This in from Fort Worth:

Random thoughts and photos

I realize that I've become very flaky about blogging, so I'm making up for it with a bunch of random photos and this one random thought. If I'm really feeling like blessing all of your lives, I may even add some random captions...

They match!


Her first snow! And she liked it!

We spent 30 minutes getting dressed up for this?

When snow and ice collide...


On his birthday at the park


My cute baby


Not 'THE CAKE,' but a near relative

He is NOT a baby, just ask him

This just in... Derek is going to Fort Sill, OK for his first 6 weeks of training. Still no word on where we go when he finishes training (in the middle of September).

We went swimming this afternoon. DJ hated it. Sadly, we have hardly had our kids in water since we left Korea. Back then he loved it, but he has no memories of that now. Combine that with his current irrational fear stage and it was almost impossible to get him in the pool. When we did, he didn't last long. He was, however, very happy to sit on the side and splash us. Naomi, on the other hand, loved the water! She kicked and splashed and had me thinking of parasites the whole time (she had to have had a lot of water to drink).

Happy Valentine's Day!

A teeny bit of our future has been brought to light...

We have received one of the many details pertaining to our life after graduation. Derek will begin his post ROTC training on June 7th. He will go to either Fort Sill, OK or Fort Benning, Georgia (one of the many missing details). He will begin his job-specific training immediately after that (Jul to Sep) at San Antonio (we already knew that detail). We are anxiously awaiting his assignment. When is nice, but where is pretty important, too. Oh, the many things we will actually be able to plan, when we once know all of the details...

The rest of the story...

So it turns out there is much more to the previous lunch story than I knew. Let me, Jenn, tell the WHOLE story...

1. Saturday Jenn purchases angel food cake and lazily tosses it into the fridge still in the shopping bag.

2. Sunday evening Jon packs his lunch in his lunch box, forgetting the drink. Nina packs her lunch in a grocery bag, because she can't locate her lunch box.

3. Monday morning Jon puts his lunch box in his backpack. Because Nina is not moving quick enough, Derek gets her lunch for her. She tells him it's in a bag. He gets THE BAG.

4. Later Monday morning Nina prepares, with her class for lunch. She opens her bag and sees...a cake!? She tells her teacher that she has Jon's lunch.

5. Her teacher, not realizing what was in THE BAG, helps Janina trade lunches with Jon as they pass his locker on the way to the cafeteria. Nina happily eats Jon's lunch (with the milk she purchased).

6. Approx. 30 minutes later Jon goes to his locker to get his lunch and finds...THE BAG. Being only seven and not knowing what else to do, he takes the bag to lunch, assuming it is Janina's lunch.

7. Jon eats cake (very discreetly, as he was evidently very embarrassed to have only cake for lunch) for lunch.

8. A short time later, Jenn sees Nina coming in from lunch recess with Jon's lunch box and thinks, "That's weird," but doesn't put any additional thought or action into it.

9. Monday afternoon Jenn opens the fridge to prepare her own lunch and finds Nina's lunch.

10. Jenn finds out from Jon and Nina that Nina ate Jon's lunch and Jon had angel food cake. She finds this very funny, but can't figure out how it happened, because no one's stories match the facts.

11. Tuesday morning Jenn goes to help Nina's class at computer lab. Jon walks by and waves. This reminds Nina's teacher of a funny story. Jenn finally finds out the WHOLE STORY.

Jon really is very embarrassed about the whole incident, though I think he's starting to see the humor in the situation. I tried to tell him that most kids would be nothing but jealous to see someone else eating a cake for lunch. I also told him that he could tell his teacher, should something similar to this ever happen again, and I'm sure she would help him. I really do feel bad for him, because he was such a victim in an unfortunate series of events.

Two quick stories, No photos (sorry)

1. Sunday, February 1st, we were driving to church. We like taking the back roads. For Oklahoma, we go up and down often. As we approached the largest hill (in many parts of the west, one might refer to it as a 'dip'), we heard Janina say to her brothers. "Wow! This is a very big hill! It's scary. But now that I'm six, I'm not scared anymore."

2. Sunday night Jon and Nina packed lunches in grocery bags, because they couldn't find their lunch boxes. Monday morning they put them in their backpacks and went to school. Monday afternoon I found a lunch in the fridge. I asked Derek why Nina didn't take her lunch. He said she did. I asked why, then, Jon didn't. He said he did. I assured him that I had found a lunch in the fridge that had obviously not been taken. I then forgot about it, because I just assumed that one of them had eaten school lunch.

Later, as I was talking to Jon and Nina I remembered and asked Nina what she had for lunch. She gave me a funny look and said, "I had Jon's lunch." So, now curious, I asked Jon what he had for lunch. He said, "Strawberry shortcake." He had (no, I am not kidding -- nor am I feeling like I'm likely to win this year's mother of the year award, either) taken an angel food cake (the loaf type) to school for lunch. I asked him if he had eaten school lunch when he realized his mistake. He told me that he had not. He ate half the angel food cake and threw the rest away. The best part -- Jon was certain he had mistakenly taken Nina's lunch to school.

I am just hoping that none of the teachers saw that we managed to send our first grader to school with only cake for lunch. I am also hoping that my kids will keep better track of their lunch boxes, so that we can avoid taking the groceries (that I'm too lazy to remove from the bag) to school.