2010

What an amazing year it has been......as I look back, I am excited for what lies ahead of us as a family!
Paige turned 11 in January....which means that as I write this, she is a week away from being 12! She is changing on all fronts...her body...her attitude....everything. She is a wonderful girl..and I feel blessed to be her mother. I can't wait to see what this year unfolds like for her and us. I know that as she enters her teen years we will have our ups and downs, but I know that I will NOT repeat my own teen years, and so that is the first indication that this shall go well! :)
June saw me start my bachelors degree in Psychology. I changed from Law as I felt that I did not want to spend any part of my life watching and helping marriages dissolve. Coupled with my legal sciences degree, I hope to work in the court system as an advocate for the under 18 set. They need a voice and the legal system and kids are my passion.
July saw Mark do his last day in the Navy. After 20 glorious years of fighting for our freedoms, standing up for what he believes in, he turned the watch over to a new generation. He did an awesome job and I will always be proud of his service. He technically had two weeks without a job, and is now doing the same thing he did in the Navy, but as a civilian, and earning a lot more money and finally getting the recognition and respect that he deserves....again, I am always proud of what he does!
September saw Ben turn 9. I do not know where the time goes. He was just born a few days ago! :)
Both kids are doing so well in school. Smart as anything and always so kind and good...
Sam has had a good year working and is making plans for his future. He is looking at what he wants to do for college, and is looking at moving out in January into his own place with some friends. While I am sad to see him go, I am also excited for him. It is a new adventure. He has grown into the most AMAZING young man. I am proud to be his mother!
This year saw some sad things as well....Marks Grandma Ruth died just before Christmas...she was 98 and lived a good, long life but it is always heart breaking to lose someone you love. This year also saw Marks brother in law Bill get very ill...as I type this he is counting down his days. Hospice and all in the medical community are not sure how he is still alive. He is dying and there is nothing we can do...we laugh with him..we cry with him...we love him dearly. He is keeping a sense of humour, but I cannot imagine knowing that I was dying....how hard that must be. This year also saw the final end to Mark and Shelbys relationship for now. Mary refused to put Shelby on the plane for Christmas 2009, and that was the last time (and first!) Mark heard from Shelby that year. She emailed him and said that she did not want a relationship with him right now but wanted one when she was an adult. Coming from an then 15 year old, that speaks volumes to us. Mary is a freaking insane nutjob who is doing a great job of destroying Shelby. Mary was divorced for the third time in January and moved a new man into their home in March or April...they are now engaged (God help him)....I have tried to be kind about Mary and our years of her crap, but really...after all these years, I can only say that she is the most mentally unbalanced person I have ever come to know. I pray for Shelby every day...she is going to need our prayers and good vibes in order to turn out to be a normal adult.
Sam turned 20 a few weeks ago....amazing how this four pound, eight week premature baby turned into such a lovely young man. I love him...so much.
My brother asked a wonderful girl to marry him this year, and they will be married in the spring. They will be living in Switzerland (her homeland), and so this means that this year will see us saving our pennies for a trip to Europe in 2012. :) I cannot wait!
And now we are at New Years Eve....and I know that this coming year will be full of adventures and new things. I will get the major part of my degree done this year, the kids will turn 21, 12, and 10 respectively....(you don't need to know how old I will be this year!), Mark will get settled into the new job and become an 'old pro' at what he does...
I wish nothing but success...joy...love...and good things for you all...know that we think of you all often and miss you and love you all so very much....

Hugs to all,
Jaye

Kitchen day...

About five years ago (or maybe less) Mark had duty on Christmas Day. I did not want him to miss yet ANOTHER Christmas dinner/celebration so I decided we would have our big feast on Christmas Eve. It turns out that when you do that, Christmas Day is a breeze!! No rushing to open presents and clean up because you have to cook...it turns Christmas Day into a nice relaxing, enjoy your gifts, sit around and play with the family kind of day. So that became our new tradition, and we love it!
This year is our first 'retired' Christmas! This means there was no trying to figure out 'duty schedules' in advance to see if Mark would be home this year, no having to put in for leave, no duty days during the holidays. This year, Mark is not only HOME for Christmas (eve, day, AND boxing day!) but he is home for ELEVEN days and it only requires him to use FIVE of his banked holidays days! We so love civilian life! :)
So today after hitting the shower, I shall ensconce myself in the kitchen and start doing the things I can do today! I will be making a chocolate pie (Sam and Ben would lead a rebellion if I didn't serve this on Christmas Eve!), Cranberry sauce (Paige and I are purists and will only eat 'real' cranberry sauce!), a broccoli/cauliflower cheese bake (I am so sick of the 'traditional' veggies for the big feast!), and get my stuffing made in advance.
Tomorrow I will put a ham in the oven, Mark will put the turkey on the grill, and I will put the stuffing and the veggie bake in the oven, cook some corn and potatoes (gravy too of course!) and that will take care of that. It will make enough food for leftovers on Christmas day as well! I bought two lovely loaves of organic bread in anticipation of some lovely sammies on Christmas day, but if anyone wants a plate of food, they know where the microwave is! :)
For dinner tonight, I will be making latkes and bacon and sausages..I think I put on five pounds during the holidays, but it is so worth it! The kids love the food traditions as much as all the other things we do...I look forward to the day when they bring THEIR families home for my big dinners!
So off I go to shower and start cooking!

