The Paustenbaughs

Family Time

Before we came out to Japan we took the time to travel around and see our families and friends. It's always great spending time with them since we normally don't see them often, but it was especially nice this time, and a tad bittersweet, since we knew it would be a long time before we saw them again.

The girls always soak up their time with the grandparents because I've said it once and I'll say it again-they have the best grandparents hands down! Not just one set, but both sets of grandparents are amazing!

I created this layout for the Ormolu blog today featuring my favorite items - flair.  Love all of them and use them whenever I can!

 

Life Opportunity

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about scrapbooking opportunities and knew I didn't want to stop there. My family and I have been given a life opportunity with our recent move and now that we're here I'm feeling a new sense of gratitude.

I was grateful that we were able to live and travel here for 2 years, but now that I'm here I can see the impact it's going to have on our entire family. We went into this move with a positive attitude and plan to continue that way.

 

Now, don't get me wrong.  I had a break down moment on Saturday when one of our "shipments" came and they brought us 4 whole items, 3 of which were absolutely useless without the rest of the shipment.  Terry knew to give me space for the day and let me out and moan, and knew just as quickly I would be over it.

However, just as quickly as I had steam rolling out of my ears, I had a feeling of gratitude 2 days later. We were allowed to attend a Sayonara party for one of the base commanders at a local town/community center.  (Sorry no photos were taken).  The local community was so welcoming of all of us, including my girls and during the speeches and ceremony I had to stop and think to myself that this is most definitely a once in a lifetime opportunity. 

As I sit typing this and waiting on my rather slow connection to catch up with me, I stop to remind myself that this is temporary and good for our family.  The everyday distractions we had in the states are much less here, the family time is much more and the chance to get out of our comfort zone on a daily basis is a good change for us and hopefully a lifelong change as well.

On the days that I'm sweating buckets. wishing I could stroll through Target or had more space for our stuff, I'll be doing my best to remember this opportunity we are given.  It's important.

**You can also find me today over at Write. Click.Scrapbook blogging my first summer daily post!

Happy To Be "Home"

At least our temporary home right now.  We survived 24 hours of travel and have arrived safely in Okinawa, Japan!  So happy to have the flight behind us.

We went from looking like this:

To this by the end of it all (someone is smiling, but BEYOND tired!):

We spent the first full day here just trying to keep ourselves awake.  We powered through and made it to 8 pm local time (yay us!).  We did just a wee bit of exploring within walking distance and Ella was excited to find a tiny little zen garden she could do some "meditation" in:

The girls are excited to be here, which makes us all the more excited.  We always worry about how they'll adjust, and although it's only been 2 days, they have come in with a great attitude and that is going to help tremendously.

We went off to explore the beach since we have talked and talked about it and it was a much needed break from meetings, checking in and being extremely tired.

The girls were in their element and so happy to be close to a beach again.  I know we'll be spending lots of time at all the various beaches around the island.

Did I mention we're so excited to be here?!  Lots more photos to come, but for now we're trying to keep ourselves up until 8:30.  We're a wild and crazy bunch!

 

Slowing Down

We have been running and moving pretty much non stop since about February.  So to have a few days where we can actually slow down and be bored is kind of welcomed at this point!

We came to Indiana originally to drop off our car and see family, but with flight changes, that turned into just coming to see friends and family before driving back to Virginia for our flight.

We started off with a reunion with college friends which as always was tons of fun with stories to be told and re-told.  I realized about 1 am that I never got my camera out, which honestly I'm ok with.  It was a time to just sit and visit with friends and I was happy to not be snapping away and didn't feel like I missed a whole lot.

We have great parents and extended family so we enjoyed a day in downtown Indianapolis the next day and it was so nice to get away with just us.  And luckily we had beautiful weather to boot!

Even before the Super Bowl this year downtown Indianapolis has really grown and become a great place to see and explore.  It had been a while since we were just down there to walk around and we thoroughly enjoyed it!

Lots of good food:

A great morning of running through the canal:

And great views of downtown:

We have T minus 4 days until departure and soaking up some more family time for a few days.  It's getting real now!

