We're a team

I never really write posts about how awesome my husband is, I actually don't write about him a lot at all.  I am just feeling overwhelmed with all of the blessings in my life, my husband, my kids, our situation, I just have to let it out! 

Just to prefeace this post.  We are not perfect, we fight.  We get angry.  Sometimes we go to bed mad, sometimes we leave the house mad.  But at the end of the day, we are still best friends and we both know that the other one always comes first.  I don't at all want to come across like my life is perfect, or even close.  I have a messy house (sorry Ashley!), I am sometimes (probably more often than not) a ditz (just lost my wallet, ugh).  I sometimes say things to my husband that I shouldn't (sorry babe, working on it!), and my kids aren't always great.  Working on that too! 

Anyway, I feel overwhelmed with God's goodness today and thought I would share.  I love my boys. They are strong and healthy and loving and funny.  Such a blessing even when I am hairbrained and not the nicest mother.  I love my husband.  God made him for me.  (I mostly know that because no one really knows how to handle me...)  He is a good strong man.  He gives me freedom, as much as I need within our financial boundries.  He doesn't stiffle me but keeps me in control.  When I have a million ideas of what I want to do in life, like one day be an astronaut and the next a hair stylist (little exaggerated, but kinda not, hehe).  He keeps me grounded.  He is my reality. 

We are a team together.  Sometimes I feel a little bad because I am not the perfect wife.  I don't handle all of the household duties by myself.  My house isn't always clean and I ask him to do the dishes every once in a while.  Then I realize, I am not a martyr.  He is my partner, not my master.  And granted, I know most of the house responsibilities fall on me, for better or worse, but he is happy to help.  He tells me that my sanity (occasionally touch and go) is more important than a perfect house or dishes done.  Today he wasn't feeling well, but I was also exhausted, Eli is cutting teeth again, I got Tae off to school, he has Eli at home.  Then we both took a nap.  He got up with Eli and got Tae from school.  He made Tae lunch as I made Lavar breakfast.  It was such a team effort to get through this morning.  I just love that. 

Anyway, that is about enough.  No one will ever know how awesome my husband is but me, and that is okay.  I guess I just feel like sometimes I have to explain him because he is big and black and scary and some people think that the only thing he can talk about is basketball.  But he is actually really funny.And really smart.  I wish people would give him more of a chance, you might find out how cool he really is! 

Just thought I would share a bit because I am so overwhelmed with my blessings today.  Thank you Lord!

Milan

Okay, so this is a serious bummer.  Our computer was broken, as you might know, and the other day we finally got it back!  I was excited on so many levels and decided to load all of the pictures onto it.  Since we haven't had a computer in a while, I had a ton of pictures and the memory space on the camera was full.  So I chose the option to delete the pictures after loading them... I am sure you can guess what happened next.  The previous two posts I got up and then after that the computer crashed again.  I lost all of my pictures from Milan and Christmas.  And every other picture I had on my computer... Talk about a serious bummer. 

Milan was great.  Beautiful drive, fun family time, awesome new culture.  I loved it.  Not really a city built for families, but if you know our family, we make things work!  We had a good time stayed at a nice apartment/hotel so I could cook to save some money... (hmmm... where's the vacation for me?)  But it was nice.  I did the things I wanted to do, see Duomo, a huge beautiful cathedral, eat pizza, see the Last Supper (well sort of see it. Ok maybe not), and eat gelato.  My favorite being... you guessed it!  Gelato!  It was heavenly.  I don't know if there are words.  It was awesome.  I want to go back just for the gelato.  Duomo was the next coolest.  Here is a picture of it I found from the internet.

Pretty awesome, huh?  The only difference is that when we were there, the weather was terrible.  But still a beautiful thing!

We actually got some family pictures too, but like I mentioned, they are all gone... forever!  Okay, a little dramatic, but seriously, bummer. 

I had some awesome pictures of the Alps too.  beautiful!  Did you know that people live in the Alps??  Like up in the mountains?  I had no idea.  I know I sound pretty stupid right now, but that is crazy to me.  That has to be freezing.  And pretty exclusive too.  I definitely couldn't handle it.  But I guess these people are used to it.  Thank goodness there isn't any teams in the Alps.  No thank you!

I am so thankful this year to be able to experience so many more things.  Like this trip to Italy, the trip we took to Switzerland in October, and my trip coming up to London (YAY!), and yet another trip to Switzerland when my family comes.  What awesome experiences.  I love my life!

Our Waffle Thanksgiving

So I usually do pretty good with the missing home thing.  I miss my family and friends, but I love my life here.  But this Thanksgiving has been a bit of a bummer.  Just beacuse Lavar had a road trip and is gone until tomorrow morning and it is just me and the boys and I don't have too many friends here.  I wanted to do something with just me and the boys and Tae's favorite thing to eat is waffles.  So we had waffles for dinner!  {I happen to enjoy waffles myself}

Tae of course, is always my helper in the kitchen and I just let him stir it up because the waffle maker gets so hot.  I could see that ending badly.  Here are some pictures of our evening and some things I am thankful for. 

My boys 'helping'

1.} I am thankful for my hard-working, reponsible husband who always puts us first and makes sure we are always taken care of.  Love him.

Little E man following me around helping

2.} My two strong, healthy boys.  I couldn't have asked for anything more.  And to top it off Tae's teachers told me that he is doing well in school and that he is a nice boy, no problems.  Good boy Tae!

My helper, not too sure what's with the face

 3.}  My extended family.  Cousins, aunts, uncles, brothers, sister-in-law, niece, grandparents, etc.  I am soooo blessed to have such an amazing extended family who all happen to live close together. 

