Happy Birthday (a week early)

Savannah got a few early birthday presents this week. Yesterday we went and bought her a "papasan" chair and today she and Sean put up her loft bed. It is pretty cool! Now we just need a ladder for her to get up and down!

We haven't dropped off the face of the earth, really!

Wow! It really has been quite a while since I posted something. Though Savannah was nice enough to give every one an update the other day.
We entered the whirlwind of packing after my last post, and though we paced ourselves well things still got pretty crazy that last week (July 15-20th). With the help of some very wonderful people we got the truck loaded (amazingly compactly, thanks Dave) on Wednesday of that week, cleaned on Thursday, and pulled out of town Friday morning. Homeless, and out of debt at least for the moment, we decided to mooch off of relatives (thanks Dave and Barb!). What else can you do when you don't have a place to live? They were very gracious to put up with our two cats for a few days. The felines were pretty confused. Friday was one looooooong trip to the vet (fortunately there wasn't a vet at the other end).
The visit with Dave and Barb was really nice, especially since we also got to see Ben and ShanShan. We really didn't think we would get to see them until maybe Christmas so it was a nice surprise. And it was wonderful to not have to pack anything!!!!
Tuesday the 24th we left Illinois and headed for Tennessee. It wasn't quite as peaceful of a trip with the felines, they both didn't really want to take the sedative and took quite a while to settle down. Quite a bit of the trip was spent with at least one cat (sometimes two) draped across the dashboard! And unfortunately, a vet was at the end of this trip. We had to board them for a couple of nights before we could close on the house.
We spent Wednesday running all over the place getting utilities changed over to our name. (You Orange City folk be thankful for the city run utilities!) And we also had to arrange for homeowners insurance and car insurance. At least the kids got to sleep in.
Thursday, July 26th, was the big day. We closed in the morning, went back to Jefferson City and picked up the kids and the cats and went to our new house! The truck was delivered just after lunch - with everything intact and we were no longer homeless!
The next week was a bit of a whirlwind. The Faculty Movers from Carson Newman came Friday morning and helped unload the truck. It was wonderful to have such good help. Saturday we got the kitchen up and running (that felt GOOD). Sunday we unpacked a bit more (hard to relax in the midst of such a mess). Monday Dave and Barb came and they helped us get so much done. Barb and I painted Savannah's room and she helped me get my sewing area arranged plus unpacked lots of other stuff! Dave and Sean put up new light fixtures took Sean's stuff to his office and got the garage operational. They were great help.
After they left on Wednesday Sean and I tackled Duncan's room. You can tell from the pictures that his idea was a little more extreme than his sister's, but it turned out really good. It actually took 2 days to get his done, but he was able to sleep in there Thursday night. And then Friday morning I picked up a rental car and headed for Rogers, AR. Actually, my final destination was Springfield, MO, but I stopped over at Kevin and Pam's (thanks guys) Friday night. Saturday morning I went up to Springfield for ATA Instructor Certification Camp and 12 hours (total) working out and proving I knew my stuff. I passed, HOOORAYYY! So now I can, after a bit more paperwork, get started opening our own Taekwondo club. I got back home late Monday and then we hit the ground running trying to get the kids ready to start school. Of course, that was not as easy as it sounded, but we managed to get everything done.
Savannah had a 1/2 day on Thursday, Duncan and I spent Thursday running around and jumping through bureaucratic hoops. And then school started for real this Monday. It feels so weird to have them in school already, but they were getting pretty bored without all of their friends so at least we have a routine now.
School has been a bit of an adjustment, it seems like every school district does things differently. However, we haven't had very many tears. Duncan is going to have to play the mellophone for the first month and a half but then his band teacher is going to let him play the stand up bass. Savannah was pleasantly surprised by how little the marching band had accomplished by this point, so she isn't as far behind as she had feared. She also only has 4 classes this semester, their block schedule is a little different. She is taking Band, Geography, English, and Theater Arts/Forensics. Next semester she will have Biology, Algebra II, US Government, and Band. It definitely helps with the homework load.
Well, here are a few pictures of the house now that we have some of our stuff up. I haven't put anything on the walls yet, but the piles of boxes are getting smaller. I need to make some more progress so we can get the van in the garage. We bought another car :-0 (the first time in our marriage that we've had more than one vehicle). It is a 1996 Subaru Legacy Wagon and looks quite a bit like our last Subaru.

