Story Land

On Thursday morning we surprised our kids with a trip to Story Land up in northern NH. We thought this would be a nice way to end the summer. This is a fun park for mostly little kids but Sam and Nate still found fun rides as well. We didn't tell them anything about our plans we just wrote down surprise on the calender hanging in the kitchen. We woke them up early on Thursday morning and headed up. The boys were trying to figure out where we were heading. First they thought of New York City. We are glad that they like the city as much as we do and hopefully we will get to go again sometimes. Anyway they did find out but we were almost there. They remembered the train station in North Conway where we took them on a ride almost two years ago. I was really pregnant with Emma at that time. You bet they were very excited to spend the day at Story Land. Water fountain.
In jail for few second. As you can see they got out.



Whale ride. Emma did not care for this one.
Raft ride. The boys loved this one. Yes they did get wet and I got to go with them once as well.
This ride was a hit with everybody. Both me and Fil got rides from the boys onthe tractors. It was a bumpy ride though.
Sam was tall enough to drive himself.

Crazy barn. As you can see it looks crazy to me.
The train ride goes through the whole park. It is a great way to calm down. Last time this was Nate's favorite ride. He changed to the raft ride this year.

What a cool tree house. The boys love this spot. Emma didn't care for it as much.
The talking tree. I think Nate believes the tree is real. He can stand there for a long time and have a conversation with it.

Humpty Dumpty sas on the wall ...... .
Cooko clock ride.
Another ride on antique cars.
The octopus play ground where you can get wet.
Tres amigos.

We had a great time and hopefully we will get to do this in two years again. We know it is not Disneyland but it works for us now.

Thank you Vit

I had no idea when I wrote earlier in the month about ideas for Christmas presents that some of you would actually react to it. We got a phone call few day later from Fil's brother that he wanted to buy the moose from Ikea for Emma's birthday. But since you cannot buy it online and there is no Ikea in Denver we offered to get it for her on our next trip.

THANK YOU VIT.

As you can see Emma has a moose and she loves it (So do the boys but we are trying to keep them off since they are too big for it. We put it together a few day ago and ever since Emma has to ride it every morning when she gets up and every evening when she goes to bed. Oh and her dolls have to have a turn as well.

Also notice Emma's t-shirt. I am sure Vit will appreciate that Emma is wearing his Christmas gift from 2 year ago. We teased Vit about this for a long time and finally she got use out of it. Vit bought it for his new niece and since he doesn't have any kids he has no idea how kids sizes work. He bought size 6 thinking it was 6 month and it would work for Emma in the spring. Well it was size 6 alright but for a kid not a baby. The t-shirt shrunk a little and she got to use it this summer as pj's. Hey Vitie we could use another one:)

This picture is from spring when Vit came spent some time with us. Again Vitie thank you so much for thinking about your nephews and niece (s). They and we appreciate it very much.

I will have to start posting more ideas for Christmas since it has been catching up with people.

Phoenix's Friends

Today we got to see some of our Phoenix friends. Well some of them haven't lived in Arizona for a while but we always talk about them as Arizona friends since the guys met at Arizona State University. It was a big treat to spend some time with them. Some of the Campus Crusade families moved here to New England area last year to work on campuses. We have been trying to get together for a long time and finally we all had the chance to see each other. It was a treat for Fil to catch up with his old friends and for me to meet some of them since I am keeping up with everybody by mail, mainly around Christmas time. They all have sweet children that are older then our kids but that was not a problem. They just took the boys and played with them the whole time. Emma was keeping an eye on everybody especially on a dog which she was not a big fan of. Well he is much bigger then her. We hope we will get to see them more often.

This has been a busy month for Fil to catch up with old friends and we are so thankful to God for them and especially thankful to see some of them. Anyone else moving to New England?

What have we been up to?

It has been a while since I wrote what we are up to. I guess the fall season started in our family and not only with school but with soccer as well. The boys are in two different soccer leagues this year so we have two practices and two different games every week. For now we only have to deal with the practice part but starting in September we will be driving around for the games as well. I am still trying to decide what to do with Emma if we should start some gymnastics class. She is very busy and could use some play time. I don't want to be driving too much around but she is getting into an age when she could start some organized activities as well. So that is pretty much what we are up to. Mornings are full with school and after that I am catching up with much needed yard work.

