Found another internet cafe! Having a great time here. The sun just came out and Martha found a tapestry shop she has been looking for. I may get one as my "permanent" memory of this trip to France.

We went to the American cemetary this morning. Very moving to see all of those crosses and stars over the hills. It was raining lightly which went a bit with the mood there. When you see those beaches it is just incredible what we were able to do. Bayeux was the first city liberated from the Germans. I took some pictures but the battery ran out.

We stopped by a French Target( not called that, of course) and I got some more batteries and another memory chip. Only 27 euros for a 256 M one. We also got some bungie cords as we have grown out of the van...We'll put some suitcases on top. What a sight we will be!

Well, I have others waiting on me for the english keyboard! Love you all! (Marnie, I loved Giverny but we had to skip Chartres...not enough time!0

Mom

This will be quick but I just wanted to add something to the blogg. We’ve been having a fun week. The Indian’s are playing the A’s this week and they are going head to head for the wildcard so it’s been fun to be a part of. We went to last night’s game and had a great time with a 5-2 win! Tom and Hayden are going again tonight while I go to Enrichment Night. Tom still wants to be loyal to his A’s but we’ve convinced him he needs to be loyal to his family and support the Indian’s right now. It’s a lot of fun!
Hayden has become obsessed with singing kids songs and he does it all the time. He surprises me everyday by singing another song off his CD that I didn’t know he knew. It’s great fun! Here are a couple of fun stories about him recently:

1. Out of the blue he told me that if baby sister starts crying we can put her in her room because it's dark in there. Then he thought for a minute and said "we can put her back in your tummy, is it dark in there?" and I told him I don't know if it's hard in there. So he ran over to my stomach and shouted "Baby sister, is it dark in there?" then he paused and said "She said yes."

2. I was cleaning his room and he came in and put his fist up in fighting position and said "Hey mom, you want a piece of me?" He was ready for a fight! I questioned him and learned he had just seen it on a Jimmy Neutron…that kid and TV, I better be careful about what I let him watch because he remembers everything!

3. I was getting dressed and he was playing in the living room. He suddenly came running down the hall and ran in the bedroom with me and shut the door. He looked at me and said "Hi mom, I came to see you because I like you!" I was happy for this declaration but a little surprised by his actions and a little bit in disbelief. A minute later he told the real story and said "I heard something out there and got scared!"

We finally “solved” the problem of being terrified of monsters at naptime and bedtime by simply letting him sleep with his lamp on. I figure there are worse things he could do. Like still have a binky… his binky is so worn out it’s getting a small hole. I was showing it to him and telling him it will be broken soon so we should probably put it away somewhere special. He simply put it in his mouth and matter-of-factly declared “It’s okay, it won’t bother me.”

Okay, enough stories. I better go get something done. I’ll try to write again! I’m glad everyone seems to be doing well. Talk to you later!

Tracey

I am so jealous! Mom you have to take pictures and buy me something! :) I loved Chartres and Giverny when I went to France. They were two of my favorite places, well, they were all my favorite places but those two were beautiful. It was so amazing to be walking by the waterlilies that inspired Monet to paint "Waterlilies"!Awesome. Wish I could be there. And I am sure Mom will enjoy the amazing stained glass at Chartres. I bought a book about the cathedral when I was there. Very cool. Are you guys going to Paris at all? Versailles? Wish I could be there!

I have a new idea that I want to move to London next year for about 6 months or so. Me and my friend Nicole are trying to figure out a way to make it work. It involves work permits, finding jobs, finding a flat, and finding the money! But it would be quite an experience and one that I have always wanted to do. I really would like to live abroad at some point and I might as well do it now. And Nicole totally wants to go too and she is mostly reliable on ideas like that if they can work. She wouldn't back out at the last minute and screw me over or anything. So that is my new plan/idea that I am working on bringing to pass. That and trying to convince Nicole to move back down to San Diego and live with me. I almost got her yesterday! She is thinking she might if we moved to like Carlsbad or something which is closer to work for me so I wouldn't have too much problem with it. So we will see.

Anyway, got to get back to work. We have been getting viruses up the ying-yang so I have to be careful on what sites I go to online and make sure I save downloading stuff for home. Hope you are all well. It has been good to hear from you all! Have fun and take pictures Mom!

Well, I am now at an internet cafe which has an English keyboard so I can reasonably write messages. This trip is really a ball...I want to bring Dad here..and Marnie...and all of you. It is so much fun!

Today we have spent the day visiting the Chateau at Amboise, the house where Leonardo da Vinci spent the last years of his life and the Chateau Chanacioux (sp?) which is built over a river...all very cool. Yesterday we drove up from the country home near Figeac visiting several villages including one that is built into a cliff. We then visited a village where there was a Nazi massacre. It was very moving! We arrived late to our manor house bed and breakfast and had a late dinner and dropped exhausted into bed. Tomorrow we are going to see Monet's gardens and another chateau and will be staying in Bayeaux for two nights. We'll be going to Normandy during that time.

