Day At the Aquarium

Kevin's parents came up and spent the weekend with us. They were ever so kind to bring some bricks so we could block in gaps around the fence. It looks really nice and I don't have to worry about small dogs getting into the yard or Freya getting out. Works wonders and like I said, looks great!

After getting those put down, it was lunch time, so we headed over to the main base and had Arby's for lunch. Nothing tastes better! lol.

Then we drove around looking for the old Vehicle Maintenance, which after a half hour of driving, finally found tucked back out of the way. It was fun.

After our adventure around the base, we headed over to Mandalay Bay for the Shark Reef Aquarium. Of course we hadn't told Derric this, so he got a wonderful surprise. While in line to get tickets, we kept telling him we were getting Subway since it was next door to the ticket area. He was getting so frustrated, but that was ok, it kept him excited.

Derric had a blast inside. He so enjoyed every exhibit and he was so knowledgeable with just about everything. Grandma and Grandpa were getting more knowledge then I am sure they cared for, but they enjoyed him sharing what he knew. And we were all impressed with just how much the little tour guide knew as we walked around. Those apps really taught him a LOT.

New Home

Well, I have decided to close down gypsy-clan.com
It is a sad day, but honestly, I think it is for the best. Instead of paying for a host, I can utilize the free one I get with my email address. So this will be the new home for the Gypsy Clan. Please take the time to look around and settled in.
I am still working on getting everything formatted to it's new home, wordpress and blogger do not play well together and many layouts and such have been effected by this. So if you happen to run into a post or such that is not looking right, please let me know, I might have missed that one, or I haven't made my way there yet.
With this as the new home, I will be able to update more often, and I should be able to keep it much neater, as I wont have to handle all the backdoor coding myself. It will be a much simpler set-up.
Enjoy.

Start of Summer

I know I messed up this weekend. I had lots of photo opportunities with the Grandparents here, and I didn't get a single one!

Grandparents got here Friday night. Saturday was spent in Boise, had a really yummy lunch at Olive Garden, wandered the Aquarium for a bit (Derric of course never wants to leave that place!), then ended it all with a trip to Cold Stone. Back home to get Xavier packed and Sunday they were back on the road.

The house feels different with Xavier gone. It feels off. I honestly can't stand not having the kids home, so having only one gone, feels off. Need to make a trip back to Boise to get his cell reactivated so I can send that down to him.

Derric started his ESY today. The older grades seem to actually have a schedule, pretty tight one too. Which of course made Derric "have the worst day possible" because he didn't have time to work on his iPad. Looks like that will be an afternoon activity instead.

Just waiting on the pool to warm up, after a fill up, drain, and refill, the pool is back up and chemicals are good. But that water is still cold! Only 68 degrees.

Here is to a summer of fun, I hope.

Another School Year Down

Yes, Yes, I am very far behind on everything. Trust me, I realize this.

I managed to lose all passwords and access to my server for the most part. But I had a wonderful hour and half, almost two hour conversation with tech support from my host and I am back in business. I am working on getting everything back up and fully updated, but it will be a process.

I have also added the ability to update the site via my phone, so I should be able to post more often with the littlest things LOL. At least I will try to.

So what is all going on?

Lets see. The school year has ended. Grades have been posted! This year's grades are current. I need to go and do a back fill, will get to that... eventually. Derric is now officially a Middle Schooler! That boy has moved out of the Elementary Field and will attend Hacker Middle in the fall. Where has the time gone? Dokota is officially a Senior. So next school year will be filled with getting him graduated and off to college. I swear, time is just flying by! Xavier is on his last year of Jr. High! Wow, he starts the fall as an 8th Grader?! And Miss. Kauchana will be in the 10th grade this fall. Wow. Everyone is moving on.

For here at the home, Kevin is off on Deployment. 35 Days down, no clue on how many to go.

Xavier is preparing to head down to Arizona with his one-on-one time with the Grandparents. Dokota and Kauchana are looking to get Y.E.S. employment here on the base this summer, along with whatever else they have going on. Kauchana is looking to spend her spare time babysitting and taking swimming lessons. Dokota has Boy's State in June. Derric has his Extended School Year starting June 3rd, where he will have school until mid July. Busy summer.

Well, guess that is enough to somewhat get you updated on what is going on. I will work on keeping this site updated more now that I have all passwords and such. That is what I get for keeping my information on a small sheet of paper in the back of a book. But now I am good lol.

Goodnight

It's been a rather busy week here. Nights like this, sitting around a fire, teenage kids arguing, and a good drink... Yes, we have a good life.

