Sorry Anne, but it is much more pleasant clicking onto the blog and seeing the good looking Dave and Adina Stinchfield Clan than you chowing down. No offense. Maybe if you were wearing your cute sandals! Gosh, those kids are so cute.

Well everything is up in the air again. Mike's old brigade commander just found out about Mike's orders to Korea and he is trying to pull some strings. It is making us crazy but it will be worth it if it does work out. Again, we just keep praying that whatever the Lord wants for us will happen. Of course knowing that we are moving in a month and a half and we still don't know where is making me a bit senile.

We have spent the last couple of days at the pool and have had a great time. Sadie AND Ellyn have absolutely no fear. Neither does Jane of course, but she swims. The other two just go for it. It hardly makes a trip to the pool relaxing. Sadie loves to jump in from the side to ANYONE who happens to be near by and Ellyn tries to wriggle loose any time she is held. She loves doing motorboat and climbing all over the steps. Luckily it rained today. We all have a bit of a sunburn but I don't think I would have been able to keep them away if it had been sunny. Jane and Savannah and a couple of boys from their class spend their whole time diving for things and playing keep away. Ellyn is already the darkest one in the family. It's very funny.

Mike is somewhat frustrated with his class right now. He doesn't really like his new instructor and the classes haven't really been up to par lately. Hopefully it will get better. Well Mike just got home and we are going to go to our new favorite bakery- Pinera, Anne and Peter. The cinnamon crunch bagels are calling our name on this cloudy rainy day. We love you all. Brooke

The Family 

Mom and Dad 

The Kids 

The Boys 

Morgan 

As those of you who check the Schickie blog know, it is Kay-kay's birthday today. She would have been 94 today. She is almost the same age as Gramma. It is still so strange for me to think that she died five years ago this August. Martha's recollections brought back so many to me. I think my favorite is sitting on her lap in their room in the rocking chair that I now have. She would sing to me in her less than perfect voice as she rocked and we looked out at the lights of San Francisco. That must have been during the first few years there since I remember being fairly young...still lap size.

I also always remember a red electric blanket she got for me when I was in high school. I was fairly volatile and was always losing my temper. She got the blanket so that it would be a reminder to keep my cool!

She was an incredible lady in so many ways. I do miss her a lot. That is the one thing I am really looking forward to when it comes my time to leave this earth...I know Kay-kay and Wa-wa will be on the other side to greet me with a big hug and their wonderful loving ways.

Mom

Dave

Mike preparing to eat lake. 

Isaac launching off the cliff, summer 2003 to Brent and Anne waiting

Tom at the lake in summer 2003 

Ok, see if you can tell me who said that in what movie. Marnie, it's a tough one.
So, it seems everyone must be busy. We are too. All of our neighbors are moving out and all the kids use our house as the play place because all their toys and bikes are packed up. Oh fun. It'll be our turn soon. There is a huge amount of people moving out of Sasebo this summer. I am sure they will be replaced though. It is just strange because most people that we know well are leaving this summer. Navy life!
CT was clear. Symptoms disappeared, who knows....
If this deck thing doesn't teach us anything else, it is to get everything in detail before any decisions are made. Don't just assume the other party knows what they are doing or if they are honest people. 50% of the time or less, they fail at one of those traits.
Anne, I am going to miss seeing your chowing down at the table. I guess I'll just have to scroll now.
I had my last "regular" day of work yesterday. It's all downhill from here. #1 on the list is selling our van within the next 2 weeks. The difficult part about that is that we need the van until we leave. It'll be interesting.
Morgan has merged into this princess-ballerina character. She now thinks that she dances and spins like a professional dancer. I don't know where it came from, because none of us are really dancers (except for my Napoleon-ish moves). She must just have those innate girl innards. Funny to watch amidst the monster screams and bum rushing her father.
Parker has started losing teeth and feels it is a very important stage in his life. And of course, Morgan now says her teeth are falling out so that she feels 'older'.
He still loves riding his bike and is a brute. He just got up at 0730 and asked to watch Frosty the Snowman, go figure. Christmas never ends in this house.
Taylor is our quietest and most inquisitive child. He inspects and evaluates all kinds of things. He would rather sit and play a game, pick flowers, or draw than go play with all the neighborhood kids. Still trying to figure him out.
Isaac seems so old. He is becoming more responsible and more helpful without as much coaxing lately. He had his days, but absolutely loves to read. He has this crate of books in his room and he has read nearly every one. He won a book at school last Friday and finished it by Monday. Every free minute, he was reading. I think it's great, just like his mother. He has that splash-n-dash tomorrow, so we'll try to get some pics to post...if we remember the camera.
Adina continues to amaze me with her forethought of the move. I just have the attitude, "we'll deal with it when it comes", but she wants everything figured out in advance. We compliment each other to reach middle ground. However, it is nice to have someone that plans well. Without her, I'd be lost, eventually.
Well, off to my day off (Friday). We are detailing the van to sell, Adina has a Dr.'s appt, the japanese kids are coming over to play, we have to take the van for an oil change, we are looking at some family pictures we took last month, then to a branch going away party for us. I'll be a full day. Then tommorrow: race, beach for work going away picnic (if it doesn't rain), Taylor goes to a B-day party, and then some time to ourselves.
We miss you all and will see you soon!
Dave

