Legates' nightly event :)

I'm writing this post to share an awesome game with you guys. This game is so awesome that we play it every night (just about). It's our new favorite!

It's...

Munchkin!

It's an awesome game it which you are all munchkins, and your goal is to get to level 10. To do that you need to defeat monsters and use cards. The best way to learn how to play, is to watch this video (thanks again Wil Wheaton)...

In this game when you come across a monster that is to hard for you, you can ask your friends (or in our case family) for help, and if a monster is to easy for you, those same friends can make it harder.

Although we play it most every night, I have only won twice (I'm not kidding). Jeremy, my lovely husband wins most of the time. Now this would make you think... "Well if you and the boys would start ganging up on him, then maybe he would lose." and yes that is true, but I just can't bring myself to do it. I don't like being mean to people, and I love him so much (yeah that's really not helping me right now).

We bought this game right after seeing the TableTop episode (the very same video up there). Thanks to TableTop we have a long list of games that we now want. I think it's great though, more family time.

One thing that all of you parents should know is (if you buy the game). Their is one card that has a bad word on it. We just ended up taking that one card out of the game. This does not effect the game play in anyway what so ever, because in Munchkin you can add and take away any number of cards, and kind of play it your own way. You can also make up your own cards :)

This is what we came up with

This was Zachary's idea (all of us love pirates)

This was Darien's idea (we are big Mario fans)

This was Nathaniel idea

This was my idea (Lame-O-Potato is one of our favorite phases in the Legates house)

The game was easy enough that it only took the kids a few times watching to catch on.

They love this game :0)

So if you don't have this game, then you need to go out and get it right now... (are you going? right now?)... You also need to start watching TableTop (on youtube), if you haven't already.


Thank you :)

It's has been weeks!

I want to first start off and apologize for the gap in post. Things have been pretty normal round here, very hooo hummm. The good news is things are less stressful and easier than my last post (sorry about that). So I'll tell you what we've been up to.

The boys started swim classes at the YMCA. They are really excited to go (every time), and they are doing great. Their teacher just told me today that they are very entertaining in the class, and that he always looks forward to seeing them. Wow (makes this mommy smile)! During the boys' class Olivia and I swim in the other pool. She can be a handful! She thinks she can already swim, and she doesn't want me to hang on to her. The problem is of course, she can't swim, and so she sinks. I pull her back up, and she kicks to be free again. Once she turns 3 I'll have to put her in a class as well (If only to just get a break, although I'm sure she'll do well).

The weather here has been hotter than normal (about 74), and it has been raining less. As a result of this our neighbor hood has put in sprinklers (??? I don't see why). Okay so I guess they are worried the grass might dye, but I don't think that would ever happen (not in this state). I think it a waste of money. All of the locals here think it's to hot, and they complaining and stay inside with their AC (we ourselves don't have any AC, and I don't think we need it). Yes it's 74 (with very little humidity), and the poor east coat is going through a crazy heat wave where it was in the 100s, but no "it's soooo hot here" (  :P  ). I'm enjoying the weather, I think it's great. When it's nice like this, we (the kids and I), go for long walks, and explore our neighbor hood.

I also just ordered my Homeschool books for next year (YAY), well the rest, the ones that I didn't already have. It's really exciting for me, and this is our 3rd year. Woo hoo! The kids are doing better now with their summer school work and they are just doing great all around. Olivia can now say "Pokemon", yeah she loves to hang out with her brothers. She is talking a lot, and working on telling us things that she needs (much better than fussing). I'm really glad, and she is getting so big (a little part of me is sad about it though, yeah no surprise there).

Well I think that's all, I just didn't want to guys to think that I was just giving up on the whole blogging thing. Thanks for reading! :)

Life is hard... at times

So the last two weeks have been hard and stressful. Jeremy went back to work, and he is still adjusting, I started the boys on some summer work, and we have yet to fall into the right pattern with that, I attempted to potty train Olivia, but after two days, stopped and realized she wasn't ready yet, I'm working on getting Nathaniel's shot recorded all caught up, and I lost Zach's, I had a couple days when I wasn't feeling well, and the kids were really loud on those days, and there are a few other things, that I really don't want to get into right now. Okay yes I know, that was a long run-on sentence, and I'm sorry. Now I will explain all of it, or most of it.

