Groneman Family

I know that BJ gets our posts that we put on this family blog, but I doubt anything you post on your blogs is reaching her. Are you making a point to send them to her (as ANY new is better than no news) or shall I copy them and send them to her via dearelder.com? I await responses please.

You can get it here ....so all is not lost.

FYI-- The Nelsons will be visiting utah in all of their glory June 11th through the 17th. This will be our only visit to Utah this year (due to funds) so we'd love to spend some fun quality time with anyone who is able. We'd like to propose a over-night visit to the mountain property for old time's sake. I don't think I've been up there with everyone for 15 years! Christa says she is game to do it as long as people help out with her kidlets since Brigham won't be there. So, who's in? I also think it would be fun to visit the highland splash park together. We are so excited!!!

Hey, Sister Groneman! Yer Aunt Kathy says that you only get 30 minutes MAX on the computer to do email out and in . So if you spend 25 minutes reading our blog and emails to you, you will have 5 minutes to write us back for the entire week. So far we haven't gotten anything. But I want to hear from you! So I will l print off and mail everything on the blog so that you can spend your entire time writing to us. That also means anyone in our family that wants to email you needs to send it to me to mail to her, or just mail it yourselves to her MTC address. Another thing: The computer you use will automatically cut you off when you have had your 30 minutes. And if you haven't got your letter sent until 31 minutes, we won't get a thing. In the 3 weeks that Micheal was in the MTC, they only got 1 letter because he was proof reading before he sent it and lost 2 of them. DON'T do that! Spend 29 minutes writing it and get it send B4 you lose it! We NEED...

We've decided on a couple of things. The 2nd Sunday of every month we will provide dinner etc. for anyone that wants to show up....well, we'll do that any Sunday but we'll *plan* on the 2nd Sunday so folks know there is a plan.  That means we're planning on it on May 9th - Mother's day.  June 13th, July 11th, etc. etc. Speaking of plan, Yer mother and would like to spend the 4th of July weekend at the mountain property. Of course come down for Church Sunday, but spending 3-5 otherwise on the mountain. We were kind of hoping that we could get other folks to come up and spend it with us.  That's the plan unless the clan decides on something else for that holiday. Cambrie, when will you be here in June? You said:  "So I'm thinking that limits us to coming somewhere between the 20th and the 25th (we also must be in california on the 26th and 27th) or thet 28th through the 4th. Thoughts?"  Which is it? I'd like to make some plans around that too...

Blogging from work again. I love it. So we found a place to move to and we will be moving on the 14th-15th of May. The place is a 2 bed 1 bath house on a somewhat busy road. It has pretty much no yard but it is a 1-minute walk away from a park. It is also fairly close to the train tracks, but we all know that a person can learn to adjust to trains. It has only 2 very small bedroom and closets (no hall closet) and so it will be a challenge to get all of our stuff put away. We'll figure it out though--this move is going to save us $600 a month (not including the savings on utilities). Moving is a PAIN though. Especially when I'm a full-time mom, a full-time nurse, and Steve is a full-time dental student. We plan on doing all of it without me taking any time off of work. So I'll bet you all know what we are doing with every second of our free time. We are getting rid of a TON of stuff. Garbage ...I mean garage sale next saturday. Today Steve and I went to see a ps...

I took the opportunity to get outside and enjoy outdoors. I fixed the broken wooden bench, I moved a woodpile away from the playhouse, I relocated the garden hose reel, and I put concrete curbing around the stump from the big tree. I then had some roasted raspberry chipoltle sauce on cream cheese with crackers for lunch (Marilyn's in SLC at Tyler Haslem's wedding and luncheon). I'm chillin' waiting for Emmy to come visit....then this afternoon I'll unwinterize the lawnmower and mow the lawns. Let the summer activities begin.

