Today we got our family pics taken by my good friend Robin Keilig.  It didn't take long, since we knew where we were going to go and do.  We also got new phones (it was time.  We had dinosaur phones).  We've been trying to get things organized so we can get ready to move.  As of right now, the moving truck will load up on the 18th.  We will leave on the 25th, and take early occupancy on the 27th.  I start on the 3rd at Wolf River LHS.  We're excited to make our new start, but will miss a lot of people in Nebraska.  

Daddy's Home!

This is the video I took of when Allen came home on Friday.  Cael had no idea, so it was fun to surprise him.  :)  We went to Red Mango (our favorite fro-yo place).  We got more than yogurt!  He's home to stay, this time!

A Pirate's Life for Me!

Here are just a few pics from our musical.  Nov. 9, 10, and 11.  It was my last at HLHS, and I will miss all of my kids.  I cried on Sunday before the show, but hopefully my eyes weren't too red when I did my introductions.  I don't have full cast pics yet.  I'll have to get those soon so I can make the collage.

Josiah and Josh

 Lady Pirates

 You need a flag like this.

 They're gone!

 Last song.

 My view by the spotlight.

Back from the North

This week, my sister, my mom, Cael and I went to Wisconsin to do some house hunting.  Cael and I didn't have school due to the Nebraska District's Lutheran Teachers' Conference, so it was a good time to go.  We stopped in Marshalltown, IA on the way up and back, since we have family there.  From Arapahoe, it's the half-way point, so I'm guessing they'll have a lot more traffic from this side of the family.  We arrived at our hotel Wednesday afternoon, and had supper at our favorite place (so far).  It was dark when we finished, but we still managed to find the house that we were going to start with in the morning.
Thursday morning, we met the realtor and started looking at possible homes.  The first few were not good.  I was thinking we were in for a repeat of August, when Allen and I looked and found absolutely nothing.  We found a house in the town where Cael's school and our church is.  It was at the top of our list until the Friday afternoon when we looked at the last house on the list.  Jackpot!  We will hopefully be bidding on Monday.  We're praying everything goes well.
Thursday night we had supper at my principal's home.  Cael got to play with his buddy again, and they both were super excited.  We had a nice time visiting.
Friday morning, I went to my new school to meet everyone, just so I wouldn't be going in "cold" in January.  Of course I'll be cold, but at least the kids will know who I am. :)
We got back today not too long after lunch.  It's good to be back, but I am excited to start something new.

Flag Football fall 2012

Cael's team won their first game on Saturday!

Cael's birthday pictures

 I usually try to take Cael's pictures around his birthday.  Last year was at Chadron State Park, this time was in Nebraska City during the Apple Jack Festival.  I think they turned out ok! :)  I'll put more on from the festival and his football game.

Labor Day weekend

Allen came back for Labor Day weekend, so we took the opportunity to introduce Cael to the Sea of Red- aka Memorial Stadium.  It was hot, but a great day for a Nebraska win.  I'm not sure Cael wants to go back too soon, since the game was long, and he couldn't change the channel.  He does, however, want a Husker room when we get our new house.  That's our boy. 

Time for an update

Well, it looks like we'll be in Wisconsin in January! Don't worry, we'll bleed Husker red forever, and we won't become Cheese Heads.  I can't promise we won't start talking with a weird accent, though.  We've been busy this month, and it will continue for a while, I'm afraid.  Allen, Cael, and I went to Wisconsin to check everything out.  Sorry, no pics.  I have no idea what I was thinking.  But I'm sure I will have plenty after the new year.  Probably pictures of snow.  I told my students this last week.  The freshmen were bummed, the seniors were sad I wouldn't be there for their last semester, the juniors were sad I wouldn't be there for their last year, but the sophomores are taking it the hardest.  At least one kid is claiming he's moving to Wisconsin with me.  At least I know they'll miss me.  Allen and I are just happy for a fresh start for our family.  While we were in Minneapolis during our last night, I was looking online at the Green Bay newspaper classifieds to get a feel for what Allen could be looking for in a job.  I found an incredible... no... THE job for Allen.  It's working for Goodwill Ind. as a Financial Wellness Coach.  For those of you who know Allen, this is PERFECT for him.  Education. Finance.  He lives for this stuff. When he worked for Thrivent, he was reprimanded for teaching about the financial products too much.  He loves teaching people about handling their money wisely. He sent in his resume, and out of 150 applications, he's in the top 15 that will be interviewed.  To quote a friend,  "Your Will be done, Lord, but pretty please???"  So now we're just waiting for an interview date.  PLUS, Allen could be getting out sooner than Christmas.  Thanksgiving, in fact.  Maybe sooner.  If he lands this job, we're hoping sooner.  He could be in Winsconsin before Cael and I.
By the way, Cael is ok with the whole moving thing.  For now, at least.  While we were there, my principal invited us to supper.  He has a son who is 6 and in 1st grade as well.  Cael and Ryan are now buddies, and can't wait to be in the same class together.
We're going to be in a great area for hunting and fishing, which Allen is stoked about.  Lots of trails for me to run on.  We're going to have to get Allen's hip fixed so he can run as well.  We saw something we've never seen before.  They have snowmobile crossing signs in town.  Never seen that before.  I'm sure we'll see lots more.

