A Day at the Circus (And More Grammy Adventures!)

Confession: I wrote this in March. I even had the pictures edited, but I'm just now getting around to posting it. Pathetic, I know!

The kids and I just got back from spending 5 days at my moms house in Klamath Falls over Spring Break. I think I’m going to need a 5 day fast just to recover. My mom is a fantastic cook! The kids met their quota for the year of both sugar and movie/t.v. consumption. Okay, truth be told, so did I!

On Monday afternoon we got a special treat. My mom and Keith took us to the circus! I don’t recall ever getting to see a live circus. It was way more fun than I had imagined it would be.

We ate pop corn and cotton candy and we saw high flying trapeze artists, aerialists, tight-rope walkers, synchronized dancing camels, horses and ponies, flame throwing and knife jugglers, obedient tigers, crazy motor cycle drivers, high-flying dogs and more.

During the intermission they opened up the floor for face painting, pony rides, bouncy sliding and ELEPHANT RIDING—for a price that is! So, like any good mother would do, I took my kids down to the elephant ring so they could get close to a real live elephant.

And, like any good blogging mom would do, I had to capture a picture of them close to an elephant. Titus, however, fought back the tears as he realized that you had to have tickets to actually get to ride the elephant.

And, of course, like any good Grandma would do, my mom rushed off to buy elephant riding tickets for my kids.

Before too long, my kids were sitting on top of a real live elephant! Titus was so excited that his foot got to touch the elephant’s ear.

Keith and I decided that we should buy ourselves an elephant and take people for rides. Apparently my mom wasn’t the only one that got suckered into paying a small fortune for two turns around an elephant ring. The line to ride the elephants was a mile long. With two elephants we figured they made about $160 every 4 minutes or so. That’s a salary I could go for!

Truth be told though, it was really cool. I’m glad my mom got suckered into it. How many people can say they actually got to ride an elephant?

We ended the night with some pizza, and a little bit of time doing laps in the back yard in an effort to work the sugar and excitement out of the kids. They were out like lights in no time flat. Just another day at the circus!

And, as if they needed more sugar, my mom made cupcakes first thing in the morning.

And of course, she let the kids help "decorate".

They didn't seem to mind!

  

And then we got to do the whole "sugar-high, sugar-low" thing all over again!

Breakfast In Bed

I was awoken at 7:10 this morning (when Leeann has a day off of school, mind you) to Leeann telling me she had a surprise for me.

Without even opening my eyes (I was afraid if I opened them I wouldn't be able to shut them again and a whole day where I would be able to sleep in would have been wasted) I told her I wasn't ready for my surprise yet and that I wanted to sleep in a little more first.

I heard Titus whisper, "Just put it in the fridge, Leeann." In that moment I almost felt bad for 'ruining' the suprise by not getting up and eating breakfast, but I just couldn't bring myself to open my eyes so early on a free morning.

Soon the kids came back up and asked if they could get breakfast and watch a movie. I, of course, said yes, and snuggled back into my blankets.

Then, 9:45 came around (I know, I'm so pathetic) and Leeann asked me if I was ready for my surprise yet. She brought up a shoe box lid covered in a hand towel with a bowl of cereal resting in the middle. I thanked her profusely for her thoughtfulness then I politely asked if she wouldn't mind making a fresh bowl since cereal gets soggy in the fridge.

She happily obliged and bounced downstairs to pour me a fresh bowl of cereal.

It was the best cereal I've ever eaten. Except for maybe the last time she brought me breakfast in bed, when she was 2 years-old and Titus had just recently come home from the hospital.

Have I mentioned lately, that I love my sweet daughter to bits and pieces?

My Birthday "Tea" Party

My 29th Birthday was a few weeks ago. This year it happened to fall on a Wednesday. Wednesdays are impossibly busy days for our family, so Rob planned a dinner out with some friends over the following weekend, but we didn't have anything special planned for the actual day of my Birthday.

On the way home from picking Leeann and her friend, Alex, up from school she started quizzing me about the party I would be having that night. I told her we weren't having a party, but she wouldn't stand for such an injustice!

She told me that we could skip Kidstruction and she'd throw me a party (as if parties take 5 minutes to plan and execute!). Titus said he didn't want to miss Kidstruction but asked us to save him some cake!

