Love this!

Nothing more beautiful to me than this!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Last night it POURED!!!  It was nice to wake up to clean air!  It's not cold enough to have snow in town, but look at the  pretty picture we woke up to!


 I took this on the way home from Community Time at the school.  The kids participated in "Christmas Around the World".  The links for their presentation in Macedonian is here, and the singing of Silent Night in French, German, and Macedonian can be found here.  Guess what else?  Santa came to visit QSI!  Here he is arriving:

 And listening to the QSI choir sing:

The kids got to sit on his lap, and will bring pictures home.  School is out in 10 minutes, then it's 3 weeks of boredom - I mean fun and joyful kids at home!!!

En Garde!

Merry Christmas to Aubree!  Her fencing gear arrived today!  The pants are the wrong size, so we're sending them back.  Doesn't she look amazing?  She's having a lot of fun with this sport!

Our Next Assignment!

Mike received an email last night that he has been paneled for Houston, Texas!  We are excited to move back to the States (even though we REALLY wanted to stay overseas), because we will be closer to family.  The last month, I have been talking myself into moving back.  It was a long shot to get another overseas position, as State Medical only approved 3 cities for Aubree to go to.  So, here I've been psyching myself up to move back, and every day I have found a positive reason.  Houston was Mike's #1 pick, and I was going back and forth between Houston and Denver.  I've known all along that we will end up where the Lord needs us, and I know that I will be happy wherever we live, so it didn't really matter to me where it was.  If all goes well, we'll be able to extend to be there 3 years, and Aubree will graduate from high school.  Our biggest challenge will be finding a home to rent that is affordable and in a neighborhood with AMAZING schools.  We've already heard from many friends that the Woodlands fits that bill, so we might concentrate there.  I sold a lot of our furniture before we moved out here, so there will be quite a bit that we'll need to purchase.  It will be nice to have all the rest of our stuff out of storage.  As this was our first overseas post, I wasn't quite sure what to bring.  I miss a lot of things, and some that I was sure were coming out, didn't.  (Next time I will know better what to pack.)  Anyway, here is a list, in no particular order, of things I am looking forward to.

REAL milk!!!  Not shelf milk or powdered, but real!
Boy Scouts where I don't have to be everything.
different kinds of cheeses
Seminary for Aubree
foods that haven't been salted to within an inch of their lives
fruit whenever I want it
real streets
being able to return things to a store if it doesn't fit, breaks, etc.
being only 1 time zone away from my sisters!!!

Things I am going to MISS!
Fresh fruit in season - SO flavorful
the most amazing tomatoes EVER!!!
Shopska salad
good Feta cheese
kebap

Family Photos

Our friend David took new photos of our family, and they turned out great!  The pictures on our wall are 2.5 years old, and the kids (mostly Aubree) have changed a lot!  I can't wait to get the prints in the mail!!!

Happy Halloween!!!

I vant to suck your blood!



My masterpiece!





The calculator says "HELLO"!



Yummy Food!!!

Did you know I contribute to a food blog?  Well, now you do.  My little sister started it as a way to have my mom's recipes in one place.  I love being able to easily find a recipe, instead of calling around to figure out who has what.  It's also a fun way to find new recipes that my sisters have tried.  I've been collecting new recipes as I am now more "domestic".  It's not easy to find ready-made things here, and I have to get creative when it comes to some ingredients.  I have learned that I enjoy cooking, especially when I have all the right tools.  It is very easy to cook fresh here (when things are in season), because all the fresh produce is AMAZING!!!  Aubree and a couple of her friends decided that they wanted to go vegetarian and no soda for a month.  We told Aubree that we would do more meatless meals, but we couldn't do 100%.  She has, however given up soda completely.  So, in my quest to find meatless meals that still have good protein, I've been looking at beans.  We can get a couple different kinds here, and I also already had some in my pantry.  The black beans and rice was a HUGE hit.  I wanted a good red beans and rice recipe, and my amazing friend Mandy gave me hers!  It is authentic Louisiana cuisine, and my boys weren't all that thrilled with it.  It had too many vegetables, I didn't add the sausage, and it was soupier than what they were envisioning.  Aubree and I loved it!  The leftovers are being frozen into individual portions so we can eat them for lunch later on.  I'm not freezing the rice with it, but it's really good by itself as a stew.  If you would like to try out this incredible dish, just click here, or click on the blog on the sidebar that is titled "Simply Delectable Cooking".  Let me know if you try anything out, and if you have a favorite family recipe, please send it to me!  I would love to try it!!!  Oh, and another awesome part of the food blog is the pictures included with each post!  (Except the black beans and rice.  My family ate it so fast, I didn't have time to get a picture!!!)

First Day of School 2011!

I just realized that my kids started school 2 weeks ago, and I haven't posted the pictures here yet!  I am such a slacker (as you can totally tell, because the last post is from before school got out!).  ANYWAY - we all had a great start to the new year, and it was fairly easy to get back into our routine.  I am keeping busy with the IWA.  Our first general meeting is this Wednesday, and while there are still some things to do, I'm feeling really good about it!
The BIGGEST change this year is that Aubree skipped a grade!  It's a long story, and we thought she would still be 8th grade on paper and some classes, but when it came down to it, she's a freshman in high school!  I know!  Weird!!!  Chris is in 4th grade, and has amazing teachers!  He's still reading a lot, but I'm encouraging him to focus on one book at a time.  Nick is in 1st grade this year!  He has gotten back into reading over the last couple weeks.  We had intended to do a lot of reading this summer, but being away from home for so long changed our plans.  I love listening to my children read!!!

All ready for 1st Grade!!!

