Family Day

Sunday was family day at the base. The weather was gorgeous, sunny and cooler. We headed over to the base right after church and met Brian at the guard house. There were so many families there, many with very young children.

We wandered around looking at all the interesting aircraft.  The above photo is the new refitted LC-130 with 8-bladed props.  It is so much quieter and I guess more powerful. Brian has been working very hard on the testing and promotion of this new design.

We took a walk through of one of the planes.  No matter how many times we see it, the cockpit is still very impressive with its many, many switches and controls.

I just love the look of the Hercules.

They had a wonderful lunch for us with steak, pork, shrimp, burgers and hotdogs, in addition to many salads and veggies. We all had ice cream and some had shaved ice and cotton candy.  We sure sugared them up for the day. It was all so yummy.  For once, Dan said he was full.

We are so proud of our airman and it is always a pleasure to see where he works and the people he works with.

A Relaxing Day

Today was a good day.

The kids played outside several times, coming in just long enough for their snow gear to dry and then heading out again. They made trails, worked on the sliding hill and later as the snow got stickier, working on a fort.

Brian loves his new Kindle and has already downloaded quite a few books. He could be found several times today reading.

Bess has had a cold the last few days, so she took it easy, spending time reading, on the computer and knitting.

Rachel and Hannah got crochet hooks and yarn for Christmas, so today I gave them a lesson. Rachel caught on very quickly as I suspected she would. She is almost ready to start a real project.

Hannah was frustrated at first, but kept at it and as mastered the chain. I'm not sure how long she intends to make this, but she is having fun.

Gabe loves perusing eBay and Amazon for deals. He has Christmas money burning a hole in his pocket and the possibilities are endless, or at least until his cash runs out.

Dan flitted from here and there playing and hanging out. These days can be more difficult for him with less structure and he often needs a lot of redirection, but he did pretty good and enjoyed himself.

No pictures of me, but I spend the day doing a bit of this and that, picking up Christmas stuff, laundry, playing on the computer, teaching the girls and visiting with Brian and the kids. I enjoy these do nothing days when we are all together exploring our own pursuits, but spending time together.

Last Swim and Closing the Pool

The day was bright and very fallish and seemed the perfect time to close up the pool before it got too cold. Each year brings these repeating cycles of chores that have to be done according to the seasons.

We have had so much fun in the pool this summer. Our unusually hot,dry summer made for many wonderful days of keeping cool in the pool. I believe we used it more this year than any other year. One of the things that might have helped was we cut down a large tree that used to shade the pool a good portion of the day. This year with the day long sunshine and plenty of sunny days, the pool maintained a very pleasant temperature over 80 most days.

With the warm day it was easy for the kids to take the annual last plunge. Everyone went in and instead of just a quick dip, they actually enjoyed a nice swim.

Bess, Gabe and Dan had no trouble jumping right in.

Rachel and Hannah took a bit longer. I love Rachel's face in this picture. It was still pretty cold for her. She did stay in and enjoy, but that first dip was a shocker.

Hannah finally did get in.

Of course, Gracie had to join in the fun.

Canonball!

I liked this picture of Gabe doing a canonball as the splash made a nice circle.


Gabe as always, was the last one out. It was a perfect day for a last swim.

Daddy's Coming Home

Brian has been on a trip since late October. We have been eagerly awaiting his arrival back home and hoping for no delays. Tuesday night we headed to the airport. The children love these late night trips to the airport. They view it all as quite the adventure.

Here they are waiting for his flight to arrive.


We had a lot of sleepy eyes the next morning getting up for school, but we were so thrilled to have him home and that he would be with us for Thanksgiving.

Catching Up

Gosh, I am so behind in blogging. We have been bumping along just doing what we do...nothing earth shattering, but the days do seem to be busy. Here are a few snippits from the last couple weeks.

Mom and Dad recently treated us to lunch out at Friendly's. We really fill a table.

Gabe had an appointment and is on his 3rd cast. This one is a short cast that he can remove for showers and an occasional itching attack. He will have surgery in the next few weeks to remove the wires and pins.


Punchie the cat, aka Willie moved into the house. He was suppose to be an outside cat, but he spent way too much time catching the wild birds. This did not make me a happy camper at all, so the decision was made that Punchie would now reside inside the house. He still stalks the birds, but from behind glass or screen.

Dan has realized that Punchie loves to play, but often uses claws. A pair of garden gloves does the trick for play time with the least amount of scratches.

Bess is my ever present helper, always willing to pitch in and get any job done. She actually seems to enjoy mowing the lawn. We split this chore, taking turns on the front and back yard.

Monkey Time

As you can see by the pictures, these were taken before Gabe broke his arm. One of our favorite local places to visit is the school playground. There are several different climbing structures around the school. We can only go after school hours or the weekend, but the children have a ball.

It is conveniently located on the way to the library, so a quick stop at the playground sometimes follows our weekly library runs.

Finally Some Spring

Friday finally brought us a bit of warmer weather...still a bit chilly, but nicer (Don't let the children fool you with their short-sleeved shirts...it was still cool.).

Brian dragged the grill out of the garage and we had our first grilling of the season. Nothing says spring like the smell of the bbq.

The children enjoyed all sorts of activities from riding their bikes and playing in the sandbox and with the chalkboard to exploring the woods and finding a cache of old bottles. Some looked quite old and I confiscated these for myself!

