Transition to Texas

I know the best part of reading blogs is seeing new pictures. I don't have any great ones from our move yet. But, I thought maybe we were due for another little update. I think last time I told tales of our trip over the ocean and lice... Well, I for one am happy to report that if it was lice, it didn't hang around. The one little egg in Ethan's hair was it!

Let's see...Ashlynn, she is adjusting well to our move. She keeps asking to "go home," I don't really think she understands where all her toys are and why we keep our clothes in suitcases, although she loves toting around her suitcase just because she can! With all the traveling and instability she hasn't been napping much and that makes for some fun afternoons and evenings! But, she is still doing pretty well with her potty-ing, not many accidents since we left Germany. Our hope is we are on our last pack of "night time" pull-ups. Once we get into our house and get settled we are going to push for her to get night time trained.

Ethan, he is doing really well. We have had some days of attitude, but I think it's getting better. He gets angry and yells or pouts. All in all, with him leaving his loving friends and wonderful teachers, I think it was to be expected. He asked me on one rainy day we had, "Mom, is this Texas? I thought it was supposed to be hot?!" I agreed, but we have had 2 or 3 HOT days to make up for that one! He REALLY liked going to see Monsters Vs Aliens in the REAL theater. He thought that was so much fun! However, he has told me he doesn't know what his favorite part about living here is yet!

Kalib, he is adjusting the best out of the kids. He still asks about his friends and classmates in Germany. He'll say, "I wonder what my class is doing in Germany today?" It really breaks my heart to have had to move them from a wonderful school with great friends and teachers! Kalib is gearing up for his 7th birthday at the end of the month! It hardly seems possible that our first born is so old! He is quite the little man and pretty helpful when he wants to be. I think for his birthday he has his sights once again set on a Nintendo DS, but I think we may have to still wait until he is taking better care of the Gameboy he already has. We are thinking maybe a bike would be better since his got stolen in Germany.

Travis is at his first day of work today. He had taken some time off for house hunting. We found a house we wanted to buy it is a cute 1 story brick home, it is 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 2 car garage with an awesome back yard. We have been busy going through all the process and paperwork to get things squared away so we can move in. We are officially under contract!! We should close by the end of the month and will hopefully move in June 1st! This is very exciting for us as it is our first home and the process has definitely been easier than what we thought it should be. God has paved the way each step we've taken. The Realtors, bankers and insurance agents we've met along the way are not just chance meetings, but divine appointments God has given us to make this process almost stress free!

There is a great kids play place in the gym here on base. My kids have enjoyed going to the gym more than I have actually. We are going to try to get in a grove of life today. Here after a bit I will get the kids up, get us ready to go and we will have a full morning at the gym and then off to story time at the library.

We have been so blessed to know a few families near by. One of my cousins lives about 45 minutes from here so we were able to meet up with them for lunch on Mother's Day. A family we knew in Germany was passing through town yesterday and we met up with them for lunch at another friend's home. It was nice to get to see some friends from Germany on this side of the ocean. There have also been several other people we knew or friends of ours knew in Germany around to help us out if we need it. And, another bonus of being here, our neighbors from Germany will be moving here by the end of the summer. Even if we don't make new friends we have lots of our old ones near by. However, I don't think it will be hard to make new friends as people seem to be quite friendly. We are loving Texas more every day! I guess that's about it...Sorry I've been long winded! Talk to you soon, Blessings to you all!

Texas Living

I was thinking it is time for a move update. First of all, we want to thank you so much for your prayers. We are recovering from jet lag...getting closer to a regular schedule anyhow. Our travels did go well. God was looking out for us every step of the way. Our flight from Germany was delayed 24hrs for one reason or another, basically just running behind schedule. We were pretty frustrated as that made us have to change our already booked flights, hotels and rental car. But, as it turns out God had a plan for us. Had the Military flight been on time, our connecting flight from Baltimore to Dallas hit rough weather and got diverted to Austin and had to be delayed over night as well. All because the military flight was behind the rest of our trip was smooth for us! YAY God! We have established cell phones and have one day of house hunting behind us with 2 great possibilities. We are starting to feel a tad settled, it's just the huge list of PCS things we have to do, re-register the van, update insurance, update mailing addresses, etc. Life is shaping up pretty well for now.

We did have one scare...I wanted to share...Travis wasn't so upset as I was he never saw it though...After our first night here in Wichita Falls, I was giving Ethan a bath yesterday and think I found a lice egg in his hair...YUCK!!! I freaked out...I cut it out of his hair and had housekeeping come change ALL of our bedding, pillows, etc...I have been washing all of our things in HOT water and checking the kids hair frequently throughout the day. I pray it wasn't really one and if it was changing everything fixed the problem...WELCOME TO TEXAS!?!

Well, that's about it for now. God is good and has been with us each step of the way.

