Our life in Review, January 2014

Dear Family and Friends;

It’s been a while since we sent out a family newsletter, we are sorry we’ve lost touch with some of you.  However, it has been nice to keep up with those of you who are on facebook, and through occasional phone calls and e-mails.

Our two biggest news items this year have been the arrival of baby Samantha this November (that’s number nine, if you’re counting), and the news that we will be moving to Tucson, AZ this coming summer.  We knew Steve would only have his current job for two years, so we have been waiting anxiously to find out where we would be going.  Of course we were hoping to get out of the heat, but we’ll take further west too!  We are super excited to live closer to family and make visits with them more likely.  And Steve is really looking forward to his new job, which will require him to speak a lot of Spanish and MAY include some travelling to Central or South America—if the Congress solves our budget woes.

A review of our time here in Louisiana: 

Our family moved to Louisiana August 2012, where Steve started a new job as the deputy in the Second Bomb Wing legal office on Barksdale AFB.  He spends his time supervising the captains in the office, taking over when the boss is out of town, thinking of ways to break bad news to the wing commander, and occasionally helping with discharge boards.  He also gets to do an “Article 32” hearing every few months, which has let him visit Mississippi, Arkansas, and Missouri.  Steve has learned a lot in this position.  He enjoys working in a base legal office again…most of the time.  It has been very challenging.  There have been a lot of long hours, three day weekends that were spent working, and most days he works at least 11 hours.  And it will be a while before Rebecca forgets the Memorial Day 18-hour-work-days-for-five-days marathon spent getting ready for a discharge board.  However, it is nice to live on base, with his work just a few blocks away, so the work load has been easier for the family to tolerate.  He has also contemplated starting a support group for other military officers who do not yet own smart phones or have flat screen TVs, but so far there has been little interest. Steve has not played much basketball and no golf this year, but has done some running.  He did his first half-marathon in September.

Last November (2012), we went on another Loertscher Grand Adventure, this time all the way to Washington state.  Our purpose was to visit Rebecca’s grandmother who had recently suffered a stroke and is living in central Washington.  Just so you know, it is a looooong way from Louisiana to Washington State.  We had a wonderful time.  Well as wonderful as it can be travelling with that many children for that long.  As usual, the hardest part of our trip was keeping up with our laundry, but it was worth it.  AND no one threw up.  After driving up to Washington, we came back down to spend Thanksgiving with Steve’s family on the ranch.  It was wonderful to see everyone, and especially nice for the kids to enjoy their cousins.  

We haven’t really done anything else exciting while we’ve been stationed here, and since we don’t hunt, fish, gamble, obsess about Duck Dynasty, or frequent the Banana Republic outlet store, there isn’t that much to do.  We’ve spent a lot of time together as a family, hanging out around our fire pit in the back yard, playing games, having spontaneous parties with the neighbors, going to Sam’s Club, or trying not to go to Orange Leaf.  Our closest temple is in Dallas, TX; so we have driven over there every few months.  It’s 180 miles away, which isn’t too bad, but it is kind of hard to do with the kids when you go over and back in one day.  

We have loved living on base here in Louisiana.  The historic homes here are nicer and larger than the home we had in San Antonio (which, frankly, was not quite functional for a family our size!).  We love our wood floors, large screen windows, tall ceilings, cool wood work, large yard, and two patios.  Our yard is screened in with an enormous lilac hedge, so in the spring we can open our large living room windows and the smell floats through the house.  It is a big change to live somewhere with lots of trees, green grass you can actually walk on, and water you can turn on more than once every other week for two hours –we’re definitely not missing the San Antonio water restrictions.  The kids love the sprinklers in the summer.  It does get pretty hot here, and it is also really humid, so it feels hotter than San Antonio.  However, we are blessed to have an enormous tree in the back yard that stretches it limbs over the entire back side of our house, trampoline, and back patio.  Needless to say, we spend our time out there in the summer.  Fortunately (?) for us, the local schools are pretty terrible, so not very many people want to live on base, and there are a lot of other homeschooling families with in a few blocks of our home.  We have made some wonderful friends, and will be sad to leave them in a few months.