Where Eli tries to spend most of his time.

 4.}  That we have food on our table.  I caught myself the other day, coming out of a grocery store thing 'I don't want to have to worry about money anymore! I am done counting pennies.'  I was getting a little annoyed and then thought, 'there are people in the world with nothing to eat and I am complaining about the budget being tight?  Let's get it together!'

My French waffle maker.

 5.} The opportunity to live in France.  Some people never get to see Europe, let along live there.  I get to live here!  Experience the culture, learn another language, meet new people.  It is fun, and it is hard at times, I still wouldn't change it!

Tae gettin' ready to chow down!

 6.}  The church family I found out here.  It has helped me integrate more and the people are so nice and inviting.  It is great to have all God's people all over the world!

Tae's meal

 7.}  My church family at home.  I have been having a hard time with Eli lately and it is so encouraging to get little notes, words of encouragement, and advice from my church family back home.  I don't have a lot of that here, so it is definitely refreshing!

Eli's meal

 8.} My Salvation. 'nuf said.

He had to have some waffles too!

 9.}  Packages!  My aunt sent me a package with French study materials and some christmas presents for the boys.  Love it!  Always fun and encouraging to get!

There are no words...

 10.}  Christmas season is going to be in full effect soon!  I can't wait for the music and decorations and food!  And this year I am sure I will get a white Christmas!  First ever for me!!

In case you were wondering, Tae did finish his mountain

 11.}  Christmas vacation coming soon! Tae gets two weeks off of school coming up December 18th.  And LAVAR gets 10 days off!  Lavar has never had more than two days off any of the seasons we have been out here together.  I can't wait!

It snowed!!

12.}  We woke up to snow this morning.  First time ever for me to be living in the snow.  Beautiful.

Missing Home

I think this is to be expected around the holidays.  I think I knew it would come.  I have been doing my best not to let anything bother me and so far I have been golden.  I am an 'enjoy life where you are at' kinda gal.  But Thanksgiving is coming up, then Christmas just around the corner from that.  And this is the first year of my life that I won't be spending it with my family. 

Brother and Husband Christmas Morning

Don't get my wrong, I love it here.  I love our lifestyle and I love living in different country, learning a new language, and trying to understand a new culture.  I like trying to integrate myself here and make new friends.  But it is hard because when I look on facebook, and I see all the friendships back home that are so effortless. {I don't have to translate everything in my head before I talk!}  Friendships I have had forever.  I miss my parents.  They are just awesome people to be around.  I miss my home church, although I am thankful to have found one here.  I miss all the other moms I know in the area and the support they offer.  I miss my cousins and their kids (Tae's friends).

Other brother and his wife Christmas Morning

But this is my life.  Some people never even get to see Europe, let alone live there.  (Granted, people probably don't care to live here, either).  I am learning another language, which is a huge, huge feet.  I have so much respect for people who know multiple languages.  I am giving my kids a broader view of the world, and allowing them to understand what other cultures are like.  I am getting a broader view of the world.  It is easy to be a closed minded American because America is so huge and does so many things well.  But other cultures and ways of life have things to offer too. 

Great pic, I know!

Over all, I wouldn't change anything about my life.  I love the experience that this is offering me right now.  I don't ever want to miss home so much I am not enjoying what is infront of me.  So I am embracing the new things of this year.  Being with my family, my boys, and my husband.  Creating new traditions for the Simmons family.  It is all very exciting and I am looking forward to it.  I just have to train myself to live in the now, enjoying what the Lord has given me for now.  And I do.  Thank you, Lord!

Tae and Daddy Christmas Morning

With my brother at Christmas Dinner

Tae has a friend!

Today Tae had a friend come over and play!!  Yay for friends for Tae!  However, it was a little touch and go...

As much as I do love our life, the traveling and seeing other parts of the world, there are down sides.  One is that we have to leave our awesome awesome family and friends and move to a place where we barely speak the language (or not at all) and we don't know anyone.  It is difficult to say the least.  When you have to translate in your head everything you want to say before you say it.  And when you work so hard to do it and think you got it just right and they just stare at you.  Yep, that's the best.

So Tae has seriously been the ultimate trooper.  He goes to a school where he can't understand anything and didn't have any friends and he hangs in there.  He doesn't cry when I leave and he is smiling when I pick him up 3 hours later.  I don't know many adults who would manage the same.  Well, with all the moving we have to do all the time, Tae doesn't have very many toys.  And it is okay, I don't want Tae to have a ton of toys or anything, but he seriously has nothing.  Like it is a little embaressing (for me).  I love that it is fine for Tae and he never complains, but when friends come over and they are like, 'This is crap.  I'm bored already.'

This is kinda what happened today.  Etienne came over.  He is a sweet kid, don't get me wrong, but after like a half hour he just wanted to watch TV.  I am thinking (total mom-like) 'Oh my gosh, I have to make this fun for him or he will never want to come over again.  He is Tae's only friend!!'  So I am down on the floor racing cars, building towers and knocking them down, trying to interest Etienne is something without truly succeeding.  I called my mom on skype, he thought that was funny for a second.  Then we were in the guest room and I threw Tae on the bed.  Yep, that is what Etienne liked.  Being thrown onto the bed.  So needless to say, that was my workout today!

I am so happy that Tae doesn't really know the difference.  He has never said that he doesn't have enough.  He asks us to buy him stuff all the time, but he never complains about what he has.  (I am sure that comes later in life)  I want him to appreciate what he has and be thankful to who gives it to him, I never want him to be a snob about toys and presents.  But the toy chest needs a little upgrade.  Now all I have to do is convince the husband.  He seems to think Tae is completely fine...