As we pulled into the driveway Leeann asked if she could call Rob to see if she could do something special. Before long, plans were being put into motion for a secret something. All I knew is that I needed to wear a dress.

After fighting the need to wear a dress (settling on a skirt that didn't even match my shirt), and waiting curiously upstairs for Rob and the kids to finish the surprise they were working on, I was called down stairs.

And there, much to my surprise, Leeann had arranged a "tea" party so that my special day wouldn't pass by without a party. Rob helped her make some white hot chocolate and she set out her tiny tea set and dressed up in her very best.

She even gave me the yellow cup, since she knew it was my favorite color. The hot cocoa was delicious and the company was amazing. The party planner/hostess was the high-light of the party though. It was such a thoughtful gesture from a sweet 7 year-old girl. And if you ask me, it was a well executed party on such short notice!

Snow Day!

We woke up this morning to a decent dusting of snow, then we had some huge beautiful flakes that started piling up on the ground. I kept watching the school reports, waiting for our district to cancel school, but they never did.

So I sent a disappointed Leeann off to school and came back and dug through our snow gear so Titus could go play outside. He ended up having to wear pink Hello Kitty boots, because that's what we had in his size, but he didn't mind so much if it meant he got to go play in the snow!

He could have played all day, but I didn't have snow gear on so I didn't last long. We came inside for some warm tomato soup and played some Wii games together.

Here's to hoping there's at least enough snow when Leeann gets off of school for her to play in a little bit. If the status of my facebook friends is indicative of the rest of the district, I'm going to guess about half of the parents declared it a snow day anyway, so I'm pretty sure today was an uneventful day for her at school.

I'm still holding out hope that tomorrow will end up being a real, "official" snow day. You know, one of those days where I don't have to get out of bed so early?

Valentine's Day!

Rob and Leeann went out on a Valentine's Day date at a little cafe in Corvallis. They enjoyed some gellato and warm drinks together. 

She made me promise this morning, that she could come home after school and change into her prettiest dress before her much anticipated date with her daddy. 

Titus took me to Red Robin! We played some tic-tac-toe and had some great conversation... like why animals have babies even though they don't get married!

He did the ordering for us, confidently and with precision, and paid for the bill!

And he got a tummy ache from eating a little too much mile-high mud pie!

I can't get enough of this kid! He's a great Valentine!

Rob and I both enjoyed our dates with our kiddos today. We don't celebrate Valentine's Day like normal people do. Instead, we take our kids out, in hopes of showing them our love and teaching them how to be great dates themselves someday. You can read about it my latest blog post over at Real Life Pastor's Wife. 

SOCK WAR!!!!

After a little bit of wrestling tonight (my kids love to wrestle with us on our bed), I taught my kids not one, but two bad habits!

First I taught them the "Don't hit yourself" game. Ooooo, that was fun... for me anyway! But, pretty soon they started making each other hit themselves-- I quickly began to regret teaching them that game.

So I decided to switch to something a little more wholesome? A little less violent? A little lot more fun! We had a full on, all out SOCK WAR!

It was inspired by, well, the pile of socks at the end of my bed that needed to be folded. We mated all the socks then started pelting each other with them. I have a feeling I might be finding random pairs of socks stuck in all sorts of crazy places in my room over the next couple of days.

Rob's at a meeting tonight, so he missed out on this particular bit of fun. But the kids and I had a blast. And, now, all the socks are folded!

Where oh where did January go?

January came and went in a flash. I'm not sure I stopped to breathe for more than a few minutes during the entire month. It's all kind of a blur!

I quit my job at the church at the end of December and started a job nannying just 3 days later. My nanny duties are temporary, just until the middle of March, but it encompasses 3 full days out of any given week. So, the reality is, I'm working even more hours than I was working before. People keep asking me if I'm enjoying all my new found spare time since I'm not working anymore. I just laugh!

Spare what? Time. Shoot, what time is it? What did I forget? Am I late for something?

That's about how my mind has been functioning lately.

