Student of the Quarter

This is going to be a proud Mama post.



I just came back from a ceremony where Kathryn was presented a Student of the Quarter Award. She earned this by exhibiting the following:


Being responsible, prepared, constructive, challenges self, completes all assignments, is respectful, honest, follows rules, and volunteers to make the school a better place.

We are so proud of her--she worked hard for this.



Sorry the video isn't very good--I thought they were just going to give her a certificate so I only brought the still camera. If I would have known they were actually going to talk about her I would have brought the video camera. Oh well.

(don't forget to stop the music at the bottom before you play the video)

Mushy Valentine's Day post... you have been warned.

Our Valentine's Day was a great one. The day itself was a normal day--birthday party for Meghan, Brendan at a friend's house, Dillan and Katie hanging out with us at home.
Then we went to the Valentine's Day Mass. It was really beautiful. We had the opportunity to renew our vows. Almost 15 years ago we took those vows for the first time. We were young, naive, but in love. We had no idea of the hardships we would have to endure or the great joys we would feel, but we vowed to do it together. Last night, a bit older, a bit wiser, and still greatly in love we said those vows again. This time we knew exactly what those words entailed and we still meant every word. This time we said them with 3 deployments under our belts, 4 beautiful children surrounding us, and still not knowing what will come next, but ready to tackle it together. We are truly blessed.
We ended the evening by taking the children home--allowing Brendan to babysit for the first time--and heading out to dinner at a beautiful restaurant with piano music with friends from church. It was a great evening out--just the two of us--in the midst of friends.

As far as gifts--ok mushy part over--I'm to tell you that nothing says I love you like a Rock Band guitar for the Wii--we are off to play together:)

Moving again...

Thanks for the comments ladies--keep them coming--like I said we have done this before, but I still like to get all the hints I can before we do it again.

We did get our RFO (Request for Orders) yesterday so we are at least getting somewhere now.

Here are Shane's solutions--we shall see how they actually pan out
1) Let the Army ship the car instead of Volvo because even though Volvo says it is free shipment, it's only free if we send it from Sweden--to send it from Aviano will be 843Euro!!!
2) Let the Army ship the car to Orlando--10 weeks early so it for sure will meet us there (oh and then our plane tickets are for sure free cuz the Army flies us to where the car is)
3) Buy another hooptie (so we will have 2 crappy cars) for that 10 weeks and then resell it so we won't have to pay for a rental, but we will still have enough car space for everyone.

Next is deciding what to put in which shipment... oh the fun of overseas moves.

Moving...

We still don't have orders, but we are getting to the "we are really moving" stage. I'm trying to do some planning and sorting and figuring out what goes in which shipment. The big thing right now is deciding when we want to ship the car--and when we want to ship our stuff. Overseas moves are so fun!

So all of you out there (the 2 who read this:)) who have done this--give me your suggestions. What did you do that worked great? And what would you do differently now that you know? Yeah--we have done this before, but ugh! I am having a hard time remembering...

Brendan's birthday

We had Brendan's 11th birthday party this weekend. He has been begging for the last 2 years to have a sleepover with his buddies, but since Daddy had been gone I said no. Well this was the year. He had 5 friends spend the night and held a Yu-Gi-Oh tournament. I think they all had a great time--even if they didn't sleep:)

Make a Smilebox scrapbook