Behind as usual....

So I guess I just have been terrible at updating my blog.... but have put it on my list of priorities in 2010:)

There was much to do this month with shopping, wrapping, cooking, gingerbread house/tree making, and hosting one BIG family on Christmas Even and one smaller family on Christmas Day. This past weekend we headed up to Bay City for some appointments and visiting with friends that we haven't seen in 2 years.

Today we had a visit from Guy's brother, Gary, and Shelly, Guy's sister from Florida.

There are SO MANY pictures... I really will try to get some posted real soon (however, it may have to wait until after the new year begins).

Happy New Year to all!

An Awesome Meal in Germany...

took place in a little town in Germany ... at this restaurant... just about two years ago with some wonderful friends!

http://www.fuchsbau-lenzhahn.de/

Falling leaves...

Here's a link to some fall pics... the kids just LOVE fall!


http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/album.php?aid=120902&id=642587434

Carlotta's Day...

After the continuous neglect of my blog, I decided I could combine the downloads from Facebook with my blog to simplify.... here is the link to a bunch of pictures from Carlotta's Special Day on Sunday...

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=116087&id=642587434&l=10069ffc70

Hopefully this will be a better way to keep everyone (especially those not on FB) up to date.

Mich-again...

Had a nice time at Brandon and Allison's Housewarming Party tonight...it was good to see a bunch of Charnesky's all in one place including Baby Jenavieve:) Unfortunately I was camera-less so there are no pictures of kids to post from tonight (and I was too busy talking to take pictures anyway). I also learned of a special delicacy served at a Scottish bar in Toronto that I have added to my Bucket List (Deep Fried Mars Bars... sounds yummy, eh?).

Tonight I was also reminded that I need to update my blog so....

We are now back in Michigan and trying to get resettled. Grace is on a cross country team and has a new violin to play that sounds absolutely WONDERFUL:). The kids are all registered for school and are set to start on Tuesday. Still working on scheduling extra-curricular activities for Zachariah and Anastasia. Anastasia got glasses this week and is thrilled she can finally see. She just LOVES them:) We are still trying to unpack everything and get rid of stuff we now know we don't use anymore.

I still hope to post some pictures of our many summer happenings soon...

... and I still do not care to drink Red Bull... even if it is mixed with Jagermeister!

Traveling...

After a long drive through Kansas yesterday (where we saw LOTs of wind farms and grain eleveators) we arrived in Denver. We went straight to our favorite store, REI and bought some stuff then off to dinner at Brothers Bar. We are now off to find a place to stay in the mountains. Picture, as usual, coming at a later date:)

Grace's 800m Run...

Last weekend we drove out to Hutchinson, Kansas, for the Kansas State Track meet. It was an extremely stormy, rainy day but it cleared up right before Grace's event... and then it started to POUR just a few minutes before her race started. Grace had a great time (and didn't mind the rain) and placed 12th in the event. I don't know what her time was since I was trying to snap pictures while Guy kept the camera (as well as four people) dry. No one had a free hand to try to time the race. Anastasia had fun running in another 50m fun run too. Hopefully I can get some new pictures posted soon.

After the track meet we toured the Space museum in the Cosmosphere (which conveniently was located next to the track).

On the way home we dodged storms and even passed a storm chaser team. Normally I am on alert for cops but this time I watched for tornados.

Now we are in a heat wave. The a/c runs nonstop. Yesterday we lost power for a little while. It's so hot the pool is like bath water and doesn't really feel "cool".

Pictures from the Hershey Meet....

sorry...

the pictures that go with the last post won't upload. I will try to add them later...

It's now OFFICIAL!

Grace made it to the Kansas State Finals for the Hershey Track and Field Meet. Here is a "happy" Grace after she found out she made it to the state final for Kansas.

Hershey Track & Field Meet

Last weekend, Anastasia ran a 50m fun run at the Hershey Track & Field Meet in Olathe, Kansas. She was so happy to get a ribbon and a new t-shirt!

Mountain Biking in the Ozarks...

Finally posting some pics from our mountain biking trek near the Lake of the Ozarks (MO) .... thanks goodness for GPS to find such a nice place:)

Here's a picture of the trail and the kids ready to roll.

Deer Damage

Here's a couple pictures showing the damage to Guy's car from the deer he hit last week...

Unofficially....

