Brian and Sarah Lownsbery

Book Review-This Is Your Brain In Love by Dr. Earl Henslin

2010-04-14T12:54:00.000-07:00

I chose this book because I thought that it looked rather interesting. The author is a Christian therapist that uses brain images to help his clients out with their problems. In the book he describes many different types of "lovers" such as: the scattered lover, the overfocused lover, the blue mood lover, etc. Each of these different lovers have different ways of responding to their partners so this book just goes through and talks about each one and discusses different things you can do to help your partner. The book ends with a chapter called the secret to lasting love. I think the chapter kind of steps away a little bit from all the technical stuff and talks about how God made marriage and that even if you or your spouse has one of the different things going on in the previous chapters that there is hope for you to still have a good marriage. I found the information fascinating and easy to read. The medical terminology in the book is easy to read and understand.

Because this book is so great I am going to be doing a giveaway! If you are interested in participating just leave me a comment and I will pick a random winner this weekend. Make sure you include your email so I know where to contact you.

Ciao,
Sarah L.

**I received a copy of this book for free from the publisher as part of their blogger review program. The opinions expressed here are solely mine.***

Becoming A Woman of Faith-Book Review

2010-04-14T11:41:00.000-07:00

This is an eleven week study by Cynthia Heald. I really enjoyed my eleven week study with this book. The book starts out by teaching us how God is faithful. Cynthia uses a lot of scripture to show us how God is faithful. I was able to go through each chapter a little each day and meditate on the scriptures that she has you look up. This is something that can be done in one sitting if you have about half an hour to an hour. I felt very refreshed and closer to God at the end of the eleven weeks and I am looking forward to getting some of her other eleven week studies.

I also received a copy of Becoming A Woman of Simplicity to review and I will post that in the next month or so. It is another one of Cynthia's eleven week study books. I definitely recommend this book to anyone who needs a little pick me up like I did.

Ciao,
Sarah

**I recieved this book for free from NavPress as part of their Blogger Review Program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.***

February Update

2010-03-08T12:49:00.000-08:00

Where is this year disappearing too? I have been very busy lately which is why I haven't gotten around to posting any updates. This year I have been busy working on college courses, working out, and keeping up with the house and family. Next Saturday my friends Aleisha, Catharine, and I are going to be running a 5K. If Brian takes some pictures for me I will post them on here for all to see. So far this week I have ran on the track a total of six laps, this is about a mile and a half. On the treadmill I am running about two and a half miles, which takes me about thirty minutes. I feel much better since I have started working out. After having kids and Brian's deployments, I just kind of let myself go because I was concentrating on trying to survive this military life.

This past Saturday we celebrated Zachary's sixth birthday! I cannot believe how the time has flown by. I am excited because he learning so much about life and school and you can see the light bulb just go off when he really gets something. We are working on teaching him to tie his shoes. He gets confused still, but in time he will get it. He is half-way through his first year of kindergarten and I am glad that we made the choice to send him to the DODEA school here. I know a lot of people believe that homeschooling is the best option for children, and while I agree, I must say that he is better off going to school. Zachary also had a little bit of excitement this past week...he lost his first tooth and the one next to it is now loose! I will try and upload a picture of his missing tooth.

Zoe will be five in three weeks. We will be celebrating her birthday the second weekend of April because her birthday happens to be Easter this year. She is excited about going to Kindergarten next year. I must say it is hard to send my children off to school but I feel much better about sending them to school here than in the states. I am not sure what we will do when we move back stateside. If we go back to Georgia than I know where I would like for them to go to school. This summer I will be working with Zoe on writing her name and the beginning of reading. I missed out this with Zachary last year because of doing daycare, so this year I will not miss out on teaching her to read.

Zaylee just had a birthday in December; she is now three! Brian and I have talked over the possiblity of getting my tubes untied, but for now we are just going to enjoy the thee children we have. It is hard enough to be a spouse of a military man, but add children into that mix and it can be crazy. A year of parenting alone is quite a challenge. God Bless the mothers who do it with more than three children! Anyways, back to Zaylee. The big news with her is that she is potty training! She only had two accidents today and I am very proud of her. She wants really hard to fit in with the older kids, so I am sure that is her motivation for wearing big girl panties like her sister. I cannot wait to be done with diapers. For the last six years I have had at least one child in diapers. I am excited about starting the next phase of life with my kiddos.

