2010 Already?

So here we are a quarter of the way into 2010 already. Starting to sound like my parents when I keep saying "Where has the time gone?!". So far it's been a good year. Mandi is doing well in Kzoo. She worked for H&R Block again, but didn't have near as many hours this year since she was new in that district plus she was going to school at the same time. Now that tax season is finished she has gotten a job at a major retailer so I guess she is definitely NOT coming home for the summer. Didn't hold out much hope for that anyway since she seems to be quite happy living in the apartment with the boys. At least she still comes home every weekend to do laundry and get a meal off us! :)

Joey will be graduating in less than a month. He has been accepted for the Fall term at the same college Mandi attends but no word has been said yet about whether he plans to commute from here or move down there with his sister. I'm in no rush for my last chick to leave the nest!

Tax season went fairly well again this year. Had a new district manager (new boss for me) so that was a bit of an adjustment. Definitely a different style of running the district than the former DM. Not bad - just different. As always, I was more than happy when April 16th arrived. It's weird, by August I'm always raring to get back to work. Seemed to have a lot of extra stresses with running the office this year though. Ready to take a breather!

To celebrate the end of tax season, Reinhard and I threw the camper on the back of the pickup truck and took off for a long weekend last week. We headed down to southern Kentucky to visit Mammoth Cave National Park and do a tour of the cave. What a LOT of fun! We took the two hour, two mile long, Historic Cave Tour. Had my reservations about how well we would do on the tour because not only is it two miles of walking, it also involved approx. 450 stairsteps to go up and down. Surprisingly the two of us had no problem with it at all. In fact, I felt GREAT leaving the cave. (Thank you Weight Watchers!) I can't imagine how I would have done something like this last year, or if I would have even tried, when I was 70 lbs heavier. Here is the link to check out the pictures if you'd like: http://picasaweb.google.com/Benhausen/KentuckyTrip2010?feat=directlink

On our way back to Michigan we stopped to visit the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln, stopped in Louisville KY to see if we could track down our niece Jessica (she wasn't home but did call us later when she heard we had been there), found a Woodcraft store in Louisville for Reinhard to check out, and made a little detour off the highway to explore a huge indoor flea market/antique mall. Around 2 pm it started raining and since we were not interested in setting up camp again in the rain (did that the night before) we took a run for home. Finally stopped raining when we were only 40 miles from home - figures, right? :D Got home just after 11 pm. All in all a very nice get-away!

Reinhard's Hobby

Reinhard has been very busy with his hobby of making pens and keychains on his lathe. He does such beautiful work that I thought we'd post a few pictures of some of the pens he's made on our blog for you all to see. These are not even all the pens he has made - he's given a bunch away already as gifts, but this is a nice sampling of his work. Talented guy, huh? :-)

If you'd like to see more just click on this link:

http://picasaweb.google.com/Benhausen/ReinhardSHobby#

Family Vacation and more . . .

Had a really nice vacation this year - something we'd been talking about doing for a few years now. We took a trip to see the sights in Washington D.C. What a great city to visit! We took the 5th-wheel trailer and parked it in Bull Run State Park in Virginia. That is a very beautiful park and campground, though we didn't actually spend a lot of time there since we mostly wanted to see Washington. We spent two full days in the city. Parked the truck at Union Station each day and explored from there.

The first day we did a Duck Boat tour that took us through the city and then also went into the Potomac River to show us the view from the river. Very neat! It was quite funny when the tour driver was commenting about how the traffic in the city was the worst he'd ever had to deal with of all the cities he'd ever been to. We figure he's never been to Paris cause there is still no comparison! (Paris is our personal benchmark for bad traffic and drivers - lol) After that we walked to see the Capital, the National Mall, and the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.

The second day we booked seats on one of the double-decker buses that allows you to get on and off as needed to see the sights. We visited the Museum of Natural History, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Vietnam Memorial Wall. It is amazing how quiet everyone is at the Wall. Seeing all those many, many names is a very somber sight.

The weather was beautiful, the city was wonderful, and the trip was definitely worth it!