-Jeremy went back to work about two weeks ago, and because he is still adjusting and his job isn't the easiest he was stressed, and because of that I was too (that's just how it happens, no wife likes to see her husband stressed). It's not his fault it's just the way things are.
-I started the boys on summer school work because they were bored, and when they are bored they tend to get into trouble. They also have subjects they need to work on. Nathaniel and Zach, need to both work on their reading skills, and Darien needs to work on his studying skills. Science, History, and Health have test and quizzes that you have to take notes and study for. Sometimes someone is lazy and thinks he doesn't need to, because... "I already know all of the answers." ... um no. So during the summer we are working on that. Not everyone is happy about it though (not a big surprise), so two of them are giving me a hard time (can you guess which two?).
-I was going to start potty training Olivia and I did try, but it went something like this... She has 12 pairs of underware, and she used all of them in one day before 2pm (and both days were like this). I just don't think she's ready.
-Nathaniel's shot record... now this is an interesting story. Right before we moved to Fort Meade (from San Diego), I stopped by the clinic (military clinic) to pick up a copy of Nathaniel's shot record to carry it with us (when moving you need to do that, and when switching to a new doctor) (I had everyone elses). They told me, they couldn't hand it to me (which I later on found out that was a lie), but they could mail it to me. Okay whatever, sure. It never made it. So when we lived in Maryland we were never able to get his 4 year old shots because I didn't have his records, and the clinic on Fort Meade wasn't able to pull them (despite both clinics being military clinics). So of course I sent in a request of records (several times) and called them many times, but they never sent them. It finally took Jeremy calling for anything to happen, and I just finally got them two weeks ago. So now we get to go through all of the fun of getting him all caught up.
-I couldn't find Zachary shot record. So after all I had to go through to get Nate's, I couldn't find Zach's. I had everyones records in a folder that I carried with me in the car (well all but Nathaniel's). So after finally getting Nathaniel's I open the folder to add it, and Zach's is missing... "NO"... Luckily the Naval hospital was able to pull them up for me. So that was taken care of.
-The loudness in the house has been a big issue lately. I'm not sure if it's because the house is older, so the walls are not as sound prof, but it's been bad. No matter how many times I tell the boys to be quiet when Olivia is sleeping, they always end up waking her up. EVERY SINGLE TIME! I just don't get it. Okay yes we need to start working on self control.

During all of this is when I felt like curling up in bed, and crying my eyes out. Have you ever felt like that? Sure Randi, you can take the stress of moving across country, but you can't take a few days of your house being out of order. I know this may seem silly to you, but I'm not telling you all of these things to get your sympathy, because everyone goes through hard times, and yours may even be worse than mine. I'm sharing these things with you to show you that this is normal, and you are not alone, everyone has hard times. So I'm going to share with you a story that my sunday school teacher told us (back in the day)... something I should have remembered during all of this.

There once was a traveler walking along the road carrying a large heavy backpack. Then came along a guy driving a pick-up truck. He stopped and told the traveler to hop in the back, and he would give him a ride. The traveler did so, but still wore the back pack. The driver told the traveler he could take it off and lay it down, there was plenty of room, but the traveler insisted on keeping it on, even though it was heavy and hurting his back.

We are like the traveler, when we are stressed and we insist on carrying that stress with us, even though we have God who will take care of us, and help us. Sometimes we forget or we want to do it all, and we don't have to. We don't need to worry about tomorrow, or stress out about the little things that pledge us. Stress is bad, it ages us, and makes our hair fall out, and makes us snappy, grumpy, and scary.

So as a lesson to me, and all of you, take a chill pill and give your troubles to God. :)

Update time

Hey everyone, so I think this post is long over due, since I haven't updated everyone very much since we moved. The reason for this is because my husband is still on leave, and because of that we've had a lot of family time, and I really didn't want to take away from that. I have about an hour right now while my husband is out, so I'll try to catch everyone up.

