Here's some of the pictures I took on our trip to Italy! We absolutely loved it and are planning on going back! We're looking at going back in April possibly, after our trip to Ireland. We loved it there and did not get to see nearly as much as we wanted, so really we HAVE to go back! LOL
If you click on the pictures I put text of where we're at or what we're doing!
We're heading out in about 4 or 5 hours! I know I should be in bed, but I'm so wired from excitement I can not stand it!!! Chad will start off the drive, so I'll probably sleep the first 3 or 4 hours until we hit Austria. We'll be driving over Brenner Pass (click on it and take a stunning look!!). This road passes through the Alps! My friend Bobbie said that there's pull of points so I should get good pictures!
Today I got all my errands ran. I got us snacks, got a 4 GB memory card for my camera (1296 pictures!!), I have my 1 GB memory card, it has about 20 to 40 pictures taken on it out of I think it's 800 so I will be able to get probably about 2000 pictures taken just on my digital. I bought new batteries for my Cannon Rebel which I have another lens so I can get those great distance shots with!! Bought a 4 pack of film for it and extra set of batteries. (I haven't used this camera is probably a year sadly...I love the convinence of the digital, but the Rebel's pictures turn out so beautiful). We have the camcorder battery charging. We have the dvd players (one for each boy) batteries charging. The luggage, snacks, and stroller are all loaded up. The van is setting on a full tank of gas and Chad bought a book of Gas coupons (buy them on post and it's soooo much cheaper than paying the price on the economy...we pay about 1/2 what they do!). We have Euro and some cash. We're so excited! The boys are both beyond excited they don't know what to do! LOL I know they'll enjoy it! We have A LOT of walking ahead of us! Maybe I'll lose a lb or two! LOL Probably not...come on I'll be eating REAL Italian food!!! Oh my goodness I can NOT wait! Bobbie told us where their favorite resturant in Vecinza is so we're going to definate eat there one night.
I'll write more when we are back and settled and I have uploaded all the pictures!!!! Wahoo! Italy...here we come!
Hi, still alive, just trying to get a grip on life in general. A cold ran through our family. Chad thought he was dying! LOL The man rarely gets sick so when he does it's of course just the "worst" @@! I ended up with it, by the time the rest of them were finishing up theirs and I ended up losing my voice completely Friday and Saturday. Sunday I woke up hoarse, but able to talk!
We are going on a trip this weekend! I'm calling tomorrow to make sure I can get us a room, and as long as I can we're heading to Venice! We'll be staying Vecenzia at the Army Post, to save money! It's only about 45 minutes away. We're driving, it's only 6-7 hrs drive. We're going to get up at the crack of dawn...well before that between 4 and 5 AM and head out! We should get there between 10 and 11 am. Hopefully we can check into our room and get the van unloaded and then I guess head to Venice for the day! We'll go back on Saturday and finish up sight seeing. We'll come home on Sunday! I'm so excited I can't even describe it!
I have a lot of stuff going on over the next couple of weeks so my alerts will remain off until that's all over. I need to turn on my comment alerts because I haven't even been getting those. I will try to go in the next couple of days and just read some journals, but I'm not promising anything! I hope you're all well!
I'm off to bed!
God Bless
I have so many journal alerts and with everyone being sick (today it caught up with me...just light headed and feeling cruddy and sleeping ALL DAY literally..hence why I'm still awake at 3:30 am! :X) anyways I just can not get caught up on journals. It's just too overwhelming to me and I have so much to do over the next couple of days. I'm planning a deployed spouses dinner and being the procrastinator that I am, have 2 weeks to finalize up everything up! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
I really don't have too much left to do, but still I'm feeling stressed now. Since I was not feeling good and Emma did NOT sleep good last night I did not go to my board meeting for PWOC (which is through who I'm doing the deployed spouses dinner).
Just so you know the dinner is for spouses who's husband's are deployed down range. We're having it catered, will have someone give a devotional (which I am really feeling led to be me), and free childcare, and will give every lady a book as a gift. I'm also wanting to get some flowers for the tables and having a drawing for who gets those.
I also have to get some paperwork done tomorrow. I hope I feel good tomorrow. I'm feeling fine right now, so I think it'll be fine. I was supposed to go to the gym tomorrow so I'll have to talk to my friend about what time she wants to go. No way I can go in the morning. Unless she wants to do it on Thursday and Friday instead of tomorrow. I know it'd work better for me that way.
