ShenanINGRAMS

We started our full home school schedule August 18th.  We do math and reading all year so that we don't have to review those skills.  The first day went fabulously.  The kids finished their work in record time (before lunch) and were happy to play outside most of the afternoon.  Day 2 proved to be a little more difficult.  You see, I was waking them up early to get going, and they're not used to that.  Since it gets dark so late here, we've been letting them stay up until 930 or 10 at night playing games with us, etc, then sleep in until 730 or 8.  My "don't want to be lazy" genes kicked in and said I HAD to get them up at 7, HAD to have them in bed by 830 or 9, but life just doesn't always go as planned.  We are hospitable.  People come over several times a month, sometimes 2-3 times a week.  We have church activities that keep us out late.  The kids have so much fun doing that stuff, but it's sometimes 9 by the time we get home, then we have to bathe...

Last week Jana accepted Christ in our bathroom.  She and Caylea were getting ready for bed and, according to Caylea, Jana started asking all kinds of questions.  She has been asking TONS of questions the entire 2 months she's been here and we've answered them all, even the tough ones like, "Will the horses in heaven be white or brown?" :)  She asked Caylea how to be saved and Caylea told her that she had to ask Jesus into her heart.  She then stopped and said the sweetest prayer, "Dear God, Please help everybody who is sick and everybody who isn't sick to be saved and help there to be no more sin in the world and help You to come in and save my heart.  Amen."  I know, it's not the most eloquent prayer, but she's not quite 5 yet, and the change in her was immediate.  I walked in on the tail end of the conversation and she said, "Auntie, I asked Jesus into my heart."  I hugged her up and told her how happy I was, then went to finish laund...

Our niece is here visiting.  She'll be 5 on August 20th.  Jana is a very smart almost 5 year old, but she is so tiny.  She looks like a typical 3 year old, but then she opens her mouth and you KNOW she's not 3.  People are constantly commenting on her beauty and I don't think I have to explain that to those of you who have seen her pictures or met her in person that she is just a gorgeous child.  The other day we were taking a walk and she said, "Auntie, why do people always call me beautiful?"  I said, "Because you ARE beautiful, Jana."  She said, "What's beautiful about me?"  I said, "Well, there's your skin.  It's the perfect color, not too dark and not too light.  Then there's your big, BULGING, beautiful brown eyes (that's from a movie, but true about her, and she giggled), and your hair is so black and shiny and silky and wavy...you're just beautiful!"  She said, "Hmmm."  At that point her end o...

We had an interesting weekend.  We went to the German schwimbad, swimming pool.  Speedos are NOT cool.  String bikinis are NOT cool.  That's what they wear here.  I felt incredibly modest.  The children (girls included) run around shirtless with mini-speedos until age 7 or 8.  That didn't bother me much, though.  The Speedo inventor should be flogged. Caylea did a front flip off the high diving board, 13 feet.  Keep in mind that this child, when she quit gymnastics, was doing front flips on the balance beam and landing them.  She could do all kinds of crazy flip things on the floor and bars and beam and her only injury, although severe, was her ankle last year.  Well, she does a simple single front flip off this diving board and, because it was so high, she over-rotated and ended up doing more like a 1 1/4 flip.  She landed on her FACE and chipped 3 of her permanent teeth.  She was quite upset, not because she hadn't properly landed the flip, but because her teeth weren...

I let Caylea babysit Chloe and Josh for the first time 2 days ago.  I went on base and was gone about an hour and a half.  She only called once, to tell me we were out of cucumbers and ask if I could please get more.  I came home and all 3 were grinning from ear to ear.  I didn't ask why.  I never found any "surprises," so I assume it's just because they had the freedom to just be without mom.  She's taking a babysitters training class next week to learn CPR and the other details.  I don't know if I could do this in Alabama, what with the 21 sexual predators that were listed within a 2 mile radius.  I think I'd have to wait until she was 14 or 15 to be comfortable there.  Here, though, it's different.  People kept telling me that when we first got here, but I've seen it myself.  So, for those of you who truly know me and how I am with my children, congratulate me for actually making it on base, checking mail, and getting groceries without having an...

