Carter's First Day of Kindergarten

Wow, it seems like we've been waiting for 2012 for a long time. When he was an infant, I remember thinking 2012, the year he would start school, was so far away. Yet now that it's here, I can't believe it! Carter goes to the Elementary school on base here and his teacher is Mrs. Berglund. He is very excited and ready to start Kindergarten!

We didn't get to accompany them into the classroom, so I didn't get the anticipated 'Carter next to his cubby' picture. Parents drop the kids off at the playground, as early as 7:30, close to the class and the kiddos leave their backpacks next to their classroom number that is painted on the blacktop. He can then play until the first bell rings (7:45) and then he lines up with his teacher at the number. In the afternoon, I have to walk to a group of trees inside the gate for them to 'release' him (at 11:50). Daddy even accompanied us this morning to drop Carter off.

Ready to Go!

Showing off his Star Wars Backpack and Lunch box

Vivi was convinced she was going to school too.

A big day, posing with Dad.

With Mom

Here's where they line up before class, then the teacher takes them to class in the building you see behind. Their teacher is the lady in the magenta shirt at the front of the line.

Carter Riding His Bike....Finally!

Some of you know the lengths we have gone to get Carter to try his bike without training wheels. It has been the thorn in our side for months now. Last spring we took a trip with some friends to a beach house and took his training wheels off. Unlike our house in FL there was a lot of flat space with no traffic, so it was perfect for him to practice. He did really well and got going and everything. Problem was he wrecked, right into a corvette. At first instinct, I was worried about the corvette and some kind of ridiculous angry neighbor. However, both Carter and the car were unharmed. It wasn't a particularly bad wreck. I don't think he was even bleeding. But from that point on he decided that he wasn't going to ride bikes anymore. We tried encouraging, bribing, and even ignoring the fact that he wouldn't ride his bike. He tried to teach Clay to ride without training wheels in hopes that it would push Carter to do it. After that weekend, we told him that he was old enough to ride without training wheels and that we would not be putting them back on. So....his bike sat and collected dust for weeks at a time. We made him try about once a month which ended up in screaming and crying from Cory, him, and me. He was determined to make it a miserable experience for all. He refused to actually try. Instead, during those 'practice' sessions he whined and complained about how he couldn't do it until we were all tired and sent him to his room for whining and crying. Fast forward to our move to CA. I was SURE he would be begging to learn to ride once we moved here. There are tons of kids and they all ride bikes without training wheels. (even the 3 year olds!). Surely seeing a 3 year old ride a bike without training wheels is a good motivator!? Carter pretended not to notice. He would still play with all the kids, but instead of riding his bike, he would run or ride some other ride on toy. Both Cory and I were getting extremely frustrated that he wouldn't give it an honest effort. We started to obsess about it. He WILL LEARN TO RIDE A BIKE! We talked about it and came up with a plan. We told Carter the next day. "Carter, you're not allowed to turn 6 until you can ride a bike without training wheels." "Why?" "Do you know anyone who is six who rides with training wheels?" "Um, no," "Do you know anyone who is FIVE who rides with training wheels?" "No..." "Well, then you were probably lucky to get to turn 5, then." "Yeah..." "That's just the way of the universe. You just can't turn 6 if you still ride with training wheels. You just...can't." "No presents, or cake or anything?" "Nope." And 10 minutes later, this happened.

We knew he could do it. When you're 5 and a half, you have the agility and balance to ride a bike. He just needed something to motivate him. Apparently, wanting to turn 6 will do it.

School

Yesterday, we had kind of a crazy day.

