10 Today!

How time flies! How did my firstborn get to be 10 already. We had a wonderful celebration today of 10  terrific years. Our day per the birthday boy's request:
-pre-breakfast races and tennis- gotta get going before it gets hot!
-cake icing- made the hamburger before the baby girl woke up- gotta get the cake out of sight before the baby's around!
-yummy oatmeal and frozen fruit for breakfast
-Bible reading and verses and a keys for kids that talked about how important it is to hear God's Word daily
-bowling- used our Kids Bowl Free coupons for 2 games of bowling- we had a great time!
-Aldi's- gotta get some snacks before you swim!
-rest time- gotta get mom and baby some rest!
-swimming- short but fun swim with Hillegonda- terrific friend swims with us even while her grandson is away- gotta get out of the water when it thunders
-grilled burgers- gotta learn to use the grill while James is away- I don't think I can get away with not cooking meat this time
-cake, ice cream, and presents- fun and yum!
-movie time
-bedtime

Super day for our super boy!

Vermont Vacation

Yummy Ben and Jerry's samples!

I am so thankful that our move from Baltimore to Fayetteville was so good. We got to get mostly settled in (do you ever really finish?) And we had such a super trip to Vermont this summer.  I meant to blog about earlier while the memories are all fresh but life happens and now it's several months later. But it was still a wonderful trip. We had no problems on the 14 + hour drive. We spent the night in a hotel on the way up- partly to enjoy a wonderful Philly Cheese Steak in NJ. Yum! The drive into Vermont was beautiful- although I was really glad to have James driving especially the last bit of windy roads. We were very happy to see our nice condo- it was very big and the kids were so excited to have a room with four twin beds. We stay at Smuggler's Notch Resort- "Americas number one family resort"which was really nice. A good combo of organized events and plenty of fun you could do on your own. A little bit warmer weather would have been nice but the pools were heated and we weren't hot! 

The first night they had a welcome on the green. Music, dancing, and games. Everyone had fun! And they told about some of the events for the week. Monday morning we went on an organized nature hike which was nice. And we met a super Navy Chaplain and his family. They had 5 kids too and were great people. We saw them at several events during the week. 

They had a small farmers' market right there on the resort which was nice because it was kind of far to any stores. Also nice because they had a pirate and they had super yummy samples of maple syrup, adult drinks, and some other goodies. The kids were so super at waiting patiently while James and I sampled, they got a piece of delicious maple candy. We bought maple syrup and maple cream which is amazing! 

Amazing view from the pool walking distance from our condo. We didn't go to this pool very much because the other pools had fun slides. But this had the best view of the mountains!

We stopped several times at the apple cider factory- free samples of apple cider! Plus they had very good apples for way cheap. And samples of all kinds of goodies and yummy apple donuts. 

This delicious dinner was well worth sitting through the condo tour! Local place with great staff, good local food, and super murals on the wall- glad the only place open for lunch was this good!

The Ben and Jerry's tour was really good. I loved seeing all the old billboards and reading their history. The factory tour and movie was good. The sample at the end was probably the crowd favorite!

The pool went to the most. Besides the heated pool in this pic, there was a fun kiddie area with small lazy river, a small slide, and a big tube slide. The kids liked the cannon ball contest too!

The fun zone was definitely fun! You had to buy a smugg pass to go but it was well worth especially since we had some chilly, rainy days. The fun zone was really nice- lots of bouncies but also table golf, 

foosball, a smaller kids area, putt-putt. you really could play for a long time on all the fun things there- good family fun!

We did some hiking which we loved. this pic was on the way to one of 3 waterfalls we  saw.

How awesome is this! Loved this hike- well until we tried to avoid the steep downhill and got a little turned around. but we still had cell phone coverage and James found a safer way back for us and another couple. Beautiful!

This is the big slide. I don't have pics of the third pool that was lots of fun too. Smuggs had a cookout there. They provided grills and condiments. We pasta and brownies to share and grilled burgers for us. Lots of fun there! 

More Fun center fun!

And more!

Tons of great things from our trip that I haven't added pictures for yet. Like the two bluestar museums we went to. One was a history museum but it was really well done. Definitely learned a lot about Vermont. The other was a science museum that had an amazing amount of displays inside. The building didn't look that big but it was really well done. 

We also had more hikes around Smuggs, an amazing show from a woodpecker on a hike, four square fun, a super magic show, and lots of fun playing games. great trip! 

