Thanksgiving 2013

To be truthful I was dreading this Thanksgiving.  I have been trying REALLY hard to not make this, Matt's, our last child at home, an emotional year.  Anyone who knows me knows I have been dreading this year since Meagan left.  So to make more of a light day Dennis and I decided to invite some friends of ours from the school.  I am SO glad we did.  It was such a delightful day.  I am sad I didn't get any pictures but that just means I was having too much fun to be thinking about taking pictures.  I love the fact that once again my table was full ( 7 of us) of friendship, laughter and fun.  I made waaay too much food and forgot to make the cream corn but that just means no cooking for the next couple days.  So it was a wonderful day and I have a feeling there will be a lot more get togethers  in the future.  We even got to talk to all of our big kiddos in the states so what a GREAT day.

Summer of 2013

This summer we were so lucky to have Jessica choose to spend her summer break from school here.  When we found out for sure that she was coming I got Dennis to work on a couple trips.  One with Jess and Matt to England.  I wanted to see Stonehenge! as well as the Warner Brother's Harry Potter studio.  We knew the kids would love both.  The trip was sooo much fun and we got to see so much more.  I only put a few here as there are more on my facebook page.  We were all sooo excited.

For months I have been fighting to get back on here and be able to post.  Today was the magic day.  Everything I tried today I have tried in the past.  I am glad to be able to post again.

The White House

We only got to see this from inside our taxi.  It was a very rainy day and the day before I had rolled my foot on an uneven brick.  It was cool to actually see it in person but this is one of those sites that I really want to go back and see.

Vietnam Wall

I don't have too many pictures of this.  The feeling here, well it is tough to explain but I felt bad taking pictures so I only took a couple.  We all got tears in our eyes here.  We have been blessed to travel to many wonderful places.  Some of those not so fun to see but wow what we all learned.  The kids saw Hiroshima first.  It had a big impact on the older kids.  It was portrayed very one sided and VERY unprovoked.  Several times through the museum Daniel asked "how could we do this?", it gets very graphic in spots,  it was difficult to explain war to a young child.  A few years later we were blessed to be able to visit Pearl Harbor.  Here too we all had tears.  Daniel asked us "so this came before Hiroshima?"  "Yes, son it did."  this time we were sad to have to explain.  Here in Germany we visited Dachau.  We did not even make it through the whole site.  It was just too hard.  At the Vietnam wall we were amazed at how many names are actually on the wall.  You hear about numbers but until you see it.  WOW!  I am glad that we were able to visit this site and to learn a little more of our history.

Lincoln Monument

It was so awesome to stand here read the writings and think how this man impacted our country.  We spent a lot of time here.  I am so thankful that we were able to have two of the kids with us but wish all four could have made this trip.  I hope that I will be able to come back some day.

Jefferson Monument

This was one of those sites that I thought I would never see in person.  It was amazing to stand across the reflecting pool and look at it.  What an amazing sight.  They were working on the reflecting pool at the time.  I hope the next time I get to see it the pool it full.