Homeless

It wasn't really apparent to me, until Ashlynn said today, "I want to go home." A simple statement, but how did I answer that? We don't have a home right now! Let's try getting an almost 3 year old to understand that! Not as easy as it sounds! We are still praying God has the perfect home prepared for us to live in once we finally arrive at our new base. For now, we are hotel living! Which, that's fun enough, but I know it'd be more fun if we had time to use the pool. Hopefully when we get to our hotel in Dallas we will. We are currently in Baltimore and headed out to Dallas later today. We will stay the night there and pick up our van tomorrow! Praise God! We are SO EXCITED to have our van back!

Cleaning Time!

We have spent much of the last week cleaning our house and today is the REALLY BIG cleaning day before our final out of our house here in Germany.(So what if I'm taking a break) And let me tell you, I am sick of scrubbing and sick of the smell of bleach and oven cleaner....Oh well, this time tomorrow we'll be out of the house and sitting in TLF(for those who don't know, Temporary Living Facility). I can only pray our transition back to America is better than our first few days in Germany. If you want to take a walk down memory lane, let's remember...board plane to Germany...sit on plane for 2 hours before take off for a 10 hour flight...could have been worse...get picked up from the airport in a dodge neon...we were oh so comfy with our 2 carseats and 10 bags shoved all around us, but I suppose it could have been worse...arrive at TLF...3rd floor...could have been worse, no phone in our unit....could have been worse...no phone in our BUILDING...could have been worse...no play pen for Ethan to sleep in...could have been worse....find play pen...things are looking up...drink nasty tap water...could have been worse, we didn't get sick after all...call sponsor for ride to the store...he tells us to walk...grrrr...could have been worse...find out one of the movers stole and maxed out a Credit Card...could have been much worse, I guess God was looking out for us, but the list goes on with the things that went wrong or poorly for us. By our 3rd day here I was crying telling Travis I didn't want to move here any more...let's just go back home...It was a rough start! As I take my break from cleaning I am now thinking about all the growth we have done here. For starters, one more child, our family is complete. But, I am really talking about our hearts our spiritual growth. God has been good in changing us and strengthening us. I can't even begin to tell you all we've experienced here that has brought us from who we were then to who we are today. We are so thankful for those of you who have helped us along the way and contributed to our life. It has been an incredible 4 years and we are so blessed to have shared it with those of you over here and those of you over the phone/computer. We can only pray our next 4 years are just as amazing. Thank you God for our time here in Germany!

I thought it due time for Easter pictures, so here are a few...We had a grand time dying eggs the Friday before. I drug the kids out for some pictures one day that week...And, we had a very blessed Easter Sunday. We spent the day at our church for a wonderful breakfast and fellowship time, then we attended the church service, and afterwards we were so lucky to spend our time with our dear friends at their home in Dudeldorf, we all over dosed on Chocolate, and enjoyed NO RAIN! It was a mellow day of remembering why Jesus died for us too and fellowship with friends.

2 Weeks 'Til Take Off

We have 2 weeks until we will be leaving Germany. We will probably be at the terminal ready to fly out almost exactly 2 weeks from the moment I am typing this (give or take an hour or 2). Our unaccompanied baggage just left out our front door. Earlier in the week we got e-mail confirmation that our Household Goods shipment arrived in TX and just needs us to be there and get a house to put it in. Our van at last check had made it to the Port in Georgia, and was headed to TX, so as luck, or God rather, would have it, nothing sunk in the ocean! Praise God!

In other news, we are still really praying on where we are going to be living. Our prayers continue that once we arrive and look at some houses we will know just where to call home. I will REALLY try to upload some Easter pictures soon, I don't know where this week has gone, but it seems as though time is flying by and we will be on to our next adventure in life sooner than we think!

Movie Park Germany

We were trying to come up with a fun day trip to do on our first day of Spring Break. We ran into dead end after dead end. Finally someone gave me some good info on the Movie Park Germany. They were having a special where kids get in for the price of their age instead of 27 Euro Each. We got everything lined up and packed up and headed out on our adventure Friday morning.

We were so surprised how wonderful the place really was. Even Ashlynn could go on most of the rides. We were able to go on roller coasters, water rides, spinning rides, and trains. Ashlynn and Ethan were too short to go on the Dora Star Mountain River Ride and Ashlynn was NOT happy about that one. But Travis and Kalib were able to go and had a blast! We each had our favorite ride, but I think we liked almost all of them. There was an alien one that was a bad choice by mom and dad...a little creepy, but we all made it through. Most of the rides were Nick themed rides and Nick Characters were all over the place. We thought Ashlynn would be so excited to meet Dora, but she hated all of the characters if they got to close she cried. Oh well, the boys were more than happy to be meeting SpongeBob, Dora, Diego, Patrick, Pablo, Tyrone, Uniqua, the Pink Panther, and Jimmy Neutron. As a matter of fact, every time we would see any of them they would have to give them a hug and say hello! When it was time to sit and have lunch there was a great park the kids could climb and play on. We were able to walk around and see some neat things. It was one of the most fun days we have had in quite some time. We are so blessed to have such amazing family time!