Idaho Christmas Vacation

So for Christmas Vacation this year the boys and I went to Idaho to be with our family. It has been a long time since we got to be with our family, but this year is diferent. We got here on the thirteenth. Since then we havae gone snowboarding, but more appropriatelycalled snow falling, haha!! That was fun and great exercise. I was so sore afterwards. Also we have celebrated Tim's Birthday today and just been with our families too. It is always Ideal to be with our full families, including our husbands, lol but if you can't then this is the second best thing. I am glad to have people who care about me and my boys. I am grateful to have the means to come and enjoy the visits and the love that come with Christmas time. I hope that we all remember the true meaning of Christmas and carry it in your hearts. Clint I hope that you stay safe this holiday season so that next Christmas we might be together and enjoy our family once more on the same continet. Have a Merry Christmas Everyone and a Happy New Year Too!!!

December update For 2009

Life is good! At times life pulls us in all different directions. If we go one way we will be fine, but may miss the turn in the road that says adventure awaits this way. It seems at the time to be the harder more difficult road, so we ignore it and go in the totally opposite direction. I think that is what happened ine my life. This year as we review our times in 2009 I feel so blessed. I feel as if the life I have had has been what was needed for my growth and also for my family and their growth, but at first would not have been the route I would take. This year there have been bumps and hills and slides and smooth road. Each has been just what are family needed. The year begin here in New york which was new for us. It was a cold winter last year ant the winter here presented challenges we were not all together ready to handle. Yes, we are from Idaho. Yes we have had snow, but lake effect snow is crazy. I have never seen such snow and had a love/ hate relationship of this kind before. The kids this year went to schools we were not prepared for. Here in New York they separate the schools. They have K-3rd grade together in what is called a primary school, and 4th and 5th together in an Intermediate School. This is what the boys went into and alone. It was a difficult process, but both have excelled and continue to amaze Clint and I as the transition to the upper grades and on into preteen years.
We had a vacation this year on Clint's block leave. It was wonderful. We completely focused on our family. We camped in the Adirondack Mountains, and discovered history in historic battlelands. These memories are vivid in our minds now as Clint deployed to Iraq in August of this year. We know our family is strong and happy and that we will make it through the next nine months in tact and grow so much because of it. This deployment has brought the heartcahe of once again our family having to be separate as well as something wonderful. Clint was able to be promoted. on the 1st of December Clint finally made SSG and E6. This has been a long time coming for our family. His job specialty is a hard one to promote in. We are so proud of Clint. At home the boys and I continue to stay busy. Tim enjoyed the basketball season this year at the intermediate school and continues to improve as the little athlete he hopes to become. Both boys recieved straight As and just continue to excell that way. I continue to fulfill my calling at church and try to stay active in all the activities our little Carthage Ward tries to hold. Currently I am the first councellor in the primary presidency. I love the kids and continue to learn from them. I am so glad that I have the opportunity to feel their sweet spirits. We look forward to many more fun times here in Northern New York. Love Each Other! Enjoy the rest of December. I know we will as we celebrate Steven's eleventh birthday, Tim's tenth birthday and Clint and I's twelfth anniversary. Well I think that is a good update. Have a Merry Christmas, and If I do not get to this before then a Very Happy and wonderful New Year filled with much growth and togetherness.