The man in 4th Grade!

Aubree - can you believe this beauty is starting high school?

My babies are all grown up!

Mrs. Ruthanne Pilton and Chris in the classroom.

Nick and Mrs. Louise Kampen in the 1st Grade classroom.

Community Time

Every other Friday morning, the school has Community Time.  It's a time for classes to perform things they have worked on in class, and students to be recognized for different accomplishments.  I attended this last week because Nick was receiving an award, and Chris' class was reading their Viking stories.

Nick came in 1st Place in the 1/4 mile run for the boys in Kindergarten and 1st Grade.

Chris has been studying Vikings in class.  They all wrote a short story, practiced at home for homework, and performed at Community Time.  To see Chris read his story on Eric the Red and Eric the Yellow, click here.

Day 9 - Our last day :(

We forgot to buy t-shirts when we were in London, so Saturday the girls (minus L'eah) headed back into Brighton to try and find some.  We went to the mall and walked around, but they didn't have any touristy shops.  We went into Claire's to get Aubree some makeup applicators, and when we walked out, there was a threading booth right there.  I've been wanting to take Aubs in to get her eyebrows waxed for a while now, but was a little scared about how they would turn out.  So, I told her to sit down in the chair.  This was her thing I was buying for her, since she didn't get anything at Hamley's.  The girl was really fast and gave Aubree a really nice shape.  It was also cool to watch it being done.  I love how it accentuates her beautiful eyes!  My little girl is turning into a young woman!
After the mall, we walked along the seafront out to the pier, but only found shirts that had Brighton written on them.  We didn't mind walking though, because Saturday was the FIRST day (and of course our last day there) that the sun was shining!  It was still windy and cold, but the sun was out!  It was gorgeous!
We got back to the flat and picked up the boys and L'eah and went to go fly kites at Devil's Dyke.  Hannah will have to give us a lesson on why it's called Devil's Dyke.  Hannah bought a few cheap kites, and we tried to fly them.  For some reason, they didn't want to fly nicely.  They kept flipping over, then crashing.  It was super fun, though.  The countryside is lovely, and we had tons of fun in the sun!  We did one last dinner out, then headed home to pack up our stuff. 
We got to the airport early to get checked in, then had almost 2 hours to kill before our flight.  We got some breakfast and found t-shirts for the boys along with a couple other souvenirs.  We absolutely LOVED our visit to England.  Thank you Buzz and Hannah for being such great tour guides, and a HUGE thank you to Dave for putting us up!  Love you all!

Halfway there!

Brighton Beach from the Pier

Let the sun shine!!!

Trying to figure out how to put together the first kite.

Waiting to fly kites!

Buzz flies a kite!

Let's go fly a kite!!!

Panorama of Devil's Dyke

The rest of Day 8 - FINALLY!!!

The rest of our day in London, we rode a double decker bus!!!  We discovered that it was easier and faster than going into the Underground during rush hour.  Buzz just popped L'eah's pushchair into the bus and was able to stay with her in the pushchair/wheelchair spot.  The rest of us went to the top of the bus!  It was pretty vacant, and the kids had tons of fun!  We were able to hop on a couple times and really cut out a lot of walking.  The kids were VERY grateful, as by this time they were pretty tired.  Buzz was, too, from hauling L'eah in her pushchair up and down about 50 flights of stairs.

Anyway, we finished at St. Paul's and went shopping! Kind of, but not really. We went to the toy store Hamley's. It is 5 floors of toys, and the kids were in heaven! The first stop was Build-a-Bear, where they each picked out England shirts for their animal. I told them they could get one other thing, and the boys each chose Pokemon cards (because they didn't already have enough). I could afford those.  There really wasn't a whole lot to choose from for a 12 year old girl, so Aubree waited to get something.  By the end of this, we were STARVING, so we stopped at (don't hate me!) McDonald's for a quick bite.  We had tried other places the first time in town, and it was SOOOO expensive, and the kids didn't eat all of it.  So, McDonald's was an easy choice.  After we filled our bellies was when we discovered the amazingness of the double decker bus.

We did walk from Trafalgar square up the mall to Buckingham Palace.  It's a really beautiful building.  We had a lot of fun taking pictures there.  After the palace, we walked some more to some place that I don't remember the name of, then hopped on a bus to go to Harrod's.

Harrod's is HUGE!!!  We saw the memorial to Princess Diana, then wandered the food market part of the store.  All the food looked SO good, and was SOOOOOOO expensive!  We made one purchase at Harrod's - 2 dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts!  The kids were in absolute heaven!  We each ate one sitting there, then took the rest home.  Oh, they were yummy!  By the time we left Harrod's, it was dark and we headed back to the train station to return to Hove.  We had so much fun in London, and hope we get to go back sometime.

This arch is at one end of the mall, Buckingham is at the other.
Trafalgar Square is through it.

 

On a double decker bus!

We're on the upper deck!

Look at the other double deckers we can see from ours!

The view of a square from our double decker.

A view of Buckingham coming up the mall.

Buckingham Palace

The gates to somewhere across from Buckingham.  St. James Park, maybe?

The police officers standing guard.  The guy on the right was
kind enough to turn his head so we could see his cool hat. 
These are the only officers we saw carrying weapons.

The central gate.

Look!  Buzz and Hannah did come with us!

Queen Victoria was the "People's Queen", and there are statues of her everywhere!

Loved the sunset.  This is the statue of Queen Victoria in front of Buckingham.

The whole gang (well, minus me!).

We walked here.

And we also saw this.

The shrine to Diana & Dodi.  I didn't even get a little teary.

The ring that was the supposed engagement ring.