The 6 (or so) month review of home schooling

Now that I have about 6 months under my belt of doing the home school thing, I thought I would take some time to reflect...isn't that some of the point of a blog?

First of all, home schooling for us so far has just been great! Most of you know, I'm not really the type to gush over anything. Even when I think things are great, I'm still one to point out the bad part too. With home schooling, I am just all about seeing the good side of it!

Here's my list of what has been great - now you have to remember my perspective of coming into being a home school mom first. I was the career mom who worked a minimum of 50-60 hours a week and was gone a couple times a month and I loved my career. My boys had a dad who stayed home with them and did a fantastic job. I switched to being the primary at home parent about a year before attempting to home school while we were living in someone else's house and had just moved to a strange city. We moved again (another new place, but our own house this time) and soon after the home school adventure starts.

What I love...
1. The laid back schedule. Every morning is not a struggle to get people dressed, breakfast eaten, teeth brushed and out the door at a specific time. We start when we start and I like to get up and get going, but we don't have to start at a specific time.
2. The laid back schedule. The boys and I have been gone many weeks doing great stuff that couldn't have happened if Andrew was enrolled in a traditional school.
3. Learning at our own pace. If we aren't really up for paying attention, the lesson will wait and not just be missed because one of them couldn't pay attention at the time.
4. Structured quality time with my boys. I'm not much of a "play" person or a silliness lover. I like to play games and do constructive kind of things but not really all about doing all of the boy playing. This gives me some great structured time with them.
5. Sonlight Curriculum. The Curriculum that we chose is not easy - it's been challenging and enjoyable for all of us to learn. I'm really glad that I spent the money and just bought it all from them so I have all the books when we need it. I'm glad that it's been deep enough for even me to enjoy. (There are tons of great curriculum's out there and anyone who has done the investigation knows that you could spend days and days and days trying to make a decision.)
6. Choosing a curriculum that tells me what to do every day. We don't follow the schedule exactly every day, but it's there to motivate me on the days that I'm not so motivated. If I were to just have some books, we wouldn't have done nearly as much stuff as we have been doing.
7. I've learned to read Usborne books. If you've ever been exposed to this brand of book before, you may love them. Generally before we started, I was not a big fan. There's so much information on a page, I didn't know how to read it. Do I read the regular text first and then all of the stuff around. Do I read the extra stuff around as we go? The curriculum that we chose uses Usborne books but we only read one spread a day. So we can spend time looking at the pictures and reading the text leisurely. I actually enjoy them now, but don't ask me to read more than one or two pages a day or I'll go crazy!
8. The great support and friends that I've had along the way. When I was first considering the home school thing after a very long time of flat out denying the fact that I would ever do it, I looked around at all of the people I knew that home schooled - Suzanne in TX, Jen in Kansas, Kim in Missouri, Sue in WI, lots of people in IA. Each one was doing it for their own reasons and taking it one year at a time...Once I made it to Rolla, the other moms have been really great friends to me!
9. Getting to know my boys more and know what they are exposed to. The days that we don't spend the entire day together (Wednesday and Thursday at a minimum), I hear so little about their day. I really can't imagine this being the case 5 days a week where I get a 30 second summary of the last 7 hours!
10. My home school choice is a year by year decision! Just because we are doing kindergarten for our first child this year doesn't tie me into any schooling decision for any future years for either of our children! I'm pretty sure that we will home school next year, but I'm only willing to make a decision for one year at a time! And we'll most likely take advantage of public school summer school again this year - aren't options great?
10. I have great students!

Summary - it's been great. We don't always have great days, but it was a great decision for us. I definitely know that it's not for everyone and in every situation but I'm very happy about the decision that we made.

The After Christmas Letter

I attempted to do some fancy HTML stuff but it's really my first attempt...the version in Word looks a lot better - that means I probably actually need to send out some letters and not just rely on this :)

2007 Year in Review

January

We rang in the New Year in Iowa City where we were currently residing with Todd’s brother, Jeff and his wife Narmin. Todd enrolled in one class at Kirkwood Community College while still working at CramerIT. Amy continued to work for Cerner two days a week from home. Andrew and John Lewis went to preschool two days a week and were just boys the rest of the time.

February

The boys and Amy made a trip to Alabama for an aunt’s funeral. We were glad that this was the last of our monthly streak of funerals for the year. On the way home, we hit 6 states and saw 6 grandparents in one very long day! We were happy to have a short reprieve from the single digit temps in Iowa but more importantly to support our family at the time of their loss. Amy also found somewhere to run indoors to stay in shape without freezing!

March/April

Sometime in the spring we decided to take the plunge for Todd to be a full-time student. In April we made a weekend trip to Rolla to buy a house. Amy’s parents were kind enough to corral the boys in the hotel while we looked, bid and signed contracts.

May

We hit a bump in the road when found out that Todd had been the victim of identify theft because we weren’t willing to pay off the Chevy Impala that was on his credit report. Many phone calls and some more phone calls and faxes and other faxes, thankfully this is resolved. Knowing who we really were, we packed up all of our things and said good-by to our friends we had made in Iowa over the previous 10 months and headed south to Rolla, Missouri. We moved into our home in a wonderful neighborhood. A few days later we headed to Kansas City for a neighborhood reunion.

June

Andrew attended summer school at the local public school with a class called “Around the world in 20 days”. Todd began his first classes at University of Missouri-Rolla with some of his fellow students from Kansas City. Our guest room had been used many times already and we enjoyed having company! We also became a one vehicle family – one non-human powered vehicle that is!

July

July found us starting our first adventures in home schooling! Through a lot of prayer and research, we decided that home school was the best option for us this year – Andrew’s first year of school. (I wanted to get started before the school year started in case it was a bust and we needed to send him to a conventional school!) We also started getting involved with a house church where we have settled.

August

August was Todd’s first semester of being a full-time student in about 15 years! He started hitting the books pretty hard right way as a junior in the Civil Engineering program.
Almost every day he biked the two miles to and from school! Amy ran a half marathon
in Chicago with some cousins after spending many many hours training.

September

The boys were able to start their new fall activities in September with AWANA, Wednesday School, Home School PE and Soccer. Wednesday School is run by a local church for home schooled children for a day of enrichment activities. Both of the boys can go and are even learning Chinese.

October

The fall seems like much more of a blur and earlier in the year as we settled into the school year routine and learning all our small town has to offer. The boys were able to go on a two week road trip with their Aunt Jenny seeing New Mexico and the Colorado desert. Amy met them in Kansas City for a weekend of hanging out with friends.

November

During the fall boys spent a week with each of their grandparents while Amy was doing some work stuff – training in Kansas City and a trade show in Chicago. Home schooling wasn’t a bust at all – it’s been a highlight of the year for mom at least. She has great students and they enjoy the learning. I think we’ll try it again next year, but it’s a decision to make for one year at a time!

December

The beginning of December meant the end of the semester and finals for Todd while the rest of the family supported him filling his brain to capacity. We must have been quite busy because we didn’t get around to putting the letter out until now! Our year has rounded out with good news. Todd was excited that he was shown favor by his professors when he got his semester grades. Amy was told that she will have a position at Cerner for at least three more months and not being eliminated on December 31^st.

We are most thankful for the favor that we have been shown by Jesus Christ to be His children. We are thankful for His sacrifice of coming to earth as a man to be crucified and resurrected for our short comings. This Christmas we celebrate the birth of Jesus as the beginning of his earthly life which is the foundation of our faith and hope!

Let Every Heart Prepare Him Room

I'm bustling tonight getting ready to leave tomorrow for our Christmas weekend events with my side of the family. There seems like so much to do, and I'm starting to get a little frazzled by it, but a line from "Joy to the World" has been rolling around in my head this Christmas season so I'm ready to take a breather and dump it out.

Joy to the World, the Lord is Come. Let Earth receive her King. Let every heart prepare HIM room...and heaven and nature sing...

