January
Original source: January.htm2002 January to July July August September October November December 2003 JANUARY FEBRUARY March APRIL MAY January 2003. January 11 We have been having some trouble with the computer. It keeps crashing. We have lost everything twice now. Thank God Ron is able to fix it. The only thing he's lost was the last updates we made on this page. We are having trouble with the power connection as well. I guess sending him to school has paid off for us. Let's see the last update spoke of Christmas, New Years and leaving the Indio area. The kids enjoyed Christmas even though we had to move. There were lots of kids at Desert Hot Springs because of Christmas vacation. They made many new friends. Nikole let everyone use her paints and glitter glue. Zak shared his trains, race cars, and the new wave jam guitar. Over all they really enjoyed the last two weeks of our stay in California. The last few days they made really good friends with a little girl who was staying with her grandparents right next door to us. Her name is Samantha but she likes to be called Sam. Zakary said she reminded him of Hayley. It made him a little home sick for her. Nikole's birthday was a success despite the terrible cold Ron gave to me. The kids and I went to Chuckey Cheese with her friends Miranda, Mariah, and Myah. Their mom Mary went too. Nikole was very happy to have her friends join her. Ron had to work that day. He worked a lot right up to the day before we left. It is good that he made money but it was hard having him gone so much. I thank God that we met people in the church. It helped having somewhere to go with other adults. The kids can be overwhelming 24/7. The night before we left we had dinner with our friend Jeannie. She was so uplifting and refreshing. She has tremendous faith in God and His word. There are a lot of similarities in our marriages. They have been married for 8 years. We are in our 9th. Hearing her talk was like listening to myself. It was nice to hear how determined she is to have God be first place in her life and she's willing to do anything to have her husband desire that as well. We left refreshed and renewed. The kids were so well behaved the whole time I know God had His hand on the whole event. Arizona was unique when we came in on the 10. The first thing we noticed were all the tall cactus. We entered Phoenix at rush hour and spent a lot of time in traffic. By the time we reached the 17 we were at a crawl. It was dark and raining when we got to this campground. We are staying in a small town called Camp Verde. It's about 3 hours south of the Grand Canyon. We have done a little exploring in the local towns of Cottonwood and Camp Verde. They have seasons here where we are. The trees are bare the air is cool. There is no snow. It is rare when it does. The temps run in the 50's and 60's. Phoenix, about a hour south, is in the 70's. We are here for a week to go into the Canyon and Sedona. From here we have three days to get to Rockport Texas. That is along the Gulf Coast a little north of Corpus Christi. Today we are sticking around the campground. Tomorrow will be spent traveling to the Canyon. It will be a long day and a long drive. The kids get grumpy when we drive too much. Wednesday we will be leaving here and driving 7 hours over the next three days to get to Texas. Oh boy what and adventure. January 17 After an all night drive from Las Cruses New Mexico we arrived in Medina Texas around 11:00 am Central time. It was a long night to say the least. We traveled route 10 for 8 hours or so. Ron did the bulk of the driving. I filled in for a few hours around midnight. We saw 5 deer on the trip three of them were road kill. One was about 3 car lengths ahead off the side and really no danger. The other was about 3 feet in front of the passenger side of the trailer and it was running for it's life. Ron made a good save just before we exited the highway to Kerrville. We were thanking and praising God for keeping us safe. I know the whole time I drove I was asking God to keep His deer out of the road. We pulled into the Wal Mart parking lot at 5:30 am. The kids woke up and started to plan their day. Ron and I made a bee line to our bed and threatened them with bodily harm if they didn't go back to sleep. They complied and we all slept until 10:00 am. Ron being the first to wake up. I know I would have slept for 8 hours if I was allowed to. The weather here in Texas is cool and sunny. The whole country is having a cold front hit it. Everywhere but Indio we hear. I'm having second thoughts about leaving. If it wasn't such a long drive I would try to go back. It's really not that bad here. We are just getting acclimated. Having only 4 hours of broken sleep doesn't help. Once we were set up I made a chicken dinner. It was so nice to have a home cooked meal. The kids watched a lot of PBS today. They didn't even change out of their pajamas! I did four loads of laundry and Ron well he napped and ate and napped again. He did help me with the laundry and we went for a little stroll around the property as well. We are staying in Las Aves RV Resort. The club house is