We're Baa-aack (Bridget)

We made it back from our trip, alive and semi-conscious. What a fantastic time we had. We always cram as much into our trips as possible while still relaxing and this time was no exception. We flew into Washington DC on a Saturday night and spent the rest of the weekend there relaxing in the hotel pool and finding a rental big enough for our family (we reserved one but were informed at the last minute that it was only a 7-seater.) We drove all the way up to the tippy-top of VT where my dad lives and where all my siblings were waiting for us. It was a long and often very loud drive with many, many stops. We spent a good 10 days in peaceful VT recovering and laughing it up with my family. Then it was off to CT to catch the ferry over to Long Island. As I recall, Samantha screamed for a solid 45 minutes at one point. The ferry ride was nice because there was no car seat involved! The McGee family was gracious enough to put us up for a couple of nights and we thoroughly enjoyed visiting with them and swimming in their pool. Lonny really wanted the kids to see a big fireworks show on the 4th of July so we drove to Jones Beach where we and tens of thousands of other people watched an amazing show. Even Ethan and Samantha were duly impressed. The next day we visited one of Lonny's buddies from Southern Police Institute. Kevin is the quintessential NYPD officer. And what a great family he has - they were very good to us and we had a wonderful visit with them. Then it was off to NJ where we were able to visit a good friend from The University of Dallas, my alma mater. Mary and her family put us up for the night and once again, we thoroughly enjoyed our time together. The next 5 days or so we spent at my brother's house in VA. The kids swam and played with their cousins, we went to Arlington National Cemetery and to a couple of Civil War sites, Fredricksburg and Manassas, everyone went to King's Dominion and I stayed behind with the little ones, we went to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History and of course had a good visit with my brother! We also met up with a high school friend of mine at Manassas and met her little boy. For our last couple of days in VA, we went to my cousin's house in Stafford and hung out with her and her dad (my uncle) and her family. We got to meet her daughter's Samantha Marie who is 2 months older than ours. Everyone had a great time playing Pool and Wii. My uncle, Lonny and the 2 older boys went to the Marine Corps Museum on our last day while Matthew spent time with my cousin's husband and Molly, Sam, Ethan and I hung out with my cousin and played all day. It was a memorable visit. We spent the last night in a hotel close to the airport and, thankfully, had a fairly uneventful flight back home where Abby met us with frenetic barking and tail wagging. Whew - what a ride - but it's good to be home again.

Planes, Kiddos & Automobiles

We leave in the wee hours of the morning on Saturday for our big trip back east to visit my family and do some sightseeing. I'm taking a much-needed breather after running (driving) back and forth ALL day long today doing errands and chauffering kids. Starting at around 1pm it was Fred Meyer and back, immediately followed by Molly's violin lesson and back, immediately followed by a bunch of errands and back, immediately followed by Daniel and Nicholas' Youth Mediation meeting downtown and back. Then I got about an hour at home to make dinner before I went back downtown and picked them up. Poor little Samantha screamed in her carseat over and over to the point where she was hoarse and emitting the high-pitched cry that makes everyone in the car collectively say, "Ooooohhhh, poor Sam!" She is now sleeping peacefully in her crib, no doubt still involuntarily sniffling from her sad day of neglect.
Back to the trip...I've spent all week making lists, running errands and getting the house in order since we have a housesitter coming to stay with Abby. Tomorrow our big group of friends comes over for lunch (no, I'm not cooking) so that we can all get together before we leave. I wanted them to come here so I would be forced to clean the house and not wait until the last minute when I needed to be packing. So, tomorrow we'll visit and relax a little bit after doing the frenzied cleaning that we always do before anyone comes over. Then tomorrow night we'll hopefully mow the lawn and weed whack and that leaves all day Friday for packing and those last-minute details. Assuming we all survive the plane rides and the 12 hour car ride,
I'll try to blog while we're gone and post some pics of our vacation fun as it happens. Pray for us!!