That's the question Erica asked of me at lunchtime today-(about sending my children on missions of course). The answer is yes and no. Easier than sending my first child to a 3rd world country and having not a clue how bad it could really be (my imagination was bad enough)...that was hard! But no, practice doesn't make it any easier. The pain seems to come in waves. I will be fine for a while, and then, for no explainable reason, it feels like something has physically been ripped off of my heart...and it just really aches...followed by tears. I have always wondered the medical explanation for why your heart seems to be in physical pain when separated from someone we love very much. (Brigham? ) And it is not like I haven't been separated from BJ before. She spent 2 1/2 years in So. California. But it is harder this time, because we can't see or contact her any time we want to. That changes everything! I absolutely have no regrets about her decision to serve a...

  Bye Bye Buffalo!  Yer mom cried of course, but I did like the dropping off at the curb much better than sitting through the movie and drawing the goodbyes out.  As you can see from the pictures, Buff was ready and excited...smiling constantly.  I'll miss her.

Here are some really surreal volcano (Iceland) pictures.

Happy birthday Punkin'.  May you have a day filled with bluebirds flying around your shoulders, racoons and squirrels running around your feet, and conversations with a talking teacup or candle holder.  Oh yea...and pink ribbons....lots of pink ribbons.   In other words, have a magical day!  One more year and you'll be as old as I am.

Tomorrow the adventure begins! We are so excited for you and can't wait to hear all about everything. We are sad that you won't be around when we finally move to Utah, but we'll be there when you get back! We wish we could say our good-byes in person and see you off, but no such luck. So bye-bye, Buffalo! You will be in our prayers! See you in a year and a half!

I hope this works. I don't know how to do it besides this way and if this doesn't work, I'll have dad help me when he gets home. Click on the link below to look at Buffy's pictures from the trip. Enjoy http://picasaweb.google.com/breegroneman/CaliTrip042010 #

Groneman's visit

I will have to request that someone else add pictures to our blog, as I don't have the know-how. But we did have a fun day at the beach! It was funny: As soon as we arrived, and put down the coolers, and spread out the blanket...before we even had the umbrella up, Lydia kept saying: "All done!" with a bit of a quiver and trepidation in her voice. She just stood transfixed watching the waves roar in, one after the next. They made her very nervous! Kiera too wasn't at all sure that she liked the idea of that roaring noise that the ocean made, but she warmed up to it. Cambrie had brought the little green lawn chairs that sit about 4 inches off the ground and I was sitting in one. Lydia approached me and grabbed my hand and said "'mon" (come on, grandma) and pulled me to get up. As soon as I got up and asked where we were going, she sat down in the chair and was done with me! (I just get NO respect around here!) Lydia, I don't think remembered t...

Wow...it's warm.  I turned my furnace off Friday night and it's still off.  Today I put in a fence on our side yard to keep munchkins in the back yard and was sweating doing it.  I also had to get the lawnmower at our duplex running...and replace a wheel (how do you lose a lawnmower wheel and not know where it went?....)  Once I got it running, and a new wheel on, I mowed the front lawn with it for the first time of the season (yuck) I also turned on the water to our sprinkler system.  Water is in our stream and there are kids wading in it.  It's definitely spring!  I hope the 4 Groneman's are safe on their way back home tomorrow.  I'm looking forward to having my sweetheart back home.

Christa was right...we have a sex offender right in our ward.   http://www.icrimewatch.net/offenderdetails.php?OfndrID=1133387&AgencyID=54438

In honor of Poetry Month, here are a few poems I wrote just for you. Birthday Haiku Birthday boy you are Wishing you a happy day And many to come Birthday Limerick I love my husband Chad He's also an amazing Dad He's thirty today And we just want to say You are no longer a lad. I love you, Sweetheart! Have a happy day!