We are quite a sight...six middle aged women careening through Europe in a Peugeot van loaded to the hilt!!! and laughing all the time. This is definitely a trip to remember. Martha and I are planning a trip in a couple of years including Dick and Kenn. I'd love for her to keep me posted so we could maybe go on one together, Marnie. I definitely am getting the travel bug.

Sounds like all is well at home...I do miss you all in spite of all the fun I am having and will be happy to return back home to you. Thanks so being so good to Dad in my absence. Love you all,

Mom

Hey!
I know we haven’t blogged for A LONG TIME! Mom bugged me every time I would be over here (like 2 times) to do it. I should have listened now that we are getting yelled at ha-ha! Anyway, we don’t have internet at our apartment because then we have to pay for it and we just really don’t want to do that. Our apartment is finally getting all put together and feeling like a home. We don’t have anything on the walls really because we know we will only be here for like 3-4 more months so we figure we don’t need to be putting holes in our walls. We borrowed a LoveSac from the girl I baby-sit for. It is the biggest one you can get. For those of you who don’t know what LoveSacs are, they are huge beanbags but they aren’t little beans of that stuff (ha-ha) they are made out this material that NASA uses. Anyway, it is a company that started in Salt Lake City and they make some awesome bean bags except they are EXPENSIVE! Well we have one in our living room along with a loveseat and mushroom chair (MARNIE!). The LoveSac takes up like half of the room. We will have to take pictures when mom gets back from the trip. I let her take my camera instead of buying a whole new one!

Most of you know we are selling the Durango to get a better little car that will suit us money wise! Since the lowest car insurance we can find is 950 for 6 months! Ugh... Anyway, we have a buyer but he is getting money to pay for it this month so it is the situation where if someone gets it before you then oh well! And he knows it. We SWEAR that the stallion is punishing us for selling him because now his brake lights are working and we thought that maybe it is the fuse. So we bought and new one and replaced it. Nope not it! So now we are going to take him to this guy (that Treven works with) to check out the brake switch to see if something is wrong with it. This guy is a big automotive guy and he owes us so yeah. Just crossing the fingers that we don’t get pulled over by a cop before that!

So when is the Christmas drawing going to take place? I couldn’t remember if it had already happened or not! Anne, great job! I really want to be able to see one of your games as you playing outside hitter. But every time I watch it makes me miss it that much more….. Anyway enough of my complaining! Great job and keep it up! Mike, miss you and glad you are safe over there! Dave and Adina, weird not to see you guys everyday. Brooke, call whenever if you need a buddy to help out and do stuff with! We love you all! And we will post pictures when mom gets home!

Kim and Treven

a poem for Brooke

Brooke Stinchfield is her name
She has a sis-in-law that's really lame

I promise I didn't forget you
I would never even think to

But I suppose that's the problem
And man you know I've got 'em

So sorry for leaving you out
Just please forgive me and don't shout

I love you so
I will never let you go...apart from the Stinchfields!

Sorry brooke! I love you!!!

Just got home from the Washougal vs Prarie HS Football game. Dave, Isaac, Taylor, Parker and I went to the game after a great dinner with Adina, Morgan and the above mentioned guys. We stayed until it looked like Washougal was going to get snookered and then all of a sudden, as we were leaving, a couple of touchdowns in a few minutes and the game reversed itself. We laughed at each for missing the best part of the game, but he boys were getting restless and off we went. On the way home, I could see the scoreboard and with 1:21 to go, Washougal was ahead by 4 points. I don't know how it turned out. Hey, the home across the cul de sac from David and Adina is for sale. It is a very nice home like theirs. If you want this one, you'll have to move fast.

Had a nice time last night with Brooke and kiddos, Dave and Adina and kiddos at the Greatest Show on Earth circus. Had a good time and the looks on the kids faces made it well worth it.

Tomorrow is another day with mom gone off to Europe. I'm handling it okay and I get occasional invites from family for meals here and there. Kim brought me some broc and chicken and it was good, as usual.

Well, that isn't much said but I am drifting off to sleep. Love ya, all, Dad

Wow Marnie, Mike is gone less than four days and I am no longer included as family. That's cool. I hope I get your name for Christmas. Then I won't have to worry about getting you anything since I'm not really a part of your family.

For those of you that still include me- Dave, my cell is 706-577-2806. My parent's home phone is 360-666-8639. I hope you received my message about not needing you to watch Bailey. I left in on Adina's cell. I left a message there yesterday afternoon as well. Just so you don't think I'm pulling a Marnie:)

As for me and the girls, we are doing well. Mike is reasonably happy and that makes me happy. Jane gets to talk to her dad every day right when she gets out of school and that is definitely a high point in her day. The girls are having lots of fun with their cousins, although Sadie is having major Morgan withdrawals now that she is in her new house and we aren't seeing her on a daily basis.

