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Noises Off

Who knew that our little guy was such a talented fellow? Look out AFV.

Marietta Snow - March 2009

Pictures from the first snow of 2009. Who would have thought of a March snow in Marietta when it felt so close to Spring? Trees are blooming, daffodils are out... The kids love it though.

Marietta Snow - March 2009

Christmas 2008

A Very Root Christmas 2008

‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the town; People were shocked “Have the Roots settled down?”
Nathan and Jen were sitting at home; Mulling about how they used to roam.

Happy to be in their own house and yard; So tired of moving – it’s been very hard!

Jen has been on the job merry-go-round; She jumped off two times and then stayed on the ground. She tried on job one and it gave her a fright; she tried on job two, but it wasn’t quite right; she then got an offer from MFSA; she’s quite happy now and thinks she will stay.

Nate has the same job and has been quite steady; It was four months in Montana for which we weren’t ready. The commute wasn’t fun, but he earned lots of miles; “I finally reached Platinum!’ he said with a smile.

We joined St. James church, to give us a base; We’re working on finding that faith and that grace.

The kids are both cute and growing so fast; We’re now taking bets on who gets the first cast. They like to play rough, they chase and they scream; Manners and clean? Well, we can all dream. They’re loud and obnoxious and all of that stuff; But we love them to bits when they hug us enough.

Girl scouts, ballet and a bit of gymnastics; Veronica has really become quite fantastic. Alex is speaking a bit more each day; And when he’s not talking, with cars does he play. He’s got lots of energy and loves being outside; He loves choo-choo trains and bicycle rides.

Miley the dog, our latest family addition; Comes with us now on our expeditions.

We’ve made some really incredible friends; The kind that we hope we will have till the end. They like us despite all of our quirks; and our kids like their kids – just one of the perks!

Our house is quite dirty and our kids are quite loud; But we love it all and we are very proud. We hope you’ll come visit and see for yourself; We have put the nomadic life on a shelf.

We are very thankful for all we receive; We’ll win the lottery yet - we believe! To all of our friends on the left and the right - Love and kisses to all, and to all a good night!

'Tis the Season

Christmas

Today is the 6th anniversary of my mom's death. Although I still think of her nearly every day, the pain of losing her comes a little closer to the surface each Christmas. I wish that she had the opportunity to know her Grandchildren. More so than that - I wish they could know her. I miss you mom.

And it seems that almost every Christmas comes tinged with sadness since then . . . this year I have a niece going through a really tough breakup right now and I can't be near her to help hold her up. And I have a nephew going through some really tough times too. And my sister feels all of the pain they do, knowing there is very little she can do. I'm sending out all the love I can to my family far away. I miss you guys.

Jen

Where did November go?

Yikes we've been busy! I can't tell you where November went. We drove out to Oklahoma for Thanksgiving. I think we are at a point that we can't make that drive any more until the kids are old enough to entertain themselves in the car. Two days with seven hour drives is just too much for them.

We're getting ready for Christmas at home this year. Our house is still in various stages of putting together - painting, unfurnished rooms, etc., but we're in no hurry - we plan to be here a LONG time. We'll be having an open house on December 24, so if you happen to be in the neighborhood . . . consider yourself invited!

I (Jen) have a new boss and I finally met him last week. Very nice guy, level headed, definitely expecting great things from the staff. I think he's taking the business in a good direction, but he sure is starting out at a tough time. (Sounds like another leader!)

We're feeling the pinch of the economy - but we're muddling through. We've been through tougher times.

Here are a few pics for your enjoyment.

LaSalle Family

These are my friends. I could hardly watch this. Click the image above.

Find a cure.

Buy the book.

Veteran's Day

To all the Vets in my life - thank you.

My Dad
My Uncles
My Nephew
My Father-in-Law
The brother-in-laws and the uncle-in-laws

My good friend Michael, still serving in the Air Force.
My mom's first husband, who gave his life in World War II

I just finished helping my daughter's class make red poppies and taught them the importance of Veteran's Day. I never paid much attention to Veteran's Day as a child, but as an adult I see the sacrifice and the honor.