Oh my achin' back.  Last night I got one yard of compost and Marilyn & Brett helped me unload it and wheel it to the back yard.  This morning I got two more yards of compost which I unloaded mostly by myself (Marilyn was spreading it around...she's good at spreading that kind of stuff around...).  I'm too old for this!  I also sit way too much in front of a computer.  I think it's an Advil night tonight.  I sit in one place for 5 minutes and riger mortice sets in.  It will probably take me 3 minutes just to get out of this computer chair!  *$*)*#&! flower gardens anyway. [grumble][grumble].  Oh and I watched New Moon with Brett/Katie, Marilyn, Buff last night.  Gag.  It's one big teengirl mood love crisis movie.  It's so cliché! Take every chick flick ever made...as long as nobody smiled in it, put all the sappy parts together and you have New Moon.  Yea, there's a couple of  vampires that sparkle and a love s...

I can't post this on our family blog because I don't want to make any of my friends vomit or start questioning their parenting, but since you all are family (and no one has kids Benjamin's age to compare to him), I wanted to share. Benjamin's parent teacher conference was about a week ago, and of course his teacher only had great things to say about him. The thing that did surprise us, however, is that she said that she thinks we should test him into third grade next year! We don't want to-- not because we don't think he could handle it-- just because we don't want him to be 2 years younger than his classmates. (He might not ever forgive us if he couldn't date or drive until his senior year of high school!) Not bad for a kid who should be in kindergarten, huh? We're proud of our Benjamin!

Wahoo!  Family oriented entertainment.  Friday April 16th on NBC.  Watch the trailer...looks good.  I'll support it by watching.  Dinner/snacks if anyone wants to watch it with me:  SECRETS OF THE MOUNTAIN "Somewhere between the demands of her career, her ex’s wedding and her kids’ busy schedules, Dana James  is noticing her tight-knit family starting to unravel. An unexpected offer to purchase her family’s mountain property sets up a weekend road trip, which she hopes will bring her family back together. But when they arrive, they quickly learn that the mountain is much more than it seems. An ancient secret and a treacherous quest will test the family like never before. It’s an edge-of-the seat thriller that reminds us that when times are tough, families don’t run away from problems – they run back to each other"

No, we are not pregnant.... well, sortof. We are expecting a baby (possibly 2!) next april. yes, we have found a surrogate. This one is for sure. We are starting the process right now-- the medical and psychological screenings, attorneys, contracts, etc.. We expect to do the transfer in late June or july (these things can't be planned to the exact date. I'm SOOOOOOOOOO excited about it. Our surrogate is LDS and lives an hour from us and she is willing to work with us financially because she too wants it to happen in June/july for her own reasons. Next item of buisness: we are planning on coming to Utah in June. The question is when. Steve is out of school june 11th-july 4th. He has a scout campout in st george area starting on the 14th that will probably last a few days. I know the dastrups are not available the 16th-19th as well as the 25th-27th. So I'm thinking that limits us to coming somewhere between the 20th and the 25th (we also must be in california o...

If you get tired of the same old brain exercise games, here's another good one that's fun: SKYSCRAPERS  The premis is simple.  Each number (1 thru 4) represents a skyscraper that is that many floors tall.  The numbers around the outside tell you how many skyscrapers you can see from that point.  Your job is to fill in the numbers.  For example, if you put a #4 in the first square, you can only see one skyscraper from that point because 4 blocks the view of all less tall skyscrapers in that line.

Here's our plan for helping Dastrup's move.   We'll be driving down to Albuturkey on May 25th, help pack stuff up on the 26th, make a feeble attempt at helping load the truck on the 27th,  and take it all back to Utah on the 28th.  We'll take our own bedding and some food to share.  I've heard comments in the past about others possibly coming down for the fun/games as well...how are those plans going?