Tonight we also took the kids to a Manchester baseball game. It was a nice time to spend with some of our friends from church. We got home very late and I am hoping that we will all sleep in tomorrow morning.

Emma is 2

Our baby girl turned 2 today. I cannot believe it. I still cannot believe I have a girl. But I guess all the pink around the house should be a clue. Emma is growing into a little lady who loves to play with her brothers and she keeps up with them very well. On the other hand she loves dolls and cooking. We got Emma a training bike European style. We love the German brand Kettler we already have a tricycle from them that the boys used it a lot. This time we had our eyes on this bike that is very unusual in the US. It looks like a regular bike but without the pedals. We saw Fil's cousin's daughter riding this thing a few years back and we couldn't believe our eyes at how well she did on it. She learned how to balance first then she moved onto a regular bike without any problems (and she was very young as well). Since there is another girl coming to our family we knew we would get more use out of this. We gave it to Emma last night not knowing if she is still too young for it. But she did great. She loves it and is doing a good job. Way to go girl.
Today we had a little birthday celebration with our friends. Like last year I made a cake for the birthday girl and as you can see it turned out good (it tasted good as well).
HAPPY BIRTHDAY EMMA
Here are all the kids. They did a great job playing around the house and even inside. I was surprised too see that they did not make too much of a mess.

Home At Least

Fil made it safely back yesterday morning. He flew a red eye overnight from Tuscon and made it to Manchester around 10 am. We are all very excited to have him back. Ten days was a long time and I hope we will not have to do this again. We did survive but no thank you. He came home to cooling weather in New England. It was especially noticeable for him since it was 116F in Phoenix on Sunday. I can feel fall lurking in the air here at home. I know there is a lot of summer left but occasionally there is a crispness to the air. This is the time of year when I love living in New England. Pretty soon as it slowly gets cooler the colors will become amazing.

I wanted to all let you know about a little airport secret. It may come in handy when we are all coming back with our little once from Ethiopia. I am not sure if all airlines do this but I know for sure Continental does. You can go to their front desk and ask for a gate pass. If you explain what is going on they will give it to you. I had no idea this was possible. A co-worker told Fil that their family got to greet their family member on his way back from Iraq at the gate. They let the whole extended family go to the gate. I tried to do it when Fil got home yesterday but we were too late. Fil's plane already landed and it would take longer to get through security then just waiting for him to come to the baggage claim. I did ask when we coming back from Africa if they would let Fil's parents with our kids in to greet us at the gate and she said yes. In our case it may not make much deference since our airport is so small and I am not sure if they do it at other places but I though that some of you may be interested.

The Case Of Missing Pencils

I am sure none of you have this problem at home. I cannot find any pencils around the house when I need one. It doesn't matter how many new ones I put out when I need one there are none to be found. I would love to know how 20 newly sharpen pencils can disappear so quickly. The most mysterious thing is that nobody knows what happen to them. In the boys case they blame Emma and Fil probably has no idea what I am writing about. A few days ago I found half of them in a cup on my craft table (they were not there the day before). The sad part is that each time I turn around one of the kids is writing with a pencil. However, when I ask for one they are nowhere to be found. I guess Sebastien took it for who knows what reason. Hope you are all having a great weekend.

Weekend

This was a very hard weekend for me. Since Fil is gone we got to spend the weekend ourselves. Sometime it gets hard by the end of the day and for some reason a trip down to Boston wasn't as much fun when Fil comes with us (mostly since I wasn't able to have an adult conversation during the trip). On the other hand the boys for some reason cannot stop talking.