Give a Vet a hug today.

Always and Everywhere

For a very good cause . . . and a friend.

Always and Everywhere

Buy the book, make a donation or even bid on the artwork.

Busy, busy! Worky, worky!

So it's been quite a while - been pretty busy. Alexander had his second birthday which was fun. Veronica didn't quite understand why she shouldn't open his presents and such, but then neither did he. They both got a big kick out of his first "choo choo rain" - Thomas!

Aside from the occasional birthday, we've been pretty busy with improvements around the house. As of this writing, we are pretty much tapped out on big home improvement projects. We had the privacy fence completed just before Joe and Dianne came to town. We had a really good time (and we ate really well, thanks Joe!).

Daddy's birthday was pretty good, too - he got a privacy fence, a shed, and landscaping! Sorry - landscaping pictures will have to come later...only some much that can be crammed into an overdue update! If you look closely, you can even see his Compost Corral.

Last weekend, we trekked on up to Ellijay for the 37th annual Apple Festival. It was a pretty good thought, and they had a lot of stuff there, but we really didn't see many apples. I think we were both hoping for something a little closer to apple orchard-esque, but it was cute. The kids were both pretty good and enjoyed themselves. Veronica got to re-do her bungie jumping, and Alex got to ride a horse. Oh yeah, and daddy got to ride a train -- choo choo!

The bottom line is that we are all doing great, despite (or perhaps "to spite") the freaky markets and overall economic outlook. Jen is still doing great back with MFSA, and Nathan is doing great with BearingPoint--the company itself is still doing all the right things, just bad timing with the upheaval at Wall Street. Veronica is doing good with Kindergarten, and Alex is enjoying his school, too.

Last but not least, a video to leave you with. Nothing deep and contemplative, but it may remind you of how kids can sometimes eat ice cream...hopefully when they are 2 years old, not 21!

Blue Man and Brown Bear

It's been a hectic few weeks. Most recently, Nathan left Jen and the kids to fend for themselves while he did his conference thing in Orlando, FL. Let's see, Jen and the kids survived on yet more reruns of saved TiVo episodes of Scooby, Backyardigans, Blues Clues, and Krypto the Super Dog while Nathan helped play host to state reps and vendors in Orlando (including a company-sponsored VIP outing to the Blue Man Group). Who do you think had the better time? Well, the tables are turned, as Jennifer is running a conference for her new/old employer in Charlotte, NC. The difference is Nathan and the kids now have live TV and Jennifer has been miserable with a Labor Day cold. At last report, one of her eyes was gummed shut with a likely case of conjunctivits...aka "pink eye." Life is a barrel of monkeys, eh? In between Nathan's and Jennifer's trips, the family had a great time at a friends house with a whole mess of kids for Labor Day. We are just sorry that we didn't get any pictures of Veronica running around a dock with a handful of squirmy worms, her introduction to baiting a hook! Veronica also had loads of fun at Taylor's birthday party (swim party at an indoor pool).

We are thankful, though, that other than the relatively minor ailments, each member of the family is healthy. We are looking forward to getting our backyard fenced in over the next few weeks, and making a number of other property improvements as we round the bend toward Autumn.

Update 8-26

Lest anyone think that I'm not really working from home, this is the first (and currently only) room completely set up at our house: My office.

Yes, I finally have the corner office with a view. I do miss having co-workers nearby to pester though. It's not as much fun long-distance.

This past weekend was a busy one. Nathan left for a conference at 6:00 am on Saturday leaving me in a partially unpacked house with two energetic kids. But we had a full day to keep us busy. Now you get a long story to get to what we did.

