January 30, 2011- STACIE'S BIRTHDAY!!

The Jackson's of Albuquerque

Although this week as busy, Stacie and Kevin enjoyed the time they spent together. On Monday Kevin was excited to begin a new shift. Instead of opening the YMCA at 5:30am, he will be working the mid-day shift. On Friday Stacie and Kevin went out to Tucanos after work with their friends Nick and Amanda. On Saturday Kevin helped
their friends, the Thuns, move. Kevin and Stacie are sad to see their friends move so soon. Afterwards Kevin headed to work while Stacie made her way to the Scout office to pick up some awards for the Pinewood Derby. After Kevin got off work they headed over to the church to set up for the derby. They were happy to see that the cub scouts really enjoyed racing their cars.

Of course, today was Stacie's birthday. After eating some waffles and opening some presents, Stacie and Kevin packed up their car to drive up to the Bandelier National monument. They enjoyed walking around the beautiful area and climbing into some old Native American cave dwellings. Stacie would like to thank all of you who called her to wish happy birthday! She looks forward to being the old age of 23.


The Virginia Lanes

The VA Lanes do not have a lot of to report this week, but we did keep our weekly goals AGAIN!!! WHOOOO!

Jeff had never dyed his hair so we did that this week. It looks nice and he likes it because he feels that it makes him look younger. Julie used the leftover dye and did low tones on the bottom half of her hair and it looks good too.

There really is not too much else this week besides teaching our kittens to fly and climb on the ceiling-haha That was fun. We stuck a kitty on the top part of the door frame and found that it was able to imitate a monkey by suspending it self on the frame.

Julie is having some bad pelvic/abdominal pain from time to time-we are asking everyone to keep her in your prayers and especially your fast this Sunday.

Julie


The Haws family of Colorado

This past weekend was so beautiful. We had about 65 degree weather and sunshine (which is what I love) but unfortunately all good things must come to an end, it is predicted that we will be getting snow on Monday until Wednesday. This week Kayla had a pizza and pajama day at school for the letter "p". She was so excited to show everyone her Dora pajamas that Nana gave her. Kayla also gave her first scripture and prayer in primary, which Andy was able to help her. Haley and I discovered this week that Sydney, one of her friends from school lives just a few houses down the street from ours. She was so excited to play with Sydney on Saturday that she woke up at 6:00 am and asked if we could go get her and bring her to our house; Haley was patient enough that she was able to waited until 10:00 am instead. This Sunday was Melanie's first time teaching the 12-13 year old Sunday School class (her new calling in church). She was very nervous, but found out that she has a very good class with students that like to participate and are well behaved, which she is very grateful. Andy's exciting news this week is that his concealed weapons permit finally came.

The International Haws Family

Mom and Dad,

Our week was hot. It was certainly the hottest week of the season. Felipe and Lucas spend most of their time at beaches and rivers.

This will be the last official week of summer break. Though the de facto end is not for another month the kids are beginning to feel the pressures of responsibility return.

Lucas had a particularly good week at soccer. He was selected to play for one of the best local teams and called to be their team captain right away. Felipe too continues to play well.

On several occasions this summer Felipe has gone to beaches with larger waves. On these trips he has been trying to learn how to surf and has decided that he wants to dive into this activity. He asked if we could look at surfboards and help him to get one. I am searching for the kindest way to tell him that I want to make all his dreams come true, but surfing may be limited in PA. Luckily I think Matthew knows a thing or two about snowboarding and I think he might make a smooth transition.

Derick felt quite a bit of curiosity this week. Early in the week I had to replace the tower case of my computer he was interested in watching as I removed the internal components and moved them to the new tower. After completing he asked if he could have the old case which he then spent many hours trying to discover what to do with the wires and how to screw down the sides. I was impressed at his interest.

Last night he then caught me shaving. Over the past couple of weeks I have been trying to learn how to use a safety razor and he found it interesting to see me shave with a bit more care than when using one of the more common blades. I was a bit worried with his interest in razors but have had the theory that I can set some dangerous curiosities at bay by showing how the pieces work and why they are dangerous. Upon finishing we went to the bedroom where I took the razor apart to show him the pieces and what a blade is and how it works. To my dismay this only increased his interests. We spoke about he could not play with it without me and went on to let him shave my arms with a duller bic razor that I had on hand. After a few cuts I think he got the idea that razors are better to use on someone else than on himself and hope that the safety lesson was learned. In the end I only reinforced to myself how painful parenting can be.

