….since I updated…

I have been sick with allergies. My seasonal allergies have kicked into sever mode. Meaning I have not been able to breath since last Friday! But lets do some updates.

Easter Weekend was ok. Saturday we did a BBQ, and also got groceries. Not much really happened. Sunday, rolled the last child out of bed around noon, sent them on a walk with Freya to get all the kids out of the house while Kevin and I hid chocolate filled eggs. Of course non of the kids took their cells with them, so when I wanted them home, I couldn’t call them, and with them out walking, no real clue where they were. So I sat on the patio to wait for one to come home to ask if they were all allowed to come back. I said yup, and off Kauchana went to get the others. They actually weren’t that far away, so it wasn’t long before all the kids were home.

As soon as they walked into the living room, they saw their Easter baskets. Kevin had picked them up last month, and they had been hiding in the truck. Kevin got them all outside baskets, they had different kind of balls for the kids to play with. They loved them! (I want to get a bin to put in the hall closet that will hold skates and balls for the kids!) Then we gave them some ground rules and sent them around the house to find the hidden eggs. They really liked that part, of course Kauchana and Dokota found their amount really quick, but had fun helping Derric and Xavier find theirs. Then it was out onto the patio to dye eggs. I had bought two dozen for the kids to dye, thinking that would let them each dye 6, giving them some fun ideas. Kevin did take three eggs and hallow them out for the three oldest. That way they can keep those.

All of it was still a little advanced for Derric, but he had fun.

Monday it was back to school. I thought Derric would give me a rough time, but he didn’t really. The only thing that gave me a rough time was my allergies. Walking the kids to school took my breath away, and by the time I would get home, I was gasping for air. I kept myself in bed or in the bathroom steaming. I wasn’t getting any sleep at night because as soon as I would get comfortable, I was hacking really bad.I kept hoping it would get better, but when it kept getting worse, I finally made myself a dr. appt. All he said was I had sever allergies and gave me some meds. gee thanks…

The meds have been slowly working and with the help of tylenol PM, I have been getting sleep at night.

Friday, Derric woke up crying. Went down to check on him and he was burning hot. Took his temp and he was at 103.1 again! Took him upstairs and got him some motrin and tylenol. He finally went down in temp. Dokota made Derric a bed on the couch so I could keep an eye on him. I sat down at the end of the couch, to sit with him, but he curled up on my chest and fell fast asleep. With the help of Kevin, I was able to get out from under him. Kevin stayed up to watch over him while I got some sleep. And sleep I did get. But I woke up worse for ware. Everything I was normally hacking up during the night just sat there, so I was in a good amount of pain upon waking.

Derric was feeling better, and Kevin wanted to get me out of the house, so he took me to the Spring Bazzar on Spang. It was just like the Fall Bazzar, 90% of the same vendors, so it was a quick walk through. He did show me one new vendor. A Family Crest guy. That was really neat. We ordered one, it should be here in 4-8 months. Will go into more detail about that later.

Today, it looks like we are going to head to Manderscheid and see some castle ruins!

I figured I would sit here and write about the year…. but honestly, I think that would be kinda boring lol. I am sure going back and reading all my posts this year would take me a few days and then, the whole point of this post would kinda be out of date. Instead, I will say, the year 2008 brought about a couple huge changes; the PCS to Germany and Derric’s Autistic diagnoses. I didn’t do nearly as much as I wanted to do this year, I didn’t plan on COLA being cut, I didn’t plan on the exchange rate to be so bad. I had huge dreams, big ideas, things I wanted to do, places I wanted to see…. Instead, we have spent most of our time home, doing nothing. Our four year tour here is one fourth done, and I really can’t say it was all that exciting…. The family trip to Trier was wonderful, the day at the Cascades was the best, but that was two days out of 365, not a good average…

I am really hoping 2009 is better. Planning better is a must be.
Places I would like to visit in 2009:

• France – There are a couple small villages right on the border that I have been told are a wonderful visit. I have heard there and back can be a day trip, but would love to make it a weekend.
• Luxembourg – There are places there I would love to go see, some castles still standing not ruins.
• At least three castles, ruins or not in Germany
• At least one fun land place for the kids

And I would like to do this as a family, not just because company is coming… It would be nice to actually have an idea about where to even take family for once instead of just spending most of our time guessing….

I have other goals I would like to try and accomplish this year also.

• Go to the gym every day. Kevin said he will be working on this with me, now that he is on the mid shift. Once I get the kids to school, catch the shuttle over to the main base, meet him at the gym, work out for an hour or so a day, then just come home together. I know once I start working out again, I will have much more energy, which will help me accomplish my other goals.
• Take the kids swimming every other week, after school for an hour or so. I don’t want to go on the weekends… too busy, so a day in the middle of the week, maybe after supper, should be good… just depends on the husband’s work time.
• Attempt to relearn German. I am remembering some, but the dialect is so different and since I haven’t heard it in several years, is hard to catch back up with it…
• Restart Family Movie Night on Friday nights. We did this back in NC. Loved it. Really want to bring it back.
• Family Wii Night. Now that I have a Wii, I really want to have family game night on it. Since once I get my WiiFit, I want to use it more for that. Also want to be able to play Wii Games with my mom (send me your Wii numbers and I will add you to my list! will send you mine back =) )

I have more, and will add to my list, but those are the main ones I can think of. I know 2009 will bring some new challenges, after all, I know I will have a deployment to deal with soon, not sure when yet, but soon… But for now, I need to get Derric to bed and the husband. Hope you all have a wonderful New Years Day and I hope the New Year is full of wonderful times for all.

Christmas this year has been ….. interesting to say the very least.