Magic Piscoya October 6, 1995- May 19, 2009

Our beloved dog, Magic, has to be put to sleep today. It's a sad day for all of us. The 4 older kids have all grown up with her and Ethan and Samantha will not even remember her. Abby, her puppy who never left the nest, will miss her terribly, I'm sure. We console ourselves by thinking how happy she will be in the afterlife since we believe that God would never leave our pets out of heaven. We imagine her romping joyfully with other dogs and hunting to her heart's content, eating popcorn and apples, cheese and peanut butter and whatever else she can find! If there are garbage bags in heaven, I'm sure she'll find them and get into them too. There are no gates, no closed doors, no leashes, no baths, no pain.

Rest in peace, Magic. We'll miss you.

My One and Only on our 15th Wedding Anniversary (Bridget)

Please indulge me as I wax mushy on the subject of my sweet husband today. This is our 15th anniversary and I love him more now than I did on the day we married. I still remember that day (duh, who doesn't remember their wedding day?) :) I didn't sleep much the night before. I went down to breakfast and could only get a few sips of coffee and a bite of a muffin down. I was SO nervous. It felt so right to stand there next to Lonny in front of the altar in the church I attended as a child. I received all the sacraments in that very church - baptism, confession, first communion, confirmation and finally, matrimony. The wedding was beautiful and I still think it was so nice that we had friends from all the stages of our lives there to witness our marriage. The weather was sunny with a cool breeze - much warmer than it had been the day before. Anyway, that was the day we became "one" and though it hasn't always been easy, we have remained "one" all these years.
Marriage is tough - there are no two ways about it. But we grow every time we make it through a rough patch. We have to try not to let life get in the way of caring for each other because if we stop showing each other how much we care in little ways throughout the day, we end up drifting apart and no longer acting as one.
I hardly ever say it but I notice the little things Lonny does for me and they make a HUGE difference in my day and in my life. I notice that when I heave an exhausted sigh in the wee hours of the morning when I've fed Samantha but she just won't go back to sleep, my husband's feet find mine as if to say, "I'm here with you." I notice when he sees that my cell phone needs charging and puts it on the charger for me. I notice when he offers to go to the store for me when I've run out of some ingredient that I need for dinner. I notice when he leaves work early to chauffeur the kids to their activities. I notice that he gets up in the morning on the weekends with Ethan and lets me sleep in. I notice when he brings me coffee on those days. I notice all the things he does around the house. He truly is "my handyman." I notice the ways that he shows the kids how much he loves them and that makes me feel loved too.
I hope that my one and only notices the little things I do for him and that he feels loved. Because I love him with all my heart.

Hobby tron.com (Nicholas)

Hobbytron .com is a good place to buy anything for your hobby but I go there for the airsoft! You can buy pistols for a buck fifty!!!(not incuding shipping) I bought an airsoft shotgun there, but it has not come yet. NOTE:DO NOT EXPECT THE THING YOU BOUGHT TO GET THERE WHEN THEY SAY IT WILL!!



~Nicholas

Money Season (hopefully)

Spring is in the air! And you know what that means? Its time to rake those leaves you forgot to rake last fall!! Don't want too?? We`ll do it for you!! That's how we get money! The three of us go door to door asking people if they want us to rake their lawns!We`re really raking in the dough,heh,heh...



Nicholas~

TOTAL AIRSOFT WAR!!!!

Since Matthew and I bought airsoft guns the whole neighborhood exploded into TOTAL AIRSOFT WAR!!!!!!! Right after we bought airsoft guns we found out our nextdoor neighbor had a couple, then our other neighbor got three!! Then Daniel`s gun broke and I gave him mine and just ordered an airsoft shotgun form an awsome airsoft website! We have been having airsoft wars almost every weekend now and everybody keeps upgrading their wepons and just making the TOTAL AIRSOFT WAR bigger!!


Nicholas~

The Moho (Bridget...who else)

Lonny got back with the RV last Sunday! It's a beaut - and it fits in our side driveway without having to cut down any trees. Yay! The kids spent the night in it the first couple of nights and have been doing their schoolwork in there as well. I may invest in a Do Not Disturb sign and lock myself in there from time to time!