Grace qualified to run the 800m at the Hershey Track & Field State Meet in Kansas. We will receive confirmation of the results in a week. Now we will tour a whole new exciting city in Kansas:) Anastasia ran in the 50m fun run and was thrilled to receive a ribbon and a t-shirt.

Hope to post some new pictures soon!

Last Friday we saw the movie "Night at the Museum 2". The only part I didn't like was the fact that they never showed out the Smithsonium cleaned up. Great movie. I recommend it.

Tonight we saw "Up". I am told it is based on the book "21 Balloons". It was also a really great movie.

Community Service Recognition

It's been a busy time here the past few days, but I wanted to post a quick update with the few minutes available right now.

As you may or may not know, Grace has been working hard since we moved here putting in a lot of time training and running 5K races in the KC area. Through the hours of training and participating in these races, she has helped raise awareness and funds for a variety of important causes including research in viral myocarditis and preventing sudden cardiac death in children, the Fox 4 Love Fund for Children, Harvesters, Parkinson's Research, Brain Tumor Research (and many more). Lakewood Elementary is great about encouraging community service among its students and as a result, Grace was recognized for the 110 hours she has put forth since August. Amazingly, the students of the school contributed over 4,000 hours of their time to give back to the community through various means. It's great to be encouraged by so many young people!

Contact me for information on upcoming events and feel free to join her!

Chicken Scampi

Today I was searching for a fast recipe that didn't use a lot of ingredients so I didn't have to run out for something unique. I ended up searching my trusty recipe box on "allrecipes.com" and found this yummy recipe:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Chicken-Scampi-II/Detail.aspx

I used a premixed Italian Herb mix from the Planters Seed and Spice company instead of the individual spices ( http://www.plantersseed.com/). I also added white wine as suggested in some of the comments. It is definitely a "make again" recipe!

Next time I will make sure to have a loaf of fresh bread to serve with it. If I plan it out properly I would also add red and yellow peppers near the end of the cooking time as another reviewer suggested.

Some may want to rename this recipe to "Heart Attack in a Pan" due to the excess amounts of butter and oil. However, it is well worth every drop:)

Bon Appetit!

Poetry, Punch, and Lunch!

This morning I had a nice time visiting Grace's classroom for poetry readings from her class (they served punch). They have been working on poetry for several weeks and did a fine job presenting the fruits of their labor. Some classes even wrote poems all over the sidewalk around the front of the school too!

I also attended a wonderful Volunteer Luncheon put on by the staff at school to thank everyone who has volunteered their time throughout the school year. It was great! I was so full I couldn't eat snacks at Costco today:)

Field Day...

Today Lakewood Elementary held their annual Field Day. I volunteered to help and spent the morning watching kids throw hula hoops on safety cones (they did really well) and the afternoon monitoring the back end of a gigantic blow-up obstacle course.

Anastasia's favorite event at field day was Tug of War (the girls won).

Grace's favorite event at field day was water ball toss.

It was cloudy much of the day, but thankfully the rain held out until the kids were done with Field Day activities. Now it's pretty gloomy and rainy so we will be finding indoor activities to occupy our time.

Have an awesome weekend!

KC Zoo...

Today I spent the day keeping four 1st grade students happy at the KC Zoo. Overall they were well behaved. The worst part was the scariness of the suspension bridge, which was swaying like CRAZY because there were SO MANY schools visiting the zoo today. But I made it through and everyone made it back safely. We were even able to please everyone by seeing all the animals on everyone's list with a final jaunt from Africa to Australia to see the Red Panda's (it's quite a jaunt at this zoo just like in real life). The only animals we didn't see that were on the list were the animals that are not actually on display at the zoo like the Polar Bears and Beavers.

Peace.

Grace's Birthday

Uncle Gary helped Grace celebrate her 11th birthday last week.

Race Pictures and Mathletics....

Today Grace was so excited to compete in the Mathletics competition after school. She was even assigned to a team with her friend, Amrutha. Her team did really well and took 3rd place!

I am also attaching a couple pictures from the Mother's Day 5K on Sunday. The "start" photo shows Grace right out in front. The girl near her in all red is the person who came in first place overall. The other photo shows Anastasia's incredible stride as she sprinted to the finish of the 5K. Enjoy!

Happy Mother's Day!