My prayer for everyone this Christmas season is that each of you reading this message would prepare some room in your heart for Jesus. Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus which is the start of his earthly live. The end result of his earthly life, death and reserection, means that those who believe and trust in him will be with him for eternity.

I don't think about eternity much, I've never been one to have a good focus on a real long term goal. Instead, I think about how making room for Jesus in my heart and trying to prepare more room for Him this Christmas season means to me everyday. Knowing that I can trust Jesus and put my faith in him, means that I don't need to worry about Cerner laying me off. I don't need to worry about Todd getting a job when he's done with school. I don't need to worry if I am doing enough for school for the boys or any of the other millions of things that I can worry about. I put my faith in Him because he has promised to always be there for me. He wants what is best for me as a child of his and how I can relate wanting the best for my children.

Please prepare some room in your heart this Christmas season and see how you can be blessed by Jesus being there.

Do you get to call in sick from homeschool?

I know stay at home parents don't have anyone to call in sick to, but had never really thought about it for homeschool and what happens when we're sick. Our first version of a sick day was this week, but it wasn't the teacher who was sick. The kids where sick and the teacher was tired!

The stomach flu invaded our house on Thursday night and only stayed for about 8 hours, but it was not a fun 8 hours at all. Friday rolls around as mom's day to do school after having two days off from being teacher but the kids are sick. One recovering from the stomach flu and the other with a pretty nasty cold (from teething, I really think).

So, what's the teacher to do? She has two sick kids on her hands and just a few hours of sleep. It's officially a school day but they don't go anywhere different for school, so can we just chuck it for the day? With all of those thoughts running through my head, and concerned that we still may have stomach flu waiting in the wings, we watched TV! We don't watch a lot of it, after not having any TV for months, we haven't been glued to the TV that much since we got cable. So Friday was a treat day to watch TV without stated limits. I didn't know what was on during the day for the kids, but PBS Kids has a pretty good lineup that they were happy with. John Lewis still doesn't understand live TV. He wants to watch what he wants to watch whenever he wants...the boys needs TEVO. We did find an episode of one show on the Internet since it wasn't on TV when he wanted. I skirted Cartoon Network for most of the day too!

Thank you also to www.learningpages.com for providing some winter worksheets for some non-tube activities. I snuck in some math and reading along the way (mostly for Andrew). We are currently reading Dr. Doolittle and they were happy to dig into a few chapters of that as well. So our day was pretty good - the boys really like some structure even on sick days.

I'm very thankful that the laundry is all done and that no one else has come down with the flu and that we have some very nice distractions at our disposal. I have come to realize that what each day ends up being is completely unpredictable, and that's just how life is...especially with homeschooling!

Amy, the meat packer?

Tuesday night I got a call and then an experience I could not have predicted. A friend called and said "I know that you don't eat meat, but others in your house do. We have a deer that someone gave us and we already have plenty in the freezer, do you want a deer?" Thinking of my meat eating husband, I said yes, and so later they arrived with a few trash bags. We received four leg quarters and the back strap. We put the legs straight into the freezer and I left the back strap meat out for Todd to figure out what he wanted to do. I was told that the back strap was the best meat and it was already de-boned.

A little while later, Todd arrived home from class and got to surprise him with our acquisition. Not what he was expecting to do after a full day of classes and a big test the next day! He decided to make small "roasts" out of the back strap and freeze the individual pieces for pulling out of the freezer when he wants it. I've been told that I can roast the legs and then make barbecue out of it or be adventurous and grind the meat to use in whatever. (In our house we don't use ground meat for whatever, so that would even be a whole new adventure.) I can't see me going the ground meat route but maybe trying the roasting thing and have lots of shredded meat. So if you eat at my house anytime soon, you may end up with deer meat however we end up cooking some of it. You'll have to let me know how it tastes! I'll happily be eating my vegetarian sloppy joe.

My other gastric experiment coming to our kitchen very soon is dandelion greens. I bought a box of organic produce from a local health food store and in the mix was dandelion greens. They are supposed to be really really good for you so we'll try them. I'm not a huge greens fan in general so I'm being stretched here. Most of the recipes that I have found on-line call for bacon and bacon grease to cut the bitterness of the greens. This may be another adventure for my meat eating friends to enjoy and I'll just get the pleasure of preparing it!

The tables are definitely turning on me this week as far as food - I'm usually the one trying to get people to try new things. Now I have two different foods presented to me and I'm skirting this issue!

Happy Eating.

Options I'm considering for dandelion greens:
http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1571530
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Doras-Dandelions/Detail.aspx

Some pictures of the guys.

Coming in from a campfire outside and too tuckered out to actually make it to bed.

Making our medieval pouches and dog biscuit Rudolph ornaments.

Silly smiles cannot be excluded!

A meal that only my kids would eat!

As most of you know, my children are known to eat foods that most of their peers probably would not touch! As we are finishing up tonight's meal, I thought I would share the wonderful meal that I prepared and was eaten with great anticipation. Tonight they wolfed down the following:

Emu Steaks (crockpotted with cream of mushroom soup)
Harvard Beets
Lima Beans
Mashed Potatoes
Frozen peas straight out of the bag

We are having a clean out the freezer week in preparation for Thanksgiving. The emu was gifted to us with our free freezer upon our move and it was time for it to be eaten (by the rest of the family - not me). The rest of the things are actual normal foods that get eaten at our house. But, I realized that it was a combination that may result in a battle of wills over the dinner table at other people's houses. JL is having the hardest time with the mashed potatoes actually - only my kids would have an issue with mashed potatoes and not the three vegetables that were served!

I hope that you had a very enjoyable meal tonight (last night) whatever it happened to be.

Reflections from today...

Today we hosted church at our house for the first time! We had a normal crowd today of around 40 people which was a full-house but still some elbow room. The first people arrived around 9:30 (right when I was jumping in the shower after a run) and the last person left around 4pm. In between time we had church, a meal, and lots of playing! It has been an outstanding day weather wise so Sunday School happened outside as well as most of the people outside as well. I enjoyed having church here and being able to host people in our house and having them feel comfortable enough to spend hours and hours here. I was even motivated enough to clean the kitchen even though my husband offered. We may have left the wrong impression with some of our visitors though - it seems that the most violent toys (Styrofoam swords, Nerf guns) are the ones that came out at the beginning of the morning and even stuck around through part of church! The college guys were having a bunch of fun with them - they are just amazing how much they play with the boys! We host through this month - we'll see if we get asked again or not!

Tomorrow we start our next week of homeschool. I have just been blown away by how much I have enjoyed homeschool. Here are just a few reasons why...
1. We don't have to get up and out of the house by a certain time. (I don't have to nag which makes me very happy.)
2. We or the boys can go different places during the week or for weeks at at time. (Currently there have been at least four weeks that they have been out of town during the week - and there are more planned.)School is portable and they can learn all kinds of things everywhere!
3. I get to spend quality, structured, meaningful time with my boys and I know what they are learning! For the day that they do school somewhere else during the week, I hear so little about the day. I can't imagine that being the case 5 days a week! When I know that I have done school with them, I don't have guilt having them entertain themselves.
4. I get to filter what my children are exposed to...I am OK with them being sheltered. That doesn't mean that they don't have socialization, they have a lot of that!
5. We don't have to do homework...we can stop when we are tired and we can press on when we are in a groove!
6. I am enjoying what we are learning and am learning fun things too! Grandma read the a book the week that they spent with her and now I want to go and read it too!