Renata is doing well and looking forward to the return of school. She is working hard to ensure that all children get into afternoon classes so that she can sleep in, she also comments that afternoon classes allow for afternoon naps. We have been discussing her return to school which she is very interested in doing. I have my concerns as I will not be here to take care of the kids and also that she will need to be focused on getting documents prepared. She confirms that she can juggle her responsibilities in ways that only mothers can and that a man would never understand. I suppose that means she is going whether I like it or not and am glad to have found someone as stubborn as myself in life.

As to myself it was a busy week. Matthew and Steven were in Europe and the main computer in the office ran an error and was shut down. Without that computer I had to do some extra work without the assistance of the routines that I had prepared to run automatically. Amidst the changes and challenges I have enjoyed the opportunities to take on responsibilities that I had not expected to be ready to handle just a short time ago.

I hope that your week went well and love you very much.

Jeff

Grant's News

This has been yet another long week of work for Grant. Especially Saturday...Grant started his day at the restaurant at 9:30 am and got done at 1:30 am. However, work has taken a new twist now that Grant has been offered a bartending job at another restaurant in town. He has yet to decide what to do because the allure of a more balanced life is competing with leaving the restaurant he has worked in the entire time he has lived in Marshfield. Otherwise, Grant was able to spend time with a friend on Sunday. He is also planning the new additions to the flower beds now that seeds are on sale.

News from Wisconsin

We had plans to go to the Twin Cities this last weekend. We had planned to take Stephanie out to dinner and stay close to her place on Friday night. On Saturday we had hoped to go to the temple and then return. Unfortunately the snow was coming down pretty hard as we started to leave Marshfield so we ended up turning around. As I consider the situation we made the right decision to come back home.

Emily started her new semester classes. She is especially happy with psychology and is sure this is an area that she would like to focus her college education. Her career interests are in social work and music therapy.

Logan has really taken to ping pong. He is improving each time I play him. It is becoming a real challenge to stay ahead of him but so far I can... I am not sure how much longer that will last.

Lanette had a really good time at the Elmhorst birthday party. She was able to speak with one of the sisters of the her former daily living skills teacher. She found that very meaningful.

Mom has been ill with some type of respiratory virus. She hopefully will be back to full strength soon. I have been busy with work but like Grant I am beginning to plan my summer gardening adventures.

I hope that each of you know of Mom and my love for you. Please join us in fasting for Julie's health this Fast Sunday. I know the power of fasting and prayer has amazing effects.

Love Dad

January 23, 2011

The Jacksons of Albuqueque

The last few weeks have been very busy for Stacie and Kevin, however they were still able to enjoy some time together throughout the week. On Monday, Stacie enjoyed a day off of work in celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Kevin and Stacie enjoyed dinner with their friends, Nick and Amanda, at a Las Vegas style Chinese buffet. On Tuesday, Kevin started off his winter classes. This semester he will be taking a lyric & poetry class and an introduction to Old English course. He has only heard frightening things about the work load and difficulty of his Old English class, so he is thankful that his work schedule has switched around so we can get more rest and spend more time preparing for his tests and work.

On Friday, Stacie was able to have another day off of work because she had put in so much overtime since last Saturday. Kevin and Stacie traveled a few hours south of Albuquerque to visit a national park called Bosque del Apache. It is a bird preservation and they enjoyed bird watching for a few hours. They were impressed by a pond filled with thousands of white geese. They also enjoyed watching hundreds of cranes and spotting a few elk and even some bald eagles. They were also excited to stop at a A&W in Belen which they once overheard an older couple excitedly talking about in the Costco food court.

On Saturday, Stacie and Kevin stopped by The Dollar Store to begin preparing awards for the Pinewood Derby their pack is hosting on Saturday. While on the town they enjoyed browsing through Barnes and Noble and Trader Joes. Although Anthropologie was closed, Stacie was very excited to discover that the fancy home decor and clothing store is nearby. Those of you that saw the nice mugs that Grant gave Stacie for Christmas can understand how excited Stacie was to discover this store, since those mugs come from it.

On Sunday Stacie and Kevin were invited to dinner at their neighbor's home. They enjoyed dinner and playing the game, "Ticket to Ride." They are sad to see their friends, the Thune family, move. They will be helping the Thune's move out on Saturday morning.


