Welcome Back!!

It has been a long time friends..

I have decided to try blogging again. After looking back on the blog over the last few days it makes me sad that I stopped. I have enjoyed reading our stories and adventures and thinking its a wonderful way of capturing memories for my children to read back through later in life. We're not traveling like we did, but we are still out and about but in a grounded way. We have had a lot of adventures in the years we have missed with our blog, but I will do my best to fill it in. I have realized this is something fun that my children can look back at.. and although it may bring about some forgotten memories, I hope that they can realize how far they have come and grown because of them. Some happy, some sad.. but I hope the good times outweigh the bad.

Continuing the blog, I have decided to add in our moments in time but maybe add in an "On This Day" type of thing sort of like social media does for us. I will do my best to go back through my photos from the years past and share photos from that exact day over the years. I can't promise I will post everyday. Life has become busy over the years.. a lot has changed.

Bare with me as I learn how to do all of this again. Haha..

I have updated the photos of my children in the sidebar to show how my children have changed in the years that we have missed.. but I am also including them below. The photos on top are the photos that were last posted on the sidebar when I blogged last.

H1

H2

H3

H4

Some things have changed in our lives since I posted last. For starters, we are back in our hometown and only HumV travels. He lived in West Virginia for over a year but has been back home for about 2 years now. In that time he has been to Pennsylvania but only for a few weeks. He is currently working in Illinois but drives the two hours to and from work every day. He has been working at this location almost since he has been back in Indiana.

In our time away we have moved to Connecticut and back to Indiana.. and into two houses in the three years we have been back to Indiana. I have learned that I am not made to live in the country, especially when I was the only adult home. The 33 acres was a bit much for me to handle as far as making sure it was mowed as well as making sure the bridge didn't flood and keeping random people off of our property. During all of that we had sports going on for all children and all the other life happenings. It was a bit much. I drove approximately 60 miles a day just getting the kids to and from school as well as to and from practices and things. It felt like I lived in my vehicle.

I won't catch things up all in one post. There is a lot to share and a lot to live still.

I hope you enjoy following along again!

Hello? *echo echo echo*

Good morning!  Well, it's morning here on this beautiful day in Bethlehem, PA.  We have had a busy summer and as it has already come to an end for our family and friends back home, it continues for us.  Our children will be starting school with their cousins in Connecticut this year.  Unfortunately (for our daughter), they will not be staying out here for the year.  Of course, that's our plan anyway, as we have learned in the past couple of years, don't plan too far in advance. ;)

We have had many fun and exciting adventures this summer. . .and we still have another couple of weeks left. :)  I do miss my friends and family and my home, but we are having a wonderful time.  I am thankful for opportunities like this to spend time with long distance family for a longer period of time, instead of just a week long vacation like we are all use to.  This will definitely be a summer that will be remembered and talked about often. :)

I can't thank my brother-in-law and sister-in-law enough for allowing us to stay with them this entire time (which will be approximately 4-4 and a half months (or approximately 16-18 weeks) by the time we leave, it's already been almost 9 weeks).  It can kind of be a little crazy with 3-4 adults, 7 children (and usually a few extras), 3 dogs, 2 cats (outdoor), and a bearded dragon at the house.  Everyone is doing great with the living arrangements though, we are all thankful for that.

I really don't have a reason for this blog post, other than I haven't posted in a long time and missed it.  I have started doing a new business, it's called Thirty-One, I'm an Independent Consultant.  I start yet another course at The Art Institute of Pittsburgh Online Division today.  We have been spending the week with HumV in Bethlehem, PA.  It has been nice seeing him daily and spending time with him.

Just a Bit of Rambling

I have missed blogging! There were many times that I thought, "Oooo, I should blog this and share it with friends and family!" But I don't. I'm working on not posting too much on Facebook so that I can share it here. But that doesn't work either, I just quit posting everywhere. I do Twitter every now and then.

We are excited that HumV has been home for about a full month now! YAY!!! That hasn't happened since before this job. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad he has this job, but it's SSSOOOOO nice to have him home for more than a week also. So we are thankful for his job, and for when he's not working. In the month that he has been home we have been SO busy. We didn't know how long he would be at home so we had to cram a lot of stuff in a short amount of time. It seems like we were on the go for 2 or 3 straight weeks. We have calmed down a bit, but everyday brings about new plans.

Tomorrow we are taking H1, H2, and H3 to the orthodontist. H1 is getting braces, H2 is getting braces on his top teeth (I think that's what was decided), and H3 is getting an expander. All three will have metal in their mouths for awhile. Should be interesting.

I will also be taking H4 to the doctor. Poor little man has been sick all weekend with a fever and cough and just hasn't been himself. He hasn't been eating or drinking much at all. We'll get him back to himself soon, we hope. H1 has had a cough for about 2 weeks also but her's is on it's way out of her system, finally.