Last thoughts - running. I really wanted to do another 1/2 marathon this fall. It just hasn't worked out to get that done. My running partners got a 13 mile run in one Sunday morning that I wasn't able to join them. This morning was supposed to be my morning to get it in but for some reason all during the week I didn't prepare my body or mind for the race. For some reason I had it in my mind that I would wake up this morning and crank out 13 miles just like it was nothing. I have trained so it's not like I was thinking I would go out cold, but it's still 13 miles and I haven't done that many miles since the August race. I didn't really drink enough water for days and I didn't do any carb loading and I didn't mentally prepare myself to keep running for over two hours straight. So this morning when I woke up (I didn't even set an alarm and we were having church at our house at 10) and it was raining, it was God telling me that it wasn't my day. The rain stopped but it wasn't enough time to try and get 13 miles in, so I got about 5 in and came home to do final touches for church. Not sure if it will actually happen yet this month or not! Right now I have to be OK with not getting it in...I run to keep in shape and that's really the overall goal.

That's the reflection on Sunday - I'm off to bed leaving Todd and his friend studying for a test tomorrow!

Flash Back

Tonight I have had a major flashback...walking into a hotel room all by myself pulling a suitcase. Wow, I was doing this frequently just a year and a half ago and now it's a flashback memory.

Today at work was really fun in a way that doing something different is fun - I'm looking forward to going to RSNA and doing the professional thing for a couple of weeks but really glad that I am not choosing to do this full-time.

I can't believe how much I am happy to spend time with my boys. Most days I could be such a better parents...oh such a better mom to those wonderful boys. But being able to spend so much more time together has been so great.

Thank you so much to my husband for his idea for me to spend the time with the boys before they got too hold. Thank you so much to my husband for being such a wonderful financial manager so we could be in this place. Thank you so much to my husband for being the wonderful guy that he is and letting his wife do a bunch of crazy stuff with our lives!

In the mean time, I'll enjoy the hotel time and try and figure out what I did with myself in years past with my time here in the hotel. Translation - I'll probably end up working a bunch this week! I'll be very thankful for only having to work two days next week!

The windows...

I posted in July about the cutting of holes in the basement for windows and I was a little nervous. The cutting and framing in went wonderfully but it became a saga after that...

We contracted with a company in Jeff City (about 90 miles away) to do the cutting. They had a minimum fee which was about the same price as to cut what we wanted. We pulled a permit with the city like good little citizens. Before the cutting company was scheduled to come, my husband called the city to check on the permit status. He was told that it was approved but the company needed to register with the city and pay an appropriate fee before we would actually have the permit. So when the holes were cut, we didn't have an approved permit in hand from the city - no big deal we thought.

Weeks later the company got their fee paid and Todd was able to pick up the permit. The permit was approved *WITH* modifications to the design...the biggest change to the design required 3 more inches cut into the concrete! Ummm - that means another minimum cutting fee AND removal of the glass block windows which may not be able to be re-used. Todd had the city inspector come out and he did not approve the work that was done because it did not meet city code (we didn't have a double header). It was worth a try to get them approved...Fortunately the city inspector did say that if we could get a professional engineer to approve his plan, then the city will most likely approve it.

So you would think that Todd could get some help from the civil engineering department at school but he didn't find anyone willing to put their stamp of approval on his plans. So he gets a recommendation for an engineering firm here in town and makes an appointment. Nice visit with an engineer and Todd gets a really good pointer on taking a CAD class from the local technical school instead of the university. (Having this class makes him very marketable as an intern/coop type person.) A week later, we get word that the plans didn't get approved but he does have a suggestion that does not include cutting more into the cement.

Todd stews over the option that was presented and talks with my dad and others on their thoughts. We have sealed windows and LOVE the new light that we have. The permit is outstanding for 180 days there isn't any huge rush to do anything. He's also trying to figure out how to do the retro fit without having to remove all of the siding from the back of the house to put in the recommended piece of steel! Fall semester starts and one of Todd's classes is "Structures". He's learning how to figure out if his windows are strong enough to support the house above it and the variables involved with that. He goes back to his design and looks at it and does some more math and some more math.

Finally he comes to a point where he doesn't see why his design doesn't work with what he has learned in school. He schedules an appointment with the engineer again to understand why his design doesn't work - a reality check to see where education and real life do or don't meet. The day before the meeting is scheduled, the other partner in the engineering firm just happens to be at church!

The meeting was great success - the office is a 2 minute bike ride away from the house but Todd had to call before he got home to tell me. The engineer didn't account for one large beam in each window that Todd put in so the plans were approved. Yippee! The engineer invited Todd to come in and apply for a summer job as well! (And Tuesday night is CAD class.)

So this is very much a situation where God works for the good, even though the first indication wasn't something that we thought was good! Todd wouldn't be taking the CAD class now and he wouldn't have had a good lead on a summer position where they have already seen some of this work!

The windows are in the process of being trimmed out now...the light has been truly wonderful!

Keeping Busy Again...

It's almost the end of October and I haven't made any posts yet this month...so a quick follow-up on what's been happening.

I met the boys and Jenny in Kansas City at the end of their roadtrip. We all had a good time in Kansas City and packed in a lot! We saw Cerner friends, neighborhood friends, church friends, friends of friends, my new manager, some clients and drove a lot of miles. Across town it way different in KC versus Rolla!

I definitely kept busy while the boys were gone, but not too busy. Todd had five tests while they were gone so even though it sounded like great couple time, we didn't have too many lazy evenings to just "hang out" together. We did pretty much eat by candlelight most nights - by my husband's request!

We were home for a few days - tried to get back in the routine again and then we were off to Saturday again to the Missouri entertainment mecca - Branson. We met some friends of my parents there. Just so happened that these friends met my parents during their Rolla grad school summers! Todd came home to go to school and the boys and I stayed a few days longer. Their time share is on a golf course and the evening activity was to hunt for golf balls. I think that they found over 150 of them in a few days.

This weekend is home again. The last soccer games for the boys on Saturday and probably the UMR football game...maybe some laundry and good old house cleaning!

What to do with myself?

I'm having my first experience of being the "stay at home" parents where I don't have to parent all of the time! The boy's Aunt Jenny came on Sunday and asked if she could leave with the boys in the morning for almost two weeks. She had been talking about taking them on a trip but we thought it would be later in the month.

Of course this has been a week where Todd was overwhelmed with tests and homework so he hasn't had a ton of time to spend with me. It really is amazing how much more time I have on my hands without little boys around. I'm so not motivated to get anything done though! I miss them but I know that they are having a great time and it's good for me to have a little down time too. The living room has been clean for days and I haven't cleaned the kitchen counter a half dozen times a day.

I will be happy to have them back, being without them really makes me realize just how much a part of my life that they are. It also makes me realize how much joy they bring to me as well.

Brittney, Gary, Lisa, Stef...

This post has been rumbling around in my head for a couple of months now and so I need to try and get something out. The four people mentioned in the title are currently battling cancer - two are doing this for a second time and three of them stage IV (that's as bad as the stages get). As far as I know, none of them know each other but as a group they are in my thoughts constantly. In this list of people there exists very little in common between them which shows that cancer doesn't discriminate. What also is amazing is that God doesn't discriminate either, He loves and cares about everyone. Each of these people has a story to tell of a horrible disease they are fighting. But, the story that they would much rather tell and the one that is even more amazing is about how God is using them and has blessed them through their disease. Each one of them knows that their hope and security lies in their faith in Jesus Christ. Their God will take care of everything and they will get to spend eternity in Heaven. They are all human and can't see how God will do that, but their hope, and their family's hope, is amazing.

I can't think put into words too much more, though there is so much rolling around in my head. I wanted to give all of these amazing people a tribute because of how they have changed my perspective. God never promised that life would be without pain but He did promise not to leave or forsake us. I can see Him through the lives of each of one of them and that increases my faith and trust in HIM. I do pray for a miracle of complete healing but know that God is doing other amazing miracles with their lives even if He doesn't answer my prayer how I would like Him to. Even if they get to go to heaven before we think they ought, the manner in which they battled their diseases will hopefully lead others to trust in Jesus as their savior. We'll all get to spend eternity in heaven together then.