Things just didn’t really feel all that festive. Maybe because the kids had my nerves stretched to the limits and then some. Maybe because the weather was just off… I don’t know. I spent a good part of the holiday trying to video things we normally do, capture it for family, but the kids would start really acting up once the camcorder was turned on. Out of all the things I taped, I got only three videos worthy of sending to family. Ugh.

We put the tree up the first weekend of December, presents were put under it as they got wrapped, so everything was done pretty much by the 10th. Since we were done early, I really didn’t have to focus on anything but the kids themselves. Derric got out of school early since the Kindergarten building had no heat and needed to get the heaters fixed. While he was home, alone, he did pretty good, he would do the work I needed him to do, and was very excited to work with me. Once the rest of the kids got out, it was a struggle to get him to do anything, then Dokota would jump in to help, only he would spend more time trying to bride Derric into doing the work, which honestly I don’t want Derric to learn. So he ended up off schedule even though I worked hard to try and keep him on it.

They messed with Kevin’s work schedule, so he was off on his hours, which threw everyone else off also. Mids, Days, Swings, Mids, all in a month time.. Talk about messed up!

The Squadron Christmas party was actually good. Not at all what I expected, but also not as well planned as it should have been. Cocktails were supposed to be from 6 to 7, at 7 supper was supposed to be served. Nope, then because a couple people got DUIs the night before, the open bar got turned into pay as you drink, which NO One notified anyone on, so next to no one had any cash on hand. You could set up your debit card, but you first had to buy something 20Euro worth. Talk about annoying.. Then Dinner didn’t even start on time, they didn’t even draw for table order until 8:30! By that time I had three glasses of wine on an empty stomack. Ugh. But the food was good, really good. I now want to learn to cook a goose lol.

We still need to go get Xavier’s glasses, we went all the way up to Volgeweh, since that is where they have a much bigger selection, but the lab tech wasn’t in, we weren’t able to make it the next weekend due to Kevin’s schedule shift, and honestly, I am not comfortable enough yet to drive over an hour and a half on the autobahn, maybe in a year or two…

I got my eyes checked, and now I can’t find the new script. I thought it was in my purse, but all that is in there is my contact script. I need new glasses also, which I will be seeing about getting come January, after we get paid, but I kinda need that script to get them.

Christmas Even was an interesting day. Baked cookies, decorated them also. The kids had fun with that. Derric went over to his friend’s house and those two exchanged gifts. Kauchana is friends with the sister, so she falled a bit later to give her friend a card. It was kinda fun, let Dokota and Xavier stay home playing video games while Kevin slept.

Played Santa, then headed to bed myself. Kevin, due to hour shifts, wasn’t able to get back to sleep after getting woken up, so he was up until way early morning. Derric was up right at 6:30, I got woken up when Kevin was trying to get him back to his bed since he was trying to curl in with me like normal. But he did go back, with whisphered glees of Santa having came. Around 8:30 I heard the three boys up and about, whisphering about Santa coming, waiting on Kauchana to get up stairs, and wondering when they should wake us up. I was up, but not 100% sure when Kevin had gone to bed, so was kinda hesitant about waking him up. But I let the kids wake him at 9am. Got hot chocolate made up for the two of us, since neither of us are morning people.

Then it was present opening time. The kids did pretty good, but Xavier got kinda pouty because he had an odd number of presents out. He had bought some presents for everyone else, so he was one off and didn’t get to unwrap one on one round. But they were very happy with the amount they got. I should have split his puzzles up, I had wrapped two as one, but then that was when I was going to let the older two head to the elementary school to go to the shop, until I learned it actually sucked.

Should have unwrapped it and rewrapped it sepretly… Oh well, lesson learned.

I am happy with how the morning went. Kevin got a small laptop, one of the minis, to take with him on deployments and TDYs. It is the perfect size to fit into his backpack. And I got my Wii. Yay! LOL. I only have the Wii Sport and wont be able to get any of the other games or such until next month, but when we head up to get my glasses, I am going to look for some games. I browsed Amazon and found 8 on there, but want to see if I can find any of them localy before spending for shipping and handeling…

I had to argue with the kids about how it was my Wii and I wanted to have fun with it first. Then when I did let them play, they went and unlocked all the training… Oh I was mad. I had said they could only do the Fitness Age then they were to get off the game.. Nope, they did the Fitness Age then all the training.. Oh well. nothing I can do about it now.

Today was another bum around day. It is Boxing Day, though honestly I haven’t fully learned what that day means. I just know nothing is open here. Thankfully the Bx is American ran, we needed a few items so I was able to get them. Now we are just kinda buming about until the New Years. Wow, to think this year has gone by so fast. I will be doing a year in review post here and on the family site close to the 1st of the Year.

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So, Christmas will be here in 14 days. The kids are really excited, me, I am thinking of everything we need. All presents we have recieved so far have been wrapped. Christmas tree has been up and decorated. The kids helped me carry the storage box up from the storage room and helped me seperate all the different branches then we played the guessing game of which color went where. After we got the tree up, I sent them down to get the ornamet boxes while I “fluffed” the tree.

Kevin and I got the lights and garland up, then got the tree put into place and the kids were the ones to actually put all the ornamets up. They had fun doing that. After it was all said and done, I brought up the presents and we got all the presents put under the tree. The box of gifts from my Grandma arived, so those got wrapped and placed under the tree too. Derric helped wrap his best friend’s gift and for Derric, the tree wasn’t done until that gift made its way under the tree too.

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Today, the high was 33 degrees. That was COLD. It has been snowing since sometime last night. We have quiet a bit of snow on the ground, and it sure isn’t fun to walk in. No, snow seeped threw my shoes, my socks are wet! I have spend a good amount of time outside too today. First it was the joy of walking the kids to school. That became even more of an adventure as we tried to walk fast but not slip on the ice.

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