HumV and I celebrated our 14th anniversary a couple of weeks ago. Wow, 14 years. We are both in shock, it doesn't seem like it's been that long ago. Everyday I know I'm blessed to have him as my husband and the father of my children. :)

H4 celebrated his 2nd birthday a couple of weeks ago. I'll share photos of that sometime soon. Wow, catching up may take some time. LoL.

We have also bought new furniture within the past couple of weeks. We LOVE it!! I'll have to make a post just about that. H4 also has a new toddler bed that I can't wait to share about too. It's adorable! And he loves it also. Yay!

OH! And I am excited to say that I just finished my 4th course in school. I can not tell you how happy I am to be done with this specific course. WOW! It was a fun and interesting course, but the instructor was. . well. . different. I know I have to get used to that though. Not all instructors will be wonderful like my 'Drawing' instructor. I am SUPER excited to know that in approximately 6 weeks I will FINALLY be taking my first course in what I am actually going to school for. That will be my 6th course. Exciting!

I'll attempt to post a few pictures tomorrow of H1with all her metal. H2 and H3 won't be getting all of their's tomorrow. Their's will be done in 3 visits.

☺ HumV is HOME!!! ☺

He has actually been home for a week now. YAY!!! We have been so busy since he has been home. He arrived home around midnight last Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. We have been on the go since then.

I'll give you a bit of a recap of how his arrival went. LoL. . Let's just say that I didn't expect to want to push him aside. Did that sound mean? Well. . . If you saw this coming at you . . .

What would you do?! I dodged as he bent down to kiss me hello and let him come into the house. I did give him a kiss, but I can't say that I could get used to the beard thing. I can't say that I would ever get used to that look. Love ya and all babe. . . but read the fine print of our marriage agreement. There has to be something in there about not being allowed to look like a caveman. We watch too many of the profiling shows (Criminal Minds, CSI) and know that people are profiling/stereotyping him as he walks out of a gas station. Honestly, if I saw someone that looked like that in a gas station, I would grab my kids and go running for the door calling 911 (my phone does it on its own, it would probably be calling before I had the chance as I'm grabbing all my children).

Ok, I'm calming down with that for a minute. He didn't like it either, but I wanted to see the beard and his hair grown out. He was gone for 3 months, we only saw him for 3 days of that 3 months and that was at Christmas. He has always wanted to see if he could grow a beard out. So what better time than when he wasn't around his family, right? Right. It nearly drove him crazy having his hair grown out like that, but he waited to get it cut so that we could see it. I think I've seen him with longer hair like that but the kids haven't. But as far as the beard goes, that's the most hair I have seen on his face EVER!! And it was good to see it once (I guess) but I don't want him to grow a beard anymore. EVER!!! Really. Should I tell you how I really feel? LoL. Did I mention E.V.E.R.?!?!?!?!

Now that you've seen the picture, can you guess what was on the schedule first thing Wednesday morning? If you guessed visiting a ✂  hair salon  ✂, you guess correct! I made an appointment (as HumV was on his way home on Tuesday) with my regular lady at my regular place and apologized ahead of time. We both laughed, but she really didn't know what she was in for. We went in and she was happy to take care of him. She was like Edward Scissor hands man!! I think she had fun with though. It's not every day that you get to do that to someone's hair (on purpose). LoL.

We had a good time at the salon. After leaving though, we ran some errands and then headed back home by lunch time. Good thing too, H4 was wiped! He enjoyed a nice long nap as HumV and I enjoyed lunch and catching up. We made our plans for the rest of the week. We knew we had to attempt and take care as much as possible in the first week or so that he was home because we never know when he'll get called back out. So we have had a week full of busy. We have had our taxes figured, went grocery shopping, furniture shopping, rented a dumpster, cleaned out our garage (unfortunately we will continue this chore for a few more weeks--we ran out of dumpster space!), cleaned out a few areas of the house, enjoyed family time, enjoyed H3's music program (and a few laughs), and so much more. I surprisingly haven't taken too many photos. But we have had TONS of laughs and have enjoyed HumV being home. I haven't been on the computer as much other than doing school work. Have I told you I don't think my current Instructor likes me? Yes, it's kind of interesting. Remember those profiling shows I mentioned earlier? Yep, I have him profiled, and I'm ok with him not liking me. LoL, my feelings aren't hurt. However, I am looking forward to  my next course even though I'm not aware of what it is.

So that pretty much catches you up to today. HumV went and had lunch with H2 today. He had lunch with H3 on Monday. H1 doesn't want him to come in and have lunch with her. She doesn't want us to embarrass her. I can't believe she thinks that we would do such a thing. Cough. Cough. Wink. Wink.

2 Days!!