We also really enjoy our ward.  It is small in numbers, but has many dedicated members, a large portion of them military families.  The ward seems to be growing in recent months, partly because of the extra missionaries we have assigned to us.  We have 13 missionaries in our ward, and most of them have investigators in Church every week.  Many new friends have been made, and it will be difficult to leave.  Steve has been serving as the 11-year-old scout leader, as well as the primary teacher for the same group of boys.  Rebecca has been serving in the Primary Presidency.  It is fun to serve in the same organization together.

Rebecca continues to homeschool the children—this is year 12, but who is counting--and joined a local homeschool co-op this year.  The children have enjoyed learning new things and make a few friends.  Rebecca has probably made more friends than her kids.  At the end of the semester, all the children had some great art work to show off, the younger boys had learned kick ball, and all the younger children had mastered other important public school skills like how to stand in a line.  Amy had an opportunity to learn some sign language, Carolyn studied Shakespeare, and both of the older girls performed in a play.   This coming semester we have most of the same courses, only Rebecca will pick up a drawing class for the 8-10-year-olds.  Rebecca has also been guiding a few teens through a high school writing course (including our own), teaching from home. She will most likely teach public speaking this coming semester to the same group of teens.  Rebecca taught the same class a few years back, which must have worked because David was asked to speak in stake conference this past summer.  Ha ha! How his parents chuckled!  Last spring she taught a cooking class in our home, which was a fun way for the younger children to meet some other homeschoolers.  Rebecca’s secret reason behind the class was to train Bryan and Lauren to make breakfast.  But although they learned how to cook breakfast food, unfortunately they did not learn to do it quickly, and their first on-the-job experiment resulted in a breakfast though while tasty, took two hours to get on the table.  Two hours.  

Over the past year, we have not really done too many exciting things, as we are sort of a boring family.  However, we did visit south Louisiana this past May for a few days, hoping to hit the beach.  Instead we found ourselves in a monsoon-like downpour for three days--good thing we were not in a tent as originally planned.  But we DID get to visit the Acadian pioneer farm, which was fascinating, and also the Tabasco Factory, where we learned more about Tabasco than we ever thought possible.  If you ever drive through south Louisiana, we highly recommend both.  Steve also took the kids out on an extended canoe ride…which included alligators. 

The “Story Game” has been a huge hit with our family this year, which is super fun because most of us can play together, and we get to see all the children’s personalities in their writing.  To play the “Story Game,” you need a timer, sheets of paper, and writing utensils.  Everyone starts a random story, writes for 90 seconds, then passes it to the next person.  When the story makes it all the way around the circle, everyone reads their stories aloud.  So it turns out that when you mix the writing abilities of teens (who use impressive vocabulary and very creative descriptions) with dads (who write with a lot of humor) with elementary-aged boys (who like to write about things blowing up, star wars, or tater-tot casserole) with everyone else, you can get some pretty interesting and amusing stories.  We often invite the neighbors over to play with us…and we’ve even found it’s a great ice breaker for teen parties.

Another fun thing that has made its way into our family culture this year is the Dressing Your Truth program.  To be succinct, it is a program that claims that there are four basic energy types, and that by discovering your energy type you can understand what colors, fabrics, patterns, and styles you should wear to reveal your “inner beauty.”  The program is also useful in helping you understand how other people (including your children!) operate and think.  Rebecca received the book for Christmas last year, read it in a day or two, then immediately sent one to her sister.  They discussed what “type” they were for several weeks before both purchasing the course.  What started as a casual interest has blossomed into a constant source of conversation for our entire family, including the little boys.  “What type am I?”  “Do I look good in this color?”  “Do type fours act like that?”  “What type is my ______ (fill in the blank…friend, sibling, primary teacher, neighbor, random person in Walmart).”  While Rebecca is still not 100% convinced this program is accurate for everyone all the time, it has been interesting and fun, has helped her understand herself and her children better, and made clothes shopping for herself and her three older daughters so much easier.  Yes, you read that correctly. 

