Happy Birthday Carter!

Today was Carter's birthday. He is now 7 years old. Can you believe it, seems as if only yesterday he was born.


I think he has had a great birthday. He loves the chapter books and money, and his light up light saber. We took him to dinner at his favorite resturant, (ours too because its cheap, kids eat free everyday! and with 3 eating kids that's a good amount free). Tonight we will have cake and ice cream. He has spent the rest of his day playing Lego Starwars the complete saga on the xbox. Zach and I are patiently waiting our turn when the kids go to bed.

Here are a few pictures of Carter today. He sure has grown up over the last 7 years...


Love to you all.

i just thought I would update you all to how things are going out here in Kansas City. We are praying daily for warmer weather. Hopefully things will change soon. Today we got an inch or so of snow however most of it has melted off throughout the day.

Today was News! day around here. For those of you who haven't been to our home yet here My neighbor's "house" is quite the story around here, It has been sitting in this condition for 3 years...


about 2 weeks ago now we started having some problems with our home owners association telling us there is nothing they can do about anything in the subdivision. (So why do we pay for an association?) I emailed the manager of the homeowners association and asked her to do something or give me a name and phone # of the person who could do something about the problems we were having. She then emailed me back the developer's name and phone # basically saying there was nothing more she could do and to take my problems and concerns straight to him. Hence I tried a number of times to call him with no result. I left nice messages just asking for information and my name and number. No return call. So I called the news NBC Action News to be exact, with my problem. They emailed me back within 24 hours and set up a date and time to come do a story on the issue. I went door to door around the nighborhood asking people to show up and support our cause. I found great #'s of support out there and the day came for the news to come... AND, It Snows all through the whole time she is here doing in interviews!! We still ended up with about 7 homeowners here representing the neighborhood, good #'s if you ask me for the middle of a snow storm.

As this was comming about the reltors who sell the homes in the neighborhood found out what we were doing and contacted the developer and let him know what was going on. The day before the interviews his crews show up and pumped out the pool/foundation next door, It took them 6 hours to pump most of the water out. I talked to the crew who happened to be the developers' son. He said his dad had sent him out to pump the water out and to put a fence up, but that on his way out to the foundation he got a call telling him not to put up the fence that the builder didn't want the fence there. Pumping made it look even worse because now you could really see all that mess below the surface. Also in going around door to door I went to a house where I had met his wife at the pool a # of times over the summer and had seen him in the fittness center many times over this winter. Him and I had talked at length about this issue, so when I told him I had contacted the news he said great! Forward me the email and I will send it personally onto everyone in the city council and the mayor. To their personal and their professional email addresses. As he knows them personally. They quickly responded and have also started working on a solution to this problem. I am hoping soon to see progress. Anyways such is the exciting life of living in Kansas City. Next time I will post more interesting things to read and much cuter pictures of the kids instead of an ugly house/foundation!

Love ya'll

Lynette

Febuary 15th

For Carters Valentine party at school I was assigned to take pictures. We all went and had a good time. Here are two pictures of the kids all sitting at Carter's desk. They were all so good at the party. Almost every mom there asked me what happened to Kendall's arm. Origionally I had a long sleved shirt on her so that nobody would see it but as is common with her she had it pretty messy by 2 when we had to be at the party and I could only find short sleved shirts in a short time.

Friday was a teacher planning day so Carter didn't have to go to school. The kids were getting pretty crazy from being couped up in the house all winter, I had a play date scheduled but they canceled because her daughter woke up with the flu. (which is getting pretty bad around here, one school district closed their schools for a week because the teachers and kids were so sick there weren't many people there anyway and they couldn't find enough subs for the teachers). So I had to come up with something else. There is this place called Air Zone down the road, we have been invited a couple of times but never made it with playgroups so I decided to try it. I called in a reservation anticipating that it would be busy with schools out. Good thing I did too. It opened at 10am and by 9:55 there was a huge long line out the front door. One of the people who worked there said if you have a reservation please go to the front of the line! Yeah for us I thought ahead!!! so there we were and had an hour and a half of playing on these blow up obstacle courses and big blow up jumping circle thing (castle but much bigger). The kids loved it and for only $12 it was way worth the money. Kendall and I were free I only had to pay for the boys. I think next year I will buy some kind of pass. so that we might be able to go a few more times in the winter when it is much too cold to go outside and play. The kids really had a great time and after a half hour I took my purse out to the car and only kept my keys in my coat and ended up climbing through these courses with Kendall and the boys. I should have kept the camera with me too but didn't think about that till after I had locked it up. Here are a few pictures from before I put the camera away.

K is so cute that I just couldn't decide which of the three pictures to post here so I just added them all. I was taking her picture so that you could all see the wrap on her arm... I have had so many people ask me what happened in the last couple of days that I thought I would post and let you all know in case I started talking about it and you didn't know what I was talking about...

