Moran Family Fun

Last Sunday Samantha and I flew to England to visit my friend Miranda and Samantha's friend Emeryss (Miranda's daughter). We got home on Friday and had a wonderful visit with them. It was so great to be able to see Miranda again, I've missed her since she left Wyoming last March. For almost the entire time I lived in Cheyenne Miranda was my Visiting Teacher, and she was the best visiting teacher I have ever had or am ever likely to have again. I'm grateful to have her for a friend. Since we've moved to Germany I've made some friends, but no one yet who I am really close friends with. It was great to be able to spend time with and talk to someone who I love and trust. Thanks Miranda for being a great friend, I hope that I'm as good a friend to you as you are to me! We had a great time while we were there. We went to Snettisham Park, a farm where the kids were able to feed the animals and gather eggs. There was also a huge playground where the kids had tons of...

This week the girls had their spring break. We tried to do something fun every day, but some days our fun involved just being together at home. The weather was wonderful all week, and Jared only had to work on Wednesday and Thursday so we were able to spend a lot of time as a family. On Tuesday there was a flight barbecue for Jared's work. It's always a little not fun for me to hang out at Jared's work stuff. I don't know if it is the military in general or cops specifically, but none of the things I've been to have really seemed like good family fun. It's the alcohol consumption and the bad language that gets to me. Still, the kids had a great time running around all afternoon. There was a softball field where Natalie spent most of the time digging in the dirt. She was covered in red dust from head to toe by the end of the barbecue but she was so happy. I taught the older kids how to make daisy chains with all the flowers that were growing in the field. It was ...

This past week it was really springlike here. On Monday Natalie, Samantha and I walked to the flower shop to see what they have there. We have window boxes with no flowers so pretty soon we need to get some things planted in there. For now, we just bought one plant for the front porch. I'm not sure if Samantha was more excited about the flowers or her cool new shades. On Wednesday we celebrated Jared's 35 th birthday. He had worked a mi d-shift th e night before so Jared slept for the first half of the day. After the older girls got home from school we went out for Doner Kabobs, our favorite birthday treat! When we got back home we ate Eclair Cake and opened presents. Jared loves Eclair Cake and he also loved his presents, especially his new weights and weight bench. Because the weather has been so nice we've been exploring the area around our new house. We've been going on bike rides and walks almost every day. Today the girls and I went down into the woods after din...

We live in the country and that means farms, manure, open fields, etc. We love it here because it’s so beautiful but one side “benefit” of our location is spiders. These are not little spiders; they are huge spiders that leave me and the girls running and screaming. Usually Jared takes care of any that we see in the house but he was working when we had our latest spider attack so it was up to me. Thankfully the kids were all asleep in bed so they didn’t see me shaking! First I called Jared for some moral support and then I set to work. (And then I took a picture so I could show Jared that I wasn’t being crazy, this really was a big spider.) I considered vacuuming it up but I was worried that it wouldn’t really kill it, only trap it inside the vacuum cleaner. It was on the wall almost at the ceiling so I got out my Swiffer floor cleaner and used that to squish the spider. It took me about five minutes to work up the courage to do it. After a few misses I finally got it! My heart was pou...

So I've thought at the end of each day this week, "What happened today that I can write about in the blog on Sunday?" And every day I would think, "Nothing." That's not to say that we have done nothing this week, but just that there weren't any big moments where I thought it should be commemorated with a picture or even a mention in our blog. It seems as if life is like that, mundane and routine one week, and exciting and crazy the next. Abigail and I made a Leprechaun Trap for school. She was to design and make a trap for her class. Then they would leave the traps out overnight and see if they caught any leprechauns. We got a shoebox and covered it in green paper. Then we decorated the inside like a comfortable leprechaun house. We made a bed, a welcome mat, and for good measure we put a little pot of gold next to the bed. Then we wrote a note on top of the box that said "There is gold inside this box!!! I am not kidding!!! It is all for you s...

This week was pretty routine, with the exception of Jared being out of town for the week. He was asked to go to Buchel, a small base about two hours north of here. The base at Buchel was having an exe rcise to practice their defenses at the base. Jared and two other guys from the base were tasked with playing the "bad guys" during the whole thing. In my mind that was a cross between capture the flag and laser tag. In reality, Jared didn't end up doing much of anything. Each day they were given a time to report, each day they did report and were told that they really didn't have anything for them to do. So Jared and his guys hung around the base there, they went to Spangdahlem one day (where we were stationed from 2000-2003), and they did some sightseeing in Cochem at the castle and around town. It's Mustache March at work for Jared, that means that everyone who can grows a mustache. Abigail wondered if even the girls grew mustaches and Jared told her, "Some o...

We don't have a bakery right here in town so the bakery from the next town over delivers bread. Every Tuesday and Saturday the bread truck drives through town and blares its horn to let everyone know that fresh bread is available. For us, it's better than the ice cream truck. The kids listen for it on bread days and as soon as the hear the horn honking they grab their euros and start running. If they can't find it right away they just follow the sound of the horn. This week they ended up going to the other end of town, but they caught the bread truck and came home with delicious fresh baked pretzels for everyone. At the elementary school they celebrated Dr. Seuss' birthday this week with a ton of activities. On Monday Madison and Abigail both had green eggs and ham in their classrooms. On Wednesday Abigail walked to the base library for more Dr. Seuss fun. They read books and had books read to them by the Cat in the Hat! Friday was the big party for Abigail's classr...