And now on to a review of the children who inhabit the Loertscher household….

Our new baby Samantha arrived a little earlier than expected this fall.  Though Rebecca’s blood sugar numbers remained fairly normal throughout the pregnancy, she experienced polyhydramnios, a fancy word she could never remember, which means excess amniotic fluid.  Basically it meant lots of extra ultrasounds, doctor’s appointments, and an extremely uncomfortable expectant mother starting about September.  After Samantha was born and weighed in at 11 pounds 1 ounce (don’t worry—it was a planned c-section!), and Rebecca saw all of the amniotic fluid (3 liters +!), the uncomfortable pregnant mother mystery was solved.  Nurses on shift at the hospital came into the hospital room to see the “big baby.”  Evidently, 11 pound babies are not born every day.  

Nevertheless, our now two-month-old darling sweetie is doing well.  She is a content little thing who enjoys music—daddy has discovered she will quiet down for Enya--smiling at family members, and sleeping. Rebecca often finds Lego offerings (from two-year-old Thomas) and Barbies in full regalia (from four-year-old Elizabeth) near the baby’s head while she is napping.   Looks like they are in a hurry for her to grow up and play with them.  If she would just go to bed before midnight, she would be the perfect baby.

The aforementioned Thomas and Elizabeth are keeping the mother busy the last little while.  Currently, their latest trick is to start the Frozen (new Disney movie) sound track and then sing along.  It is awfully cute to hear the two little voices pipe in the hallway, “Let it go!  Let it go! Can’t hold it back anymore!”  When not working on their future careers as teen pop stars, the two preschoolers spend their time asking mother, “What can I do?”

Seven-year-old John has spawned a series of family sayings under the category, “Why seven-year-olds don’t date.”  One of the family favorites is the lion-eating-zebra-on-the-savannah-act, which John employs while eating his pancakes at breakfast time.  We hope he has developed some table manners by the time he is sixteen.  Or at least his dates will hope he has.  Meanwhile, we enjoy his optimistic spirit, loving nature toward his smaller siblings, and a homeschool mom always appreciates a child who will complete his work quickly and responsibly.  John is super smart, loves science, math, and reading; and is easy to teach.  Just don’t sit too close at the dinner table.

Our resident nine-year-old, Bryan, has taken his place as the family Eeyore.  Let’s listen in while Bryan employs his homeschool-honed social skills on a missionary visiting for dinner:

Random Elder:  (smiling)  “Hey dude, how was your day?”

Bryan:  (suddenly adopting a sad, mopey expression):  “Not very good.” 

Random Elder:  (trying to keep smiling at this unexpected response, not realizing it was a common occurrence)  “Oh no—what happened?”

Bryan:  (beginning to sniffle)  “Lauren was mean to me.  She told me to go away.”  (a tear forms in the corner of one eye at the remembrance). 

Lauren:  (listening from across the room)  “I didn’t tell you to go away.  I told you to get out of my room.”

Random Elder:  (shifting uncomfortably, casts a concerned glance at Bryan’s mom)

Bryan:  (suddenly angry, voice rising) “And John left me to pick up the whole bedroom by myself while he was getting his so-called clothes on this morning!  And he played with my Snap Circuits without permission!”

Mother:  (embarrassed) “Well, it looks like dinner is ready!”

Bryan is also a joy to teach in our homeschool, if you can overlook the whining about why something is not fair. He has a very exacting nature, and in his mother’s judgment, is the most likely candidate to follow in his father’s footprints as an attorney. When not busy with school work, Bryan enjoys listening to audio books, arranging his Snap Circuits, playing with Legos, and jumping on the trampoline with his siblings….as long as they are being fair.

