School Pics

If there is one thing I can't stand in life, it is school photos. Isn't that horrible?  Of all the things in life, school photos are my pet peeve!  I know, ridiculous.....well, my kids may be the minority, but every.single.year not one of their school pictures turn out. Sure, I could use them....if I wanted pictures that look like crazed smiling fools. I don't want to remember the kids sitting prim and proper, heads turned and a fake stiff smile on their faces.

I would much rather have personal photos taken, happy moments when smiles are real and they are being themselves....just how we want to remember them.

So for school year 2013/2014, here are the kiddos, as they really are everyday!

Summer in Bavaria

After our move, and surviving a week in the hotel, Eric and I decided to surprise the kids on a Friday and pick them up early from school.

We had, after the simple craziness of moving again after only a year, decided that the "fam" just needed a break.

We headed to Garmisch-Partikirchen, which has become a favorite vacation spot of the kids since our first trip with them in 2009.  Eric and I actually visited Garmisch way back in 1995 and stayed at the old General Patton hotel.  Now there is a beautiful resort named Edelweiss, and it is truly a place many Military families call home while stationed in Europe.

We took the kids to the top of the Zugspitz, something they have wanted to do forever!  I will post those pics tomorrow......Along with spending the day at the top of a crazy high snow covered mountain in August, we also just hiked, chilled and enjoyed the absolute fairytale surroundings that Garmisch provides.

We have so many pictures from this weekend, but these are a few of my favorites!  First, I thought I would give you a glimpse at the trip down there, which is about 4.5 hours, then a few pics from our hike.

This is me, usually taking as many pics as I can hoping some will turn out!

This is where we go thru Austria just for a few minutes.

So many tunnels in Germany

About an hour away from Garmisch, everyone starts getting excited when we see the Castle on the hill

The beauty is just overwhelming sometimes

Almost every house in Germany in this region are adorned with flowers like these. They take great pride in their German houses.

Starting to get anxious and goofy

Avery loves to feel the wind on her face, I usually have to tell her to get her head back in the window!

The FAM getting ready to hike the riverside, it.is.so.beautiful.here!

Love this picture of Avery

This picture makes me melt. Nicky is the sweetest, funniest kid. I took this with my IPhone and it is so cool how the beam of sunlight just matches his shirt completely!

We could barely drag these two out of the creek to head back.

Putting things into perspective, this picture represents so many things for me and how old Zachary is getting.

Tae Kwon KICK!!

Nicholas and Avery have been adamantly practicing their Tae Kwon Do to move to the next belt level.

That means there are always "urgghhhhsss", "huuuuuhuuuus", double kicks and flipping twist happening around here.

They are both taking it pretty seriously, and they are both doing great in it! However, they are not lacking in sibling rivalry and have a serious bet going to see who will make their yellow belt first.  Whoever it is, the other one picks up their after school chores for a month.  I think it is hilarious!

With Avery in Girl Scouts and Nicholas in computer programming, three practices a week of Tae Kwon Do is pretty much all we can handle right now, but we are so enjoying watching them grow in this sport.

AND....it doesn't hurt that I know both of them will be able to protect themselves if ever needed!

Explanation of a technique, Nic and Avery are still white belts, but you can see the advanced kids go up in belt colors.

In serious training here! Master Seo really didn't seem to thrilled, but you can tell he loves teaching the kids!

This is their goodbye, where Master Seo tells them how they did and what they should focus on.

This is Avery on the first day of class, it is funny because she "thought" this might be a move she would learn:)
(Don't mind the frames on the wall, we had just hung everything and still needed to add photos to them!)

Long overdue

This post will be extremely boring to those of you who read who are not family!  I apologize!

After 5 deployments, Eric has always had a responsible reason not to buy a Harley Davidson. Whether it be that we had little ones running around and he would never have time to ride, or that putting money into our houses, savings, etc seemed a more fiscally responsible thing to do, whatever the excuse was, he never went that extra step and got one for himself.  He has had the same 88 Honda motorcycle for almost 10 years, and the last 6 years it is has been in storage.

It is kind of a Military thing, many Soldiers have one, but if you are going to get one, you need to fully be committed because Harley's don't come cheap, especially the insurance in Germany.