Brian and I are both doing great! Busy as can be though. He has been working very hard. He's been going places for a few weeks here and there for the last few months. He may be leaving us at the end of this year for a little bit, but we are not sure of the details just yet. I will not be able to post about it but I will keep you informed on how the kids and I are doing. I may try and take a month long vacation to the states around Christmas time. This time it will be just the kids and I so it will not matter how much the plane gets delayed. My mom and aunt are suppose to be coming to visit in June till the beginning of July. I am always excited to have visitors! That is it from our little corner of the world. I hope all are well!

The Lownsbery Family

I'm Back!

2010-02-19T11:59:00.000-08:00

It seems like ages since I have blogged. I have been very busy with the kids, college, traveling, and Brian's crazy schedule. I am hoping to get back to blogging more and in the next few days I will put up some new pictures of our family. I also signed up to do book reviews and will be posting on two books very soon!

Sarah Lownsbery

Where has the time gone?.....

2009-10-11T13:13:00.000-07:00

It has been two months since I have written anything on this blog, and for that I am very sorry. Since my last posting a lot of things have happened.

Brian and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary shortly after my last post. We had a great dinner for two at home while the kids went to the neighbors for the night. It has definitely been a journey for us, I think mainly because we are a military couple. Brian has been home only about three of the six years we have been married. For civilian couples, they think wow he's been gone a lot, but for other military families we are blessed. I am blessed for the time that we get to spend with each other, and I know that a lot of times I take it for granted but then something happens, and it snaps my perspective back into place. I pray that God will give us many more years together.

Another big event was Zachary's first day of school! I cannot believe my oldest is in school now. He has spent the last five years under my love and care and now I have released him into the care of his kindergarten teacher. He loves her and I am glad for that because I had toyed with the thought of homeschooling. He is now copying words onto paper and he is so proud of himself for the accomplishment. His teacher is laying the foundation for the kids to learn how to read. So far, they have learned how to read to self, sitting quietly; how to read to others, reading aloud; and how to read with pictures. He has memorized some simple books like: twinkle, twinkle little star and little boy blue.

At the end of August, Brian left for a month long training mission. He missed Zachary's first day of school, and I was so busy with life that I didn't get any pictures :( Brian did get to talk to Zachary on the phone that morning, so he was happy. He has now safely made it back and is at a class for this week.

The girls and I are doing well. Zoe, Zaylee, and I are doing a little preschooling at home this year with my friend Aleisha and her little boy. We have been having fun and the girls enjoy doing crafts and hanging out with kylar their little boyfriend :) I must add a little story here real quick. When Aleisha and I hang out Kylar is the only boy with my two girls (usually the older boys are at school), one of the first times we got together he told his dad hurry I need to go my girls are waiting for me! He is so precious! So there you have it, we have fun doing homeschool with the young kids. Zaylee has also become a big girl and FINALLY given up the pacifier. I thought it would never happen, but it did and I am grateful!

I will end this hear and try to get back to a normal blogging routine if time permits.

I hope you enjoy the pictures too!

A little update....

2009-08-13T03:04:00.000-07:00

I hope that everyone has been enjoying their summer! Ours is drawing to an end. I have have had three daycare kids this summer so it has been eventful and lively around here. Zachary starts kindergarten in about three weeks and let me tell you I don't know where the time has gone! We are putting him in the dodea school here because he really enjoyed sure start and wanted to move up with his friends. I am praying that he has a good teacher and I have also been praying for good classmates. There were some kids last year who you could label the trouble maker but Zachary is so good he wasn't affected too much by their behavior. I am praying that this year we won't have any incidents. I have enrolled Zoe into the sure start program but it is like head start in the states and we are considered the higher ranking for this so if there aren't many E4's and E5's then she will get a spot. I really loved the teacher last year Miss Flake and I am praying that if she does get a spot that Miss Flake will be her teacher also. The good thing about doing daycare is I also got to know the other sure start teacher and would feel comfortable if she had her also. Zaylee will be home with me this year working through the hooked on phonics preschool books and games. Basically she'll learn a different letter each week and hopefully by the end of this school year she'll be able to look at a letter and identify it. As of October 1st I won't have anymore daycare kids. It was a tough decision because financially we could have used the extra money but I am just plain ol burnt out from it. Plus I would like to be able to take Zaylee off base in the middle of the week to do some sight seeing if I so choose to. I can't drive the kids anywhere here so I am pretty much stuck at the house or the park here on the support site. Brian will be leaving at the end of this month for an exercise. He should only be gone a month. Not this year coming up but next year he'll be up for his E7 so that is pretty exciting! Big news for us is that we celebrate our 6th anniversary this month on the 21st! He'll be here for it so I am hoping to get a babysitter so we can at least grab some dinner and a movie. We definitely don't get enough alone time with the kids around. I hope that my usual sitter gets back from the states soon so that way we can plan a weekly date night. How was everyone else's summer?

