New computer in the house. Pretty cool, the old one was getting really bogged down and slow. This is pretty sweet. I'm hoping to do some more blogging now that things won't move like molasses.
So what's been going on here? Well, let's see...
First off we are planning a trip to Europe in the late spring, early summer. I'm very excited but trying to be a little reserved about it because it seems as though Jon could change his mind at any time. I guess I'll get truly excited when we actually have the plane tickets.
We are still working out the details but we're thinking of spending four weeks in France, Spain and Portugal. Probably spending half that time in France. I've been trying to re-learn some French and I'm signed up for a class for travelers.
We've been researching a lot of ways to keep our costs down. One idea is to camp, sort of. There's these semi-cheesey British "euro-camp" sites. There pretty cool for the kids really because there's pools and slides and play grounds and such. Some of them are like little towns in of themselves, with restaurants, baby-sitting services and entertainment. There's little cabins and travel trailers to stay in . We would probably do that some of the time. There's also pretty affordable places to rent for a week at a time out in the country. Both options would give us the things we like with children any way, kitchen and laundry.
I'm trying to figure out ways to meet other people with children the same age to hang out with. Not to be put up but just to spend a little time with. I don't much care for doing typical tourist things and the kids will have no tolerance for much of that kind of thing any way. What I really want to do is hang out with people, have them show us their town, what they like to do, etc...
That would be interesting to me. Although, I think it's actually Jon's worst nightmare: having to socialize with strangers and in another language even. Oh well, he'll get over it.
When we have the places we're going and dates I can contact some, what's the word? Town agencies, web sites, service bureaus... and see if they can hook us up with any one.

The other big deal around these here parts... I'm getting the old IUD out tomorrow!!! YIKES! Yes, we've finally made up our minds and decided to have just one more. I mean it would be cruel to deprive the world of our adorable children, wouldn't it?
We are actually going to try to not get pregnant for as long as we can. Considering we got pregnant with Solomon a couple of months after I went off the pill and within the week after I had the last IUD out with Margo, we are going to see how long we can NOT get pregnant this time. Jon is so paranoid we haven't had sex for the last few days because sperm can live for three days and the way he's figuring it with our fertility rate I'm liable to get pregnant the second the IUD comes out.
This way I should be able to get a good record of my cycle too and hopefully we won't run into any more late baby stress.
So that's pretty exciting. Although I'm not looking forward to the early pregnancy flubber.
You know, that stage before you actually look pregnant to any one, you just look flubby because you gain like 15 pounds of water weight immediately. Okay, maybe that's just me.

We've started our little Seven Days of Solstice tradition. I think it's adorable how the kids talk about solstice and the think the big angel my mother gave me for the top of our "solstice tree" is a fairy. Although I'm sure other people just think I'm being weird and probably even mean for not doing all the Christmas crap. But hey, we're not Christian, it just doesn't make any sense to me to participate in a religious holiday that means nothing to me.
Any way, Solomon has already informed me that he celebrates Christmas, so I guess all the Christian's are winning.

Little Miss Margo has been driving us a little nutso lately. She alternates from being absolutely sweet and adorable to being the chick in the exorcist. She's so bad now that when she starts to have a temper tantrum about something she screams, "I don't want to calm down!"
Today I tried keeping her awake all day and skipping nap, so that she would go to sleep a little easier because it's been taking over an hour at night to get her asleep and that means I'm not out of there until 10 pm or later and that's just crazy. Well, she did go to sleep easy but she completely flipped out on us and screamed for like an hour after her bath, I think it had something to do with her towel, but it's hard to know for sure.
Any way, I don't know what I'm gonna do with her.

I'm going to go and try to post some pictures now.