When Veronica was at Primrose in Pre-Kindergarten, she made lots of good friends and we got to know quite a few parents well too. What a great group of people. There are a few parents that we embraced right away as friends and they happen to have some really great kids too: Susan Hochman, her kids Jonathan and Christian (ok, I'm really embarrassed that I don't know her husbands name!); Chris and Margie LaSalle and their kids Claire and John Mark. Margie is battling breast cancer that has mestacized into her bones, making it difficult to get around. They live in a three-level townhouse and need to be somewhere that Margie can navigate easier. So . . .

I dropped the kids at Susan's house on Saturday morning where a bunch of volunteers watched the kids while the rest of the parents descended on Chris and Margie's to paint. What an event! There were at least 15 - 20 people helping paint the house. I had to leave early - but it was heartwarming to see so many people pitch in to help a great family. And the reason I had to leave was to get Veronica to a Birthday party for a neighbor. She had lots of fun, ate cake, and crashed. I have the proof:


This is the after effects of a very full day on a five-year old. Here is our painted butterfly asleep on the couch.

And lastly, we've had rain. Granted we need lots of rain. But Fay is sitting right on top of us today and I'm soggy. Here is our neighbors waterfall. Oops, I mean backyard . . . it's not supposed to have a waterfall feature.


Just this morning dropping off Alexander, I found out that another Primrose parent from his class (with a 19-month old little girl), lost her battle with breast cancer last week. Her funeral is today. She was only 36.

So to wrap up my update for today I have a few favors:
Pray for my friend Margie LaSalle to kick the cancer out of her body.
Pray for them to sell their townhome fast in today's market.
Pray to find a cure for breast cancer.

Vacation, New School, Moving, New Job - OH MY!!

Most of you already know we've been MIA and most of you know why - but we'll give a quick snapshot of the insanity that has been our lives for the past three weeks:

July 31 | Jen's last official day at PIAG
Aug. 1 | Jen flew to Virginia to officially start back with MFSA, back to GA that night.

Aug. 2 | Veronica's Wet & Wild Birthday Party. Word of advice to parents: Don't ever invite 30 wet and muddy kids into your house.

Aug. 3 | Veronica's actual Birthday. More cake and sugar anyone?
Aug. 4 - 9 | Beach! Vacation! Relaxation! We ended up near Destin, FL at a really nice condo. Eduard foiled our plans to spend much time in the ocean . . . double red flags our first day there. (Yes, Eduard was a hurricane that thankfully didn't do much damage, but still created rough water.) It was really the jellyfish really kept us out of the water after that. But the place we stayed had a great pool - so we still had plenty of water time.
Aug. 10 | Back home . . . the move is looming. Packing? Do we have to start now? Getting final supplies for . . .
Aug. 11 | First day of Cobb County School. Which means the first day of Kindergarten for Veronica. No tears for any of us, but it was still a landmark day. She's such a big girl now.
Aug. 12 | Back up to Virginia for Jen for an all-day meeting, back to Georgia before the kids were in bed.
Aug. 13 | Ok, we really, really need to start packing.
Aug. 14 | What do you mean the movers are here already??
Aug. 15 | Despite 3 broken beds and 2 really exhausted parents, we're in our house. Since Alexander's bed was broken in the move, we decided that now was a good time to upgrade him to a toddler bed. He's doing really well and stays in it all night. Well, except once. And naptime is a joke. We'll be setting up his crib again for naps, once it is fixed.

To celebrate our move we did one big splurge. Something that we've been putting off for over 8 years: We finally got real, grown up bedroom furniture. We've been using a mish-mash of furniture we collected over the years - none of which matched, or was really functional. So we decided that this would be our one big furniture splurge. We got a king bed and real matching furniture! The bed is enormous. . . we didn't expect it to be so high. The dog, the kids and Jennifer can no longer get up on the bed without assistance. Nathan loves his new bed.

We're now just trying to unpack, keep the kids out of the boxes and trying to re-establish a routine. But life is exceptionally good. We are truly blessed.

Love to all.

Happy 5th Birthday Veronica!

It was loads of fun, I think for all. More pictures to come later. :)