When I first met Eric, he couldn't hold onto money to save his life.  I wasn't much better, and had a serious love affair going with clothing stores. After almost 21 years of marriage, we learned from the bottom up how to live our lives with money, not let money live our lives. A long time ago we decided we would give up the selfish things and start making more responsible choices. One of those decisions was to be frugal, and I still use coupons even though we don't need too and they are a serious pain! I still buy bargains instead paying full price for pretty much everything we purchase. I buy nothing for me or the fam unless it is on sale and if it isn't on sale, we can wait until it is. My kids don't have the newest and greatest electronic, and when they do get an electronic, you know it was a seriously good deal.  When we order online (our main shopping experience these days living in Germany), we look for the best sales price out there before we buy anything.

I had to post about Eric's budget Harley Davidson. He bought an "end of the year" model, never used, but needed out of the storeroom. He got an additional 30 percent off the already reduced Military price, a $500 HD gift card, and another $450 in loyalty cash.  When we looked the deal over, I said, "really, I don't think you could get a better deal on this bike, I think you should go for it"

And finally, after 10 years of deployments and hem hawing and really just being too cheap (in an awesome way) to get something for himself, he did it.  And I was so happy for him, as he has always put our family first when it comes to these decisions.

A little piece of pleasure I am so glad he is enjoying!

M.I.A

Wow, where has the summer gone? We have been completely MIA, I realize this!

Life has a way of throwing the curve balls, luckily we are pretty good at keeping our eye on where the ball is headed, although this summer we found ourselves dunking a few times.

The last couple of months have been hectic and crazy to say the least.

Let us rewind to June, when half the fam headed home to our house. It was nice being back home, and its amazing how we all just feel fully at home there.

The day we landed, we were fortunate to see my Mom, my Aunt Sara and my G'ma and G'pa who are dear to my heart. The stay wasn't long enough, and honestly, I had such jet lag, I forgot to take pictures, but I am so glad I got to see them!! My g'ma and g'pa are getting older and my heart gets a little heavier each time I say goodbye to them.

A few weeks later, the other 2 fam members flew in, barely on a wing and by the grace of God, I might add. We are blessed to have awesome people in our lives and the Couvillion family let us use two of their buddy passes, and Eric and Zachary were able to come home. There were alot of prayers said trying to get them home from NY, but God had it all worked out.

They finally made it home and we had alot of fun, though we only got on the lake once,which totally sucked!

We got to see Eric's Mom and Joe and give long overdue hugs.

We cut down a tree in our front yard, but we planted alot too.

We got to see dearly missed friends, but didn't have near enough time to spend with them.

During this time, change was brewing. By the time Eric was flying back solo, we were being offered a new job, a new location and a new tempo we have never been accustomed too.

It all happened so fast,and our last two weeks stateside were spent preparing for the fact that as soon as we landed, we would be moving in three weeks.

So much to do, trips to cancel, trips to reschedule, things to organize. STRESS, STRESS, STRESS.

By the time all of the packing, clearing, paperwork, German final bills,transfers etc were complete, we were exhausted and mentally wiped driving to our new home Wiesbaden.

With the Tahoe loaded down, all the fam, two cats, litter boxes, suitcases, school supply totes, etc we must of looked like the Beverly Hillbillies pulling into town.

And finally, I sighed because we were at the hotel, and the worst of the move was over.

Then Eric walked out, and said "they don't have our reservations"...

It is times like these that I am glad I don't have high blood pressure, although Zachary does say I "squawk" like a bird with sentences like "What", "Are you SERIOUS", "Your freaking kidding me"...

I am not proud of this....

It is also times like these I thank goodness for technology, for the IPhone, for the ability to pull up our reservation number confirmation for that date and time and let the front desk figure it out, and they knew, one way or another we were getting a room that night, I was nicely not budging.

We did get our rooms, and we ended up in the hotel for 41 days.

We fought for our living quarters thru the Army bureaucracy, and we won. (It is great when God is your armor, because I just knew he would work it out)

And we moved.

And everything was scratched, dinged, broken, chipped and once again, damaged.  But we survived our 14th Permanent Change of Station move, and Eric is loving his new digs.