Ciao!!!

Groovy Baby!

2009-07-23T09:44:00.001-07:00

Yesterday the kids tie dyed some shirts and I got a few pictures of them working on them and then of course the finished products. They had fun and the shirts turned out really cute. How is everyone else doing?

Almafi Coast Trip

2009-07-19T00:08:00.001-07:00

OK so here it is the big story...We went on a mini cruise of the Almafi Coast yesterday. Why didn't I bring the dramamine? Lord only knows. So we board the boat in Naples and from there go down the coast to Sorrento..no big deal. We pick up more people then head away from the coast to the Island of Capri. On the way we hit major turbulence...I get sick. Not only for the turbulence time but till we reach our desination the city of Almafi. We get to spend about an hour and a half there. We took the kids swimming, had gelato (ice cream) and bought some knick knacks. On the way back I am feeling fine then we once again hit major turbulence and from then on the whole boat was sick! Oh and did I mention that when we hit turbulence on the way home I didn't even make it to the bathroom..that is right I heaved my guts out into a bag for everyone to see and hear. I guess the bottom of the boat was full of sick people too. I have come to the conclusion that I HATE BOATS! You will never again see me on a cruise or mini cruise of any kind. Enjoy the pics..oh and Brian spared you all the horrific sight of me being sick!

4th of July Pictures

2009-07-18T23:55:00.001-07:00

Here are the pics I took from the 4th of July celebration! The band pictured is The Verve Pipe! Brian didn't make it back in time to celebrate with us but we got to spend time with some great friends.

Zachary's Last day of school

2009-07-18T23:37:00.000-07:00

These are some pictures from Zachary's last day of school. The kids had a picnic and made bug catchers. He really enjoyed sure start and so we have decided on sending him to kindergarten instead of homeschooling. Zoe is going to be signed up for sure start as well and hopefully she'll get chosen to go. If she doesn't get in I will sign her up for the CDC's preschool program which is three days a week for a couple of hours. She was enrolled in this for half of this year because they had some spots still open. I just had to wait until she was almost four.

Happy 4th of July!!!

2009-07-04T02:43:00.004-07:00

What are everyone's plans for the 4th? We are going to a BBQ at a friends house in the afternoon and then we are headed over to Carney Park for the fireworks. The Verve Pipe band is playing over there tonight too so I am very excited about that. I will post some pictures of tonight festivities after we get home!!!

Happy 4th!

Happy 4th of July!!!

2009-07-04T02:43:00.003-07:00

I finally did it!!!!!

2009-06-30T03:55:00.000-07:00

This morning I drove myself to Capo and got my Italian license. You may wonder why I am posting about it and let me tell you the Italians drive like idiots and it scares the crap out of me to drive off base. So the fact that I drove over by myself is amazing. The fact that I passed the test the first time is amazing. What can I say I am just amazing LOL! Hope everyone is having as great of a day as me :)

It's been a while

2009-06-28T11:54:00.000-07:00

since I have written a blog. I am sorry for that. The kids and I have been sick this past week so I have been a little out of the loop. We are feeling better now and I was able to pick up the house a little bit this morning. I have this week off of daycare kids so I will go through our house and get rid of all the junk and clutter we have sitting around. It's amazing how much junk I hold on to with the intent of using it in the future. I have some old scrapbooking stuff that I will never use so I am going to get rid of it and do our scrapbooking digitally. I have a friend here who does it and is going to help me get started. I will get some pictures of the kids this week and try to post them.

A long night....

2009-06-22T22:51:00.001-07:00

Last night around 11:30 my girls both got really sick. I think they ate some bad plums that a neighbor got right outside of base. So last night I got a total of two hours of sleep! I heard from Brian he made it to his destination safely. I guess they started working right away because he said he got back to his room around 1:00am. We talked briefly this morning before he had to get ready to go again. Hopefully he'll have somewhat of a normal work schedule so we can talk to him on the computer and the kids can see him on the webcam. Well that is all from us I need to get the kids ready for today.

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!!!

2009-06-21T03:43:00.000-07:00

Brian we love you and miss you and hope that you are having a great Father's day!

A New Day...

