A return of the prodigal blogger...we will see if it lasts!

Wow... so a year and a half since my last post.  I remember as a kid looking at adults funny when they would say things like "Wow! Where did the time go?"  Now I find myself saying that all the time. Does that mean I am old? UGH.

I DID post my mom's Closer Walk with Christ blog last spring which was really rewarding for me but not satisfactory for my kids ;)  Samantha has been poking and prodding at me the past few months to get back to blogging.  She is sick of reading the same posts over and over so I have decided to try and get back to it.  The idea of trying to catch up all the time missed is WAY TOO DAUNTING.  Instead I will start with now and if I have time I will try and do some flashback posts ;)

Winter here is always interesting.  This year we have had some bouts of really warm days interspersed with much colder days.  If I were a daffodil bulb I would be beyond confused this year.  Personally I prefer a nice cold winter with lots of snow fun but since we are stuck with laughable amounts of snow I guess the warm days are a nice break from the monotony. Here is Mandi and a friend making the most of our deepest snowfall thus far.. a mere inch or two.

 Last week the kids had Monday and Tuesday off for teacher work-days.  Monday it rained all day but Tuesday it was absolutely lovely - 70 degrees and sunny. We had to get outside.  We decided to take a bike ride from our house to Old Town. Once we arrived everyone was starving. We had fun biking through the traffic on King Street looking for a place to eat. Sam overheard some people talking about us "Hey look, there goes that bicycle family again!" We decided to give the Hard Times Cafe a shot.

 Personally I would not eat there again.... their chili (supposedly the main attraction) was mediocre (or as Sam would say: "meh",) their mac n cheese looked like it came from a box and in general the food was nothing to write home about.  Though I must say their fries were pretty good - reminiscent of Five Guys fries.

We stopped at Windmill Hill park on the way home, one of our favorite parks.  The older girls haven't been there in a long time.  They went crazy "I remember this!! Do you remember doing that? Wow this brings back memories of my childhood!"  Really girls, you are still children!!! Stop acting like your childhood is over!! (Yes I am struggling with the idea I have a HS student and that come June I will have TWO girls in YW.) Where did the time go?

The trip would have been way too long for Xander and Lizzie's wee legs so they had fun riding along in the Burley.  Yes, this is a one seater.  They are sweet and have fun talking and teasing each other along the way.  We do have a two seater carrier but it blows a tire EVERY SINGLE TIME we take it out for a ride so we are back to using this old very loved and beat up little Burley.

Once we got home Billy mapped our route out on Google and discovered we biked 18 miles.

Way to go girls, you rock!!  I love going on bike trips as a family and can't wait until Xander and Lizzie are zipping around on their own bikes as well. The challenge then would be how to fit all 7 bikes on our van when we want to go to trails further away.


Back in December we had another super warm day. We hopped on our bikes and went down to the Potomac river for a picnic dinner.

The sunset was phenomenal.  Pretty impressive photo Billy got with his new Samsung Galaxy III eh?

We love living here.  The point where you can see the sun going down is the river edge of George Washington's home - Mt. Vernon. 

Memorial Day Fun

Every year we go camping over Memorial Day weekend. This year the two families we usually go with were both unable to go. We invited two new families to join us instead and had a wonderful time! We also took Jessi with us, she has been staying with us on the weekends during the school year while she attends MSSD. This year we headed back to Shenandoah at their Matthews Arm campground. We really like their group sites but we learned this trip that we are not fans of their individual sites. Big Meadows is a much better choice in my opinion.

I was really hoping to see bears this time, they have always eluded us. Of course all our camping neighbors saw bears but we never did...maybe next year! I did get to see a giant rattlesnake... a very angry one at that. They are so different here in the east than out west. I would never have thought it was a rattlesnake if I didn't see the giant rattle on the end of its tail. It was a beautiful emerald green color with black diamonds. Unfortunately I was not able to get a picture of it.... my camera was in the my camelback and Jessi was carrying it (she is a big fan of the lemonade I put in it haha.) She had gone up ahead. I didn't want her near this snake and made her stay back while we tried to encourage it away from the path so other hikers would not be endangered.