When we moved here, we were less than thrilled about putting Carter in the elementary school here on base. Now some may say or think, "Geez, a DoDs school at Edwards is probably great! Tons of smart pilots, engineers and civilians work there. Some of the cream of the crop!" However, 'tis not the case.
The school is not a DoD school, it is a public school, therefore any joe schmoe can attend. Not that I am for denying anyone an education. But our surrounding area is less than sketchy out here, therefore we seem to bring in some of the dregs of humanity. So, if you work on base, whether you work as a Test Pilot or you flip burgers at the burger king, or you clean the floors at the shopette, your child can attend school on base. Which is the case in most residential areas, if you lived close to a school, you go to that school regardless of your parent's occupation. Makes sense, right? But, the problem lies in several places. Like I mentioned earlier, the surrounding area (from where all the civilian or contract workers come from) is pretty low income, high poverty, and has high drug/crime rates. Having a public school on base allows the drug/crime problem to come onto base.
But wait! Security forces nips that in the butt, right? Nope, SF has NO JURISDICTION on the school, because it is a public school. For instance, to make a 'drug raid' they have to announce it first, and then the county comes in to perform the raid. This allows everyone enough time to stash their 'stash' in plenty of time.
Also, the SF don't check the inside of every kids pocket that come onto base for school everyday. Sure, every now and then they perform a random check at the gate (where they do have jurisdiction), but that hardly seems to puts a dent in the problem.
This is mostly a problem for junior high and high school obviously, but the fact that it is happening under everyone's noses right down the road from the elementary school is disturbing. When there's big behavior/drug/crime problems at the high school and junior high, that means a lot of those older kids have younger siblings at the elementary school. While these littler ones might not have drugs in their pockets, a lot of times they have bad attitudes, bad behavior or are having inappropriate conversations with your children during recess. All of the school/families are connected, if it affects one of the schools, the other schools feel the trickle down as well.
Other problems with the school on base is that they do not have art, or music, or SCIENCE. They pay the teachers very poorly and the kids only go to school from 8ish to 1:30ish (depending on the grade) to cut down on what they have to pay teachers.  Carter will actually go everyday from 7:50 to 11:50. This is not an Edwards issue, it is a CA public school issue. They cut corners for the budget every place they can, and it's evident.
Compound those issues with the fact that we're all 20 miles from the closest town and there aren't any other good options as alternatives. All the other public schools 'in town' are worse than the Edwards one. Sure, we could fork over the money for private school. But add 40 minutes of gas two times a day on top of tuition and it starts getting outrageous.
Sooo, back to "we weren't thrilled about sending Carter".
When we arrived, a friend of mine had some great news. She had basically convinced their private school teacher (from last year) to come onto base and teach Kindergarten and 1st grade. Her and several friends had carpooled and taken their kids off base to a church for Kindergarten. However, the church stops at Kindergarten and they would have all had to enroll at the elementary school on base. The teacher and everyone seemed to be on board.  It would be a small class, 10 kids, and we were going to hold it at the chapel. My friend, along with the teacher, had put in hours of leg work recruiting kids, calculating costs, getting approval from the chapel, school calendars, etc. Cory and I were so excited that Carter was going to get to be a part of this great opportunity. Everything I had heard from the other parents about the teacher was nothing less than spectacular. Yay! We held some informal meetings, paid for our supplies (They were going to use the ABecka curriculum) and were set to start on Sept 4th.

Yesterday, all of the sudden, news came down that we were not allowed to use the chapel. We were devastated. We don't know why or how the problem arose, because we had already asked the chaplain's permission. His daughter was even going to be in the class! But JAG gave us a call and said, no way. We couldn't run a business out of the chapel. We're not sure if someone caught wind of what we were doing and told on us? Not that we were trying to be sneaky, but we had no idea what we were trying to do would have been a problem. No one we asked had seemed to think it was a problem, and how JAG came to questioning it, is beyond us.We would have to pay a good extra amount to use a services building, and no one had a reliable house to offer. Without a location, we just...couldn't make it work. To add to all the confusion and sudden craziness yesterday, almost everyone in the group had unenrolled their children from the base elementary school, and the Verizon cell tower was down, so no one had phone service. Because of that, several people were in the dark about the whole situation until the evening. Luckily, I had not actually un-enrolled Carter yet. I had actually tried to call the school yesterday morning to un-enroll him before we knew anything was wrong, and I couldn't get service.
Several of us moms spent yesterday in a panic, trying to come up with something to make it work, and we hit a roadblock at every corner. The use of the chapel was the key to making the whole thing work, the foundation. Without it, the whole thing just crumbled at our feet.

