Friday 22 May

Regensburg is a really nice little city. It had a lot of shopping and Claudia got a great new dress, shoes and purse. I saw some really nice things as well, but they were quite expensive. I loved this leather shoulder bag with a large flap, but it was 200 Euros. I refrained from buying it, only to regret that later this summer. Emma got a copy of Freckle Face Strawberry in German which she was really happy with since she was learning a lot of German while there. James got a set of stamps which he enjoyed. I found that I have been really drawn to yellow, there was a great outfit there all in yellow, with an amazing coordinating purse. I saw a wonderful antique stand for a pocket watch but it was 400 Euros. I wanted to get it for Carl, but that was just too expensive.
The Cathedral in Regensburg was really nice, not as much gold but the outside was very ornate with a lot of stone work. The tomb underneath the had all the priests for it starting in 697. You just can’t find that history in the USA. The Cathedral was originally built in the roman style, but then was either torn down or destroyed then the gothic cathedral was built upon it. We also went into a protestant church. It was built in the 1600s, very old and impressive. Emma, James and Claudia went up into the bell tower. Later at 4pm we stopped for dinner. The kids got chicken strips with salad. Surprisingly James didn’t like it. It was more like real bread crumbs and the ketchup was more like tomato paste thinned out with tomato sauce, not the sugary American stuff. So, needless to say, dinner was a fight to get the kids to eat it. Carl got a sausage salad, but it truly was a plate of sausage swimming in vinegar, he choked down almost half of it, before Claudia couldn’t take it and traded with him.
After dinner we left Regensburg and drove to Bischofswiesen in the south, our next youth hostel waiting for us. Carl was really impressed, within 100 km of the hostel we could start to see the mountains. They sprung straight up out of the earth. Just as impressive as the Tetons, even more so maybe. It was nice and cool up in the mountains. When we set up our room in the hostel the kids didn’t want to go on a walk so just Carl, Claudia, Anna and I went. It was a nice walk, Anna ran most of the way. She is so cute with her dimples, hair, personality – just the whole package. By the time we got back, Emma was asleep and we weren’t even gone very long.

Thursday - May 21st

2nd day in Prague...in our late night walking, the night before, to show the kids the castle all lit up at night we found a toy store. So at 10:00 am we checked out of the youth hostel and headed to the toystore. i told the kids that they couldn't get anything that we could buy at target, walmart, or toys r us, also they couldn't spend all of their money. nearly everything there was american other than their baby toys, but we didn't need any of those. Emma bought a little cat wehre you push the button on the bottom and he collapses. James was really dissapointed and was pouty for quite a while. We then walked to the main square to see the clock but we just had missed it. The buildings and fountain were really pretty there though. Since we missed the castle the day before we decided to try again. So we wlaked over to the river then decided to hop on the trolly to cross the river and travel up the hill. Luckily they didn't check to see if anyone had paid, he, he. It was great that we rode up the hill it saved everyone's feet, even with that, our feet all hurt by noon. Even Claudia's feet hurt, and that is saying something. So, we went in the cathedral. It was really similiar to Notre Dame in Paris. Even the layout and the decor. it also had the same flying buttresses. the kids were fried and I was so sick of eating cheese and bread by the end of the day. So we finally left Prague and still had 400 crowns (about $20). The town before the German border we got some Czech cookies and wafers with some juice and water to use up our money. The wafers are for the kids to take back to school for their class presentations. Our drive took us around three hours to our next stop. the youth hostel in Regensburg, Germany we stayed at was nice and had a tether ball for the kids to play with. they enjoyed it. we walked into town and had a really nice German meal at a HB (hofbrauhaus). it was fun to window shop there too. the stores were all closed because it was so late.