In January we also got some lessons from the school of hard knocks. In the nearly 3 years that we've been landlords we've had relatively few problems with our rental and/or renters. In the last 3 months we've had nothing but problems however. We've become very familiar with rent law and court proceedings lately!

The good news is that I got to spend a couple of days helping my dad (a very, very handy handy-man) fix the damage done to our home so our new renters could move in. There's always a bright side, right?

More than ever I wish the condo would sell so we can be back down to one mortgage! Now that we have  new renters in the other house though, we likely wouldn't move back in there until it becomes vacant again. It would be nice to know that we could move back in when it does become vacant though.

Initially, our adventures in condo dwelling were supposed to be a very, very short term adventure. Then the economy started to collapse, real estate prices plummeted, yada, yada, yada. So here we are... still in the condo. We're actually officially listing on the market today. I would be delighted if it would sell... soon!

But, this also means that I have to be prepared to have someone stop by on 1 hours notice at any point. That, folks, is my least favorite part of having my condo on the market!

Remember me talking about how little time I've had to breathe lately? Try breathing, and keeping the house in show-worthy condition! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

In other news, I still haven't blogged much of anything besides our trip to Disneyland for the past few months. I have yet to post about Christmas, but I finally finished Titus's Birthday post (yes, his birthday was 2 months ago for those keeping track at home!). The worst part is, it was already 95% done, I just needed to finish up his interview.

I have stayed pretty busy keeping up on my Real Life Pastor's Wife blog though. I've been posting lots of green smoothie recipes this month, and recently blogged about Leeann's wildly successful coffee shop last weekend where she raised lots of money for our local pregnancy resource center.

You should hop on over and ready about Leeann's fundraising effort. It's an inspiring story of a sweet faith-filled little girl!

It's a beautiful day?

My kids begged me to go outside today. You know, since it's actually sunny and all? So, they got all bundled up, in hats, gloves, scarves and jackets, they're playing on our tiny back porch with bubbles as if it's 80 degrees outside! It is 51 degrees out, which isn't too bad, but Titus honestly asked me if he could get his swim trunks on and go play in the sprinkler. I think these two are beyond ready for some warmer weather!

2010 Christmas Letter

The year of 2010 was yet another wonderful year for the Buhl family! I’ll recap some of our high-lights in this officially unofficial Christmas letter! Never mind the fact that Christmas has already come and gone...

While the majority of the year consisted of just the four of us, we had the opportunity not once, but twice, to open our home to foster kids. In February we fostered a 3 week-old baby, baby Smith, for 10 days while his adoptive family finalized some paper work so they could take him home. In June we welcomed a pregnant 15 year-old girl, Abby into our home. She spent nearly 2 months with us before she returned home. On the 1st of December, she welcomed her son, Wesley into the world! Mom and baby are both doing well. The most ironic part of our having provided foster care for 4 kids in the last year and a half is that while we are certified, we’ve never actually been on an active list to receive foster kids. Apparently God’s plans are different than ours!

After a year of transition, Rob officially became the Lead Pastor at North Albany Community Church at the beginning of 2010. He started working at NACC in 2002 as the Youth Pastor, and then took an Associate Pastor position in 2006. We have very much enjoyed being part of such a wonderful church family and we are hopeful that we will be able to call Albany home for a very long time!

This was a big year for Rob. Last Christmas I gave him the gift of a half-marathon. He trained for several months and ran the Vernonia half-marathon in April. Despite the snow, wind and rain he finished in less than two hours! I asked him if he wanted me to give him the gift of a full-marathon for Christmas this year. He respectfully declined.

I have continued to enjoy working part-time as the Children’s Ministry Director at NACC, as I have done since 2006. The end of 2010, however, will mark the end of my time officially serving in this capacity. I am excitedly looking forward to primarily being a stay-at-home mom, and to serving Rob more fully as his responsibilities are far greater in his new role.

My high-light for the year was a 10 day “Mommycation” to New Jersey/New York/Pennsylvania where I got to spend some time with SaraJane, a friend of mine from college. Rob did a wonderful job being both mommy and daddy while I visited Amish country, toured Ground Zero, enjoyed a breath-taking view from the Empire State Building, and enjoyed many other New York City sites. On that trip I also got to meet Mike Huckabee, and attend a taping of the Huckabee Show. It was definitely a trip to remember, and a much needed time of rest and relaxation for me!

