Colorado

School is out, and we decided to go visit family while Glen is gone. Jeremiah found a permanent marker and decided he wanted to look like a cat. My mom said he looks more like a zebra, than a cat, but he was very proud of himself. Of course 2 minutes after I got him all cleaned up he found another marker and did it all over again. We took the kids to the funplex, and they had a blast. Except Jeremiah. He took a nap during it, which was OK because I forgot to pack a swim suit, so all I could do was watch. Well not too much else going on. We have just been hanging out and making a lot of trips to the airport. We are down to 3 more weeks before Glen comes home. I guess their thermometer was 141 F this afternoon. He is going to get hypothermia when he does come home. I thought that 90 was pretty warm. Every since we got to Colorado though, it has been overcast and raining. The poor kids, I didn't bring them anything but shorts and tank tops. I mean after all it is about to be June. None of the pictures are all that great, I took them all with my cell phone. Maybe some day I will pull my real camera out of my suitcase, and take some pictures that aren't blurry. Anyway, that is about it for this week.

The Week of Failed Plans!!!

This was my week of failed plans. Everything that we tried to do, ended up not working. I have a whole list of things that need to be done, and very few of them ended up getting crossed off. The most important ones were accomplished at least. It must be contagious because Glen's trip into town was cancelled. It was too full, so he doesn't get to go. He did have a friend volunteer to take him into town sometime soon. Hopefully he will take his camera, so that I will have a few pictures to post. I am, of course, being optimistic, since most of what I have seen from over there is really not much to look at. And even now, I was almost done and ready to post this and somehow I managed to highlight everything and delete everything I had written. So starting over, I tried to take the kids to the annual Armed Forces Day kids race. I had them registered a month ago, and knew the location, date and time. So we showed up and there was no one there. I checked my conformation email to verify that I did in fact have the right date, time and location, and I did, so we kept checking back at regular intervals for the next hour. After an hour we gave up and went home (where that evening looking for soccer clubs I found out that they moved the time up 2 hours). The kids were very disappointed, even though a month ago when I informed them of the race, and that they were participating, I was met with groan, and complaints (most loudly coming from Ashleigh of course). At some unknown point during this past month, they had gotten very excited about it, and were not very happy when we finally decided that it had been cancelled. So home we went where they proceeded to play video games (since it was unusually cold and wet for the middle of May). My boys have discovered their Dad's game Halo Wars, and would spend every waking moment playing that if I would let them. They have been having a blast. Jayson looks like the typical boy lounging around the couch in his boxers playing video games. He reminds me of my brothers, although at least he isn't wearing a wife beater (yes, I am talking about you Kyler), although I must be honest and admit that he does own one or two. So since we didn't do anything particularly fun this weekend, I had to get pictures of the kids doing other things, which really wasn't too difficult because these kids are just funny. They always have the funniest expressions. I was going to try to take Elly to the zoo today, but we ran out of time, I had last minute errands before we leave, and I did make time to go running since I was a HUGE slacker last week and I didn't go on Thursday or Friday. I never miss that many days. It has been nice having such good weather to go running in. I was starting to get sick of the gym. Tomorrow I was going to try to take her to the park, but found out that I had singed up for field day 2 months ago, so I guess that is out too. That should be an adventure. I did get a chance to go to Goodwill today. Glen's mom sent me some money for Mother's Day (which was really nice) and so I decided since I have read every single book I own, that I would use it to go buy some new (used) books. I could buy far more books paying a dollar than paying 6 for them new. So now I have something to do while I am all by myself in Colorado waiting for my family to come back from Washington (I really thought I was the favorite daughter, I guess I was wrong). I suppose I could stay here, but that sure wouldn't be any more exciting. I had Elly's meeting for preschool. We got the paperwork all filled out, and she has been accepted into the program. She is so excited. She asks me every day how many more days until school starts. I have to keep telling her that there are quite a few, since the school year hasn't quite ended yet. The kids still have 3 more days left. I bought my first thing off of Craigslist. I had no idea what the heck I was doing, but I managed. Our washing machine broke this past week, and with 5 kids, I was getting behind on laundry really fast. I was just going to go to the laundry mat, but that gets expensive, and I just really did not feel like taking 5 kids with me. So, I decided to check out Craigslist. I managed to find a washing machine for $35, and it even works. I figure I would have paid at least that much to wash everything at the laundry mat. So I was just all kinds of thrifty this week. I bought something off of Craigslist, and Goodwill. So that was about all of the excitement for our week. We have 4 more weeks until Glen gets back. That still seems like such a long time. I guess that is life with the military. We still haven't heard back about Glen's re enlistment, but we should know any day now. It will be nice to know for sure.

