Tristian

Tristian is a unique child. I've been told that he is helpful more than once. He got the award in Kindergarten for the most helpful. I've also been told he has "an old soul". I truly believe that. So, this blog is about him and may be ongoing, if I can remember to keep it up.

By 1 year old, Tristian...
had flown in a plane from Indiana to Florida twice.
could clean up his toys into his toy box with very little help.
could drink from a cup.
had been walking for over 2 months.
had been swimming in a pool.
had been camping, sort of, but hated it, so we returned home before falling asleep.
had rode a horse with Mama.
had tubes put in his ears.

By 2 years old, Tristian
had been to his first amusement park, Holiday World in Santa Claus, IN;
.... and spent the whole day in the water park part.
moved houses for the first time.
slept in a real bed, not a crib.
went camping, for real, in a tent (on the hottest week of the year, so we ended up in a hotel).
visited Squire Boone Caverns in Southern Indiana.
had his first febrile seizure and scared Mom and Dad to death.
...which led to his first ambulance ride.
went to his first of many RV shows.

By 3 years old, Tristian
could look at one side of a truck or trailer and tell you the TOTAL number of wheels on it.
could help dad set up the pop up camper. His job was to put the legs down. Although, he was was caught trying to "hook up" the camper to his "Flintstone-type" car!
had his 2nd febrile seizure in the baggage claim of the Orlando airport. Mom remained calm.
had another tube put in his right ear and came out of the surgery smiling, being carried by the recovery room nurse! Such a church baby!
knew the names of all the types of campers: 5th wheels, travel trailers, pop-ups, class A, class C.
had been to Dollywood and Splash Country in Pigeon Forge, TN.

By 4 years old, Tristian
became a big brother.
"fixed" a bottle for his baby sister by pouring water in a new can of formula.
got his sister out of her crib, strapped her into her car seat and declared her "ready to go"! (I immediately called the pediatrician and she assured me that babies were more resiliant than I thought, but watch her for a couple of days anyway. She was FINE!)
was finally potty trained! (closer to 3 years old, but not before)
had a new job on a new camper: legs on the camper again, but also helping Daddy back up the van to the camper hitch. Dead on, every time!
had seen the arch in St. Louis, MO.
had been to Six Flags in St. Louis, MO.
saw over 3 feet of snow fall in less than 24 hours!

By 5 years old, Tristian
was learning to read.
had learned to ride a bike without training wheels.
wanted to be a Wal-mart truck driver.
had been to Magic Kingdom, Gatorland, Busch Gardends (Tampa) twice, Sea World, Florida Aquarium, Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure.
had been to the Air & Space Museum in Dayton, OH.
had been to the Newport Aquarium in Newport, KY - other side of Ohio River from Cincinnati.
had been to the Children's Museum in Indianapolis, IN.
had been on a real train ride (Amtrak).
had rode the Tri-rail (South Florida) to the Metro rail (Miami) to eat dinner in Miami at a Cuban restaurant.

By 6 years old, Tristian
had been on a rode trip, without a hotel stop, from Avon Park, FL, to Seymour, IN!
had spent 7 weeks in South Florida with his grandparents! A long stint without parents!

By 7 years old, Tristian
had played drums in a choir concert at school.
had received the "Most Helpful" award for Kindergarten.

By 8 years old, Tristian
had saved enough money to buy his own bike.
had rode on the Metro into DC to see "the city" and visit a Smithsonian.
saw the White House, the Washington Monument and walked around DC.
was being evaluated for the gifted program at school.
had gone to his first indoor water park.
learned how to send a text message.
moved from Indiana to Virginia.

House Renovation Complete

Well, a lot of time has gone by, over a month. I was not in town for the house renovations, so I could not take pictures. The contractor had his workers start demolishing the house inside before I could get in there with a camera. I have some pictures that have been taken with a camera phone, so they are not of the greatest quality. I will post these later.

All in all, the renovations went well and were completed within a month! Our contractor rocks!! He'll be back when we replace the carpeting with bamboo flooring. That will be in a few years. He'll also be changing out the linoleum in the baths and kitchen. We went on the cheap side just so we could move in.

Right now most of our stuff is still in our basement, where we moved it while in transition between houses. We have most of our furniture upstairs, though. There are some minor pieces downstairs still, but nothing heavy that we can't handle. A lot of clothes are still downstairs and we continue to say, "I think that's in the camper", as Fred was living in our camper for 2 weeks. So, as I upload pictures from my camera and phone, I will post them on here.

Still trying to close

Yes. We're still trying to go to closing. We've heard everything from 'one more signature' to 'one more person' to 'there's a condition'. UGH! We're so far into this, we don't feel like we can walk away. Our original closing date was May 21st and you can see the date (June 14th) and we've still not closed. We have a packed moving truck in our driveway and boxes within the house. We're living on the bare essentials and not having fun.

Our landlord asked us to be out by June 15th, but I asked to be able to finish out the school year until June 20th to give us time to clean and get the carpets cleaned, as well. Now, it's like we won't even make that deadline!

