Monday, June 15, 2009

One Week down, Another 7 to Go

Leaving Rochester I promised people that I would try to keep up with this but so far I have not been successful. We spent Glenn's last week of freedom getting settled and exploring the area a bit. There was a Hike/Bike homeschooling event at Erie Canal Park in Camillus that we got to late and did kind of run into 2 other homeschool dads with their kids but didn't really connect much. We had only brought the kids bikes so we decided to bring a picnic lunch with us and everyone's bikes to go back there after church on Sunday. That was a lot of fun. There is a museum there that we got to check out with a Canal Store which was neat. I decided that we should study the Erie Canal this summer with our school so we checked out some books on it at the library. Another outing that we had was to the Rosamond Gifford Zoo. We ended up buying a family plus one membership to the zoo so that everytime we go we can bring one guest with us for free - anyone want to go to the zoo? :) It was a lot of fun to check out. It is different from the Seneca Park Zoo but our membership here is good there too whenever we go back to Rochester :)

Glenn started his anatomy class last Monday so the kids and I started school as well because we have taken too much time off this past school year. We are not going to have to do math for all 8 weeks but we are going to have to do phonics. I am praying that Hannah will gain confidence in herself as a reader this summer. She is almost there but she gives up and gets frustrated too easily. Glenn has been a bit overwhelmed with all the material that he now has in his brain that he did not have a week ago. His first exam is on Wednesday on the thorax. He has been studying a lot but has made it home for dinner every night except tonight because he had review sessions. He has been biking to class. It is a little less than 2 miles. His lab group is working together pretty well and they have become a study group as well. He says they seem to study pretty well together so that is good.

The kids have thoroughly enjoyed having kids nearby. They love playing with 4 year old Elodie downstairs and 5 year old Kyle, 8 year old Trevor, and 11 year old Francesca next door. They play with them outside and then as soon as I tell them that we have to go in for dinner they run upstairs and back on the back porch to talk to them some more. It is fun for them. (yes, we have porches. Abigail told us her favorite thing about Syracuse is that we have "twoooo poh-cheeeeehzzz" - front and back). The next door neighbors have a fun backyard with a pool and the kids have gone swimming with them several times. We love this apartment, if only we weren't subletting and could rent it for the 4 years.... Alas, the guy we are subletting from has had the apartment for 11 years, I doubt that he is going to want to give it up :( I know that God has good plans and He knows where we will be living in 2 months. Why is this always the story of our lives? Everyone here makes you sign a 1 year lease so most likely we will be at our next place for 12 months, at least.

We went to a different church this week and I really don't think that we'll be going back there for regular service. It was OK. The service seemed more like a show than a time to gather and worship. It's not my style. After church Caleb asked if we could go back to West Genny next week. We kind of felt at home there so we may be going back next week, or we may check out a couple more churches. We really don't know. I know that if we had just stayed at FWC like we did at North it would have saved us a bit of misery. Sometime before Sunday I'll try to get a chance to talk to Glenn about that one.

VISITORS!!! We welcome visitors :) On Saturday night our dear friends the Lishawas came to visit us and brought us a picnic supper. We headed out in search of a park with those little grill things. We were told about a couple of them but we decided to go up to Onondaga Lake Park. It is a fun park but it is hard to find grills. They are way up at the north part of the park, I think that it was Willow picnic grounds or something. After driving around the park for a while it was a relief to finally find what looked to be 'grill heaven.' The guys manned the grill while the kids played on the playground. Brian had promised Caleb that before we left Rochester he would take him for a dip in Lake Ontario but we ran out of time and it wasn't able to happen so they (Caleb and Brian) insisted that it happen when they visited us. So Brian and all 4 of my kids went into Onondaga Lake. Gross. Our downstairs neighbor told me that they are probably some of only 10 people who have been in that lake in the last 30 years. Anyway, they did it. It was too dark by the time we got there for me to really see how gross the water is. I will have to check it out next time we go to the park. Anyway, it was so much fun to visit with Brian and Kristina. They are leaving Rochester soon as their residency is ending this month and they'll be heading to MI for a while before heading overseas.

On Sunday night we had other visitors. Mike and Rachele S came by to see us on their way to NH to see her family. Rachele and Glenn had gone to India together back in 1997 with TMI. We had not seen Rachele since she came by to check out TTU before we had even gotten married. We have gotten re-connected with them over the last couple of years through their update letters. They are getting ready to go overseas too at the end of July so it was so great to see Rachele and meet Mike. The kids made fast friends with these people who are on our fridge that we pray for. (big surprise there.)

We would love to have more visitors. I know that I need to go out and meet people and make friends here since we will be here 4 years but I would love to see old friends too. Oh, and what better opportunity than my Domino's American Legends HouseParty this Saturday at 6pm. I am super excited about it. I was picked by houseparty.com to host a party and they sent me a gift card to buy one of each of the American Legends specialty pizzas from Domino's and a fun new game to play with my guests as well as coupons for pizza and the game and free movie popcorn. If you can't come but might want to host your own houseparty you should register on the site. I think that it is going to be a lot of fun!

OK, this concludes my book. I will try not to let it go so long between postings so I don't have to write a book each time.

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous2:05 PM

    I love reading your book! We are looking forward to coming to Hotel Maas this weekend! --Jen

    ReplyDelete

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