Our time in Washington has been great! I'm really glad we moved at the beginning of Jeremy's leave, because it has given us a lot of relaxing time. The move is over we are here, we are happy, and now we can enjoy each other. The first week was awesome the sun was shining it was warm, and all of the locals were confused about the nice weather. Jeremy said that God was giving us nice weather to help us with the transition. The week after that it went to what I'm guessing is normal Washington weather. On most days we have rain and overcast, but there is still the occasional sunny day. I'm fine with that, and I think we are adapting well. Besides getting use to the weather, we are also getting use to the area, and so far it's been really easy to lean the layout (or where everything is). The tricky part is getting use to the "new places". There isn't a lot here, so if your looking for something that maybe a bit harder to find you'll have to go to Seattle (we have done that yet), or order it online. Yup it's all about adapting. I'm really happy to be back on the west coast, Jeremy and I would really like to go back to San Diego one day, and this just puts us closer.

So what fun (going out) things have we done? We went mini golfing, we've been to the mall a few times, and we went to the Great Wolf Lodge. On most days however we just had a lot of family time. We played a lot of card games, we took our bikes out for a spin (we watched the kids ride up and down the street), we went for walks around the neighborhood, there are a lot of playgrounds here, we played a lot of board games, and we had a Harry Potter movie day (just this week), we also made new friends and hung out at their house. All in all it's been great.

So Great Wolf Lodge (for anyone who wants to know). Great place, a lot of money. We stayed one night, and racked up a bill of about $400 (I'm not kidding). The room was awesome and had bunk beds and it was great (it was the KidCabin suite), and it cost $289.99. I can understand that cost of the room, it was a nice room and the tickets (to the water park) were included. The problem was that rest of the hotel, all of the shops and food were expensive (really expensive). Oh and there is also Magic Quest. What is that you ask? Well it an activity that you can do all over the hotel. You buy a wand ($20.00), and the wand gives you the ability to interact with curtain objects around the hotel. There are quest you can do, and it's basically a giant scavenger hunt. So yes $20 times 3 wonderful boys. Our stay was fun, but I'm not sure fun is supposed to cost that much, so I' don't think we'll be doing it again any time soon. Or if we do, we may have to go else where for food, or bring our own. The rooms come with a fridge and microwave, so it is possible to make your own meals.

So what's left? Jeremy has a few more days of leave left, then it's time to get busy again. I have some summer workbooks to get the kids started on, and I have homeschool things to do. I have to buy books and get the kids in the system here. So much fun! I also have some medical thing to do.

I'm going to a home school curriculum sale tomorrow, and I'm super excited! I always love those, and I get to go by myself! Yes that doesn't happen often. I get to shop for books at my own pace and not have to worry about anything else.

Okay I'm going now, bye! :)

Another birthday !?!

Happy Birthday to Zachary! He's 8 today (wow)

What? You're taking a picture right now?

Okay whatever I'm going to play my new game :)

Favorite toy : Legos

Favorite thing to play : Video games

Favorite thing to eat : Tacos

Favorite TV show : Sponge Bob Square Pants

Favorite color : Blue

Favorite place to visit : Mommom's house

Favorite book : Green Eggs and Ham

Favorite movie : Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows part 2

Favorite Video game : Just Dance 3

It should be a great day! I can't believe he's 8. Zachary is an awesome kid, and we love him so much.

Happy Birthday too...

DARIEN! 

He's 10 today (wow)!

This is the only picture he would let me take, because he was busy with his new presents. He was so busy that he forgot to get dressed this morning and he is still in his jammers.








Favorite toy : Legos
Favorite thing to play : Also legos
Favorite thing to eat : Pizza
Favorite TV show : Sponge Bob Square Pants
Favorite color : Green
Favorite place to visit : San Diego
Favorite book : Harry Potter and the Deadly Hollows
Favorite movie : Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows part 2
Favorite Video game : Skylanders

What an amazing kid he is! I feel so blessed :)

So far, so good :)

Well it's been a week, and... I really like it here :)

Our house is old, and a little small, but I really like it. I think the age of the house really gives it character, and it's really easy to clean (and that matters).

