Time Lapse

There has been an insanely large gap in postings here. We've had quite a busy year and, well, 2006 has just been downright INSANE! The first 4 months were relatively normal. We did do spring soccer at the Y again and that was a lot of fun, though we won't be going back their after some policy changes, a few concerning issues, and an increase in cost. But anyway, we managed to end the season on yet another high note! In May we joined the pool at Shenandoah. Roman went from not swimming at all, literally freaking out if water got in his face to jumping off the high dive and swimming in the 12 ft well unassisted in TWO WEEKS! He was AMAZING!!!! He is quite the little fish and hoping to join the swim team in 2007. Hope and Bethany also made huge strides in swimming before the end of summer. Both can swim under water well and above water with floaties. I think they'll be ditching the floaties by 4th of July this year. It's insane watching little Bethany swim around. She is a complete fish and probably one of the strongest most natural little swimmers I've ever seen. But that's B, she still can not be outdone by anyway, especially her big sister!

One big highlight of our summer was spending a week in Hatteras. We went up Saturday morning on June 24th with mom and Barbara in tow. Then on Monday Jason, Angie, Josh, and Madison joined us. Overall we had a GREAT, relaxing, enjoyable vacation. It's always iffy on how vacations will go with friends and family for that matter. But I can honestly say we would not hestitate to vacation with the Sammon's again! The kids were just in heaven, and it was a beautiful week. We got back on July 1st and Hopey went on home with mom for a few days from there. We are still hearing stories about her time there "when I (Hope) lived with mommy's grandma". She was able to attend the family 4th of July party at Aunt Philly and Uncle Dave's and had a blast from what we've heard. I went back to work on the 3rd then off on the 4th. The 4th this year was INSANE! WE spent almost the entire day at the pool for the community 4th of July party. We did join in on the dinner, but headed to Jon and Alicia's instead for Garrett's 3rd birthday party. Then the Sammon's joined us there later for fireworks. Normally I love doing 4th of July fireworks on the Jones's lake, BUT after spending ALL DAY in the sun with NO naps, the kids were just unbearable and we (as well as Angie and Jason) had to bail early to get 5 little cranky monsters into bed. Aside from the rough ending we really did have a wonderful 4th this year.

We also spent a great deal of summer remodeling Barbara's house and packing our own. That is STILL a work in progress. LOL Her house has been on the market for 5 months and still no offers. It is getting hard not to stress about it, but what else can we do?? We practically gutted the place and inside it is like new. The yard needs work, but at the price of the house it's not worth the investment, so we're stuck in limbo waiting for someone to fall in love with the place and take it off our hands forever! Barbara has been living with us since mid-August. We still have work to do on our old house before she will move in there, but two weeks after we began moving into our new house - which we LOVE btw!! - my company move began. It was 6 weeks of long hours and weekend work, and quite frankly by the time October arrived I was just plum worn out!

Roman started school right after Labor Day. He is 1st grade now and has Mrs. Powers for his teacher. He is lazy when it comes to reading and is seeing a reading specialist right now. Not because he is behind, but really because he is having a hard time moving to the next level. As it was last year, the first few months of school were a rough and emotionally draining time for him. One thing we did not do this fall was play soccer. With so many other things going on we just couldn't make time for it. We did, however, let Roman join Cub Scouts. James and I are sharing the den parent responsibilities and overall thoroughly enjoying it! Needless to say life has flown by with barely a moments rest since school began.

Before I knew it, Bethany's birthday was here! She had a Curious George theme this year and it was fantastic. She had a great time! Roman helped me with the decorations and it was really just a lot of fun. I didn't stress at all about it and everything went off without a hitch. The kids played and played and after the bulk of them left, we ended up keeping Megan and Abby overnight - their first sleep over with us! - and Ilana spent the night with Sebastian and Sabrina. To put things into prospective...that would be 1 20mo, 3 3yo, 2 4yo, and 1 6yo. Yup, SEVEN kids 6 and under, AND, we had every single one of them in bed asleep before 9:30! It was a miracle, but a lot of fun too.

From there, honestly I have NO IDEA what happened to November. Where did it go?!? I hosted Thanksgiving this year and I have no idea how I did it because it's all just a blur. I don't remember ever really preparing for it. We had 20 people total and it was a whole lot of fun. Huh?? That just doesn't sound like me! LOL I was plum exhausted on Thursday night, but it was one of the smoothest, stressfree parties I've ever done! Friday morning instead of going out to do my traditional Black Friday shopping I instead got us all packed up and headed out the door. We went up to Baltimore for Dan and Erin's baby shower. It was fun, nice to see everyone, but darn it, why did Dan have to go buy a Wii?? Now that's all James and Roman can think about. LOL We drove home that night as Barbara had surgery to repair a hernia on Tuesday and we didn't want to leave her alone for too long. Was a blessing too as Sat and Sun were in the mid to upper 60's and we put a big dent in our outdoor decorating for Christmas!

So that about brings this blog to current date. Hopefully life will return to some form of normality soon and I will have time and energy to keep up with this blog. I've missed it these past 6 months or so and am a bit saddened at all the hysterical and emotional pandemonium missed for 2006. So hard to believe we on the verge of a whole new year already!