Hugs to all,

Jaye

Snow day....

Mark and I were woken up this morning at 7:30 am to a banging on our bedroom door and the excited voices of two children shouting "IT'S SNOWING". There are no two words in the world that can get Mark and I out of bed faster than that. We are like the kids when it snows! It still holds that magical bond with us that we had as kids. There is nothing like leaping out of bed and running to throw the blinds wide open and seeing a white world with huge white flakes tumbling down from the sky, racing each other to see who can hit the ground first!

As it was an hour and a half past my normal time to get up (I am up at 6 during the week!) Dexter REALLY had to go outside. I put a robe on over my pj's and donned my snow boots and out we went so he could do his business. I don't care who you are, or what is going on in your life, but there is nothing that compares to the absolute silence that envelopes you when you go out into the snow. There is not a bird to be heard, nor a creature to be seen. I imagine them all tucked up somewhere, looking at me through blurry, sleepy eyes, thinking "Is she NUTS? Doesn't she know it is COLD out here?". I wandered around the yard a bit while Dexter found the perfect spot to go (which usually takes him awhile!) and marveled at the silence and the whiteness..and the sheer magic that is snow!

Mark and Paige have headed out to hunt for a bit. Mark is convinced that the deer go crazy in the snow and that TODAY is the day he will bring back meat for our freezer. I am not holding my breath. I think 'hunting' is merely a justifiable way of getting out of the house and away from the chaos for hours at a time! lolol..I might have to start 'hunting' myself (and pack a good book in my backpack!). I have now showered and readied myself for the day of lazing around, and so I am off to play Wii with Ben. Thus begins our Christmas holidays....snow...family...fun. I can think of no better way to spend a day than this.

Hugs to you all,
Jaye

Christmas break starts right..........NOW!

Paige and Ben enjoyed their last day of school till the new year. They each had a class party (the cake above is what I made for Bens class party!), gifts were given to their teachers (cute tin buckets filled with homemade treats and a $5 Starbucks gift card!), gifts were exchanged with their friends, and report cards came home. Both are doing wonderfully in school and neither has homework over the holidays! YAY!
I too am on a three week break (have already enjoyed one week of it!). I go back to school on January 3rd, just like Paige and Ben! It is nice to be able to relax and not have to worry about any papers due during the holidays.
Mark works till Christmas Eve, working only a half day that day, and then he too is on a one week holiday! It will be nice to have a week off together as a family without any deadlines or schedules to follow.
We will enjoy our big feast on Christmas Eve....a tradition we started a few years ago when Mark had duty on Christmas day so we had our big meal on Christmas Eve. Turned out to be a wonderful choice, as Christmas day was no longer a scramble to open gifts, clean up, cook, and eat. We will go and enjoy Christmas Eve services at 9pm and come home and snuggle into bed and wait for Santa! Christmas day will see us lounging around enjoying our gifts and each other, and the company of good friends. We would like to head up to Mt. Rainier to go sledding during our time off, but we'll see if we actually get around to that! :)
It will be nice to have this time to relax and enjoy time off.
Even nicer is not having to figure out the 'Duty Schedule' a week in advance to know if Mark will be home for Christmas or not...one of the perks of retirement from the Navy!

Hugs to all,
Jaye

Blame it on facebook...and school...and life....