Anyway Fil made it up north to Phoenix this weekend to see some of his old friends and he ended up seeing almost all of them. Our missionary friends were back from England so he got to see them and most of his college buddies. You have no idea how jealous I was when he called from a party when they got together. I wished we all could have been there. It has been so long since I've have seen everybody and I have to say that I heard all of the stories so many times that it feels I know most of you even though I met you only once. I know Fil misses all of you very much and it was hard on him to leave this afternoon. We always thought for some reason we would end up back in Phoenix area and here we are in New England. I guess God has different plans for so for now. I promised to take the kids down to Boston this Saturday to visit the aquarium. We got to walk by the ocean and found this very fancy apartment community. Here are the boys standing by a yacht that looked very cool. There was a several of them and a lot of smaller boats as well.
There were pretty flowers along the walk way.
Sam took this picture. I think he is old enough for some photography lessons from mom. He did a good job by the way. We are in the picture after all.
Here are the boys exploring the world of starfish.


I am always looking for some nice pictures. Here I was admiring this lamp while Nate .....
was trying to take apart the water hydrant (that boy is such an engineer).
And since there was time left in the day we stopped by one of my favorite stores IKEA. You got to love this store growing up in Europe. And my kids love it as well. Here is Emma on one of her favorite toys (we got to start thinking Christmas here anybody paying attention?)
And the boys will always find something dangerous to play with.



Thank you so much to all of you who took care of my hubby in Phoenix I wish I could have been there to take pictures to update my collection on our fridge. And I hope that some of you will make it to New England one day.

Thursday

First of all let me say that we miss Fil very much (just in case you haven't noticed). My heart goes out to those women whose husbands travel every week. I don't think I could do that.Anyway today was a beautiful day in New England. Dry and warm. Not hot not sticky. Just perfect. I finally got to put clothes out to dry and we even headed out to the pool. Well the boys were convince that it was hot enough for the pool. Nate lasted 15 minutes in the water before he started shaking, Sam made it for 30 minutes and Emma 40 minutes (well she only got her legs wet like me). So we moved over to the park and had a good time there instead.
I have no idea how I will do it next year with 4 kids. They are so busy and all over the place. The boys continue to have dumb ideas and trying to copy stuff they read in comic books (thanks Fil). Last night Nate was jumping off the boys bunk bed with a towel wrap around his neck like fly boy (the boy in the comic book did it was their explanation why they did it). I decided not to go to ER and spend the night there with three little kids. Since Nate was just crying about his hand but nothing seems broken or swollen we waited until the morning. He complained a little bit when he was writing this morning but I wasn't sure if it was an injury from last night or he was just trying to get out of writing. I love my boys but something I question what they carry in their heads (I am sure uncle Vit will enjoy this story).

Emma loves going down the slide.

Anyway we are all in one piece and no broken bones.
This is a rare picture since it is getting harder to get them all in one place at the same time.
Yesterday I was also thinking about our little girl a lot. Everyone knows that Laurel is in Ethiopia now and I was wondering if she will be able to take some more pictures of children that are ready for referral. People started asking when and I have to say that it can happen any day or in few months. I cannot wait to hold her in my arms. Anyone else getting antsy?

School

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord.

Colossians 3:17,23

We are slowly starting up with some school work. As you can see it looks very overwhelming at first. I already spent a few days reading ahead and it looks SO BIG. Yes I am laying on the binder with the schedule for this year for the boys. They (the binders) keep getting bigger every year. But I have to say even though it looks overwhelming it is all very nicely explained and it makes my life much easier. We did s full days work today and to my surprise we were done in 2 hours. There are only a few thing that I will have to change like our kitchen table that got too small this year with all the papers and books. Other than that we all set to start rolling.

Sticky Tuesday

Today we had nice sticky weather here in New England. It is usually at its worst in August so I don't know why I am always so surprised. At least the temperatures were in mid 80's (could be much worse).

Anyway we went to the Palace theater in downtown Manchester to see a show Seussical the Musical . I wasn't so sure how Emma would react to it but she did great. We got to see the whole show even though she got very squirmy at the end. After that we went to a park to have lunch with our friends.

On the way to the car we passed this church and I had to take a picture of it. It was the perfect light and place.

In the evening before the kids went to bed they helped me water the flowers around the house. As you can see they ended up watering each other. They sure had fun.

And just in case they were not wet enough they poured buckets of water on each other.
Oops! I guess that one went the wrong way.

No shower needed this evening. Just in case you are wondering where Nate is he was in time out for not listening.

We also miss dad a lot.