Sunday K was sitting by Z at the fireplace she decided she wanted to sit on the other side and instead of getting down she pushed her way behind Z and the fireplace. (which was on). She started screaming. I turned to Z and asked what just happened and then it dawned on me she just burnt her arm!!! At first we couldn't even tell where it was burnt and were assuming which arm it even was. we sat on the couch with her and tried to ice it with a little ice buddy. for kids. after about 10 minutes it started turning red where she had burned it. we put burn cream from our first aid kit on it and then wrapped it with gauze. the next morning it had a huge blister on top of it. and I rewrapped it hopeing to keep it from popping. It did however less then 5 minutes later. I changed the gauze and rewrapped it. Later that evening Zach removed the extra skin with a pair of tweezers. She didn't even cry. Tuesday I was watching a friends kids and asked her what she thought when I showed her K's arm. She said she would call the nurse and just make sure they didn't want to see her (At this point it still looked pretty bad, Actually that is about the worse I think it looked the whole time) After she left I call my peditritian's office and asked them if there was anything else I should be doing for her or if they thought I should bring her in. They told me to us polysporin, similar to neosporin but less ingredients. and to keep it wraped and clean. Since then people keep thinking she has a broken arm because from a few feet away it looks as if she has a cast on. Today it is looking much better and when I changed the bandage it actually just looks like a big scrape with a scap starting to cover it up. Anyways this has been our big excitment lately. Hope this finds you all well

Kendall has really become a climber. Here is her latest dance on the counter...




For those of you who might notice the difference. I cut my hair two weeks ago. It was pretty long and one day really bothering me. So in a fit of rage I took a pair of scissors to my own hair. You would think that I would have learned as a child that this is not a good idea, but o'well, I had to find a hair place that opened early in the morning on a Saturday because I didn't have time to get out after I chopped it myself, I had a youth activity the whole next day and cried because I couldn't go to the activity with my hair looking so crazy. Lucky for me I found one and she did a pretty good job fixing it up to look cute again. I am excited for it to grow out though I miss my long hair...

Also Thursday I decided I had changed enough diapers in my life and decided it was time for Kendall to be potty trained. (Again this cold weather must be affecting my brain as this was another crazy idea as she is only 15 months old) by noon she had peed through 6 pairs of panties and not noticed once that she was wet all over. Ahhhh!!! I gave up. But try and try again. Saturday I asked her if she wanted panties or a diaper. Of course she picked the panties, she loves them, and again of course she peeed in them again, but this time she came to me right after trying to take them off as they were wet. Another pair... This time she actually peeed on the toilet!!! Yeah!! Success!! Yeah right. We headed to Wendy's for dinner but I wasn't brave enough to take her out of the house yet in panties so we switched back to diapers for dinner. Maybe I will attempt another try tomorrow and see what happens who knows maybe she might catch on, or maybe I am just crazy for trying and eventually I will give up and try again in a few months when she is a little bit older. You will just have to stay posted for updates on that. I am sure all of you who don't have kids are just waiting for this information : ).

Anyways that is what is going on in Kansas City for now...

Today too Dylan went to a little girls birthday party, they had a balloon lady there and she made him a Darth Vader mask and Red light Saber and a sword holder. Here is a cute picture of him with his balloons.. Kendall was sure impressed when Dylan got home...

Here is a video from the begining of January the 5th to be exact. The kids and I were outside playing and Kendall picked up her helment and ran over to the bikes, This is the first time that she has really enjoyed going on bike rides. Last year maybe she was a little to young to really enjoy the ride but she does now...

Wish I had pictures to post, but alas, nothing more than my words. Just wanted to post a little note since it has been a while since I have done so. Things are pretty much business as usual with me, working as much as possible (gotta pay them bills somehow) and flying as much as I can. The second part is the harder of the two. Ever since I've been flying the R44 (the bigger guy), it seems like it doesn't wanna fly. It's tired and ready for it's overhaul. Things keep causing trouble and needing to be checked before I'll fly it. A couple nights ago I had my first real scare in helicopter. We were departing Tucson International to fly to Ryan Airfield to do a couple practice approaches and as I accelerated through 75 KIAS (Ben, you know what I mean) we got a wicked vibration. We turned back around slowed down to 60 knots and things were OK, but we still had a little vibration. When we landed we inspected the main rotor system (the most likely cause of the type of vibration we experienced) and found the swash plate assembly (the thing that translates the control inputs to the rotors) was moving more than it should have. That kind of problem wouldn't have caused a crash or anything, but the aircraft bucking was a little unnerving. But that is the great thing about flying helicopters, if we hadn't been so close to the airport I could've just set it down anywhere to see what was going on instead of having to try and make it to an airport.

That being said, I really love what I am doing. There is no greater thrill in my life, other than my beautiful fiance, than flying. I really am glad that I have found this opportunity to do something that I truly love. I know that I would have had a safer profession if I had finished school, but I know that I would never have been satisfied by a job in engineering. I know that I would have been good at the job, but I love that fact that I have the opportunity to follow my passion. I really want to thank all of you for being supportive of that desire that I have.

But, that being said, on the home front, things are really going well. Jenn and I are planning the wedding and things are really moving along. Lynette, I know that you and the kids won't be able to make it, I while I really want you guys here, I understand the constraints you have. I hope you know that I love you and your kids, and will really miss you guys. That being said, I don't hold it against you. I fully understand that it is VERY diffiult for you to travel with the kids, just know that you will be missed. If you don't know already I love you like a sister. You are part of our family and I love that fact.

By the way, in case anyone really cares, Jenn and I bought a dining room set the other day. It's a high table with barstool type seats that looks great in our dining area. If I had a digital camera I would how a picture, but alas, again, I am restricted to word. I can't wait for you all to see it.

On that note, I'll sign off and say that I love you all and that you all are always in my thoughts. Zach and Lynette, you and your kids especially. I really miss you guys. But, I don't even see those of you that I live near often enought. I am grateful that I am a Justesen, and that it entails. I am proud of what me mean to each other.