It has come to my attention that there are those of you out there that do not 'do' facebook, and therefore have not been able to keep up with the exploits of the Greene family! I do offer my humble apologies and am actually quite surprised that my blog had faithful readers (after all you never commented, and you know who you are!)....I found that facebook allowed me to take ten minutes out of my day to post a few pictures, relay a few happenings and I could keep everyone up on all that was Greene (those who were interested anyways). So..blame my lack of blogging on facebook! :)
I actually prefer to blog, as writing is a love of mine that goes back to when I was a little girl. Words fascinate me. I love them. I love stringing them together like one would put a string of beads together. You can string words together that make a perfect picture, or you can string words together that really make no sense, so there is an art to words and all that is 'writing'. I cannot draw a stick man to save my life, but I can write up a storm!
Our life since the last post...which has been awhile! :) I think the BIGGEST happening has been that Mark is now a retired Sailor! He retired from the United States Navy, Submarine Fleet, after 20 years of service. He had a two week window that he did not have a job before he began his new adventure working for Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. Yes, he is doing the same thing that he spent the past 20 years doing, only as a civilian and for MUCH BETTER money! :)
Sam will be twenty in four days. I don't know how that happened. One minute I was dealing with the 8 week early birth of this four pound baby boy and the loss of his twin brother and then I blinked and he is 20! He is getting ready to move out of our house and into his own place with three other friends. This is such a bittersweet thing for me. I want him to live with us forever and I want him to GET OUT! :) I know how excited he is to move out. He found his wings awhile back and has been flexing them ever since, but now he is going to FLY...he may fly back to the nest a few times, but isn't that what life is about? You try your wings, you fly back to the nest to regroup and then you try again. Of course, he may NOT fly back to the nest, perhaps that is just wishful thinking on my part! ;)
Paige and Ben are both in the gifted program and attend a school for gifted kids. Paige is in the sixth grade doing high school math...and recently tested AHL (above High school Level) in reading. She is doing wonderfully academically. She is also a normal 'almost' 12 year old. Her body is changing, her attitude is reflecting these changes, and we are adjusting to this new stage in her life.
Ben is in fourth grade, doing sixth grade math and also doing well academically. He is obsessed with building paper airplanes right now, at least until something else grabs his interest and pulls him into its clutches for a length of time. That is how Ben is. He finds something he likes and his life becomes all about that until something else grabs his fancy. Part of what makes him...well..Ben!
I am also in school! I have finished two quarters now and am on a three week break. So far I have all A's but I cannot brag too much as I know that as soon as I get a big head about it, I'll get a b...or worse! I am getting my bachelors degree in Psychology and then my Masters in Marriage and Family counseling. I have an associates degree in Legal Sciences, which allows me to be a paralegal if I want, and I had planned on becoming a Family Law Attorney, but have decided that I'd rather be an ADVOCATE for families than someone who helps tear them apart. We have enough broken families in the world today.....
Marks ex wife is on husband number four...well, they aren't yet married, they are engaged. Her third divorce was final in January this year (after a year long battle over the home that they built together) and in March she moved the new fiance into her home. Quite the stellar example to Shelby isn't it? Mark has not talked to nor seen Shelby in two years now. Mary has blocked every attempt he has made, and last Christmas she REFUSED to put Shelby on the plane for her two weeks with us. Shelby emailed Mark after that fiasco and told him that 'right now I do not want a relationship with you, but when I am an adult I will want one'. Coming from a 15 year old (she is almost 17 now!) that said a lot to us. We know from talking to Marys third ex husband that Mary would go into a two to three day rage whenever Mark would call to talk to Shelby or send her a letter. Apparently she made that home a living hell. SO, Mark made the responsible choice to just let Shelby have the next few years of peace and quite so she can graduate and move on with her life. When she is ready to have a relationship with him, she will contact him. As for her schooling, Shelby is falling through the cracks. Normally a straight A student, she is now pulling in C's and D's. She used to be in the top ten in Cross Country, but now is not even close. Since September, she has been late to 21 classes, and absent from 29, and that is just in four months. We think that Mary is so invested in keeping this fourth relationship from failing that she is neglecting Shelby. There is nothing we can do but watch...and be prepared to pick up the pieces when we are asked to by Shelby. :) We have 18 months left of paying child support and of having to deal with Mary. That time will fly by and then we are done!
Now...on to happier topics! My brother is getting married in the spring and his fiance lives in Switzerland and so that is where they shall be living. Mark and I are planning on taking the kids to Europe in 2012 for a vacation and to see lots of exciting things. On our short list is Switzerland (which will be our base!), Paris, Italy, and Germany....but we shall see how things shape up closer to our travel time.
Last September for my birthday we got a Yorkshire Terrier which we named Dexter. He is adorable and has certainly become a beloved (albeit bratty!) member of our family!
And that brings us to today! We had three days of snow and ice and bitterly cold weather about two weeks ago, and that was it. Now we are in a flood watch until tomorrow due to the incredibly heavy rains! We are still hoping the temps will plummet (currently it is 51 degrees) so that we can have a white Christmas...but I think that might be wishful dreaming! We are all excited about Christmas and have had a flurry of shopping and wrapping and today I start the baking!
I wish each and every one of you a Very Merry Christmas, and I hope to hear from you! Leave a comment, or feel free to email me at k_did@hotmail.com

Love to you all....

Jaye