If you happen to want to know more about some of these...you can check out their blogs (I intentionally didn't do hyperlinks so spammers wouldn't invade their sites - you'll have to do some typing):
garybonjour.com
www.caringbridge.org/visit/brittneymann
tarapchak.wordpress.com
windowsofimagination.blogspot.com

We have TV!

It's been four months almost to the date that we moved into our house. We have so very much enjoyed our time in our new town, it really has been a great time for our family. We have kept ourselves very busy with making friends and finding out about the town. There really is an amazing amount going on for a small town and school has only been in session for a month. I think it helps that we have small children and aren't looking for entertainment into the night, but nonetheless, we have enjoyed the time that we have had together with the family and how content we are with a quiet house. Highlights of what we found in our small town - we went to two productions this summer that the boys still talk about. We got a huge bowl of candy at a rainy parade. We are getting used to the local library and enjoying what it has to offer. There's a great mini-golf course here.

We came to an impasse now that it's September and football season has started. Both of us love football and love to watch football on TV. (We also have to admit that we like to watch golf on TV too and the FedEx Cup is almost over.) It's not really as fun for us to watch a football game in a bar especially when we have the boys to keep after and entertaining them while we do what we want to do (just maybe some naps happen too). So we broke down and signed-up for cable. (When you live in a hilly small town, free TV stations don't exist.) The cable-guy came today and put it all in so we officially have another bill this month and have a fast amount of visual entertainment at our disposal. It's really a bittersweet kind of moment. We have done so very well without the noise box in our lives, but we are now introducing it into our lives again. We'll see how it goes and how much football we actually do end up watching. The nice thing is that we can cancel anytime and come back to our quiet house again though it may be a bigger adjustment next time. I just don't know when to actually turn on our massive 12in screened TV...we resisted signing up for a long time and part of me wants to resist even longer to watch it...but if I'm paying for it, I may as well be using it!

I'll keep you updated on any new shows that I happen to get hooked on. In the mean time, if you want a fun game to play on the computer check out www.handdrawngames.com and play Tower Defense.

The next transition

School started for Todd three weeks ago but the boys "school" activities didn't start until this week so it's been another week of getting a schedule down and a lot more carting people around. The boys were very busy this week as compared to the summer but that's what happens when both of the parents have scheduled stuff too!

Tuesday they were a part of Home School PE which is put on by the local Rec Centre. We didn't know the protocol for the first day that we were supposed to bring a snack, but they had Popsicles for them...they enjoyed that as much as anything that I could have brought for them! Homeschooling is pretty big here - there were probably close to 75 kids there for the event and 25 of them in the 4-6 year old class! I feel like I actually know some people now when we go to these events and not always the new guy. Though in the small town, we'll be "new" for a really long time.

Wednesday they did "one day school" that a local church is doing all day program (9-4:30) for home school kids to provide enrichment activities including learning Chinese. I didn't get to hear too much about the day, but they are ready to go back. JL was talking last night about some Chinese facts so he did learn something! After school, we ate a quick dinner and then carted the boys off to AWANA for their first night of that. They had a good time there too and some of the same kids have been at other events before. The boys probably would have been ready to crash when they got home, but we ended up having a Bible study at our house that night so there were a bunch of people here when they got home and they had to spend some time with them!

Our bigger transition inside the house was that Todd reupholstered the kitchen chairs! Staple guns are really amazing things and what they can transform (with the help of some internet research). The white seats were showing their use by small children for the last few years and we were ready to have a cleaner look. Finding the right materials in a small town can be a little challenging. Most people suggest WalMart when you ask where to get something but they didn't have much. But there is another fabric store that we had been in once before to get fabric for pillows and they had the perfect stuff for the chairs and only $3/yard. I really like to be able to support local business! So now when you come to visit, you won't have to sit on stained chairs.

Real Name - Just for Fun

YOUR GANGSTA Name: (first 4 letters of real name)
Amy B
YOUR SPY NAME: (favorite color & favorite animal)
Pink Lion
YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name & street you live on)
Beth Sherman
YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name)
Koeam
YOUR SUPERHERO NAME: (Your 2nd favorite color and favorite drink)
Yellow Vino
YOUR IRAQI NAME: (2nd letter of your first name, 3rd letter of your last name, 1st letter of your middle name, 2nd letter of your moms maiden name, 3rd letter of you dads middle name, 1st letter of a siblings first name, and last letter of your moms middle name)
Mobogae
YOUR WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (parents' middle names)
June Edgar
YOUR GOTH NAME: (black and the name of one of your pets)
Black Pooh (no pets, so I used my son's favorite stuffed animal)
YOUR PORN STAR NAME: (the name of your first pet & the name of the street you grew up on)
Fluffy Loyland

School, school, school

Today is the first day of school for Todd...we sent him off this morning on his bike in the rain...what a trooper! Not sure what time we'll see him tonight again - I hope that his lab doesn't keep him the entire three hours on the first day, but you never know. This is engineering school!

The boys and I have had a good day of school here at home as well. Andrew did some math before JL woke up and we read about sporting events around the world. There was even a picture of a man shooting an apple off a boy's head which goes along with The Apple and the Arrow that we are reading about William Tell. The picture in the Usborne Children's Encyclopedia was a way different depiction then what our book says about the type of bow that was used.

We ventured into painting today with one of those thoughts - why didn't I just let a school deal with this just because of the mess, but in the end it wasn't bad. Washable paint is a very good thing. The activity was to paint with string. We had quite a few different types of strings, but in the end our hands ended up being a lot more fun!

They do have fun with painting so I need to let them do it a little more often. It was really funny that JL said that we had to wear aprons, even me because that is what they did at Ms. Russell's school. Aprons ended up being old shirts from the rag pile.

One of our other activities for the day was making letters in rice. In an attempt to get some handwriting in without actually having to use a writing utensil and paper (which Andrew seems to avoid), we started making letters in rice to learn to make them properly with a finger. Making letters properly means starting at the top and making them proportional. As long as they get time to play in the rice, they are willing to do it - at least so far. The handwriting manual tries to put some fun things in there too. We have a song that reminds us to put our letters at the top and the first letters that we are reviewing are called "Frog letters" because you jump back to the top of where you started after you make the original line. If you look closely in Andrew's you can see an M.

Happy Birthday Andrew!

Andrew turned 6 on Tuesday! He had a special day that started with presents and ended with a birthday party. He got to have one of his favorite meals of cheese ravioli for supper then 6 friends came over for the celebration! Andrew helped organize everything about his party and he had an "announcement" at the beginning of the party saying in a very formal and serious voice, "This is my party and we are going to have fun." Andrew decided on bike races down the hill in front of our house, pin the tail on the donkey and hitting a pinata as the games to entertain his guests. We also decorated cupcakes and had a book/puzzle exchange. I believe that everyone did have fun and not just because Andrew said that they had to!

We interviewed Andrew for his birthday so I thought I would share his answers with you. He's going to love this when he's 16 to know all of this about him a decade before...


What is your favorite color? I like all of them, except pink.

What is your favorite car? Van, like a mini-van.

What is your favorite bedtime activity? Read a story.

Who is your favorite bedtime buddy? Pooh

What do you want to be when you grow up? Since the Black Bird is an old plane, I am going to be an airplane maker. I am going to run an airplane factory.

What is your favorite food? Ravioli, of course because it has ricotta cheese in it.

What is your favorite clothing? The shirt that I am wearing now. (it was a gift fro Grandma Coers for his birthday) Oh and my watch, and my hat too.

What is your favorite drink? Green Apple Slushy (from Sonic)

What is your favorite book? That's a hard one. (With some further questioning, he came up with ) The Titanic Lost and Found, The Beginner's Bible, and Spiderman (which was part of the book exchange at the party)

What is your favorite sport? Soccer

What does your dad do? Civil Engineer, not yet.

What does your mom do? Works for a software company called Cerner.

