The Stanalands

Mid-winter break arrived this year with little or no winter attached. Savannah seemed like the destination of choice. It has been a hard year with only a few tiny day-trips thrown in to local attractions. Brian has vacation days and we wanted to go somewhere with all of our children. We have taken them to Chattanooga, and our original destination that time was Savannah but thunder storms prevented us from making it. THIS TIME…we made it!

Friday Night
We arrived at our hotel around 9:30 on Friday night. Normal people would have headed to bed in order to start their day fresh on Saturday. Us? No. We went to our room and changed into bathing suits so that we could go swimming in the indoor heated pool. Woo Hoo! That is the key reason that we chose this hotel. (That and the fact that they have suites with enough beds for all of us to sleep without throwing anyone in the floor!!)

Saturday Morning

We woke up bright and early despite the fact that we all stayed up until 1am watching Battlestar Galactica. (We HAD to) After breakfast we decided to head to the Air Force Museum. I wasn’t expecting much, and I was pleasantly surprised. The museum was set up to follow our Air Force’s involvement throughout WWII. We were lucky enough to have someone offer to take our picture so that we could all be in it.

The museum had a beautiful garden with beautiful benches and an awesome chapel.

After leaving the museum we headed back to the hotel and made lunch. The lack of sleep caught up to us and we were all in desperate need of a nap. zzzzz    zzzzzzz    zzzzz

Obviously, there are no pictures of Brian and I sleeping. That is simply because everyone who could have taken the picture was asleep.
After our nap, we all headed back into the van for a driving tour of Savannah and Tybee. We were out long enough to stop for dinner on Tybee Island. MMMMMMM!

We then headed back to the hotel for a few hours of swimming and then off to bed. (Jonas Bros are on Saturday Night Live Tonight!!)

How much is that kitty in the bag??

Batman likes to get in small spaces. He crawls in boxes, in shoes, under desks. Here he’s in a bag.

Check out this adorable video!!

Sarah saying the pledge.

I got soooooo lazy in 2007 and 2008. I really have to be on track this year. Brian and I have set a financial goal for ourselves and I want to meet it. Not only that, but I have educational goals that I would like to meet before I have grey hair. It is almost 2am, and I should have been sound asleep for at LEAST three hours by now. I have two appointments to keep before 9 am tomorrow. I am really not a morning person. BLAH! I just finished a statistics quiz that I put off taking all week long. Tomorrow night I have a T-O-N of statistics homework to get done and I am dreading that too. If I can get up and get going in the morning, then tomorrow will be a good day. Then, if I can do the same thing on Thursday and Friday, I will call this a good week. If I can just get motivated to do this for the rest of the year…I will meet my goals. Pray for me. I really need it.

(Oh, and I put up a white-board in my office last night with my daily tasks on it. ~ I get to mark one out of sixteen items off before I get in the bed. YAY FOR ME!!)

I finally got my cat. Kitten actually. I have been waiting until we were moved in, and since we are now moved in I went into overdrive looking for a pet. My friend Julia saw a sign that said “free kittens” and called me immediately. (I have been letting everyone know that I wanted to find a kitten) Brian and I went to the location of the sign and picked up one of the kittens. I tried for two, but I was DENIED. (I will find another one mysteriously on our door step in a few months, I am sure!)

Taylor had not been feeling well in church that morning, so right afterward she proceeded to fill our minivan with vomit. I got to clean that up before being able to drive all the way home with the kitten. We got home and she went to bed. Our new kitty is officially a member of the family, since it decided to comfort Taylor while she rested. Its HI-Lariously adorable.

Once we got home we had to turn back around and head to the store for the material to make drapes for our new living room. We came home and I was working the sewing machine so furiously it was smoking.

I am very proud of my accomplishment. I think they look great, and the afternoon sun is not going to be baking our p’leather couch.

We have just recently moved down the road, and our new house came with cattle. (We are renting this house and it happens to be on 30 acres that the landlords also keep cattle on) There are some curious calves that have been getting out for the past couple of days, and getting into things in general.

A few days ago as we were leaving for church, we discovered on of the calves had gotten inside a barbed wire barrier that was around a tree in the pasture. We figured it would find its way out eventually, and if it didn’t it could certainly wait until after church to be dealt with. He was out by the time we got home.

We took this picture on the phone. I am starting to wonder about the intelligence of cows.