So today I took Carter to Kindergarten orientation and he will start school on Monday on base. I am still upset for all the moms that were hoping for this to work out. But I guess better now than in three weeks, right?
We very briefly met the teacher and filled out some paperwork. We learned the drop-off, pickup rules (um...there isn't drop off. I have to walk him in and out.) and what to bring the first day. There will be an open house later this month to discuss curriculum. I am going to be positive about our situation, because I really feel like God has his hand on Carter, I know we are disappointed, but I know there is a reason. I just hope that he wasn't trying to tell me to homeschool......

From There to Here Part III

We left Ft. Worth early in the morning in hopes of making it to Van Horn, TX. It always seems to be an ordeal to drive across Texas. Well, I mean, it does take about 14 hours to cross the darn place. We needed to stop in Tucson and then at Edwards. Those were the only scheduled places we had to be. The others were up in the air. The thing is, when stopping in West Texas these days the prices are high and the bed bugs are plenty. There's so much new oil in the area that all the people working on the rigs/etc. have all the reservations (And we're not talking about Mariotts here, We're talking Super 8s and the like) booked up. And because of the high volume/fast turnover of people/line of work/probably not the cleanest environment, the bed bugs are bad. yuck. We didn't want to stop in the Midland/Odessa area for that reason and El Paso is just a little too far for one day so we decided to stop in Van Horn (a little more west of Midland, but still East of El Paso). The area turned out to be fine, and we made it into town for dinner. We went to a little western steakhouse in 'downtown'. It looked like it might be the spot for date nights though, as we were the only people with kids. All the other patrons were couples that were dressed up a little and here we waltz in with the minions who are all stir crazy and look like a hot mess from sitting and eating in the car all day. Both Cory and I ordered the largest beer on the menu and tried to ignore the strange stares.
We spent the night there in Van Horn and headed to Tucson the next morning. We stayed with some great old friends from Korea, the Galloways. We got there after lunch time and let all the kids (7 in total!) swim and jump on the trampoline until dinner. In the evening, Doug and Dene' had arranged for a babysitter and the adults got to go to dinner! It was really nice to take a shower in a regular bathroom, put some makeup on and have some adult company for awhile. We had gelato afterwards and then headed back to their house for a fire pit night cap.
We stayed at the Galloways for another full day (of swimming/relaxing/eating more Chipotle) and had a great time. It was a good stop for a break in driving and it was so nice to catch up with friends. Carter and Clay love their boys and had a great time too.
From Tucson, we had planned to stop in Blythe, AZ. (Just on the border or AZ and CA) but we hit Blythe at lunchtime and wanted to keep going. There's really not anywhere past Blythe to stay, so we knew we would have to make it the whole way.
As I mentioned in my previous post, we knew the way the GPS was trying to take us was not the fastest way. We knew we wanted to go to the South gate but the GPS hates the south gate. Somehow we missed an exit and ended up driving around in El Mirage CA for awhile before finally arriving at the base.
Of course it was about dinner time and the base was having a water problem, so all the eating establishments were closed. We ended up driving to Rosamond for dinner, where everyone proceeded to loose their s#^@&. We trudged through dinner, drove back to base, and were finally.....FINALLY...home.

Vivian is 2!!

My Dear Vivian,

You're two today! Normally, I am dreading this age and I'm sure in a few months I will be eating these words. But I am so excited for you to experience all that is "two"! You will learn so much and have so much fun this upcoming year. You'll learn to use the potty, use full sentences and count. You'll outgrow bibs, and become a Popsicle superstar. At 'just now two', you still a little messy through meals, speak in two word phrases. But, you are so close to mastering so many little things. It's amazing and humbling that I notice these things with you, where as with your brothers, I was so overwhelmed I didn't have as much time to soak in the little moments.
You would think that I would be more overwhelmed this time since I have three kids now, but I'm not. I've been able to enjoy your infanthood so much.

