The last two months.... whew!

It has been a busy, busy two months.  Crazy busy with the kids going back to school, the beginning of sports, work, and of course, all the social activities that we MUST attend :-)

Dad has been off-island twice and the most fun part about that is that when we drop him off we just stay put have a fun beach day; when we pick him up we look for sea glass and try to spot pretty fish in the bay.  The Ferry brings everyone back from the airport and on the off chance that we get there early, we sometimes ride the Ferry to the Leeward side and wait at the terminal.

Emily (#6) started the year off really well.  She was selected, along with another boy, to become a student liaison or mentor to new incoming students.  They were taken to San Antonio, TX for one week of leadership training, shopping, fun, and homework... that was exciting.  Actually, despite the fact that they had a lot of homework to do on the road, they are now all caught up and doing well.  The training went well and she is really excited to share it with her school.  Emily raised her AP grades from a C to a B! YES!!!!!  Emily is still taking Tennis lessons and is now playing Volleyball with the High School team.  They recently had their first win and it was quite the battle.

Nate is doing really well in 3rd grade.  Her teacher is strict, but fair.  She really puts all the responsibility of getting work done and proper behavior on the students.  She is getting all her work done on time because she knows that no homework means no soccer or skateboard and she can't have that.  This is my very physical, athletic child. She is the one in blue about to bend it like Beckham or at least attempt to kick the ball.

Jonathan is doing well.  He spends a lot of time either at the pool, with friends in play groups or with me.  He is so darn cute and sweet. We are now practicing letters, numbers, shapes and colors.  His favorite line when he's getting yelled at is "I just want to be happy!! Kiss me, give me a hug!!"

As for me, well, I had to bid farewell to two truly great friends.  The amazing thing about living on base and more so in a community such as this one is that you form bonds that are so tight and so profound in a very short period of time.  Isabel is an amazing woman, huge heart, welcomed us with open arms and from day one we spent a lot of time together.  Amy, beautiful person and like Isabel, she too opened her house and arms to us.  We talked daily about everything.  These girls were my partners when I finally decided to become Scuba certified and we did it together.  It was quite the challenge.

I am still teaching 7 classes a week, all in high demand.  I love to spend time planning my classes and preparing for the next day.  I've started running again... speaking of which, we're running a 5K tomorrow and next week we have a 2 mile fun run with the dogs. That should be interesting.  Honey is going to love that.

Josh is doing fine, super busy with school, work, performances.  He was selected to join the Westminster Choir.  That was extremely exciting.  There are only 40 voices in the choir (I think) and I imagine they have very strict guidelines and a rigid selection process.  I am so proud of him.  I can't wait to hear him sing, he really needs to send me a CD soon.

Tomorrow is the Navy Ball and we are planning to begin our festivities around 4 pm.  I will return soon after to show our pictures and share the fun.  This is our date night, we get to dress up and be grown ups... well, ok, we'll call it that ;-)

Have a great weekend everyone.

Until next time!

Terie

Proud Moments in Pictures

I love taking pictures.  My kids used to call me "mammarazzi" because it seemed like I was always trying to catch every special and not so special moment on film (and now digitally). I'm not necessarily good at catching the shadows or certain special details that some professionals catch, but what I do have are the most amazing stories for every single picture I take.

I take pride in being a positive, energetic, generally happy person.  Now that school is out for me (yeepee!!) it is much easier to wake up happy too.  If not for my pictures I might have forgotten how much fun we've had and I might not realize how much I was really doing amidst final exams and written essays.  I still wonder how I managed to do it all and managed to smile each and every day.

Today I'm just sharing a few pictures of proud moments that I did not miss and I have the pictures to help me always remember.

Sent my first born off to college, we stayed in touch, he managed to get on the Dean's List and finish the first year with a bang!  I miss him so much but I'm always happy when he's happy.  We are so proud of him :-)

My little artist managed to amaze me yet again with another interesting self portrait.  I can barely manage stick people so I really don't know what talent gene pool she's taking after. I love it when she draws herself or others in a short period of time and doesn't realize how talented she is.  Anyway, we are proud of her and her improvements!

My little swimmer.  He started off screaming at the idea of getting in the pool and now he is jumping and swimming.  How crazy is that.  Kids learn so fast and adapt so quickly.  Now he's fearless, which makes me even more afraid.  I must keep my eyes on him at all times.  We are proud of him for taking such a leap in his swimming lessons.

Little Miss Scientist here announced that she wanted to grow up to protect endangered animals.  For her diorama she chose the Mountain Gorilla, learned all she could about them and then during the fair, shared what she learned with other adults and children.  We are so proud of her for persevering and completing this project.