Barb, I hope you are having a wonderful time on your trip. We miss you. We love you all. Peter, I especially want to tell you how much fun we had getting to know you this summer. I think I've said that before but we are so glad you are part of the family. Even when Anne is out of town. We like all of your geeky interests as well :) Anne made a wonderful choice. I'm sure Kim did too, but we have to wait until the newness wears off and then see if uncle Trevin is as fun as he is now.

Alright, now that I have offended everyone. I love you all. Goodnight.

Good job everyone! Well almost everyone...we still haven't heard from Kim and Treven. Hopefully they are still alive and ok.

Good to hear everyone's news.
Mike: Glad you are safe in Korea. I hope you can have some fun their exploring the area. I will have to send you some money so you can hook me up with one of those mink blankets that Dad used to get for us. I have a half size one but I would like a full.
Mom: I am jealous but glad that you are having fun in Europe. I wish I could go! I love it there!
David and Adina: I need your cell phone numbers. My cell phone broke so I had to get a replacement and reenter all numbers but I lost yours. I hope the house is coming together well. Brent and Buffy: I promise I will come up there sometime soon. I just am busy with work and scared of gas prices so a 6 hour round trip drive makes me hesistate for a one day trip. So we will see when I can figure that out.
Tom and Tracey: I love the pictures of Hayden! He is so cute! Good to know that you are well.
Anne and Peter: Great job Anne! I was bragging to my friends about you because they are in a volleyball class at Mesa and think they are all good and stuff so I told them you were way better! Hopefully I might be able to squeeze in one of your games when I am up in Utah next month.
Kim and Treven: Um, hello? You guys are MIA so I have no comments for you. :)
Dad: Hang in there! Feel free to take a weekend trip to San Diego to visit your alone daughter! The weather is amazing!

I am well, just working and chugging along. Love you all!

Glad Mike got to Korea safely....and Anne on her great game..s...This is a struggle since the French keyboard is slightly different! We arrived safely and are having a great time. We are in an old Roman city tonight where van Gogh cut off his ear! I enjoyed reading the blog...we are in a hotel with internet access! Have to go get ready for dinner!

Love and ,miss you all:::especially Dad!

Mom

I'm glad I wasn't the only one totally amazed by the amount of high rise apartment buildings in South Korea. And it is like that almost everywhere. It is hard to fathom unless you see it yourself. And it is amazing how close it all is to the DMZ. Glad to hear you made it there safely Mike. I can only imagine the freakin' out at the airports. I'm surprised they let you take it! Amenities there sound nice. Shoot, that would be awesome if there were some way the girls could stay there with you. We haven't heard from Brooke yet. BTW, Brooke, when you read this, could you give me a call? I realized that I only have Mike's cell # and not yours programed in. I wrote it down somewhere, but I lost it. We have a landline now in our new home, so everyone can add it to their lists: 360-210-7143. Email that same as always. Give us a call Brooke, so that we can arrange the deal tonight.
Good job on the killing (?), Anne. You sound like you are tearing it up. I wish I had known that it were the closest game of the season, I would have tried to come. You'll have to let us know your schedule so that we can see if there are any others we can make it to.
We just got all connected with internet, telephone, etc. here in our home today. It is finally starting to be functional. We still need to make a couple more shopping trips to Safeway to fill the cupboards. Pictures on the wall will help as well. It is nice being so close to work and school.
The soccer season has started and it really throws the scheduling all out of whack. It'll be interesting.
Also, last weekend, Adina and I broke away for our 12th wedding anniversary to a B&B on the Oregon coast. Mom and Dad were gracious enough to take the kids for 4 days/3 nights. We went to this place between Cannon Beach and Manzanita called St. Bernard's. Really cool B&B, with great food, awesome rooms and not far from the beach or other activities. We did some sight seeing....there are some beautiful views on the coast, I'll have to post them as soon as I find my camera. We went horseback riding in the dunes and on the sandy beaches. It turned out to be a beautiful day. Adina had never done it before and I had done it last when we lived in Valentine. It was really a lot of fun and we got a little sunburned and SORE! We went out to dinner a couple of times and went shopping and to a play in Cannon Beach. It was a great break after all of the moving, starting work, starting school, starting sports, new Ward, etc.. We really needed some recovery time. And now we are back to the grind...
Mom is gone to Europe, so we are trying to keep Dad busy. He went from 8 people sleeping in his house to 1 person, within 1 day. Must be quiet in that big house. But, we try to go make some noise occasionally.
Mom, hope all is well there. What a trip! Anxious to see some pictures and hear about your travels.
Take care all,
Dave

Mike reading to the girls. 