One of my other high-lights for the year was getting to meet a blogger, cook, author and photographer that I have learned a great deal from. I got to meet The Pioneer Woman at a book signing this Spring!

Leeann turned 7 years old this summer. She continues to be a compassionate, sensitive, helpful, sweet, caring little girl. She loves Tinker Bell, Polly Pockets and all things purple!

Leeann opened up her own seasonal coffee shop this summer. During the four days her coffee shop was open this year she earned enough money to purchase her very own Nintendo DSi XL! We are very proud of her hard work, diligence, saving, and patience. And we are grateful to all of her generous patrons who helped us teach her some very valuable lessons and life skills!

Leeann started first grade at a new school this year. She got an opportunity to be part of a dual immersion program, which is a pilot program in our district. She spends every other day learning all of her school subjects entirely in Spanish. If she continues to do well in this program she should be testing at or above grade level in English and Spanish by the time she completes 5th grade. She’s doing well so far. We are very impressed by how much Spanish she has picked up in just a few short months!

Titus turned 5 a few short weeks ago, and he’s nothing short of an absolute character! He is such a funny kid—a party waiting for a place to happen! He is constantly laughing, chattering, smiling and making new friends. He loves all things Lego and Starwars. And for obvious reasons he has a special place in his heart for anything Lego Starwars!

The high-light of his year was fighting Darth Vader at the Jedi Training Academy during our recent trip to Disneyland. I think it’s pretty safe to say that our trip to Disneyland was probably the high-light of the year for our family! We enjoyed 5 days at the Happiest Place on Earth at the beginning of December. This year, our 17 year-old niece, KayLee, got to join us. We enjoyed getting to spend some quality time with her, and we also thoroughly enjoyed getting to build a whole host of great family memories!

An overview of 2010 wouldn’t be complete without a nod to our becoming debt free. We turned a corner in our finances that we will never round again. Fourteen months after we set out to attack our debt with a vengeance we freed ourselves (due to God’s incredible provision) from $25,000 dollars in medical bills and student loans. We are committed to living our lives debt free and to being good stewards of what God has trusted us with, regardless of how much, or how little.

The feeling of freedom we felt getting out from underneath the burden of our debt is surpassed only by the feeling of freedom we feel by being free from our sins thanks to the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He is the one who took our sins upon himself so that we can live for eternity in the presence of God. I can’t think of a greater gift this Christmas, or a greater reason to celebrate during this season and every season!

From our house to yours, Merry Christmas!


Robyn


p.s. You can keep up with us all year long on this blog http://www.visitrobynsnest.blogspot.com/. This is where we post family memories. It's essentially an on-line scrap book that we get to share with our friends and family.
 
If you are interested, you can also visit my other blog Real Life Pastor's Wife http://www.reallifepastorswife.blogspot.com/. This is where I post non-family related things such as musings, commentary, recipes, hair-styles and such.

A Christmas Eve To Remember!

Something interesting happens when you end up unexpectedly spending your Christmas vacation in a hotel.

You slow down. Or at least I did! Not by choice, but by force.

Yesterday we were well on our way to visit Rob’s family in the Seattle area for Christmas when Titus started throwing up in the car. At first we chalked it up to motion sickness because this seems to be happening quite often lately. We didn’t want to turn around and drive three hours back home only to find out that it was another bought of car-sickness.

But, just in case it wasn’t, we didn’t want to ‘bless’ Rob’s family with whatever it is that he has, so we decided to just go ahead and get a hotel and wait it out, hoping that we’d end up getting to see his family for Christmas after all.

So, we settled into a nice little hotel overlooking a golf course and enjoyed a quiet evening, just the four of us. The kids built a fort that they slept in and Rob and I spent the evening watching The Princess Bride (which, I confess, I’d never seen).

As much as I was really looking forward to seeing family, it was strangely nice to slow down and breathe a little. It, in some ways, is nicer than being at home because at home I have a never ending list of projects to do, and I’d want to bake and cook a nice Christmas dinner. Here, at the hotel, I have nothing to do other than hang out with my family. I am a little bummed that I’m missing out on yummy Christmas food though!

