What a great day!

Yesterday we went to the Carnegie Science Center because it was free from 10am to 5pm. The place was so big, we didn't have time to see it all. After the science center, we drove up to Franklin to have dinner with my Uncle Bill and his wife Marsha. Marsha also called my Uncle Dave and his wife Sue to come down and visit with us. We had a lot of fun.

My Uncle Dave brought the Mad Magazine board game to me. This game has a fun story...it's an old game that my Uncle Dave owned and I used to go play it every summer, but I would sometimes have trouble getting people to play with me. When I was 12, I asked my Uncle Dave if I could have the game. I then left and forgot to take it with me. I called him and told him and he told me I could take it next time I was there. I didn't go again until I was 25. By that time, the game was lost.

When I visited last year, Dave told me he still couldn't find the game, he thought someone else might have taken it or it may have been thrown out. Yesterday, he surprised me with the game! It's missing most of its pawns and some of the cards, but he managed to tape up the box and the board is still in good condition. Yay! A new game for me. :)

Today is Aurora's birthday and we'll be baking her a chocolate cake. So far, she's celebrating by playing Guitar Hero. The other 6 kids are letting her play as long as she wants.

Andrea

At least it wasn't a month

So, it's been two weeks since we last blogged. As the title suggests, it could have been worse.

So let's see, not much has happened since we last blogged. We had Shane's b-day, that went really well. Shane decided the day before that he wanted to go out to a movie with friends, so we e-mailed several and rounded up two: Daniel and Austin. Shane, Daniel, and Austin went to see StepBrothers while the moms (and Dad) buzzed around running errands and hunting down a birthday apple pie for Shane. Shane got a pair of noise canceling headphones and an Itunes giftcard from Mom and Dad, both of which he loves.

After the movie, we all went out to Red Lobster as a party of 9, which was tons of fun. We sat around telling dirty jokes, hoping we wouldn't get kicked out, when our waitress (who was in her sixties) came up and told us a few of her own. A great time was definitely had. Austin ended up staying the night and the girls went home with Daniel and his mom to hang out with Daniel's older sister, who is Karma's best friend. Austin and Shane enjoyed some little brother (read: Caedmon) torture at 3 am that had Mom get up and threaten to make them sleep in the street.

Shane declared it was his best birthday and Mom and Dad patted one another on the back.

We have two birthdays coming up this week, Caed's birthday is on Tuesday and he'll be 12. Andrea turns 29 on Thursday (no, for real) and is not feeling old in any way--unlike when Sam was turning 29 and panicked that he was getting old.

We're still on for our vacation starting September 9th. We're heading to the Mall of America first and then after that, we'll head East and hopefully see some family along the way. If we haven't called you yet, please call us if you can snag a minute, we tend to get voicemail alot!!

This year, we'll be spending a minimum of 1 week in New Hampshire as requested by Sam's family, who we only spent a day with last year. We're also planning an actual stop in NYC of at least 3 days and several days in NC with some friends of ours that moved there earlier this year.

If you're reading this and you live E of the Mississippi and would like us to visit, drop us a comment!!

Wow

Last time we posted, we committed to posting on a weekly basis. Here now it's been just over 3 weeks without a post. So, what's going on with us?

Well, our lease was up on July 31st, but we're hanging tight until we go on vacation. We moved all of our stuff into storage today, just to have it out of the way and in case we get told that the place has rented and we need to vacate. We've hung on to a few items necessary for survival, like food and a few dishes.

Let's see, what else has happened in the last 3 plus weeks? Sam and Andrea attended another workshop, which was just plain awesome. We'll have to give details about that in person, it just can't be done justice in a blog.

Oh yes, Aurora has a boyfriend now! His name is Dakota and he's a good kid. They're 1 year and one month apart, he being the older one. That's a little more of a thrill ride for Mom and Dad than Karma and her boyfriend, because those two are perfectly shy together. Aurora and hers are a little less so. We'll keep you posted.

More recently, we got Breaking Dawn, the fourth (and final?) book in the Twilight series. So far, Mom has read it and loved it. Karma and Aurora are both reading it, but Aurora was borrowing a copy that went home with our friend, so she's now impatiently interrupted. Karma is a little less than halfway through the book and thoroughly enjoying herself. If you haven't started the series yet, we highly recommend it! Everyone but Shane has read or is reading the series.

Other things that have happened recently...For the release party of Breaking Dawn, Karma and her friend Cameron were going to dye their hair black with temporary dye. They misread the package they bought and applied a not-so-temporary hair dye to their hair while Mom and Dad slept. Needless to say, both girls have black hair and will have for quite some time.

We may not have ever mentioned it, but we received a Wii for our Birthdays this year from Andrea's Mom. We now have five or six games for it and very much enjoy playing. So much so, that we are bringing it on our vacation this year.