Since I have been asked for several for the story of the 4 feet, I will give the story to all. On Monday afternoon, we were aghast when they framed the back of the deck to find it was significantly shorter than we had anticipated. When we asked the workers about it they said that the drawing had a problem. One side indicated it was 32 ft from the back of the house and the other side said 28 feet. They had checked the contract which said 28 feet...so had reduced their original work. (They had already killed the lawn out to 32 feet) Well, I was a bit upset since I had never measured it but had had several discussion about the maximum distance from the back garden.

After researching it, I found that their first drawing was 35 feet deep. The price was way beyond it so I asked him to quote us with it 3 feet less in depth and 4 feet less in width. That quote was still too high...about $5000 more than he had estimated before we went to Japan. He then went back and reduced it about $3000 which we agreed upon. However, I reconfirmed with him at that time that he had not reduced the size beyond what we agreed. They did not leave a drawing with us. I went into their office to sign the contract and saw that it was 28 feet. I had not paid too much attention to the measurements at that point. I told the owner (with whom I was negotiating) that I wasn't sure about the measurements but was this 3 feet from the back garden...which he said it was.

Anyhow, after a sleepless night worrying about it on Monday night and concocting all sorts of punishments if they didn't expand it, I told the workers when they arrived on Tuesday not to do any work before I spoke to the owner. I called and found out that he had been out with the flu and explained it all to his assistant. He said that they would take care of it...They both came over in the afternoon to look at it. The owners first response was that I had forgotten that we had reduced it. I then walked him through all of the above at which point he agreed to go to the 32 feet. It will probably take them a day more but at least we will get what we want.

The hot tub was delivered on Tuesday night but has not been hooked up yet...so near and yet so far!!! Gramma left with Konrad and April on Wednesday morning. It was great having her. I really never thought that we'd be able to get her up again since she does not fly. Her memory is suffering a bit...and she has a hard time getting around, especially with our stairs but it was very nice visiting with her and being able to see the real situation. It sometimes gets a bit inflated by those down there...She is almost 95 and it shouldn't be shocking that her memory is failing! I just hope she can remain independent as she really places great value on being in her own home. We were looking into an apartment for her but there is a 2 1/2 year waiting list!!!

Anyway, after they left, I went down to the temple and ran into LeAnn Bennett (Brooke's mom) We went through a session together which was really great. We live so close but see eachother so seldom. I'm sure when Brooke and Mike are here it will be considerably more often!!!

Well, I need to get the wedding invitations out today.

Love you all,

Mom

Hey Brooke,

Our Utah address is:

1965 N 40 W #102
Provo, UT 84604

Don't worry about sending it for a week or two, we don't get our apartment back until the 22nd of this month. Thanks again for letting us stay. We love you guys!

-Anne

Well since I am sick of having the picture of me eating dinner the first thing I see when I open this page, I decided I must write more. 1 more week left and then it is off to home sweet home. Let me tell you that I am not really complaining anymore about Utah since it is 1000 times better than here in Vicksburg. We love you all and can't wait to see you soon.

Love, Anne

The Dining Room 

The Lovely Kitchen 

Our Family Room 

Our Bedroom 

My New Haircut 

Let me just say that I had a wonderful time hanging out with Brooke and the Girls...and Mike every once in a while. I definitly needed the excitement because Vicksburg is getting just a little too boring for me. Sorry ya'll but I don't think anything will keep me from having kids, no matter how tiring it is. I had lots of fun listening to Sadie's singing and phrases, to Jane and Savannah in sync asking Brooke for more and more, and Ellyn's random gibberish that hopefully soon will turn into real words. My goal was to get Ellyn to walk while I was there but every time I would have her hold my fingers to help her walk, she would just tuck up her feet wanting me to play with her. They definitly are a cute bunch and I will miss seeing them.