Wednesday May 20th

We walked our feet off all over Prague!
It was fun, we went into the bell tower right near the St Charles bridge, hiked up to the castle on the hill. The castle grounds were closed due to a dignitary visit. We walked in the park on the hill near the castle then climbed up to a tower at th etop. It had 299 steps and my legs were really tired and I was out of breath. The view was great. There were marionette shops everywhere in Prague that lured the children in like the candy man in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Also garnet jewelry and crystal were everywhere. The city reminded me a lot of Paris, but I preferred Paris overall. The architecture was amazing. It didn't experience any bombing during the war so it was in great shape. All of our feet hurt after our day. We bought some nice artwork of Prague from a man on the St Charles bridge. He did the etchings on the metal plates and then prints it on paper. Very similar to the way Uncle Jim does his carving on boxwood.
Once the sun goes down the night life of Prague comes out. High heels, fancy dresses and sharp looking suits and sportcoats are everywhere. Interestingly we saw the elderly missionary couple for Prague. they were only 6 days away form going home to San Francisco, actually they wanted to travel a little before going home.
The streets of Prague were very narrow and many of the buildings were different colors - different from Paris. There were a lot of wooden or meal arched doors with the smaller door built into it for a person to walk through. nearly all of the streets were cobblestone. Carl got a stone from the St Thomas bridge near where they were doing maintenance. The walk in the park area near the castle was really nice, a sharp contrast to the city.
Oh, Prague is expensive...$200 for parking 1.5 days.

Tuesday May 19th - Day 5

In the morning we went on a nice boat ride all around Berlin, it was a 3 hour tour. My German had not come back enough that I understood much, but we all had a great time. The time went by fast. We got to see all different sorts of things. Nice parks, modern buildings, and a lot of historical buildings. we also crossed the point where the river was the old dividing line between east and west Berlin. It was interesting to see the bridge with the respective symbols on each tower of the bridge for the different halves of the city. we also saw the only bridge in Berlin that survived WWII. After we were done with the boat tour, we went through a great flea market and I got some great fabrics for dresses for me and the girls. One for me is yellow and black, very nice.
Afterwards we drove to Prague. we stopped at a truck stop for dinner and had silverware, glass plates with our schnitzel, kraut and sausage. I tried the curry wurst (a Berlin specialty). It was pretty good. You can also get curry ketchup in germany, I liked that as well. We got to Prague at 9pm or so. Carl got a ticket for driving on a restricted street. he paid a fine of 1,000 Czech crowns which equaled about $50. The cops showed him right where the ATM was to pay his fine, and gave him a receipt for 500 crowns.

Monday - May 18th Day 4

The girls and the boys split up today. Me and the girls went to the aquarium in berlin. Claudia had a sewing class to go to. The aquarium was small but really nice. They had a fairly large shark and sting rays that were neat to see. After we were done we saw the church with the top blown off in the war - the gedechnichs Kirche. Very neat looking and something I remembered from when I went to Berlin when I was 14. We then rode the subway to Potsdamm Platz to go to the lego experience, but it cost a lot and we didn't have enough time to see it. Anna latched onto a princess lego doll. She wouldn't let go for anything. So, I bought it for her. Never have I seen her attach to a doll so quickly. I also got soem lego star wars figures for James and Emma. we met up with James, Carl and Claudia at 4pm. We went and traded our car for a larger car since that was what were were supposed to get in the first place. After we did some shopping we found an amazing kids outdoor store. James got some great hiking boots and a nice rain jacket for his trip in August with Carl and the teton mountains. For dinner we met Claudia's parents at a north African restaurant. It was great, and Emma even found something she would eat - couscous. Emma got her zebra stuffed toy about 4" tall, she really wanted one to take around Europe with her.

Sunday May 17th - Day 3

Today we went to a castle - Sans Soucci. I was the first one up for the day - amazing!
Emma's quote of the day, so I asked if she had room for ice cream and she said, "sweets always just slip in."
The palace was nice. there were 10 rooms in the main castle living quarters. Then the kitchen and the bakery area were separate. So teh smells of the kitchen didn't enter the main house. Then the DamenFluegel or place for women, was also separate. When in the women's quarters we went upstairs and Emma counted 20 stairs in german and learned Die Treppe (stairs in german). She really liked it, this became a theme for our trip. James hadn't been that interested in learning the German, but he enjoys the history.
After that we went into the gardens which were magnificent. the kids enjoyed the fountains, ducks and fish. We made the long walk to Die Neuess Sans Soucci, a much bigger castle, it had really ornate wooden floors. the kids were getting pretty tired of walking. Emma was really fussing about her feet. Even my feet hurt some. We then walked into Potsdam and had a nice German meal. Emma got just noodles and cheese, and James didn't like his schnitzel which was really surprising. Claudia and her dad, Jachim, went with us the whole day, it was really nice.

