As if we haven't had enough FUN!!!

This morning with Flo and Grace and Kristin and her son we went to Virginia City and the kids panned for gold and got gold in a little vile to prove their adventure. The parents actually had to to the swishing with them helping some. They were excited to see the gold! Then we went to the train and took a BEAUTIFUL ride seeing the scenery followed by an ice cream cone stop!!! Nice!!!

Birthday Party Pictures and a Cute story!!

What a big week!! Gabriel's birthday and Graduation!!! We officially celebrated his birthday and graduation last night in Reno at Chuck E. Cheese!! The kids just had so much fun running around playing games. It was fun to have our friends there to help us celebrate! Gabriel really enjoyed playing a video game where you pretend to fly an F-15, that was his favorite!!

Cute stories: When Gabriel was opening presents he saw the one where Annalina had made a card for him, in a shall we say, CREATIVE way!! He said to one of his friends in a neat way "This one is from my little sister!" I thought that was special.

Also Auntie Grace asked Gabriel later in the night "what prize he got?" Because with tickets you could get little toys, etc. He told her "Auntie Flo and Auntie Grace!" That was very sweet and they thought so too!!

More Grad pictures and the party afterwords!

Top: Gabriel and his friend Max

Next: Me with "Rosser Boy" at graduation

Next: Gabriel trying to douse Mrs. Jung with a water balloon at the kindergarten water balloon fight!! Gabriel LOVED this part of the day!!!!

Last: Mrs. Jung getting Gabriel doused!!!

Mrs. Jung wanted the parents to come join her but none did. She gave Babe and I big wet hugs afterword!!

Gabriel's Kindergarten Graduation

It was a beach party theme! Very casual and fun! Gabriel did a great job!! We just love Mrs. Jung his teacher. She's the BEST!!!! 

Graduation was special with Auntie Flo and Auntie Grace there and our friends the Albrecht's!!! It is nice to have friends to rejoice with you!! The pictures above are from Kindergarten Graduation!

Auntie Flo Fun Night!!

Birthday Surprise for Gabriel!!!!

In the morning Annalina, Ross, and I took in cupcakes to Gabriel's class to celebrate his birthday. Annalina and I make and decorated frog and bug cupcakes which was fun since they had just finished studying bugs and frogs!!

Thursday night the doorbell rang and Auntie Flo and Auntie Grace came to surprise Gabriel for his birthday!!! He was very excited to see them!! That night we let Gabriel open on present and it was a Batman lego toy that he and Auntie Flo had a great time putting together!! Aunie Flo is a GREAT LEGO creator!!

Sweet

Annalina was telling me things in the van yesterday that she was thankful for. She said finially "I am most thankful for helping Daddy". I didn't understand what she meant and I asked a question. Anyway she was thankful for "Daddy finishing his work" which is exactly what she had kept praying for!!

Gabriel went on a field trip yesterday to Reno to visit a bug exhibit. He also got to see snakes. Gabriel told me the man asked for kids to raise their hands if they were afraid of snakes and then those kids that weren't afraid of snakes. I asked him which time he raised his hand. "Both" he said. Then he said "I am afraid of some snakes and not afraid of other snakes." That is good thinking and logical!!

My Real Life Calvin and Hobbes . . .

Conversation I overheard early this morning:

I believe Gabriel was hanging out of bed upside down.

Gabriel: Ahhhh, everything is upside down!!!!

Annalina: Gabriel, that is because you ARE upside down!

Gabriel: I don't know how to get back up!!!

Annalina: You are silly Gabriel!!!

My full of life little girl who really enjoys flamingos!

Annalina has a stuffed flamingo that she carries around and plays with A LOT! It is a unique toy for a pretty special little girl that loves pink!! She got to see the real thing at the zoo today!!

Who are the animals?

The Upstaged Zoo Worker . . .

This older lady was telling about this bird but Annalina found a way to have the topic of conversation be her dog Sonja!! Pretty funny!! Gabriel said at the zoo "God made a lot of neat stuff for us to look at!" That He did!!

Babe and I's favorite animal!

Goofy Zoo Pictures!!!

Lions, and Tigers, and Bears (no bears), OH MY!!