What is your favorite restaurant? Mexican

What is your favorite game? Sorry

What is your favorite thing to do with your brother? Play with Joe and Ellie.

What is your favorite cereal? Shredded Wheat and Fruity Cheerios

What is your favorite song? Tennessee Stud

What is your favorite activity to do with your mom? Play Cribbage

What is your favorite activity to do with your dad? Play cars

What do you like to do when you wake up in the morning? Read books

What time do you usually wake up in the morning? In between 6 and 6:30

What is a food that you won't eat? Tomatoes

What is your favorite animal? Giraffe

What is your favorite sports team? Right now, the Cardinals

What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? Cheese Burrito (this is a couple slices of chesse wrapped in tortilla)

What do you like best about your brother? He is funny.

What is your favorite place that you have ever visited? The Magic House (in St. Louis).

What is your favorite Bible verse? "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." Romans 3:23

Who is your favorite professional athlete? I don't know that I know any of them.

What is your favorite sport to watch? Baseball

What is your favorite TV channel? Cartoon Network (Grandpa let him watch it...)

What is your favorite movie? The first Star Wars, not "A New Hope" that one is the 4th.

What is your favorite fruit? Apples

What is your favorite computer game to play? Nick Jr.

How tall are you? About 3 feet and 4 inches

How much do you weigh? We'll have to get the scale out...(mom made him guess) 30 pounds

How far can you run? From the top of the street to the end. (How far do you think that is?) About 100 feet, probably.

2:12:31

I finished! 13.1 miles in 2 hours, 12 minutes and 31 seconds was my official time from the LaSalle Bank Chicago Distance Classic Half Marathon and I ran all of it - no walking...not even through the water stops.

Sunday morning in Chicago was really a very nice morning for a run, even a half marathon run. The gun was at 6:30am so we got started nice and early so we could finish before it was too hot and humid. The course was very flat which is very different from my training landscape and there was a bunch of shade as well from trees and building. And those times when I was in the sunshine the sun seemed to be behind a cloud. I couldn't have asked for better conditions for an August day in the midwest. I ran most of the way with my cousin Becca who was my virtual training partner for the past few months. About mile 11 I had a little more than she did so I went ahead of her. We had another cousin join us for the race, but he ran much faster than we did (he finished in 1:43). I was happy to have the additional cheering section of him and his wife. Mentally I could have been in the race a little better, but I met my goal of finishing before 2:15 and I ran the entire race. I did it and happy that I did and was a great incentive to take care of my temple.

During the actual race there were so many people running! I've ran a fair number of races over the years and I have never been in a race where I ran in such a crowd the entire race. One of the strategies that I have had in races before is that you pick off one person at a time. There were so many people that I was passing and being passed constantly. The strategy on Sunday ended up more about finding a place to run than who I was going to pass or not be passed by. Even though I felt like I was in a crowd the entire race, as I saw the finish line there seemed to be quite a bit of empty space between me and the next set of people. I didn't think that I had it in me to catch those people in front of me. My mind was telling my body to just keep my steady pace until the end, one foot in front of the other. Then I felt someone coming up from behind me...I didn't think I had it in me to catch someone in front of me, but I wasn't going to let someone pass me :) so I found some energy for a little bit of a kick and I wasn't passed. Then it was over and I could stop being in perpectual motion!

It was a really great weekend even outside the race - my mom offered to watch the boys so we weren't carting them all over the place for the run. It was a great idea and are very thankful for that and took my parents up on the offer. After dropping the boys of in Centralia, we experienced some lovely Chicago traffic before we met Becca in Chicago Friday night and ate some Chicago style pizza. We walked around downtown Chicago including experiencing "the bean" in Millennium park and had enjoyed being in the city. Saturday we met more family including Becca's parents and other cousins at a Renaissance Fair then the obligatory pasta meal. We crashed at Heather's house in Chicago so the commute to the race Sunday morning wouldn't be as long and had a rousing game of Apples to Apples with 6 of us. After the race and showers we had a yummy brunch with the group and then we were all off back to resume the rest of our lives.

What's next for my workout routine? I don't know beyond taking a couple of days off and then starting to run with some other women that I met. Oh, and no interval training for awhile. Todd starts school next week and I'm assuming that our lives will get a bit more hectic and not sure of how much time I will have for training. Early mornings will probably still work for awhile until it gets too chilly to run in the mornings.

Big Decisions

I'm in the mist of a big decision so I thought that I would write about it and get everyone involved with the details.

A little history...Cerner decided to create a policy sometime earlier this year that those people who work remotely and do not travel will have the opportunity to move to Kansas City, find a position with travel, or find another position outside of Cerner by December 31, 2007. I don't know all of the motivation behind these decisions, but I am not bitter about it. Cerner has given me the opportunity to work for another year that I didn't expect at all - especially under my terms. I take it as a business decision and the leaders of Cerner have grown a company pretty well in the last 14 years I have been there. What will work out, will work out and I need to trust God for my stability and not trust in Cerner. (This was a huge thing for me last year when I initially resigned.) I also know that working remotely with a group of people that mostly work together in person is a challenge. The work dynamic is different if everyone is remote than just with a few people remote when the rest of the team has the opportunity to work together face to face. There were getting to be quite a few of us around and I can see why a policy was created, it is just yucky at the individual level to have to follow the corporate policy.

My immediate manager and her manager are working to try and find a position for me. I am honored that they feel I provide value and they want to keep me around. Adding some travel to our routine does not bother me because I miss that part of my job. I'm not willing to be gone every week, but once a month or even twice a month would be a nice variety and a chance to interact with some clients in person. I really do miss interacting with clients!

Last week an opportunity was presented for me that if I were to take on the challenge, I would be spared the end of the year deadline and be able to be employed beyond the end of the year. There is a huge BUT in the clause though - they want more hours. Specifically the request is four full days a week which is twice as much as I am doing now. The opportunity is very interesting - a mix of working with clients and writing requirements and guiding people through writing reports for our clients. I would get to use some new technologies that I would have the opportunity to learn as well to make it even more interesting. I would have the chance to lead a new initiative that has quite a bit of exposure so there would definitely be some excitement and notoriety in it.

I just don't see working four days a week as a good decision for our family. I really think that it's best for Andrew to be home schooled this year and that wouldn't really be fair to him if I worked four days a week and tried to fit school in around the schedule. We've already started and we've set that expectation with him and I don't think that it would be appropriate to change for this opportunity because I don't have to take it. I am willing to work some more hours but I don't know exactly what that is yet. That's where my big decision comes in...am I willing to take on more days or more hours where I am pretty much half and half of work and stay home or working every day but maybe not all day? Then adding school onto that, there isn't too much chill time or time to do laundry, make dinner, run errands and do all of those other household things that need to get done.

Adding more hours also means figuring out more child care for the boys - we still didn't have it all figured out for the fall semester yet anyway. If I were to add more hours, I think that I would want to find somewhere for them to go for one the entire days to be something more structured and not just someone "watching" them while they figured out how to find something to play while waiting for a parent. I would like the boys to spend one afternoon with their dad and hopefully that would be the science experiment time too so there was some structure there and something that I don't have to do for school.

Financially it would definitely be easier if I continued to work for Cerner after December 31st. One of us would have to do some more work between now and when Todd finishes his degree to not go into debt. The more that Todd works, the more time we don't get to see him so I'm not terribly keen on him taking on a job as well as school. And if I'm home all of the time, the days and weeks would probably get really long without him. We don't know how much study time he will need with multiple classes - we'll start to see that in a month! We both expect that it will take quite a bit of study time - everything has so far for sure!

So if anyone has any great words of wisdom, please let me know! Next week, I need to declare the number of hours that I am willing to work. Based upon that, my managers will decide what position they are willing to offer based on the hours that I will be willing to work and how that fits into my current responsibilities. Thanks for listening!