Long distance call

Yesterday I helped a wondeful family, the Olivers, load their belongings into an ABF trailer so they can move to Wisconsin.  Chuck has a call to the Lutheran High School in Milwaukee.  I'm very sad to see them go, however we might end up closer to them than we thought.
Right now I'm deliberating a call to a small high school in Wisconsin.  I put my name on the call list just to see what doors, if any, God would open up in that area.  I figured there would be no way I was getting a call this year, since it's so close to school starting.  And that's when God opened the door.  I received an email from the new principal on Monday last week.  I called him on Tuesday, had a phone interview that night, and by Friday, I was told that I officially will be receiving call papers.  Talk about a whirlwind!  Next weekend 9-12th, our family will head north to check out the whole situation.  If we go, it would probably be at semester.   Moving to Wisconsin in winter - not my idea of a great time, but it is what it is.  Allen and I are looking forward to the possibility of a fresh start after his medical discharge, which, by the way, we still have no idea when that will happen.  It might be December, it might be February or March, it might be June.  Who knows?  Yea.  Anyway, please keep our family in your prayers as we deliberate this call.

Boys. Snakes. Mud. Yep.

We went out to the Seim farm today with Robin.  Her brother, Jeff (one of my former students), is home for the summer from college.  Jeff is a zoology major and has a plethora of critters that his parents just looooove.  (not really). He was in the process of tanning a beaver hide, but took time to entertain Cael with his ball python and took him "hand fishing" in a pond that was really low.  This is Dr. Squeeze.  I sense a ball python in our future. 

 This is what little boys should look like - muddy and a big smile.

Not much

I would say that not much is going on around here, but we're keeping relatively busy, but nothing amazing.  Cael was in swimming lessons the last two weeks, and he absolutely loved them!  He didn't want to go at all, but after the first day, he was excited to go every time.  Last week he went to camp out at Stuhr Museum called "Puppet Theatre" and this week is "More Dirt."  He likes it out there and has been having a good (albeit hot) time.  While he's at Stuhr for 2 hours, I've gotten a chance to spend a chunk of time at school getting some things done.  I've also gotten back into working out at the YMCA, and cancelled my Snap membership.  The Y has an "express" and "studio" location uptown, which is nice, instead of having to go downtown.  There are classes at the studio, and I've been going as often as I can.  Zumba on Mondays, and BodyPump on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  TurboKick is after Pump.  Sometimes I stay, sometimes not.  I'm in love with BodyPump, though.  Lifting weights with awesome music, nice company, and amazing instructors = something I can really get into.  I've been trying to work on getting stronger, and it's just the thing for me.  I just ran the Color Run in Omaha, and next is the Prairie Sludge Trudge on August 4 out at Stuhr.  Derek is coming, as well as some family from Iowa.  We're turning it into a "Breinig Bunch" family run.  It should be fun.
Allen's paperwork is being signed by doctors, and he should get to sign it and have it sent off to Texas and Seattle this week.   It will be in TX 3-5 weeks (closer to 5) and hopefully the same in Seattle, except they're really backed up.  It could be a while, but we're hoping it gets through quickly.  If it goes through without being delayed, he could be home before Christmas.  It could be February.  Worst case scenario - May.  We're praying for sooner than that, though.  As long as he can get a good job around here, we'll be fine.

Color Run

I ran the Color Run in Omaha on Saturday.  Robin and Louisa came and watched.  It was so hot, there were ambulances going for most of the morning.  I'm not surprised.  It was pretty brutal.  Other than that, it was a pretty good race.  We ran through pink, blue, yellow, and green.  The color stations were full of people with squirt bottles spraying you with colored powder.  This is me before.