Pause

I've said this before and now I wanted to turn it into a layout in honor of Mother's Day.  I would love a pause button to pause time right now.  I love the ages of my girls and the place our family is in right now. 

I try to get out from behind the camera every once in a while because I want to be in those photos too!  We had this taken while in Indiana visiting family and I treasure it so much.  I'm so proud to be their mom and hope each day I am doing the best job I can.

I love this heart background from Silhouette.  A great way to add embellishment without lots of embellishments!

Today is filled with zoo animals and first graders for a field trip.  Hope I don't get anyone confused and bring home a baby panda instead!

New Favorite Daily Routine

Since August we have had lots of new family dynamics with Terry working over 2 hours away.  Lots of "just girl" time and lots of missing the lone man of the house.  He's a very involved dad and husband so when he's away it really is a huge missing piece in our family.

We added a new daily routine that the girls love and look forward to every Monday through Thursday: Skype. When the computer starts ringing, they run to it so they can see him face to face, read stories, and share the trick of the day.

It's a special time for them and we are beyond thankful for modern technology!  Of course we are also going to be beyond thankful when we get him in person each evening in 2 weeks instead of via a computer screen. 

It also gets us ready for the many skype calls we'll be making once we move and get to chat with the Grandmas and Grandpas. 

I made this for this month's Write.Click.Scrapbook gallery, where we are featuring the every day moments.  This is one of my favorite subjects of the gallery and love what the team comes up with! I just picked up some new My Mind's Eye and couldn't wait to use some of it.  Lots of great goodies from this line.

Thank you for all your kind words yesterday.  I really appreciate it and it definitely helps get through the next couple of weeks of goodbyes.

Seeing Things Anew

First, thank you all so much for the birthday wishes yesterday!  I had a great day with lots of birthday wishes, a rainy run with an incredible friend and topped it off with cupcakes with my 2 favorite girls!

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I posted last week about our trip to see family over spring break and to say I took a lot of photos is quite an understatement!  I think it was a combination of knowing we won't see family for a long time, trying to practice some photography skills and looking at my home town in a new way. 

I grew up in a town of 350 people. Yes, you read that correctly and no, I didn't forget a number or a comma in there anywhere.  It's a 1 flashing light kind of town.  Literally, if you blink, you will miss it.  I have to be honest here and say that growing up there I quite honestly hated it.  I had a couple of friends that I ran all over the place with, but I knew from a young age that I was leaving and going to a city.

My parents still live there and will live there for the rest of their lives.  It's what they love.  When they come see us I think it kind of scares them a bit with all the people, traffic and fast pace!  The girls and I took a walk one afternoon and I went into old lady storytime with them, but lucky for me they enjoyed it and didn't throw me out to the road for the nearest tractor truck to run me over.

This building has been red for as long as I can remember and I never thought anything of it growing up.  Now as an adult I absolutely love it and wish we had had more time for a mini photo shoot with the girls and my parents. 

To me, it's as if time stands still here.  This is something I hated as a child, but now I see the value in that, the sameness.  I see it as a "vintage" town with all kinds of quirks and stories behind the buildings and houses.

I mean, where else can you stand in the middle of the street and snap away with no car in sight?!  We'll be there again before we head off around the world and I'm hoping we have some time to do that mini photo shoot and my kids have the chance to make their own memories in this small pocket in Indiana.

 

Different Kind of Goodbyes

We are T minus 6 weeks now until the big move and time is literally flying by and I knew it would. It's that time in the move where I start getting super sentimental and basically tearing up at the drop of a hat.  It's not pretty.

Over the last couple of weeks we were able to spend some time with family before we go.  This isn't normally in our goodbye plans since we've always been stateside, but since we're moving 8000 miles away it's important to us to spend time with them because it could be up to 2 years before we see some or most of them.

I've said it before and I will say it forever that my girls are so incredibly lucky to have not just one set of amazing grandparents, but 2 sets of amazing grandparents and family. We couldn't ask for anything more, especially when I hear friends discuss not so stellar relationships with their parents/grandparents.

I know that they will treasure any time they can spend with them.  We don't see them often, even when we're in the same country, but they soak up all the time they can when they do see them. 