Two more weeks left in Vicksburg and believe me I cannot wait to get out of here. Utah is looking wonderful now. I guess just because I really don't feel like I am at home here. Well hopefully soon we will know where our home will be for the next 5 years or so. I cannot wait for a change and to start our family.

I cannot wait to see you all in August and I love you all! Back to resting...Woke up way too early and I have to go donate blood at 3:45 today.

Love, Anne

South Quarter 

Crew's Locker 

Crew's Quarters NW quarter 

Crew'w quarters North quarter 

lawn dead under tarp..the lost 4 feet 

more 

Shorted 4 feet by contractor 

looks small 

6-6-5 

Status 6-6-5 

GrandMa Stinchfield doing what she does best. 

Well here I am sitting at my new desk, enjoying my pita chips and hummus (delicious snack! probably not all too good for you though!), listening to the soundtrack from Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets, and reading the blog.. What a life! I am definitely enjoying it. I like the "me" time.

I just got off work about an hour ago. I am still enjoying it. Today was pretty busy. They are constantly giving me little projects to do. A big one that I have right now is getting one of the major workbooks revised and digitized. It is nice that they trust me to do it but it is a little nerve-racking sometimes. One nice thing that happened today, my boss got 4 tickets to the Padres game tomorrow night and can't use them so she gave them to me! So that is what I am doing tomorrow night with Kelly, Derek and my old roomie Sandy. Should be fun.

So that is about it from me. I am planning to go to FHE tonight and then over to Matt's brothers house to do my laundry! (they take pity on poor me! Laundrymats are scary!) Love hearing all of your stories. I can't wait to see all the nieces and nephews in August. It feels like it has been a really long time.

Well I had better get back to reformatting my iPod, very important. (haha)

Love you,

Marnie

Not that we're counting or anything. Actually - there is so much left to do, I wonder if we don't need more than 19 days to accomplish it all. To top it all, there is a lady in the branch returning this week from the states. She just adopted a daughter and I need to throw a baby shower together in the coming week! Fortunately, I will have a lot of help.

Brooke - you have inspired me to get more closets and rooms cleaned out. The last thing I want is to be cleaning stuff out the day before the movers get here. We love the Sadie-isms! We're mostly just glad to hear that someone else's child uses the lovely word, "freaking". Thanks, Napoleon.

Dave sold his car here, so we are down to the van and hope to have the same good luck in selling it. This is his last week of "normal" work, although he has Friday off. Next week he will mostly be helping the other doc become familiar with the clinic - and the next week we pack out! He had a CT scan on Monday for his headaches - which have since subsided. We ruled out migraine - symptoms didn't match up - and we just want to rule out anything else. No results yet, though.

Kids are all signed up for swim lessons at the Kids Club Fitness near Kenn & Barb. It cost a small fortune (which was expected - there's no beating MWR prices), but the good news is we get a Family Pass to the facility because we signed up for three classes! So - while some kids are in the pool, the other kids can be playing in the Jungle gym. Can't wait! Isaac is doing a Spash'N Dash this Saturday - a 75m swim and then a 1 or 2 K run. He lives for that stuff!

The walls in the bonus room look great! I have to admit, we were surprised to see paint of any color on the walls - but pleasantly surprised. I think it looks great and we're excited to see the finished product!

Finally found The Devil in the White City here at the Exchange and picked it up. I'm finishing up another book first, then plan to delve in. We sure enjoy hearing all the recommendations!

Enough rambling...I'm off to tackle a closet or a desk! Hope you are all well!
Adina

Now that Annie is gone I can finally blog. She was just so demanding of my time. Play this with me, color this with me, watch me do this. Wait, that was my kids and their demands on Anne. I think we cured Anne of any desire to have children (I know, not possible)or a dog. It was so fun to have her all week and Peter this weekend. I just wish it had been better weather.

Barb and Adina, your birthday presents have been priceless. Here we are on another rainy day and Sadie and Jane are happily playing with the Dr. Suess lace up cards. We had better get some sunshine soon or we really will go crazy.

Funny Sadie story-again. The other day Sadie asks "Where's daddy? Oh, yeah. Eating chips and his green drink (he was upstairs on the computer)." Mtn. Dew and chips, a staple for dad around here.

Not much is happening today. I'm trying to get the house clean after neglecting the deep cleaning all last week. Mike tried to mow the lawn before it started to rain again but he bent a blade on a tree root and so we have 1/4 of the back yard mowed. That is one bad thing about having huge trees all over your back yard. I got another shelf cleaned out in my linen closet. I just keep clearing out random areas throughout the house. I don't want to move anything extra. We won't have the room.
Well I need to go fold some laundry (Buffy, you thought your life was unexciting) and mop the floors. Less than two months now, amazing. Brooke
p.s. Kenn, good luck with your plan. I'm sure it will work.