 There were 13,000 people that ran. This is the starting line.  My first picture of the actual race.  Thank you, Robin!

 I'm in there...somewhere.

 After.  My hair was orange, and my shirt was more colorful than you can see in the picture.

At the end, they get a bunch of people together and throw packets of the color powder so it makes a color cloud

4th of July in Seward

How did I miss 4th of July in Seward all these years?  It's the 4th of July city! Cael, Louisa (friend from college who lives in Omaha) and I braved the streets.  It felt like the rest of Nebraska was deserted, since there were so many people were there.  There are craft and food vendors all around the square, a pancake breakfast put on by St. John's, firefighter competition, pole vaulting competition, free movie, air show, book sale, concerts, a parade, huge fireworks show and lots, lots, lots more.  It's impossible to see it all, so we picked a few things off the schedule and went with it. (We saw all of the above things except for the air show.) It was so hot!  It was a challenge to keep us all hydrated, especially Cael. We went to the library for the books.  They were actually free, but you could give a donation, so I got some for my classroom, and Cael picked some up as well.  We took in the free movie, "The Lorax," got some lunch, and watched the parade at a Concordia professor's house.  I stood on the front steps with a few other teachers, and played the game of "how many people can we get to wave at us?" We were completely obnoxious.  It was lots of fun. :) LeAndra would have been cheering along with us, whereas Allen, would have been shaking his head at us.  Especially when we counted and cheered for the Czech Queens. ("One! One! Czech Queen! Ah Hah Hah!"  We got up to 5.:) After the parade, we went to the St. John's music director's house (Paul, friend of Robin) for a BBQ.  We met lots of people, and had some yummy food.  Around 8ish we went over to Luke's apartment (former student).  Luke's friends were awesome - they wrestled around and roughed Cael up.  He needs that, since Mom isn't the best one for that.  They were some pretty nice guys.  Around 9, we went over to Plum Creek Park for the fireworks show.  It started at 10, and it was pretty cool! It took us a while to get out of town, since everyone else was headed that way too, but we got home safely, and today is a rest day.  Cael doesn't seem to need it, but I took a nap!

Cael has been going to "Kinder Kamp" for the last couple of weeks at Stolley Park.  They play games, do a craft, and swim in the splash pool.  He's been having a pretty good time.  Next week, we start swimming lessons for 2 weeks, and then a couple of camps at Stuhr Museum.  We're keeping pretty busy by going to the pool, library, Red Mango :), and lots of things. I have a few weddings to attend, and a few more races coming up. Hope your summer is as fun as ours!  

Georgia 2012

We went to Georgia to see Allen since he's still at Fort Gordon.  Cael and I drove down like we did last summer, but this time we drove HIS car. :)  He finally has a car and some actual freedom.  We got to the Strom Thurmond lake 24 miles from Augusta where we rented a camper for the duration of our stay.  When I pulled up, I didn't think it looked too great.  I went in, and it was actually a really nice camper!  Cael had his own "room" on the opposite end as ours, we had a kitchen so we could cook, a grill, and a full bathroom with a tub and shower.  Plus, we were only about 10 seconds away from the bath house if we needed it.  We agreed that it was much better than a hotel room.

Saturday we went to the Farmers' Market and got our peaches.  I'm peeling Georgia peaches in Georgia. Yum!

On Father's Day, Allen took Cael fishing.  It didn't last too long, since the fish weren't biting where we were.

Cael liked Daddy to play in his "room" with him.

Cael was Dad's grilling helper.

This was our view from the camper.  It was a gorgeous area, and during the week, it was so peaceful. We could walk around and just listen to the birds and the water on the shore.

Monday, we went to Atlanta to the aquarium, which is the biggest one in the world.  It's the only place in the U.S. with whale sharks.  They have 4 of them, and the smallest is 24feet long.  They can grow up to 35feet long, but that's ok, because they can accommodate that.  Their indoor aquarium is the size of a football field without the endzones.  The glass is 2 feet thick.  They have "thousands and thousands" of creatures in there. We also went to the dolphin show, which Cael thought was pretty cool. (I think we all did.) There were around 6 different areas to the aquarium that you can explore.

That's a whale shark in the background.

Manta ray.

The touch pool.

We found a little cove that we took walks to in the evenings before supper. The boys liked to skip rocks, and Cael liked to stir up the mud to make "explodes." There were lots of cool shale rock formations.  The pictures don't do it justice.  The lake was actually quite beautiful.