Summer! At least temporarily...(Bridget)

We had the most gorgeous day today - 77 degrees and sun, sun, sun! I went out and did yard work for about 2 hours while the babies were sleeping and I have the blisters to prove it. I even hung a load of clothes out for the first time in a long time. I'm sure I won't have time to do it every day like I wish I could but maybe once school is over.... Lonny and I took Ethan and Samantha for a walk this afternoon and saw a robin at the tippy-top of a tree just singing at the top of his little lungs. That's what this weather makes me feel like doing too. I know that I'd feel a lot less energetic if I woke up after very few consecutive hours of sleep every night to darkness and cold instead of bright sunshine and warm(ish) weather. If only my body didn't require sleep; there's so much I feel like doing! Actually, it's not so much my lack of sleep that's keeping me from doing what I want, it's lack of time. When Lonny is home he can hold Sam and help with Ethan but if I have to do it all, there's very little time left for anything else.

She's Here!! (Happy Mama)

The Piscoya kids welcome Samantha Marie born on March 14 at 1:53am. She weighed 9lbs, 3oz. What a joy for Molly to have a little sister, finally! The "girls" are having way too much fun dressing their new "doll!" Ethan loves his baby sister. He calls her "Nee-nee", his word for baby, or "Nam" since he doesn't say "s" on the front of words. He loves to talk to her and give her kisses and shove her pacifier in her mouth a little too hard. We can't wait until they can play together and be best buddies.

The birth went well. I started having contractions on Friday morning and thought the baby would be born on Friday the 13th but as soon as I got up and started my day, the contractions pretty much stopped though I did have some on and off the rest of the afternoon. I finally decided to make arrangements for someone to come watch the kids, since I hadn't asked anyone yet (denial?) so I called Kelly when I got home from group and told her I would probably be going into labor sometime in the next couple of days and she agreed to be on call. I lay d0wn and took a nap and when I woke up the contractions were stronger and getting closer together so I called Kelly and gave her a heads-up. We both laughed at how soon I ended up calling her! I made pancakes for dinner and busied myself with laundry and general cleaning and finally packing the rest of my overnight bag. We left for the Birth Center around 10:30pm and my water broke in the car on the way there. That was a total shock since in all my pregnancies, my water has never broken on its own except when I started pushing Nicholas out. I got right into the soaking tub when I got there and ended up staying in the entire time. I was so relaxed during labor that I almost fell asleep a couple of times. Then of course transition was still horrible and intense even in the warm water. All I could think was how much worse it would be if I wasn't in the water! I only pushed for 5 minutes, my midwife told me later. It was a little disconcerting for the baby's head to be under water before the rest of her was out and I had to ask if that was really okay! When she was all the way out, - I was craning my neck trying to see whether it was a boy or a girl but the cord was in the way and finally Lonny said, very matter-of-factly, "It's a girl!" My jaw dropped and I said, "Are you kidding me??" Anyway, she is beautiful and sweet and a wonderful addition to our family. Now if I could only get some sleep....

Busy Month and then some! (Bridget)

Well, February ended with our biggest snowfall in 8 years - 6.5 inches. I know, that's really not a lot but it's a lot for us since our snow is very dry and fine. The boys made out like bandits with their shoveling jobs while avoiding a mama moose and her calf the whole time and Nicholas and Matthew both bought Airsoft pistols.

Nicholas decided to submit an entry to the Homeschool Science Fair at the last minute so he did a report on How a Hand Grenade Works. He did it all in one week. We were so tired from our busy month that on Friday night before the fair we were really dragging and he still had to print out all his report, draw his diagrams and put it all together on the project board. He had a hard time staying focused but managed to finish and get to bed at a decent hour. His hard work paid off though as he got a first place for his project and moves on to the Interior Alaska Science Fair at the end of March. He can make improvements to his project between now and then, so he's planning on adding a little more info. on tear gas grenades and flash-bang grenades.