We'll be living in our camper, or, at least, Fred will. My hope is to go to Florida for a significant amount of time while the house is getting renovated. My sister, at this point, has arranged for us to get into Disney for FREE on June 24th. That's 10 days and, with all the delays we've had so far, doesn't seem possible. I would like to start driving south by this Saturday, the 20th, but who knows. As of right now, movers come on Thursday, the 18th, and carpet cleaners on Friday. Hmm...wonder if we'll make it. Wonder if we'll have to postpone those dates, too.

BTW, the first offer that was written on this house was March 29th. It's been 2 1/2 months!!!

New Home Purchase

It's been so long. I'm a slacker, but I'm also working on my master's and just tired of 'writing'. Sooo, here's an update.

We weren't really looking for houses and stumbled across a foreclosure just 4 houses down from where we live now in our rented home. What makes this house so desirable for us is the location. We went inside and saw a lot of cosmetic things, nothing major. This was on a Saturday.

We went for another visit and decided to put in an offer. It went back and forth and we ended up with a good deal/offer/acceptance. Now we're in the process of picking out the details of our renovation. The kitchen is going to be the biggest and costliest project, so I'm highlighting that. The kitchen is a galley, so not much to do there. However, it is getting gutted. One day, I will add before and after pictures. Right now, I just wanted to get this started.

I will take pictures of other rooms and the outside, but the baths and kitchen will show the biggest changes. We are also going basic on floor coverings due to costs. We plan to make our 'dream renos' in the future when we won't have to finance them into a 30 year mortgage.

Stayed tuned. :)

End of the year 2008

I'm not one to make new year's resolutions, so if that's what you're expecting, so sorry. I have also never written a Christmas letter. So this is sort of my version of one for this year.

This year has brought our family many changes. It started out fairly busy. Fred left just after the new year for an advanced course in Alabama. He was gone for about 4 weeks. He returned for about 3 weeks and was off again. This time for 6 weeks. In the middle of this course, was Spring Break for the kids and I. So we trekked it the 11 or so hours to Alabama from Indiana to visit for a long weekend. It was a nice time. We headed out the next day to an indoor water park for an overnight trip in Indianapolis. It was a great size for just me and the two kids. I could plant myself in one spot and see both kids. At the same time, I could see snow on the ground outside! We said we'd want to come back next year. During this same time I started on my Master's degree for Education, as did Fred (MBA, though). Boy, were our lives changing!

Just before the school year ended, Fred heard grumblings about a position in the Washington DC National Guard. He'd get to fly more and possibly secure his retirement. We left on our annual furlow to our favorite camping spot for the Memorial Day weekend and had it in the back of our minds. I finished up my first series of classes and started my ESL summer school position for the next 5 weeks. This after flying the kids down to Florida to spend it with my family down there.

The first of these weeks were met with a tornado and flooding. A tornado hit Camp Atterbury where Fred was doing his annual training and nearly totaled our truck. It took them a month to fix it. The tornado was followed 4 days later by flooding that made national news! What a mess. We were spared, but so many in our community were not.

At the end of the 5 weeks of summer school, we still hadn't heard about the DC position, so our lives were literally on hold. The principal at my school was anxious to hear, but promised me that I would retain my position, despite the fact that I may be leaving. This brought us to mid-July.

We left on our week-long vacation at the end of July and returning the beginning of August. We visited and explored Northern Indiana in Amish country. We learned a lot and sampled some great food. They have the best cheese up there. Yum!

Still no word...then wait! Around August 8th, 3 weeks before Labor Day, we had the word. Fred was going to DC. They wanted us there by Labor Day. That was 3 weeks! and 2 1/2 weeks into the school year. We had to act fast. In the middle of all this, Fred had to do a weekend drill. Then we headed out to Virginia to look for housing. The following week, we moved. We sold a lot of our furniture, but nothing from the bedrooms and loaded up a Uhaul and moved! Oh my! What a trip. We took 3 days, but the Uhaul would only go about 30 mph up most of the mountains! We were moved in officially on Labor Day and registered Tristian for school the next day. That was the first day of school in Virginia.

We then set off to look for a pre-school for Kaela. We found a local Christian school and checked it out. They observed our interactions with her and suggested she try Kindergarten for a day. She did and did extremely well. So, bam, she was enrolled in Kindergarten. Of course, we missed her first day of school pictures because we weren't expecting her to start Kindergarten. Oh well. So next year, we will have the choice of whether she will start Kindergarten again or 1st grade, but she's doing extremely well in Kindergarten, so we'll see.

I got a job as an ESOL teacher, primarily teaching 1st graders, which I love! The school is on the Northern part of Manassas, but it's a quick commute, taking about 20 minutes from Kaela's school. Tristian wanted to join me, but all his friends would be all the way across the county and that just wouldn't be fair. Maybe next year all 3 of us will be together! ;)

Tristian was involved with Basketball for the first time and joined the Cub Scouts. He's in a wolf pack. Kaela has taken up ballet and tap and is also a Daisy, which is girl scouts for Kindergarteners. They both love their activities and will continue with them into the new year!

So we ended the year on a good note. We are wavering back and forth between saving more to buy a house or jumping on the housing opportunities now. We love the area we live in and wouldn't want to settle for another area at the moment just because the price is right.

I guess that's all for now and have the plans to do a real Christmas letter next year. Uh, was that a resolution???