Lest I Forget

For the entire month of August, Tony was TDY in Scotland. In the military life, it is well-known that bad things happen while your husband is away on a TDY. Armed with this knowledge, I steeled myself as Tony pulled away in the wee dawn hours of the morning. "I can do this", I told myself. He has been deployed for a whole year. This is one month. My husband, at the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo 2016 The first incident was not too bad, considering that it could have been much worse. There was this annoying little light that would come on the van's dashboard every time I went around a sharp curve. As soon as the curve straightened out, the light went off. Surely, I thought, if it was a big deal, the light would stay on. Wrong thought. I was extremely low on oil for some odd reason. I was relating the funny light story to a friend at church who immediately checked my oil level. It was bone dry. After adding 3 quarts, it barely reached the safe line on the oil dips...

Poor Peter. His birthday was going along just nicely until his mother interrupted the fun by breaking her arm at the actual party.  A couple of days before, Jack and I went shopping together for gifts. I always like those rare days where I get time to focus on just one kid. Jack and I had fun searching through the German toy store. He also made note of several items he wanted for himself. We brought home our stash and hid it away. On the morning of Peter's birthday, I let all the kids wrap the gifts for their brother. I was hoping to avoid that moment when another kid gives in to jealousy by getting them involved in the giving. It worked. I simply cannot fathom how my baby, my youngest is all of a sudden four. His bright eyes, and the dimple on one cheek when he smiles melt my heart every time. He amazes me with his insights and attention to the little details of life. What a blessing he is! Happy fourth birthday Peter! "I'm four!" Now he has his own...

Well my friends, I will be carefully packing away my current knitting projects for the foreseeable future. Which is unfortunate in many ways, but mostly because it is my anxiety reducer. And right at this moment my anxiety level is mighty high. Sunday was Peter's fourth birthday. He asked us to take him to the skating rink. So I bought him a pair of cute roller skates that fit over his shoes, along with lots of other little trinkets. Sophie has been here with us and it has been a joy to have all my kids together under one roof. So we all loaded up into the van and went to the skating rink. The big girls and I took turns shuffling around the rink with Peter. Anna and Jack are quite good skaters and Therese almost matches them in ability. So, when Peter took a break, Therese asked me to skate alongside her. We were having such fun, coasting around the rink. Then, I lost my balance and went down. Hard. I heard the bone break. I looked at my arm. It did not look like my arm because i...

Today we did some cleaning up in the morning in preparation for a houseguest arriving tomorrow. Then, we packed up and headed out to the city of Cochem to enjoy a festival at the castle. It was a good thing that we invited Olivia's friend Aaron along and that he accepted our invitation. My GPS decided to conk out about halfway there. He let us use his phone to navigate us the rest of the way. Note for next time...I am printing out written directions, just in case. We spent our first hour in Cochem cruising around looking for a parking place. We ended up very, very far from the castle. But it was a beautiful walk, and one of the prettiest days weather wise in a long time. I chose to purchase some ice cream for our walk up to the castle. Wise choice, if I do say so myself. After paying the entrance fee, we wandered and meandered and observed and tried our hand at things. It was a good, good day. view of the castle from where we parked weird getting close ...

As summer slowly draws to a close and the new school year looms on the not too distant horizon, I have been in a somewhat contemplative mood. I am hopeful that the changes being implemented in our curriculum this year will naturally lead us into a life I wish for us. I want to foster a lively curiosity in my children in the world around them, how it works and how it came to be what we see today. This week has been most out of the ordinary for our family. We have been up early, packing lunches, and heading out the door for VBS and theater camp. While I think it has been good in some ways, (the older kids have been most helpful getting the little ones ready and helping to pack lunches), I look with longing to the return of our mornings that are ours alone. Realizing that we were low on bread, I got ready for the day and then walked down to the bakery to procure freshly baked bread. Have I ever told you that our village very much reminds me of my father's small home town...