beautiful. The pool is shaped like the state of Texas. If it wasn't so cold out we would have gone into the hot tub but we are just wiped out. We are only here for the night. Tomorrow we are off to Rockport. It will take about 3 hours we hope. Yesterday (as I say that it seems like a long time ago but...) we went to White Sands National Monument. It was the coolest place I've ever seen. In the middle of the desert at the base of the mountains there is white sand like a beach. There is very little grass or cactus growth in the middle and deep into the park. It is missile testing ground for the government. It was really quiet until the jets flew over. The sand itself was white with no debris. We had a lot of fun playing and sculpting. It must have rained the day before. It was perfect for molding but a little cold on the hands. Ron's theory is that this is the spot they tested the small A bomb. It was so hot that it purified the ground. It makes sense to me seeing that there are cactus growing in the beginning of the park. It's obvious that nature is proceeding to turn the ground back to what it once was. Anyway if your ever in New Mexico it's well worth the trip. In fact it's a place I would like to return to some day. I would imagine that in the summer it is really hot. We had a perfect day. Our trip to the Grand Canyon was great. We had an awesome day. The sun was bright and the temps were in the 50's. The kids got their Jr. Ranger Badges. Nikole found some deer tracks in the snow. When she looked up the deer were less than 10 feet away. One female and one Male with horns. It was the closest I've ever been to wild deer. (Until this morning that is and the situation was completely different.) The kids absolutely loved playing in the snow piles that were left. It was hard to get Nikole to leave. It was a really fun day for all of us. We certainly have been putting on the miles since we left Indio. It's been really easy this time. The children are used to traveling and they seem to do really well with the long drives. We are enjoying seeing the country. Starting school work after a two week vacation has been difficult. The kids are constantly trying to take the day off. Since we put up the new chart is has been a little better. It's funny but in the beginning it was Zakary who gave me the hard time. Now it's Nikole. It's always been that way too. Thank God I only have one of them being difficult at a time. We only had a two day week this week too. It's just impossible to get school in when we are traveling so much. It's ok though. They are very far ahead in reading and math and they are learning geography, history, and science when we are on the road. God's word is read every night as well. It's fun and challenging explaining the scriptures to them in a way they will understand that God loves them so much that He made laws for their protection and blessing. It is in those moments I know I'm doing the will of my father. He is so good to us. January 18 We're here! We finally have arrived in Rockport Texas. It took most of the day to get here. Thank God we made it just before sun down. The weather is on the cool side but the sunshine is nice. This park is huge. It has all the good stuff to keep the kids busy and happy hopefully. We also have Cingular service as well. That means we have internet access through our phone. That will keep Ron and I happy. Texas is a huge state! It's still amazes me that it takes three days of traveling 8 hours a day to get through it. This time we saw 2 major cities. Hopefully we will see Huston on our way out too. God willing. January 24 We have internet access again through our phone! It was so exciting to get on line in the comfort of my own home. I went to the pbs page to get the information for Nikole to enter the Reading Rainbow writers contest. She is so excited to enter. She saw the contest back at the last campground and immediately started writing her story. She drew up all the illustrations too. Tonight I have all the information. I will allow her time during school to work on this project. Ron spent the evening with a man he met today at the computer social. He just loves helping people figure out how to get things loaded. He gets so excited. He tells me all about it. Unfortunately sometimes it is like another language. I'm not into all the jargon. I know how to operate the programs once they are loaded. Anyway he may have just found his calling. Here he will be printing up business cards for one man and he downloaded programs for 2 others. He may be installing another larger hard drive with more memory for another. It's something he enjoys. Zakary is enjoying the Dr. Boy video games. He is learning how to play with a good attitude. Mostly he gets it taken away but he's getting better. Today we had to handle a pencil disaster. Nikole asked him no to play with her pencil. He didn't and he broke it. She was devastated of coarse. It was her 2 foot long pencil from the Living Desert. It was an opportunity to teach both of them life lessons. We taught Nikole that it was important for her to forgive her brother since it was an accident and he didn't break it in