Cave Kisses

Have you ever had a cave kiss? I got a few this weekend and it was great! I had no idea what that was, but definitely have now experienced it and will want to do it again with or without my husband!

Cave kisses are water drops from the top of a cave falling on you just how stalagmites are created. We visited Onondaga Cave State Park over the weekend and saw yet another example of the incredible creation that God has given us. The tour of the cave is almost a mile walk with tons and tons to look at on the way. There is so much growth happening inside the cave it really was amazing to see all of the different cave formations. This will definitely be on the tour stop for those of you who want come and visit! I had no idea that there were so many different types of formations that can be made in caves and by water dripping and the minerals that are in the water. There are quite a few caves near us so after this experience, I assume that we will go and check out more of them.

Warms a mother's heart

The boys are going to Vacation Bible School this week at the Lutheran Church and the offerings collected are going to a church in that town in Kansas that was leveled by a tornado earlier this year. Yesterday Andrew earned a dollar by helping his dad pick up cement pieces from the back yard. His very first thought was that his dollar was best used for the offering for VBS. It's great to have a boy who thinks of others and not what he can buy himself with his money.

Yesterday we had a good talk about why we give money to other people and other places and what we are to be thankful for. We do have SO much to be thankful for! Here the boys are tonight getting ready for their night-time Bible story.

New visitors to the garden.

We came home Sunday night from a weekend trip to Iowa City and I was excited to check out the status of the yellow tomatoes that were growing nicely before we left. We had some new visitors to the garden over the weekend and they were quite interested in the tomatoes and the tops of the green bean plants.

The previous owner had left a fence and some posts that he used around the garden and now we know why. There are deer that like to come around and munch on gardens and they found mine and had a nice little salad of a meal.

So yesterday up when the posts and three foot fencing around the garden. That will stop them from the green beans for sure (there are still beans to be had, but there aren't any top leaves) and now we'll have to wait awhile for some more tomatoes. I'm not sure that my fence will stop them though from most of the tomatoes because I think that they'll be able to munch above the fence.

While putting up the fence I found little white bugs on the roma plant. On closer inspection there were white and green bugs on the top and bottoms of the leaves. My research on the Internet suggested a nice power wash of the leaves if there were too many to wipe off by hand. That plant got a power wash this morning. The next option is to use some soapy water as well.

I would love to be getting fresh tomatoes from the garden but I'll be patient and share with my other outdoor friends. I'll just have to make some more basil and be content with that for now - it is really yummy!

A few thoughts...

**We have holes in our house...Todd has been diligently working on filling them with glass block. It really is amazing how much light there is in the basement now with the plastic up! I'm more amazed by how God made our bodies crave sunshine and how much it affects us! We'll so much more want to be down there now! Todd has been a great dad/husband and spent some time with us even when he wanted to be working on the project.(You'll get to see a finished window project in a later post.)

**Why does JL put his clothes on backwards more than 50% of the time, especially his underwear? His underwear is on backwards almost 100% of the time! By the end of the day it's usually even inside out and backwards even if it's been put on correctly at some point. I really should just get him some more boxers. But why does he do this? Probably more importantly, should I really care?

**Identity theft is real but for us is over...we got notification that they agreed that the car loan in Texas was not taken out by us and would be removed from Todd's credit report. I won't be taking out any credit cards at department stores anytime soon or for like 7 years but no one else with be able to do that either! We may want to not move to Texas for a few years either and try to get a drivers license.

**Why would a town wait until 11pm to put on their fireworks display for the 4th of July! There was not a happy parent/kid in the place where we were because it was just too late!

**I have entered the Rolla racing scene. Yesterday morning I took 3rd place for my age division in the Firecracker 5K! Hills are still a killer here in Rolla. I did great on the hills but used up all my energy going up in the lst mile while passing people that I didn't have enough to keep up with them on the way back down to the end! Can't complain about 3rd place and then meeting the girl who I raced with the entire course.

New Holes = New Windows=Slightly Nervous

Next Tuesday we have hired people to come and cut two large holes in the concrete foundation of our house. I'm very much looking forward to the end result of having some windows in the basement for some natural light. Though I am a bit apprehensive about having some people come, cut two large holes to the outside and then packing up their things and leaving. It will then be up to "us" to fill those holes with something that first of all doesn't leak and then secondly looks presentable.

Todd's going for this on his own! I very much admire him for taking on the challenge but just for the record I am a little nervous. Maybe it's not just nervousness - it may be a lot more selfishness because these projects rarely take the time that is allotted - usually at least twice the time and more than a couple of trips to the hardware store. So while he is doing things to make our house that much better, I will have to find things for the boys to do outside of the playroom (because that's where the windows are going). It's not that I don't want to spend that time with the boys (oh and Tuesday is my work day), it's that I want to be the controlling person that I am and be in the middle of the excitement of the new windows as well.

The day after the holes are cut is the 4th of July and I really don't want to have to go to our planned festivities with the boys by myself - more selfishness. If Todd is still working on the big wholes at that time, I'm sure that he'll be pretty frustrated that it's not going as planned. Then we are supposed to be heading out of town on Friday to celebrate our friends wedding as well as hanging out with our friends in Iowa City. That's probably where my confidence is the most shaken - three days after we cut huge holes in our basement, we are going to pack up and leave town for three days. Will our holes be ready for us to leave them all on their own?

I'll keep you posted on the progress...I do have to be thankful that this time that my husband is cutting holes in our house he doesn't have to be on a ladder filling in the gap. He'll be able to do this one with his feet firmly on the ground - at least on the outside! (He put skylights in our Kansas City house.)

For the details - the plan is to fill the holes (each 4x2) with glass block windows that Todd is going to build after the holes are cut. The windows will be completely above ground so we don't have to create wells for them. Final little tidbit - my parents, who have been the great teachers and supporters of house projects, are on vacation in Canada this week!

Life without TV

We have never been really huge TV watchers, but we have now spent the last 6 weeks without watching TV at our house. Yesterday when I was on my run (10 miles and lots of time to think), I was thinking about life without that crazy noise box! What made me start thinking about this is that I ran by "Check Into Cash" and realized that we don't see any of those crazy commercials for check cashing places where you get a high interest car title loan to go on vacation!

I like TV and have been reluctant in the past to go without it. As we considered our options in this place of no free TV reception going without right now has definitely seemed like the right thing to do. I think that the boys have spent more time with their toys and making up their own play more instead of having someone else come up with the stories. We have read more books together because we don't sit down and watch some TV instead. We don't plan anything around a TV show. The boys have no idea of what new toys they want because they haven't been exposed to commercials. (Birthdays may be more fun with surprises instead of disappointment of what they didn't get.) They are willing to go outside and figure out what they can play instead of having the entertainment come to them. Todd and I have been playing cards together - we have been trying new games. We all got bikes and we are checking out the local bike trails. All of these have been really great.

I don't see this as a long term commitment to no TV - we miss sports (even me), including golf and football season will be starting in few months. I am pretty oblivious to anything beyond our neighborhood as far as news and I'm starting to realize that I need to know more about what's going on in the world. I completely missed the whole incident with the girl (Kelsey Smith) who was abducted from Target and murdered in Kansas City - I feel pretty bad about that because she went to our church in Kansas City. A daily news cast from the radio would cure that just as well as having a TV!

It's been good to know that we can easily live without TV. Even when we have some TV reception, I know that we don't have to have it on all of the time! We know that we can keep ourselves busy with all of the other things that we have around - I even know how to play Canasta now! Maybe this will become a summer tradition of getting rid of cable for the summer...

New Family Fun

Now that we are down to one vehicle, we became a 4 bike family! Last night we did our first official family of four bike ride together! We had a really good time riding on the local bike path together called the "Acorn Trail". We won't be taking off from our house in really long time for the family bike ride but the trail is a short drive away and it's flat. For some reason the boys really like to use the coaster brakes on their bikes in the middle of the path - I got a lot of practice riding on my lowest gear.

