No More SOW

Thursday morning marked my first online omnibus class of the year!!  Meeting my teacher, Mr. Etter, and my new classmates was very exciting!  We learned what was to be expected in class and what we would be reading throughout the year.  We also learned how to react to computer malfunctions (apparently your not supposed to scream and yell for your mom panic).  Mr. Etter "cured" our addiction to emoticons...mostly :P  Our first book assignment this year is the Westminster Confession of Faith followed by Pilgrims Progress.  I am very happy to be participating in the Veritas Press Online Academy for the second time.  This past summer I had been suffering with a mild case of SOW (severe omnibus withdrawal :))  Yes, as surprising as it sounds, I missed the discussions, debates and even the homework!  I hope my omnibus classmates from last year are enjoying their classes as well as I am mine!

~RM

Adventures in Hawaii

Mimi gave me an assignment.  To type up an account of her adventures here in Hawaii, trip of 2010.  The following is from her perspective but I wrote it (and put my own little spin on things *cough*).

Monday, August 23rd: Arrived @ around 1:45 pm. Gave quilts to the kids. Ate. Went to bed.


Tuesday, August 24th: Went on a walk with Shelly. Tire blew. Shelly asked if I was in the quilting business. Asked if I wanted to make a baby quilt. Jaw dropped. Hit the pavement. Drove through Ho’omanu botanical gardens. Walked to the lake. Sat on a bench. Watched the kids feed ducks and fish. Made Micaiah take lots of pictures of trees and stuff. Went home. Put feet up. Went to watch Micaiah do her ballet. Returned home. Ate. Slept for about an hour and a half. Woke up and started talking randomly to Micaiah who was trying to read her book. Went back to sleep.

Wednesday, August 25th: Visited Pearl Harbor. Made Micaiah take lots more pictures. Rode the little ferry out to the USS Arizona. Went home. Relaxed. Accompanied Abi to ice-skating lesson. Froze. Got into the car. Defrosted. Drove up Tantalus (Isaac’s time-trial ride 4.5 miles up, lots of sharp turns). Sat in the rain and watched cats and chickens. Ate our picnic dinner. Was too cloudy to see sunset. Watched it from Tripler instead. Made Micaiah take EVEN MORE pictures. Went home. Slept.

Thursday, August 26th: Toured the Bishop Museum. Could not make Micaiah take pictures (not allowed). Planetarium show and Lava demonstration. Got Taco Bell. Went home. Ate. Shopped at Fabric Mart. Almost fainted.
We walked in and she saw all the fabric and she was all like, “Wow!! That’s a LOT of cloth!!” Then she saw the prices, “WOW!! Those are some good prices!!” “We haven’t even got to the clearance section, Mimi…” “There’s a clearance section?! This is crazy!!”
                                                                                  -Micaiah recounting their shopping trip to Dad.
Watched Micaiah dance…again. Tried not to think about how Micaiah’s toes must be feeling. Went home. Ate. Shopped at the NEX for ALOHA wear. Returned home. Slept…some more.

Friday, August 27th: Ate big breakfast. Waffles. Played mad-scientist by experimenting with cinnamon in the last two waffles. Went to Bellows beach. Watched the kids play in the waves. Bear was very brave. Walked way too far out for my heart-rate. Never fell once. It rained. So we ran under the shelter. It stopped. Patrick started up the grill. Formed a wall with towels to block the wind. Ate hamburgers and hotdogs. And chips, and potato salad, and watermelon and THE MOST DELICIOUS BROWNIES EVER MADE by Micaiah. Out of a box. Tried to wash sand off. Failed. Drove home. Showered. Ate. Went to bed at around 7:30 for an ABSOLUTELY CRAZY EARLY start the next morning to see a sunrise that you could see in a picture some other time. Like in the afternoon.

Saturday, August 28th: Woke up at 3:45 AM and invited Abi to come snuggle in my bed. Thought she’d be quiet and go to sleep. Thought wrong. Abi demonstrated the different noises that her alarm clock could make. Played cricket mode. Played the seashore mode. Woke Micaiah up by playing the waterfall mode. Micaiah was cranky. Micaiah doesn’t like being woke up at 4:15 in the morning. Micaiah doesn’t like hearing a waterfall when it’s been at least eight hours since her last bathroom trip. Micaiah threatened to go tell Shelly. I giggled. Uncontrollably. Micaiah couldn’t get back to sleep. Piled in the car for the trip to the other side of the island to watch the sunrise at the Poly look-out. Made Micaiah take lots more pictures. Watched chickens hens and loads of chicks (a group of 11 and a group of 8). Listened to some really obnoxious roosters. Ate muffins. Drove around the windward side of the island toward the North Shore and Sharks Cove. Waded around and looked at fish. Became very adventurous and waded out further towards the kids who where surrounded by fish. Stood and watched for a while. Slipped. Almost drowned.
                                  (insert by Micaiah) “The water didn’t even reach your neck.”
So? Shelly saved me. Ate at Pizza Bob’s. Browsed through some little shops around the North Shore Shopping Place. Received a free elephant. Drove home (got to see Isaac’s first race course- Haleiwa Hills from Hell). Arrived home. Napped till 4. Showered. Ate Feast. Went to bed.

Sunday, August 29th: Went to Trinity Presbyterian for church service. Enjoyed meeting (and re-meeting) people there. Had lunch at Teddy’s Bigger Burgers. Shopped around Kailua. Found a great shop called Red Bamboo. Bought some souvenirs for people back in MO. Drove home for a relaxing afternoon.

The end...for now.