Clint and His Promotion

For those who know us they know we have been in the Army for a long time. CLint joined the National Guard two years before we got married. He stayed in that for another year and a half or so. When we found out we were pregnant with our Tim we decided that the choice to make would be to go Active Duty so we would have a steady paycheck and good medical coverage. ;) So we did that. At that time Clint was an E4. We entered Ft hood, Texas June of 1999. In December we had Tim. We were at Fort hood for the next five and a half years. In December of 2005 We reported to Baumholder Germany. Upon arriving we learned Clint was on the list for e-5. That was fantastic news. For three years we stayed in Germany. Diring that time while Clint was deplyed in 2005 he went to the E6 board. He has been promotable ever since. We are admin you see so you have to have the maximum ammount of points to get promoted. When we arrived here in New York part of the plan was to do an exchange of military experience to college credits so that Clint could finally get promoted. It is about $250 to do this. Well Clint deployed again in August and the first of September turned in his stuff to NCI. He got it back and would earn more then enough credits to max out the points for E6. he did the point evaluation last month. So now the big unvailing. On the first of December Clint will be pinned a SSG and E6. I am so proud of him. I am so proud of all his accomplishments. i appreciate his dedication and the way he tries so hard for our family. I just wanted to share this with you. Enjoy your weeks and remember to let love fill your lives always!

The Goal

So I have set a new goal. After all the fun pictures from the past two months I have made a decision. I am going on a diet. I just do not like to look in the mirror right now. I do not like curves that are not supposed to be there and marks that are not supposed to be there so I am going to change it. I have set some specific goals to be able to accomplish my 40 pound weightloss goal. Those are I am cutting sugar. I am not drinking soda, or at least trying to have very little of it. I am cutting portion sizes and am watching for signs I am full. I am also doing at least 30 minutes of exercise daily and makeing sure I take I multivitamin and get my water too. I think I can do this. I have plenty of time but am starting with no excises now. Hope I do well. I will journal my progress in my blog here so if you are interested you can come here and see how far I have come. Since starting this at the beginning of the week I am down just over a pound. I think that is a good start although it may just be water weight but it makes me feel better anyhow. Votes of encouragement from those of you reading would help so do not hesitate to tell me what you think. Anyhow so that is it. Have a lovely day. Be Healthy and Be Happy!!!

Thoughts on a Beautiful Thursday

Clint has now been deployed for about five or six weeks. We are doing well. The boys are on a routine and life is not too bad. It is interesting to me that most of the time we do just fine, but other times we just really do miss our Daddy and husband. The nights I think are the worst, when the boys are long gone to bed and I just want to talk to someone. Sometimes I write in my journal, other times I just sit and think, sometimes I find solace in my scriptures. Each day is different. Each is an adventure. I think I am doing well, but I think I miss Clint more during this deployment then other times. I do not know what the difference is, but I think it is just that I have been through it quite a few times and know how long twelve months really truly is. The boys are older in this one so they have been quite a big help although I know it is very hard for them too.
I made it to the bus stop today on time. The kids did not whine at all. They cleaned up their breakfast, brushed their teeth and got ready for the day. They were even smiling nd laughing. Makes me realize how strong my family has truly become through it all. Now if I could just get myself motivated on those not so lovely days we would be golden.
My brother had a baby girl on the 22nd in the wee hours of the morning. I am an aunt again. Not that that has anything to do with Clint's deployment but it does help me to recognize God's hand in our life. ..... A couple weeks ago on a Sunday we had Ward Conference. Talk about needing to be there. For those of us who have children and husbands gone we feel at times it may be easier to sleep in. That was the case that Sunday. Steven and Timothy however would not hear of it. They wanted to be at church so off we went. I think the Spirit works through my boys on me sometimes because my head is too hard to get through. Our Stake President and his councellor were speaking. I have never met President Mulchek before, but I was truly amazed. I have really watched people in my life. I look at auras and can just feel a strong spirit. Well I looked up at the podium and all I can tell you is this wonderful righteous man glowed. He glowed so bright I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. I took off my glasses and rubbed my eyes to make sure. No they were fine, it was him. I usually do not take notes at church, but felt inspired to do so. His message was just what I needed. It was that Forever really is not so far away. I needed that. I needed that experience. After sacrament President Mulchek went around and shook every person's hand. Amazing! He was so sincere and so loving and we all knew it. I know that I needed to be at church that Sunday. I needed to feel that spirit. I needed to know that I really did not have to wait so long to have forever with my family. I also had an interview with President Gilchrist his councellor after church. Just another wonderful amazing man that made me feel at ease as I renewed my recommend and once again felt my Heavenly Father's love. Anyhow I do not know why I decided to blog this, but I did. I am so grateful for a Father in Heaven who loves me and lets me be happy and inspired when I need to be, even when I do not feel like I need it.
Well so that is my thoughts for the day. I am going to go make cookies for my boys now. I would like to have a nice sweet afternoon when they return from school. We shall surely see.;)