Grandma and Grandpa gave the boys bikes at Easter and they haven't seemed too interested in them unfortunately. It's been a parenting test to not push too much! They have liked their "Big Wheels" much more than the two wheeled bikes even with training wheels. When dad came home with his bike they both got theirs out so we decided to go ahead an get one for me as well. Need to capitalize on those moments when they are interested!

We really believe that we got a good deal on our bikes - though we aren't much for knowing the prices and brands of bike shop bikes. One of the local bike shops was foreclosed upon and the other bike shop bought a lot of their bikes and selling them about 50% of retail. We ended up only spending about the equivalent of a month's worth of insurance, maintenance and taxes from the VW. Can't complain about that.

We also had another new family fun event that is unique to home schooling - it's called "Box Day". It's when the box of home school curriculum arrives and you get to open it up and take a look at what you'll be learning for the next year. Our box arrived and we sorted through all of the books yesterday. Andrew is definitely excited about all of the books that he's going to get to read in the next year and has gone through quite a few already. He's ready to get started...and so am I. (John Lewis is as well...they are both dying to get started with the Cuisinaire Rods that came with the math program.) My plan is to start right after the 4th of July for just a little bit everyday.

Random Science Experiments

Dying Queen Anne's Lace is one of those experiments that I remember doing (or at least talking about) as a kid and so we decided to try it when my nieces were here to visit. There is a ton of this flower growing wild around so may as well give it a try...

We did four different containers - yellow, green, red and purple food coloring. The purple food coloring was a combination of the other three colors! The yellow and green have a pretty good color after many days. The purple ones just look sick and red didn't really do much at all.

Evaluation of the science experiment - moderately successful for an adult. Mildly successful for young kids because it took WAY too long for the minimal effect for them. With older kids who can "observe" every 8 hours , it would be more interesting

If you have ever thought about doing this, go for it, but make sure that your expectations are appropriate. Dying the water was the coolest thing for our troupe (which was my boys, my nieces and the neighbors.) That part of course made me the craziest - one of the girls had red food coloring from head to toe somehow.

For those of you who may have never heard of this practice - Queen Anne's Lace is a white wild flower that will draw up food coloring through the stem from the water that it is sitting in and change the color of the flower. A cheap little experiment that demonstrates how water gets to the top of a plant and why you don't water a plant on the top but at the base instead! (Hey, God waters from the top, He can get away with though.)

Our next science experiment (not from any set curriculum as you can see) is observing the turtle that is living in one of the flower beds. We have seen him multiple days and yesterday he was seen buried under some mulch and out and about snacking on a couple of my flowers :(

Good-bye VW

Good-bye Passat - you have been a great car and I'll miss you! It's time to go where there will be someone to take care of you if you ever are a little under the weather. I know that aunt kimmy and uncle james will be good to you - they have a good track record of taking good care of other cars. They will be able to find someone who can help you when you are feeling so well.

You were there to safely bring home the new babies from the hospital each time they arrived. You were there to warm our buns and backsides when it was old outside; And you did extra duty your last winter with us in this regard in Iowa! You were trustworthy to take on a trip where ever we decided to go and hold oh so much stuff in the trunk! Your speakers were always there to play "Alphabet of Nations" one more time or intrigue us with an NPR story. Your blue dash board lights were always so cool to look at. You were just a great car and I can't thank you enough.

Sorry for the abuse that you endured while in our care: the fire hydrant; the curb near Hy-Vee in West Des Moines; the fence next door; and way too many pieces of cereal and french fries on the inside. You endured us all and always got us where we needed to go.

We appreciate the 100K plus miles that you served us with and will leave with very fond memories. Enjoy Texas in your retirement years. I hope that all of those SUV's keep off your bumper. Good-bye!

What kind of sandwhich?

I don't even know if Dagwood would be this brave with his sandwiches. John Lewis has been experimenting with sandwiches lately and surprisingly eating what he creates without much fuss from me! I had to share what his sandwich was for lunch today because I thought it a particularly strange combination:

2 pieces of whole wheat bread
left over sausage patty (cold)
green beans (left-over and cold)
sliced tomato
egg salad

He ate the entire thing - every last crumb of the bread. He definitely got the food mixture gene that his dad has and his mom doesn't! And in true fashion of my boys, he ate multiple pieces of tomato, celery and broccoli as well to round out his well balanced meal. (This one is a real kid because he asked for a piece of candy for desert. Andrew just wanted to go outside and play. He'll ask for an apple later.)

Is Yard Work Cross-Training?

I finished week 1 of the 10 week training schedule for a half marathon in August. I did 6 miles mostly in the rain yesterday to complete week 1. Not too bad, but of course know that week 1 is the easiest!

The training regiment that my cousin and I picked out has us running three times in the week - one interval training (speed work), a paced run (longer run pushing to go faster) and a long run on the weekend. We are supposed to "cross-train" on off days. Not sure what that will look like for me but probably yard work will be it.

Just in case you were curious, it is VERY hilly around here. Not just little bumps, but good hills in every direction. Yesterday I found one of the bike trails in town after running two miles of hills to get there. From our house I can go about 3/4 mile downhill most of the way, but that generally means that I have to run back up that gradual hill on the way back and that's not usually what I want to do.

One of the great things about running here is that I can get out in the country really quickly and not have to run in town all of the time. I'm sure that I'll be seeing a lot of rural Rolla area as I increase my mileage over the summer.

More yard work today for my cross-training and starting on the intervals again soon this week. It will be 4 800 meter runs...ouch!

The colorful view

What a blessing to have so much color in the yard! The previous owners spent a lot of time and energy into making this a beautiful yard. These are some of the flowers that were blooming the other morning. My hope is that I can keep it up at least a little bit and enjoy it now as well as next year too. I am amazed at how much I enjoy messing around in the yard and the garden. I remember crying when I had to work in the garden when I was at home and being frustated when having to help can and freeze different crops. Now, I can't imagine not having some flowers and some garden around since I have a yard! It's still a lot of work, but really amazing the little things that God gave in His creation for us to enjoy.

Yesterday we bought an outdoor fire place and had to put it to the test with some roasted hot dogs. We didn't have enough sense to buy stuff for s'mores when we were buying the "campfire" (as the boys call it) but JL had somehow convinced me to buy hotdogs at the store the night before. I never buy hot dogs, I'm not sure why I let him do that but it was great foresight on his part and not another run to the grocery store! I even attempted to make potato salad. I don't think that I have ever made potato salad since I was at home because I thought the stuff at the store was better. But I had some potatoes sitting around and still trying to avoid that extra trip to the grocery store! It was also the first official harvest from the garden with fresh chives and parsley which made the day more special. The potato salad turned out OK, nothing wonderful and not something that I'm ready to pass on as a recipe. Helen our neighbor joined us for our hotdog roast - it was a good thing because we needed her to provide the sticks. We only moved plastic hangers and not any metal ones!

No other great insight this morning. I'm not sure when I'm going to do my 6 mile run this weekend. I'm in the first week of a 10 week training for a 1/2 marathon in August. I'm sure that I'll be adding lots of info here about that as the workouts get tougher! If anyone has some suggestions on inspiring podcasts, let me know because I get bored listening to music when I run. One last picture of my little water boy!

Background on my we moved...

Some friends who I sent the blog to didn't know the details of why we moved to Rolla and what we are going to do here so I thought I would give some background.

Todd is enrolled at the University of Missouri - Rolla and starts summer school the middle of June and he'll be full-time in the fall. He has about two years of school work to finish a second bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering. He's been taking one class at a time for the past 5 years in preparation for his junior year. Todd has always wanted to do his last two years of the degree together - which made a lot of sense to me. We finally arrived at the time where he was ready for his junior year so to Rolla we go. This is a great school for engineering in a great small town which all equals more affordable for the family and a great degree! www.umr.edu if you want to know more - the name of the school will be changing in January to Missouri University of Science and Technology.

