outside! By the time they got home I was ready to put her to bed and, thankfully, she obliged! Saturday morning after getting Ellie, Brian tells me he's not feeling well and heads to the restroom. Ian had a game that morning at 10:30am so he was supposed to be going with him. Well, he ended up not being able to make it because he was still ill. Josh, Ellie and I went to the game and it was a beautiful morning for it! Ian ended up hitting 3 for 3 and had a couple of good plays at 2nd so it was a good game for him - his team did win, too.

That afternoon we were supposed to go to a social for GOE for Brian but he still wasn't doing well but suggested we go instead. BUT, the only car we had available (because Josh had to work and was taking the Grand Prix) was the Catalina and I've never driven it and didn't plan to start SO I called a friend whose husband is also in GOE to see if I could get a ride and they said "sure" so they ended up picking us up. I'm not sure if that ended up being a good decision or not, though, because Ellie fussed most of the time there and ended up throwing up everything she'd eaten so it wasn't a very fun time for me, unfortunately. Ian, on the other hand, had a great time!

Sunday my nephews (who live in Atlanta) were in their churches children's musical and we decided that since we're so close, we should go because who knows when we'll get another chance to do it? So, we left for ATL that morning (Brian was feeling better, PTL) and arrived there in time to eat lunch with them. It was supposed to be a surprise but my parents (who were already there visiting) decided to tell them to make sure there would be enough food (which was fine). The boys were surprised and happy to see us. Ian (and even Josh) enjoyed playing with them. Around the time the boys had to leave, Ian started saying he didn't feel well. So, after they left he layed down and took a nap. We woke him up when it was time to go and he still said he didn't feel well. We were at the church waiting to try and check Ellie in at the nursery and Ian started throwing up! I rushed him into the bathroom and he still didn't make it to the toilet so he threw up on the floor in there. Brian came in (he had been parking the car) and I had him go with Ian (he was in the boy's room). Brian ended up telling us to just go on and if Ian felt up to it they would sit at the back of the church, just in case. Matthew and Andrew both had speaking parts as James and John (the two disciples that were brothers and fisherman) and the musical was called "Simon Says: The Rockin' Trial of Simon Peter." It was pretty cute. I've attached a picture I took - the girl in the middle was the judge and they were giving their testimony. (Andrew is on the left and Matthew is on the right). Shortly after the program we headed out (Ian ended up seeing the whole thing and felt better). We stopped and got dinner at McDonalds and didn't even think to tell Ian not to eat it all but he did. About 22 miles from home, Ian ended up throwing up again! Not fun. Monday he woke up feeling fine and went on to school and has been fine since. I'm now wondering if he was car sick but I'm really not sure!

Oh, and Ellie was still fussy all day Sunday at their house so I'm not really sure what's going on with her!

Concert Photos

Although I don't know what all these pictures are and Josh could probably tell me, I've decided just to post them as a slideshow. Josh said the concert was "AWESOME!!!" and they have a few stories about some over-excited fans almost crushing Jaynie and Josh having to come to her rescue. Plus, they threw out some of the drumsticks used and Josh caught one so he was excited about that. For those of you who don't know Skillet and TFK are Contemporary Christian Rock bands and Brian said it was pretty cool to just take a moment and realize they were in an audience of people who were singing praises to God in their own way.

Baseball

I've made mention of all the baseball Brian and Ian are doing but I haven't said much more than that. Well, their team is doing very well. In fact, they are currently undefeated! They've played 8 games and on Saturday beat the only other undefeated team in their division. So, I guess all the practicing is paying off. I haven't gotten a lot of pictures but here is one of Ian ready to run at first base and Brian crouching down after someone had a hit (he's the pitching machine coach). Ian is playing 2nd base and has made some important end the game catches but I think he'd still rather be playing catcher. We had a break this week because there's not a game tonight and since there wasn't a game tonight, they didn't have practice Tuesday evening (Ian would've missed it anyway because he had a program at school that night). He does have a game Saturday, though, so they will have practice as usual on Friday. What I can't believe is we still have another month to go of baseball! Perhaps even more if they continue to do well...