Pics of Adirondack Camping Village in Lake George, Ny

So all of these pictures are part of Our R and R adventures. We went camping in the Adirondacks and had so much fun we did not want to come home.

Just Five More Minutes That's All!

So today was just one of those days at least the beginning of it was. Started out that way. Let me tell you about it. Okay so my alarm normally goes off at 6:40AM. I must have been tired from the previous day so it was hard to wake up. i decided I would sort of stretch and doze for just five more minutes. After all I do this all the time. I dozed off and then unfortunately I was really tired and fell into a deep slunmber. The phone rang at 7:10 Am. Thankfully Tim heard it and I got it. It was Clint calling before he went to get his mail. I am so grateful he called. We would not have woken up and since the boys' bus now comes at 8:05Am they needed to get up or they would not have had time to make it. Lovely isn't it. I got the boys to the bus just in time. Some mores were getting a good giggle and they have all decided to ask me each day what I have going on for the day so I do not forget and I get to the places I need to be on time. We shall sure see.
i am so grateful for Clint that he will call and check on me when he knows I have just had a hard day and may need help to get a move on. I am grateful Tim heard the phone ring and I am glad that after that incident the day has ran incredibly smoothly.

Forgotten Appointments

So I think I am forgetting my mind lately seriously. Having major issues with the memory. So today was quite a busy day and will only get busier, funny thing is that as of yesterday at 8 pm I thought it would be boring, easy going and all out dull. When did it becaome so lively? Last night at 9:30 pm the missionaries called. Funny thing really, occured right then i remembered that I signed up to feed the missionaries. Oopsie, but that is not the half of it. At that moment a few other memories came to my mind. I suddenly remembered I had a primary presidency meeting scheduled at my house as well as lunch at 11:30AM. Well that is not too bad too appointments I had forgotten about but there was more. I had forgotten that I also had an appointment for visiting teaching, this one I did not remember until I pulled my roster out at the presidency meeting. I had written the appointment on the roster. Gosh that was a smart one wasn't it. Then as I am putting the roster away I see my message light is on on the cell phone so i check it right quick. I forgot that Tim had an appointment at the dentist at 9 AM this morning and they called to tell me that they wee worried that I was going to miss it only I never checked it until my meeting. HaHa! Now do you think I have the worst memory ever. I bet you do? Here are the other two forgotten appointments. I forgot that I had told a friend i was going to walk our twelve mile trek this morning. Good thing it rained so I did not overlap that one. The last forgotten appointment is the visiting teaching and I hope that it does not overlap dinner with the missionaries. Life is crazy when you are having fun. Maybe that is it or maybe it is just that Clint is gone so I have no one to remind me that my head holds my brain and it really does sit on my shoulders. Anyhow lets hope I do not forget something else this week. Do not count on it though, we all know I am not a miracle worker.

R&R

So Clint has been on his Block Leave since he is leaving really quickly for his deployment. So we are doing a lot of fun things as a family and really just palying. Clints leave started at the beginning of this week. During that time we have went to The Hill Cumorah Pageant in Palmyria, New York. we have went to Alexandria Bay and also Sackett's Harbor both of which are of major importance to the War of 1812. We also went to Ft Stanwix and the Ariskany Battlefield, which is often called the " Battle of Bloody Creek'" and also the Ariskany Monument for the USS Ariskany. All were so fun. I think our family really enjoys history.