So this is it! (can you see my cat at the door?)

This is our living room (the couch is new). Notice the window behind the couch? Yeah, I'm not sure why it's there, but it's kind of cute.

this is the kitchen...

the pantry (this house didn't have one, so we made one)...

and the dining area

The best part about this kitchen is it has doors to both the entry ways, so I can close off the kitchen completely if I need to. I do our homeschooling at the kitchen table, so this is awesome.

I really like the layout it this house, it really works with what we have. This really surprised me because of the house's age. This house also reminds me of other houses we have lived in. The layout to this house is a lot like our house in Fort Meade. The kitchen in this house looks a lot like our kitchen in Charleston. We currently have birds living in our attic, so that reminds me of Virginia (better birds than a raccoon). 

We are right by the bay, and the neighborhood is really pretty :)

So far I really like it here :)

Our move to Washington

Wow! So, where do I start? It has been a crazy week. We had the greatest packers we've ever had, in any of our moves. I was surprised when they only sent me 2 people to pack up my whole house. I was also equally surprised at how fast those 2 people were at packing. They arrived at 8:30am and were done everything by 2pm. Yes wow. To go with the great packers we also had great loaders, who were done by 1pm. The moving company was United, just in case anyone wants to know. Our driver was a female (first time that has ever happened), and she traveled with her little puddle named Ginger (very cute).

Not everything went smoothly... Our plans to ship Jeremy's car didn't happen, when the auto shipping place couldn't get us a driver (even with a months notice, and we didn't find this out until the day we were leaving). So it seemed we were off to a bad start. I just needed to remind myself, that God has watched over us this far, He's not going to stop now, and I need to trust Him. We ended up both driving, and instead of this being a fun site seeing trip, with fun stops, it turned into, a hurry up and get this over with kind of trip. I can look back and say "Oh well," now that's it's over with, we are here safely, and the driving really wasn't that bad. I must say that I feel very blessed, and thankful that we are all here safe and sound. All of that with very few bumps along the way (I can deal with bumps). Now that it's all said and done, I'm glad I drove, it was fun (kind of). I'm glad I got to see all of the beautiful things along the way and think "My God made all of this, WOW!" This drive had the most beautiful sights I have ever seen.

Our stops were... Lisbin, OH,   South Bend, IN,   Alexandra, MN,   Billings, MT,   Spokane, WA,   and now we are home in Kitsap county Washington. We traveled through Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, and finally Washington. So if you were on the road in one of those states and you saw a white mini van following a blue mustang, that was us.

So now that I have done "The drive across country" I do have some advice to give to anyone who is about to do a long drive. Pack plenty of snacks and chewing gum, they come in handy when you are sleepy and if you feel like you are zoning out. Do not drink a lot of tea or coffee (I'm sure you know why). If traveling with a cat (or any fuzzy animal), make sure your cat carrier doesn't have a hole in it (one that can be picked at and made bigger, so he can escape... Yes this did happen). Bring great music. Most importantly, pray before you go, and thank God every step of the way.

Now all I have left to do is wait for all of my stuff to get here (which should happen tomorrow). I really like our new house, and I look forward to all of the happy memories here. :)

About to hit the road :)

So this is my last post before the internet is shut down, and we hit the road. This is what we've been up to...

We put together snacks for the drive

The boys loved doing this

This is our snack box. Do you think we have enough?

Getting things together...

This is when we started to put together our van pack stuff...

On Monday the boys and I made up snacks, and put all of the snacks in one place (yes some of them were store bought). We also put all of the drinks in a box. This whole box system made it easy to put things together, and see what we had. Over the past few weeks I have been putting together our van pack list, so with the list in hand, I pulled all of the stuff together (with help from the husband, and kids). Olivia was even helping at one point, she added Daddy's power bars to the snack box, they didn't belong there, but it was cute.

On Tuesday I took down all of the pictures and the curtains. This is when reality really sets in, because after this point it doesn't look like your house anymore, and you know you really are leaving. It should only take about 15 mins, but it took a lot longer, because it's sad. Afterward our house also felt empty, even though everything else is still there.

