Just a few more pictures
of the Thomas clan

Kenny recently bought the Rock Band video game, which comes with a guitar, drums and microphone. Logan is seen here using Kenny's old guitar to show me he knows how to play, too.

Kenny and Kate after watching Survivor on Friday night.

Kate and Lily on the cable car in Germany. Lily loves her pacifier. She is wearing her new coat and mittens and the Easter bonnet I brought for her. You can see the town of Garmisch in the background.

See you all soon.

Greetings from England!

My trip to England to visit Kate and her family has been going great. Below is Logan (17 mo.) pushing his Red Devil vacuum. It is one of his favorite toys.

Logan also owns a small doll stroller so Lily (4.5 mo.) got in for a ride. She is a little big for the seat but Logan had fun pushing her around a little. She has also outgrown her infant carseat so she will be graduating to the bigger one this week.

Before I arrived, Kate had planned a trip to Germany for the two of us (and Lily, of course). We left Sunday morning early (4 a.m.) to drive to Dover to catch the 8 a.m. ferry (NorfolkLine). With the time difference in Europe we arrived in Dunkerque, France at about 10:30 a.m. We drove through France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany making the trip a total of 17 hours. Whew, that is a lot of driving for one person (Kate did all the driving). We arrived at the resort lodge about 10:30 p.m. local time. It is a military-run facility so Kate had me pre-registered to get on the "base." The lodge was the most wonderful place I have ever stayed.

The next morning we slept in a little and then headed out to see the Newschwanstein Castle (about 37 miles away but over an hour's drive through mountains). We passed into Austria and then passed back into Germany to get to the museum. We could see the castle in the distance and it was fortunate that I took this picture because by the time we reached the castle for the tour my batteries had died. I didn't have any extras and didn't want to spend the Euros at a tourist trap vendor. Since the climb by foot is very strenuous, Kate and I decided to hire the horse and carriage ride up and down. Below is our German driver. Great hat, huh?

The next morning we decided to ride a cable car up one of the Hausberg Mountain and to look at some lakes at altitudes of 2,500-3,500 feet above sea level. The cable car was scary! It was a lot like riding a roller coaster and I really don't like that. I lived through it; after all, Lily wasn't scared. Behind Lily and I is the lift for the skiers to ascend the mountain further so they could come down on skis. My friends, Donnie & Karyn and Eric, Ness, Ava and Eli skied on that slope in December. I couldn't do that!!! The temperature at that location was zero degrees celcius. The lake I pictured is Eibsee. It was still mostly frozen. We froze just looking at it.

This is just a picture from the car; don't remember where. As you can see it isn't spring in Germany yet. Not a tree was budding. There were little purple flowers (like we get spring violets early) out at the castle but that was it. We also didn't see any animals in Germany. Where were they?

Before we left the lodge on Wednesday morning Kate wanted a picture of Lily in one of the rocking chairs in front of the lobby fireplace. Logan had had his picture taken there last summer when Kate and Kenny visited the lodge for dinner during their Europe trip. Isn't she cute? She had been asleep three minutes before the picture but we woke her for the picture and she was in a good mood.

I will return to the States on Sunday. Have a good weekend. I love you all.

Happy March!

Well, the sickness continues around here. Joey was sick for nine days with the flu and now William and Valerie have it. The worst part is the sore throat. All of us have been achy and had a high fever. Valerie visited the doctor yesterday to make sure she didn't have strep. She doesn't. My dad emailed and said he has been sick with the flu this past week. I think even Kate had it a few weeks ago. Hers developed in pneumonia.

Drew has been busy covering sectional boys' basketball for Daleville and Highland High School (Class 4A) for The Chesterfield Weekly. Shenandoah (Class 2A) was eliminated in the first round as was Highland. Daleville will play in the finals tonight for Class A. They just barely beat Liberty Christian of Anderson last night.

I am busy planning in my head all that I need to pack to go to England in a few days; I leave Thursday morning. My first flight will be from Indy to Chicago at 12:50 p.m. I will then travel to New York's JFK at 2:10 p.m. I will leave JFK for Stansted Airport at 7:45 p.m. I usually travel nonstop from Chicago to London's Heathrow Airport but American Airlines is now offering a direct flight to Stansted, which is only about 45 minutes from Kate (Heathrow is about 2.5 hours away and I usually ride the tube for two hours and then ride home with Kate for another hour). I won't have to ride the tube or navigate through London. It will save Kate about 15 minutes on her drive to get me at the tube station in Epping. Unfortunately the flight to Stansted only originates on the east coast so it means two continental flights. On the way home I will travel from JFK to St. Louis and then on to Indy. I will return on Sunday, March 16.