We saw Lemurs, lions, giraffe, chimpanzee, snakes, turtles, kangaroos, Skink etc. Kids really enjoyed it! When the one lady told us to go see the lady holding the Skink Annalina said "Why?" The lady said "no, not stink Skink". It was pretty funny. Ross really enjoyed feeling the scaly skin on the tortoise!!

What a weekend!

Saturday we had a garage sale that went pretty well considering it was Memorial Day weekend and the weather was rainy and cool. We had a very steady flow of people! Nice!

Sunday after church we left for Sacramento to go to the zoo. We stayed at Travis AFB. WOW!!! The rooms were only $43 a night and the accomodations were HUGE!! The kids had a great time exploring the apartment (really what it was!). We want to go back sometime and take a Jelly Belly tour!!

Gabriel absolutely LOVED all the GREEN and all the flowers!! He had to keep stopping to smell, touch, and comment on the flowers. He really enjoyed seeing the palm trees and I could hear him in the back on our drives counting palm trees. He LOVES plants!!! We needed Grandpa Johnson there to tell us about the plants we saw! Well, now I need to post some pictures of our zoo trip. The kids just loved the zoo. Babe and I were quite impressed with it. It is not huge but what they do have is done nicely.

Annalina finished school with Mommy!

Annalina and Mommy actually finished school last week. She did an excellent job this year. She was eager to learn and fun to teach! She is great at listening and recalling information and has excellent handwriting! We are thankful for the passages of Scripture she has memorized and "hid in her heart". She has some things to finish up with Daddy but she is near done!!

She is ready for the challenge of the Logos Kindergarten!

John 17:26

"And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them."

Made me think of my children and Babe and I. Babe and I have "declared unto them [HIS] name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith [HE] hast loved [us] may be in them, and I in them."

It was God! The proof is below!!!!

I want to post this separately and give testament to God's goodness:

When Babe came home he was telling me the stories of his C2x. It was THRILLING to hear how the Lord answered our prayers and took care of him. It went AMAZINGLY well and the graders were IMPRESSED with the intel. Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord!!!! It really went so well that it could only have been the Lord's hand. C2x's are not suppossed to go like that! Babe's boss kept wondering when the bomb drop (something bad) would happen but it never did! Hmmm, that is our Lord!

Not only did everything go so well that it could only have been the Lord but the people Babe works with are great. Great workers and great to work with! One of the graders came to Babe at the end and told Babe that he had made his job a whole lot easier and he seemed to get emotional!!!

Here are a few quotes from the email the grader sent to the "boss". . .

*"In the past two years I've worked with 8 strike group intel teams-four of them CSG's IKE, ENT, HST and now TR. I'm not an easy grader. Some might cal me 'the Russian judge'. The previous teams all finished in the low T-2 range, with one CSG team barely making it to T-2 overall. THe BP1debrief the other night was the first battle problem I've ever debriefed where I had nothing to mention in the 'Others' category. By contrast, last summer for HST I had twice as many 'Others' as 'Goods'.

*"From day one, your team has been firing on all cylinders."

*"The targeteer [that's BABE!] and his IS's have been conducting TST's consistently in the T-1 range for quality and timeliness. We've never seen that before." (bold my doing, the comment a result of God's doing!)

*"I've been scratching my head to come up with a weak spot and I can't."

*"Please pass to the squadron CO's and XO's that they have the best intel team in the Atlantic Fleet."

PRAISE THE LORD!

Yah, he's back!

Last Friday morning at breakfast Gabriel said to me "Do you remember the day when Daddy was home every day?" I said Yes. He said "That was really fun!" Yep, Daddy was missed!  Also at breakfast I began to sing the song "I'm so happy and here's the reason why . . ." and Gabriel broke in and said "because my kids are obeying!" I thought that was pretty funny of Gabriel to think of and do! I have been teaching Gabriel that "to obey is better than sacrifice" (I Samuel 15:22) another words it is great to help me but obedience is more important.

Friday night LATE we went and picked Brian up in Reno. Ross was exhausted but he put his head on Daddy's shoulder and gave a big sigh. It was very cute. He was just relaxed with Daddy.

We have been busy here now. There is so much to do and I am planning a garage sale on Saturday. I have to have it because it is in the paper! Yesterday, Babe took a day off to do work around the house and yard (picture above!).  Ross really enjoyed "helping daddy mow". Babe brought him back in at one point because Ross was headed toward the mower but Ross stood at the door with a sad face and with his lawn mower and kept saying "Pees, Pees" (Please). How could I not let him back out?!! Babe was almost done and Ross got to help finish up! Ross was a happy boy!