So day before yesterday, I show up to the house and there is a calf running wildly around the house. (Again, out of the pasture) Because I am so brave, I called the landlord in a panic that there was a cow out and on the loose. I think she was amused that I was so freaked out. I hung up the phone, gathered my wits and my nerve and “shoo’d” the calf back into the pasture gate. For those of you that don’t know, I am extremely afraid of any animal that is larger than a cat. One day I might tell you the full story of me swimming with the dolphins and narrowly escaping with my life. (har har)

This morning, I got up and looked outside to see one of the calves with a large black plastic bag in its mouth. I thought to myself, “surely this can’t be good” and I once again called the landlord. I didn’t detect amusement, but more irritation with the fact that I seem to call every few minutes to announce the new antics of the cows. Brian went out to the pasture and rescued the less than brilliant beast from its quandary.  As soon as Brian went up to it, it ran for its mommy and dropped the bag. (For the record, we do not use black garbage bags)

All of that brings me to this afternoon. After our older kids arrived home, there was yet another calf out of the pasture. I sent them to close the driveway gate, and then collectively my family and I herded this animal back to the spot in the fence that it escaped from. These animals are quite skittish, it seems. They will come near you if you have feed for them, but beyond that they prefer to be left alone. The bull stares at me menacingly whenever I go near the fence. I think its my red hair. Ole’.

Friday

We decided to take a break and head to Washington DC for the weekend. Adventure here we come! The first adventure we experienced was leaving my blood pressure medication behind. Of course my feet swelled up like Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade floats, and the shoes that I was wearing were NOT comfortable with swollen feet. Thankfully, I can think on my feet, swollen or not. I called my local Kroger pharmacist to see about transferring my prescription to DC. The person that I spoke to (the person that handles my medication, mind you) actually asked me what state Washington DC was in. huh? Really? Yes. It gets better! When we arrived in DC we called the local CVS pharmacy. When giving my information to the person that would be handling my medication there she asked what state I was from. She then says “Atlanta, right?” huh? Really? Yes.

We took a walk to the pharmacy and couldn’t help but notice that there were quite a few “palaces”. As a matter of fact, there were two kabob palaces on either side of a schezhuan palace. One of the kabob palaces also happened to be a hookah bar. We took pictures.

We opted to return to the hotel for the night since it was almost 9. We grabbed some sandwiches (to-go) from the hotel bar and headed back up to our room to watch Battlestar Gallactica. Yes, even on vacation we don’t want to miss our sci-fi Fridays. We watched our shows and headed off to sleep for the night.

We booked our hotel through hotels.com, thinking it would be easier. Ha! No, our booking got lost in cyberspace.

***NOTICE***Hotels.com is still charging our credit card and now so is the hotel we stayed in. it will take up to 30 day to get our hotels.com refund, and we will have to pay the hotel itself. Bummer.

Sleep number beds

Our hotel was very nice. Every room had sleep number beds. Since Brian and I both wanting/needing a new mattress, we thought this would be a perfect opportunity to test the sleep number beds and see if they were worth the cost. Our verdict after the first night was absolutely not. It was like sleeping on a thick air mattress. You could feel the bladder as you inflated and deflated it. We awoke to back aches both mornings. We will not be getting a sleep number bed!

Saturday

We slept in a few extra minutes on Saturday morning because of our sci-fi Friday addiction. We left the hotel at 10am with the intention of finding breakfast. The breakfast bar at the hotel was $13 and neither of us were THAT hungry. So we walked. Then, we walked some more. After that, you guessed it, we walked some MORE. We finally wound up at the mall. DC has the most amazing layout! You can travel by foot for miles, get to so many places, and never see the sun because of all the underground walkways. The trains are amazing, clean, efficient and easy to get to from anywhere. I digress. We were in the underground shopping mall and stopped at the Dunkin Donuts for breakfast/lunch. From there, we walked back over to the train and headed for the Smithsonian (after a brief and picture-less trip to the pentagon) to see the amazing artifacts collected through the years. As we exited the subway station, the skies looked threatening. We were able to enter and exit the first Smithsonian bldg (the castle, which holds Smithson’s remains) before getting rained on. When we entered the second bldg, the bottom fell out of the sky. We walked around looking at the fossils of dinosaurs and other various and sundry creatures. We even saw a bull that had been mummified. Amazingly, the bull was neater to see than the mummified man was.

This would be a great time in my life to start a list of all the things I don’t care about. I won’t start the list here and now because it would get excessively long.

So the rain subsided long enough to buy 2 umbrellas and 2 carousel tickets. Just as we stepped off the carousel, the rain started once again. At this point our umbrellas were keeping our heads and torsos dry, but our shoes, socks and feet were getting soaked. I highly advise never walking any great distance in this manner. My feet are going to be uglier than your grandpa’s after this weekend.

