Busy Month!

I was poking around online and noticed it's been over a month since I've posted something! Just been busy, I guess.

We had a great visit with my mom, sister and nephew at the end of March. They were here 8 days. I never knew 8 days could pass so quickly. Probably the one thing I hate about the military is also what I love most...being able to live overseas. It's a double-edged sword, though, when you're as close to family as I am. My nephew was born 2 1/2 weeks after we got to Germany. So I met him a month shy of his 2nd birthday. We sure did make up for lost time, though! We played and played, and by the end of the week, Aunt Laura was asserting "Auntie" rights and feeding him junk for breakfast. Kit Kat's to be exact. Having my kids as early as I did, my family had all sorts of fun messing with my kids and then handing them back. Now it's payback time, baby! :) We took a couple of day trips, but due to the lovely German spring weather (translation: rain) we hung out at home a lot. Nothing wrong with that! I was sad to see them go. Hopefully the next 2 years will fly like the first 2 years did.

Both kids and Rod started baseball season. Rod is coaching Tyler's team. Here the teams are named after actual MLB teams and Rod (of course) requested the Yankees, however was told that the Ramstein Youth Center always gets that team. Since we are Vogelweh YC, his only request was that his team NOT, under any circumstances, be the Boston Red Sox. I think if he would have been assigned that, they would have been short one coach and player. I dont' think there is any way Rod Bernard (or his son for that matter) will don a hated Red Sox hat or jersey. Lucky for Rod someone had already requested them, so we wear the jersey's of the Washington Nationals. Oh what I would have GIVEN for the Mariners to be one of the options. I would have paid off the youth center director to give that team to Rod (insert evil laugh here.). They have a pretty good group of boys and have gotten a lot of practice time in. Their first game last weekend was rained out, so they hope to start playing Saturday. Meghan is really enjoying her first year of softball. She's been playing baseball since she was 3, and it's been a bit of an adjustment getting used to the bigger softball. But she's getting there. I'm team mom for Tyler and Rod's team. That's my contribution! This lovely sport eats up 5 out of 7 days of the week from now until June 12. This is the one time of year that it would be so much easier for us to live on base. But not gonna happen, so I drive. A lot.

The kids finished 3rd quarter at school with excellent grades. Tyler earned himself a spot on the Silver Honor Roll for the first time. He's been on the Bronze for the past 2 quarters and after getting his certificate for 2nd Quarter, said he was setting a goal to get on Silver. He accomplished that with a lot of hard work and determination (and quite a bit less free time playing outside), earning 6 A's and 1 B on his report card!!! We're so proud of him. He even got one of only a few "most improved" spots for his grade! School does not come overly easy to him, so it makes it even that much more special to know that he set this goal and gave up a lot of his free time to make sure it happened. Meghan can do 3rd grade blindfolded with one arm tied behind her back, so we expected and she got her usual great report. She has yet to delve into the world of A's and B's...that comes next year in 4th grade.

We've taken a few day trips with the gorgeous weather that came the day after my family got on the plane back to Seattle (go figure). Hope to do more as weather and baseball permit. Rod's TDY schedule seems to have slowed down so things are a bit more relaxed. Tyler is hoping to do his first triathalon in a few weeks. He is teaming up with 2 friends and they are each going to do a leg. He's pretty excited. He's joined the runner's club at his school and runs almost every day at lunchtime. I smell a cross-country future for him if he likes it as much as he does now!

So I am off to, where else, baseball practice. Yay. Go team. Whoo-hooooo. Incidentaly, I've started reading a great series of books by Diana Gabaldon. It the Outlander series. Great for reading in cars while waiting for (insert kids' names here)'s practice to be over. I'm on book 2. :)