Here's the Library/music room/sitting area.

Here's the living room.

Here's the colors in Savannah's room. Notice the things that appear to be sticking to the wall all by themselves - we used magnetic primer on that part of the wall!


And here is a sample of Duncan's room, the wall opposite this one also has the random zig-zag thing going on.

And here is part of the functional basement. ;-) I unpacked my scrapbooking stuff yesterday so I had to show off my new space! The sewing area is to the left in that same room and the sink and stovetop are to the right for the canning area.

Hello from Tennessee! In our last post we showed you some pictures of the house. We have been busy setting up the house, and painting Duncan and I's rooms. I personally like my room the best, but hey, that's why it's my room. Duncan's room is two different colors. On one wall, he has a dark, but bright blue, almost the same color as the tape we used to protect the woodwork. On the opposite wall, he has a very bright green. On the other two walls, which are opposite each other, there is a zig-zag line going from corner to corner. On the top of the line, the color is blue, and on the bottom of the line the color is green. My room is two different colors of green. Two walls right next to each other are a light green, but not bright. And the other two walls are a darker green, from the same color chart thingy as the other color. We're both going to have loft beds. They won't have any poles supporting them. Instead, the bed will be positioned in the corner, and the two sides next to the wall will be attached to the wall and the part hanging out in the middle of the room will be suspended from the ceiling by cables. It's going to be sooooooo cool! I'm really excited! I would send you pictures of our rooms, but alas, I don't know where the thing is that connects the camera to the computer. So you will just have to wait. Too bad. :)
~Savannah

We have a new house!!

Well, it has been quite a journey. . .literally. But, once again, God has taken our small faith and showed us just how BIG he really is! Our house here in Orange City sold June 8th. We spent a week looking online at houses in Tennessee and then traveled down there early Father's Day morning. Eleven hundred miles is quite a journey! We've gotten pretty good at doing it in one day, though!
We spent Monday looking at 12 houses, I think we did it in record time! Tuesday we explored around Sevierville & Pigeon Forge (only 40 minutes to Pigeon Forge from our place). Wednesday we went back to look at our top 3 choices, which God sought fit to make only our top 2 because one of them sold on Tuesday! We were able to visit with the owner of our top choice and I guess we made a good impression because she was very easy to deal with after we made our offer! By Wednesday night, around 10 o'clock we had reached an agreement. God is good! All the time!
So, here's some pictures of the new place. Just a few regular details: it has 3 bedrooms, two baths, an attached main floor garage, a shop, a canning kitchen in the basement, a three season room and a very nice backyard with a place for a garden! The perfect house for us! It also has a view of the Appalachian Mountains out the backyard.

The Front:The backyard:The sitting room off of the dining and kitchen:The three season room:

So, we now have two bathrooms and a well appointed basement! (Anyone who's been to our house in the last 5 years knows how important that is!) So come on down! We'll be moving in around July 26th and would love to show off our new geographic features!

Beautiful Smiles!!!

This happened a week ago, but. . .

One week ago, Thursday, June 7, Savannah started her day looking like this. . .

A few hours later she looked like this!!!!!


The metal you see now is just a retainer. Hooray!!!!

The Bathroom is DONE!!!!!

Well, the bathroom project is officially-nearly-finished! (I just thought of 2 more things we are going to do, but can't until they come in.) We started this mess at Christmas if you will recall and we finally finished it this last week! You wouldn't think that such a small space could take so long. I guess we underestimated it! Here's some photo's so you can enjoy the visual fruits of our labors. If you come visit you can enjoy the actual fruits!

Blizzard of '07

Well, we really did end up having a blizzard! They extended the Blizzard warning until Saturday, March 3rd at 6:00am. The college asked students not to leave on Spring Break until Sunday afternoon because the roads were so bad. So, here's some pictures to remember all the mayhem by.

We really do have some concrete under there don't we?

Just a physical reminder of exactly how much snow we had in the alley!

The drift around the back door. And that is after we shoved and pushed to get out!

The north side of the house. Even the barrel was completely covered!

In Like a Lion. . .

Well, it's been threatening for the last 18 hours, but it looks like March is going to begin with a roar! For the first time in our 12 years in the Midwest we are in a Blizzard Warning for the next 36 hours. Needless to say, the kids don't have school today. They probably won't have school tomorrow either, but the school district won't announce that until late tonight. Now we just get to hope that the electricity stays on!

