FREEZING!!

Quick post this morning. We are freezing this morning! It is -5 with a wind chill of -26! This morning is the first time that i have missed the weather in Hawaii. I have to go out in it to take the kids to school and i am dreading it. Mike had to stop for gas on his way to work and said he jumped out and started it, jumped back in and jumped out when it clicked off. He didnt take time to get a reciept and still froze to death. Wish me luck.....

December Begins

I have not updated in almost a month! Sorry about that. We have just been enjoying our time together before Mike reported to his new job. He checked in the day before Thanksgiving and thinks he is going to like the job he is in. The kids are all doing great. Shelby has a boyfriend and went on her first date the day before Thanksgiving. They went to see a movie. Talk about nerve wracking for us. We wanted to follow them and sneak into the theater to spy on them. Our Thanksgiving was great. We had the missionaries and a family from church over. There was tons of food, of course. We ate on the leftovers for 3 days. Today was Mike's first full day of work. It feels so weird to have him here and at work. For five months whenever he was here, he was at home. Now i have to adjust to getting back to normal. Shelby graduates in one month. I don't know if i am ready to say i have a high school graduate. That makes me feel pretty old. Ethan is playing basketball and really enjoying it. He has practice before school every other week so that is hard on all of us. He has to be there by 6 am and that is too early for me. It snowed the last 2 days. All of us were so excited to see snow again. Unfortunately none of it stuck to the ground but it was still pretty to watch.
Hope all is well with everyone.

Mike is coming home!! (Finally)

Mike is flying in this coming Saturday! I have been waiting until his ticket was purchased and his replacement was on the boat to announce his home coming. We are all very excited, of course. I just cant believe it has been almost 5 months since this ordeal started. He spent his last weekend on the island sailing with friends. They spent both Saturday and Sunday out sailing and spent the night anchored off one of the islands. That is just too much time out on the water for me but i am glad he got a chance to enjoy himself. Ethan has started basketball now. It is pretty hard because practice all week last week was at 6:00 am. Of course that meant that he was in bed by 7 every night, which was nice. This week he has afternoon practice. any hoo thats all i have for now. I am on my way to walmart to get the ac/dc track pack for rockband. I can't wait to play it. bye!

September

This has been a very busy month. We have had so many things happen over the last few weeks. Mike got extended again until November 7th. You can imagine how unhappy we were about that one. He now has his transfer date set though. That means he is definitely coming on November 7th. We cant wait until this separation is over. Shelby is graduating from high school early! She will be graduating is January instead of May. She plans on going to work full time to save money for college. She is pretty excited about it because she feels really out of place in this school. Ethan has had 2 football game so far. He is doing pretty good. I think this is the only year he will play though. It is really wearing him out. I posted a couple videos of him on here. He is number 64. If you would like to see more i can email you an invitation to look at the rest of the game videos. Mikaila is struggling in school. Coming from schools in Hawaii that were way behind to schools here that are advanced has been a struggle for her. She is getting tutoring from her teacher after school so we will have to see if that helps at all. I have been busy making 2 quilts. They are both patchwork so they have taken a bit of time. I had to cut out 572 squares for each one and then sew them together. I have on finished and ready to tie. I am hoping to have them both done before it gets too cold. We have company coming in October and Mike will be back for a visit. I am looking forward to both of those. Take care all!

fall decorations and Dagoney

Summer Days Going By

Hello all,
Summer seems to be flying by. The kids start school in 17 days. Ethan and Mikaila are pretty excited about it but Shelby is dreading it. They have school physicals this week which none of them are too happy about. We did have some fun last week though. Aubrey and the kids stopped by for a night on their way to Utah. (Really good friends of ours from Hawaii) It was good to see them again. We had fun visiting while the kids played until wee hours of the morning. The next day they left about noon and it was so sad. I wish they could have stayed a bit longer but even the short visit was wonderful. Mike got extended again. Now he doesn't get to come out here until October. I just can't wait until this is over and we don't have to be apart like this again. Dagoney is the #1 student in his puppy class. Of course there are only 3 puppies but he is still the best. He learns things very quickly. My Garden is going crazy! I have 7 watermelons growing. The biggest is the size of a large honeydew and i am hoping we can eat it in the next few weeks while Mike is here. Oh by the way he gets here next Tuesday for 10 days. Its the last time he gets to come home until he moves out here in October. We are going to make the best of it by doing some exploring and going to the zoo. Well thats all for now.
TTFN!

Swimming pool adventures

Okay, so we got the pool set up on saturday and then treated it with chemicals on Sunday to have it ready so the kids could swim yesterday. When we checked the chlorine level yesterday it was like 2-3 times the safe limit. Mike realized he added double the chlorine granules. The kids were not too happy. We had to drain about a foot of water out and add fresh to try to fix the problem. By the time i got back from taking Mike to the airport this morning it was ready for them to swim. I got some pics of them in the pool to show you. Enjoy! Also got a pic of Dagoney and Leo playing. Don't they look like best friends??

Mikaila's 10th birthday

Hey all, today is Mikaila's 10th birthday. We went to see Journey To The Center Of The Earth, which was a really good family movie. We then took her out to lunch at Red Robin and had them sing happy birthday to her. She blushed many shades of red. It was so cute. She picked a cake out at Walmart that had horses on it, because they didn't have any with cats. She got lots of fun stuff like Purr Pals for the wii and catz2 for the ds. Of course, anything cats makes her happy. Well, that and lizzards. I think she was most excited about the pool that Mike bought her though. It's a 12' above ground pool. Leave it to him to spoil her. I also got a picture of Dagoney. Oh and i got my first harvest out of my garden! I got 5 cucumbers. I was pretty shocked to find them. I thought with all the bad weather, nothing would grow. I also have about 25 tomatoes growing. I found a watermelon too. It's the size of a very small pea. The kids were so excited about it. In 3 months we should have a nice watermelon. Well, thats all for today. Have a nice one!

Kitchen

Okay, I have had a few requests to tell all about the kitchen. What can i say besides it is amazing. We use the griddle all the time to make pancakes and the oven turns out perfect baked goods. Shelby did learn the hard way that when you use the convection oven for pizza not to cook it for the recommended time. She burned her pizza beyond eatability. Mikaila is a pro at making pancakes and says she is going to cook them for Mike when he gets here today. I really have not had as much time to bake and cook as i want but now that the house is unpacked and semi in order, i hope to start. Well, we are off to go shopping! Have a good day.

Our New Home

Well all,

here we are almost all settled, in our new home in Nebraska. We are loving it here! The weather is beautiful (even with the occational severe storms). The corn is amazing! 3 1/2 days after moving in we had a very severe storm move through and we ended up having to rush to the tornado room and pray that the storm missed us. Luckily the tornado touched down about a mile south of us. We ended up buying 2 weather alert radios which have really come in handy. We have had to adjust to having them go off every couple of days. They are really loud and Mikaila says they are scary. Its really freaky to have it go off and say that the tornado is located near Gretna and then have the Gretna sirens go off. Mike is still in Hawaii and will be there until Sept. 26th. He is flying out tomorrow to visit for a week and we are really excited to see him. Shelby started her first job today at Subway here in Gretna. We had to go and have lunch there to say hi to her. She was embarrased of course. We got our new little pup on June 13th. He is very cute and knows it. He started puppy training today. For the most part he is a good dog. His name is Dagoney. House training is going wonderfully. He comes and stares at you when he has to go out potty. I will post a picture of him as soon as i can get one. I planted a garden just 4 days after getting here and have been spending many back breaking hours working in it. Hopefully it will be worth it come fall. Well thats all for now. Will post again soon.