Weekend

We decided to take the "weekend" off and head up to Busch Gardens for H's upcoming birthday. C will be in language school on the day of H's actual bday, so we decided this was the weekend to celebrate. We had such a wonderful time! The weather cooperated perfectly! We ended up leaving here Thursday, spending all day Friday at Busch Gardens, and heading home Saturday. Friday turned out to be almost 80 degrees and partly sunny: the perfect day for a theme park! H tried a new roller coaster this time, the Loch Ness monster, which has a couple of loops. He didn't want to do it when we got there, but by midday, he was up for it and ended up riding it a couple of times with daddy. He also did the Big Bad Wolf 3 times, twice with mom and once with daddy. K and A enjoyed the smaller rides. It wasn't that crowded, so they got to ride some rides 5x in a row! I didn't get many pics of H, even though it was his bday weekend, but it was mostly because he was off enjoying the big boy rides with daddy.

Other topics: move stuff is going along. I've got a ton of things to get accomplished over the next couple of weeks. Lots of doctors appointments, passport stuff, etc. I'm thrilled to announce that we found a wonderful home for Comet. I was really stressing about it, since he is 9 yrs old. Most people don't want a senior dog. We got lucky and found a perfect home for him. She'll be taking him in the next couple of weeks and getting him all settled in. Next will be Clarabell, the cat. The kids will probably have the hardest time letting her go, since she's been with us for over 5 years. They all know that the move will be too hard on the pets to take them along and it's best for everyone to find new homes for Clarabell and Comet. My hope is that we can do it all over the next month, that way the kids don't have too much to deal with at move time. Also, we found out that we can't take a vehicle with us, so we'll be storing our Yukon and just buying something over "there" for the time we are there. As much as it kills me to pay on a car we are not driving, at least it will be paid off when we return with very low mileage and in fantastic condition. And, while we are there we'll be cruising around in a cute little island vehicle.

All else is well. C is starting school this week, H starts the spring season for soccer and everyone else is doing fine.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!! We've spent the past couple of days celebrating Easter. We had a fun egg hunt at church yesterday afternoon, colored eggs last night, had a wonderful church service this morning, followed by an egg hunt at home after lunch. It's been a busy time around here! The boys looked absolutely adorable all dressed up this morning. Of course, the ties were off and everything was wrinkled by the time we got home. K was especially happy (check out that cheesy grin!!) to wear his tie, since he picked out his shirt/tie ensemble. H looked so grown up and the green really played up his super dark brown eyes and sweet little A was as cute as ever.

We also said goodbye to our foster mastiff, Lizzie, yesterday. She was a wonderful addition to the family and we would have loved to adopt her, if we were staying in the states. We never thought we'd find another female dog that we could love like our dogue de bordeaux, Trinity, that passed away last year, but Lizzie was a real joy to have around. She was an angel with the kids and perfect in the house. The slobber was back, and trust me, she could sure sling it, but she had a personality that made you overlook the drool. She was just a love bug and I miss her so much already. Her new adoptive family is a perfect match and I'm sure she will be very happy there. H seemed pretty sad about it, but we were upfront with him about it when we decided to become foster parents. He knew the day would come when it was time to say goodbye, and he knew that Lizzie will be loved and happy.

Other than all that, it's been kind of nice around here. C is home, and just graduated from his medical training. He had a class barbecue the other day, and the boys really enjoyed playing. H ran into a brick wall and cut his cheek (as you can see in the Easter pic), and really did a number on his glasses. Thank goodness they are new and still under warranty!! I'm going to try and start some spring cleaning/sorting this week, since H is on spring break and I won't be running around so much. I really need to start working on figuring out what will be going with us and what will be stored or sold. It's kind of crazy to think that we'll be moving again, and so far away, but we look forward to our new adventure.

H's Pinewood Derby

So, on March 8, H had his first pinewood derby race for cubscouts. C was gone for training, but we had a good time anyway. H won his first heat and got to race about 5 times total. He ended up not placing, but had tons of fun making the car and racing it. He decided not to enter it for the best paintjob, most original or anything like that, since he wanted to bring it home and play with it.

Trying this blogging thing

Well, since we will be moving to a far off land, I thought I'd start a family page and update it with pics and news, so that all of you out there can keep in touch. I am completely new to this and I'm hoping it will work out to be easy to use, and that I actually remember to update it once in awhile. As most of you know, I'm pretty computer literate, but I have yet to try to make a family page. Why, you ask? Just plain busy with the kiddos and family stuff. As security is an issue in today's world, I will not use our names. I will refer to my darling husband as "C", our our kiddos as their first initials, also : "H", "K" and "A". I hope it doesn't get too confusing for all of you out there. I'll try to add many pics and keep everyone "in the know" with all that is happening.