Xander is very fun... but very hard to go camping with. I realized after we got back that I was not able to take very many pictures... I was much too busy keeping the little fella out of the poison ivy....out of the fire... out of the road...out of other peoples tents and motor homes... you get the idea.
I did get a few fun shots and a few videos in.

Here we are hitting the road. I have to say I absolutely love my van... I love that I can play two different DVD's so the young uns and the older girls are all happy. Gotta love Xander in those headphones.



Apparently everyone else had the same idea we had about hitting the road early Friday morning... sigh....


The first thing the girls ask about every camping trip is whether or not their Dad is gonna build them a rope swing. Probably one of their favorite camping activities!



Our newest swing convert


Once the Spanbauer boys arrived on Saturday we set off on our first hike, it was simply a loop around the campground but it was great fun!


Climbing Boulders...


Waterfall fun...






Group photo before we head home. We love the two families that joined us, they made it a fun and memorable memorial weekend!


Think we wore 'em out?

Playing Catch - Up

Good heavens... it has been SEVEN months since I have done anything with our blog!! Apparently I am not one of those super-organized-gets everything done and still has plenty of time to blog moms. In fact half the time it doesn't look like anything at all gets done around here thanks to my two little tornadoes and my 3 big "always on the go" ones.

Hopefully I will be able to get some events that went on since may recorded in here... what a wild, fun and memorable summer we had! In July we drove all the way across the country from D.C. to Utah then down to TX and back. The kids were fantastic travelers! More on our summer vacation another day. We went back to UT again in October to celebrate my parents 50th anniversary. Compared to driving, the flight felt blissfully short on the way there (despite the 3 hour layover) but the red eye back was not at all enjoyable...never again will I do a red-eye with a 3 yo and an infant in lap..ugh. At the time the amount of $$ saved seemed worthwhile ... during the flight not so much. It was a lovely time and we were so glad we have been blessed to be able to go out there and be with family twice this year. We love it here in D.C. but its hard to be so far away from any family.

My siblings and I decided to throw a party for my parents... staying married for 50 years and still going strong, they are amazing! Here they are 50 years ago:

And now:

I hope I age as well as my parents have.. they look great!

We had the party at the Chateu in Le Jardin... wow gorgeous place! My sister made this very delicious and beautiful Guava cake:
My brother knew some guys who do old Hawaiian music...we so enjoyed having them there providing our music.
The food was sooo yummy. It was a good thing we had a bit smaller turn-out than expected..many people went back for seconds...and thirds! We had the cake, tropical sherbets and fruit kabobs along with raspberry/lemon water. One of my nieces is quite the artist and carved that beautiful melon centerpiece.
The older grandkids were pro's at running the food operation, the younger grandkids did clean-up duty and passed out party favors. I love how well my family works together to make events like these a success. I guess it is to be expected since we grew up helping mom at times with her Catering business - she trained us well.
My youngest brother made a fantastic slide show of our family from over the years.. it was just fantastic and a priceless treasure to have. My parents also displayed lots of pictures and other memorablia from over the years. Some photos from our younger days:



Here is Sam with two of her favorite cousins... they are pretty inseparable during family functions. They look so beautiful here... one thinks what amazingly lovely young ladies they are becoming...
then this.
Here we are at the end of the event.... Can you find Mandi under all those Leis? Hint, she is NOT wearing blue.

Emma finds a quite moment to energize on a giant pile of tablecloths.


Lizzie is worn out by the end and falls happily asleep in her favorite cousin's arms.My biggest regret is that I had to spend so much time keeping Xander out of trouble that I got very little time to take pictures... My parents looked wonderful and it was so fun to see people we grew up with and have not seen for years. Definitely an event to remember!

Odyssey heads to Michigan!!