We are all good though, we are thankfully coming to the end of this move. We are getting ready to file our claim, which takes a week in itself, but once that is done, we will be officially be PCS'd to Wiesbaden.  Our next move will be back to our home, where we will stay.

I will picture dump all of this week, but until then, this was Avery as a "Pretty in Pink" crayon on Halloween. She was the cutest crayon out there!  However, I would recommend NO ONE buy this costume, she had it on for 15 minutes and the two seams were already coming apart!

Father Lead Me, I Can't Do This Alone

Happy Fathers Day Eric!

Eric, every time I hear this song, I think of you. I remember the first time I heard it,you had just gotten back from a long and stressful deployment. It brought tears to my eyes, for everything that weighs on your shoulders, everything you have given in your life,do you know how much I admire all that you do for our family? You work so hard, have sacrificed so much, and you still lead us and turn to God always.  We love you... I love you more than you will ever know.  Our children are so blessed to have you as their Father, forever. Lead me, Sanctus Real

We had a great day of hiking with our family up to a local castle, freaked out with the massive number of baby tics in the woods today, sat outside a Cafe and had pastries and coffee, and then had a special Fathers Day Mass at 5 pm and ended it with a sweet TWEET that Avery created for her favorite Daddy!

End of School

We have reached the end of the school year!  Yeeeaaaahhhhhh!

All three Brown kids rocked this year, and all three are on the Honor Roll, GREAT JOB!

While Nick and Avery were on the Honor Roll all year long, grade wise this Sophomore year was a struggle for Zachary. He wasn't getting bad grades, but they were average grades and while it was understandable...  we still urged him to do better. His classload was heavy, taking Geometry, Advanced World History, Advanced Language Arts, Anatomy, AVID(teaches college level organization skills) not to mention track, gym, digital photography, etc.

Each grade card got better and better for Zachary, and finally this last semester, he made the Honor Roll. We are so proud of you Zachary, you recognized a personal goal, and you made it happen!

Zachary scored so high on Terra Nova that he was exempt from all his finals, but he made the choice to take them as they would only raise his grades, now that is dedication!  He also scored a Internship at the Public Affairs office starting next week, and next year he is taking a Medical class in which he will be performing triage task's at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center.

This morning, he came down and said "Hey, I am Junior now!"  I KNOW, AND I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!

Nicky won a Good Citizenship award, as well as getting all A's and B's this year!  And Avery, after 3rd grade being such a disaster, her 4th grade year rocked and I thank God everyday.  This is exactly what she needed this year. She raised her reading Lexile score almost 400 pts from the beginning of the year. Her Math comprehension has completely done a 180, and her teachers are so deserving!

So, for the 2012-2013 school year, I want brownfamthree to know that you are a success! You are a success because you were genuine, you tried your best and in life that is all you can do!

For me, I am so happy that summer is here. No school lunches, no homework folders, no projects, no book bags, nope, nothing, Nada! Sleeping in never sounded so nice.

And while I am aware that this was a complete BRAG post, I know it and I willingly am posting it!  Someday these kiddos will look back, read this and know that all their efforts did not go to waste.  I want brownfamthree to fully understand how proud we are of all three of you, your all great kids, polite, God loving and honorable, we are very much blessed in this family of ours!

Below are some pictures of the kids last week!

AVERY AND HER HONOR ROLL CERTIFICATE WITH MS. YOUNG

NICKY AND HIS GOOD CITIZENSHIP AWARD (NOTICE THE HINT OF A MUSTACHE)

"HEY, WAIT, I AM A JUNIOR NOW" 

THIS IS CRAYON ART WE DID FOR AVERY'S THREE TEACHERS, MY INTENT WAS TO MODGE PODGE THE LETTERS CUT OUT FROM MY CRICUT, BUT MY BLADE WASN'T CUTTING THEM RIGHT, SO WE ENDED UP JUST WRITING THEIR NAMES ON THE FRAMES.  ERIC SPRAY PAINTED THE FRAMES, AVERY PICKED OUT THE BUTTONS AND HER AND I WORKED ON CUTTING AND LINING UP CRAYOLA CRAYONS FOR 2 HRS, THESE LETTERS ARE HARDER THAN THEY LOOK TO DO AND I CONSIDER MYSELF PRETTY CRAFTY!!