Snow Day

Blog Post About January 2021 ☃

After coming home from church on January 10th, we got the blessing of seeing snow before we left the country.

1:11pm

1:30pm

2:20pm

3:03pm

3:05pm

4:30pm

4:36pm

And then this happened...

I mean, who doesn't want to go out in the snow and pretend they're Kylo Ren?

Later, we had such a peaceful evening walk.

But we knew it was time to get down to business and start packing.

Our flight was in two days.

10:18pm
 

January 2021: Beginnings and Endings

Blog Post About January 2021

My kids wanted to host a New Year's Eve party for their friends in America. 

Now that they're older, it was easy enough. 

They planned, they bought what they needed, they had the party, and they cleaned up.  Doug and I spent all evening in the bedroom reading and watching a movie, and it was a pleasure to go to bed well before midnight.

We started our goodbyes. 

Kylie was leaving on January 9th, and we were leaving soon after. 

We took a family walk with another family we enjoy being with, and had fun being silly together.

January 2, 2021

The morning of my birthday, we all went out for a country breakfast.

For dinner, I was treated to Olive Garden, and year 48 was off to a great start.

 

The six lovely ladies I did Bible study with (and continue to meet with over zoom) kidnapped me for one last night together. They had arranged it with Doug ahead of time, and he had taken care of everything on our end. 

We had such a good time, but I hated that I wasn't feeling better. As you can see I was in my pajamas, ready for bed, far earlier than anyone else. 

These ladies continue to be such a blessing and an encouragement for me.

At 5:30 am on January 9th, Kylie went in to tell Keira and Caleb goodbye before Doug, Karis, and I drove her to the airport.

Sad tears.

At 6:10 am we were saying goodbye again.

In September we said goodbye knowing we would still be in the same country while she was in school.

This time we said goodbye knowing we would be moving back overseas and not sure whether we would see her in May or August during her breaks or if we would have to wait for her to come home next December.

Sad tears.

January 9, 2021

The afternoon Kylie left, Keira and I went to hang out with a friend and put puzzles together.

In the meantime, Doug and Caleb went hunting with our fishing friend, Tim. Caleb had never been hunting before, and Tim was so excited about Caleb possibly getting his first deer.

And HE DID!

January 9, 2021

Caleb brought the shell of the bullet back with him when we left three days later, and when we landed in our country, we went through one last x-ray before leaving the airport, and they confiscated the shell from Caleb.

So much for memories :(

We were SO EXCITED about snow predicted for January 10th! 

And God did not disappoint us.

The Painful and Delightful Memories of Colorado

Blog About Fall 2020

Keira and I got back from Virginia on a Tuesday, and Karis and I left for Denver, Colorado, the next day!

We were meeting another mother and daughter there, so we sent them a picture of us in the airport.

They kindly reciprocated :)

We met in Denver, rented a car (which is going to be a big part of this story), and we found a middle eastern place to eat.

I still get amazed at digital maps! I remember driving with my family every summer, and I loved being in charge of the map...the paper map! But on those handy-dandy maps, it didn't say, take this exit for great middle eastern food. There was NO way to know what was in the city!

I can't remember if the food was good or not :)

I think we had problems getting it down.

October 28, 2020

We drove to Breckenridge. It was the off-season, and we had so much fun walking around without it being crowded.

Narnia vibes

October 29, 2020

We walked everywhere the first day, but the first morning, when we wanted to drive around and find a coffee shop, the car wouldn't start. We were in a garage, and not many people were around. Karis and her friend walked to town, and I walked down the road where I saw intermittent traffic, and I stopped 8 cars (3 wouldn't stop) to ask for a jump. Most of them had rentals as well, but one nice gentleman stopped and said he could help. I told him where my friend was waiting, so he drove to give our car a jump. He even gave us his construction business card in case we needed him again (since we didn't want to bother him, we never did, but we should have). We drove into town, did some sight-seeing, and after a few hours, we went back and the car wouldn't start again.

I'm not going to drag this out for you, but let me give you the highlights. I found a family in the parking lot who helped us, but we were concerned about making our drive back to Denver the next day. The car rental company said we could take it to the nearest rental place and switch it out for another car. The kicker was the rental place was in the OPPOSITE direction of Denver by an hour. 

SO, we opted to get a jump in the morning from some maintenance men and drive straight to Denver without turning the car off. When we stopped to eat lunch, someone remained in the car with it running, and everyone else got food and brought it back for the driver. In Denver, we had planned to eat out with a friend that night and spend the night before flying out the next morning, but we couldn't with this particular car.

SO, we drove all the way out to the airport, told the story to the car rental place, and they apologized, gave a SMALL discount and said they would upgrade us with a nice car. This is not what we wanted. 

Small car, BIG discount works better, right? 

Anyway, we drove away in a LARGE SUV Denali.  It was nice, but it was awful at the same time. 

Trying to park that thing in downtown Denver was NOT fun or easy!

Needless to say, we left with some memories :)

October 30, 2020

Food, Food, and Cold Weather (not in that order)

Doug flew with Karis and her friend back to Turkey on February 6th and met up again with her mom.

She left just in time before we experienced a stretch of bad power in our neighborhood and before Doug had to go to the school to talk about someone slapping Keira.  Oh, the joys of parenthood!

On February 13, 2020, it actually snowed in our city.

Yes, this is as much as we got...a few snowflakes in the morning, and then...nothing.

The lack of power was a real issue though. Usually, we can stay warm by crowding in front of one of our propane heaters, but there was a shortage at this time, so without the use of electric heaters or propane heaters, we were just like Texans during the snowpocalypse of 2021. 

Below are some of our empty propane bottles waiting outside.  

Trucks playing the old national anthem on loud speakers usually drive through every neighborhood in the city at least once a day so you can hear the music, go out of your gate and stop the truck, and trade out your empty bottles for full ones.

At some point, Doug heard of a place that had a few, and he drove to go get them, paying a much higher price than normal, but we were grateful!

A few days later after school, Keira was invited to play with some girls that go to a different school.  Their mothers' got together and made quite the feast for an "after school get-together."  

February 16, 2020

One of these ladies (two days earlier) had held a birthday breakfast brunch for her daughter (turning 9 or 10) at a nice restaurant in town.  Keira and I were invited, but we were WAY underdressed.  First off, I had never heard of the restaurant, and secondly, I didn't know that the birthday girl would be switching between a party dress and a floor-length formal during the festivities. Not to mention, most of the moms and their daughters were also dressed very nicely.

At a few nice restaurants here in the city, they have their basements made into play areas so parents can visit undisturbed.

While you are dining (and after kids have eaten), you can take them downstairs and a restaurant employee will watch them.  Sometimes it's free.  Sometimes it costs around $1.50.

I thought this basement was pretty impressive!

Trampoline

Pretend kitchen

Make-up and hair

And I love that you can see evidence of all the moms who come down to get their kids.

Small tricycle track

As I was leaving, I saw several of these "dust busters" plugged in the walls around the restaurant, and thought these guys must be pretty smart, especially when I saw them cleaning up parts of the kid table with one.

I had one when my kids were smaller, and I used it A LOT!