Babe wanted to go to Pizza Barn for dinner. While there Annalina got into a conversation with a lady sitting behind her. The lady asked her all these questions and Annalina answered them. The lady said she asked all the questions because she worked at a school and like to see smart kids. She thought Annalina's language skills were good. Honestly, the questions she asked Annalina were SOOO EASY definitely a public school test not private school!! Anyway, Annalina told the lady "my daddy is my friend". The lady thought that was GREAT. Earlier in the day she and daddy were sitting at the table getting ready to eat lefse (norwegian food) and she told her daddy "Daddy, you are my friend". They had a good time eating lefse and then going to the store to get a spark plug and they got the mower repaired!

Babe ended up going into work for quite awhile last night and is back at work today getting ready for his air wing to come in. He took a break from work to go do the help time at Gabriel's school. He enjoyed doing reading group! He said Gabriel was by far the best reader. If you know Brian you know even though he is the daddy he wouldn't say that unless he believed it to be true. Gabriel is a very good reader and we are thrilled to see that. Babe also enjoyed watching a master teacher. After Bible was done she told the kids to crawl back to their desks like bugs (their studying bugs) and that since bugs didn't talk they couldn't talk but they could make clicking noises! She turned to Brian and said "It works". She does a GREAT job of having fun while doing very challenging academics!

AHHHH . . .

"You're the Greatest Mommy!" words from Gabriel this morning.

Thanks Gabriel. He is one of the 3 Greatest kids!

What a way to start out this day.

One more NIGHT, NIGHT!!!!

As we say here . . . "one more night, night till daddy comes home!"

Today was a good day. We went to work at the school in the morning and it could've gone better but it WAS THE LAST TIME!!!!! Yah!!!! It is not that working at the school is bad it is watching Ross while I work at the school that is a challenge. After coming home and Ross going down for a nap I got A LOT of work done!! It was so great!!! We are ready for tomorrow now. 

We even got Gabriel's ant colony project cranked out this afternoon. I am so ABEKA'd that when I read the directions for the ant colony I knew it was not possible in the time given.  I thought Gabriel had procrastinated in giving me the paper but he had just gotten it the day before. After talking to Mrs. Jung I realized it was not the academy I went too!! Needless to say we just did the project not following closely what the note said because it wasn't expected. So weird! If you went to the Academy in Pensacola you know EXACTLY what I'm talking about! Pretty funny. Anyway, because we were working on that I forgot to take the kids to their dentist appt. Oh well, we'll go next week. Oh, we even completed the project after we had collected A LOT of red ants and Ross came over and tipped over the jar. 

Endurance

"Endurance is not just the ability to bear a hard thing, but to turn it into glory."-Barclay

"If God sends us on strong paths, we are provided strong shoes."-Corrie TenBoom

"God places the heaviest burden on those who can carry its weight."-Reggie White

"Don't pray for lighter burdens, but for stronger backs."

II Corinthians 5:15

"And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again." 

*so easy to get distracted with myself!

II Corinthians 2:14 "Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place."

*pastor was talking on Sunday about living a life where people know you've been with God! God uses "us in every place"! Amazing, thankfully He is with us. I like verse 7 of chapter 4 too "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us."

Verses from devotions last night.

Yep!

"Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing up is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing."--Phyllis Diller

The older the kids get the easier but with Ross' age this is Oh, SOOO true!!! Today he poured out a box of crackers and walked in them and sat in them. Nice! :-) Ahh, gave me another chance to try out my new ANIMAL vacuum!!

Much Rejoicing!!!

I just got an email a short time ago from Babe and he is NOT arriving Saturday night but FRIDAY night!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!YAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Another reason to rejoice: I did my LAST gate duty of the year at school this morning.

Rejoicing Update: I am feeling much better! I can actually walk standing up straight!!!

Sick Saturday

Last night was HORRIBLE to say the least. I started getting more nausous, stomach discomfort, chills, diahrea, and HORRIBLE body pain. The pain all over my body was probably the worst thing. It didn't matter if I was laying down it ached. This morning I crawled to get Ross and it was so much stress on my muscles to lift him. I decided I would crawl in and out of bed through out the day in between  caring for Ross. I am very thankful my dad let him call him in the middle of the night to talk, that helped A LOT!! That is a great dad and I didn't just call him once either!