You can see pictures of the trip here - http://picasaweb.google.com/Benhausen/WashingtonDCTrip?feat=directlink

August was also filled with getting ready for back-to-school and getting ready for Mandi's moving out (for the 2nd time). I was asked to teach the Basic Tax Course for H&R Block again and those classes started on August 25th. Joey starts his Senior year of high school on Sept 8 and Mandi also starts classes again in Kalamazoo on Sept 8. On August 31st we loaded up all her belongings and moved her to an apartment in Kalamazoo that she is sharing with three friends. Today we needed to bring a couch and a couple floorlamps down there for them so got to see how the apartment is coming together. It's looking pretty good. We hope and pray that everything works out well for her and her friends now that they are living on their own for the first time like this. (Considering one of them had stuff stolen out of his car while they were moving in!) At least it's only 30 minutes away if they need our help for anything. :-) Do have to say that the house feels different with only one child at home with us. But I'm sure we'll adjust. :D

Camping 2009

Well the good news is we don't appear to have any leaks in the trailer! We were a little concerned since the tree fell on it last month. (If you didn't see the pics you can click here to check it out http://picasaweb.google.com/Benhausen/FallenTree?feat=directlink )

We had a good time camping for the weekend with my sister, Kathy King, and her family. Since Kathy doesn't have a camper she asked if they could borrow a couple tents from us. Worked out well until early Saturday morning when a storm blew through and it was discovered that the large tent had a couple leaks (we'd never had it up in the rain before)! They went home to dry out for a couple hours. Later Saturday was very enjoyable when our brother, Bill, and his longtime girlfriend Connie came to spend the day. Our niece Stacy also came with her daughter MaKenzie and her fiance Matt. A very nice day with some rousing games of tetherball, time spent in the pool, and having a picnic dinner of dawgs and brats cooked over the campfire. Of course I also posted pictures of all this too! > http://picasaweb.google.com/Benhausen/Camping2009?feat=directlink

Long OverdueUpdate

My Bad! I have sadly neglected my blogging. What can I say - life got in the way! Since my last post I have completed another tax season (my 9th!) and am now enjoying my summer free of taxes. Guess that's not completely true since I do have to complete my 24 hours of advanced tax classes if I'd like to work again next year.

Reinhard had a total of six weeks of layoff between December and January. He has been working steadily since then which we are extremely grateful for - especially being in the auto supplier business. At the moment he is in the middle of a one week layoff, but that's okay since we have plans for camping for four days at the end of this week with Kathy's family. Hopefully we have dry weather since Kathy's family is camping in a tent. :D

Mandi decided that CMU was not a good fit for her so moved back home at the end of the fall term. She worked at the H&R Block District office as a Client Service Coordinator during the tax season. It would have been nice if she could have worked in my office, but wasn't allowed since I'm the boss there. Hate those rules. With the District office just across the street from mine we were still able to car-pool quite a bit so that was fun and a nice bonding experience. When tax season ended she took a couple summer term classes at Kalamazoo Valley Community College and really enjoyed them. She has now registered for a full time schedule starting with the fall term and is making plans to move down there with several friends. Mixed emotions about all that but I guess that's part of our job - getting the baby birds prepared to be able to leave the nest.

Joey is officially part of a couple now since he and his girlfriend, Kayla, decided that they are in a relationship. He took her to their first prom in April and they looked adorable together. (See picture above) I found it surprising that it costs just as much to rent a tuxedo for our son as it does to buy a prom dress for our daughter - and at least the prom dress is ours to keep! He has squeaked through his Junior year of high school and is all set to start his Senior year in September. Man, am I starting to feel old!! :-)

Christmas 2008

Well we had a really nice Christmas again this year. On Christmas Eve it was just our usual thing that we do every year. First the four of us go out for a Chinese dinner (don't know how this tradition got started but we've been doing it for about 10 years now :D ) then we come home to have our private little family gift opening celebration.

On Christmas Day we had most of the extended family come over for dinner and a gift exchange. This year we had Ron, Jerry & family, Kathy & family, and Stacy & family for a total of 18 people for dinner. At Thanksgiving we picked names for our Secret Santa so on Christmas everyone got to find out who had their name and had a gift to open. It's always fun to see what everyone receives cause the gifts range all the way from practical to the absurd! (I, of course, got a singing snowman who has a dog peeing on him - hilarious) I've once again posted pictures of our festivities in our Picasa Web Album if you'd like to check them out. http://picasaweb.google.com/Benhausen/Christmas2008?feat=directlink We hope all of you had a very merry Christmas and we wish you all a safe and happy new year!!

December Snow Storms

Wow - have we had the snow storms this month!! Yesterday we had blizzard conditions so of course that is the day that we need to drive to Hudsonville to attend MaKenzie's 1st birthday party (for those who don't know, MaKenzie is my niece Stacy's daughter). It's only 20 miles of driving s l o w l y so that we don't run into anyone or off the road because of all the blowing snow. That was a fun ride - NOT!! But we all made it there safely and had a good time watching MaKenzie coat herself with frosting. Adorable!

I've posted more pictures of all the snow we've gotten in the PicassaWeb album http://picasaweb.google.com/Benhausen/December2008. Trust me - you do not wish you were here! :D