2009-06-20T11:29:00.001-07:00

Today started out much like yesterday where I was just kind of blah. Then this afternoon we went to a BBQ off base (now all of you know I do not like to drive off base because Italians are nuts!). We were invited as a family and agreed to go before Brian found out he was leaving so my friend Aleisha drove my truck to Shawnee's house for me. Shawnee has a beautiful house and their parco has a pool so we ate some food and took the kiddos to the pool. After the pool we had some cake for Aleisha's birthday. While the adults were chatting Shawnees husband Nate told the kids he would pay them $5.00 each to pull the weeds by their fence. All the kids pitched in and he ended up having to pay them 5 Euro because there aren't any American ATM's in Lago. So the kids were really excited about that. In the pictures above you'll see them sitting by their piles of weeds with their euro bills. We had a great time and hope we get to go back and hang out at their pool ;)

The first day...

2009-06-19T12:29:00.000-07:00

is always the hardest when Brian leaves for months at a time. As always I kind of just zombied around today doing a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Zachary is taking this pretty hard he cried a few times today. We didn't have much notice so I couldn't transition the kids into daddy being gone and then he left in the early morning while we were asleep. I am so ready to be done with this life style. If he does stay gone for 6 months the kids and I are going to hop on a plane and come home between September and October. I have full daycare during the summer so I won't be able to leave but once school starts I'll only have one daycare child. The kids and I are going to be taking some trips through the base around this area. I found out about one where a boat goes around the Almafi Coast and docks in a little town where you can go shopping and grab lunch. I am hoping that I can pack my weekends which are usually the hardest for me. I hope everyone enjoys their weekend. Happy Father's Day to all the Dads!!!! Especially you Brian we love you and miss you xoxo.

It is about that time again....

2009-06-16T10:59:00.000-07:00

Brian will be gone for the summer starting at the end of this week. I know I am married to a Military Man but it is never easy to be seperated. It is suppose to be just for the summer but there is a possibility of extension...if that is the case the kids and I will be making a trip home. We'll take a MAC flight (military flight for those who don't know militarese LOL) from Naples to Virginia. We will cross that bridge when we get there though. For the summer I am full with my kids and three daycare kids. I am going to find some weekend trips through USO or ITT to do on the weekends. This Saturday there is a trip up North up to a beach in Gaeta. Brian says I should try to go so I'll talk to the USO tomorrow and find out the details of the trip. If we go I'll post pictures. For those of you wondering about my tubal reversal it is going to have to wait a few years. It will be a lot of flying back and forth from Italy to the States. Plus we never know when Brian will be here or be gone. I have yet to have my wisdom teeth pulled which was planned earlier this year and got cancelled when he went to Spain. Gotta love that Military lifestyle. So as always please pray for the Soldiers going and the families staying here in Italy. I gotta go we are going to watch a movie......

Doctors appt.update

2009-06-12T06:14:00.000-07:00

I had my doctors appt. today regarding a tubal reversal. I have a handwritten referral back to Ft. Gordon. I chose Ft. Gordon because as long as there is a military doctor there that can do it all we will have to pay for is the travel there and a hotel room. The travel is simple because we can take a mac flight from here to the states. The lodging should be easy because we still know a ton of people in Augusta so we should be able to find a place to stay. Here is the catch....there has to be a doctor trained to do the surgery in Georgia and we'll have to make probably two trips to Georgia one for the evaluation which from there they say yay or nay to me. At which point if they say no I'll cry cause I have flown 12 hours for a doctor appt. If they say yay I'm going to have to go back for the surgery whenever they can get me in. Well I'm going to try and get a hold of Georgia and see if they have a tubal reversal doc....I promise to keep you all up to date.

Family Pic

2009-06-01T08:11:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago we got our family pic done. This is a scanned image of the textured picture so there are spots but the pics turned out great.

As if the rain wasn't enough....

2009-05-29T13:06:00.000-07:00

So the applebee's on the support site is closing on Sunday and some friends of ours met us for dinner there tonight. About ten minutes after we sat down Zoe decided to throw up on me (I'm sure she didn't purposefully do it) so I took her home and changed her and I. She did good once we got back until right before we were about to leave I turned her around because she had fallen asleep on my arm and as soon as I turned her she threw up all over me again! So this week is turning out to be not such a great week. I am thinking that God is working on trying to make me a patient person what do you think?? For those of you wondering I was more patient than I normally would have been but I did say a few choice words! I know bad mommy but what would you have done?......
p.s. Aleisha you missed out on all the excitement!

