Thankful Thursday

I'm so blessed to be a wife and mother!

Thank you Brendon for fixing the mirror over the mantle!

I'm thankful for homeschool!

We are thankful for the amazing art class the kids have this year! It's a highlight every week!

We give thanks for our good friends!

Thanks to the chiro/sports rehab who is fixing me up, so I can run, bike and swim again!

There's always thanks given for that hot cup of coffee! Joy!

The Wedding Picture

There were a few requests for a wedding picture! You know, back in the old days we did not have digital photography and therefor it takes a few minutes to find a photo and scan it etc..and I just got a little busy this week. In fact (speaking of computers) we never even emailed each other the entire time we dated! Isn't it crazy how much things have changed in just over a decade?!!!

How did we meet?

My cousin Kristen posted a few weeks ago about how she and David became one and said she'd love to hear others story. Here it is baby!

The short story is that we met through a friend, but that is sort of boring isn't it? It seems like these days I'm so busy with raising and educating children and homemaking that I don't spend too much time in reflection unless someone ask me how we met. Brendon was born and raised in Tasmania, Australia and I was born and raised in North Georgia and grew up in the suburbs of Atlanta, which is where we have lived since we were married!

I graduated from the University of Georgia and worked for a year. I had always enjoyed travel and decided that now was the time to set off for a little adventure. I bought my Let's Go Europe book, my Eurail Pass, a plane ticket and packed my big old backpack and set off!

I thought it might be fun to learn a foreign language and so I ended up living in Germany and a working in a day care on an Army base, because you need to be able to get a visa to live in another country. I was staying in a student dorm and another American girl told me that was what she was doing in order to get a visa.

That's me at the daycare. I worked with Sue, Gretchen and Erma.
It surely was an interesting place with a few characters and one crazy boss!

Brendon had decided to travel as well. He went to Malaysia for awhile and helped at a mission (believe it or not!) and did some side trips to a few places in Asia. Then he moved on to London, where he apparently had a very good time! He ended up getting a decent job and through coincidence was transfered to Neuchatel, Switzerland. He met up with this guy who I knew as well.


One day this friend, called me up and said he was coming up for the weekend with two of his friends! What do I remember from this weekend? It was the middle of winter and absolutly freezing! Also, that Brendon was interesting, but other than that it was just a weekend with friends.

The weekend we met. Brendon is looking back.


I'm on the left. Audrey is on the right! She was also up for the weekend, but this picture is from a weekend later on. (This is in CH, but I'm not quite sure where?)


About a month later his sister flew in to see him. He immediatly took her down to Italy and then on to Germany. While he was in my area he called me and they got a hotel down the street and we all went to dinner. Narelle, his poor jet lagged sister, was so completly exhausted from travel and she said she had to go to sleep. Brendon and I ended up talking for hours.


After that we took turns visiting each other. When we were in Stuttgart we often went to O'Reilly's (Irish) pub which was two blocks from my apartment. My friend Lavonne, from NZ, went with us a lot. Of course we had lots of fun!

My apartment
The gold colored one, two blocks down hill was the pub!

Tamara and Lavonne at O'Reilly's

Susanne and Dirk
These were my flat mates. They are married with kids now.


When I went to visit Brendon we would drive around to different places and meet up with people we knew. We had great times!

That's me. We drove around alot. Here we were t Lake Geneva.

Brendon and Raph eating fondu for 4 all by themselves!

London
When we first met, Brendon had a business trip to London and my friend Lavonne and I were there on the same weekend. We met up for lunch one day.

Cilla and Martin are some of the people we did stuff with and they were married a month before we were!

Other people we saw frequently were Heide and Ralph, Kim and Aschi, Maggie and Jens. I don't have good enough pictures to post.

We were married a little over a year after meeting. Here we are!

Petite shopping!

I like to shop when I have the time and resources! I'm shorter than average, so I shop at retailers who carry petite size fashions. Ann Taylor is one of my favorites! Recently I came across a few blogs and websites about petite fasion and found there are many retailers that carry petite sizes on- line, but not in their physical shop. I knew about Lands End and Eddie Bauer, but take a look at some of the other ones. I still prefer to go out shopping, but there certainly are more options on-line. (Today two of the blogs are about lingerie, but that is not the norm! Ha!)

Petite Resources...This site just list many/all places that carry petite sizes. You can look up retailers by brand, store, price, item etc..

Petite Fashionista...a blog

For Petite Sake..another blog

Alterations Needed..a blog

Paula's Petite Fashion Blog..another blog

Kristen posted a blog about how she met her husband! I was around for some of this time! They are really great together, even though we don't get to see each other that often. I should haul myself out to Texas for big ole visit sometime!

I might post about how I met my husband too. I'll have to get that together and find some pictures etc.. I tell you what would be funny is a post about how you stay married..aghh you first! Kristen? Giggle giggle! Now, I know that is never going to happen in blog world! Men and women: we do make a pair don't we?! It is fun and I love Brendon! He's the best!

We are cruising along with our homeschool year. I have to say homeschool suits our family. I'm so glad we had some school experience though. Schools can be great and really suit some families. For us though, we learn so much more, and life is so much easier and simpler. We do get out a lot and and Mondays and Fridays are the only days we are truly home all day.

Last week the floods damaged the church where our homeschool class meets on Tuesdays and they can't be occupied any time soon. Churches tend to be the only places that will rent out space for one day a week, so I called eight in our area and one was very interested in an arrangement with our "school". (Alot of them run preschools so they don't have space during the week.) The most delightful thing about it is that it is virtually right across the street from my neighborhood. It will take me literally 5 minutes to get there! Tomorrow is our first day in the new facilities! Woohoo!

Did I mention that I ended up with an injury from running? It seems to be clearing up, and I might attempt a tiny little run one day this week to see what happens. I'm looking forward to running again. I know I will have to start out slowly, but I've got all winter to build up again. I really want to do another triathlon next spring..or several! It's fun for me.

My camera is still broken! ARGhhhh!

What's up with you?

Dad, Happy Birthday!

Mom and Dad!


The kids wish you happy birthday too!

"School"

Isabelle and Joseph go to class one day per week. A few weeks ago they had their first day of class! They began their school year at the beginning of August, and these classes began a few weeks later. They go over their liberal arts/humanties curriculum in this class. It's fun for them, and I get 5 hours in a row once a week to do what I want or need to do!

On another day they have homeschool PE at the gym ( I get my own workout in while they have PE!) and an art class in an art studio.

We also have a great piano teacher nearby and take lessons once a week as well!

It's enough to keep us quite busy!

For math Isabelle is using teaching textbooks and it really is great!

Joseph will begin to use teaching textbooks soon, but they are still working on his level.

For now we are just doing workbooks with him.

If you need some fun help with multiplication check out these resources:

Timez Attack

and Times Tales

Times Tales is so interesting and fun. It's amazing how it works!

Timez Attack just helps reinforce the facts in a very fun way.