From today my Mommy will be here!  Yay!  It will be so good to see her and spend some time together.

Everything here is going pretty well.  Kyle continues to improve.  His handwriting and attention to detail are so much better.  I am anxious to see his grade for last week's homework as he did it all by himself.  He was quite driven to finish it and do his best.  A far cry from the usual daily fight.

Erik is getting better at doing his homework.  Last week he asked me to help him with his English and that was fun to work together.  He was doing usage and grammar corrections and I love that!  This Friday, is one of the band's festival performances.  It counts as the music SOL exam.  I volunteered Odin to go as a chaperone on the school bus.  Kyle and I will drive down to VA Beach to see Erik play. 

Odin came home on Friday and he will be here until next week and then he's gone again for several days.  He's gearing up to switch ships in the near future.

Over the weekend we came to the conclusion that we cannot remain here on 42nd Street for another year.  We need to make a change.  Really, since we got here,  not much has gone right or been positive. We have all suffered as a result.  We are now looking to buy a house here in Hampton Roads.  We are thinking probably in Portsmouth or Virginia Beach.  While we have enjoyed the beauty and friendliness of living in Riverview, we have been frustrated and disappointed in the Norfolk Public Schools.  We're hoping to be able to keep the house in Murrieta, but our main concern right now is being able to move into a nice house in a good school district to improve the boys' quality of education.  We are hoping to accomplish this in the summer, after Odin gets back.  We want to be settled before he leaves again for his long deploy.

I feel better knowing that soon we will have our own home.  It is very hard to go back to renting after owning.  I'm hoping that we can find a nice place that just needs a few flowers and maybe a coat or two of paint.

TTFN,

PAW