Way Back Machine Please!

I don't understand the concept of play dates.  Play date is scheduled.  At my house I get it, at their house I don't.  There doesn't seem to be a protocol.  Do I stay with her?  Can I leave and do other things? Should I leave and do other things?  You know?  Do they want me to stay?  Do they not?   What is the appropriate length of time for a play date?  When I was a kid we just went out and played with the neighborhood kids.   If there were fights or problems we went home.  We worked it out in time and did fine. If you lived farther away, your mom dropped you off and told the other mom when she'd pick you up and there you had it.  Why isn't that so easy anymore?  I wish I could get in Mr. Peadbody's way-back machine and take my daughter back to the 70's when life made much more sense.

Life aint Easy

Living here in El Paso has been hard.  I love the weather and I like our house.  The problem has been a lack of any kind of meaningful friendship.  Those of you (both of you readers) who know me know that I am anything but superficial.  I want to have people I can hang with, do things with and be real with. I don't do shallow and have little desire to hang with people who are about as deep as a puddle. I haven't found that kind of friendship here.  The real friends I have from other places are hearing from me a lot.  I really appreciate them.  No one seems to want to get to know me here.  I can live a solitary lifestyle.  I am completely capable of introverting.  I have a world I can retreat into and it's really quite lovely.  I could do that if I could just find one person to connect with and maybe one little area of ministry.  The other problem is that I am the mother of an extrovert.  She is an only child and really needs kids to play with.  We do gymnastics and cheer and have a home-school group she goes to and church of course, but she needs regular playmates to just pal around with and play barbies and jump on the trampoline with!  This we cannot seem to find. There are kids in the neighborhood,, but they don't come outside.  We tried introducing ourselves and got a door slammed in our face for the effort.  I had a really good excuse, their mail was delivered to us by accident.  They refused to take the mail too.  The next week her husband hit me with his car.  I stopped introducing myself.  Lesson learned.   We find the rare playdate, but mostly I just hear how busy people are.  When do their children play?  I hear about karate and going here and there, homeschool lessons and special classes for this and that, but when do the kids get downtime?  When do they play dress up and cops and robbers?  No wonder they're all fat and in therapy.  They never play!

Fun Shots from the Summer of 2014

World Trade Center Memorial

While we were in NYC last June for the wedding, we had a chance to go to the memorial at the World Trade Center.  It was touching and haunting and crowded and so sad.

Fun Surprise

Our last duty station was at Ft. Leavenworth where Alan attended CGSC which is the Command and General Staff College.  At his graduation in June we were surprised to find Gary Sinese as one of the presenters!

Alaina the Flower-girl!

This past summer Alan's niece was married in New York and Alaina was asked to be a flower-girl!

Through It All

"I've had many tears and sorrows, I've had questions for tomorrow, There've been times I didn't know right from wrong. But in every situation, God gave blessed consolation that my trials come to only make me strong.

I've been to lots of places and I've seen a lot of faces, There've been times I felt so all alone. But in my lonely hours, yes these precious lonely hours Jesus lets me know I am His own.

Through it all, through it all, I've learned to trust in Jesus. I've learned to trust in God. Through it all, through it all, I've learned to depend upon His word.

I THANK GOD FOR THE MOUNTAINS, AND I THANK HIM FOR THE VALLEYS. I THANK HIM FOR THE STORMS HE'S BROUGHT ME THROUGH. FOR IF I'D NEVER HAD A PROBLEM, I WOULDN'T KNOW THAT HE CAN SOLVE THEM. I WOULDN'T KNOW WHAT FAITH IN GOD CAN DO!!!!

Words by Andre Crouch. Song of my heart.

Back to Homeschooling too!

So, when we got here the wife of the man who owns our house was saying something about it being almost time for school to start.  It was mid-July and I felt a bit of irritation with her for rushing things. Where I come from, school didn't start until the end of August or even September, and I'm not one of those mothers who looks forward to her child going back to school.  I miss her when she's gone!  Anyway, I said something about having several weeks yet to which she (a school teacher in the district) quite shocked said no it starts Monday!  Turns out they have year-round schooling here.  They also have uniforms and so our Moving truck arrived on Wednesday and we headed out on  Friday to get school supplies and uniforms!  So Alaina started school.  But it wasn't like the school we'd had at our last duty station.  The school here is so far behind that they were covering things in 2nd grade that she'd done in first.  There were many problems including the fact that the teacher swears at the class, and so we pulled her out to homeschool.  She is doing so much better in homeschooling too!  I love that I can spend extra time on things she needs to work on and less on stuff that comes easily!  I love getting to spend all that extra time with her.  I really missed her when she was at school!

Back to Blogging?

So, fast forward over a year.  When the last picture was posted we lived in Tacoma, Washington and were stationed at Ft. Lewis, then we moved to Ft. Leavenworth and now we are at Ft. Bliss which is in El Paso.  We are the exception to the rule for Army moving.  We are coming up on our 12th anniversary and have moved 10 times.  Yay us.  This constant moving does however prevent one from having lots of clutter in the house.  If I don't need it.  I don't keep it.  I throw bags of stuff out or donate before each move and as I unpack I get rid of bags more.  LOL  God knows me!  I'm normally a pack rat, but I'm just too lazy to keep all that stuff.  And then too, I did marry Mr. Clean, minimalist guy.  I have yet to meet or know anyone that then meets Alan and doesn't say, "Well THAT's not the guy I pictured you with!"  lol  God knew me there too.  Better than I know myself.  So here we are in El Paso.  Let me show you the house we found!  By the way we Got here in July of 2014.