Germany Trip - Day 2

Saturday May 16th - Amsterdam is beautiful!

Flying in we got to see a long sandy beach, a huge shipping port with what looked like lochs, tons of wind turbines in the ocean and even several baseball diamonds. Anna got to see another airplane in the sky flying near us over Ireland, she thought that was neat.

the Amsterdam airport is HUGE. We should land in Berlin at 11:20 am. Emma and Daddy slept on the flight to Berlin while James and I read The Graveyard Book (very good read, but terrible beginning). we purchased a camera battery charger in the Amsterdam airport for $130! ouch. That was expensive.

Claudia was waiting for us right off the plane. It is really good to see her. We went to the car rentals but the carl taht wwe got was supposed to seat 6 plus luggage, but would only fit 5 and no luggage. So there were no 7-9 seaters in Berlin available. She ended up getting us a 5 seater with a jump seat and we really squished in it. On Monday there will be a bigger car available and we will change for a 7 seater. It was really helpful to have Claudia to translate for that experience. It would have been a good test of my rusty German.

Emma near one of the neat old houses on our walk. We didn't take a pic of Claudia's family house...oops

We went straight out to the country to Riewend, to Claudia's family weekend house. It was a really old one built at the turn of the century that they have restored. interesting they did a ton of structural things like taking out the floors and ceilings and putting in steel beams. Quite a remodeling project. Christine had a really nice lunch prepared for us, Emma wouldn't touch it. The entire day she ate mostly chocolate. The kids were so tired we couldn't push too hard. Once they have a good sleep it will be better.

After lunch we went on a really nice walk through the village, near their lake and into the woods a little. It was so beautiful with amazing old buildings, very small town. We had dinner that night which was excellent. Barbeque sausage, chicken, pork, salad and broetchen. yummy. At the house we met Christine's sister, Connie and Daniel's fiancee, Tina. We had a wonderful time. The kids played in the dirt outside and got really dirty. So I put them all in the tub. Christine helped me out and seemed to really like having a little one to bathe, as she clucked sweet things at Anna in German while she was in the tub. We left around 8:15pm and they were all asleep before we left the village.

Germany Trip - Off to not a good start

I kept a journal of our trip to Germany and thought I would share it here.

5/15/09 3pm

Remember the medication next time and blanket. That is what is really weighing on my mind right now. Emma was sick again this week so I took her to the doctor Tuesday and she has allergy induced wheezing. So she waw put back on 2 different inhalers. We went again to the Dr this morning and we were to continue one inhaler every 4 hours and the other 2xs per day. So I forgot and left the every 4 hour inhaler on the kitchen counter. We also forgot Anna's blanket, Emma's camera battery, both camera battery chargers and almost a binki. If I hadn't had one in my coat pocket that I didn't know about, we would have been in trouble. So, we are not off to a good start. We also only got to the gate 10 minutes before take off. I am quite upset and feel that if I had a chance to walk through the house before we left I wouldn't have forgotten anything. Carl put too much on my before leaving. On to newark to see if we can get an inhaler. I brought a knitting project to knit a baby boy blanket so maybe I can get some of that done for Anna. I feel terrible.

I did wake the kids up at 4:15am this morning to start to get them adjusted to the time change and hopefully we can get them to sleep from Newark to Amsterdam. We have a red eye flight.

Fiasco continued...So once I realized that we forgot the inhaler I asked Jamie Lynch, which dropped us off at the airport to go get ours and mail it to us in Berlin. So once she got to the UPS store, she needed a phone number for Claudia - which I don't have, also it wouldn't be there until Monday and it would be $140 to send it. So I told Jamie thank you and to not worry about it. Then I called the Dr (Kristina) to ask her if she could email a Rx to me and I would fill it in Germany. So when we landed in Newark she told me she couldn't email it, but could fax it. So I started asking the flight attendant if there was a pharmacy at the airport. Everyone told us no. then I continued to ask people at the airport off the plane. Everyone still told us no. The Spirit kept telling me to ask everyone, finally the 10th (or so) person I asked said there was a pharmacy in the airport in Gate C91.