Sam's Odyssey of the Mind team left EARLY this morning to head to Michigan.
I am sad we are not with her this year but know she is very well taken care of in the hands of other parents on the team. I really wanted to go but would have had to wean Xander and since he is not even a year old yet neither of us were ready for that. I think Sam is secretly THRILLED to be out of the clutches of her parents for a while.
At any rate, do be sure to check out what is happening with the team this week by clicking on the OM logo to the right.
Go Sam Go!!!

I am so behind in posting our comings and goings on here it is not even funny. Speaking of Odyssey of the Mind reminds me I have yet to tell the story of how Lizzie came to be the first of our kids to get stitches (sigh.) We were down in Newport News for the State competition. After a long day of competition, everyone was at our hotel for some down time before heading back for the Awards Ceremony. Our room was right up the hall from the lobby and the everyone was in/out and about the area. Fearing Lizzie might get her fingers slammed in the door, I put the little stopper thingy they have near the top of the door out so it couldn't close all the way, thus solving two problems: Lizzie's fingers and the constant request for the key to get into the room. Apparently my plan backfired. I was sitting in the lobby chatting with other parents when Billy came running out holding Lizzie's hand and covering her mouth and beckoned me to come with him quickly. Running to the room I realized he was holding her mouth because she was SCREAMING and her hand was covered in blood ack! One look at her thumb and we knew we would have to take her to the hospital for stitches right away. It was cut all the way through the skin and partway through the muscle all the way across her wee thumb.

I strapped Xander into his carseat, dashed to the desk to get directions to the hospital, made arrangements for the other parents (bless their hearts) to take care of our older kids and we were off. Here's Billy and Lizzie in the waiting room. It was hard for her to wait but she was a very brave little 2 year old.

As we waited for Lizzie's turn, we discussed what to do as the Awards ceremony was coming up. We agreed the best course of action was for me to leave Billy and Lizzie and go to the Awards Ceremony and then come back and get them. Broke my heart to leave my little girl there but I knew she was in the best of care with her Daddy. I really wanted to be there to support Samantha and her team as well. Following the awards ceremony I hunted down the girls and we headed back to the hotel, still waiting for Lizzie to be done at the hospital. We headed out to dinner with the rest of the team and of course at that very moment got the msg Lizzie was stitched up, everything looked good and she was and ready to leave. Once we got them and joined the team at the restaurant it was very late. We were pretty tired but running on the adrenaline of another state win for Sam's team (yeah!). Everyone cheered for Lizzie when we came in and she had fun showing everyone her wee little hand and her x-ray.. cutest little x-ray I have ever seen.
When we got back to the room we puzzled how she cut her thumb like that. With the door stopper in the door, it was impossible for her to have squished her thumb in it ... we finally figured she must have put her hand in hinged side of the door while it was open and then it shut on her poor thumb.
Lizzie was a trooper through it all. She was a bit traumatized for a few weeks following but finally seems to have bounced back. Hopefully she has learned never to stick her thumb in a door again.

Off to World Finals again!

Well, they have done it again!!


Samantha's Odyssey of the Mind team is off to the world finals for the second year in a row. They are an incredible group of kids!! Whats really interesting to me is some of them would never choose to voluntarily spend time together on a regular day yet they are able to come together as a team and do brilliant work. A good lesson for adults who think it cannot be done ;)

For more information on the team, their doings and information on how you can support them, click on the OM World Finals link at the right.

Congratulations Samantha!!!

PANIC!

There is nothing on the planet that strikes fear into my heart faster than the idea of one of my children being hurt or lost.