Oooh, I almost forgot - I got a girls' night out on Saturday! Six of us homeschooling buddies got a couple of rooms at a B&B up on Chena Ridge and had a heavenly time. We went out to eat and then went back and soaked in the hot tub under the alternately starry and snowy sky. Then we indulged in assorted chocolates, chips and cheesecake and watched a couple of movies. We enjoyed a very nice breakfast in the morning and then went home a little more relaxed and with our cups a little bit fuller. This will definitely be an annual event!

Daniel and Nicholas are both enrolled in the spring session of Youth Court training starting at the end of March. They'll go two nights a week for 2 hours and end with a mock trial at the court house on April 18. It seems like a pretty intense class and they'll learn all about the laws and how to act as attorneys and judges for actual youth court cases involving their peers. I'm really excited about it and hope they get a lot out of it.

Today Daniel got his tonsils and adenoids out so he's sitting on the couch with a huge cup of ice water and a book. He's had about 7 little popsicles since the operation, as well as a milk shake and yogurt. The poor kid is hungry for real hot food but he can't have any yet. We're just thankful that the surgery went well and that he's feeling as good as can be expected. He should be fully recovered and eating a normal diet in plenty of time for his birthday. And at least he can have ice cream by the time we celebrate Matthew's birthday and possibly even some cake if it's soft enough.

So, that was an overview of recent events. I did manage to get my valances made for the kitchen, dining room and living room and I must say they add a little something to the rooms! I started on my next goal of cleaning out our messy bedroom and getting it ready for the new little one. I should do before and after pictures but I'd be embarrassed to show just how bad our room is/was! I'll say ta ta for now so I can go start dinner. Ta Ta!

SNOW,SNOW,SNOW!!

It finally snowed!! just today we passed out fliers and we also have a job to do later today,so that should be good ...hope they pay well...

Nicholas:Germany project.

This past week we have been doing a biiiiiiiiiiiiggg report on WWII Germany and it is due today,and i`m not sorry...I had to do lots of pages on different subjects,the SA,the SS, the luftwaffe, Hitler, propoganda, the Hitler youth and so on and so forth....Hope people like it!

Nicholas:new safe!

About a week ago I bought a steel safe to put my money in! That may seem extreme but it was only 20$ so i thought "why not?" It is very cool and comes with a coin tray and combanation lock. It really is steel and is very sturdy!

Post-Holiday doldrums (Bridget)

In some ways I really love the time of winter after the major holidays are over. It can be a very relaxing time of unwinding after a whirlwind of preparation and festivities. I usually get inspired to do crafty things or clean out closets. Of course this year, I'm very pregnant right now and it's exhausting just getting through my regular chores. I have managed to do some small things that I've enjoyed though. Before the holidays I made homemade vanilla by soaking vanilla beans in vodka. I haven't tried any yet but it smells heavenly! The kids and I treated the poor frigid birdies to pinecone feeders covered with bacon grease and birdseed. I made an all-purpose cleaner by soaking orange peels in white vinegar. It smells better than plain vinegar and seems to work well. I plan on phasing out all my toxic cleaners and replacing them with natural ones. They're so much cheaper and they really do work. I used plain old baking soda on Lonny's shower and it really removed that soap scum from the glass door! I've also switched from Downy fabric softener to white vinegar, which I just put in the Downy Ball and add to my laundry. I have noticed no difference in softness after switching and there's no vinegar smell either. I dry each load in the dryer for 15 minutes and then hang them on racks to dry. It does take more time and effort and sometimes I end up just drying the clothes all the way in the dryer, especially the whites because of all the dang socks! I guess every little bit helps. We also made fire starters using dryer lint, cardboard egg cartons and old candles melted down. They work really well. I found a knitting pattern for the cutest kids' winter hat. We already bought Ethan a fleece one in the same style but I was excited to find a hand-knit version and it was a free download from http://www.knittingpatterncentral.com/. Anyway, it's called a pigtail hat or an ear hat. It's kind of squared off on top with tassles on the corners so it does look like pigtails. It's still very cute on a little boy though. I decided to try it out, so I made the smallest size and it fits Ethan so he wears that one too. I'll get a picture sometime and post it. I can't wait to make some more. I think it'll be my new go-to baby hat pattern for gifts because it's so easy and cute. I bought fabric (75% off - yay me!) for window valances for the living and dining rooms and I'm excited to make those as well as paint the boring white walls. I figure I'd better get it done before the baby comes or it won't get done for another 3 years! As you can tell, my spirit is ready and willing. Now, if only my body would cooperate!