We haven't actually celebrated easter officially since I was in AZ Easter morning. But we've been hiding plastic eggs with fishy cracker, raisins and cereal in them all month so I don't know if they will think it is special when we do it next week anyway. These picture are from a primary activity. They put some eggs really close to the go-line for the nursery kids and sunbeams and then put them all over a huge park/field for the older kids to find. Each child was supposed to get 12 eggs. I was there by myself with my nursery child and sunbeam. Of course, the older kids went right for the close ones and snatched them all up before running full speed to get more. I couldn't keep up with them with my 2 crying kids who wanted more than the 2 eggs they got. I was carrying lydia and her basket in one arm and dragging my crying kiera with the other arm and trying to run to a spot where my girls could get some more. Probably looked pretty funny. Oh well :) Easter will ...

Well, with the news your mom announced below, it's kind of hard to have a normal Easter, but for you kids' sake, we're going to go about our lives as if our situation were normal, at least for the time being.  Anyway, Saturday was the Easter celebration at our house with Both the Gronemans and the Gronemans coming to the Groneman house for the easter egg hunt and turkey dinner.  Emmy was so cute....gathering up the candy...and hording it.  It took her a while (20 minutes?) to realize it was candy...but when she did, she enjoyed it.  The highlight of the afternoon was when we were around the table, Brett & Katie came up the stairs but Erica hadn't noticed (she had her back to the hallway).  Brett let out some sort of "rar!" noise and Erica about fell off her chair it startled her so bad.  LOL!

Kim and I have been trying to figure out a way for a long time to share what will probably be devastating news to you all. But, we feel that it is for the best that the truth be told, and as you are all adults now, you should be able to come to grips with such disappointment (especially the ones of you who are married, as you will have support from your spouse to help you to deal with the disappointment and pain). This has been a long time coming and we knew that most likely it would come to this someday but with you kids all out of the house, we decided it's finally time to do this.  Breanna, I will just have to put in extra prayers for you, that you may be comforted in your dealing with this situation while you're on your mission. It is with deep regret and sorrow in my heart that I have to let you guys know that there is no Easter Bunny and I hope you kids will forgive us for keeping this from you for so long. OK> so, I had to actually tell Breanna face to face la...

I never thought the day would come where I would have to make rules in my family regarding how much basketball would be discussed at the dinner table. Had I not though, Benjamin would have never spoken of anything else. Here is just a small snippet of what we have been hearing about constantly for the past several weeks:

Hey Benjamin!  What do you get when you pour hot water down a rabbit hole?  Hot, cross bunnies!!!!!    Oh...oh....and why was the egg scared to ride in the easter basket?  He was a little chicken!  HA!   (Benjamin....are you out there?.......)

So, I just found out that a few very important things for you all to know for while i'm on my mission: My MTC enter date/time: April 21 at 12:45pm My Email account (it's just supposed to be for family): breanna.groneman@myldsmail.net My MTC address: Sister Breanna Groneman Georgia Atlanta North Mission Provo Missionary Training Center 2005 N 900 E Provo, Ut 84604 My Mission address (for while I'm in the field): Sister Breanna Groneman Georgia Atlanta North Mission 1150 Cole Dr SW Lilburn, GA 30047 This is all crucial information for you all to know so don't forget!

82 Erica Groneman 97 Katie Groneman 277 Breanna Groneman 724 Cambrie Nelson 809 Chad Groneman 879 Kim Groneman   Enter the April Contest Here

Brett shared this picture he set his camera to take on the morning of Katie's birthday.  What a thoughtful husband. A group of 40ish girlfriends discussed where they should meet for dinner.Finally, they agreed they should meet at the Ocean View Restaurant because the waiters there were cute. Ten years later, the group, now in their 50s, once again discussed where they should meet for dinner. Finally, they agreed they should  meet at the Ocean View Restaurant because the food there was really  good and so was the wine selection. Ten years later. as they entered their 60s, the group once again discussed where they should meet for dinner. Finally, it was agreed that they should meet at the Ocean View Restaurant because they could eat there in peace and quiet and the place had a beautiful view of the ocean. Ten years later, in their 70s, the group once again discussed where they should meet for dinner. Finally, it was agreed that they should meet at the Ocean View Resta...