Kate and I plan to take a four day trip to Germany by van. We will stay at a military-run ski resort. We may take a day trip to Venice (only four hours by car) if we are up to it. Kate hopes to be able to show me the castle used as the model for the icon castle at Disney World.

Kate reported this week Lily rolled over for the first time. She is about to outgrow her infant carseat, too. Logan is starting to use words—juice for one—but still can't decide if he wants milk or juice. He wants both.

Matthew emailed me this week by typing in his first name. He wrote to Joey and put JoeyCooper. He really enjoys his daycare school. It is helping him to come out of his shell a little and he is beginning to interact with a few friends.

The music director at church asked me to play my viola for the Easter services. I reluctantly agreed after I checked to see if my viola would function. It has been 18 years since I played it. When I opened the case, the shoulder pad had mushified. It was foam but it felt like the Stretch Armstrong man the kids had years ago. It was stuck to the neck of my viola, too. I was able to clean it off with rubbing alcohol without ruining the finish. So, I had to rig up a shoulder pad with a rag and rubber band. It worked ok. The director prepared a schedule to play on some of the Sundays before Easter as well. I played last week. Afterwards I was very sore. Now I remember why I don't play. I think maybe I will try to look for a new shoulder rest and maybe some new strings if I am going to play much more. I have a hard time making the viola sound good. I think the strings are dead. Some of my friends were very nice and complimented my playing. I was ok but I wasn't great. I do enjoy playing, though.

I guess I can't think of any pictures to post so you will just have to look on flickr this week. I can't put photos from my iPhone email into iPhoto (the email program downsizes them for screen use) so I just email them straight to flickr. Oh well, at least you can see them that way.

Have a good couple weeks and I will write when I get home from England. Love to you all.

One More Thing!!

I remembered after I posted this afternoon that Bobbe had some other really good news this week. She was offered (and has accepted) a Post Doctoral job at the University of Minnesota beginning in the fall. The plan right now is that she and Justin will move to St. Paul or Minneapolis sometime at the end of May with Matthew (of course). They plan to travel north during spring break to scout the area. Congratulations, Bobbe. More info to follow as I find out.

Just Some Stuff!

Audrey sitting on the couch one Wednesday while we were babysitting her and Addison.

Addison watching Sue make brownies. She is sitting in the chair that hangs from the table.

Issues 1 & 2 of The Chesterfield Weekly

Joey and Drew have recently started a new newspaper in the neighboring town of Chesterfield. The news articles include items from the town of Daleville as well. Chesterfield is in Madison County (Anderson's county) and Daleville is in Delaware County (Muncie's county). Most of Chesterfield is on the west side of Interstate 69 while Daleville is on the east side. Chesterfield no longer has any schools as the kids are bused to Anderson. Daleville on the other hand has local schools with sports programs. Their residents have been extremely excited to see coverage of their sports. Drew recently covered the Daleville girls' basketball sectional. They are in a different class from Shenandoah (Middletown's school) so there is no competition between the school districts.

The town council of Chesterfield contacted Drew to find out if he would print a newspaper as a print job to get the local news to the residents. An informatinal meeting was held with Drew and Joey, the town council and some business people from Chesterfield. Interest seemed to be great and the advertising seemed to be there so The Chesterfield Weekly newspaper was born. The papers are distributed freely at about 25 local newsstand sites in and around Chesterfield and Daleville. Local businesses and the Daleville schools also have the papers for distribution. The paper is printed at the same time as The Middletown News as if it were an inserted section to that paper but then isn't inserted. Michael picks up both the papers at the same time on Wednesday morning. During the afternoon, he and Drew distribute the papers to the newsstand sites.

As long as we are making money on the project it will go forward. At this time there is no plan to mail the papers to subscribers.


On another note, I was sick for ten days during the last two weeks. I came down with the flu as well as having some other physical problems. I was really stressed out about the physical problems and changed my diet. That contributed to my being very weak. I had convinced myself that I had systemic candida. To get rid of the condition one needs to stay off all sugar, yeast and wheat. Well, just about everything I eat or own in the house has one of those items. I became weaker. Then I decided to just stay off sugar. That didn't help either. I guess I will have to go back to eating whatever and not worrying about my physical problems.