It was funny sending my carry-on through security. The lady at SEA-TAC gasped loudly and freaked out, yelling "What the hell do you have in there sir?!" Well it is my 2 hard drives and video cards bubble wrapped in cardboard boxes, a PS2 smashed in between, with wrapped up cords on either side. I can only imagine what that looked like on the screen. And then in Tokyo, in there own special Japanese way, they freaked out. The bag was totally unpacked and I had to send each piece through separately. Funny.

Well all, I have arrived safely. I didn't sleep a wink on the plane. So I was ready to crash hard when I got to the hotel. Went to bed at 1030 pm and amazingly woke up and could not sleep at 4 am. So, with the International Dateline I figure I woke up Tuesday morning after maybe 5 hours sleep and didn't go to sleep until 1030 pm Wednsday and then could only sleep 6 hours. Hmmm..well will see how I do. It is 447 pm right now and I feel like I do about 1 am which is coincidentally what tiem it is in Washington so go figure.

Seoul is huge. I would say it feels even larger than New York just because the city never stops. Camp Casey is 40 miles NE of Seoul and on the bus trip here I was wondering when we would finally get out of the city and then all the sudden we were going into the Camp Casey gate. So there are still all the very large skyrise apartment buildings all around Casey. Not at all like I pictured it. And to think the enemy is only like 5 miles away...weird.

I will be inprocessing here for the next week and a half. Nice being a Captain because they put me up at the Camp Casey Lodging which actually has a nicer room than the hotel I stayed in at Seoul. And Brooke, it is only 39 bucks a night and is about 3 blocks from where I work. Nice, huh?! Weird to shut the blinds and watch FOX news, feels no different than the states. Downtown Seoul looked incredible, I cannot wait to check it out. I am amazed by how many dependent families I see here. On Casey they have a full commisary and PX just slightly smaller than the one at Benning. It is very nice from what I see so far and Yongsan Garrison in Seoul was over-the-top nice. Only thing really missing is my girls, all 4, and that is a huge MISS.

Anne, that is sweet, great job. Peter, I am glad you are working through HL2, go ahead and finish it and let me know when you get done. I can hold off replaying for a while. I will not be in my apartment for a couple of weeks and then it will be a bit before I get my PC and Internet set-up.

Brooke, I need to buy a cell phone here. I am going to wait and try to by a used one off someone leaving. It is the way you get a phone here, cheap as land lines. You don't sign up with a provider like in the US. You just by a Korea capable phone. You use pre-paid phone cards to use it, all incoming calls and text messages are free. So that will be cool. I will let you know.

I will let you all know what is up in the coming weeks. I had a great Summer with all of you. Thanks so much. Take care of my girls.

Love, Mike

Here are a couple of paragraphs from the UVSC website posted after tonights game against Boise State. I'm sad to say I wasn't able to be there myself.

BOISE, Idaho – The Utah Valley State volleyball team defeated the Boise State Broncos Tuesday night in an intense four-game match, 30-23, 18-30, 30-26, 33-31, at Bronco Gym. The Wolverines improve to 1-2 on the season and own an overall 3-0 series record over BSU. “It was absolutely a great effort by the girls,” said head coach Sam Atoa. “It was good to see them come together and execute our game plan. They [ Boise State] changed some things on us and it didn’t faze our girls.”

Outside hitters, Anne Olsen and Camie Manwill notched double-digit kill numbers, both finishing the night with season-highs. Olsen tallied 14, while Manwill added 12. Middle blockers Jessica Endres and Stephanie McFarland also added some fire power, with 9 and 7 kills respectively, and outside hitter Larissa Laycock chipped in 8 kills.

The defensive end was solid as well, with Maegan Hoyt finishing with 17 digs. Manwill added 8 digs, while freshman Bethany Carron and Olsen added 5 apiece.

The writing above was posted tonight by a reporter for UVSC. I'm way proud of how Anne is playing. Anne has had 5 service aces for the three matches. She has a really good jump serve and jump served to win the match tonight. This is big because the score was 32-31 and she jump served with that kind of pressure and executed like she knows how to do. It's fun to be in the crowd and here the ooo's and aaahhh's when she jump serves. They play this coming Friday and Saturday in Ogden in the Weber State tournament. It should be fun as it always is.

Well, I wasn't at the Boise game because I was on my way back from another California trip. I was able to go up to Yosemite for one of the days. It is really a beautiful place. I didn't get any pictures this weekend. But I drove through Yosemite last weekend on my way back to Utah and snapped a couple of pictures.

Mike, I hope you have arrived in Korea safely and I look forward to blogs from there. I also hope the whole family is adjusting well after your departure. I have appreciated your allowing me to use your steam sign in so I could play Half Life 2.

'Till next time, take care.

Peter

Goat and friend 

Enterance 

Paradise Inn 

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