Oh yes, for those that we haven't announced to yet, we are taking a vacation on Sept 9th, until no later than November 11th. We will be travelling first to MN to see the Mall of America before continuing on to see Sam's family in NH in late Sept and Karma's boyfriend's family in NC in mid-October. We have no other set or solid plans, but if you would like us to drop in and see you, please let us know! If you are a certain sister-in-law with a brand-new (nearly 1 year old) son that we haven't met yet, we would love to stop and see y'all for a day or two (or more if you're up for it).

So, that's about it! Shane's b-day is this week, so we'll come back and update y'all later in the week.

Nearly another month has passed...

In all fairness, we've been really busy this month. Halloween was a couple of days after we last posted and we went trick-or-treating with our friends, the Surettes.

After Halloween, we began gearing up for Karma's birthday. That was one wild ride! We ended up celebrating her birthday for a week. It started on the 7th when we went to Red Robin for her free birthday burger and sundae. Afterward, we rented a movie and got a beautiful cake (pics to come) and some ice cream. On Friday, we went to Austin's Park and Pizza with the Surettes. That was tons of fun. We went mini-golfing, go-cart riding, bumper boat bumping, laser tagging, and we played for hours in their arcade and enjoyed an all-you-can-eat pizza, pasta, and salad buffet. We also took raspberry cheesecake bars for everyone's enjoyment.

On Saturday, Mom went to work and everyone stayed home and rested from the previous two days. Then Sunday, we rented another couple of movies and finished off the birthday cake. On Monday, Mom went to work while everyone rested again. Then on Tuesday, which was Karma's actual birthday, she opened her presents and we had pizza for lunch. Then Mom went to work and came home early, so we rented another movie and got another birthday cake. On Thursday, we went down to San Antonio and walked around River Center Mall before going to Grandma's new house which has a hot tub and a pool!! Sadly, it was way too cold to take a dip and we didn't have our suits with us. We had pizza with Grandma and Aunt Peggy though and Karma got some books she'd really been wanting for her birthday. All in all, Karma said it was her "Best Birthday Ever!!!"

So, here we are now on Friday and we ran some errands, went to an appointment, had dinner at Chili's on a gift card we won, then came home and played Monopoly. Overall, it's been a hectic but joyous last couple of weeks.

We're very excited about the upcoming week as well. We should be talking to Shane tomorrow and possibly seeing the Surettes. Also, Thanksgiving is coming up, which we'll be going to Grandma's for. We're hoping the weather warms up so we can take a swim while we're down there (not likely, but we can hope, can't we?). On Friday, is a special picnic with the homeschooling soccer folks that we plan to attend. At this picnic, we'll being seeing the BareNakedFamily, who have been in New Mexico for the last several months. We've missed them tons and can't wait to see them again.

Our love to all of our friends and family who read this. We hope you have a great and blessed Thanksgiving.

Happy Birthday Joshua!!

Yes, we have yet another August birthday. Last post we mentioned that our nephew/cousin, Bryon and Christine's son was due in September. Well, it just goes to show that due dates are truly an estimation.

Bryon and Christine welcomed Joshua Michael into the world at 5:20 EDT this morning. He is the first boy for this happy mom and dad. Reports are that it was an easy delivery and Joshua comes in at a healthy 6lbs. 14 oz. His dad says he has strawberry blonde hair and possibly gray eyes.

Plans had been made for a home delivery with a midwife and one can only assume that things went according to plan since Christine had a smooth delivery.

Congratulations to Bryon, Christine, Mikayla, Rachel, and Joshua!! We hope to come up and visit with the new baby soon.

Happy Birthdays!!

Wow, August has been a busy month. It always is in our family. Just among the six of us, we have three August birthdays. Shane turned 16 on August 6th, Caedmon turned 11 on August 19th, and Andrea turned 28 on August 21st.

Moving on to other immediate family: Faith (bio-mother of children) turned 33 on August 5th and Mike (Sam's brother) turned 33 on August 18th. In Andrea's family, Aunt Susie and Uncle Dave both celebrated their birthdays (no need to get into ages) and Uncle Tom will celebrate his next Thursday.

In September, we will have Sam's Mom, Grandma Tricia on September 1st, Andrea's Mom, Grandma Linda on September 3rd, then Aurora will turn 14 on September 22nd and Sam's best friend "Uncle Chris" will turn 34 on September 23rd. In addition to those 4, Andrea's brother, Bryon, and his wife, Christine, are expecting a son, Joshua Michael, to be born in September. His estimated due date is September 9th. We will post once he's here and give him a warm welcome.

We shipped Shane's birthday package off very belated, so we can't post what he's receiving because we can't be entirely sure he's received it yet.