When we went to Iowa (July of 2006), our default plan was to spend about a year there and then come to Rolla. We were open to that changing but after our time there we didn't have any compelling reason for us not to pursue Todd finishing this degree. If you have ever spent much time around Todd, most of you know that he is an engineer, he just didn't have a degree to be able to get a job doing that. He doesn't want a job that requires him to sit in a cube all day everyday. Civil engineering seems like it will provide that type of opportunity versus mechanical or electrical which both interest him as well.

Our year in Iowa City was really good. I loved being able to spend more time with the boys. Todd was right, that I did want to spend some more time with the boys before they got too big. Cerner offered me a part-time position so I have been working two days a week since the middle of August. The two days a week was a great amount of work - enough for me to feel like I'm keeping my finger in the professional world, but yet spending the majority of my time with the boys.

For now, I will continue to work 16 hours a week. In the current position that I have I will no longer have a job at the end of the year. There are some other opportunities out there that I may be able to take advantage of but I would have to do some travel. Right now we are about two hours from the St. Louis airport so I would be driving there to fly out...

Another huge decision in the last year is about Andrew's schooling. I am pretty sure that we are going to home school starting as soon as next month. He's been reading now for almost two years and reads really quite well. We know that he reads everything because of the questions that he asks...like today he asked me who's 28th anniversary it was? We had to ask him where he read that - and it was on my shirt for a run that I did. Based on what I have observed in the kindergarten's he will be bored. The kindergarten teachers have to get all of the kids to the same place, but because he reads well, he knows the letters, sounds, numbers and he's read a ton of what is typically learned in kindergarten. I didn't really think that it was a real option for me but I've done a lot of reading online and we're going to go for it. We will have to find somewhere for the boys to go for the hours that I will be working but we can do everything in a few days that we need to. I'm going to stick mostly with kindergarten type material (with 3rd grade readers) so that John Lewis can pretty much be involved as well, JL's not quite ready to read yet, but he's getting there. I don't want to start Andrew too far ahead of JL so I have to be doing all different subjects for both of them.

I think that about summarizes it for now...thanks for reading!

More serious remodeling

The biggest changes that have been made to the house so far is the paint on the walls and the removal of the floral wallpaper borders that were everywhere. Until today that is. The carpet in the hall bathroom was ripped from the tack strips and is not being replaced with tile. Jenny and Todd are working hard on getting everything laid out appropriately.

We only had one instance of the carpet being peed on by a little boy but we had long known that the carpet would be short lived in both of the bathrooms. I'm glad that they have the courage to jump into tiling the floor. The wet saw is out again and getting put to good use. Todd is loving having our very own two car garage. There is somewhere to really work! The other night we made a major trip to Lowes and it was starting to rain when we arrived at home. It was no big deal, all we had to do was pull into the garage. We didn't have to get wet and the stuff didn't have to be unloaded in the wet either...it was really a great luxury.

As we pick our remodel projects that we are going to do, we have to remember that we are only going to be here for a few years. So instead of picking the way cool tile, we went with the stuff that was the weekly special for about 60 cents a tile. It will still be better than white carpet in the bathroom for sure. Any suggestions for the color of the bathroom? We haven't picked that yet. (and who really thought that white carpet in a bathroom was a good idea?)

As Jenny and Todd change the looks on the inside of the house, I have been doing more on the outside. Todd gets credit for most of the big changes there as well. The previous occupants of the house had a riding mower and must have ducked a lot when mowing under the trees. Todd and the push mower wasn't up for that, so the bottom branches of every tree in the yard (which there are over 10 of them) are now happily creating compost. The city even took all of it for free, we just had to drop it off! Small town life is good for this type of thing - all the local services are really close by!

The garden is growing well. I had to add a picture of something that I was doing! My mom gets credit for the initial planting. This picture is only 6 days old and it's really amazing how much different the garden looks already! The grape tomato plant even has a little bloom on it. The green beans have come up they are on the right side of the garden. It seemed like only a quarter of the seeds sprouted but for some reason another quarter of them decided to come up yesterday. God gave us such an amazing world even the milk jugs are growing!

The neighbors have been gone this week on vacation and the boys have missed their new friends terribly. We thought they were coming back today but we haven't seen them yet. They are doing pretty well occupying themselves especially the last two days when Mom was working and Dad and Jenny working on house stuff. We don't have any TV yet either - we are holding off for awhile before biting the bullet and paying for cable. They haven't run out of new places to sleep yet. The first week here they decided to sleep in their closets - their room has two separate closets and they fit nicely in them. The last couple of nights they have been in the guest room because their room was being painted. Not sure when we'll do the first camp-out in the basement!

Two Weeks In

Two weeks ago the moving truck rolled in with us and all our belongings. God has blessed us so much during this move, we could not have written a script that would have been this good. I'll try and share some of those moments with you in my first attempt at a blog...

First of all, the packing went wonderfully and very low stress on getting out of Iowa City. The truck barely fit on the car carrier that was behind the moving truck but it was on there secure and we were off on a beautiful morning.

Right after we got the moving van backed up to the front door of the Rolla house, the family from down the street came over with three of their children. Char and Kelly introduced us to Caleb, Elly and Josiah. Micah and Joshua were both napping. A few minutes after that the boys were off playing. Josiah is 5 and turns out to be about 6 weeks younger than Andrew. They have had a blast together and he's greatly missed this week while on a family vaction. We both live at the end of a dead end street so the kids can cross the street without too much concern and travel between the yards.

Todd's sisters met us here as well as my parents so the unloading happened very very quickly and the cleaning started on the cabinets and other surfaces. Monday night we ate out, but since then the kitchen has been fully functional to eat in and we have been good about doing that. I have an amazing family who is willing to jump in and help and work so hard!

The house is pretty much as we expected and are still very satisfied with our selection. We like the open living area and the basement area for a playroom. The previous couple took all the curtains with them and filled the holes sloppily. The carpet and walls were in worse shape than we had remembered, but we had thoughts of changing them anyway. Jenny began removing the wallpaper border that was in most of the rooms of the house after all of the boxes were removed from the truck. There's just nothing to complain about so far with the house - it's been great. By the time my parents left, there were tomato and pepper plants in the garden as well as some herbs and green bean seeds.

Jenny started painting last week so there is some color on the walls now. They had used wallpaper border for color before and it was a bit on the floral side for us...solid colored walls are more our speed. It feels more homey already! We bought some couches too so we feel like we have a real house and can have people over! (No TV yet, but that will probably happen next week. We can tune in one fuzzy station but that's it. It's amazing how well we have done without it though.)

As we have talked with our neighbors some more, we have a lot of Christians on our block. The family across the street with all of the Biblical named children go to the Lutheran Church which is our roots though their roots are in the Christian Reformed denomination just like our neighbors from Iowa City! They are a great family - the kids are extremely well behaved and polite and great to have around. Helen lives right next door to us. She is in her early 80's and lost her husband about a year and a half ago. We've had her over for dinner twice in the last three days and I think we'll see a lot more of that. She's really lonely right now and that's the least that we can do! On the other side of us is a young couple with three pit bulls. There is just a small fence between the two yards to contain the dogs...one of them got out today so we know that it can easily happen. We'll probably do something about a more substantial fence very soon for JL's protection. She is concerned as well so it shouldn't be an issue at all.

We have one more week to do the odd jobs around the house and then the summer starts to get a bit busier. Andrew is going to do an enrichment class at the public school in the mornings for 4 weeks. Todd is up to two classes for the summer now which starts the second week of June. I'm still working on Tuesday and Wednesday!

I'll try to be a little more enlightening on future entries but wanted to catch everyone up on our family news! We have the guest bedroom all set-up so feel free to come visit. It has been used by three different sets of people already and we aren't afraid to wash the sheets and get ready for more.