You are the perfect mix of princess and tomboy. You are very rough and tumble and love to wrestle with daddy and the boys, but today on your birthday, you picked out a bright pink pettiskirt to wear.
You love, love, love dirt and sand. In fact, if you're wearing just bloomers or shorts, you will shove rocks and dirt into your diaper....you know, for convenient storage.
You have such a wonderful smile and laugh, but you are very stingy with it. We have yet to get nice pictures of you smiling, since you've worked so hard on perfecting your skeptical scowl.

You are a great eater, not picky, but with a sweet tooth. You love animals, and friends, and ice cream and anything little kids are supposed to enjoy. Everything is exciting and fun and your attitude is so infectious. All of us, including your brothers, can be instantly transformed into a better mood when you make us laugh. You are silly, and quite the comedian at home. Shy around new people, but that has gotten much better. You used to burst into tears when the old folks at the commissary would stop and talk to you. Now, you just furrow your brow, reach, and say, "Mommy...."

You love to pretend to count, or pretend to sing your ABCs. You can use two words at a time. "Mommy, help!", or "Bailey, eat.", or "kitty, ow!", "Daddy, look!", "juice, please."

You love your bitty baby (who we call big baby, since she is bigger than your other dolls) and caring for her. You love the color purple, and can easily identify it. In fact, in the recent Pottery Barn catalog, you picked out some beautiful purple 'big girl' bedding. Don't get ahead of yourself, dear. You're no where near a big girl bed.

You like to draw and have really incredible fine motor skills for your age. You are finally talking more, but your pronunciation needs some work. Mostly, only Daddy and I can understand you. But you sure know what you are saying!

You love to talk on the phone, or pretend to, and use your play kitchen and make me coffee. You love to help feed the animals and watch Sesame Street.

You are still the biggest of all my kiddos. You weigh a whopping 28 pounds (more than Carter at 3.5 years) and are almost as tall as Clay. You wear one shoe size and one clothes size smaller than Clay. You are catching up fast and am afraid you will have both of the boys passed up in the next 3 years. You must have put all your growing effort into weight and height since you still just have baby wisps of hair. You are starting to get some at the nape of your neck and it is very thin, yet coarse, yet kind of curly. I can't decide what to make of it. Maybe by your next birthday we'll see what it will look like!  You're so wonderful and sweet. I love you big girl!

Love,
 Mama

If you want to reminisce:

To read Vivian's 1st birthday click here, and here
For Vivian's Birth Story click here and for her newborn pictures click here

We now interrupt your regularly scheduled program

For pictures of our new pool!

It's Edwards, it's hot and you can't go outside from 9:30-6:30 from May to October unless you have one of these......

Look how classy we are with our above ground pool!

"Look at all my hair mom!"

From There to Here Part II

You may be thinking, "Wait, the kids are in IN, why are you going to TX?"
We can make the drive from FL to TX in one long day, but we can't make the trip from FL to IN in one day. There's only about a 3 hour difference, but we are stretching it to make it to TX, and we just can't make those three extra hours to IN with a uhaul. Sooo, if you can follow me here, we drove Cory's truck and the uhaul to Texas to my parents house. We unloaded the uhaul stuff into their garage and had a relaxing evening at their house sans kids. I have to say it was kind of weird for all of us. I think the last time that happened was before we got married. And even then, we were busy with wedding preparations. We hopped on a plane the next morning to Chicago and Cory's parents picked us up. We arrived there in the same time we would have if we had driven and this way we only had one car to drive, the minivan (that my inlaws drove from Nashville).
We stayed in IN for about 5 days, and visited with Cory's brother and sister and their families along with plenty of time with the grandparents. All the kids had a great time on the zip line, the pool, mini golf, the water park, and driving around in the boat.
After our time in the Midwest, we all hopped into the van and drove back to TX. We had a stop in Springfield, MO, and made it there in two days. We spent about the same amount of time in TX, 5 or 6 days. We did a lot of swimming In Uncle Daryl's pool, visiting with family and even had a fun trip to the new water park in town.
Cory and I ate lots of Chipotle and frozen yogurt and were satisfied.....

Vivi



All the Midwest Cousins

Trey was flying through the zipline

We soon figured out we needed more tnesion for the older girls.

Carter

Making sure Clay didn't let go

Even Viv gave it a go.

Everyone at my parents' house.