Date Night Surprise

Brian and I finally had a date night over the weekend!! I realized that night that our last date was for his Christmas formal back on December 9th or something like that! Way too long if you ask me! We had talked about it and decided since Josh's schedule had slowed down somewhat it would be a perfect opportunity. What Brian didn't know is that I arranged to have two couples join us on our date - the two guys Brian meets with once a week for an accountability group and their wives. So, from setting it up with them it had been decided to meet at Bonefish for dinner around 7pm. One of the couples said they would get there a little earlier to try and get our name on the list. The other couple had to wait for their babysitter to get there around 6:40pm. I had told Brian that we should leave our house around 6:30pm and it was 6:30pm and I'm saying "We gotta go!" And he's dilly-dallying saying "Why, you have something planned?" I played it off by telling him I was hungry (which I was) but also trying to make sure he didn't figure anything out. Well, we finally got to the restaurant and I saw our friends at the bar so I started walking that way and they said "Hello fellow date night friends" and that's when Brian figured out he had been set up. He told me he had the thought in the back of his mind, if Dave knows we got together without him he might be upset, but didn't say anything. Then, it was mentioned that they might not seat us if 2/3 of our party was there and that's when Brian figured out that Dave was coming, too! So, they showed up and we finally got seated around 7:30pm. We had a wonderful dinner and really enjoyed being able to spend some time with those folks. Oh, by the way, I had done this as a late birthday surprise for Brian so he got to celebrate for almost a week! I'm including some pictures. We ended up in a booth and rather than having all the guys on one side and all the girls on the other, we mixed it up a little and just had the couples sitting across from one another but Kate enjoyed being in the middle of the guys! :) The pictures are a little blurry but you get the point. Brad and Kate brought a St Patty's headband thing for Brian and he wore it when they brought out his dessert. The couples are: me and Brian, Kate and Brad and Dave and Kelley.

Happy Birthday Brian!!

Yesterday was Brian's birthday. It's the first one in quite a while that we haven't spent the whole day together. Usually if it's during the week, he'll take the day off but it wasn't an option this year so he had his normal day. He got home in time to go with me to pick the boys up from school then we got home and let him open his cards and gift. After that we left for an early dinner because we had OCF last night, too. We planned to go to a BBQ place that we've heard lots about but when we got there we discovered it's not open for dinner Monday-Wednesday. So, we drove back into town and looked to see what there was and ended up at Outback Steakhouse. We had a nice dinner and finished up in time to be at OCF. We had a good meeting then enjoyed some cake I brought for Brian. We sang happy birthday to him then were cutting up the cake and Melanie brought out another cake too (an ice cream cake) and we were like, oh, you got a cake, too. And she said, well, it's my birthday, too!! She hadn't mentioned it and I felt badly that I didn't know. So, we sang happy birthday to her also. How crazy that in our small group she and Brian share a birthday! Here are a couple of pictures of his special day.

I Feel Good...

I knew that I would now... Okay, okay, forgive me but that song is in my head and it applies to what I wanted to write about. (I know you're singing it now, too! {smile}).

Anyway, I feel good because... I am officially at my pre-pregnancy weight!!!! YAY!!!! It's taken 8 1/2 months but I'm there. I really plateaued (sp?) for quite a while and just couldn't seem to get lower so, finally, about 2 weeks ago I stopped eating desserts and anything that I know has lots of sugar. Living with a choc-a-holic this hasn't been easy. Plus, I have wanted lots of stuff. In the first couple of days I was craving Vanilla Coke (from Sonic not out of a can). Now, if you know me at all you know that I rarely drink sodas so wouldn't you know that's what I wanted! One night I wanted something sweet so I made myself a fruit smoothie - yum! I am not cutting out fruit in spite of all of their natural sugars because, well, I like fruit and think that's better for me than processed sugar. Last night really stunk because I was REALLY wanting some hot chocolate and had decided to allow myself this small pleasure. I boiled the water, got the hot chocolate down and looked at the ingredients. BIG MISTAKE!! The first two ingredients are sugar and corn syrup!!!!! So, I put the can back and didn't have any. GO ME!!! (Hey, this is a big deal for me!) I have always tended to be a little more on the "healthy" side of things up until I was pregnant. I really kinda indulged in a lot and had the weight gain to prove it. According to my friend, Amy, I was more fun to eat with when I was pregnant!!! {LOL} The challenge will be Monday because that's Brian's birthday and he loves store bought cake with lots of icing and I normally have at least one piece... we'll have to see!! I may have to have one bite...

Brian and I have both been trying to lose our "baby weight" and he's been doing great, too. We haven't stopped eating stuff we like just trying to watch portion control, etc. Plus, he's started running a lot more and going to the gym. He's decided that since he'll be at Wright Patterson on a trip in September and that happens to be when the Air Force marathon is that he's going to train to run in it. He had starting training while we lived there but hurt his knees and wasn't able to continue to train. He's been strengthening them ever since and feels like he can do it this time around. I am trying to get to where I can run since he seems to like it so much but it's a total mental thing with me and I can't seem to get past a mile although everyone keeps telling me that if I could push past that mile, it would be easier... I do walk for at least 30 minutes about 5 times a week and I do a little over 2 miles. I would like to start doing more but that's working for now. Brian and I did both get new running shoes so maybe I'll start trying to run more during my walks...

Now, even though I'm at my pre-pregnancy weight I do still have some pounds to lose. Before I got pregnant I was trying to lose 10 pounds so I still have those 10 pounds to go!! I'm also trying to be careful and not go crazy with stuff since I am still nursing and do need a few more calories than normal to have a good supply for Ellie! Brian's graduation ball is June 7th and it would be great if I had lost those 10 pounds by then, wish me luck!!