3,650 miles to go to Amsterdam

Unfortunately we had to go back through security and Kristina was going to leave the clinic in 10 minutes and we needed a fax #. She tried to call the airport, everyone was rude to her and told her that there was no pharmacy at the airport. So I called Karina (saves the day again!) and got her fax #, had Kristina send it to Karina, then when I finally got to the elusive pharmacy I could have Karina fax it to them to fill the Rx. So finally I got thru security and went to find the pharmacy if it even existed. IT WAS THERE! I got the Rx, now to find a camera battery, charger, and maybe I'll stay up all night and knit for Anna. Hmm...

Mother's Day

Well, it was a great Mother's Day, and I hope that all the Mothers that may read this had a great day. Carl was sweet and got me a nice necklace and bracelet, Byzantine style. Mostly silver, with some copper links in it as well. He found someone that makes them by hand, interesting, huh? Imagine really fancy chain mail, made into a bracelet and necklace with the links all woven together to form a metal cord.

Other than that, it was a pretty lazy day. We went to sacrament meeting at church and that was really nice, the children got to sing a couple of songs, it always makes me cry (well a few tears at least) to see them up there. Since we had stayed up so late the night before and finally put the kids to bed at 11pm, we decided to leave after sacrament and make all the children take mandatory naps. So, it was a quiet afternoon. They were all so tired and church is right during lunch time, and me not being prepared again, didn't pack the lunch of crackers and dried apples during sacrament. It really was a recipe for disaster. I did get the girls both dressed nicely in their easter dresses I made them, with matching hairdo's and bows. I have really been meaning to get a nice picture of them, but hadn't yet. So, I just did it, even though I was a little late for church.

Saturday we went down to Louisville in the afternoon. Carl got to go to an outdoor store and see a Backpacker Magazine presentation about their latest gear. The girls and I went to World Market (my favorite store) and went shopping while Carl and James were at the outdoor store. On my way to World Market after dropping James and Carl off, I noticed a huge billboard next to the road for a gun store. So after I picked Carl up I told him about it and he walked in and said it was a "real gun store". Carl said he hasn't ever been in a gun store with more guns than this one. Now, I like guns okay, but really this was quite a site to see. Carl thinks there were no less than 1,000 handguns on display and the same for long guns. Pretty cool, it shows you the freedom we have in this country. While there, Emma got her first gun; now she is 6 and James owned 3 by the time he was 3. So, Emma's first gun is a small .22 rifle called a Cricket, with a hot pink laminated stock. It is really cute. Afterwards, we went to dinner at Skyline Chili and then went to the Pottery Barn store so that I could decide if I wanted this particular bedding I had seen in the catalog. Carl and the kids were patient with me as I spent 90 minutes in there fussing over what shams, decorative pillows and throws I want for the master bedroom. Since tax season is over, I have been working on all of my projects again. I am getting new carpet in the master, I painted a new color in there, replaced the old brittle blinds, and I am getting new bedding. The walls are taupe, carpet dark reddish brown and the bedding is yellow. You can look it up at Pottery Barn, it is called painterly paisley. It is really pretty. I am also repainting my kitchen cabinets and have bought a new light fixture for it. The kitchen here in Kentucky is truly hideous. Painting the cabinets will help a lot, but I am still undecided on what color to paint them, white, green or something esle maybe.

As of late, we have been resurrecting our old hobbies, well, Carl mostly. He has put off his interests for years in the pursuit of a degree, then work, then moving to NC, and then a job that made him travel 67% of the time. So, he got a membership to the range here in KY for Christmas and has tried to go every week with James. James is apparently becoming a pretty good shot, even with a .45 handgun. Pretty good for little James. The Westergard arsenal has had 3 new members added within the last 6 months as well: Sig Mosquito; a shotgun; pink cricket.

Carl has also started doing more hiking again. The trip planned this fall with Poppa going down the river in Jackson Hole on a Canoe, has really got this all going. So, James and Carl are going to spend some extra time, Jesse is going to come up from Denver, and they are going to go backpacking for a week. Carl has been really enjoying getting ready for the trip, planning, buying maps, laminating them, buying a compass for James, a new cooking stove, freeze dried food and a bunch of other stuff that I really don't know what it is. He really is like a kid at Christmas time, that is how excited he is about this trip.