Installing Husband

Dear Readers, Do not think I am this clever, I copied this off of Shalee's Diner and thought it was a scream! Enjoy and feel free to share.
-Melynda

Dear Tech Support,

Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a distinct slow down in overall system performance -- particularly in the flower and jewelry applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0.

In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5 and then installed undesirable programs such as NFL 5.0, NBA 3.0 and Golf Clubs 4.1. Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and Housecleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system. I've tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail. What can I do?

Signed, Desperate

Dear Desperate:

First keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while Husband 1.0 is an Operating System. Please enter the command: "http: I Thought You Loved Me.HTML" and try to download Tears 6.2 and don't forget to install the Guilt 3.0 update. If that application works as designed, Husband 1.0 should then automatically run the applications Jewelry 2.0 and Flowers 3.5. But remember, overuse of the above application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to Grumpy Silence 2.5, Happy Hour 7.0 or Beer 6.1. Beer 6.1 is a very bad program that will download the Snoring Loudly Beta.

Whatever you do, DO NOT install Mother-in-law 1.0 (it runs a virus in the background that will eventually seize control of all your system resources). Also, do not attempt to reinstall the Boyfriend 5.0 program. These are unsupported applications and will crash Husband 1.0.

In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly. You might considerbuying additional software to improve memory and performance. We recommend Food 3.0 and Hot Lingerie 7.7.

Good Luck,

Tech Support

A New Adventure

We're off on a new adventure! We have accepted a job at Carson-Newman College in Jefferson City, Tennessee. (All this cold weather has finally driven us out of the north!) So, if you are ever in East Tennessee, look us up. Just don't try to visit before August because we won't be there yet!

It wasn't an easy decision to leave Northwest Iowa. We've made some wonderful friends and great memories, but God has opened a door that we needed to walk through at this time, so here we are. Sean will be able to teach actual Physics majors and have a 2 person department for the first time in his career. And, we'll get to live in a beautiful place with TREES and GEOGRAPHICAL FEATURES! (That's a pretty big plus in case you couldn't tell from the all caps.)
So, keep us in your prayers, and especially pray that our house will sell quickly! It was so easy last time we moved and we would like to have a repeat of that experience.

Short, But Sweet

Savannah has also participated in Large Group Speech this winter. She was a part of the JV Improv Troupe, (can you believe it?) She had a great time doing improv, I think she enjoyed not having to memorize any lines - and practices were a lot like playing games! Her group didn't make it to the state competition, but they had a good time and did a great job! It was definitely a fun experience.

Honor Orchestra

I'm a bit behind, obviously, but Duncan participated in the Northwest Iowa Honor Orchestra on January 25th. They spent the entire day rehearsing with the guest conductor, who is the conductor of the Sioux City Symphony. Then in the evening, they put on a beautiful concert. Duncan had the honor of being the first chair bassist! One of the songs they played was one of the movements from Carmina Burana. When Duncan got the music in December he felt pretty ripped off that the basses had such a boring part, but when we heard it all together the bass line really added alot to the piece. It was great fun to listen to them and see him up there playing.

All Grown Up

High School seems to be full of firsts and this last weekend we experienced another one. Savannah went to her first formal! Her friends Amy & Ranell decided that they were all going to go together and have a great time dressing up, which as you can see, they did! Finding a dress was an adventure, but we managed to do so within budget. Savannah had a wonderful time getting all "dolled up" and mom and dad survived the late night.

Funny Things People Say

Here are some funny things I have heard the last couple of days:
"What a heat wave, it's nearly freezing!"
"I can't believe how warm it is today, it must be about freezing."
Of course, these things are only heard during the winter time around here! But we've had a 53 degree warm-up since last Tuesday, so it really does feel warm!

Am I really out there?

Thanks a lot Jennifer!

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 0 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Well, if I take this at face value, I don't exist. But, I think I will defer to Descartes, because I know I think! And I know my cats think I exist, though the reason I exist at least in their view is quite selfish. :-)

Dreaming of wool

Days like today have me dreaming of wool: wool socks, wool mittens (double layered), wool hats, wool sweaters, woolen underwear. After nearly 2 months of above average temperatures, northwest Iowa has decided to be below normal! I don't think we made it above 0 degrees yesterday (and that is not celsius believe me). It was about -2 when I shoveled the drive yesterday afternoon, but at least the sun was shining!

