Meags-You Dog!!! and other news

Meagan! I can't believe you didn't even tell me about your marathon. And...I looked up your time. You are AMAZING. I am so jealous. It was so good to talk to you, I miss my family oh so much. It is fun to finally have time to read the goings ons and write a bit. Yes, this means that we are on-line and rearin' to go.

Our Vonage phone #706-478-5369. We are eight or nine hours different. When it is 8 am there, it is 5 pm here. Or close to that. Meagan and I figured it out and now I can't remember. But the point is that we have a stateside number in case you ever need or want to get ahold of us.

Geof. and Darla, so sad to hear about our little Dayne. I hope she is feeling better. My nephew Parker broke his arm in two places two years ago I think and they only saw the one in the x-ray and so he had the whole weight of his cast dragging on his broken arm for I can't remember how long. It's so sad when she can't tell you where it hurts. Give her and Cole kisses for me. Did Cole get into the Developmental pre-school? I hope so. I bet he would love it and it would give you some one on one time with Dayne. Sadie started pre-school this week. She was so excited she wore her backpack to breakfast. She absolutely loves it and feels so grown up. She had her first soccer game yesterday. It was about the funniest thing I have ever seen. The kids, no matter what team, were kicking it to whatever goal was closest. Sadie and a little girl she didn't even know from the other team grabbed hands and started running down the field in a totally opposite direction of the action, just laughing and completely oblivious to what was going on. We yelled for her to get the ball one time and she reached down and picked it up. All the other kids were doing similar hysterical antics. The parents were all just cracking up on the sidelines. So fun.

Jane is becoming such a grown up. She wakes up totally early every morning and does her hair, which is absolutely beautiful by the way. We pick out her outfits with much care and she doesn't even argue with me about wanting to wear her favorite jeans and an ugly t-shirt every day. Her school is about a block away and every morning she leaves (also early Meags)on time and walks with a girl that lives just up the street. She comes home from school and works on her homework right away. It's pretty amazing and very welcome. She also just started soccer and has her first game(that she has been to) on Saturday. We told her that we are not going to be here every Saturday for games. We will go to all the practices and as many games as we can but this is our good weather until spring and we want to get out and see stuff. We should hit most of them though because we just bought a hoop-de (how do you even spell that?)AND it looks like we are going to have to re-carpet and paint the Oklahoma house and rent it out again. Now they are saying there are cracks in the foundation. Is anyone interested in a bit of arson? Kill me. But...there is plenty to do just around here.

Back to Jane, she has an absolutely fabulous teacher and she is really loving school. She says she is happy because she gets to be the class clown again, I hope her teacher is okay with that. There is an outdoor adventure club and next week they are going indoor rock climbing for $5. She's so excited. She just came home from school and told me about her whole day laughing and smiling the entire time. Too cute.

Ellyn is also doing well. I really think she is trying to say words on a regular basis. She is making very similar sounds to the words and using them at the right time. The day we got our furniture and put our couch in the living room she ran over to it laughing and smiling, climbed up and buried her face in the pillows. It feels so nice to know that we have a home in one spot for three years. Besides that Ellyn has developed a lovely habit of pooping right after she's supposed to go down for nap. Today as I was listening (because I put her down earlier than usual) to see if she was going to poop or nap she stuck her hand down her diaper, evidently having pooped the second I put her down. She really loves to check it out and so I've decided that for naps she'll be wearing overalls. Don't worry, I'll still change her, it's easy to tell. If she keeps babbling and isn't quiet we know she's filled her britches. Besides that, she is beautiful and happy. I met with the woman in charge of coordinating her therapy last week and they originally only wanted to do one hour a week of therapy. I just about died. I was so mad I started tearing up but...I also felt like I was able to talk to her in a logical way about what our family would need- at least the bare minimum. I also talked to her about getting a set of training dvds for all the parents of autistic children here on post (there are three other families)and setting up a lending library of sorts. It might take alot of work but maybe, if I stay rational about this, we can get a decent program going. They called me back and they are going to order the dvds and they are getting a list together of books from all the Army libraries in Europe for resources. The woman I worked with was wonderful, it's just dealing with the Army, insurance, early intervention, etc... It's a new, huge unit coming over and they are understaffed. We'll see how it works.

Mike is out registering his new beater car. It is actually a beautiful black 1988 525i series BMW. So funny that all the old cars around here are BMWs and Mercedes. It only has 100,000 miles on it and should be reliable for some of our trips. Thus cutting down on gas consumption. The German guy he got it from has an excellent reputation around here so it should be good.

I think that covers our whole update. Oh, I did get my German driver's license yesterday. Mike and I had a friendly little wager going that I wouldn't pass my first time around, because alot of people don't and I only started studying the night before. I passed with a better score than he did, but in all fairness he helped me study and practiced the insane "right always has the right of way" picture scenarios until I finally got it. I've been to my first coffee and all the girls seems really nice. We LOVE the brats and icecream here and all I can say is that I better keep walking everywhere or I'll be in trouble. I love you all. Tristan and the girls are beautiful. Went to IKEA by the way and I could live there. Love, me