James had his 3rd baseball game last Monday, and hit the ball, got on base, then even made it around to home. The coach was really proud of the entire team, he said he had never coached such a great team, in 7 years, as he coached last week. Everyone was working together really well and playing well. James is enjoying baseball, but it is interesting to see him line up with all the other players, he is easily one of the smallest ones.

Well, on Friday we leave for Germany for a 2 week vacation. This will be the trip of a lifetime, 3 kids and 3 countries in 2 weeks. More to come.

I stubbed my buttcheek!

One of Emma's all time best expressions came from her on a beautiful Easter Sunday...

I stubbed my buttcheek

this was was uttered after she bumped her bum into the corner of a table. Other than that, we had a very relaxing Easter. We stayed home all day, and I actually finished both of the girls easter dresses! They are beautiful, pale pink with white polka dots in taffeta, ankle length. We went tonight to the fabric store and bought some little daisy trim to put around the waist. It was so fun to sew them for the girls. Next sunday I will doll them all up for church, I am really excited.

Temple Sealing

I finally got the temple pictures/video in a format to put on here. Enjoy

Temple Trip

I finally got the video to post of our trip to the Columbia SC temple when we had Anna sealed to us after the adoption was final. Enjoy!!!

We're going to GERMANY!

To use my friend Janell's expression, "We are choosing to not participate in the recession"

So, there is a website that is called travelzoo and it has some amazing travel deals. It is where we heard about going to Paris when we went a few years ago. I found flights to Greece for only $471 per person round trip, after taxes out of Columbus OH, which is only 2 hours from us. I was really excited about the Greece initially and trying to convince Carl, then I got stressed about it being the right decision and Carl started warming up to the idea. So, I was kinda leaving it to him for the final decision. So after discussing it for hours, Carl decided to go to Greece with all the kids, and so he said "do it", so I did. At first we were thinking of only me, Carl and James would go to Greece, but we weren't sure about that, then we decided we would all go, and stay together, although the girls most likely won't remember it at all, and are going to get whiny and complain that her feet hurt (guess which one). Then as we were on the phone with our Greek Uncle and the tickets were changing. We had to get earlier dates in May, we had to fly out of Columbus (2 hours away) at 6 am not noon and had a 7.5 hour layover in Kennedy not a 2 hour layover. But we were doing it, picked airplane seats, put in credit card and then just before I clicked "purchase and confirm" he said wait, lets go to Germany..... Which I had started to look at earlier in the day. So, we started looking at that and the tickets were less than Greece and we could fly out of Cincinnati! Cincinnati airport is 20 minutes from our house. So, for all 5 tickets we got it for $2200 approximately. Amazing! huh? I am so excited, I can hardly stand it, I started jumping up and down after it was done. OH, a final part of the purchase drama, when I was clicking on the Germany "purchase" button after I had picked seats and put in my cc info, it was supposed to go to a confirmation page and then it said "sorry there was an error on the website"! I was freaking out. It let me go back to the previous page and I tried it again, still an error. But then on the previous page, I noticed that you could call and purchase on the phone, so I did that and it gave me a confirmation number. So, there you go! That is the beginning of our Germany trip adventure.

To all of you blog stalkers out there, yes I am finally going to publish a new post...

The weather in Kentucky has been really nice this past week, we had a couple of cold days but it did hit 70 degrees as well. It was so nice outside, we just sat in the driveway and ate. Carl did an amazing job smoking the pork tenderloin dor dinner tonight, it was seriously the best meat I have ever eaten. We also did dutch oven potatoes that were killer too! We haven't done dutch oven for quite some time, so it was really fun.

Well, tax season is nearly done, and I think the pneumonia that has gone through the house is nearly gone as well. Yes, you hear it pneumonia, during tax season. So, I have gotten behind, but in the last week or so am finally catching up. One thing with being sick during tax season, I have had a lot more time to knit while sitting in line at the pharmacy or at the doctors office waiting. So, I actually bought yarn and a pattern in February when I was there for tax season and I just finished the sweater today. It turned out really nice. James looks quite handsome in it. Here is James playing Harry Pottery in his new sweater.