We finally make it to the air & space museum and I was in awe of the sights. My feet were absolutely killing me and we were getting hungry. At some point, my feet lost consciousness and I had to sit and rest. We left the National Air and Space museum and started to make a go at the Washington monument. We walked for a while and didn’t seem to be making any progress. I was so hungry at this point, and my feet hurt so badly I was starting to feel like a dying member of the Dahmer party.  I suggested that we head back toward the metro and have dinner at the hotel. (they had these pecan crusted pork chops that I had been thinking about for at least an hour at this point) by the time we returned to our hotel room and were able to release our poor tired feet from their wet encasements, we had been on our feet for at least 7 long hours. My spa tub has never looked so good. Dinner was awesome, and filling. We ate and were back in our room by 7:15, by 7:38 the lights were off and we were snuggled in for the night. I have no memory of anything past 8. 

Sunday

Brian and I awoke extra early. (Or a little late depending on how you look at it) we were both awake by 5. We got out of the bed by 6:30, and had both had a shower and could have been out the door by 7 if we had so desired. We didn’t so desire. We left the room closer to 10ish. First destination…food, second destination Arlington national cemetery. I don’t generally care for cemeteries. There are dead people there. It was a great aerobic walk, and we were able to see the tomb of the Unknown Soldier, as well as the changing of the guard.

At 3pm on Sunday, after our visit to Arlington we returned to the metro. The plan was to continue on as to visit the national zoo. Our train was delayed because someone was struck by the train at the Smithsonian station. The initial announcement was that someone was struck, subsequent announcements stated medical situation. Our train arrived, we boarded and each stop was delayed and we spent at least 5 minutes at each stop. By the time we got to the transfer station it was way past the time we should have been at the airport. We decided to just head back to the hotel for our bags and hit the airport.  It’s strange, but we chose a flight in to DC that had been delayed because of instrument problems, and we are currently sitting in line (10th in line) waiting to take off. The 9 planes full of people in front of us aren’t going anywhere either…we are delayed due to bad weather. **NOTE** We actually took off after sitting in the plane in a parking space for over two hours…and then the flight itself was about two hours.

We finally made it home. We are tired. We want sleep…

We are constantly digging. Digging out of holes, digging into work, digging away at problems…

I get tired of digging. I want a life like I see on television. *the voice says* “Telvision isn’t real Valerie”. SO?? Why can’t it be like that? Why can’t all of the kids behave at one time? They are all fully capable of behaving for long periods of time, why can’t they just get it together, together.

Every day there is a new problem to be dealt with. (And not one that can be solved in 30 minutes to an hour with commercial breaks either!!) I remember that there were a few months in there where nothing happened, no one cried, and there were no major upsets that caused the entire house to be at odds. Where did those months come from? Where did those months go? Am I fooling myself?

Well, either way…my lunch has ended and I have to go back to filing extensions.

You know, I can’t believe that I haven’t blogged since Christmas!! Wow!

 Today was my birthday. A lot of people remembered, and called with well wishes. Some people forgot. Well, some forgot and one just acted like it was just another day, after sending a “Happy Birthday” text message. Seriously??? That’s all I get?

 Ingrate? Me? Maybe. But I try to make special days more special for the ones that I love and kind of thought that they would do the same for me. Apparantly N-O-T. Next year I am going to plan my own damned day and not invite anyone to join me. They are going to have to call 911 and see if I have been arrested, hit by a car, or kidnapped. I am going to get up on the morning of my birthday and not come back until the whole stupid day is over. It will be the one day of the year that I will not be reachable via cell phone. I am really sick of being let down. I think that I should be able to get my hopes up just ONCE and not have all the wind let out of my sails.

 I could go on and on, but why bother? Who really cares? Besides, I am going to publish this and take my behind to bed. *pllbblbbt*

Its that time of year again. The stockings are hung by the chimney with care…in hopes that that St. Nicholas will come and go and we get our house back together just in time to pack it up to move to the new house. YAY! A bigger house! (I will talk about that in another blog later on…I am here to talk about Christmas with the kids)

This year is a little different than the ones in the past. Instead of having all six kids throughout the Christmas holidays, we have only had two (Nathan and Taylor). Today we gained a third (Clinton). We will get two more back on Christmas Eve (Andrew and Brendon), and we get #6 back on New Year’s Eve (Charlotte).

Last year we had all six kids, plus both sides of our large families. On top of all the people, we had only been together as a family and in this house since September. (Three months is REALLY not enough time to put a house together, much less a tight, cohesive family bond) I think that this year is so much better. We did not overspend this year. We know what will make everyone happy, and we are not trying to compensate for the loss of one parent or another through divorce. We are not trying to compensate for all the changes that the kids have gone through, and we realize now that our kids just don’t need that much crap. What we give them will end up being used and not put into a pile in their closet.

I am also not cooking Christmas dinner this year. There is going to be a ham and a roast beef, along with a few types of breads and cheeses. Sandwiches anyone? Oh yes. We have broken everything in. Our family is broken in, our house is broken in, our hearts are broken in. (And just in time to move to the new house! *but alas* that is for another blog!)

Merry Christmas to everyone, and Happy New Year in case I don’t talk to you again before then.