The good the bad and the ugly of 2009. (Christmas Letter)

As usual, it has been a couple of months since my last blog. Since we are wrapping up the year 2009 I thought I would blog a Christmas letter of sorts to sum up our year. This is the 3rd year in a row I have not sent a mass mailing of Christmas cards and if anyone gets one, it will be late! Christmas seems to come faster every year and I get more behind with cards and gifts. Someday I hope to get back on top of this! :)

Disclaimer: Continue reading at your own risk. You may learn some things you didn't want to know. It's also incredibly LONG (like a book) so grab your coffee if you do wish to continue.

So 2009 is coming to an end. This year was quite a roller coaster ride for us. We rang in the new year with one of my worst fears. I finally learned the true meaning of the phrase "nit-picking". My fear of these things was a HUGE reason I did not want Austin attending school and lo and behold New Year's Eve, Austin comes to me scratching his head like a maniac! After inspections of the entire family, we found he had given "them" to his brother too. This miserable challenge took 3 weeks to get rid of! Problem solved. Just in time to welcome my mother for a visit with the expectant arrival of baby #3. A high point in the year! Or should I say the highest. In February we welcomed our baby girl who has been such a delightful addition to our family. Having a girl is such a different experience. They are so different from boys! In March, Teagan comes to me scratching and covered in red spots. My first reaction...chicken pox. But no, it wasn't. My next worst fear had come true. Another phrase I now know the full meaning of. Any guesses?
"Goodnight, sleep tight, don't let the _____ _____ bite." Are you kidding me, I thought? How can this be happening? I now know much more than I ever cared to know about those terrible bugs! Like where else they live (picture frames and wall corners) or that they can live an entire year without feeding. Yuk! And for anyone out there thinking I must never clean my house this has nothing to do with it or those other icky bugs mentioned earlier. And I do keep a very clean house! This problem resulted in having the house fumigated and every article of clothing in the house bagged and washed in hot water! All while in zombie mode with a newborn in the house. Between regular laundry, the extra from a newborn and all the rest it took nearly a month to get everything washed. Ok, what next...
In April, we took Austin out of school for may reasons really. Ultimately differences with the school and the need for more flexibilty brought us to the decision. We then started preparations to homeschool Austin for the rest of our time in England.
The month of May brought on another challenge when some unforseeable moment in my normal routine would render me lying in pain, barely able to to sit up. Taking care of 3 kids was a nearly impossible task considering I spent most of my time lying in bed or crawling on the floor. Thank goodness we had an awesome nanny to help me out! After 4 months of physical therapy and an MRI we found I have a bulging disc pressing on the sciatic nerve causing pain down my right leg. My options were surgery or see how it goes. Thankfully the physical therapy and excercise on my own has brought me eons from the pain that was there. I've even heard it can heal on it's own.
June through October brought warm beautiful England weather and vacation! We flew to Orlando for a conference/family reunion. My family drove to meet us while we were there and we had a great time visiting, going to Disney and the beaches! We also spent some time traveling to nearby England sites and castles and then a European trip to Italy and Greece!
September marked two years since arriving in Oxford and started our countdown for our return to the U.S. I started teaching Austin kindergarten at home. It's going generally well although it hasn't yet sunk in for Austin that we "do school" every day and he still puts up a fight periodically. I'm also not sure I have the patience for this but I'm trying. It's tough trying to teach one while there are 2 others hanging on you for attention. Devin and I started teaching the 3 yr old cubbies at AWANA at our local base and have been blessed to get to know some more people there. Austin and Teagan are enjoying spending the time with other kids and memorizing Bible verses. The boys are growing and learning new things every day. Austin is growing into a big boy and liking things like transformers, secret agents, sword/gun fighting and skateboards. He's an uncontrollable ball of energy at times and I often lack the creativity to channel it into something productive. We want to get him involved in sports but he's not interested in any of them so we're still looking. Teagan is ever more obsessed with Thomas the Tank. His growing love/idolatry could be getting out of control but how do you explain this to a 3 year old? I'm sure he'll grow out of it, right? We've told many times that he is a cartoon and book character and not real. Still he continues to memorize every line in every movie and book. He can name nearly all of the hundreds of characters. He's evenmoved on to memorizing the commercial adds. We're thinking he should be there new spokesperson.
Bailey amazes me every day with how quickly she is progressing. She's bigger than either of her brothers were at 10 months. She has already got crawling down and pulling up to furniture. She'll definitely be walking before her first birthday. She's very intuitive already and is helpful when getting dressed and knows where to put her arms and feet, she has learned to clap, say mama, dada and uh-oh. She's light years ahead of where her brothers were at 10 months! It just goes to show how different raising girls are. She loves her brothers but is already learning to take charge and be bossy. She even likes to attack them if they are on the floor by climbing on them and pulling their hair.
Devin is doing well with his PhD program. Some days he comes home feeling great about it all and others he's overwhelmed and can't see light at the end of the tunnel. This summer their lab location moved to a different building which resulted in disassembling and reassembling his wind tunnel. This of course put a hitch in his testing but it's finally up and running again. Provided all goes well, he'll be ready to write his thesis in April and submit in September.
Me, I struggle at times to keep everything in some sense of order. Often times my "momnesia" takes over and I'm a bit spacey I hate to say. Thus the lack of Christmas card sending among MANY other things! I keep thinking where is the light at the end of this tunnel? When will I get a good night's sleep and my fuzzy head clear? Probably not for another 18 years. Oh well, I just try to remember that this will pass and all too quickly so I better enjoy what is now. Fuzzy head and all.
So as 2010 approaches...wow it's so weird to say that. We have much to look forward to with hopefully a visit to Colorado and New Mexico to see family and friends. We have our last summer in England with more travel and of course our return (permanently)to the U.S. (As I write, Devin is going through the list of possible job assignments). We are incredibly excited to go back. We've enjoyed our time here and all the opportunities living here has provided us but we are ready to go home. So since I've dragged this blog out WAY longer than a blog should ever be, I'll end it here. The "O'Dowd clan in England" has had a very blessed year, up or down, God has brought us through, brought us here and His loves for us never changes. We wish everyone a blessed Christmas season and pray you would know the unfailing and unchanging love of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Merry Christmas!
Love,
Devin, Andrea, Austin, Teagan and Bailey.