Just call us the Griswolds...(Bridget)

Well...we actually did it. We bought an RV. Lonny is in AZ right now picking it up from the dealer and storing it with friends until he can drive it up here in the spring. Buying an RV was the furthest thing from my mind when Lonny first started looking at them online. I thought he was just trying to make me think he had given up on his truck obsession. Maybe if he had made me think he was now moving on to RV obsession, it would make his truck obsession seem more palatable and I'd actually let him get one! The more I thought about having an RV, the more I got used to the idea and though it seems like such an extravagence, it makes a lot of sense for a family of (almost) 8. We haven't traveled anywhere as a family, unless you count road trips to Anchorage, since we moved here 3 years ago. It's just too expensive and too much of a hassle. With an RV, we can hit the road and not have to worry about imposing on friends (who really wants a family of 8 invading their space?) or about hotel and meal expenses. And this 35' behemoth even cost less than our used Tahoe! Of course we'll be paying through the nose for gas but it's still cheaper than hotels and restaurants, or airfare. We're all really excited to cruise around our great state this summer and most likely venture down the west coast next summer since we already had a big back-east trip planned for this summer. Who says you have to wait until you're old and grey to creep along scenic highways with a long line of irate drivers behind you? :)

Christmas Morning

Whew! (Bridget)

The holiday season has come to a close and I look forward to taking a deep breath and relaxing. Still not sure when that will happen, but hopefully this weekend or even as early as Friday! I feel like I have been going non-stop since November. I definitely tried to do too much for Christmas, as usual. As much as I tell myself to just relax and enjoy the season, I always manage to work myself into a frenzy. I was really proud of myself for "getting everything done" but afterwards I questioned the point of it all since I was too exhausted to even enjoy the magic of Christmas.
I love Christmas and I'm always in search of the elusive "Christmas Spirit." I seem to get it as soon as winter comes which is October here! I feel like listening to Christmas music, I feel like shopping for gifts and doing Christmas crafts...then Thanksgiving comes and after that I feel like it's a mad rush to "get everything done!" I feel my anxiety level rise exponentially each day when my darling children gleefully announce how many days are left until the big day. I make lists of things I need to "get done" and as soon as some are crossed off, more find their way onto the list. Is anyone pressuring me to do these things? Not so much, although I did have to remind the boys (read: threaten them with present withdrawal) that they were not allowed to bug me about wrapping their presents or decorating the house or putting up the tree until all outside gifts were wrapped and mailed off.
The kids were all very willing to do things for me and I couldn't have "gotten everything done" without their help. I was amazed to find that by the time we headed off to Mass on Christmas Eve, I was READY for Christmas! It's always magical to be in the beautiful Cathedral all decorated for Christmas and with my whole family around me.
I wasn't quite as tired Christmas morning as I was last year when we had a 2 month old but I was really tired all day. It didn't help that I was 6 months pregnant either. Usually, the week after Christmas is very relaxing and I even find time to play games with the kids but somehow that didn't happen this year. Lonny bought me a new stove and fridge for Christmas! They were delivered 3 days after Christmas, so that meant that I spent that time between Christmas and delivery day cleaning the oven, fridge and freezer inside, outside, underneath and to the sides! Mind you, I'm not complaining! I love my new appliances!
By the time I felt like I could relax, it was time to start school back up and now work samples are due! I'm sure that I will find some time to enjoy that after-holidays calm sometime before the baby comes. Happy New Year!