The International Haws Family

Mom and Dad,


Our week was busy but enjoyable.


After speaking in more details with Steven, Renata and I have been looking more at rentals. Among things that we have learned have been that apartment complexes don`t like three kids in one room and that low prices generally have hidden problems. Regarding the later we had a fun experience. Among other properties I came across an old home, built in 1900 and maintain and restored over time. The home has four bedrooms and a beautiful lawn with a low fence around the property. To top it off the cost was lower than most of the three bedroom apartments that I have come across. Becoming interested I called the property. I discovered that the property was so well maintained as its owner was located next door, a historic Catholic church and that the lawn was beautifully green due to an uncommon fertilizer for the lawn is a segment of the cemetery grounds that belong to the Catholic church. Renata quickly expressed her concerns and I was not able to get a discount for paranormal encounters so the search continues.


Looking for residence has also included examining the schools and school districts. I have used tools like GreatSchools.org to get some kind of a guide. I also spoke with Mom for suggestions. Toward the end of the week I began examining ESL (English as a Second Language) programs to compare their quality as that is a main concern. To keep the boys excited we also reviewed which schools had better soccer programs in the region. Among these two factors we found a very strong correlation as the experienced, qualified ESL programs tend to also be the schools with better soccer teams. This immediately became obvious, schools with more experience teaching English were generally teaching latinos and the latinos tend to have a significant influence on the quality of the soccer team.




The boys and Renata are all doing well. Mostly enjoying the summer month of beaches and free-time.


I will be traveling to the PA on the 21st of February.


I hope that you are well.


Love,
Jeff

The Colorado Haws Family

This week we were sad to see Nana leave. All of us had a wonderful time with her and Andy especially enjoyed being able to stay up late talking with her one-on-one. Kayla had enjoyed going to story hour this week at the local library and making Polar Bear masks. Haley was glad to get her new glasses and show them off to everyone. One other exciting thing is that Haley has learned to ride her bike without training wheels...Way to go Haley! Other than that not too much has happened this week.

The Wisconsin Haws Family

It was a cold wintry week here in Wisconsin. Mom was gone for the first couple of days so we tried to keep things together. We had the Elders over along with a new family in the branch on Monday night for family home evening. I was suppose to get Lanette to the school bus that evening but the roads were terrible. To my surprise, Lanette was very upset that she could not go to school. Wonders never cease. Thankfully Julie has been calling Lanette on a regular basis and reading Twilight. Lanette is really enjoying it.

Logan and I went camping on Friday night. Logan had a great time playing games and staying warm in the cabin. I decided I wanted to sleep in a snow cave. It actually was quite warm but the big issue was how small it was. It really gave me a feeling of claustrophobia.

Emily received her ACT scores back and is pretty pleased with them. She is anxiously looking into colleges that have music therapy and social work options.

Mom came home with lots of great memories from her trip to Colorado. She had such a great time. It was a terrific chance for her to spend time with Andy and Melanie and Kayla and Haley. Andy sent home a replica of an ox head for me. It will find a special place in our home probably a doorway.

On Saturday night we enjoyed dinner out with Grant. That was enjoyable as expected. It also keep Grant away from unwanted calls from Applebees.

We hope to see the weather warm this coming week. We are planning a temple trip this weekend. We will also be visiting Stephanie Haws who lives in the Twin Cities now. We are looking forward to the upcoming arrival of Jeff and his family this year and a potential visit from Andy and Melanie and girls this summer.

January 15, 2011

The Lane's of Virginia

As promised here is the week of the Virginia Lanes. We started our January 7th resolutions. Jeff has something against New Years resolutions. They seem superficial, and half the time they are viewed as obligatory. The other 364 days are more likely to be taken seriously and to succeed. We are setting weekly study and exercise goals. So far so good. We tried a local ma and pa dinner this week. It was ok. The burger was a Frisbee and the chicken strips were pencils similar to burger king’s chicken fries. This week we however we also worked on food storage by buying some paint buckets and wheat flour (50lb). not much, but we are proud .we took our kitties to the park and they loved it. All the smells in the dry leaves were intoxicatingly exciting to them.

The Jackson's of Albuquerque

This week was a difficult week for Stacie with long work hours and nightly church meetings, however she couldn't have made it through without Kevin being such an awesome husband. On Tuesday Stacie enjoyed going to mutual and playing "Hymn Pictionary." On Wednesday she was able to leave work early in order to balance out her work hours and enjoyed the early afternoon with Kevin and her young women's presidency meeting. On Thursday Kevin and Stacie headed over to a cub committee meeting and planned the epic pinewood derby. They look forward to inviting their friend, Doug's son, Mauricio for the event.