I have also been stressed by a decision Drew and I made to allow Valerie to attend public school this fall and have William begin in 2009 (as a freshman). She will be in sixth grade (middle school starts) and we decided it would be a good time for her to start at Shenandoah instead of keeping her home by herself. We plan to keep William home one more year by himself so he can continue to increase his reading and math skills. What he really needs is to be an apprentice at Mounds State Park where he can be outside all of the time. Time will tell what will happen with him. The decision is hard on me as it will change my whole life. Schooling at home has been a lifestyle for our family much more than just an 8-3 part of our schedule. I will miss it terribly and it is coming to an end sooner than I thought. I guess I will get over the grieving as I have had to do with realizing I'm not having any more children.

Keep well. I love you all and hope to be back next week.

Oh, I just remembered, Bobbe sent me pictures of her new engagement ring last night.
Here it is with a sapphire and two diamonds!

Cold Groundhog Day!!

Recently our friends, Karyn and Donnie, came over to play the Wii video games with Drew and I. In these two photos you can see Donnie and Drew "boxing." We also played tennis, bowling, dodge ball and golf.

I like the bowling better than the golf. My score was 222 the other day. The golf can be really frustrating because one missed stroke can cause the score to skyrocket quickly.

Kate recently sent some photos of Lily and Logan. Lily is over 15 pounds. Look how reddish her hair looks. This past week Kate visited the emergency room a couple of times and was finally diagnosed with pneumonia. After having a few bags of IV pumped in and taking in some antibiotics, she is feeling better. Fortunately Kenny had Monday through Wednesday off work and then he also stayed home Thursday to help take care of the kids while Kate slept.

The twins turned six months old this week. Audrey is over 12 pounds and Addison is over 11 pounds. Grandpa Drew and Valerie have done some babysitting this week. Drew says that he makes one cry so that Valerie can get her to stop. And the cycle continues.

Hannah's junior varsity basketball season has come to an end. She had lots of playing time and her skills improved greatly. During the first few games she had a three point shot in each. Later on she became an invaluable defensive player. In that capacity she didn't score many points. We had fun traveling around and watching her play. The varsity will go into the sectional this week.

Michael and Valerie had sickness this week; some kind of flu and cough.

William has been in heaven shoveling snow and spreading salt to melt the ice.

For the last few Sunday evenings, PBS has been showing Jane Austen movies on Masterpiece Theatre. I have taped a couple because I attend a Bible study at church during the same time. "Mansfield Park" was last week's movie. I especially enjoyed it because the setting was in Bath, England, where I visited last May with Kate and some friends. I saw places I had walked and visited. I am looking forward to seeing the other movies to see where they are set.

Christmasy Pictures

I am not feeling great today so I just uploaded some photos from Christmas time and put captions. Also, be sure to watch your The Middletown News January 24 issue for a full page pictorial article from Joey about the twins (page A-7).

A large church was added to my "Christmas Village" collection. Thanks Kim!

Grandma Sue with Addison and Audrey.

Bobbe holding Matthew, Justin and Valerie on Christmas morning. Bobbe and Justin are planning a May 3rd wedding in Athens, GA. She defended her doctoral paper this last Wednesday so just has to find a job before she graduates in May. In May, Justin will also finish his masters degree in managing non profits.

Cousins Audrey, Lucy and Addison on Christmas morning.

Andy reading to Matthew and Jonah before bed one night.

Valerie holding Lucy—Lucy biting Hannah's finger.

Justin holding Audrey while she waits for her bottle to warm. She has her bib on and is ready.

Matthew getting ready to "shoot for pop" at a basketball game at Shenandoah.

Pre-Christmas Stuff

Here is a picture of how I displayed my Christmas books and videos this year. Usually I put them on the front hall table with the nativities but I have acquired so many nativities in the past few years, I needed to find a different solution. I remembered that when I was selling Usborne books I had a book rack. Well, it ended up being overly full so maybe I will have to buy another rack by next year.

One night in December we took the twins to the basketball game at Shenandoah. Drew is holding Addison while Joey is holding Audrey. It was early in the month but they had so many Christmasy outfits that they wore them all month just to make sure the clothes got used.