A Couple of Funnies from Yesterday

Yesterday there were a couple of funny moments that came up that I thought I would share.

In the mornings we do a family devotional at breakfast called "Our Daily Bread" and Brian reads the Bible portion. I was in the kitchen doing some things when he got started and he was telling me where he was reading from. Plus, he was telling the boys "Oh, we've been reading this in Sunday School." So, he says, "We're reading from Husbands...." and although I was busy I said - did you say husbands? Then, he realized what he'd said and Josh said, "Oh, I thought you were saying that was what Ephesians meant!" {smile} (The reference was Ephesians and the first word was husbands!)

That afternoon I went to pick up Josh and we were on the way home and we were talking about some things: what we were learing at OCF (Officer's Christian Fellowship) and some other stuff. Well, he was also texting with his friend Laura about plans they were making to go as a group to see their friend Jason bowl Thursday night. He texts Laura (unknowingly) "So, are we going to see Jesus bowl?" She texts back "Jesus? I don't know about him but Jason maybe." (Can't you just imagine her tone?) Josh bursts out laughing and tells me what happened and I was rolling with laughter. Even as I type this I keep giggling and Brian keeps looking at me funny. I told Josh, "Well, if it's thundering and lightning that night you'll be getting to see Jesus bowl!"

Well, I hope that brought a smile to your face! Happy hump day!

Brian and Ian's Trip

Two weekends ago Brian and Ian went on an overnight "guy" trip with Ian's RA (Royal Ambassador's) group. They went to Mobile, AL, and stayed on the USS Alabama. I'm including some pictures for you to see. The first one is of the boys waiting to be able to go on with the ship in the background.







The second is a picture of Ian and Reed (our neighbor) on their bunks.







The third is a picture of Ian on deck at sunset.

The fourth is a picture of Ian with the 16 inch shells - can you tell which one is him? {smile}

The last picture is of Brian in the Brig and they took a picture of the label to the Brig and it says, "BRIG: This is the bin for bad apples." I thought that was funny!

Ian had a great time and they enjoyed being able to have some bonding time together.

Life happenings

Well, I realized I haven't really just written about what's going on in our lives, so thought I should take the time to do that... (you may want to skip reading this just in case any of it ends up in our Christmas letter! :)). We are staying busy.

Josh is still doing his acting class and they are leading up to their final class/performance on the 8th and 9th of December. They are doing the Crucible and, I'll be honest, I'm not sure if I'm crazy about it. This is a class for teens aged 14-18 and there is a scene in which the husband and wife "kiss." Thankfully, Josh isn't one of them but I'm still not sure plus for the performance it says that children under age 12 will not be admitted which means Ian can't go so I'm not really sure what we're going to do!! He has really enjoyed his friends in that class, though, so I am thankful for that. I've wanted him to have a social life but now he wants to go down to his friend's house every night (she lives at the end of our street) and I'm just not sure I'm crazy about it. I know her mom and I know she keeps an eye and ear out but I guess I just miss having him around some, too!! Be careful what you wish for, huh!!

Ian is doing well. He made the A honor roll last quarter and looks on target to do that this time around, too. He's looking forward to starting basketball soon and he continues to enjoy RA's on Wednesday nights although he missed it this past Wednesday because he and Brian went to see Peter Pan at the Shakespeare Festival - they were having military appreciation night so it was buy one ticket get one free. We were all going to go but decided at $45 a ticket it was still a bit much and Josh had already been to see it so since Brian and Ian haven't had a lot of time with just the two of them we decided that was the best way to do it. It was a late night for Ian - they didn't get home until 10:30pm but he did well.

Brian continues with school and is doing well. He was very pleased to have made an A on his final as there weren't many of those given. We had his class Thanksgiving social last night and that was fun. We combined it with another class and the kids all had a good time and it was a relaxing evening. Brian also started this week classes for the language portion of his school. He's doing Chinese and with the time of his classes he's not getting home until a little later but we're hoping that he can get through it and have it done in the next few months because as we get closer to graduation he's going to be really busy with his "research project" called the Gathering of Eagles.

I am hanging in there. Ellie is really becoming a mama's girl which is fine as I do absolutely adore her but it can make it a little harder at times. She is really taking good naps and sleeping pretty well at night. I'm not really enjoying the 2 1/2 hours in the car every day but this, too, shall pass! Unfortunately, stamping things haven't been very successful and I'm really hoping to pick things up after the new year. Today as a family we sat down and put together card fronts that I've collected through the years and made them into cards and put them with envelopes and I'm planning to mail them to some troops in Iraq along with a goodie box. So, I'm glad to finally be doing something with them rather than throwing them away!!

We are going to my parents house in Savannah this week and I'm looking forward to that although not neccessarily the 6 hour drive. Would not have bothered me in the past but after a couple of hours in the car Ellie seems to have had enough so I'm a little nervous about how she's going to do. We shall see. Well, that's us in a nutshell!