Brian, Bess and I did some garden work. We raked off the house perennial garden and cut back all the dead stalks. This of course should probably have been done in the fall, but winter seemed to come upon us quite quickly last year.

There are a few things blooming or close to blooming in the garden. Each year it is so encouraging to see how much of the garden is indeed coming back. With our severe weather, one is never quite sure what to expect.

Quiet Day at Home

Our family loves to do things and go places, but we also enjoy our days at home. These days can often be quite productive as we pick projects to work on, but sometimes these days are just wonderful days of spending time together or pursuing activities of interest to each of us. These types of days don't happen too often as life seems so busy and there is also so much to do, but the last weeks have afforded us a few days when we felt we could relax and enjoy some down time.

Rachel's favorite free activity is drawing. Bessie gave her a nice set of colored pencils and an art pad for Christmas and she has been working hard on her drawing. Whenever she has a free moment, you will often find her working on something new.

Dan and Hannah often play together doing many different things. I had recently purchased a bag of all sorts of beads and a sorting box. How much fun they had sorting beads of many different colors and shapes.

Brian and Gabe...two peas in a pod. They just love the Wii. Brian picked up this World War II flying ace game on a discount shelf. It has been a major hit with these two. You will often find them shooting down enemy aircraft over Germany.

And Bessie...one of her favorite leisure activities is her computer. She has many friends on Facebook that she enjoys following. She also has several Nancy Drew games that she enjoys.

Me, I stalk my family taking pictures. Actually, most recently, on our stay at home days, you will find me sewing or stitching. I am finding a lot of enjoyment working with fabric and thread.

So, what do you enjoy doing on those rare lazy free days at home?

Snippits from Last Week

I have been doing a terrible job of keeping up with my blogging these days. I am going to try and do better, but life sure does seem to continually get in the way of me blogging about our life!

Last week was a very full week and we only had one "normal" day and that was our co-op day. This resulted in only one semi-normal home school morning. We have always had the philosophy that most things in life offer learning opportunities, so we don't sweat the day count too much.

Monday was Martin L. King Day and Brian was home. Most times when Dad is home, we have a no formal schooling policy. We worked and played and enjoyed having Brian home.

Tuesday we had our morning circle time and did some seat work before we gathered around the TV to watch the presidential inauguration.


I enjoy the pageantry of it all and I marvel at the peaceful, orderly exchange of power that takes place in the US. I loved the music by John Williams played by the quartet. What a tremendous treat that was for me. We listened intently (well, we sort of lost the little ones part way through) to the words of President Obama and we pray for him daily. He was not my choice, but I know who ultimately holds the power of the world and I put my faith in God to sustain us through whatever comes our way.

The day was rounded out by speech class for Dan and piano lessons for Bessie.

Wednesday found us heading to a local mail to meet with friends we hadn't seen in about four years. The mall was a good half-way point for us to meet. Abby and Bessie have kept in contact through snail mail, email and most recently Facebook. The girls finally made a plan to spend some time together. We dropped Bess off with Abby and her mom Deb, after having a very nice chat and catching up a bit on what each family has been doing.

The younger children and I made stops at the Christian bookstore, McDonald's for lunch, The Christmas Tree Shoppe and Target. It is interesting how the little guys will tolerate going in and out of stores, but don't care for the mall. I guess I can understand as I am not a big fan of malls myself...too much monotony, noise and people.

The children always enjoy a few runs up and down the escalators.


We picked Bessie up later in the afternoon. Bess and Abby had a wonderful time and we are hoping to get together more often.

Hannah had another doctor appointment on Thursday. She is such a trooper about these appointments and charms everyone she meets. We have another appointment in two weeks to go over a plan of treatment for her.

Friday found us at our local homeschool co-op. We enjoy meeting with this small group. It gives the children some variety with their subjects and a wonderful time to be with friends. I also enjoy the time spent with other homeschool moms.

The children finished up the Meet the Masters curriculum last half and started working on a cartooning class in art. Everyone is really enjoy it. Art is one area that I am not strong in, so it is a real blessing that the children are getting such wonderful art instruction at our co-op.


Saturday is our normal library run day. We love our library and all the librarians and volunteers are so wonderful to us.

We stopped at a friends house on the way home and picked up their oldest son to have a play day with Gabe and left our two little girls there to play with their younger daughters. Everyone had a great time. Brian and I worked in our family room, trying to sort through bins and assorted other mess. What a chore.

Sunday we had morning worship. They had three baptisms after church. It is always such a joy to watch as folks profess their faith in Christ through baptism.

There is a very brief synopsis of our week. I will endeavor to do better with posting.

First Day of 2009

Happy New Year!

The day dawned, bright, clear and very, very cold. We had minus temperatures overnight and barely getting out of the single digits during the day. It was a gorgeous day with little wind, which made the cold temps tolerable.

Brian went to work on clearing the snow from the storm yesterday. The younger children ventured out for some sledding fun. I braved the cold for a bit and filled the bird feeders. The little birds tend to be so frantic on these very cold days. I like to make sure they have plenty to eat.

As Brian came around the house to make the bird feeder path, he aimed the blower toward the children. They thought this was great fun and used their sleds as shields from the blast of snow. He made several runs at them and they squealed with delight at the barrage of snow.

They didn't stay out too long and came inside to hot cocoa, always a treat when you are cold.

I spent time today planning out a new quilting project. I think I'm going to need to make a run to the fabric store. My "stash" isn't that large, so it is hard to pull enough fabric on hand to complete a project.


It was a pleasant start to 2009.