Memorial Day 2015

This Memorial Day weekend, we weren't expecting to enjoy ourselves too much because Geoff was going to have to work.  THANKFULLY, he ended up not having to work the entire time, so we found some last minute fun!  Sunday, we had a few friends over for a cookout.  We failed to get ANY pictures (UGH), but the food was good, the kids had a blast, and we resolved to do it again soon!

On Monday, the four of us headed to a beach north of Tel Aviv.  We packed a cooler of food and drinks, brought our camping chairs and sand toys, and relaxed.  We all had a great time and resolved to do it again soon! (Ha! See what I did there?)

 Sam was not a huge fan of the Mediterranean.

Liam was though.

He also loved building sand castles.

Sam preferred the sand too.

 Liam is a stylish beach guy.

 My guys

 We got one shot of all of us.

These are artistic shots titled, "All done, beach."

Sam is 17 months old.

This cutie pie is growing like a weed and turning into a toddler.  He has so many new words we can't keep count, and has even started baby sentences to try to get his meaning across, such as "Uh-oh wa-wa" for when he drops his water cup or "Snack yes" to tell us he is hungry.  He'll also make observations like "pane loud" (if a loud airplane is flying).  He is down to one nap a day and prefers to walk to the elevator instead of being carried.  He knows he is cute and is not shy about telling strangers "hello" or "bye-bye."  He has also started sassing us a bit, telling us "no" when he doesn't want to do something and then trying to walk away quickly.   We're probably going to have our hands full with this little guy, but we wouldn't have it any other way.  Happy 17 months, Sam!

Mommy's weekend off

Last weekend, I joined three other friends at the Kempinski resort on the Jordanian side of the Dead Sea.  We left late Friday morning and got home late Sunday afternoon, so we had two days and nights of kid-free fun.  To parents of little ones, I strongly recommend taking a weekend for yourself.  It was nice to eat meals without bargaining with one child to eat more protein or tear pieces of bread for the other.  I could sit by the pool and talk with friends or read magazines, not needing to constantly be aware of a beginning swimmer in the pool or the baby's proximity to the water.  AND I COULD SLEEP UNTIL MY BODY WOKE ME UP.  It was nice to rejuvenate (the massage at the spa helped).  And it was even nicer to come home to a warm welcome by all my men, who clearly missed me.  Here are some highlights.

 We found some camels wandering the side of the road in 

"No Man's Land" between the border of the West Bank and Jordan.

 If you look closely, you can see the outlines of some buildings at the top of the mountains.

That is Jerusalem as seen from our balcony at sunset.

 The next day we hit the pool.

I found it a bit chilly at first.

 But when I got used to the water...AHHHHHH.

 Monica, Lesley, me, and Beth

 And then this guy (from Amman) wanted to take his picture with us.

He kept asking us if we thought he looked like Kim Kardashian.

We got to dress up for dinner.

Before we left, we got all Dead Sea mudded up,

and then did some floating,

before hitting the pool one last time.

a very belated thank you to my mother

I never understood my mother's selflessness until I became a mother myself.  How she managed to cook us breakfast and dinner everyday, clean house, do laundry, etc., all while working 8-5 (and for a time, going to school), I will never know.  Throw in all our activities--ballet lessons, piano lessons, softball and baseball (at two different fields across town), Wednesdays at church, Connor in soccer, me in band and choir and 5 million other school related things...how did she not die of exhaustion at the end of every week?  And how do I repay that selfless love?  By moving halfway around the world...twice.

There is no way "Thank You" will ever be enough.  But let me try.