Today on the way to school the kids and I played the "how low can it go" game with the thermometer in the van. The record lowest temperature this morning was -25! At least this blast of artic air isn't supposed to stick around very long!

We finally received a measureable amount of snow Sunday. I think we got around 6" maybe a little less. When the temperature is this cold the snow glistens like someone poured a bunch of glitter all over it! It will be quite a while before this snow is warm enough to try to make snowballs or a snowman out of it. Snow this dry doesn't pack unless you get it wet, and I wouldn't recommend spitting outside right now!

Maybe I will go and see if I have any wool yarn around!

Christmas 2006 Family Photo

Here's the whole gang! Pretty soon we are going to have to give up on having the kids stand in front of us! They have grown so much in the last year!

We leave tomorrow for East Peoria. May you all have a very blessed Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

'Twas the week after finals and what did we do?
Musical concerts, solos & home projects too!

A two hour High School Extravaganza,
A french horn "Finale",
A bathroom in scraps,
And don't forget the borrowed zoo!

As per our usual vacation plans, we have a home improvement project going on. The bathroom wallpaper is coming down this year! We haven't quite decided on a color for the paint, but we'll be sure and put a picture up when we get it done.

This week has been full of musical activities! Savannah had her first High School concert Monday night. She played in the Symphonic Band and the Full Orchestra. She is 4th chair clarinet in the Symphonic Band (quite an accomplishment for a freshman). One of the upperclassmen recruited her for the Full Orchestra position.

Duncan's french horn solo was last night. Sean was busy getting the accompianment down this weekend! Duncan did a good job. His horn hasn't been getting much of a workout this fall, the bass has been much more of a priority. We'll have to work on getting them a little more equal time this next semester. And, speaking of the bass, Duncan was named the 1st chair bass in the Northwest Iowa Honor Orchestra! We are so proud of him! They will have their concert in late January. Tomorrow is the last day of school and also the Middle School's Christmas concert, assuming of course that the weather doesn't mess things up. The kids had a 2 hour late start this morning because of icy roads.

What's up with the "borrowed zoo" you say? Well, we are pet sitting for some friends of ours over the break. Let's see, there's a dog (pictured at left), 2 hamsters, 3 fish, and a morning dove. Add all of that to our own menagerie of 2 cats and 2 hamsters and we have quite a houseful. The cats have been in hiding since the dog arrived, Jaker's occasionally ventures out only to hide under Savannah's bed once again. However, the dog is just as scared as the cats, he hasn't gotten a good enough look at either one of them to know just what is staring at him from under the bed! All he knows is that there is something very scary under there! As you can see this is a very interesting looking dog. His name is "Shadow", but we like to call him the "Pirate Dog". One of his eyes didn't really develop so it is mostly shut, while the other one is very large, so he looks like he is saying, "ARGHH!" all the time!

A Cat's Life

Oh to have the luxury of seeking out and spending all of your time basking in a winter sunbeam! The cats love catching rays in the TV room. Usually there is some controversy about who gets the best sunbeam, but today all seems peaceful. Jakers seems to be the most relaxed, but Anastasia's old bones spend more time in the sunbeams. I love that posture with the head turned nearly upside down!

Transformers!

Purple Flower Day 1:
Breakfast time, November 24, 2006
"I think the carnation might need some more water," said Mom.
Lately we had been noticing that the carnation I got at the play from my friend Amy Korver, was not as bright a pink as it had been when I first got it. You see, at the play, which was The Music Man, there is a tradition on performance nights for people to bring flowers, candy, and random presents for different groups of people or individuals in the play. These gifts can be from friends, family, or other people in the play who wanted to give presents to everyone. I was on the props crew in the play. Me and some of my friends who were Wan-Tan-Ye Girls, I don't think I spelled that right, all got flowers from Amy. I, aside from my carnation, I also got a pop, lots of candy, and truckloads of chocolate, some of which I still need to eat. The best gift that I probably got was the carnation. It's been sitting on our table for several weeks now, and doesn't look that much different than when it started out. The only differnce is that it is now a lighter pink than when it started. We decided that we should try to make it turn purple. So we filled it up with water and then put 4 drops of blue food coloring in the water. So far, nothing has happened, but it's only been about 15 minutes. We hope to see some purple by tonight.
Signing out,
Agent 007 (sec)