Fun Weekend

Wow! We had such great weather this past weekend!

Friday, Kevin asked what I wanted to do this weekend. I said I want to run by Costco and get some bulk shopping done, BBQ, then veg the rest of the weekend. Made plans with friends here for them picking up the bed they loaned to us and seeing about us getting the Fridge they are selling us.

Saturday rolled around and most of us slept in a bit. I ended up waking up around 9, but lounged in bed until my back couldn't take it any more. Waited for Kevin to get up so we could head out. He finally got up around 1, and we were off to Costco by 2:30. Since Costco is in Boise, it was a good 45 minute drive, which I really don't like driving. Very flat, very dull, very straight.

Saturdays are probably NOT good Costco days. That place was packed and tho I probably wanted to look around more, we got a few items and left, fast. Neither of us could take the crowd. If not for the BBQ meat, and some Dinosaur Chicken Nuggets for Derric, I would feel the trip was wasted. But we got some good meat for the BBQ, enough that we managed two days!

Got home and started the grill. Had some yummy steaks, hamburgers, and baked beans. Yum. Managed to get some family gaming in, then little ones wandered off to bed. I followed not too long after. Talked Kevin into playing on the PS3 so I could fall asleep listening to him play. All in all, Saturday was a very relaxing day.

Sunday turned out to be just beautiful. Kauchana was able to talk Derric into playing at the Park (with the promise of bubbles). So those two disappeared for a couple hours. Xavier didn't want to give up his DS, which he managed to finally bring his grades up long enough to have his game this weekend, so he didn't go out. Dokota and Kevin slept most of the day.

Enjoyed some more family gaming until the internet went down, then Kevin decided he was hungry. There wasn't much left over from the BBQ, so he fired up the grill to fix the rest. Since it was so nice and warm out, I wanted to head to the BX to get a sprinkler the kids could play in, but they only had cheap plastic ones that wouldn't last more then a day. Headed to WalMart, but they didn't have any better of a selection, almost ended up getting a blow up pool for the kids to play in, until we get the garage cleared and can get a good look at our old pool. But Derric managed to find a water toy that looked fun for him.

Got home in time for the back yard to be in shadow, and to find out that I need to get a work order in for the back faucet, water seems to be coming out around the spiket, not threw it. So even when we hook the hose up to it, no water actually goes into the hose. Grrr. Guess we will need to wait on any back yard fun until we can get that fixed. Hopefully the weather will stay nice so we can enjoy it.

My physically therapy got approved to continue, so I will be continuing that this week. Not sure how many more weeks the insurance has approved, but just glad I get to continue.

Not much else going on. Kauchana has her dental today, so I will be heading out to that soon. Derric's next IEP meeting isn't until the 26th, so got a bit to wait on for that. All in all, the kids are doing really good.

Priced it out, and might be able to get the kids into swimming lessons again this summer. The pool on base is open, and they have some Family Splash Nights coming up, I think the kids would really enjoy heading to those.

Well, that is all for this update. Once I know more, I will post more. Have a good week.

A new base, a new start, a new...

Well everyone out there, I am going to sit here and say I am rather sorry that it has taken this long for an update.

We are back in the states, we flew in on the First of January. Kevin's parents and our sponsor met us at the air port and helped get us get back down to base. Since Kevin's parents were loaning us their truck until our van arrived, they did not stay for long. But we were able to spend a couple days with them as we visited Boise and did some window shopping/pricing of appliances that we would need to buy.

Pretty much everything was closed, military wise, on the second, so we headed to Boise. It was a relaxful end to the full day of traveling that we had done the day before.

The next day, still on German time a bit, Kevin and I woke up rather early and called up the housing office to find out when they would be open. We got lucky and they were already open. We headed over rather early and checked in. They offered us two houses to choose from, so we went and took a look, deciding on one.

This was rather nice, as the TLF we had on this side was rather small. We were very thankful that Kevin's parents were here, allowing us to let kids sleep in there TLF room, giving everyone an actual bed. The day Kevin's parents left we checked out of the TLF and moved into the house.

Everyone has been sleeping on air mattresses right now, as our household goods still have not arrived.
At WalMart one day, Kevin and I found a rather nice bunk bed for Xavier and Derric, rather decently priced. So we went ahead and picked that up, putting their air mattresses on it. But all the playing around those two do on it, popped Xavier's and it has required a fill up on air just about nightly.