1.  Thank you for driving me to Birmingham for ballet.  I loved the car trips almost as much as the lessons.  We'd look for baby ribbons on mailboxes.  "A BABY BOY!" at the blue ones, remember?
2.  Thank you for getting up early to cook us breakfast before school.  I know you were tired, and we could have gotten by on cereal.  Lots of kids did.  But not yours!
3.  Thank you for jumping over the fence when Kelly Gowers hit a ball into my face, breaking my nose.  Nothing makes a mama move faster than a hurt baby.  (I also remember you putting your finger through the papoose/velcro restraint at the hospital that time Dad slung me off the spinny-thing at McDonald's.  Nothing makes a kid feel better than Mama's touch.)
4.  Thank you for letting me stay home the day after a WMK teacher embarrassed me in front of my friends, teasing about a boy (and for talking to the principal about that teacher).
5.  Thank you for introducing me to Laura Ingalls Wilder (and for trying to tell me to skip Farmer Boy), and for reading us Call It Courage and The Dog of Pompeii.  Thank you for buying me the entire set of Anne of Green Gables that time we just happened across them in the bookstore, never knowing there was anything beyond Anne of Avonlea.  I love books because of you.
6.  Thank you for playing good Christmas music.  George Winston's December and John Denver's Aspenglow will always take me back to your house.
7. Thank you for my baton lessons.  I loved being a majorette.  THANK YOU for the one-on-one lessons with Shirley and Jack when I got serious about trying out at Auburn.  Sorry I couldn't pull that one off.
8.  Thank you for "YOU LET ME TALK TO THAT MAN!" when I called you crying from PCHS, after being wrongfully accused of smoking and cussing (and then lectured by the principal, no less) at the Pizza Hut after Miss Pell High.  I remember him telling me he saw who I hung out with and "Birds of a feather flock together."  Well, I have a Master's and have presented at a national technology in education conference, and those friends include an engineer for NASA, a pharmacist, a director of a national film festival, an accountant, several small business owners, lots of teachers and counselors...I could go on and on about our successes.  But I digress.  Thank you for putting him in his place.
9.    Thank you for allowing me to double major, adding two years to my time at Auburn.  I remember being nervous to tell you that I wanted to add a major in Theatre Performance.  We were driving to Birmingham, and you simply said, "Oh, Leslie" and sighed.  I am sure you were thinking about the finances and the practicality of an acting degree.  But you never tried to talk me out of it.  And I had the best SIX years at Auburn because of that.  THANK YOU!!!
10.  Thank you for letting me move to Virginia Beach WITHOUT A JOB.  I know our parting broke your heart, and you must have lost lots of sleep, worrying about how I was going to get by.  But I learned a lot that first broke year and had a great time living six blocks from the beach.  (Geoff thanks you too!)

There are countless others, all tucked away in my memory and my heart.  Happy Mother's Day, Mom.  May I turn out half as selfless as you.

Recent fun

Summer seems to have finally arrived.  Everyone has said how late the warmth is/how unusually long the rain lingered.  Of course it's out of the ordinary!  We moved here!  If you want your weather to change, just invite us to move to your area.  It's a guaranteed thing.

Anyway, we're enjoying ourselves once again.

We love our nearby playgrounds and parks.

My boys enjoy light saber duels.

And Liam got bunk beds!

(They were a surprise!)

He has tried both the top and the bottom and is loving every minute of sleep!

Sam is 16 months old!

This is a bit late, but Sammy turned 16 months old and seems to be more toddler than baby these days.  He's walking all over the place and talking up a storm.  He doesn't just point at things to name them anymore (ball, Elmo, cat, etc.), he communicates.  "Up", "down", "outside", "snack", and "bath" are all used to tell us what he wants, and he uses "please" and "thank you" in context.  He has all his 1 year molars and has added another bottom tooth as well, and he still thinks Liam is the best thing ever (when Liam is not playing with something he wants to play with instead, that is).  He's got a cute little personality, smiling and waving hello and goodbye to most of the strangers he encounters, and walking up to Geoff and me to hug our knees before continuing on his way.