So I think it goes without saying that we only have four kids, Ha! Kidding!  That we are proud of our kids and so happy that they are happy in everything they are doing.  I'm glad to have these and hundreds of other photos to go back and relive these very special, proud moments in pictures.  They don't have to be organized, in an album, or in a scrapbook (that would be cool but let's not kid ourselves) I'm just happy to have them.

Have a fantastic week everyone!

Terie

Update: The Kids in GiTMO

It's been a little while since I updated about anything GiTMO, mainly because I'm so busy running around being busy. There isn't anything here that is too far to go to or too complicated, though there are people who are either complicated or just lazy but that's everywhere. I wont focus on that right now.

It's been four weeks since the kids and I set foot on the island and we've shared our beaches, sea glass, and other fun things happening around here. Everyone is waiting for the huge "UGH! get me out of here" to come because sooner or later it does. Like I said before, every base has it's quirks and it's up to us to make things work or life will be miserable.

So on to the kids for a quick update on them:

Emily (15) is in 10th grade and adjusting well (I think?) Teens only say what's convenient for them so for us parents sometimes it's a wait-and-find-out game. But from what I can see she is doing OK. Switching schools was the biggest transition, you know, because of the social impact it has on her life. However, things have been easier because we have friends of all ages in our block. Emily has a friend named Emily. They have a lot in common and get along well. They've started taking tennis lessons together and spend a lot of time doing what most teens do - hanging out at the pool, the NEX, the movies; they even go on long walks as part of their exercise routine--and I use the word routine lightly. But that keeps them from getting bored.

Even though we came in towards the end of the semester, Emily was expected to catch up and do a lot of the work or at least a portion of what the kids were working on. She had to read Great Expectations in Honors English and later write about it, has several other writing projects going on in her Honors History class. In Culinary Arts she had to prepare a meal for us at home and she did a great job considering she's not the best at reading recipes. She started with an Italian theme and soon it became an International theme. She made Chicken Marinara with Bow tie pasta, a lovely Greek salad, French bread, and Strawberry Shortcake for dessert. In Art she was told that her work could be sold because it was that good, she doesn't believe that but I do agree, she is a good artist, especially with pencil drawings.

Nate also has friends on the block. They get along great, play a lot and play hard. I love to see these kids playing without worries on the playground. Everyone looks out for the kids because everyone has them and we all sort of expect the same from each other. Nate jumped in feet first and is loving her class. Her teacher doesn't give them time to miss anything. She is a reading advocate. She wants her kids to be a grade ahead of their years in reading and so far she's been able to get all the kids to test above their expected reading level. She's fantastic and everyone loves her. Nate is also taking Spanish and Computers.

Jonathan has friends here too. Eva his 2 year old friend across the street. She's a cutie. We get together often at home or at the playground and let them run wild. They play well together. Most mom's know that where there are moms there is at least one play group. Here we have a couple to choose from. I prefer the "disorganized" play group. I call it that because we (the moms) get together have conversation with other adults and the kids play in a playroom, outside, everywhere. No planned activities, just play time. Occasionally there are tears due to the whole sharing thing but we resolved that quickly and send them on their way to play again. By the time we leave the kids are ready for a nap and the moms had a great time connecting with other moms. There are a few dads with little kids but I think they have their own way to connect because they never come to the Tuesday morning Coffee.

What have we done for fun lately: we went to a Kareoke Fun Night where Nate won 1st prize singing A Horse with no Name. Quite funny how many kids sang really old songs and won. We played kickball at the soccer field. We probably had 25 kids there easily and every single kid got to kick that ball. We have been to the movies several times - it's free!! We go for long walks, bike rides or in Jonathan's case, a stroller ride up and down these hills, it's quite the workout. We go to the pool, the beach, and the playground often and when all else fails, we send out an email saying "hey everyone come over for lunch, bring the kids and your lunch" --how fun is that.

While this all seems like really busy time, I do get a lot of time for me to catch up with homework (last semester--woohoo!) and talk to friends online or via google chat (that is the best, like talking on the phone but free), time to watch TV but best of all I always manage to find time to just "be."

The quiet mornings are my favorite. I usually go out back with my coffee or tea and watch the sun rise over the mountains. The bay goes through a rainbow of colors and the still waters just make me want to be still. It really is relaxing and calming and I am blessed to have that to look at every day.

That's it for now. Until next time.

Feel free to leave a comment, ask questions, talk to me!