Oh everyone else is pretty well all better too, well the boys in my house. Chad, Jacob, and Jack are pretty well done coughing which is good. Emma is still coughing, but not like she was and tonight she was laughing and smiling and just being our sweet Emma again!!
Well I'm off!
Good night and God bless
Everyone in my home except for me has a cold. Chad started it and since the man NEVER gets sick, it's like his world has stopped. It's just hard to feel really sorry for him because he has a sore throat, coughing, and stuffing nose. I mean come on...growing up I got sick every stinking year and my cold ALWAYS turned into bronchitis (my parents smoked and it kindly turned my cold into it...and they continued even AFTER the drs told them to not be smoking around me...that's another entry though huh!) Anyways so Chad's got a cold and both the boys do as well. Jackson's also just simply not feeling good. Yesterday all day long he literally layed on the couch. He just did not feel good. He barely ate, but have to say when he did it was good choices. He had apple slices, oh the one bad thing he had was a bread stick! But that's all he ate all day. This morning he had grapes and he ate some dinner (some chicken) but not much. I've made sure he's drinking which he has been thankfully. He felt hot this morning and Emma's just miserable with her cold (stuffed up, coughing and that's moved into her chest) so the two kids and I stayed home while Chad and Jacob went to church. Emma was really fussy and I finally got her to nurse for a bit then we rocked and she fell asleep and Jack was sleeping on the couch. I didn't wake up until after 2! Emma slept on me until nearly 3 pm, Jack had woke up after Chad and Jacob got home from church, but continued to stay on the couch, never moving. I started getting ready for Awana and went to see how Jack was feeling and felt him and he was hot. I took his temp and it was 100.7 so he wasn't going to Awana. I asked Chad who was staying home. I'm the Sparks Director and he's the Games Director. I have a great secretary so if I have to stay home it's ok, but obviously not preferable. Chad is the Games director and he has an assistant. Chad stayed at home after calling is assistant to make sure he was going to be there. I cried for a good 20 minutes just thinking of leaving Emma. I haven't left her for more than a few minutes to run to the mailroom so this was huge for me...to leave her for 2 hrs. I just am not a mom that's comfortable leaving my babies much if at all in the 1st 6 months of their life and not much the 2nd half of their first year either. Jacob and I walked to Awana, which was really nice. We talked and although it's cold, it wasn't a bone chilling cold! Awana was good. When I got home Chad said that Emma was awake for the 1st 30 minutes after I left and then fell asleep and woke up 10 minutes before I got home, so in her mind I was only gone for 40 minutes.
I scooped her up when I got home and went to hand her back to Chad so I could change out of my Spark's shirt and she started crying and reaching for me (yes she's reaching for me now!!!) so she went with me to change! God bless that baby girl. Jack seemed to be feeling better and he and Jacob were playing around after dinner and well that was just too much on his little body, he got sick, ran to the bathroom and got sick some more.
Please pray for health for my family. No one's drastically bad, but we rarely get sick and well I've had enough of it to last a lifetime personally.
Emma's awake and needing to nurse...God Bless
January: I was in the beginning of a new pregnancy, dealing with some morning sickness, and we celebrated Jacobs' 6th birthday! The boys wrapped up basketball, which Chad was head coach for them (same team).
Feb. I turned 30, Chad threw me a surprise party!! We went to Rothenburg odT for the first time and loved it and also to Edelweiss for a retreat and had a wonderful time!
March: We marked what would have been Jordyn's 9th birthday.
April: We found out we were having a GIRL!!!!!!! We also were in the midst of planning for my parents upcoming visit in May. Both boys played Tball and Chad was head Coach for Jackson and Asstistant Coach for Jacob's team. I went away for 4 days for a PWOC conference in Willigen (Villigen is how it's pronounced). The city is a beautiful city in the mountains and it was the longest I'd EVER been away from my children.