The only sad/slightly scary thing that happened was that Sam got hives.  And I mean REALLY got hives.  They started on his belly, but quickly spread up to his face and down to his feet and stayed for two weeks!  The doctor thinks it was something he ate (despite having no new foods), and she prescribed some antihistamine drops.  Let's all pray that this is just an odd one and done incident as I do NOT want to deal with food allergies, especially in our internationally transient life!

You can't see them too well in this picture, but POOR BABY!

He was a trooper though.

Sweet Sammy boy!  We love you so!  Stop growing so quickly!

Camping, attempt 1

To round out Liam's Spring Break, we decided to go camping in the Negev Desert with our good friends, the Baltzes.  We left Friday morning and had a beautiful drive down...that is until Liam reminded us rather forcefully that he still suffers from carsickness.  Because it had not happened since the winding, mountainous roads of Bosnia, we simply forgot about him getting carsick.  We had to stop to change every item of his clothing, wipe down his booster seat and seatbelt, and attempt to save the iPad (which we did, we simply threw the cover away).

After the incident, we told him to hold this bag, just in case.

He decided to loop it over his ears, feedbag style.

After Liam and the car were cleaned up, we continued on to our campsite at the Ramon Crater, where we were in for a bit of a surprise.  Half of Israel decided to come camping too!  So the men rushed to find two camping spots together, as well as a piece of steel for our campfire.  We had to set up our tents in pretty fierce wind gusts, and once the sun started to set, we had to dig out winter hats!

 Howards on the left, Baltzes on the right

The camp site--see?  Half of Israel

Then it came time to build our fire and start dinner.  We were having "hobo dinners", a recipe I learned while working the Outdoors program at Camp Winnataska nigh on 20 years ago now.  Traditionally, they consist of seasoned hamburger patties, potatoes, carrots, and onions wrapped in tinfoil and placed on smoldering coals to cook.  Only Geoff forgot to buy potatoes, Liam doesn't eat carrots, and we didn't have Dale's sauce...so my desire for Camp nostalgia was denied, but we enjoyed dinner regardless.

As it came time for Sam to go to bed, I took him into our fabulous tent (2 compartments inside!) and tried to put him in his pack 'n play.  He would have NONE of it and cried and cried any time I tried to leave.  So I snuggled with him in my sleeping bag, trying to get him drowsy enough to ignore the noise outside.  It finally worked about 9 p.m., but by then I was too warm and sleepy to get out of my sleeping bag, so I missed out on the campfire and Liam's excitement about roasting a marshmallow and then his refusal to eat it.

After a cold night next to musical, talkative neighbors, the boys woke up at first light, happy and ready to go.  Once our friends woke up, we got the camp stove ready and made coffee (which we all very badly needed), bacon, eggs, and pancakes.  Then half of Israel left since their workweek starts on Sunday, and we headed out for a hike.  It started out well, and the kids did great climbing up some steep rockface.  When we got to the top, we had a great view, so we sat to enjoy a little snack before heading back down.

 The whole crew

 About to tackle the mountain

 Almost to the top

At the summit!

Little did we know that was the last of our happiness for a while.  Sam cried almost the entire way back to the camp.  At least Geoff was able to snap two scenic photos.

 Rock cairns

Desert scenery

Once we got back and were somewhat sheltered from the relentless winds, the parents had a pow-wow and decided to throw in the towel due to the weather predictions of below freezing temps and possible rain.  We hit a McDonald's for dinner on our way out, and the boys slept the entire 3 hour drive home.  We put them straight to bed before we showered away the desert dust until the water ran red, and we hit the sack by 10 p.m.  Everyone slept until after 7 a.m., which is unheard of in our house.  It was the best sleep I've had in months!

Then came the mountain of laundry.  I had to wash EVERYTHING, even though we only stayed one night.  The dust was embedded.   It took me 2 1/2 days.

Guess which pillowcase accompanied us?

So, this trip was rough, but we are not deterred.  We want our boys to love the outdoors as much as we do.  We'll just pay better attention to local holidays and wind predictions next time!  Because it really was a lovely place, see?