Today Mandi's school sent me an email to let me know she had been marked absent for the day. While I appreciate how technology lets schools communicate with parents so easily, I do NOT appreciate being told my daughter has been marked absent when just a few hours ago I watched her walk through the school door, turn around and wave goodbye with a big grin on her face. She was particularly excited today as her class is taking a field trip to the Smithsonian.
With that image in my head I immediately began imagining the worst possible case scenarios.... she wandered back outside and was kidnapped by men with candy and a big white van/ she sneaked over to the playground, fell off the monkey bars and was laying unconscious on the ground/ someone locked her in the janitors closet and she will be scarred for life.... I know I am extremely paranoid about these things, especially while pregnant and for a year or two after giving birth. At least I have hormones to blame it on for now ;)
I immediately said a prayer for Mandi's safety and for my own sanity - reassuring myself it was surely just a clerical error then called the school. After talking with the secretary she told me she would check into it. I reminded her that Mandi's class was on field trip which made things a bit tricky. There was discussion among the people in the office (they probably didn't realize the interpreter would be signing all this) about how so and so didn't see Mandi boarding the bus that morning etc etc. (more PANIC) They came back and asked me if I had dropped Mandi off late (no, in fact she was early.) More discussion in the background. Finally they were able to call Mandi's teacher's cell and he confirmed she was with them. Whew.. big sigh of relief!! They were very very apologetic for the mistake. At first I felt rather annoyed about the mistake. Now, I am thankful because it was such a strong reminder to me how much I love and value Mandi. I do thank Heavenly Father daily for each of the wonderful children he has entrusted in my care. Sometimes, however, it is good to have a "slap in the face"/"pay attention" moment to help me keep my priorities straight and remember just how precious my children are to me.

THE BIRDS

We had a bizarre occurrence at our house the other day.... Looking out the window we noticed a bunch of birds. Now, this was nothing new as we have a bird feeder out there. Billy filled the feeder up before the storms hit. With all the snow the birds have been very gathering in our backyard and swapping tales between spitting sunflower seeds. I imagine they chirruped about how long it took to shovel out their nests, how they had 18 freaking inches covering the entryway and to complain about the fact that all the bird feeders in the neighborhood are either snowed in or plum out of food and how marvelous it is that Mrs. Kendrick risked life and limb to tromp through knee high snow up her giant hill (hey, it IS giant to a wee bird so phhhtt) to clear the bird feeder for her fine feathered friends.... Thus it was not unusual to have several birds out there at any given time. However after a few glances we started realizing this was not several... this was like the bird party of the year out there... not our usual mix of cardinals, blue jays, swallows and such either... ROBINS... every single one of them. I have never seen so many robins in one place in my life. They say robins are the harbingers of spring (bring it on baby!) but man... they were REALLY making a statement. They were hanging out in our maple and our birch, flitting about at the bird feeder, leaving wee birdie prints in the snow and making quick work of EVERY SINGLE red berry on our holly tree. In less than an hour they had finished it off... no small feat mind you... We have a big holly tree with a LOT of berries. While I miss the cheerful red, at least I don't have to worry about Lizzie poisoning herself with them this year. Billy went out and caught a bit of the action at the holly tree on camera. The pictures don't really do their numbers (or their beauty) justice but I think he got some great shots.

Base of the holly tree:

I really like this shot
Hanging out digestin'....

It was really fun to watch them all morning. I admit I did have a wee uh oh moment when I went outside to throw some trash out. Usually you step outside and have a few seconds before the slam of the screen door sends all wildlife fleeing for dear life. With these folks they fluttered their wings then a large group in the nearest tree just turned their heads to look at me. After several moments of being stared at by hundreds of beady black eyes, 2 things happened. 1) I noticed these were not poor skinny half starved birds meekly trying to get a scrap. These were fat healthy fluffy proud "how dare you interrupt our meal" birds. I slowly started seeing black leather jackets over bright red t-shirts and wondered where their Harleys were parked. 2) I silently cursed Alfred Hitchcock for instilling deep in my subconscious a fear that they were getting ready to launch themselves from the tree branches and beak me to death. I slowly backed up ready at a moments notice to duck and protect my head... fumbled for the door, found the handle and let out a sigh of relief until I realized I had inadvertently locked myself out. Crud.