3 weeks left after 3 years here

It's been a good ride- but now time to go. We've learned and grown so much while we were here. here's some things we've learned:

1- an air popper is definitely the way to go for popcorn- especially if you make it every week.
2- dough enhancer really helps my bread
3- getting a half a cow was a good idea
4- some seasons you may have fewer friends locally and that's ok. it's been a season for becoming closer as a family.
5- sometimes first impressions are not the right impressions. we've found some relationships and things that we thought were great for us at first and turns out weren't and vice versa.
6- we really like homeschooling- even if some days are hard- and portfolio reviews aren't that bad- especially if you have a great umbrella group.
7- houses can be too big- especially if you have to clean it. but big houses are fun too- lots of room for friends and family.
8- it's fun to live in a big city for a while and there are lots of parks around to enjoy.
9- getting a membership to one museum a year is the way to go. We went to the aquarium and science center a lot of times each year and the membership cost about what it would have cost to go twice
10- you don't have to be great friends with the neighbors but it's good to be neighborly- it was nice to know someone would watch over our house if we were gone, we could borrow a cup of sugar (we never did but we did have a good power outage cookout. which leads me to...
11- gas stove is definitely best. we were able to cook lots of times because we had gas even with the power outage.
12- having a generator is a good idea. thankfully after the first 18 months or so here the power didn't go out as much but it sure was good to have when we used it- especially with #3 in freezer
13- Johns Hopkins medical care is good-
14- lots of emergency rooms are not bad and pediatric emergency rooms are better.
15-sometimes you just have to go ahead and publish a post even if it's not finished- since it's now July and we moved end of May :)

North Carolina

"Home" James and I both took this pic and posted "Home" when we arrived back in NC. It is sooo good to be back. I was going to write my top 10 reasons I'm glad we're home but some pics will do.

So many memories from this house and on these front steps- James' promotion to LTC, "Welcome Home Daddy", New Baby, many more and now our return!

What we'll miss most about Baltimore- the friends we made

And Sherwood Gardens

Love Love Love our deck (which James built) and our backyard!

Love!! getting home on Saturday, amazing welcome at church on Sunday, park day and cookout with friends on Monday, motorcycle ride, ...

Love having a friend who texts me at 8 to say let's go to the beach!
Love being able to get in the car and go that day!

Love that we had a beautiful day at the beach with good friends

Love that although we lost 1000 sq ft of house, it feels so much better.  And the  mess is getting better most days!

Love having friends to go swim with, come pick kids up to go swim, have play dates with...

Love being able to have lots of friends over for the day even if the roofers made our yard a construction zone

Love Daddy being here for haircuts and everything else

We are so happy to be back home. We enjoyed our time in Baltimore but this feels like home. I'm always reminded of  a friend saying "I wish there wasn't so much friendly before friends." Here we already have friends. Yes, I hope to make more friends but it's super to have friends already when we got here. Church the day after we got to town was like a reunion- it feels like we went on an extended trip and can pick back up where we were. (Except for being sad that one super family moved away.) 

Here are my top things I love about our NC house- in no particular order after number one :)

1. our yard

2. painting the kids' rooms

3. one story

4. our kitchen

5. our kitchen sink

6. it's smaller- less to clean

7. our school rom

8. our cul de sac

9. our neighborhood

10. parking

I could go on but it's bedtime!

OBX 2014

We had a super trip. Of course it helped that we started off the week finding out that we are going to Fort Bragg. We would rather be going to Korea with James but since we couldn't Bragg is best. And we're moving back into our old house. Yes, I know it's been almost over a month since we found that out but I'm just writing about our trip and that really did help us have a good week. We thought we might cut the trip shorter to do some house hunting or at least spend a lot of time internet house hunting. Instead we could just enjoy the time!

We drove down to Grandma's Friday morning and were glad to be able to visit. And James was especially glad to get to go see his Uncle Darnell who was not doing well. K and C were also able to shoot their guns. We had a short but good visit and left Saturday morning. We had rough traffic but super weather and went to the beach soon after getting to Duck. The kids had a blast.

Sunday morning we went to Jockey's Ridge- love the colorful hoodies from Uncle Steven. We got some great pics on the big camera but I've been putting off the blog for a while so here's my phone pics.