purpose. And we were able to teach Zak that if he would have respected Nikole's request not to play with it he would have never broken it. It was pretty cool how I didn't have to raise my voice. They both understood. Zakary paid her for the pencil and they have been having a great time together since then. We have been going to bed really late. It seems as if I see 2 am most nights. The kids are up late too. Our day begins at 10 am. The weather has been cool and rainy. We are on vacation so to speak. We did manage to get a full week of school in! Yeah! It's been a battle since Christmas Vacation. I'm trying to challenge them without making it too tough. Multiplication is the hot math topic. I did a review on addition and subtraction with reorganizing. They both had 95%. In English we are on pronouns, adjectives. Nikole is better than Zak at that. Spelling went well this week too. We visited the USS Lexington that is docked in Corpus Christie. Zakary enjoyed it more than Nikole. He liked climbing all the ladders and leading us through all the galleys. Nikole complained about the color and the smell. She just wanted to get off that ship. Later she said "That ship was awful with all that gray and black. What were they thinking." I had to laugh. My little artist was feeling stifled with the lack of vibrant colors. She is so much of an artsy person. The minute we left she hit the beach and designed a sand castle with a mote. It made her feel much better. We are meeting wonderful Christian brother and sisters. It's so nice to travel with fellow believers. The longer we're out here the more I see that there are lots of folks with good moral values. They are all over 65 but they are out here. Unfortunately we don't have many opportunities to socialize with people our own age. Again though I know God has a plan and meeting these people are a part of it. We accept this time as a learning opportunity. We have awesome Christian television here too. I am thanking God for this time to grow in His word with my family. Ron and I were both saying today that we miss working. He misses Circuit City. I miss having a schedule of activities to make my day go by. It's in the quiet times with God that I grow though so I don't want to rush this time either. His will is more important than mine. All I want is to be a useful vessel in His hands. January 27 It's Monday morning 10:00 am. It's the earliest I've been up since we've been in Texas. Since we pulled the all-nighter our schedule has been stay up until at least 2 am and sleep until after 10. The kids are off too. They were up last night at 11 and it felt like 8 to me. I slept until noon yesterday. It's really getting ridiculous. The three days of rain hasn't helped. It's easy to sleep when the weather is bad. Another week of getting the kids to do school work. Oh boy what fun! There are days I just can't wait for them to go back to school. I really don't want to home school another year. It's not that they are not learning because they are it's just that it's difficult to make them treat me like a teacher. They have a hard time doing the work without complaining. I need to find a way to entice them into doing it. Making it more of a game I think. The rain here has been really bad at times. We moved our spot between storms on Saturday. Ron didn't like the fact that when you stepped out the door the water was over your shoes. I knew it was going to rain for the next few days too so it only got worse. It was so wet in here yesterday the walls were sweating. I can understand how they have a mold issues around here. Now we have a beautiful site right next to the lake. Our view has improved. It's still cloudy today and the temps are only going to be in the 50's which for us is cold. (we miss one New England winter and 50 becomes cold!) Tomorrow and the next thought they are talking 70's! Hopefully we'll be able to take the free ferry to San Padre Island. God willing of coarse. Last night I had such a wonderful prayer time. It's been a long time since I've rested in the presence of my heavenly father like that. I realize now that it's been by lack of time spent with Him that has caused me to feel apart. Not so much time in Church but time in prayer listening to Him. I am being led to read the bible to Ron at night too. God has shown me how we are both different and that in being faithful in this little thing He will bless me. He knows of my desire to have a Godly husband. I worry all the time that Ron is drifting away from God. But now I have the faith of one who has heard the truth and I need to stay faithful to do what I must. God is still with me. He hasn't left. He's still watching out for us. We are right where He wants us to be. Some days it's hard to imaging the future. I feel like we are just running around and I can't see an end or a purpose. I try hard not to worry about the kids. I know that God cares for them more than I do. I know He will not forsake us. I feel like I have a purpose now. It's so refreshing to spend time with God. I love Him so much. January to July July August September October November December 2003 JANUARY FEBRUARY March APRIL MAY |