ND Journey (from last month)

One of our most recent adventures / vacations was to North Dakota (this was all before leaving CO for Germany). And boy was it an adventure. 22 hours one way straight through with a few stops (bathroom, gas and meals!). We didn't plan on doing this trip straight through, but that's how it ended up due to our lack of planning and being a little too optimistic. I couldn't believe that there would be no vacancy in towns like Dickinson and Bismarck...there wasn't. So we pressed through and made it to my parents by 730 am on Friday (after having left at 10 am on Thursday from Colorado Springs). 


Our time in ND was so awesome. We got to see and visit with so many relatives. My sister planned an awesome family reunion for my dad's side of the family and then my sister-in-law and my sister planned an amazing 40th Anniversary celebration for my parents the same weekend. And on top of that it was my brother's 20th High School reunion so a lot of our friends from our youth group were in town as well. Talk about jamming it all in! 


This all seems so long ago as I type this sitting in our hotel room in Germany...I cherish each and every memory as I look through the HUNDREDS of pictures. I don’t think I want to start listing all of the special memories or I might never finish this post.  This was Joshua’s first time being in ND, Gregory’s first time being with all of the Vilhauer cousins, Tom’s first time riding in my parents Model A, my first time enjoying as many raspberries from my parents garden as I wanted — of course the high light was still being with all of my siblings (and their spouses and kiddos and my parents and so many others).

As I said already, there are hundreds of pictures, and there is no way I can pick just one...but if you want to wade through them, here’s the link http://tomandroxannecook.shutterfly.com/

Beth & Rob's visit

Once again I am behind in my blogging, but this time I feel it is justified with being so busy :-) So at the end of June we got to have Tom's sister, Beth and her family visit us for the first time in CO.  Not only was this the first time for their visit it was also the first time any of Tom's family has been able to visit him since he had left home.  I realize there are circumstances that prevent the others from traveling, so for those of you who haven't made it to see us, I do understand, but I also want Beth to hear how special this visit was to us.  (So Betty & Lorrie, please don't be offended by this.) 

While Beth and Rob and the kids were visiting we celebrated Beth's birthday, Mark's birthday, played with lots of water (balloons, squirt guns, slip n' slide, etc.), went to Focus on the Family and played, went to Garden of the God's, visited Petersen AFB (saw where Tom works and the amazing aircraft on base), and tried to go to a baseball game (but it was stormed too stormy out for us).  The kids all had tons of fun playing with lots of toys and enjoyed each other for the most part :-)

As always, there were lots of pictures taken!  You can see more here...  http://tomandroxannecook.shutterfly.com/

Incredible Day - Oh Happy Day

Even though we have been having a great and eventful weekend with family...I have to interrupt my posts and go out of chronological order for a moment.  Please forgive me, but this is a biggie!

Tonight Gregory asked Jesus into his heart!  We have talked about this various times and had conversations with him about this too, but tonight he seemed to get it more than in the past...so we are considering this "the day" Gregory asked Jesus into his heart and asked Jesus to forgive him of his sins.  When we told him that God and the angels were having a big celebration since he asked Jesus into his heart, he said, really?  They are?  And I told him, yes, they are.  So proud of Gregory and his decision.  Now we have the even bigger job of helping him to understand this each and every day.  We were talking afterwards about what it means to be a "follower of Jesus" and how now you need to tell others about Jesus and how he loves them too and Gregory replied by saying yeah and I can tell my friends that I asked Jesus into my heart!  Gregory's friends...you know who you are and he loves you all so much.  As I am typing this I am sad to think about leaving Colorado and the memories we have made here, but am so thrilled to say that in Colorado, Gregory asked Jesus into his heart.  I could write so much more about this, but I will leave it at this...thanks to everyone who has helped teach Gregory about Jesus and how much He loves him.

Summertime fun

It sure is summer around here...finding stuff to do with water is always a great idea :-)  We've found some other things to do too.  We celebrated Father's Day a week ago, have played t-ball in the backyard, chased some beautiful butterflies in our backyard, read lots of books, went to our very own dinosaur museum in Woodland Park and more!

Today Tom is doing day one of driving our van down to TX to ship it to Germany.  So today I took the boys on a little journey into the mountains where Woodland Park is.  We explored at the dinosaur museum there.  Gregory has been loving dinosaurs since we saw them when we were in Arizona at the Natural History Museum.  So today we enjoyed them again.


Next week we are looking forward to spending time with more family!  Tom's sister, Beth and Rob and kids will be arriving on Wed night!  Can't wait!