I called Kristin to tell her I couldn't go on the hike and she came and took Gabriel and Annalina while Ross went down for a nap. She also brought me some Sprite and Gatorade! Nice! I immediately went to bed and got some good sleep. Gabriel and Annalina had fun with Austin at Rocket Ship Park and Dairy Queen!! What a blessing.

My body aches are not as severe now, thankfully! But there is minor aching, muscle fatigue, and stomach discomfort. I am hopeful this is 24 hour flu. I am so glad I did not go up to Reno to visit in the hospital! The last thing they need in the ICU is flu!!! The Lord protected!

FABULOUS FRIDAY

I started writing this yesterday (Friday):

What a fabulous day! This morning was Gabriel's Mother's Day Brunch at Parkside. OH MY!!! It was spectacular! The gifts they gave us were precious. One gift was a glass plate decopashed with a picture and Gabriel and I with other decorative cuttings, then plants they were growing for us, and a really cute note. The food was actually beautiful. Mrs. Jung's daughter's helped her prepare it!! At the end of our time we scrapbooked a page in the kids' scrapbooks. They were suppossed to draw with us what they like to do with mom. Gabriel wanted hiking at Grimes Point and I think it turned out pretty well!

After school was the track walk for raising money for the school. That was fun too. I had Ross in the jogger stroller and we were suppossed to walk for 1 hour and we did besides when we stopped to drink. I was very proud of Annalina she was a trooper. It was fun having some of Gabriel's classmates walk with us! One kid Nathan L. rode on the stroller for awhile with Ross. People I didn't even know were saying "hi Ross" there were even people cheering for Ross!! Mrs. Jung said do you think he'll make it without plants to pull up!!! I said "I don't know we'll see!"

I had 2 mothers talk to me today about Gabriel. One mentioned how smart he is and the other said her daughter comes home and talks about him and how kind he is. That is great.

We were suppossed to go to Reno tonight with my friend Kristin and her son Austin but a installation guy got delayed and so she couldn't go and we decided to reschedule for Saturday after our hike. Little did I know how of the Lord that was!

The kids and I went and ate at Subway and then watched the movie Hiedi and that was fun.

A little after 9pm I started feeling not so good.

Well, today was D-Day for Babe. It will be good to hear how the exercise on board ship went.

FUN quotes from a VERY ROUGH DAY!

Not going to go through wining about how my day was rough (might save that for another time!! :-) I would like to put a few quotes of the day here:

Gabriel: As he was leaving the van to go to school I told him to have an "excellent spirit" and to concentrate on his work. The door of the van shut and Gabriel came to the window and I rolled it down and he said "tell me to 'Trust God , and do good' too". I did! He got a big smile on his face. I just love it.

Annalina: I overheard this from her conversation with Sonja . . . "We don't worship dogs we worship the Lord". Amen to that.

Ross: Went to work at the school today and 2 kindergarten girls said "Mrs. Lysne he {Ross} has scissors".  Can we say DANGER!!

When we were in the van getting ready to leave the school Ross started REALLY choking on some crackers. I was very worried and I got quickly out of my seat and started to get him out of his car seat and then he spit up and vomited some. There was a lot of big chunkies on his shirt and  puke on the straps of the seat. The first thing Ross says when he got his breath was "a bubbles".  I found that extremely humerous. He was telling me he needed a bubble bath!!! He had that right.  He found joy today climbing in the dog food bin and just sitting and soaking and playing at times in it! Yuk, he was filthy and required a 2nd bath of the day.

Talked to my inlaws tonight on the phone and the phone got quiet and "I said are you there?" They replied "Yes, we're just listening to you preaching!" And I was. I am thankful that they listened. My parents listened a fair amount to me today too. Thanks to you all.

Now I need to go and do what the verse below says . . .  go and eat some words of Scripture and bring some rejoicing to my heart.

Jeremiah 15:16

Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O Lord God of hosts.

Hansel and . . . . .where's Gretel? She's got the key

No we are not keeping Ross in there to eat Ross WANTED to chew on his broccoli in the dog crate and his sister was more than willing to see to it that his wishes were carried out! He liked it in there!!