Lauren has a broad range of interests as she approaches her twelfth birthday.  She is usually found (WHEN NOT BUSILY ENGAGED IN HER SCHOOL WORK--LAUREN ARE YOU READING THIS?!) in her bedroom, perfecting her drawing skills as she listens to audio books, or reading.  Lauren also enjoys riding her bike, jumping on the trampoline with her brothers, and scouting around in the neighborhood to see which her friends are out and about.  She has developed a real interest and aptitude for cooking lately which is fun to see. Lauren makes a pretty mean pot of hot chocolate from scratch. She is always sweet natured and is very kind to her younger siblings, including her little sister that she shares a bedroom with, so that is saying something. 

Amy recently turned 14, the magical-and-long-awaited age at which you can finally do fun things at church.  Her first stake dance this past weekend seems to have been a success, at least that is what we were led to believe.  She is still taking piano and started the guitar last year, which has been fun because now she can accompany us for our backyard fire pit parties.  Amy has a broad range of interests, including food and nutrition (we spent many fun weeks juicing this summer!), cooking (we like to experiment with ethnic foods and flavors), French (she has a wonderful tutor in the ward), composing music, of course drawing.  She is a very talented Manga artist, and with Carolyn, her roommate, spends many hours a week honing her talents.  Amy is fascinated by the alternative health methods her mother is continually dabbling in, and is considering a career in the field of health or nutrition.  And she has been a life saver in the kitchen since the baby came, since sometimes it takes mother two or more hours to put dinner on the table since the baby arrived if she does it alone. 

Carolyn turned 16 in November of this past year, and it is hard to believe she will be leaving us in just two or so years.  She has grown up so much recently and is becoming a truly wonderful young lady, despite the fact that she is the only sixteen-year-old she knows who does not own a cell phone.  Carolyn has become very passionate about her artwork over the past year, and spends many hours a day perfecting her skills.  Some hours that probably could be devoted to Algebra II or Chemistry….just the mom talking here.  She hopes to head off to college in the next couple of years—we have discovered the “when” is pretty flexible when you homeschool--with an eye on a major in the art field, or possibly art education, as she is a good teacher, especially when working with children.  Carolyn also enjoys drama (she was the wicked queen in Snow White this past summer), running (rockin’ the toe shoes), singing (she and Amy have sung in church multiple times over the past year), and taking naps (thank you, seminary!).

Right after Christmas we spent our time getting David ready for his departure for BYU-I in Rexburg, Idaho.  David has been attending the local community college since last summer, including a full load this fall.  Finally we figured he was ready to head out into the big broad world on his own…*sniff*…*sniff.*  He is sorely missed by everyone in the family, but we know this is an important part of him growing up.  He seems to be having a good time so far, and was even heard to say he “enjoys” his organic chemistry and calculus classes.  So far.  He is thinking about majoring in bio-chemistry, with an eye on research or possibly the medical field. 

We had a very nice Christmas season this year.  The highlight may have been having all 13 missionaries over for Christmas Eve, which was a lot of fun for us, but a big hassle for the Security Forces troops at the Visitor’s Center.  But it was amazing to have so many wonderful young people in our home at once.  It also made us think a little bit about how next year, David will be on a mission.  Hopefully the members will help him have a nice Christmas, wherever he ends up.  Somehow we transformed from a young couple with small children to a “mature” couple with teenagers…and still with small children.

Well, that is our overly-long review of the past year or so.  It was fun to write, the kids had fun reading it, and we enjoy sharing our lives and interests with our friends and family.  We loved hearing from everyone at Christmas time this year.  It was a joy to see how grown-up everyone was, and how well everyone is doing.  We feel truly blessed beyond measure to have so many wonderful friends.  Sorry this is so late, and have a wonderful new year!