Coming from Athens, GA, Bobbe, Justin and Matthew arrived on Sunday night, December 16 to stay with us until the day after Christmas. I don't have a photo with Bobbe and Justin until after Christmas so you will have to wait to see them. Here is a photo of Michael after he and Matthew fixed grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. Matthew sat on the stool for a better view of the process while Michael did the cooking. This meal is a favorite of Matthew's as he doesn't have it at home.

Hannah, William, Valerie and Matthew in a "pyramid" on the futon.

During communion one Sunday our pastor decided to relate the gift of communion with his sermon and he passed out these compact, one-piece communion packets. The "bread" is under the top foil cover. The "wine" is under the next foil cover. By the way, it tasted really badly. Drew didn't partake but instead kept his to take home as an oddity. Well, here it is.

Jonah will celebrate his birthday with a party in Lafayette tomorrow (Saturday) so I posted today (Friday) because I plan on attending his party at my scheduled posting time. I also updated some of my lists to the right. See you next week and maybe we will get out of 2007.

November and Early December

We had some early snow in November so Valerie and William were busy playing and shoveling. Valerie built this little snowman and brought it in the News office to show me. William spent many hours shoveling the snow for us as well as most of the downtown area. He loves to shovel (and sweep).

Hannah has been babysitting for the twins. They often dress alike but we can tell them apart as they aren't identical. Addison had developed a hernia so she went in for surgery the first week of December. The doctor also repaired her belly button hernia. Audrey continues to have her belly button hernia but it is getting smaller; the doctors say many preemies have them and they generally go away by age two. Audrey is on the left.

Drew and I decided we needed to replace the 17-year-old faucet in the bathroom. As these projects seem to always go, we ended up doing much more. I said if we got a new faucet I thought we should also get a new sink because it was un-cleanable. Since the job we envisioned for the bathroom seemed to be more than a one day job, and would mean we had no sink at all, we decided we had to replace the laundry tub, too, so we would have an acceptable place to temporarily brush our teeth. Sooo, we have a new laundry tub & faucet and a new bathroom sink & faucet. By the way, neither job even took a whole day. Thanks, Drew!

Here is Drew holding the twins during one of our babysitting nights. Since Carrie (their mommy) works 3-11 p.m. each weekday at the hospital, their relatives and friends have been assigned certain days to babysit. Our family babysits them every Wednesday afternoon and Joey (their father) usually eats dinner with us, too. Joey keeps the girls each evening from 5-11:30 p.m. On Wednesdays he is on call for the ambulance and can't keep the girls until after 6 p.m. If he gets a run after 5 p.m. he is usually gone until around 7 so he needs us to be available. Usually the girls stay at their own house with relatives and friends but on Wednesdays they come to our house. We have lots of helpers (Michael, Hannah, William and Valerie and of course Drew). That way, even if one or two of us are busy, someone can be here with them. We have lots of fun. Addison is on the left.

Some Wednesday evenings, the kids, Joey, and Drew get together and play a game. They went through a season of playing an old game from Drew's childhood, Hit the Beach. They also like to play Stratego, euchre, and now the Wii (oh, that is for the blog entry for Christmas).

Valerie bought a gingerbread house kit and built it all herself this year. She took this close-up picture of it when she was done. Next week I will tell about Christmas and we will be closer to catching up with real time. Talk to you next time.

I'm Back!!

Well, as you have probably guessed, I returned from my visit with Kate and her family but I didn't keep you posted on my whereabouts. Life has gotten in the way of blogging but I have made a new resolution to blog and add pictures every Saturday afternoon at 1 o'clock. We'll see how that goes.

I am going to jump back in time and catch you up on the trip to England and then slowly wend my way into the present.

Logan in his bee Halloween costume. He put it on after Halloween to show me what he wore. He even had his jammies on under the costume the night of the candy giveaway. Kate said he didn't trick or treat but he helped to hand out candy.

Logan and Lily posed for me on the couch. Logan was really happy to be holding the TV remote. It is one of his favorite banned toys.

Kenny, Kate and Logan posed for me before Logan went off to bed.

Lily posed, too. She was in her carseat inside her pack 'n play.

One day we took the kids to the indoor playground. Logan especially liked the mirror.

Lily went to bed wrapped up like a little burrito. By having her hands down at her side she slept better; she stayed warmer by having the blanket attached to her, too.

