Offner Day 2010

Today we celebrate our 3rd Offner Day. This day will always be special since it was the first day we became a family. Every year we think back at how blessed we are for Cameron and Mason and how God has forever changed our lives. Thank you Lord.

Today we went ice skating and cooked many of our favorite foods to celebrate. The boys are growing up fast and learning new things all the time. Enjoy the pictures and videos.

Christmas and Annual Shipment

I am putting Christmas and the Annual Shipment together because that is what it was together.

Every year Chevron generously allows us to bring over items in an annual shipment. We never pass up an opportunity to get things that we cannot possibly get here in Kazakhstan. We get 1,750 lbs of just about whatever we want minus alcohol, aerosols, and liquid bleach. You think that is a lot until you buy food, clothes, toys for your kids and all the other birthdays the boys go to, and all that other stuff you don't think you buy, but know you can't live without.

We knew we would be very busy since we had not been to the States for an entire year, but we had to get it done. We had around 50 doctor's appointments, 2 surgeries, both families come in, and shopping for a whole year's supply of things so we were busy every single second.

A typical day would be doctor, doctor, 30 minutes in a McDonalds or Chick-fil-a to let the boys run around, lunch, shopping, more shopping, regroup, find something for the boys to do for 30 minutes, dinner, exhaustion, and bed. Not our most fun time.
It was nice to see family, friends, and eat lots of good food; but you can't take any of that back with you. We hope for our sake and others that we can do a better job next time, but after talking with other people it does not seem likely.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Big Brother

Cameron is a great helper and is always willing to do whatever I need. He even helps with Mason and the Big Brother gene comes out. The boys thought these times were funny and we couldn't pass up a moment like this.

London

I finally said yes to going with Stacey on one of her business trips and London was the place. We stayed at a friend's house (we met with in Atyrau, KZ) for the weekend and did some sightseeing. We saw Big Ben, the Gerkin, London Bridge, London Eye, and toured the Tower of London. There was so much to do that we couldn't possibly do it all in one week so it will be a place to go back to one day. The Tower of London had some funny armour(see if you can guess what I am talking about from the pictures).
After the weekend we stayed at a hotel near Hyde Park. Unfortnately Cameron go the H1N1 so we the boys and I stayed in the hotel room for 2 days. We watched so many cartoons that Mason would just turned to me and say, "lets fight". Once Cameron was feeling better we walked to the Marble Arch, to Hyde Park, and then thru to Kensignton Park to see the Peter Pan Statue and the pirate ship. The boys loved climbing up and down the main sail of the ship and the pictures don't do it justice on how high it really was.

Since it was Christmas time we had to go to all the toy stores. It was hard telling the boys that we would buy them toys in the states (where it is much cheaper), but they got a few anyway. First we went to Harrods, but then came the grand daddy of them all, Hamleys. Hamleys had 5 floors of wall to wall toys. It seemed that every toy was on display and the boys loved it because they got to play with all of them. Needless to say, we spent hours and hours in these stores playing with the toys.

We took the ususal transportation of Double Decker buses and the tube. I love other countries transportation systems. The States have some catching up to do in that.

Our last night we went to the O2 to see the Peter Pan play. It was an entimet place and our friends got us the best seats. We all enjoyed watching the actors fly into the air. With so much to do and see, we will need another trip to do it all.