~RM

Pearl Harbor with Mimi

Board-Game by Candle Light

~RM

The Sad, Sad State of Modern Man

Last night, horror of all horrors, our electricity went out. At the time I was on the computer browsing http://thepioneerwoman.com/, and my siblings were upstairs with their guests playing on the Wii. Dad, Mom, and Bear were at the NEX. I was just enjoying a cookie and a good post when all the lights went out. Naturally I yelled "Hey!! I'm still down here! ... Abi? Isaac?" They were yelling angrily about their Wii game being interrupted. And then realization dawned. Power outage. I noticed I was the oldest one here; I needed to take charge and lead the search for a flashlight! No, our family is not prepared for times like these and flashlights are scattered randomly around the house. My first act as OAL (oldest available Lopez) was to tell everyone to calm down, "Let's all just take a deep breath and find a-AH!" My brother had found a flashlight. And was shining it in my face. "Oh, nicely done Isaac." The next 10-15 minutes were spent milling about in a tightly packed group looking for more instruments of light. I heard the questions: "Where's Mom and Dad?" "Micaiah, where's Mr. and Mrs. Lopez?" "Ah! where's Riley?!(our dog)" over and over again. "Mom, Dad and Bear went on a walk. Riley's probably still asleep downstairs on his bed unless our ruckus has woken him up." "When's Mom and Dad going to get back?!" Oh yeah! My cell phone still works, right? Right. Haha! I called my parents as they were coming around the corner to our house. My dad answered with, "Hey, it sounds dark there..." "You're standing right outside aren't you?" "Yes." "See you in a minute." No, I didn't catch the whole sounds dark....I was distracted.... Soon we had at least twenty candles burning, the kids were outside running around and I was sitting on the back porch with my parents. My Mom and Dad were discussing plans for the next couple of weeks when my grandma is in town. I was thinking of all the things I could be doing right now. Like browsing Pioneer Woman posts on the computer, reading Gulliver's Travels for Omnibus, watching a movie, eating popcorn, sewing, drawing, writing....the list goes on and on. Then my Dad interrupted my grumbling, "You know what we could do? We could grab the laptop and watch the chase scene of the Bourne Identity. The only problem with that is the Bourne Identity is stuck in the DVD player." "It's ok Dad, it was a good idea .... Why don't you and Mom just reenact it for me?" Mom laughs. Silence. "You could plug the battery thing into the van, plug the DVD player into that, eject the DVD, and then watch the chase scene of the Bourne Identity." "It's ok, really Dad. If you want me to see it that bad you go ahead and do that." Mom laughs again. Silence...again. "No, I just needed to know that there was a solution." "Ok." It sucks how much we depend on electricity. I had to suffer the night away with no central cooling! Do you know what that does to me?! I was not able to snuggle under my comforter for fear of suffocation. I know how spoiled that sounds, but I am a central cooling kinda gal. There was a really loud dog yapping right outside my open window. I don't do well with headaches at around 11 pm. Good thing there wasn't a heavy missile-type object lying around my room or that dog would be the one with the headache. But! Everything is good now! Our electricity decided to come back around midnight. I woke up with my windows closed, my fan on high and my bare feet frozen. Central cooling, don't you ever leave me again!
~RM

The Event of Which We Do Not Speak (But I AM Kinda Excited)

You all would be so proud of me if you knew how much junk I cleared out of my room this past week. That is, if you knew how much junk was in my room in the first place...Well, anyways, I have been cleaning and organizing my room before the 'event of which we do not speak' happens. Our move to Germany. I am sorry my Hawaii friends, I know I promised I would not speak of it, but it is going to happen sooner or later and I have to blog about it sometime. If you are one of the two people who do not want to hear me talk about 'the event' stop reading now.....
I'm actually quite excited about moving to Europe. Just not excited about leaving people, again, to travel halfway across the globe, again. I make it sound like we've done it loads of times, but it's only our second move with the Army. Oh the places we'll go! Rome, Paris, Luxemburg, the list goes on forever! I'm learning French! Wait? You're moving to Germany, wouldn't you be learning German? You wouldn't believe how many times I've been asked that. My answer: FRENCH IS JUST PRETTIER! So there! We are going to be stationed at Baumholder (say: bomb-holder :D) which is about 3-4 hours away from the French border. So many things to do before the move though. I've got my room cleaned, check that off my list. Things still to come: packing, garage sale, Mimi's visit!, getting tickets, movers, oh yeah, and finishing our first semester of school. All before December. Busy? Nawwww, us? Yes, but it's an exciting busy!

~RM

Being Wet and Wild

Well, not exactly WILD, but we all did get quite wet. Dad had a day off, so our morning was spent at:THE WATER PARK!! The water park that my brother has been dying to take us to since he went with his friend. It was a buy one ticket, get one ticket free deal. Otherwise we would not have gone. :) We rode slides.We swam around in the wave pool.Which isn't looking all that 'wavy' (wavy? yes, wavy.) at the moment because this was during the 15 minute break so everyone could catch their breath and find their shorts that had somehow slipped off during the excitement .... We attempted to cross the pool on large floating things.Abi crossing on the very fake-looking, buoyant log.
Sometimes I begin to think that being able to balance on one foot for extended periods of time might actually be helpful.
And...Isaac's attempt (which failed) to cross the fake, floating log. He doesn't share my talents.
We had a blast running (excuse me, walking...) around Wet and Wild, but now that I've showered and am busy helping my Mom prepare for guests ('cause that's what I'm doing right now, not typing up a blog post...) I realize that I am very tired...and sunburned....I never seem to remember to reapply often enough.
~RM