Rob and Leeann went over to his sister Shelly’s tonight to enjoy a Christmas Eve celebration with his family. Titus and I are enjoying a dinner of saltine crackers and an episode of Winnie the Pooh.

Titus is really, really bummed that he doesn’t get to play with his cousins. We were already scheduled to have an exceptionally short trip since Rob has to be back to preach on Sunday. But now, he’ll be lucky if he gets to see them for just a few short hours tomorrow. I am hopeful we’ll get to join them tomorrow since it’s been almost 10 hours since he last threw up and he’s actually kept quite a bit of food down today.

It’s really hard explaining to a kiddo that they’re still contagious even if they feel better. I can’t even begin to count how many times I’ve had to try to explain to him why we can’t go to Aunt Shelly’s tonight.

This will undoubtedly go down as a Christmas Eve to remember!

The fort the kids made to sleep in.

I, personally, would have chosen the comfy bed, but apparently, this is what memories are made of!

Since Titus and I are chilling at the hotel by ourselves on Christmas Eve, we decided to make a date of the 6 pm fresh cookie time!

Yummm, cookies! And Starwars talk.

And silliness. And apple cider!

And this was him slyly asking, "May I have another one?"

With a look like that I said, of course you can have another one, after all, it's Christmas! Here's to hoping that decision doesn't come back to haunt me!

Disneyland! 12/13 & 12/14

Our final day came and went so quickly! We got to Disneyland around 7:30 and headed straight to the Matterhorn when the gates opened at 8:00. We got right on then headed over to Small World where we got right on as well (there had been probably an hour + line all day the day before). We got off Small World at 8:30 and headed to the Princess Fantasy Fair where we waited only a few minutes to see three delightful princesses!

I loved seeing how much he grew next the Soarin' Over California height stick, so I decided to take this one against the Indiana Jones requirements. We'll see how long it takes him to get there!

We decided to catch the Jedi Training Academy one last time. Really, the show doesn't change but the kids can't get enough of it! Leeann was chosen to train again, much to Titus's dismay. After they said they had all of the Padawan's they needed Titus turned around and buried his head into my shoulder and tried not to cry.

 We got lucky and saw both Woody and Jessie together!

On our way back to the hotel Leeann squealed from the back seat that Titus had licked her. When I asked him why he licked her he just said, "Because she was right next to me!"

Daily Recap:

Matterhorn
Small World
Fantasy Fair
Pirates of the Caribbean
Haunted Mansion
Splash Mountain
Tiana's Jazz Show
Thunder Mountain Railroad
Indiana Jones (Rob, KayLee and Leeann)
Indiana Jones (Rob and KayLee)
Jungle Cruise (Robyn and Titus)
Tarzan's Treehouse
Billy Hill and the Hillbillies
Tom Sawyer's Island--Pirates Lair
Jedi Training Academy
Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln

The Drive Home

 The drive home was pretty long, boring and relatively uneventful.

We left at 5:15 in the morning. Unfortunately it took us an hour and fifteen minutes to go those first 31 miles. What's even more unfortunate is that the stop and go traffic made Titus throw up in the backseat. What is fortunate however, is the fact that I grabbed a couple of hotel plastic cups that I was able to give to Titus before he lost the banana I'd just given him to tide him over until we stopped for breakfast.

Ironically we stopped at the same place for lunch (Quizznos) that we had stopped for dinner on the way down. And we stopped at the same place for dinner (In & Out) that we'd stopped at for lunch on the way down. At the exact same locations even!

Some how the drive seems so much longer when you are driving away from Disneyland than when you're driving toward it!

We got home about midnight and were greeted by a house that was just over 50 degrees inside and a broken furnace. We left all of our stuff on the floor and we all crawled into our warm beds as quickly as can be. Lucky for us we have a lot of really warm blankets handy that were made by Rob's Grandma. I think we may have used every one of them that night!

And, no need to worry, we got the furnace repaired by the next evening. I am incredibly grateful for living in a home with heat!

I can't believe our time there is already over. It was such a great trip, and such a relaxing time for all of us. It was great to build family memories, and to get to spend some quality time with our sweet niece!

I'm so ready to go back already!