On Wednesday we did a dry run van pack. This was just to see if everything would fit. To see if we had extra room. To see if we needed to cut out some things. To find a spot of everything (a spot that works). We found out really quick that the snacks needed to go in a different box. My plan was to put the snacks near the front so I could hand them out... well... even after putting them in a different box, they still couldn't fix anywhere up front, so now they are right beside Darien's set, and he's going to hand them out. So long story short everything fits. YAY! This was all thanks to Jeremy who shifted things around for a better fit. Even after all of this we were still able to keep the things we would need every time we stop on top.

On Thursday I finished up the laundry and packed the clothes...

Yes only 2 bags! So are you asking the question... "Randi how did you fit clothes for 6 people, for a 2 week period (about), into just 2 bags? Well it's an easy answer. I really didn't pack a lot of clothes. Since we don't have a lot of room in the van, I decided to only pack 4 outfits per person + one pair of PJs. My plan is to use hotel laundry rooms, and once we get there, find a local laundromat. I had the kids help me with packing, this helps them to feel involved, and it's fun because they get to pack what they like. When doing this I just make it simple for them... "Okay guys I need you to find 4 short sleeve shirts and 4 pairs of comfortable pants. Make sure they are comfortable, because you will be sitting in them all day. Oh and get out a pair PJs too."... They love packing.

On Friday we cleaned. Well really no surprise there. Sure we had to keep the house clean when they were showing it all of the time, but now that we have a renter (yes we have a renter). We haven't really seen the need to keep it really clean. We've done an okay job, but you know how things go some times.

So today (sunday), we just need to finish up cleaning up, move the couch down stairs (we are not keeping it), and pack up the van. Movers come tomorrow, and I'm not looking forward to it. I really just need to get it all over with. Keep praying for us. Pray for a safe drive, and an easy next few days.

Bye for now!

Blog Changes, Yard sale finished, and our last weeks in Maryland.

Hey everyone! Well I'm not sure if you noticed (I hope you did), but the blog name has changed and so has the banner. We are 16 days away from moving so I thought it was time. So 16 days from now we will start on a new journey and we will be pilgrims again, going to a new place that we know nothing about. Will we like it? Who knows, but you can just keep checking back to find out.

The yard sale is done... Thank goodness! My husband took a before picture...

I woke up at 5:30am, and at 6am I started to put the stuff out. The good news is we sold a lot of the big things, but the bad news is we still ended up taking a lot of things to GoodWill. I'm not to upset about it though, because the stuff is now out of my house. Yard sale day was a long day... Most of the time I sat outside waiting for people to come (at least it was nice out). On the bright side my brother came to help me later on that day, and his fiance Jessica came over after the yard sale was over, and we ate pizza (I love pizza). We also had them over yesterday for tacos, and I found out, that I'm not good at playing phase 10 (oh well), but it's still fun to play when you are losing. Yup that's what we do, those 2 come over and we play... Monopoly, Magic, phase 10, uno, clue, and small world (thank you Wil Wheaton). We have so much fun!

So we have 2 weekends left here, and they are both going to be busy, but we've been busy every weekend for the past 2 months. This Sunday we are going over to my Parent's house, and next weekend we are having Jeremy's parents over. Yes there is still so much to do. On the bright side we got the mini van checked out, and I've started a van pack list (it's almost finished). We have our hotel reservations made, and our trip planed...

Looks like fun right? Back when this all stated (in October), it seemed so far away, that it would never happen, and now it feels real.

So I was researching the area (looking for how close everything is), and the nearest Walmart is going to be a whole 12 miles away... this was my reaction...

Okay yes I know, I've been spoiled. The good news is that the nearest target is only 6 miles away, so I guess I'll be okay.

Now as for our house (that we are renting out)... We've had a lot of showings, and now apparently someone is interested (I just now found out ), so keep praying for us. I really hope this works out.

The next time you hear from me might be when we are on our way across, but I can't make any promises. We are going to bring our MacBook, and I think all of the hotels have wifi, but I'm not sure. If I don't get to post on our way across, I will post about it once it's all over.

Okay I need to go now, thanks for reading :).