Playing in the rain :)

2009-05-28T10:33:00.000-07:00

I hope that everyone had a great Memorial Day. We spent it at the pool with a few of our friends. I didn't remember the camera so I didn't get any pictures. My friend Aleisha posted some on her blog if you would like to see them you can go to: www.alrykyst.blogspot.com. On her blog you can see Zaylee's little boyfriend and Zachary's best friend Rylan. They just had a little girl a few months ago and I just LOVE her. She doesn't like me so much though she always cries when I pick her up. They are one of the families that we like to hang out with. We also did a bbq at the little park next to our building. I have a feeling we will be going to the pool and bbqing every weekend this summer with our little group of families.

I just have to tell you all what happened today because it was quite funny. My friend Kelly and I were at the park with our kiddos (we are there everyday after school for a few hours) she watches some extra kids after school also. It started to rain so we went over to the pavilion finished snack and then let the kids dabble in the sprinkles. Well after a little bit is started pouring and the wind kicked up. Plus there was some hail. This freaked the kids out! So all 13 of us ran to the nearest building which was the school age care program. They looked at us like we were crazy! So after a few minutes it let up just a tiny bit and of course running across the road to my house it poured again! Once we got into the house the kids changed into some dryer clothes and I made hot chocolate and popcorn. I was amazed that buying clothes at the thrift store a few sizes too big really benefited us today. I wish I would have taken pictures so you can see what a site we really were!

In the near future I am going to be posting some pictures of my little balcony garden. I have planted tomatoes, carrots, a strawberry plant and some morning glory seeds. I have a lot of green so hopefully the morning glories will bloom this year and the veggies will start growing! I have a total black thumb so I'll keep you posted on how my garden is doing. Hope you all have a great week!

God Bless,
Sarah

Fun at the Park!

2009-05-24T12:54:00.000-07:00

We took the kids to the park across the road today for some football and fun. Here are some pictures of Brian and Zachary playing football and the girls just being cute :)

2009-05-23T13:56:00.001-07:00

This past week was a beautiful week here in Italy! The weather has been nice for some time now and it continues to get warmer each week. They finally turned out air conditioning on this week which was nice because even leaving doors and windows open at night it still got pretty hot in our apartment. This past week Dawn a friend of mine took our kids overnight on Thursday and then kept the girls until Zachary got out of school on Friday. Brian and I had planned a little trip to an island off the coast of Italy but he wasn't able to get the day off. So we went out on a date Thursday and then I clean our apartment on Friday morning. It was nice to be kid free it is a blessing we have had quite a bit here. I am repaying Dawn by helping clean her apartment Sunday morning. She works nights as a nurse and I watch her son. I am also thinking of doing a weeks worth of meals for her so she doesn't have to worry about dinners and she can spend some extra time with her kiddos:) If she ever logs onto our blog I want her to know that I REALLY appreciated her watching my kiddos. Friday after my last daycare child left around 6:00 we were to head over to Zachary's teachers house for dinner. She lives on the beach! As we were walking out the door we were informed that there was an incident by our house and that our road would be closed off so we kind of left in a hurry. We got to Miss Flake's house and realized we had forgotten the hot dogs and our camera but hey that is what happens when you leave in a rush. For those of you wondering it wasn't a big incident just some safety precautions that turned out to be nothing. Not everyone likes Americans and you definitely learn that living overseas. I wish I could have some pictures to show you of the evening it was very nice. A BIG thank you to Miss Flake for opening her house to us! She has taught in many different places so her house has nice things from all over. She is a great teacher and we were blessed to have her this year! I hope that everyone has a wonderful weekend and a great Memorial Day on Monday!

Some recent photos

2009-05-18T11:11:00.001-07:00

These are the most recent photos we have of our family. I figured I should post them so that everyone can see how big the kids are getting. Also we wanted to let everyone know that I am in the process of seeing if we can get my tubal reversed. We feel that we made a mistake and I personally have felt it in my heart for the last year or so. I had an appt. with a family doctor today and I am being referred to the OB. They don't do the surgery here so this next appt. will be to see if they'll send me back to the states for the surgery or not. My next appt. won't be until June and I am waiting this week for the call on the exact date. If they won't send me back to the states for the reversal I will have to wait until we get stationed back stateside. So if everyone could put us on their prayer list that would be wonderful! Miss you all!!!

Brian, Sarah and the kiddos :)

Introduction

2009-05-17T05:06:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone welcome to our families blog. I set this up so that everyone can easily see how we are doing over here in Italy :) This is much easier than trying to remember to send an email update once a month and upload pictures with the email. We will strive to update once a week and add pictures just as frequently. We miss everyone back in the states and hope you are all doing well!

God Bless,
Brian and Sarah Lownsbery