May: We marked 7 yrs since Jordyn went home to Heaven. My parents came for 12 wonderful days. We went to area's of Germany we'd never been to before: Triberg in the Black Forest, Berchessgarden, up to Eagle's Nest, The Netherland's to Kuekenhof, and to Poland. May my sweet Emily also found out that there were some very serious problems with the baby who was growing inside of her, Miller Grace...at that point there was still so much not known though. (You can read more about Miller Grace's 5 amazing days on this earth at: www.caringbridge.org/visit/millergracecassetty ) Chad also had knee surgery after waiting 2 yrs from the initial injury to have it. Tball wrapped up, it was a lot of fun and was great to see them enjoy themselves!
June: We spent most of our days at the park or pool, did local trips around the area. On June 23 Miller Grace was born (Emily's baby girl)....she lived for 5 amazing and precious days and on June 28 went to Dance with Jesus.
July: We celebrated 4th of July in the pouring rain for most of the day. I was VERY pregnant and pretty well counting down the days at this point. Chad braved it and took our 2 boys and 2 friends boys (4 boys in total) camping and fishing. The day they left my friend Bobbie, her little girl, and I went shopping...we bought BASKETS!! LOL That was the day my stomach almost tipped our table over too as I tried to stand up! ROFL!!
September: We started back to schooling after taking the month of August off, and adjusting to having Emma here with us. At the end of the month we headed down to Garmisch for a weekend retreat. Emma's first big outing, she did great and we all had a wonderful time!
October: Just local adventures, Jacob and Jack continued to enjoy school (homeschooling remember), Emma turned 2 months old and was starting to interact more and more. Halloween was fun, the boys were both Prince Peter from Narnia and Emma was a Princess!
November: We went to Rothenburg again with the chapel, celebrated with our friends for Thanksgiving. Chad went out to the field for 3 weeks and the night he came home Emma rolled over for the first time.
December: Emma became an expert at rolling over and started scooting backwards! She truly recognizes people she knows, "talks" a lot. Christmas was a blessing and we truly tried to make it special. We invited a friend and her 2 children over for dinner and the evning as her husband's deployed (we had went to her home for Thanksgiving).
Over all it's been a wonderful year with some sadness. I saw my parents for the first time in almost 2 yrs, did some traveling, welcomed our 4th child/2nd daughter to the world, and have had one of my best friends have to hand her baby girl over to Jesus and is now walking this walk of grief that truly turns the world you once knew upside down and inside out.
My new years resolution...well normally I don't make them because people just break them, but this one is not going to get broke.
My resolution is to love God as I'm supposed to: With All My Heart, Mind, Body, and Soul.
Oh last night we welcomed the New Year in by having B and her kids over. Chad made pizza's, we munched on some snacks, played Sequence, and at Midnight B and her son and Jacob and I went outside to watch the German's shoot off fireworks! They're crazy I tell you!!! LOL They definately get into shooting in the new year! It was cold and snowing. Chad was dozing and Jack had passed out in Chad's arms by then, and Emma was out!
I pray your 2008 will be a wonderful year for you.
Sweet Barbara over at: Life & Faith in Caneyhead has dared us to share 4 confessions! I urge you to go read hers, never would have thought sweet Barbara to do those things! LOL
So here's mine!
1. In 7th grade me and my best friend D skipped school (went to my aunts house) and my mom caught us because well we were stupid and went to my aunts house, our punishment from our principal was to clean up the HS football field after playing our neighboring hs, who we hadn't played in over 60 yrs (different leagues) and it took us I think 6 hours!) that same year we also were "brillant" enough to sneak out! We'd just walked around the block and came back and all the lights in the house were on (at 2 am) so instead of being smart we ran to another friends house! We came back in the morning and HID under her porch! The police were called and everything. We decided to run to her grandma's and call from there (her grandparents were at her parents...along with my parents of course) and as we took off across the yard they saw us! We were grounded, but they thought we'd ran away! Stupid girls we were!!
2. When I was 16 I dated a guy who was 22...amazingly he was REALLY a nice guy, I was made to break up with him of course when my parents found out! (We dated again a couple yrs later for a few months, he was still a nice guy...too nice! LOL)
3. When I met Chad, I told him he didn't have a chance with me! ;) He didn't then either! ROFL Obviously things changed and 6 months later we started dating (we were friends during those previous 6 months....he was another nice guy! I only dated 2!)
4. I've had um...well you know ;) in the rain! (With my hubby of course!) I recommend it! :X
Your turn!! :)