Thanks to the travel money paid, we were able to pick up a washer and dryer, which has been really nice! I am sad to say, I am honestly happy I can do laundry whenever needed, instead of loading up the vehicle to drive it to a laundry mat. Kevin got me a rather nice set, one big enough to wash our King size bedding.

We are still waiting on the Tax refund to arrive to pay off credit cards, put away for when we need to go pick up the van, and also buy Kauchana's new bed. Hopefully this will all be able to be taken care of soon. (Tho the van is still not at the port of call, so still unable to go pick it up.)

Today we did manage to pick up two small mattresses, for the bunk bed, allowing the boys to sleep on something a little more solid and also (honestly) cut down on the noise at night. Found a couple different beds I thought Kauchana would enjoy, but Kevin and I both agreed, it would be much better for her to go pick it out and get a bed she liked then paying the money for one she will hate. 

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from our Family to yours.

Sorry there have been lack of updates here. Lets just say I am finally getting the chance to sit down and think of this.

Here are updates!

We moved out of our place and into TLF on the 14th. On the 15th, 16th, and 19th the packers were there, packing everything up. Finalled out of the house on the 22nd. Worked on cleaning and organizing everything between the 19th and the 22nd. So happy we were able to final out on the pre-inspection. Took one piece of stress off my back.

Kevin worked on out processing from the base. Due to the amount of stuff we had going on, I sometimes had to ride with so I would be able to meet my appointments. It was a lot of back and forth between both Bitburg and Spang. I think we put more miles on our poor van these past two weeks then we had the year we have had it.

Friday we dropped the van off to get detailed for shipping. Picked up a rental. Ouch on price. Kevin thought he was quoted USD price and relayed it to me. When we got there, found out (after paying) it was EURO. So we had a bit of an issue with our bank due to that. (budgeted the price in USD, NOT the conversion.) The van will be shipped Tuesday.

Kevin and I would love to say we are enjoying the weekend, as it gives us time to relax.... Nope, we spent yesterday doing lots of running around, and not relaxing. Got up early today instead of sleeping in...

But only because I promised the kids a big breakfast. Since I wont be spending the day doing my normal Christmas cooking, I made up Breakfast Burritos and muffins for the kids. Santa even made a stop by last night.

Since I will only be fixing a dinner today, I might get to relax a little. We shall see. The kids are curled up with their stuff, being typical teens. Dokota on his iPod, Kauchana reading. Xavier trying to fall asleep, Derric playing around with his imaginary world. Such a quiet day.

Full Speed

Well, we have hit full speed mode. It seems all the waiting around wondering what was going on has ended and we are now moving twice as fast to accomplish all we need to do in a very short amount of time.

The kids' school unenrollment has been submitted.
Derric's papers and files will be picked up on the 16th. They are going to be looking over all his stuff to make sure I leave with the most up to date IEP and progress reports as they can get for him. Once they get me those in hard copy and PDF format, I will need to go by EDIS to get his file from there.
Kauchana's team is looking to have an IEP meeting before she is unenrolled to also get her latest copy and make sure all is up to date. Again, need her hard copy and PDF file and she will be done.
Xavier was honestly the easiest to unenroll. I will be contacted when his file is done and I can sign for it.
Dokota was an interesting snag. Ok, honestly, it wasn't interesting, it was down right stressful. Because we did not have a 30 day advanced notice of leaving (actually having orders in hand 30 days out), they were talking about not letting him claim his credits for the semester. I walked in on Tuesday (Monday I had running to do and didn't make it by the HS) with orders to get him going. They said it was too late to allow him to accelerate to get his full credits. I was livid. After informing them that I brought them orders as quickly as I could from us getting them, it wasn't his or our fault we got the orders so close to us leaving. The principal was at first sympathetic saying ok, he will see what he can do by talking to the school board. But then he read the orders and found that there is a late February Report date. He suddenly changed his tune of wanting to help to basically stating we needed to let Dokota stay and finish out the semester. I told him that was impossible as once we are out processed from the base, Dokota looses his command sponsorship and we do not have the funds to pay the $2,000 tuition fee for him to stay for half a month. He agreed to still look into it for Dokota to accelerate and I said I would be back the next day. Went back and all was good. He is going to accelerate to get as much of his semester credit as he can get.

Today we had our pre-inspection for the movers to show up and start packing. They will start on the 15th, pack the 15th, 16, and 19th. We are going to be moving into TLF on the 14th.

This weekend we will be having  a mini Christmas for the kids.

We are at breakneck speeds now...

Very sad to think, we have only a couple more weeks left in country before we had back to the States. But back we will be... and soon... Very soon.