Hello 2014!

Things are better since Christmas. I was just having one of those days or rather several days in my last post. In all reality, we did have a good Christmas too. Sure, it was a bummer that two of the kids were sick but learning from my daughter, like usual, at least "we were together as a family." Isn't it amazing how much we can learn from our children? They have such sweet spirits. They tell it how it is. I don't know what I would do without them.

I need to get the kids interviewed on their favorites of 2013. It's always fun to go back and look at the things they said. No new years resolutions this year. Let's face it, I never accomplish them. No point in disappointing myself more than I need to. I am optimistic that this will be a great year though!

Our New Year's plans this year was to go spend the holiday with the Barker's over in Germany. We waited until the last possible minute to make a decision if we would really go or not since Blake was still coughing. Miraculously, the day after we got there he pretty much stopped coughing! I'm glad we made the decision to go through with it. It's always good to see our friends and I don't know when we'll get to see them again! Sad to think about that.

Since we had already purchased our ferry tickets over to Germany and booked a hotel room down by the coast a month ago we decided, even if we didn't make it over to Germany, we would at least go explore that side of England and possibly still take the ferry over to the mainland if they would let us come back over way earlier than originally planned. We just really didn't want to get the Barker kids sick.

On Sunday we drove down to Dover and visited Dover Castle. Dover Castle is on the Southeastern coast of England nestled right into the White Cliffs of Dover. It is a massive castle created by King Henry II.

 

The girls are always trying to find "their" rooms in the castle. They were really excited about this one. It had beds just their size.

 

 

 

 

After exploring inside the castle we climbed the stairs of the Great Tower and had some amazing views. It was still kind of foggy out over the water. On a clear day you can see France very easily from up here.

 

After the Great Tower we tried to see some of the underground tunnels. One was closed the other was already booked for the day, the Secret Wartime tunnels, which is what Derek was most looking forward to. We'll be sure to get there earlier next time. We did get to see the underground Hospital which was kind of neat. The kids were scared in there though. It was a bit of a reenactment and so lights were flickering and there were some screams and stuff.

 

After that we walked around the grounds of the castle a bit more.

 

I really wanted to see the White Cliffs. I've seem some amazing pictures of them. Unfortunately you can't get much of a view of them from the castle......the little we could see of them they weren't too white, probably from the windy, wet weather we've been having. I had high hopes to see them the next day on the ferry ride over but the seas were so rough I couldn't get myself to get up and go look!

 

That night we went to Canterbury where our hotel was. Such a charming city! I definitely want to go back another time and visit during the day.

 

Canterbury Cathedral

The next day we took the ferry over to Calais, France. Like I said, the seas were rough. It wasn't a good ride over for me. I spent pretty much the entire time with my head laying on the table until I had to make a run for the bathroom! Everyone else was fine. Avery said she was sea sick and she may have been a little. She just laid across the chairs playing on my phone the entire time.

 

Once we got to France we then drove up to Brugge, Belgium. It is another charming city we visited back on our Europe vacation 4 years ago. We had been dying for another Belgian waffle since visiting Ghent last month too!

 

A little miserable....it rained pretty much the entire time we were there.

 

 

 

The Christmas Market was still up! Allie chose to play a game instead of getting a waffle.

 

 

 

Super yummy waffles!!!

After that, we were off to Germany to visit our friends. The kids were super excited to see their friends! Blake quickly warmed up to their dog, Chloe. We are now seriously considering getting the kids their first pet.....but not until we get back to the states.

 

Our friends live in such a cute little town/village....and I'm super jealous of their ginormous house! There are walking/bike paths everywhere. We took a walk one day to see this neat windmill that is near their house.

 

 

They had to take turns walking the dog

New Year's Eve we did some fireworks. That is the thing to do over here in Europe. Germany is crazy about it though. As soon as it hit midnight the fireworks were roaring. It seriously sounded like World War III was starting up. So crazy. It went on for at least an hour too.....of non-stop thundering.

The next day was Norah's birthday party. We went to a really cool indoor waterpark to celebrate.

Not the greatest pictures but you can see there weren't too many rules here. All 4 girls going down the waterslide at the same time.

Blake could even go on them!

 

Afterwards we went to Aachen to walk around. Pretty much everything was closed. It was still fun to take in the sights and window shop though.

The next day was our last full day and we went to Cologne for the day. We saw the breathtakingly beautiful Kolner Dom Cathedral.

We stumbled upon the last of the cities Christmas Market. I really love the Christmas Markets and I hear Germany has the best!

 

I got the yummiest hot chocolate since Brugge when we visited 4 years ago.

 

Last day there Blake gave it a go on the balance bike. I think he liked it and this may just need to be our next investment!

 

Thanks for a good time Barkers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bah Humbug!!

That's exactly what the holidays this year have felt like to me. I was so sad last year when Avery woke up sick on Christmas day.....to the point where she had no interest in even opening her presents. On top of that, Derek was deployed. I never ever imagined this year being the same. The Saturday before Christmas (first day on break from school) Avery started complaining of her neck hurting. In hindsight now, I think she was trying to say she had a sore throat?? She wasn't herself that day and even took a nap for me without much fight. That should have been an indicator right there that something wasn't right. We were having new friends over for dinner that night. A new family moved out towards us about 5 minutes away. One of their kids is in Avery's class. They just moved into their house Friday night but their household goods weren't arriving until Monday.....so the Saturday night get together was arranged. Shortly before they came Avery started taking a turn for the worse. Unfortunately, I had no way of contacting them. No phone or internet for them yet........and I knew what town they moved to but didn't know where their house was. We had a good time but of course Avery started "throwing up" while they were here. When Avery gets sick, even if it's something small like a cold, she is on her death bed. I don't know if she just exaggerates everything or if her body really can't tolerate it. So her throwing up was actually phlegm and snot since she doesn't know how to cough up the junk and refuses to blow her nose. We were so excited to finally make some friends here and I highly doubt they will be in touch again after being around our sick kiddo.