Carl will be doing his first of three mandatory furlow weeks on April 6, for the week that the kids have spring break. They may end up heading off to Virginia to visit the cousins, we'll see. Carl driving for 7 hours across the country with three kids and no wife to meter it all out? Hmm...

We have been enjoying sushi obsession lately, not the sashimi, but the rolls. We haven't been brave enought to try the sashimi, but we'll see for the future. It is fun to try all the different restaurants around that serve it and find the best ones, and all of the different vareities. We seem to favor the ones that have more vegetables than just fish and rice. I went to a Thai restaurant with a friend last week for lunch and had really great sushi. When I was in Utah for tax season, I think I had sushi four times...the hanabi roll at Windy's Suykiaki in Ogden is really good. So, we have gotten some sushi to bring home and have even let the kids try it. There has been some that they have liked and some not. Even Emma our pickiest eater, has liked some of it. She tried a shrimp roll that she enjoyed. I told her we neede to have a girls lunch out for sushi soon, to curb her momma's cravings.

James and Carl are planning a big backpacking trip in August in the Teton's. Carl is just about jumping out of his skin. He is loving every planning moment. We got James a really nice mountainsmith pack for the trip, and Carl is starting to break him into it. They plan on trying to go out every weekend to do a little hiking so that James is prepared in August. Fritz has really enjoyed going out and hiking as well. Alex's old pack fits him really nice, Fritz is a little smaller than Alex, but it works great. We haven't put the hiking booties on yet, we seriously should have the video camera for that one. It is so funny to see a dog wearing booties for the first time, but it really saves their paws.

We haven't heard anything on the adoption yet, we are still saying our prayers that another child will bless our family.

Trebuchet is such a cool name for a font, don't ya think? Anyway, tax season is in full swing for our household. It is something that affects everyone here, because the kids kinda lose their mom for 10 weeks. However, with mandatory furlows and layoffs at Carl's work, it is essential that tax season be a success for the family. We have really been battling walking pneumonia here as well. It started with Anna end of January, then James when I was in Utah, then Emma, now Mom. Carl has "kinda runny nose". So, it appears that he has evaded it once again. If you look at our expenses over the last month or so, it is mostly copays and trips to Walgreens. We are all tired of being sick. I think that we are mostly on the mend now, and I hope to catch up on tax returns, because I am seriously behind.

House Plants - you'd think I'd learn

Well over Thanksgiving Carolyn & Dan came and visited us with their children. While they were here she bought a fabulous houseplant, it sat on my kitchen table for a couple days while they were here. I liked it so much, I wanted one too. Now we gave up on house plants years ago because of 2 reasons. 1 - the cats eat them; 2 - i can't keep them alive (I didn't get my dad's green thumb). But, I did buy the first house plant in about 11 years, at costco. It is beautiful, but after 2 weeks the tips of the leaves are going brown and just a minute ago, James caught Moses (the cat) on the counter chewing on the leaves.

ARGH!@#$

End of January Update

Well, CPA's are really good at doing certain things, generally it is taxes, cost accounting, financial accounting, small business anaylsis, that sort of thing. Haircutting is NOT in that list you will note. However, accountants are usually good at finding new ways to save money too. So, when James looked like a badly groomed, just grown out from a bad buzz, scottie dog (that plug is chosen for you Nancy)...and...Carl had mandatory furlows announced...I got creative with James' horrible looking hair. I got out the cutting scissors. Now, I know you will be dissapointed that I have not taken a picture, but maybe tomorrow. I started out, just trying to trim off the sides a little bit, but then I took it too short and it was all downhill from there. After it had looked like (now I wasn't done yet) Anna had tried to cut his hair Carl said, "Just stop, just stop now" and I told him I couldn't I wasn't done yet...he walked away. Now after a lot of hair came off, more than I originally anticipated, I think, all in all, it looks pretty good. Carl calls it "high and tight" but will not admit that the CPA didn't do a completely disasterous job.

Oh the furlow thing...Carl has 1 week per month starting in March of UNPAID time off, until further notice. So, our income will be dropping by 25% starting in a month. Scary! We are going to test out all of our food storage, tonight we had brown rice, with rehydrated chicken pieces and beans.