On Friday Stacie had the longest work day in history, arriving at work at 6:30am and leaving at 9:00pm. However, it was a productive and positive day overall of check ins, training, and other semester preparations. While Stacie was at work, Kevin headed over to their friends' house, Nick and Amanda for a BBQ wing cook off. After he left to pick up Stacie, they decided to return to the party and continue to enjoy the overly fried food and super hot sauce. However, they had to leave soon because Stacie had to return to work early on Saturday morning to train her new employees. Thankfully, she was able to leave earlier than anticipated. Later in the evening, Stacie and Kevin invited their friends, Amanda and Nick, over for dinner. They enjoyed spending most of the night laughing and talking with their fun friends.


Now, they are both very ready for sleep after a long week.

The International Haws Family

I have spoken with Jeff several times over the last week. The mudslides have not directly affected them but surely many people have lost property and in some cases their lives to the devastation. Thankfully they are safe. Our prayers are with the people of both Brazil and Australia that have lost so much.

The Colorado Haws Family

Mom flew out to Colorado on Thursday. She is having a wonderful time as Nana. It has been fun to hear the voices of Kayla and Haley on the telephone as they talk about their time with Nana.

Grant's News

Grant has been working a whole lot. I have hardly seen him. Hopefully he will be able to post something soon.


The Wisconsin Haws Family

Logan went with friends roller skating this week. He had a lot of fun doing that. He still misses his friends that moved recently but it is nice to see new friends moving into a more central role in his life. His chickens are still growing but no eggs yet.

Emily has enjoyed time with Emily Wolfe, a neighbor that shares an interest in music with Emily. They spent time together last night playing with an Apple application called Garage Band (or something similar).

Lanette has a long weekend with Martin Luther King Holiday this week. She spent time with the Elmhorst. A favorite place for Lanette. She loves her Victor, the MP3 player for the blind.

As for Mom, she is out in Colorado having a wonderful time. My week has included receiving help from Logan and Emily to clean the snow off of two widows driveways. Afterwards we went and ate together at El Jalepeno. I have enjoyed the opportunity to watch the Packer football game on Saturday. I abandoned Sunday football games when I was a kid but I still love to watch a Saturday NFL game now and then. This game was impressive. I think the Packers have a chance for the Superbowl!

Have a wonderful week.

January 9, 2011

The Colorado Haws Family

On Monday the girls were soaking up the last day of their vacation before they went back to school. This week Kayla started pre-school and was very excited to use her new backpack. We were also able to go to the temple on Saturday, which the weather and the drive was beautiful. Andy is finishing up his final touches before he turns in his E-7 promotion packet. We won't know until April if he made it or not, so please keep him in your prayers that he will.

The Wisconsin Haws Family

Our excitement this week was the plumbing. Our kitchen sink is plunged up big time. I have done everything I can think of to fix it but can't. So the plumber will have to make a house call. We will be washing the dishes in the basement sink. This may be a real challenge for us not to use a dishwasher.

Besides that big excitement, Logan enjoyed going with two friends to see "Gulliver's Travels". It was fun and Logan obviously had a great time. He met with the scout board to receive his tenderfoot advancement award. He did a great job at the board. Everyone was impressed.

Emily has become interested in investigating music therapy as a career field. She would like to learn to play the guitar. We went and looked at guitars this week. She has decided to save up her earnings for that. I think she would do a great job in this field. Of course, like all of us she may change her mind a number of times.

Lanette has thoroughly enjoyed her Victor. The Victor is a MP3 player for the blind with added features including the ability to tape record. You can only imagine how much joy that has given to Lanette.

Mom and I will the help of the Logan took down much of the Christmas decorations. That was a big relief to mom because she hates clutter. It has surprised all of us how much extra space there is in the home. It was with great tears Mom said good bye to Kevin and Stacie this week. It was a huge delight for all of us to have Jeff and Julie and Stacie and Kevin here for Christmas. Mom shed tears as you dropped off some of the most precious people in her life.

I had the opportunity yesterday of having Logan help me take down the Christmas lights at the Winter wonderland display. It is really a great service project. Work is back in full swing. I have also been reading a wonderful book called Fear Not. It is written by the Institute and Seminary director for the Wisconsin area. It is about the Book of Revelations. I highly encourage any of you to consider reading it.