We saw Joe off safely to the airport.  He made it to Las Vegas just fine.  I'm just praying that he'll have something cool to do so he won't be frustrated and bored and chew his fingernails off.   The kids and I went to church Sunday morning and then came home for lunch.  Caylea really loves this group.  There is a great group of girls that are like-minded.  She is a very right/wrong child.  There is no gray area with her, so it's hard for her to be friends with kids her age because, let's face it, a lot of 12 year old girls are just nasty. These girls aren't, though, so I'm so grateful she'll have good friends while we're here. After lunch, we traveled 20 minutes up the road to a rock museum and expo.  They have a lot of natural quartz and agate in this area and it is truly beautiful.  The museum guide took us to the basement where he showed us how to saw a rock in half.  He didn't know what it would have on the inside.  It looked like a big, ug...

Our 13th wedding anniversary was May 28th.  Since Joe was leaving on May 30th to go on a 3 week tdy back to the states, he planned a 4 day trip to Paris.  We left at 7am Monday morning on the bullet train to Paris from Kaiserslautern.  We traveled first class just to say we've done that once in our lifetime.  They fed us breakfast and it was good.  We got to go pretty close to the front of the train and watch it FLY down the tracks at 314 Km per hour.  That's approximately 190 miles per hour.  It didn't look that fast when you just looked out your window at the countryside, which was gorgeous, but when you looked down the track from the front of the train it was hard to keep from feeling a little woozy.  We arrived in Paris at 930am and were told to GET OUT of the train station because pick-pockets are notorious in that particular place.  So we did.  We did what we in Texas like to call "skidaddling."  We skidaddled out of there, Joe with a back pack on his back a...

Sunday was an absolutely gorgeous day.  Contrary to what we've been told, it does NOT rain here constantly.  We've had 2 weeks of beautiful weather and we're enjoying every single minute of it!  We took our first long family bike ride through town.  It was so fun and the kids did great.  I won't mention who fell off TWICE, although I have mentioned that she is most like me in clumsiness.  Joe crossed the street pretty quickly and, rather than look for himself, Josh crossed right when a car turned onto the street.  He and the car screeched to a halt while I yelled in what I'm sure is known as the "panicked mother voice," JOSH!!!!  Needless to say, everyone was scared, everyone was spoken to quite sternly, and everyone was fine.  The people in the car were scared too, but I just waved them away.  I didn't know how to say, "He's fine, it's not your fault," in German.  It really wasn't.  They were driving really slowly, Josh just turn...

I have a small family, by most worldly standards.  I have one brother and he has a wife and 3 kids.  Joe has one sister, and she has a husband and one child.  So I have 1 nephew and 3 nieces.  Ken, my brother, is my polar opposite.  It's amazing that 2 people can create siblings who are so vastly different.  Don't get me wrong, the things that really matter are very similar...our love of family and our faith...but our personalities are just different.  He always told me that I needed to be a lawyer because I argue so much.  I disagree.  I don't argue.  I'm just opinionated and not "skeered" to say it.  He also says that I constantly got him into trouble.  He fails to mention the various apparatus that he tried talking me into sticking into a light socket.  Yes, I did drive him into a bob-wire fence, but honest to goodness, that rooster was gonna get us!  I just HAD to look over my shoulder.  Fortunately, Ken's shrill scream let everyone know what a bad dri...

We finally figured out why the German we're learning from the books isn't translating out in public.  We live in southern Germany, and they have what the locals call "farmer-speak."  In other words, "hick."  We have been studying high-German, which is a very proper way of speaking, and they just don't talk that way.  I guess it's similar to the southern U.S. where we have our own way. The proper thing to say might be something like, "In a few moments, I will venture to the store for sustenance."  What we REALLY say is, "I'm fixin' to go get some grub."  So, I don't feel so bad about my inability to communicate effectively.   On the way to Cochem Castle we stopped to go to the restroom.  We had learned, "Wo ist Bad" for "where is the bathroom," but when Joe walked in and said that, the guy behind the counter said, in very broken English, "I no speak English."  I said, "We're speaki...

2 weeks ago we went to a medieval city called "Rothemberg," pronounced "Rotten burg."  It is a completely walled city that still has arrow slits.  It was neat to see, but they've turned the inside to kind of a tourist trap.  We happily walked into it.  There were beautiful gardens and the view from the city walls was pretty spectacular.  The churches were gorgeous.   Yesterday, April 26th, we took a drive to Cochem Castle.  You should look it up online.  It's beautiful!  Luke and Scott, our 2 Lieutenants that we've semi-adopted, drove ahead of us.  It's quite challenging to follow them.  When we stop, we remind Scott that we do NOT have a sports car.  Most of the roads on the way there were mountain roads, not autobahn.  The autobahn, by the way, isn't so scary now.  You just have to follow the rules and go slightly faster than you would in the states.  Anyway, we got to see the Castle from different sides due to the road that wound around the mo...