World Travellers

Wow, how time flies when you're having fun! (Or time just flies) Sorry to those who may actually read this blog (hi mom!) but blogging is often on the back burner. I find myself quite often thinking of something worth blogging about but I'm usually in the middle of something else. Then I forget about it and more time goes by. Anyway, I'm finally updating! Since my last post we had a nice end to summer with beautiful weather, a visit from Devin's parents and a vacation Italian style! The month of August was perfect here in terms of weather. My favorite time of year over here!
In September, Devin's parents came for a visit and we finally toured the city of Cambridge complete with "punting on the cam".
In October we traveled to Italy and spent a few days in Rome and Venice. We LOVED seeing all the places you only dream about when reading your history books in school. From there we took a cruise to Greece, stopping in Rhodes, Athens, Kefalonia and then Croatia. Living in England is all the better when we can be close enough to travel to these places. For that I am very thankful!
I've posted a few pictures from the trip.

Summer Ramblings Part 2

So in my previous post I suggested that my kids attempt to "kill" each other. I'm sure anyone who has boys knows how rough they can be with each other. Whether it's fists, toys, shoes, balls, even a letter opener, things are always flying with intent to harm each other. At 5 and 3 they have a hard time understanding their own strength let alone the consequences of their actions. Currently my 3 year old likes to hit his little sister in the head with her toys or his feet as he laughs an evil laugh and my 5 year old likes to run up to her screaming just to scare her. While thankfully no real harm has ever come to any of them amidst their fights they do come up with ways to destroy other objects. Take throwing their toys from the second story window for example or using all the postage stamps as stickers. My 3 year old is quite often in destroy mode. He took a hammer to the rear passenger door and when questioned said he was "fixing the car". My days are very busy monitoring and disciplining and it's hard work. I love my kids and would much rather spend time with them than anything else. But some days it feels as though I've spent the whole day getting after them which I'm sure any mother can understand.

On another note:

As for the month of July we enjoyed "hot" weather for England the first week during which all the British complained but we welcomed after coming back from Florida where it was MUCH hotter. No one here has air conditioning and the stores that do must not know how to use it right. 85 degrees in England is very different from 98 in Florida and I will never complain about that week since it is so rare here. It is near the end of July and feels as though summer is over with rain and temps in the 60's.

This month we've also enjoyed the nearby farms with all the fresh produce we can pick. We rarely make it home with any berries as they all get eaten on the way home! One farm has a couple of corn mazes and a bouncy castle and the boys are always asking to go.




July 2nd we walked in our annual parade at the Air Force Base representing Awana and VBS. Then saw a fantastic fireworks show in which the fireworks were timed to different songs.





Bailey turned 5 months this month and started eating solid/baby food. Devin participated in an Air Force promotion ceremony. We went to an amusement park geared to kids under 13 which the boys enjoyed because they could go on nearly every ride.





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We had a recent grad from The Air Force Academy come through town and stay with us for a week and we all took a short trip to Salisbury Cathedral and Stonehenge.

Summer Ramblings Part 1

Wow! It's been a while since I've blogged about anything. Despite my desires to post pictures, thoughts, events, etc for friends and family to see I find blogging quite time consuming. I have to run by the computer every few minutes to type or add a picture in between tending to household chores and "trying to keep 3 kids alive" as I like to say. My days are very busy feeding, changing, playing and keeping the kids from killing each other as well as laundry, dishes, cooking and cleaning. By the end of the day, not much is accomplished except the kids are still alive!



Since my last post, we were able to take a long vacation (not long enough) back to the U.S. Devin had a conference in Orlando so we took some vacation time around it. We drove out to Key West and then up the coast on the Atlantic side before getting to Orlando. It was very hot but so nice to be near the water and go to beaches and swim. I love the beach and the ocean! My parents, and my sisters and their husbands joined us in Orlando for some fun family time and we even went to Disney World. It was so great to be back in a familiar country with great shopping and restaurants too!

It was sad to leave. Saying goodbye to family and returning to England is hard. It's been my least favorite place to live and I miss being closer to family. The last 2 years have been the toughest I've ever had. But I'm thankful for the times we've been able to go back for visits or our family has come here.


Below are a few pictures from the trip. I'll post more soon.

Glasses

Austin has inherited his parents bad eyesight much too early! A year ago he started begging me get him glasses. We recently took him for an eye exam and his right eye is weak. He was so excited and all I could think of was how much he was going to hate them after a few days. I hate wearing glasses and hoped so much that Austin would not need them until he was older. The optometrist believes if he wears these enough his eye will improve enough for him not to have to wear them again for a long time. It's been 3 weeks and the excitement has worn off. Austin has conveniently misplaced them! :) Here are some pictures of him and his siblings in their sunglasses, so they wouldn't be left out.

Flying Kites

We had some great kite flying weather last weekend.







The boys had lots of fun!




Until the kite got away.

Austin is chasing the kite here. See those trees?

Easter 2009

Here are some pictures from Easter.











The boys are excited to be going on an Easter egg hunt.








Bailey in her first Easter dress!