Of course it doesn't help when Maya, at 9.5, realizes the gravity of our move and gets teary and weepy before we have even pulled out of the driveway.  She's always been the sentimental one, but even more so now, which means I get even more weepy and sentimental leaving too.

We are grateful for them. Extremely grateful for good family who loves us unconditionally.  We will cherish these visits before our move and will be forever thankful for Skype starting in June!

Summer Mini

This month at write.click.scrapbook our gallery features nothing but mini albums!  I absolutely love seeing what the other ladies came up with for their minis, and in my case, not so minis!

Today I'm going to share a few pages of mine.  If I shared it all it would be the world's longest blog post I fear, so we'll get to it in installments!  Plus, it's a light crafty week for me, so it gives me something to blog about later when I'm at a loss.

I started with a Fancy Pants Brag Book as a base for the album.  As soon as I saw these albums, I went and stocked up on a couple of them.  After using one I'm thinking I need to stock up on more!

I kept holding on to this older map paper from Studio Calico and nearly threw it away a couple of times, but so, so glad I didn't!  I wanted that to be the focus of the front since it's a travel album and went with a simple title/cover for the bottom part.  I stitched it all together, put a fabrip on for added color and called it done!

I made a very simple inside cover/first page to the album to list all the places we ventured off to during our crazy busy summer last year.  I wanted to keep the focus on the pages of our adventures.

We first headed off to our annual Myrtle Beach vacation with Grandma.  She is so extremely good to us and every year for the past 4 years has taken us down to their timeshare/condo in Myrtle Beach.  We always have an awesome time and come home with luggage that is a few pounds heavier with all the sand!

The lined pages for journaling are so fantastic in this book.  I really can't say enough about them.  I also covered several of them up with paper and photos for the book too!

Although I used a little bit of newer stuff, I tried to focus on using up some stash too and clearing out some bits and pieces I had left of Studio Calico kits.  Kind of invigorating to use up things that have just been sitting there for some time!

And those photo sleeves? Also an awesome touch with this book!  I didn't want it to be so thick you couldn't look through it, so these sleeves were great for those extra photos that didn't need another story to go with them.

Thanks for stopping by!  I'll be back with more later!

Tough Conversations

Remember when your tough conversations included negotiating with your toddler about wearing the pink overalls and not the purple overalls for the FOURTH DAY IN A ROW??!!  Or eating peas versus carrots??

These are still the tough conversations with Ella at the ripe old age of 7, but for Maya, at 9.5, we have certainly moved on to the really tough conversations.  They are necessary, but tough.

I will say I am so happy that she is totally comfortable with both Terry and I to ask questions and explore possibilities in life.  I am hoping and praying we are fostering that and she will continue into that age that kids aren't quite as open and willing to sharing.

Last night dinner conversation went from what their favorite part of the day was to why kids bully.  No, thank goodness she is not being bullied, but it's a common conversation in schools these days and at home too.  One thing she said that struck me is "I can deal with a boy bully because they won't bother you for a long time, but a girl bully might".  Wow.

We talked about why kids do it, what she can do if someone does say or do mean things to her and the most important thing-we will always, always, always be there for her and go to bat for her.  Always.

I see the detrimental effects bullying has on kids. I've worked in a high school environment for most of my working career and makes my heart hurt to see the pain on kids' faces.  I know what she'll be facing and it makes me want to wrap her in a bubble until she graduates.  Kids are cruel and pre-teen and teenage girls especially are extremely cruel.  I didn't have the heart to tell her that grown women can also be cruel-very cruel.  That's for later!

I think she's feeling a bit out of sorts about the upcoming move.  She is over the moon excited, but also going into 5th grade where going to a new school goes from exciting to slightly terrifying.  And I'm pretty sure there will be many  more of these tough conversations in the upcoming months and I welcome them.  Hard to navigate and explain, but so open to having these conversations with her. 

And because I don't like photo-less posts, my sensitive, big hearted 9.5 year old:

**I promise to be back with crafty posts soon!  Working on a giant mini (oxymoron??) right now and will share next week!