Missing, but still in Action

I know that it has been a loooooong time since my last post, but there are reasons. I have this nice, new laptop that I just got in early November. It had been giving me problems....blue screens of death my son calls them....and three weeks ago it just shut down, and wouldn't start up again. A quick call to Dell, and it was a confirmed hard drive death. That meant sending the hard drive to the states, and having a new one sent down. Caleb thought that he could recover my folders from theold one, and that sounded good to me. He had a really busy week, though, and couldn't get to it right away. It did arrive earlier this week, but when I put it in the computer and started it up, somehow I messed up (who me, the mom to the computer expert?) and I lost all of the folders he had recovered. So, I am starting over again, sad about losing so much. Pictures are all on CD's, but I had downloaded a lot of digital scrapbooking stuff, and that is all gone.

I did use the main computer some during these weeks, but Richard uses it for work, plus has been doing our taxes, so I didn't get on much. But I did get other things done.....curtains for the living room, a good part of Lancy's quilt quilted, and a couple of books read.

School is going ok. Taylor loves to sound out words from cereal boxes, back of books, anywhere he can these days. Janelle is almost done with the 4th grade math book. There are days when things go well, and days when they don't. It is hard to figure out how she can do one problem well, and the very next problem she has no idea what to do, even though it is the same type of problem. Is logic something you can learn???? Sure would be nice to think that her logic skills would improve. We started with the 1st grade Science and Health books a couple of weeks ago. She reads the pages outloud to me, and writes down new words to look up. She is able to understand quite a bit. I was hoping to jump her up to the 4th grade books when these are finished, but looking them over decided that we would just go on the 2nd. It is just too big of a jump. We have made it one day shy of three weeks without a crying breakdown, so she is doing well.

I have had problems with my left lower arm since we were in October....tendonitis the doctor said. It is finally feeling about 90% better, when the same problem started in my right arm. That is much worse, since I use it so much. I am going to physical therapy a couple of times a week here in Bernal, and do feel that it is helping. But, have you ever tried to keep a house clean with two sore arms? I have tile floors that need to be mopped every day. Very hard to wring the mop out with out using those arms.

Hmmmm....what else is new around here? Lancy is really enjoying Thailand, we have the walls of the Sunday School rooms about 1/2 up, this weekend starts the two week Easter vacation here in Mexico, next Friday is the first day of Spring, so we can expect a few thousand visitors here in Bernal to "get their energy from the Pena". (We stay home that day.) Oh, and Amanda was accepted to go to Thailand with a Baptist group this summer for a few weeks, so she'll get to visit Lancy while there.

This is long enough for now, so I'll quit and promise some pictures for next time. Still don't have any pictures on my computer. It takes a lot of work to get a computer back in service after losing everything!