While at Tyndall we met a lovely Captain Anderson.  She was our sponsor (that's military for, let me show you the ropes when you get here) and she immediately fell in love with our perfect children.  It's funny that the first time we had lunch with her, she looked at Chloe, who was 4, and said, "So, what have you done today?"  Chloe, very seriously, said, "I got a lot of spankin's today because I won't listen to Mommy, but she's not mad.  She just spanked me and I stopped but then I did it again and she spanked me again.  Sometimes I don't listen."  Then she grinned.  Kristina thought it was hilarious.  I was shocked that Chloe just stated it so matter-of-factly.  I don't know where she gets that.  I was also a little nervous that Kristina would disapprove and call the authorities.  People do that sometimes, but she said, "Yeah, sometimes we just need spankin's."  She left Tyndall that year to go to Montgomery, AL, but we ke...

We finally have enough closets.  It's amazing what you get spoiled to when you live in America.  We love our storage space.  I like reaching to my right to flush a toilet.  Here, I have to push a very large button on a wall and, depending on what I'm flushing, stop it or let it use a LOT of water.  Water is expensive, so you have the "stop flush" option for lighter loads.  It's comical, I know.  I still grin when I hit "stop."  Central heat and air are also wonderful.  They don't even have air conditioners here.  I'll let you know how that goes this summer.  The heaters are radiators that are attached to every wall in the house.  You have to crank them up or down and one of my kid's chores is to make sure that they are on the appropriate number for the day. Don't ever squat down next to one and then stand up.  Having a radiator knob scrape your lower back is incredibly painful and lasts for days.    The walls are all concrete, which makes...

They delivered our furniture on Wednesday, April 16th.  It was cold and cloudy most of the morning, and then the sun started peeking through and we all "hoorayed."  That lasted about 10 minutes and then it started hailing.  Hail, here, though is very small.  It's nothing like the golf-ball size Texas hail that sends you running for the nearest tree.  The guys patiently worked through.  I kept wiping the front steps with a towel because they're tile and VERY slippery when wet.  They were grateful, I think.  They were very friendly and took orders very well.  I did the typical Officers job.  I sat there and checked off box numbers and when they walked by I said, "Family Room" or wherever I wanted the item to go.  They kept asking, "How many more BIG pieces do you have?"  I just laughed.  I counted about 12 really large items...couch, entertainment center, 5 dressers, kitchen table, dining room table, dining room hutch, curio cabinet, and my elliptica...

When we left Korea, Joe had accepted a job back at Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo, Texas. We had already been stationed there and were familiar with the area, and he was anxious to teach what he knew. He became an instructor for the very course that, 2 years earlier, he had completed. What can I say? He's a smart man. :) We arrived in March and bought our first house. We were so house poor, but so proud to "own" our own home! We ate a lot of Ramen and took lots of walks. We did go on the occasional date when my parents would come visit. Sunday night...Monday morning actually, on June 11 at 1230am (midnight), we got a phone call from Joe's sister, Cathy. It's quite obvious when you get a midnight phone call that something is very wrong. Joe's Dad had had a massive heart attack and died on his front lawn. He had been experiencing stomach problems. His father died less than a year before from cancer, and all Wayne ever worried about was dying...

We stayed in San Angelo, TX for 6 months for Joe to finish his military language training (the part where I got out of the Air Force) and then moved ourselves to Fort Meade, Maryland. It was another Army Post, so the housing was terrible. We literally lived in ghetto housing, and I'm not trying to be offensive. When you see pictures of "the ghetto," usually the buildings are red brick, 3 stories high, windows missing, etc. That was what we lived in. The buildings were actually condemned, but we had to live in them because they had no room in the better housing, weren't finished building the rest of the housing, and we couldn't afford to live off base. We had noisy neighbors! The police came to check on those neighbors a few times, but not because I called. They were just rambunctious people. We lived there for 15 months. Several people came to visit us. We went to Niagara Falls with my parents, where CAylea almost choked horribly on salad. I had to turn...