This week has been interesting, it has been nothing but snow days. Now for you folks out of the East, when it snows 1 inch, EVERYTHING shuts down here, they just don't plow, neither has the idea of tar and gravel ever come to mind. I think they don't have the resouces for it. So, the kids have been out of school all week, yes all 5 days. This is tax season not the most convenient time to be out of school. Carl picked them up some sleds at the play it again sports store and they have been having fun with those. We now have about 8-10 inches on the ground. It is funny to watch Fritz go outside on the hill to go potty, because we got about 6 inches of snow, freezing rain, and then another 4 inches. So, he just kinda slides his front feet on the snow/ice and trys to catch some traction with his back feet. It just makes me roll with laughter.

James turned 10 this week, he had a great birthday, he got to spend it in his jammies and play video games. He did go outside for a little while to play in the snow with Emma and that was good. We gave him a little shelf stero system for his room, so he can listen to his Ipod. He seems to really be liking it. We got this before the furlow news. I made him a 3 layer lemon and chocolate cake, he really liked it. I also taught he and Emma how to play Rummikub, a favorite game with my family growing up. It is nice that Emma understands now and can play more of the grown up games. I like the princess games and all, but they are only so entertaining. James and Emma both like the Rummikub game. Other than that, the pinewood derby was supposed to be that night, however with the ice storm it got canceled.

Next Monday I fly out to Utah to do taxes...other than that nothing is new.

Sledding in Kentucky

Today we had our 2nd snow day in a row. Yesterday we got about 1.5 inches, and so they cancelled school, today we got about 6 inches, so they again cancelled school. I sure wish it wasn’t tax season and I could play with the kids on these days, the mommy guilt steps in here. But, we did get the kids 2 sleds today for them to go down our hill. They had a great time and got really cold. Fritz loved being outside in all the deep snow, he just ran around and around bounding in it. Anna even went down our “sledding hill” one time. She doesn’t have any snow gear and refuses to wear gloves, so one time was enough.

Well, we are approved for adoption again! We are really excited to open up this chapter of our lives. We have left it open for either boy or girl, either way it will be wonderful. Right now I am trying to work on our photo pages for the birth mothers to look at. I hope to get those to the counselor by the end of the week!

Christmas lights at Temple Square in SLC

Christmas at Meme's and Poppa's

Christmas Dresses I made for the girls with my new serger's help. I got it for my birthday from my fab hubby!

Skiing at Snowbasin...Missy, Emma, Grma Frost, James

Well, you know that you haven't done a blog post for a REALLY long time when you forget your password, have to have it reset, and your friends remember the last time you posted, but you have forgotten.



In looking back at this, I think that I got really depressed after little Otto died. It was really tragic for the entire family. Surprisingly the kids have bounced back from it, however Carl and I are still deeply saddened. We are considering getting another Greater Swiss Mountain Dog, from the same breeder. She artificially inseminates (sp?) her females and always delivers by c-section. She "bred" her female Riggs on Sunday the 18th of January again. So, we will find out if Riggs is pregnant at the end of February, she will be due on March 18th and the puppies will be able to go home about May 18th. So, we'll see. Riggs could have not taken, could have all girls, who knows. We will keep you updated on that. No puppy can replace Otto, however going back to the same mom, will get us close.



Now, we had a great first Kentucky Christmas, in Utah. Carl ended up with 16 consecutive days off, gas was only 1.50 per gallon, so off we went. It is 1700 miles, and we drove straight. It took us 28 1/2 hours to get there and only 24 1/4 hours to get home. On the way home, we didn't even turn the car off once. The kids were amazing, and so was Fritz. Fritz sat on the seat next to Emma, and that helped her because she needed to keep track of him and make sure he was always sitting or laying down. It is a good thing that Fritz will go potty on demand.



















Over Christmas break, I taught Emma how to snow ski on the same mountain I learned and the same one I taught James on. That was really wonderful! She is going to be a great skiier, she still has to have her edgie-wedgie on, but that is okay. James got to go skiing twice as well and had a great time. The last time we went skiing with my parents and that was a great day. We even all skiied down the face of Middle Bowl.

Also over Christmas break in Utah we went to Salt Lake City and saw the lights at temple square, it was beautiful. James got to go snow shoeing with Poppa, and other than that we just visited with family, trying to fit them all in. It is amazing how fast two weeks can go by when you are on vacation.