Kate and I didn't travel much this time but one night we decided to take a short trip the next day to Norwich (about 1.5 hours away to the east) and then go on to the coast and see the North Sea. Our plans changed as there was a surge wave coming toward that area of the coast the next morning. It actually was calmer that they predicted but there was flooding and the wave was about 6 feet tall. We did visit Norwich but not the coast; but it was very windy and cold. Above is a picture of the library in Norwich. You can see the reflection of the cathedral behind me. We visited the large indoor mall (they don't have many).

Logan feeding himself banana pieces and peanut butter sandwich bites.
Instead of a high chair he has a booster with a tray.




Kate and I installed this pot hanging rack while I was there. It wasn't easy but we did it.
I guess about a month later it fell down and Kenny had to re-attach it.




Before I went to Kate's I attended a home ec club meeting and we were taught how to make photo albums for Christmas. They fold out like origami and are really neat. While I was with Kate we made 15 more to give as gifts. Here are a few of the ones we made.




One morning Kate found Logan up on this chair; he hadn't been able to climb up on anything before, not even the couch.
What a growing boy.

Happy New Year!!! My hour is up so I will be back next Saturday.
Love you all.

I made it safely to England

The trip from home to Chicago took six hours:
*1.5 from home to the airport
*2.5 waiting in Indy for the plane
*2 hours on the plane (it should be an hour ride so I was mostly sitting on runways) (plus not able to count an hour's time change)

If I had booked the 9 o'clock flight leaving for London from Chicago, I would have missed it. Better to miss and take the next plane 2.5 hours later that evening than to spend the night in a hotel and catch the 9 a.m. plane the next morning and arrive in London in the late evening (11 p.m.) and not be able to take the Tube all the way to Epping where Kate will be waiting with children and a husband who should all be in bed (that happened in December 2006).

On the plane to London (a nine hour flight) I had an aisle seat with an empty seat next to me on the inside. That was really nice. I was so tired I didn't even wait for dinner (served at 1:30 a.m. Indy time; who eats that late?) and I went right to sleep with my Raider blanket and my stuffed dog as my pillow. I slept until the flight attendants served a breakfast of croissant, jelly, yogurt, juice, and tea with milk and sugar. We had about an hour to waste after breakfast before we landed. I had bought a Sudoku puzzle book, a crossword puzzle book, and a Popular Science magazine about food at Indy so I worked a few puzzles. Then I read about half of the magazine. It was really interesting about how flavors are detected and reproduced as synthetic. There was even a recipe for salsa using pears and strawberries in place of onions and tomatoes. I'll have to try that sometime.

The best part of my trip came when I got to Heathrow Airport and got through customs and found my luggage. I had arranged to call Kate so she could leave her base at the same time I was leaving the airport on the Tube (the underground subway). I whipped out my iPhone and just found Kate's number in my contacts and pushed on her cell number. In a couple rings I was talking to her without having to do anything special to make my phone work. YEAH!!!! That is just incredible. I can even connect to the Edge network (Internet) if I am willing to pay the data charges. Needless to say I'm not.

I have tried to connect my iPhone to a couple wi-fi networks-Kate's and Jennessa's-with no luck. Kate and Kenny can't figure out how to hook up their network. Eric and Jennessa couldn't remember their password. Soooo...Kate took me to the Bob Hope Center near home today where there is a wi-fi network and I checked my email while Logan played on the indoor playground.

Anyway, Logan has grown into a little boy (he is 13 months old and weighs 24 pounds). He hasn't done much talking yet during his short little life, but the first night I was here he copied me by saying "this." He won't say "mama" or "dada" or anything. He just babbles. He started walking about the time Lily was born (2.5 weeks ago) and is doing a great job. He can climb the stairs on his hands and knees and likes to empty the Tupperware cupboard.

Lily likes her pacifier. She sucks on it harder than The Simpson's' Maggie. She is a good sleeper as she sleeps most of the night and rarely cries, even during the day. She weighs over nine pounds and is wearing size one diapers already. She looks best in pink and looks not so good in purple. She is a spitter-upper and a burper.

Kenny has been working twelves for the last few days but has the next three days off. He and Kate recently moved to a new house so Kate and I have been organizing, hanging pictures and unpacking boxes. We have also been doing lots of child care and resting.

If I download pictures from my camera to Kate's computer, I will put pictures up before I get home. I did send a few pictures from my iPhone to Flickr this afternoon, so use the link on the left to get there.

I miss and love everyone at home. Have a good week.