Anika's Number 3

Oh, the joys of chocolate!

Right before we took our home leave in May I decided to have Anika's Birthday party, German style. I say German style, because many of my German friends would celebrate the actual birthday with close family and then a few months later they would have the party with the friends. I did it this way for Anika for 2 reasons. The first was that Anika had the flu or something for about 12 days right around her birthday. I also wanted to do a BBQ and February 14th isn't conducive to having a BBQ here. So we waited.

Anika had a super time celebrating with 7 of her friends and their families. It turned out to be a beautiful afternoon. John grilled pit beef and I made deviled eggs, potato and fruit salad and some pasta salad. I bought Anika's cake at Costco instead of making it this year. We were leaving for the States in 3 days so I thought it was a grand idea:)

We had a bouncy castle, some games and a pinata filled with toys and a little bit of candy. It was a great day. Thanks to all who joined us with celebrating Anika's birthday, she really enjoyed it. Thanks for all the wonderful gifts from near and far.

Box Tops for Education

This past school year I volunteered to be the "Box Tops for Education" collector and counter. I did some advertising with the Yokota Officer's Spouses Club, the school's, neighbors and homeschooling parents and urged everyone to give me their box tops. It is a wonderful program that is sponsered by General Mills. You can find box tops on most cereals, Old El Paso products (even the salsa lids have box tops underneath), Huggies products and some Cottonelle products to name a few. For each box top sent in by the school, General Mills will give the school 10 cents in return. The box tops are about a half an inch by a quarter of an inch, they vary in size. It was my job to promote the program, collect the box tops, count the box tops, keep a running count of box tops for each classroom, package the box tops into packages of 50, oh and they forgot to tell me when I took the job, cut each box top down to the dotted line. Minor detail if your not dealing with over 12,000 box tops.

When all was said and done we collected over 12,000 box tops, a little over $1,200 for our school to spend on our students. Well done Joan K. Elementry School! Lexi's class collected the most box tops, almost 1,300 box tops, so they won the ice cream party. Lexi missed the party because we were in Cabo. She grumbled about missing the party when we were in Cabo, but I quickly set her straight by saying, "Would you rather be on the beach in Cabo eating ice cream or in your classroom eating ice cream?" Enough said!

The box tops for education program is a wonderful program. Even if you do not have school aged children I recommend, saving your box tops and giving them to someone who does have school aged children or you can even drop them off at your local school.

Needless to say I will not be counting box tops next year. I am glad I had the opportunity to help this year, but by the end of this year I was waking up in the middle of the night having nightmares about box tops! Thanks General Mills for implementing this program and giving our children a better education for doing so.

Home Again, Home Again Jiggidy Jog!

After almost 6 wonderful weeks in the States and in Cabo San Lucas we have returned and I feel as if it will take another 6 weeks to get everything back in order. We are getting there slowly but surely.
As soon as I unpacked the bags it was time to get Lexi packed for Girl Scout Camp at Tama Hills. We arrived home on June 12 and Lexi left for Camp on June 16 and returned on June 21. Camp was only an hour away, but I heard Lexi was very homesick. I sent her a care package of home made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and a letter which never arrived. It is still MIA. Lexi had a great time, even though she was home sick and she went with her 2 best friends Monica and Alexis and said she would love to go again next year.
Lexi has been begging for a turtle for months now. I think John and I are caving in or should I say John since he spent a lunch break last week looking at aquariums. So much for my no more animals until we settle down mantra. My Mom and Dad are breeding Lola in the fall and we have our name on the list for one of Lola, the human dog's, puppies.
Lexi, Monica and Alexis B. placed second with the math fair project they worked so hard on out of 12 classes, 3rd-5th grade. Lexi had an amazing report card and she also completed her bronze star with the Girl Scouts, how can we NOT give the girl a turtle. There is a specific turtle indigenous to Japan, they have a few at Anika's kindergarten, they hibernate for half the year. That would be a perrrrfect turtle! Ideal, now just how to read the Japanese writing that tells you which turtle does what, don't want to accidentally get the man eating turtle. Or the turtle that starts off small and grows to the size of VW Bug!
Anika has gone back to kindergarten and they are swimming in a large, hard shelled, pool everyday, she is loving it. Anika is quite the pistol, sweet as can be, but will turn on a dime if she is tired. She is definately going to be our challange. The last couple of mornings I found her sleeping in front of her bedroom door. How to break that bad habit.
Zander is our mini-man, aka Little Dude or LD, aka Zanderman, aka Zander or his birth name, Alexander. He is running around, running after his sister, taking his sisters things (Anika's). Payback, I tell you. I just sit back and watch and laugh. Alexander's new sentences are, "We're home!" and today was a classic. Lexi, Alexander and I were in the car on our way to pick Anika up from school. Lexi heard what Alexander said first, I didn't hear it and wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't repeated what he said. "Don't touch it until I am done!" This is what Anika says to Zander, after she steals his toy from him.

John has been putting in long days at work and getting back into the grove of actually working again after being off for 6 weeks. We worked on our garden on Father's Day. John is wonderful. Our wonderful neighbor, Lamar, watered our flowers for us and kept them alive and looking good. Thanks Lamar for all your hard work! The winter pansies needed replacing and we needed to put a trellis up for our flowering vine. Our back yard was still a flooding disaster of mud and dirt, a lake that was mosquito infested (hello West Nile) even though John threw grass seed all over before we left. Lamar and Kawana were moving so they had to level out their flower garden so Lamar brought all his dirt over and leveled out our back yard. God Bless you Lamar! We have been requesting housing to do this for a year now and they agreed it needed a truckload of dirt, but couldn't say when they would deliver it. On Saturday, John and I took the kids out on a quest for sod. We found sod and more flowers (you can never have too many flowers) and also a trellis. John transitioned our back yard into a lawn lovers paradise, I am so... excited to actually have grass that the kids can sit on and play on and not dirt and mud. Oh the little things that excite us! We also have a little herb garden and I am in the process of growing cilantro, since the Commissary has the nerve to charge $4.07 for a small bunch of cilantro. Are you kidding me! We are hoping to put up a fence within the next month. I can't wait!

We have always loved to garden, but now Yokota has started the garden of the month for each area of the base. $200 is the prize, we are shooting for July. John laughed, because he said we are spending more than the prize in order to win the prize. Oh well, I love gardening:)
4 days later, we are now the owners of Turquoise the Turtle, my friend found him on Yokota Adds. He is a quiet pet, I'll say that. Lexi loves him and ran up to her room everyday after Vacation Bible School to play with "Turk". This week we are laying low and organizing Lexi's and Anika's rooms and sorting through clothes. Good times. Actually I dread doing it, but always have such a feeling of accomplishment once I am finished. The last couple of weeks I have been getting into my routine, dropping Anika off at kindergarten and then taking Alexander to the Family workout room and running my 3 miles, 5 times a week, fun:) Zander looks forward to his "play dates" in the workout room. I now have my sewing machine back, thanks so much Cyndi and Dan for helping out with the repair and mailing. I hope to finish Lexi's quilt, which just needs the binding put on. Exciting times, I tell you.
In August, the girls and I will be going on an unexpected trip to Durango for 6 days to celebrate my Uncle Don's 41st Anniversary of his 39th birthday in Durango. We look forward to being able to share in this celebration and see many family members and friends.
Keep checking back for new posts on the blog within the next few days. I will be posting about our vacation, I figured it would be easier to post this first and then work on the vacation. We look forward to hearing from you.