The Ariskany Battle was led by General John Herkimer and was the bloodiest battle of the Revolutionary War. Over 200 men of a very small town were killed. Each person placed a candle in their window to show they had had a member in their family die. Every window in the town was lit up. The battlefield was amazing and as we walked the Soldier's road we were caught by the sacredness of it all. Even the boys were mellow for a time.

Fort Stanwix was a different experience. Also used during the Revolutionary War the artifacts left brought us into a different time that has been preserved for all of us and we were able to has the park ranger said time travel in a way to another time and learn how different life really was.

As a family we were able to go to the last day of the Hill Cumorah Pageant in Palmyria, New York. What a touching portrayal of how the gospel came about and how fortunate we are. My kids loved it too. We were able to talk to many of the cast and enjoyed their testimonies of our savior and of the Book of Mormon. How neat it was for Mormon and Moroni to express their love for our Savior. It was also such a testimony builder to us to hear the Anti-Mormon people screaming their disagreements outside the gate. Why would that make our testimonies grow? Because we all knew that there would be so many lives touched and they were afraid. According to some of the missionaries there, there was over 5000 referals this year because of the pageant, and the message of all of the young cast members. I was touched.

Clint's mother Susan also came to spend some time with Clint before he left. She had fun I think and Clint was able to reconnect with his mom a little. It was nice to see them together and to see their bond grow. We have always lived far away so being there before Clint left was very nice for his mother to do.

We also went to Sacket's Harbor. That would be about a 20 minute drive from here. We always like going there and looking at the wonderment of what was left behind at the War of 1812. The Star Spangled Banner was written there. We learned all about Military History and ate at our favorite spot, The Boat House. Talk about YUMMY!!

About 30 minutes the other way is Alexandria Bay. It is so gorgeous. We checked out Bolt castle across the Bay. we road the Freedom1 a fairy to get there. The bolt castle was so pretty. We absolutely loved it. What a neat thing to see and so close.

We took my mother in law to the airport Thursday morning. Because we were in Syracuse we decided to go to the Carousel Center, which is a huge mall. The boys mad new friends at the BUILD_ABEAR_WORKSHOP Tim has a dog named Button and Steven made a rabbit named Mr. Nibbles. Cute little guys. We are just having such a fun leave. Next week we are going camping and will have much more to talk about. we are trying to make as many memories as possible. We will sure miss Clint and his adventuresome spirit in the coming year.

The Fish and the Near Miss

Okay so for those of you Who have Children this will not surprise you in a bit. Three year olds are busy bodies. The other day I had a friend from our ward over. We were going to plan a project to do at a later date. Well Ann, my friend came with her Daughter, Avery. Avery is an explorer. Avery went around the house rearranging things and opening up everything that would open. This was all well and good except about 30 minutes before Ann was getting ready to hit the road. I was showing Ann some new curtains I am going to make. We walked right past Avery and looked at my room and also my laundry room. About this time we looked down to see what Avery was doing. Surprisingly we had missed certain things as we passed her twice before that. Avery had my boys fish in it's bowl between her two open legs. She had taken one of their bottles of fish pellets and fed the whole bottle to the fish. Upon seeing that this dirtied the water the very logical young lady decided she needed to clean the fish so she grabbed a tissue and tried to reach in to clean the fish. Of course this created yet another mess. Well we are talking about a very aware intelligent child and she decided that just would not do. Her next step was she grabbed the water conditioner and poored half the bottle into the bowl. The next half hour was spent trying to save my children's struggling family member. As we strained the water and conditioned more the logicallness of it all came to mind.

When the boys got home I told them what happened and told them the fish may struggle and die that day or by the next morning. I was trying to prepare them for their little pets death. Tim got tears in his eyes and told me Avery could not come over anymore. I told him she was just a little girl and he told me very simply well then let's just have her come over right now and rip my heart out. I understand how he feels this is his pet just like someones pet dog or cat. Well Flo is still living she did not kick the bucket and my son has not had any dramatic moments since then. Flo condinues to live and swim happily in her little bowl. She is a fighter fish!!