Fast forward a few days, the night of the 23rd Avery seemed to be getting worse. Sometime early on the 24th Avery woke up and came into our room and seemed to be hallucinating. She just wasn't making any sense, said she couldn't see anything. Derek rushed her to the ER right then and there. They were gone for a LONG time and there was no wait at the ER either. Avery had to have 2 breathing treatments due to her terrible wheezing. She also had to have chest x-rays which revealed she had borderline pneumonia. They gave her some antibiotics and an inhaler to bring home. She seemed so much better after all of that. I'm sure part of it was relief for us in knowing she had been seen and now had some medication to help her along.

But then, that night, Blake comes in to our room coughing and crying, burning up. Go figure! I was kinda depressed Christmas morning. It's supposed to be a fun and exciting time for the kids. We had two that were sick! My morning got even worse when after the Santa gifts were opened all of a sudden Allie dropped to the floor clenching her stomach. She then took off running for the bathroom. I was so upset I wanted to cry. She came back into the room as white as a ghost. Thankfully, all of that was just because she was hungry. She didn't like our Christmas Eve dinner so she didn't really have anything to eat the night before. Avery was still better than she was last year and was up to opening presents but the excitement was missing. Blake really is just bad at night and early morning but once he gets up and going he seems okay. This was the first year he actually had an interest in opening gifts but still the total excitement wasn't there.

There was a moment during the day when I did crying. Just a mixture of emotions of various things. That was a good thing because I was starting to think I couldn't cry anymore. It all just got to me on top of missing my family at home. Also feeling a little sorry for myself. Even though I miss family and friends I don't always feel like we're missed  much. For example, Christmas cards........we got like 9 cards from family/friends this year. 9!!! Derek has more than 9 siblings alone........my extended family is huge and then that's not even counting friends. We have twice as many cards from people here that barely know us! I guess I should feel loved in that sense. Yes, I realize people might not be on the ball like I was with their cards or they could be lost in the mail like ours did....time will tell I guess. On top of that, I went out of my way to send little goodies to EVERYONE in my extended family to have during their get-togethers. I thought at least one person would want to thank us (other than my parents, grandma & brother's family).There are other little things that make me rethink who our friends are and who really cares. I know it's all stupid and maybe I just shouldn't care.

Anywho...on to Christmas day. So, added to my disappointments we didn't really get the kids any toys for Christmas and we told family not to either.......so they were kind of disappointed themselves. We thought we would do something really great and got them a 4 day trip to Disney and tickets to a Taylor Swift concert. They were super excited about both but when everything was done they didn't have anything to play with. Bad call on our part. I don't want to spoil them and I thought the gift of travel/experience was a great idea for while we are in Europe. But we have to get them at least one or two toys! Noted. That will never happen again. Then I had the stress of fixing a huge meal for people coming over for dinner. We had invited all the single guys Derek works with to come. We had no idea how many were actually coming so we prepared for a lot......I told him he needed to at least call the ones he knew about to tell them about our sick kids. He decided not to b/c none of them had kids and he figured they'd think we didn't want them to come and since they were planning on it then they probably wouldn't have anything to do for their meal. Only 3 people ended up coming. The kids pretty much stayed away the whole time. We did play games which was fun. They actually ended up staying for 4 hours so I think Derek was right in them not minding the sick kids. The meal was good but we have SO many leftovers. I'm getting sick of it. We even sent a bunch home with the guys/gal!

Now for the pictures

First, the kids requested certain things for their Holiday parties at school. Allie's teacher actually had her students fill out a paper of what they wanted to bring and then sent it home to the parents to circle yes or no on whether or not we could bring it. I asked Allie what other kids wrote down and there were things like Cheetos. I'm sure it was an interesting party! :)
Allie requested pretzels with icing so this is what I made.

Avery's teacher didn't want to have much of a party and said we could send something small in if we wanted. Well, of course, Avery wanted to because her sister was bringing something in. We decided on this....Grinch kabobs

 

Monday night we got in the car and went on a Christmas lights scavenger hunt. We pretty much found all that we were looking for at this one house.

Christmas Eve we usually act out the Nativity. It was a one woman show this year.

Santa came!

Parents/Grandparents.........delivered!!

Christmas morning before heading down the stairs

To give you somewhat of an idea on what our Christmas morning was really like

Coming down the stairs to see if Santa came....

Opening presents.....

Taylor  Swift concert tickets

Disneyland Paris Trip

The cutest thing was watching the kids open up their gifts from each other. Seeing the expression on their faces as the recipient opened up the gift that they had picked out for them was so precious. The girls each got Mom & Dad something too....they did all of their shopping at the school Santa Store.

Allie's gift to Avery

a giant pen, a smaller pen that says #1 Sis and a notebook

Avery's gift to Allie- a package of stickers and a package of rubbers (erasers)

Allie's reaction made my eyes water.

Allie's gift to Blake

Blake's gift from Avery -- a car, lion placemats & coasters, and a bag of chocolates.

Christmas Breakfast
We just quickly threw something together. We were already running short on time. I started preparing our lunch/dinner right after this. Avery and Blake didn't really even eat since they weren't feeling well.

Putting on new outfits before visitors arrive

After our visitors left we were able to Skype Mony & Papa, Buddy, Kim & Hannah. I took this while Derek was trying to get everything set up. Kids in their new pj's! Can't even tell anyone is sick.

And last picture.....after our long day at the dr's office yesterday

Thanks to those that thought of us this Christmas, sent cards, letters, emails, talked, Skyped, sent gifts, etc! We love you!