The Zoo

This weekend we went to the zoo. The past couple of weeks, I have ended up at the zoo at least twice a week. In fact Elly, Jeremiah and I were back today. Not that I mind it is a pretty neat zoo, and we have a pass, so there isn't any reason not to go. Elly's favorite part is still the monkey's and the rain forest. We went and looked at most of the outdoor animals, since we haven't seen them all winter. The kids seemed to have a good time. They like to be able and get out on the weekends. Helps to keep them a little bit occupied. They only have 7 days left of school. They get out the middle of next week. They are getting excited about summer break. They are even more excited about the fact that we are going to Colorado the day after school gets out. They can't wait to see their cousins and grandparents. I am ready to have someone to go get soup and salad for lunch at the Olive Garden. Not really something that the kids are excited to eat, and I have no friends, and I don't really want to go all by myself. I would say that I would rather not broadcast to everyone the fact that I have no friends, but I just did. So, Mom, that is what we are doing when you finally get back ( I can't believe you scheduled to go to Washington when I get there, I thought I was your favorite daughter). We went to a ward activity. It was their Ocho De Mayo, they had Taco's and Pinatas and fun stuff for the kids to do. And Ashleigh even found out that the little boy she likes her back. It is cute, or at least it will be until she is old enough that she isn't too shy. I can't believe that I am old enough to have kids that are old enough to have crushes. How the heck did that happen? Mother's Day was pretty good, even though Glen isn't here. Of course it would have been better if he had been. We got to church and the the counselor said Happy Mother's Day, and my kids are like "Today is Mother's Day?", the people behind us just started cracking up. They thought it was pretty funny. I felt bad for Ashleigh though because she felt terrible, she had apparently planned on making me breakfast in bed, but thought that she still had a week. She was really upset. The kids each made something at either school, or church, and Glen sent a card, so I was not completely forgotten. Elly picked me flowers. They were dandelions that had gone to seed, but she made sure that she got water and put them in it, so that "they would grow a little bit more". I now have dandelion seeds all over my kitchen, but it was awfully cute. So I took a picture of all of my little gifts. So that takes us through week four of Glen's deployment. It sure seems like it should be longer than that, but too bad for me. 6 more weeks to go. We are getting close to the halfway point. Hopefully the second half goes by a little faster than this first half.

Air and Space Museum

This weekend I took the kids to the Air and Space Museum. April is the month of the Military Child, so they had free admission for the kids, plus free rides in the flight simulators. Ashleigh and Jayson were tall enough for the ride, but Aaric, Elly and of course Jeremiah were not. They got to ride the quarter machine. At least they were happy with the alternative. I have tons of pictures, so I am posting a bunch (that is for you Glen, so that you get to see what it is that your kids have been doing ;-) )They got to see an exhibit on the brain and how neuropathways work. They had lots of little hands on projects that demonstrated how they worked. I'm not sure the kids even realized what they were, they just had fun playing with the balls and watching the paths light up. They also had an exhibit on air flow, if you stoppered one end of the tube it would launch the balls out of the other end. I think that was Jeremiah and Aaric's favorite. They played there for about half an hour, and were distracted by it again as we were trying to leave. They also had a ton of different planes, some of them, the kids could go sit in the cockpit. They also had a to size model of the cockpit of a helicopter. They had a lot of fun there. They were glad to go do something fun after spending about an hour waiting for me to mail off a package to Glen. I guess that is what happens when they only have one person working the weekend before Mother's Day. We will see how long it takes for him to get it. Ashleigh has been working really hard recently on her multiplication. She was having a problem with the timed tests. She knew her facts, but had a difficult time concentrating when the timed test were given. I bribed her with a Webkinz if she could get 100% (she had been getting 30%, and no I am certainly not to good for bribery, whatever works). She had a test she got a 94% on after that and decided she really wanted the Webkinz and her very next test she got 100%. To her excitement 3 tests in a row she has scored 100 on and has now reached the status in her class of Multiplication Master. She is so proud of herself. Of course we are very excited for her also. This weekend when I was checking my email, I read my funny quote of the day, which was, This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.
Will Rogers (1879 - 1935). I thought the quote by itself was amusing enough, but not 5 minutes later Jeremiah comes walking into my room carrying a hammer. He had pulled it out of the boys tool bag. So I was thinking that we had been doing pretty good with Glen gone until I looked back over last weeks blog and realized that this has only been the third week. Jeremiah misses his Daddy too. This past weekend Glen sent us a picture from his webcam. Every time Jeremiah would see it, he would get really excited about it and start smiling and calling for his Dad. Now










every time I open up my computer, he comes over and starts begging for his picture of Daddy. I recorded him looking at it, so I am posting that as well. I thought it was awfully cute. I could have sworn that it has been longer than that. We are doing pretty good, it just seems like much more time should have passed by now. Glen is getting ready to submit his paperwork for reenlistment. He should have it in by the end of the week, and hopefully about 10 days from then we should know whether or not he has been approved. He will feel much better knowing for sure that he gets to stay in. So we have about 7 weeks left I think until he gets back. Of course my parents are probably more excited about the fact that we are going to Colorado to visit in about 3 weeks. Maybe that will help time pick up a little bit more. I get kind of bored sitting at home all evening watching CSI (not that I don't love CSI, but I guess it just goes to show how much of a social life I don't have!!!!) Anyway, that about covers this past week, the kids have less than 3 weeks left of school. They are excited about summer break coming soon, I am just glad that I only have to survive about 3 weeks of it on my own. Most of it we will be in Colorado.