Scouts and Things

So we finally got the boys back into scouts here. We went to our first meeting here in New York on Saturday. It was the Blue and Gold Banquet. The boys really enjoyed it I think. Because it was Cub Scoutings Birthday they had a Birthday party with all the trimmings of Ice cream of course and brownies, cookies, and cakes. They earned a blue and Glod Banquet Badge for going and also got a certificate for free ice cream at a Stewart's for later. This was pretty exciting for them. Things were different at the event then what we are used to due to it was not an LDS troop but I think that it will still be good for the boys. On Saturday the boys also went to their friend Simon Johnson's house. They loved it and I think that that friendship whill continue to grow nicely.

Sunday I got a new calling. I am now the Seceratary in the primary in our ward. This will be a challenging yet rewarding calling for me. I will have to be organized and since this ward has not had a seceratary in a long time it will also be a lot of work, but it will also give me an opportunity to serve and to be doing something during the times when my children are at school and Clint is working. I am excited about my experiences that I will be having as well as the opportunities to be with the boys and the other children in our ward.

Mid-Winter Break is coming up for our family. The boys are off next week and Clint has asked for leave. Therefore we will be going to a few places. We will be going to Palmayra and also to Niagara Falls. I am excited having not seen either of these places. The family is just excited to have some time together to just get out and enjoy the world. Should be some neat unforgettable experiences.

The Boys

So I decided I would write a blog about my boys. For everyone who knows me I have two boys. Steven is the oldest. He is ten. He has blond hair and green eyes and wears glasses. Steven is very intelligent. He loves to learn about history and science and you will often find him watching Discovery Channel and also History Channel although he loves to watch iCarley and Drake and Josh too. Right now he is in the fourth grade. He is really quite tall for his age and he is eating us out of house and home. I used to buy Steven really nice shoes because if I did that I could wear them too because we wore the same size, and I did not mind wearing boy's shoes. Now have to buy him his own shoes because his feet are now one whole size bigger then his mother's. He is a good boy and very helpful.

Tim is nine. Tim is our second child. he is so sweet. He tries so hard in all he does. Tim has gorgeous blue eyes and a smile that you would do anything. Tim is a very well mannered child. He always says please and thankyou and puts others before his own self. Tim is really into collecting right now. Tim collects Pokemon cards and teddy bears. Tim has made many friends because of his knowledge in these two things. Tim and Steven are best friends on a Saturday you may find Tim teaching Steven to play basketball or you might find him playing Army with his brother. I am so proud of Tim and know Clint is too.

New Hair cut!

Confused About Blogging

So this may come as a shock to others that read this but I do not know how to do this blogging thing. It is just not something that is coming to me easily so if anyone reads this and cares to help me would they please do so so i can write and post something worth looking at it.

Job

So I was offered a job recently. I do not know if I should take it but apparently I would make a good canidate. Have you ever heard of Stream Global. It is a worldwide call center that gets contracts from all sorts of companies from washers and dryers to sattalite radios and GPSs. Originally I told them I would not take the job because it was not condusive to the boys' schedule. That particular contract paid $9.85 per hour but you had to be very flexible with your hours. I thought that might be hard because of the fact that Clint is deploying in August and I really do not want the boys to go to a day care for a long period of time. Bre a member of the human resources called me back. She then offered me a different contract that they just recieved this one was more conducive with 7:30 to 3:30 for a month and then from 6:30 to 1:30 for at least the next six. This one paid 8.50. I have not decided if I could work this one out with the boys. Although we could truly use the money and I would really like something to do I just do not yet know if this would work out. I guess I still need to do some more praying to figure out if this one would work for our family. It does make me feel good though to be wanted. After one of my interviews I was told I was exceptional. That made me feel pretty good as far as self confidence and things. Anyhow that is my dilema for the week.