update

I am sorry for having neglected my blog so much.

This last week I've been fighting extreme tiredness, often falling asleep on the couch during the day. I've also had a HUGE burst of allergies; Friday I literally sat with my eyes closed and my mouth open for much of the day, just trying to breathe and not rub my eyes. Not that I'm making excuses.

The children are in a constant state of excitement from the summer weather, friends getting out of school, and grandparents on the way. Wednesday it came to a head, and we had to call a "no computer" rule until I can get them back on track. Of course, no computer for them means very little computer time for me, as I have to watch carefully and talk way more than I want to.

Friday was a family day or goal day, anyway Bob was off work and the sun was back out after 2 weeks of clouds. We planned to have breakfast at Rugby's - a little restaurant at the club on base. I'd noticed one day that they have waffles at breakfast, and that is a real treat for Bob (I used to make waffles every so often, but with 8 hungry people it's hard to keep up at home). So we showed up at 7:30 ready to eat. (They claim to open at 6:30 M-F) They were closed. Very disappointed, we got some sausage biscuits at Burger King. I see now that their website does say they open at 11 on family days. Naturally! On the one day that active duty would be able to go out for breakfast, they don't have it. But that's assuming all active duty has to work like maintenance, and we all know that's not true. So what can we learn from this? Study hard, go to college, so you can get a 9-3 desk job and have little perks like time.

Anyway, we also went out to Mildenhall to see if they had a booster seat at the thrift store, but it was also closed for the family day. That, I can understand better, as it is run by volunteer wives, who would like to have some time with their spouses when they are off work. We went into Mildenhall town to take some forms by the estate agent's office (yes, 5 months later, we are finally all done!) and to check the market. Then we went to Newmarket to get some prints at Tesco. While waiting for that we went into town and looked in some charity shops and an "everything's a pound" store - got a sprinkler and some gift wrap. On the way home we went through Isleham and picked a couple of 'punnets' of strawberries - just over 4 pounds.

Friday night I had an awful time sleeping, and was in fact up on the computer from 1:30 til 4:30. I kept waiting to get sleepy, but when I saw the sun come up at 4 I thought I'd better get on with it.

Saturday (up at 6:30) we hung around all morning. Let the children play outside, let William nap. After lunch (at home) we headed to Cambridge. They were having a "thing" in one of the parks, celebrating 800 years of colleges or something. We wandered around out there for a few hours, checking out the steam tractors, sheep, shops, and wishing the bouncy things weren't so expensive. It was "very hot" (our car thermometer read 77*) and bright. We applied sunscreen and drank lots of water. When we'd seen the whole thing we decided to go downtown to the market area. It was such a crowd on the way over that by the time we got there we were worn out and headed to the bus stop to go back to the car. We thought about eating in town there, but nothing sounded good, and it was quite crowded everywhere. So we headed home, blasting the A/C. By the time we got back to the base we felt better and were hungry, so we went to the BX for dinner. All but Taryn had Charley's; she had pizza. Then we went into the store where Bob found a couple of nice shirts on clearance. So then home and to bed.

Makes me tired just writing about it.

Sunday we went to church, where I had my first major theological dispute with pastor. He was preaching about Jesus as the model child, and while he kept repeating "100% God, 100% man" he then went on to explain how Jesus stopped being God while he was on earth. Um, no, don't think so! Sounded very "oneness" to me. I almost got worried about Bob because he said he agreed with the sermon, but after a little friendly chat in the car I realized that it's all very tricky in definitions, but Bob does believe in the deity of Jesus and we are all good.
On our way out of church a lady stopped me and invited us over for lunch next Sunday. !! We haven't been invited to someone's house for a meal since...oh, Riah was a baby. We can't next week because Bob has weekend duty, but agreed to the week after.

After church we went to Mildenhall town to pick up a booster seat I'd seen advertised for sale. After that we decided to get some Chinese. Bob wanted to try the Thai place, too. So we parked in the one lot they have, and Bob walked over to order while I sat with the children. The Chinese place was closed, so we all got food from the Thai place, and took it home to eat.
After lunch the children went outside, and it wasn't long before someone asked if we could get out the slip'n'slide. (Our neighbors who moved out last week gave it to us since they didn't want to move it.) We agreed, and it wasn't long before a dozen other children were lined up in our yard eager to get wet. Not a huge problem, but a few of the girls were in bikinis. I almost asked them to leave... We don't go to public pools so we don't have to see that mess, and here it was coming to our yard. Frustrating.

And here we are to Monday. My parents will be here in 4 weeks and a day, and we've only got one thing crossed off our list of things to do. Not that I'm panicking yet. :-)