For Caedmon's birthday, he received: A Spiderman toy chest, a Bionicle Barrika, and a Superman long sleeve t-shirt from Mom and Dad; a new remote controlled stunt car from Grandpa Gary and Grandma Susie; a three-pack of Transformers from Aurora and Karma; a Megatron Transformer and Action (hums and lights-up) Light Saber from Aunt Stephanie and Uncle Chris, plus a cool card that plays the Darth Vader theme music; $20 from Grandpa Scott (Stephanie's Dad); a Bionicle (I forget, but the newest set) and a Megatron action figure from Adam, Aurora's friend; an Optimus Prime Transformer that Transforms into a Nerf Gun from Aunt Peggy; and a Cybertron Primus Transformer from Grandma Linda, that toy was the only one he requested by specific name, so of course it's his favorite, but he loves all of his toys and we only see him for schoolwork and mealtimes since his birthday.

We had all of the above people (except for Gary, Susie, and Adam) here for Caedmon's party, which involved listening to the Eagles and Oreo ice cream cake served on paper Transformers plates. Caedmon left the room after opening his presents and didn't resurface until cake time, wherein he promptly left again after finishing. Fun was had by all.

Andrea got Law and Order: Criminal Intent Season 1 for her birthday from her Mom and Aunt Peggy, she also got a membership to Curves from Stephanie. Sam and the kids got her clothes for her Build-A-Bear and plan to shop more after we get paid again. Also, Andrea's Mom baked a confetti cake and brought ice cream for Andrea's birthday and even though we ate the ice cream cake at the party, Andrea very much enjoyed the confetti cake over the ensuing week, with a little help from her friends and family, of course. We're still enjoying the ice cream, in the form of sundaes, yummy!!

Oh yeah, not alot to say for an entire blog post, but we did talk to Shane as promised on the 18th of August. He called when he woke up at 10am our time and stayed on the phone until Sam sent him to bed at midnight our time (he had church the next day). Good conversation was had by all and we plan to play games over the phone in the future (we are a game playing family).

Until next time...

Settling back in

It seems lately that there's always so much to talk about and so little time to say it in.

We are settling back into our family life here in Austin. The kids resumed school work today and are cracking right through it. The awesome part is, they didn't even have to be asked, it was like they were just ready to go at it again.

Caed blew through about six different books while we were gone. He finished what we own of the Warriors' New Prophecy series, then read Eragon and Eldest, Raising Dragons (a gift from Aunt Christine), and read a book from the Ice Age cycle of the MtG card game. He's now in a book from the Time Spiral cylce in the MtG card game.

Aurora has also finally got the reading bug. It took her forever to read Goblet of Fire, but once she had finished it, she was driven to finish what we own of the series. She picked up book 5 as we were departing our family in PA and finished last Friday (the day after we arrived home). She started book 6 that same day and here it is the following Monday and she's already half-way through. She's read a lot over the weekend.

Karma has always had the reading bug, she loves to read. She's enjoying creating her art work as well, so she spends her time divided between the two activities. She finished books 5 and 6 while on vacation and is involved in another book at the moment. She was also commissioned to create some art work for a website her Aunt Christine is working on and she has been pleased so far.

Andrea and Sam are working on getting household things taken care of, Sam finally has his license back. Since the entire family seems deadset on making the move to PA as soon as possible, we are also working on getting things ready for that. It will be another cross-country move, our fourth in our 8 1/2 years of marriage. Of course, it will take several months, possibly a year to coordinate everything, but we're hoping to never move that far again.

Sam's birthday is tomorrow, but since everyone works, we celebrated this last weekend. It was a lot of fun involving two birthday cakes, some board games, a lost kitten, and lots of rousing conversation. Sam got Supernatural Season 1 for his birthday from our good friends Greg and Steph, he also received issues 3 and 4 of Full-Metal Alchemist from Caed and Aurora. Karma got him a Spider-Man montage puzzle which he says he'll put together soon, Andrea's mom and Aunt Peggy bought him the Diablo Battle Chest (again), and Andrea got him a Planar Chaos fat pack and a pre-constructed deck from Future Site. All-in-all, he says he had a great birthday.

The lost kitten story shall follow.

Need to Move!!!!

This is the reason we were out of the world. We have been debating for the year we've lived here about whether or not we would stay in this place after the end of our lease. We have a 3/2/1 for $725/month. That is hard to find and about as much as we want to spend. We've had a problem with a neighbor who has been extorting us for money (in exchange he's done some lawn care), but the one time we had no money, our rental car got its window smashed. It looks like there are a lot of drug deals going on over there and last year, our lawnmowing neighbor was arrested and we didn't see him for three months. All of this has been enough to make us want to live elsewhere, but we still didn't want to move. About two weeks ago, there was an incident that made up our minds.

We went to soccer and then enjoyed a friend's birthday after. When we came home, there were four police cars on our block (one in front of our house) and a forensics van across the street. When we went to leave a couple hours later, the forensics van was gone, there was an extra police officer and the medical examiner had arrived. We asked the folks who lived on the other side of the duplex where all the officers were and they said that it seemed someone had been killed. They didn't know the details, just that it had happened. While we're not naive, we know that murder can (and does) happen anywhere, we just don't feel safe in our home and that's no way to live. Our lease is up in August and we're going to move then. We just don't know where or how much it will cost.