Grant

Grant was very sad to have his buddies, Stacie and Kevin, head back to Albuquerque this week. After living together for a year, and then being away from eachother for so long, it was nice for Grant to be with them again. He was able to spend Monday with the two of them before they left. For the rest of the week Grant has been busy at work. In order to appeal to the new year resolution folks, the restaurant always has a new marketing initiative around the new year for "healthy" meals...and this week kicked off that. His bartenders are all excited for a contest the company is having for them to invent a new drink and get it in the menu. This coming week Grant is excited to go out to Olive Garden in Wausau with two of his friends he works with.

The Albuquerque Haws

Despite their sadness to leave Wisconsin, on Tuesday Stacie and Kevin flew back to Albuquerque. On Wednesday Stacie returned to work and it was very busy. Although it has been crazy, it has been nice to get back into the swing of things. On Friday, Stacie was able to leave a little early to head over to a doctor's appointment. It was nice to spend extra time with Kevin. On Saturday, Stacie and Kevin attended a wedding of two of the graduate students. They were married in a beautiful chapel located on campus. It was a nice wedding and it was nice to continue to get to know the fellow graduate students.

Updates


I do not have written updates from others but I know that Jeff is busy trying to get things in order to bring his family to America. We are surely looking towards their move.

I have not be able to reach Julie and Jeff so I cannot give any updates.

January 3, 2011

The Colorado Haws Family

This week has been full of adventures. Andy had started in-processing this week and will check into his unit next week. The girls have had a great time being home and playing in the snow from the New Year’s storm that we had. We didn’t have a sled for them to go sledding, so we improvised and used a printer box with a rope tied to it. Needless to say that box did not last very long, so the next day we adventured out on the very icy road to please the girls by buying them a sled. I do have to say that I would be very happy if it did not snow here anymore because I am not one who likes to drive on icy roads. Kayla was so excited today because she now has officially moved from the nursery into the Sunbeam class at church. Haley was excited that Kayla was in primary with her and was being a very good big sister by showing Kayla where her class was and who her teacher was.

News from Wisconsin

It has been such a wonderful couple of weeks. We have been blessed with Julie and Jeff and Stacie and Kevin visiting. There have been many special memories made during this time.

We were able to do a secret Santa for a family in our community. The effort was greatly helped by the "strangers" in our home that dropped things on their doorstep or in one case handed them a card with some special gifts inside. We have had the opportunity to go ice skating and snow shoeing. We had family pictures taken. We played games, ran around the outside of the house barefoot in the snow. Only Kevin and Logan were that crazy. We had wonderful meals prepared by nearly everyone in the home. For some reason I was not invited to prepare one of the meals. We enjoyed several meals at local resturants. We pondered the Savior's birth and enjoyed a wonderful message presented by Kevin and Stacie. We gave and received gifts that will brighten our lives in the days to come. We laughed together and enjoyed a holiday season that was much too short.

It has been so good to spend the time together and makes me want to see a day that all our family can enjoy time together.

One of the biggest pieces of news was that Jeff and Renata and the boys will be coming up to Pennsylvania this spring. I will include a fun story that Jeff sent about their excitement in coming north.

From Jeff

I had a fun experience that I thought I would share.

Tonight Felipe, our oldest, began to show signs of excitement about coming to the US. Renata had been talking to the boys and trying to boost enthusiasm about the idea of going somewhere completely different. Unfortunately for Renata English is not so easy and the pronunciation can become confusing, so much so that amidst her explaining what she had seen online she began confusing the name of the destination.

All of a sudden with excitement in their eyes Renata and the boys came running back asking me to show them pictures of Transylvania. I recognize that I am a horrible person but I could not let this pass. Quickly I started showing them beautiful castles and country side. They were quite impressed but felt the underlying theme of Halloween throughout the Google searches. Felipe asked about Halloween and I tried to explain that Transylvania was home to the sinister stories of Count Dracula. A quick feeling of discomfort began to arouse, Brazilian are just too superstitious.

A picture would have told the whole tale but I laugh far too easily. I could not bear and had to confess that the move was to Pennsylvania.

After some complaints from the crowd along the lines of “This isn’t helping” and “I’m never going to learn that language” all calmed down and we looked through some pictures of the Bethlehem/Allentown area.