Today I ran my first 5K. I "ran" with Anastasia and we completed it in about 45 minutes (which is the time I was shooting for). Actually Anastasia liked to sprint then walk, sprint then walk, etc. Toward the end she was pretty tired and I eventually convinced her we could sprint the last 100 yards to the finish. Grace did awesome and came in 4th place with a time of 25:15 in the age 11-14 category. Anastasia came in 31st place in the 10 and under category (and her friend, Deven was 32nd place--Deven ran with a very steady pace). I was 63rd in the "old fogey" age group. All the race results can be found at http://www.mararunning.org/mothers2009.htm

I will update this post with pictures soon. I just haven't checked to see what kind of pictures Guy took today.

I have to go so I can eat my French Toast which my family made for me:)

Life is busy as usual and I REALLY hope to update the blog with the many things that have happened this year very soon, but the big news of the week can't wait. We now have a new niece (Eric and Jasmine are finalizing an adoption this week). With that, we welcome Jenavieve Ruth Kapri Sovel-Charnesky to the Charnesky family. She was born on May 6th at 1:34 pm, weighing 5 lbs, 7 oz and is 18 inches long. We look forward to meeting her in August when we are scheduled to return to Michigan.

Last Thursday, Grace was in a musical with about 150 other kids in her 5th grade class. It was really fun and she had a great time.

Saturday Grace ran a 5K in Olathe and did really well. She took 4th place with a time of 26:49 in the 14 - 9 year old category (after they changed the original age categories... with no change she would have been 1st).

Monday, Uncle Gary came to visit for a few days. Wednesday we celebrated Grace's 11th birthday and stuffed ourselves silly with our favorite barbecue at Jack Stack and finished off the stuffing process with the big chocolate cake from Costco (you know I would have baked her a cake if I had the appropriate pan, but things are limited here).

Last night Grace played in the spring orchestra concert. It was excellent as always.

Grace, Anastasia and I are entered in a 5K race on Mother's Day. It is a "girls" only event. I will try to post news on this soon after it happens.

There's a brief update. Hope everyone is having a great spring!

Congrats are in Order

As mentioned in a previous post, the Charnesky keeps growing and growing.... and I just received word that I have a new brother-in-law! Congratulations to Charlotte who married Dave over the weekend:)

I also changed the color scheme on my blog. I hope you like it.

Peace....

Quote of the Day...

I just had to share a quote for the day...

If a man speaks in the middle of a forest and no woman is around to hear him, is he still wrong?

I just came across that one again and felt the need to share:)

I'll try to post some new pics soon.

Blessings~

Charnesky News!!!

As I sit here late tonight, avoiding the last few things I need to do, I procrastinate by checking out Amanda and Mike's blog to learn that I will soon have another great-niece or great-nephew in October. Congrats to them. I can't wait to hear how excited Anya and Asia will be with a new playmate!

I also learned last night, after consulting on some techinical computer issues with my personal computer techy (one of them anyway), that Eric and Jasmine have been approved to adopt. Yeah for them:). We hope to hear some good news about another great-niece or great-nephew in the family. The Charnesky's keep growing and growing, don't they?

Our family has had a lot going on since my last post, but I have some pressing things to finish before I can play online and update my blog. Many pictures will be posted soon. Promise.

Hope everyone is having a happy and healthy 2009 (we're almost 1/4 of the way through it already:).

Peace~

Ok.. I just realized it has been WAY too long since I updated the blog.

We have been busy moving and moving and moving and moving since we returned to Kansas. Long story to save for another time. Anyway, we are now in a new 3 bedroom apartment and plan to stay here until August, 2009.

The kids have been keeping me busy. Grace's basketball season just ended. Her team didn't win any games, but they played really well and improved so much since they first started in October.

Grace also ran in the Groundhog Run (5K) in January and did really well and came in 5th place for her age group with a time of 27:05. You can find the results at www.mararunning.org and check out pictures at www.seekcrun.com.

Zachariah continues to learn more about Fencing and Anastasia is enjoying her Gymnastics classes.

Zachariah and Anastasia both entered a Chess Tournament at school this week. Zachariah came in 23rd place for her group (K-5th grade) and Anastasia came in 8th place (K-2nd grade). Pretty good for just learning how to play this year.

We are trying to decide where to go for Spring Break in a couple weeks. If anyone has a good idea, let me know. We were thinking about going south, including a little jaunt into Mexico, but that probably won't work out with the recent developments along the border. What a bummer.

Hope all is well. I will try to post another update sooner than last time.