Using my age-old Stinchfield approach, I figured that if I were to consent to the colors in the room, that going from white to color would show that I could go from white cars to red ones (red corvettes). So, now that Barb knows that I like more than white, the timing is right, Father's Day is right around the corner and I am going to ask her to buy me a Red Corvette.

You don't have to have something funny, amazing etc in order to write. I enjoyed your blog and appreciated an end to the drought!!!

Gramma Stinchfield arrived on Friday with Konrad. Kon was on his way up to the Puget Sound area to go to his daughter, April's high school graduation. He took the opportunity to bring Gramma up here to see us since she won't fly up. It's been good having her. The stairs are pretty hard on her but she is a good sport with them. Her memory is failing a bit...and she realizes it...but no more than you would expect for a 94 year old. We are discussing having her sell the house and move into some retirement apartments. Rick, her friend across the street that watched over her, has moved to a new house with property and Edith next door is worse off than Gramma. She seems open to the idea so we are hoping we can pull it off...It would ease everyone's minds. I just don't think she will be able to take care of the house and all the complications involved much longer...and I think she would enjoy the company of the other people in the apartments. She gets pretty lonely sometimes in spite of all the people who reach out from the ward and family.

The furniture is being delivered for the bonus room tomorrow. We'll take some pictures when it is all done. I think our hot tub will be delivered tomorrow too...but we won't be able to use it until the electric is done and the deck is complete. Probably a week and a half to two weeks...especially since it has been really pouring here this last week. We've just had one rain free day. I refinished the coffee table and end tables in the living room. If you don't examine the underside they look just great!!! I think I'll do the one in the family room in the next few week with a little break for my hands. The sanding, scraping and brushing really worked out the muscles in my hands!!!

We love you all...

Mom

Ok like you, I have checked the blog numerous times this weekend with no new blogs so I guess I'll contribute. The problem however, is that I don't really have anything new or funny to post. So here it goes; I just finished my first week at my internship without a hitch. I kind of wish my clinical instructor acted more like an instructor by quizing me and testing my knowledge and skills but she is nice either way. I had my first evaluation of a patient on Friday that was anything but a typical diagnosis but that is reality. It made me feel better when after we had evaluated the patient's foot, my CI took me out of the patient's room and went straight for the books to figure our patient out(which was still no help). The take home lesson I learned was that no one is psychic no matter how much knowledge we amass in our brains!
By the way, I am in love with the new colors in the bonus room at the Stinchfield abode. I was truthfully shocked that anything but white would ever go up on the walls of a Kenn Stinchfield house. I don't know who picked the colors but they are fabulous!!!
Oh, that shadeclothing thing is really huge because so many LDS women down here already know about it (or it's the Utah connections). I also have a friend that is starting a modest clothing line down here and even hopes to make modest prom dresses as well.
Well, Brent and I are going to eat our gourmet lunch of chicken corn dogs this nice Sunday afternoon so I will finish now.
Love you all,
Buffy

I HAVE THE INTERNET!!!!

I am so happy! I guess that guy only had to turn on the cable outside and it worked. So my friend Derek has hooked up my internet so I can use it now. I will post pictures later but I am going to hang out with my friends now.

Oh yeah and Kelly got me a house-warming gift...a beta fish!!! His name is Ruby!! Like from the Fifth Element! I will post a picture of him too.

Love you all!

Marnie

Greetings from Cleveland! It’s starting to feel like summer time here, hooray!! We’ve been having a lot of fun lately, in spite of Tom’s finger. We got season passes to the amusement park nearby (we had them last summer too) so we went there on Monday and had a lot of fun. The rest of the week has been occupied with Tom’s softball stuff and trips to the “fish store” to get a Nemo fish and then some snails, crabs and shrimp to help with the excess algae problem. I have taken Hayden to the park several times this week, yesterday we went to the Botanical Gardens and then had lunch with Tom on campus and today we went to Chuck E Cheese just because I felt like going somewhere and it was to dreary and muggy out for the park. Lots of fun! Thanks for the reports on the fun movies and books and all the great events in everyone’s life. Marnie hopefully that internet will get set up soon so we can see those pictures! We are enjoying having our house to ourselves for a while because the old upstairs neighbors moved out and new ones don’t come until the end of the month. However, we have found a few snags, for instance apparently their utilities control the hot water and the power for the washer and dryer… no wonder our utilities are so low! But in the meantime, I have no power to my washer and dryer so I can’t do any laundry until we get this sorted out. Hayden has been cracking us up lately with the things he is saying. I think he and Sadie are going to be quite the pair! Anyway, here are a few of the things he has come up with recently:

1. Hayden and I were eating dinner and Tom was getting ready for softball. Tom came in the dining room and started to sing and dance to make Hayden laugh. So Hayden said “Daddy wants to be a Wiggle!”
2. At the park Hayden wanted to play imagination games. First he wanted to pretend we were watching Aladdin and eating popcorn, he got a stick and acted like he was putting into a DVD player (which was the side of a slide) and then sat down and jumped back up again because he forgot to push play. Then, he found two leaves and brought one to me and said “Here’s your controller, we’re playing Halo on the x-box!”
3. Last night at Tom’s softball game I was holding a little baby and Hayden wanted to hold him. So I let him think he was holding him and he sang him the whole song of “Rock-a-bye-baby.” I didn’t even know Hayden knew that song!
4. When Hayden doesn’t want to take a nap he lays in bed and calls to me by saying “I miss you mommy!” If I do happen to go in to tell him to go to sleep he tries to hug me and just says “I love you mommy.” He’s so manipulative but he’s so cute it works great!

Well that’s just a few of the funny things he is doing lately. Tonight we are going to a concert for the Utah Children’s Choir that is performing here in Kirtland. We are one of the host families for some of the children so we will be bringing them back here afterward to spend the night. Tomorrow we get to go with Hayden to a birthday party at the fire station, I think he’ll like it!

I think I’ve written more than my quota for one day, I’ll write again soon! Take care!
P.S. Barb, if you could email me with the exact info for what we owe on those airline tickets and such that would be great! Thanks! My email is tracey@dankus.com... Which reminds me, Tom is usually the only one who gets emails of pictures and other stuff, I would love to be added to your address books, that goes for everyone! Thanks!

Lexi, I am intrigued by the baseball coaching idea. Send me the info at tom@dankus.com. Thanks.

The movie is approved by Sadie, and Jane. (Madagascar for us non-Sadie speakers) Another funny Sadie-ism: the other day she went up to Brooke and said "Mom, you are sunshine, you are freaking sunshine." Anne is enjoying the entertainment value of it all. Thanks so much for the gifts for Sadie! She had a wonderful birthday and Adina, your gift arrived promptly the day prior to her birthday shaming my wife forever more.

Tonight I am busy finishing up a long paper on a battle at Guadalcanal. The research has been fascinating, the writing much less so. We are under a deluge right now; we received more rain in the last 24 hours than the entiure average for May. So Anne is loving being cooped up with 3 crazy girls and a grumpy Mike frustrated that I am 35 and still doing homework. And the rain does not look as if it is going to let up.

By the way, some of you know about the Dubious Quality blog that actually clued me into doing the Sundry Seven. Well, the guy who does it writes some pretty interesting stuff, not just games stuff, and it is well worth visiting while you are waiting for the next person to post on this blog. His name is Bill Harris and his blog is www.dubiousquality.blogspot.com.

Dave, I hope your head feels better and Tom your finger...ouch.

Love you all,

Mike

Hey Everyone,

Sorry it has been so long. I don't have the internet yet at my new apartment. Very annoying! I am ridiculously attached to the internet. And it is especially bad because I don't have cable tv either. So all I have is movies which actually suits me pretty well. I have started Netflix so that I can at least get movies that I haven't seen and not be watching the same movies over and over.

I am adjusting pretty well to living alone. I really like not having roommates but I do get lonely every once and a while. But it is definitely worth it to be lonely a bit and not have roommates. I am all moved in now. I went and got some furniture at IKEA on Monday so it pretty much looks like a real apartment! I just have to get the boxes out of the living room! I will post pictures as soon as I have the internet at home. My stupid cable system isn't working. I am afraid it is the wiring which means I will have to pay for them to fix it. They are coming over on Friday so hopefully after that I will have a functioning home. Parking is getting better everyday, I shouldn't say that, I will jinx myself. But it is. It started off pretty bad with having to park about 2 blocks away. But the last couple of days I have been right in front.

Work is still good. I am there right now and probably should be doing something other than blogging but I am taking a break. I designed a new cover for one of the books we sell today and I organized some old paperwork and files (not the greatest). But I was busy mostly all day so I can't complain. I am over the hump of the week and really looking forward to the weekend, not for anything in particular just to be off!

So I will post pictures when I can. You all sound like you are doing well. It is June! Dave and Adina the light is drawing nearer! I bet you can't wait. I can't wait to see you all, that goes for everyone, in August. It will be great. I love you all and miss you a lot.

Marnie