Oh and of course there's new pictures here...  http://tomandroxannecook.shutterfly.com/

Gregory - the explorer

Most of you will not notice this "little" change to the design of my blog, so I want to take this time to bring it to your attention...Gregory's title has changed from "entertainer" to "explorer".  Gregory LOVES to explore...not sure if this is the right word to use to explain the changes going on in his little head, so I will use more to explain it.  :-)

This week we were talking about science "stuff", so when I said we were going to the library Gregory asked if we could get some science books and movies.  Of course I found some good ones and when we got back from our doctor appointment on Thursday it was too late for Gregory to take a nap, so while Joshua was napping we had fun.  My sister would be so happy about this kind of fun!  Developing Gregory's love of science.  We did some simple experiments and talked about science.  Gregory said, "I love science!"  Another thing my sister would be thrilled to know :-)  My sister is an aerospace engineer and any time she hears of someone leaning towards her love of science it makes her happy.

I am sure there will be more experiments to come with my boys and I am looking forward to the fun we can have with them too!  Can't wait to make a volcano and see it erupt :-)

The more I keep Gregory busy the happier he is and the better I feel about the time I am spending with him, I am glad the dishes wait and the laundry waits for me.  I know that time will not stand still for me either, so I need to make the most of the moments I have with my boys.  Before I know it they will off running around with their friends, not hanging out with me in the kitchen cooking or experimenting :-)

As always, more pics at our shutterfly website...  http://tomandroxannecook.shutterfly.com/

Our trip to Arizona

This past week we finally made it back down to Arizona.  It was a hot time to be there, but we knew we had to get down there now knowing we couldn't put it off any longer with our upcoming move to Germany.  We went down mainly to visit Tom's sister and her family and we get the bonus of seeing my aunt and uncle and three cousins when we head down there too.

Our trip started out a little crazy with spending THREE hours on the runway in Denver before our two hour flight to Phoenix.  It gave us a little taste of what it will be like on our LONG flight over to Germany in a couple of months...we need to find some more toys to bring with us I think :-)

While in Arizona, we got the privilege of hanging out with our three great nieces and nephew...at their favorite place...the mall!  Gregory got to go in a Lego store and a Disney store for the first time, so he was loving it too.

We went to the Arizona Natural History Museum as well and looked at dinosaur bones mostly and then enjoyed Night at the Museum 1 & 2.  It was a fun time and it was great that Tom (our brother-in-law) was able to take some time off while we were there and it was nice that Lorrie (Tom's sister) was done with work since she works in a school.   

Gregory and Tom got to watch our nephew Ian practice his karate and Gregory also enjoyed playing with Ian and his legos. 

Joshua loved the attention from Casey and Samantha!  Too bad the cats didn't love Joshua's attention :-)

We also spent some time swimming in the pool at our hotel, but most of our time was spent inside in the air conditioning since it was so hot and windy.

It had been 3 years since we had last been there so the kids had all changed so much.  It was fun to hear about what's going on in their lives and to share with them what's going on in ours.  We wish we had more time to spend with them, but we take what we can get.  Due to safety concerns I don't have any "public" pictures of us with them at my sister-in-law's request...but I do have a few pictures which I can share from our adventure at our photo website here... http://tomandroxannecook.shutterfly.com

Like I said earlier we got to see some "extra" family while we were down in Phoenix...my aunt and uncle and cousins.  These are the ones that I got to spend weekends with when growing up (when they lived in Minneapolis & Nashville) before I was married and before their kids had grown up much.  We enjoyed dinner together and hanging out.  Gregory will remember aunt Laurie reading lots of books to him and Joshua will be able to look back at the pictures to remember uncle Lyle being silly with him.  Blake, Brady and Brennan were around too, so it was nice to catch up with these guys as well. 

As always it's nice to get away, but it's also nice to get home too.

Changes coming - heading back to Germany!

So most everyone who knows us by now knows that we have a move coming up in our future.  In August we get the pleasure of moving back to Germany!  We are pretty excited about this change and excited for where we'll get to go, what we'll get to experience and what God will be doing in and through us while there this time around.  We know this time will be significantly different having two boys (where we left with one little guy back in Jan 2008).  Gregory will start school there; Tom will be working with AFRICOM (Africa Command); Roxanne won't be working at all (I got to work for nearly 3 years when we were in Germany last time); and Joshua, well he'll be experiencing it all for the first time!  We know there will be tough times (being so far from family will be the biggie), but we also know we will have fun adventures too!  So the next couple of months will continue to be busy with appointments, traveling to see family before we leave and sorting through our accumulated belongings :-)

Please be praying for us during this transition and we'll keep in touch.