 After braving the wind at Jockey's Ridge, we went to OBX Brewing Company for brunch. It was super. The kids weren't excited about going because they thought a brewery would only have beer and they were hungry but they were pretty excited once they saw the menu.

 T loved the crab soup

 KG liked her shrimp and grits- although she wasn't crazy about the red eye gravy

 Can you tell C is excited about his Carolina BBQ?

 K got BBQ too- loved it!

 Monday morning we went north to the Wildlife Center. It was cold but we had a good time. We took pictures by our tree- we've taken pictures there most years since Janelle's oldest was a new baby. We watched the movie until time for the kids' nature class to start.

 We enjoyed a walk around the area learning about nature- the fulgurite was really neat.

 Tuesday was a rainy day which we thought was great for celebrating KG's birthday. We stayed on the condo property- baked cake, played games, went swimming, watched Frozen. I can't believe she's 5!

 Wednesday we went to Roanoke Island Festival Park. So cool that we got to go on so many field trips that fit with this year's history. I love the movie at Roanoke Island and all the hands on history. We got to see them fire the guns off the ship this year too.

We went to O'Neals for lunch. I think we just started that tradition last year but another good one. O'Neals is so good. We have eaten lunch there and taken home fresh seafood some years. This year we decided to just eat there. It's all fried but really good. Yum!

Beautiful sunrise at the beach. I went a few days by myself, once with the kids. Sunrise at the beach looks like God to me- beautiful, amazing, breath-taking, powerful, peaceful, all at once. Love it!

 so pretty!

 Thursday morning we added a new tradition to the OBX- Duck Donuts. Yum! Maple Bacon- Wow! Definitely going to have to do that again! (well we did stop by there again Friday as we left town but I mean again more years.)

 We did a lot of swimming while we were there. The kids did awesome. The boys swam after their diving ducks for a LONG time and KG told me she was going to swim to me and did. She'd never done that before but did great! And baby C loved being in the water. She floated all around in the floatie.

 I need the big camera pics to show the Wright Brothers- we had a good visit. The ranger talk was good. K stumped the ranger with a question about how many models the Wrights made. We had a great time on the playground and got more pics. I don't have pics of our tennis playing. That's the only thing I would have done different about the trip- I wish we'd taken tennis racquets. We checked some out for the rec center but we could have played more if we had our own.

We went home Friday so the boys could be in the pinewood derby for Royal Rangers. The boys all made cars- T- orange car, K- skateboard, and C- eggs.

While the boys went to the Pinewood Derby, the girls went to the chocolate factory tour. Yum!

 and then had a tea party

 We had a super trip! Love the OBX!

Pi day

We didn't go to the science center this year for pi day since we had Park Pals. so glad we went! It was fun and our new friends 
told us about s'mores pie with homemade chocolate pudding! Yum! Our new favorite!

Since Friday was a busy day, we celebrated pi day Saturday.
Egg pie for breakfast
Tuna pot pie for lunch
Pizza and s'mores pie for day

Fun times!

What A Wild Ride

What a ride we've had since January

• didn't know where we were moving
• found out James was going, not sure about me and the kids. but we told the kids if we couldn't go to Korea we'd move back to our house in North Carolina
• thought it'd be easy for the kids and I to go with James- got lots of great info from friends and bloggers who'd lived in Korea.
• spent weeks talking up Korea to the kids- how fun to homeschool there!
• found out my visits to specialists in Baltimore might keep us from going to Korea
• weeks of visits, emails, and phone calls with doctors to get cleared to go to Korea
• normal lab results!! cleared by doctor
• all to a screeching halt when James finally found out where he would be working and they told him families couldn't go anymore :(
• waiting to find out where the kids and I would go
• and waiting
• and waiting
• we found out the kids and I could move back to North Carolina but when we told our property manager that we wanted to move back into our house he reminded us that our rental agreement was through 2015 :(
• our renter agreed to move out by May 15th. 

so we're moving back into our house in Fayetteville!!

I didn't include in my list all the prayers, all the answered prayers, all the tears, all the lessons learned, ... what a ride! we kept pointing out good things to the kids to make them feel better. if we can't live in the same place with Daddy, at least we'll live in our old house. (then we find out we might not be able to go back to NC or our house.)  amazing answered prayers with all the doctor visits and paperwork. even getting to see some of our closest friends in NC. we were said to find out they were moving away before we moved there, and today we found out we'll all be there for a few weeks together!  

God has great plans for us!