No Place Like Home

So, it's pity party time once again. I have been so homesick lately. We planned to take trip home right after graduation, but for various reasons it just didn't work out. I found out the other day that we get to go home in October. I thought, "that'll be fun to be home for Halloween". Then Mike tells me that he has to be back before the 26th. Well poo stains!! I was hoping to be able to hit at least on holiday there this year. It would have been awesome if it were the 4th. But I knew that wasn't gonna happen. And I figured since this is Mike's intern year and he's at the bottom of the barrel right now, that Thanksgiving and Christmas were probably out. But Halloween??? Come on. Ya couldn't even give me that!? Oh well. I am just grateful that I get to go home, and that Mike gets to come with me.

I don't know if Richfield is just a super cool place to be during the different holidays, or if I'm just biased because that's where I grew up. But it's just not the same other places. I miss my hometown.

Times Like This

It's times like this that make you want to hold your family extra close. Makes you realize how really precious life is and how fast it can be taken away. We all (well most of us)imagine growing old and dying of old age. Living full lives and seeing our children grow. But I guess God sometimes has other plans. I wonder sometimes, who has a harder time with it. The one passing on, or the ones left behind. You hear people say, "oh he's happy on the other side." But is he really. There has to be some sort of morning on his end, for all the things he will miss out on. How his life was cut short. How his family must now go on without him. Remorse for not being able to be there for them. At least not physically. They must go through a grieving process as well. I was talking to my sister last night and she was having the same thoughts I was.

I told her some of the thoughts I had been having since hearing the news and she had been having the same ones, so I suppose they are normal thoughts that most people grieving would have. Things like, what were his last thoughts before he went. Did he know he was going to die and if so, what were his accompanying thoughts. What must Aunt Loreli be going through right now. What about his 2 kids who are serving missions right now. How must they be dealing with this. Now having to come home to no dad. Missing out on those last few months of his life. I have no doubts they will be blessed greatly for making that incredible sacrifice. I keep picturing them as they are unexpectedly called into the mission presidents office to hear the bad news. My heart breaks for them all.

But I've also been remembering some good memories. Like how he used to sing 'Michelle My Belle" all the time to me when I was little. In reality he probably only sang it to me a couple times, but when your little it seems like all the time. lol. I think about how glad I am that I made it to the last family reunion and was able to visit with him. Having no idea it was going to be the last time I talked to him.

We love you Uncle Rob. We will miss you and we look forward to meeting up in the next life.

That New Upgrade Smell

Or, maybe that's just the bug spray I sprayed all around my house in the wee hours this morning. It had to be done. This house was empty for a month before we moved in and we were starting to notice little baby spiders everywhere. Baby spiders seem to like me for some reason. But that's another story. Anyhoo, I could NOT have baby spiders crawling all over my new furniture! That's right folks. Brand, spankin', stinkin' awesome, new funiture. We knew we were going to get some money from the military upon arriving here, so we planned on getting either a new couch or a new dining room table. Mike was all for the table, but I really wanted a new couch. Sooooo, we were very happy when they ended up giving him a lot more than we originally thought, (seems our luck with money is turning. *knock on wood!!*) and we realized we could get BOTH. Woohoo!

Mike has been scoping out furniture places after work for the last few weeks. He told me about one place that he found a table he really liked, but it was way too expensive. I never actually saw it though. Usually he would text me pictures of furniture he liked, but I guess he figured it wasn't an option so why show it to me. I don't know. Anyhoo, we decided to go out yesterday and look to see if we could find anything we both liked. We decided to check out a place called Furniture Liquidators first. This was the place that Mike saw the table at. So as soon as we got there he took me to see it. I immediately fell in LOVE with it. Seriously! It's pretty much the awesomest table ever. It WAS expensive, but at that point we knew we could afford it. So we splurged. :) Here is my beautiful table and chairs.

Once that was decided upon we started trying out couches. I think we sat on just about every couch in that place (and Jacob jumped on them all, I'm sure the sales person was LOVING that) and there were a few we really liked, but this one was my favorite. It was the very first one we sat on. Sooo Comfy. I personally really like sectionals. Mike has never acted very excited about a sectionals. I think he was hoping for a couch and love seat set. But, he ended up really liking this one as well. Or maybe he just told me he liked it since he could tell how much I liked it. Who knows. :) But here it is. I've always kinda been against the two tones look, but I really like this one for some reason. As you can see, it's already being broken in. (This is what he was doing at the store. He was in heaven.) Since we chose a sectional we decided we better get another chair to even out the room. I must admit, I was secretly hoping for a recliner chair from the beginning. hehe.

I know it's not the prettiest chair. We saw much better looking ones, but if you could sit in this chair, you would know why we chose it. :)

We actually purchased the headboard for our bed and the tv stand a week or so ago. I was so excited about our headboard. We've never had one before. And I don't know if you've ever gone without a head board for long, but you can't use colored sheets or pillow cases, because the color rubs off on the wall, no matter how many times you wash them. Actually, it's mainly just the pillow cases we had issues with, I assume because they get moved around alot?? I don't know. But I am glad we have it now. Plus it just adds something to the room. I like it.

Despite my excitement about all this new stuff (because we've never had new stuff) I have also been fighting feelings of guilt over spending so much money. I guess because for so long we've been pinchin' our pennies just trying to scrape by. And now we are doing really well financially. And it all happened over night! So, I'm still trying to get over the "we can't afford that" mind set. I also can't help but feel like I'm being selfish buying nice stuff. Like I should be giving all my spare money to the poor or something. Especially after this last Sunday's lesson at church on need and wants and how our stake pres. is selling his nice big house and moving into a smaller house so he can help less fortunate people out more. So, part of me is thinking, "how selfish of you to buy new stuff, when you could have found good used stuff for much cheaper and given the money you saved to some poor soul who needs food!". But then the other part of me thinks, "hey, your house is a temple. There is nothing wrong with beautifying it". It's not like I'm putting in a theatre or rock climbing wall or something, like I saw in some houses when I went to one of those house show things...okay I'm totally drawing a blank here. Someone help me out. What do they call that event when a bunch of people open up their houses for people to walk through??? Aaaagh. My brain is struggling. Anyhoo...you get my point. It's just a living room and dining room set. Right? RIGHT???? :)

Venturing Out

Today I decided it was time to venture out on my own. We've been her for 2 weeks now and I decided the longer I put it off, the more likely it would be for me to become a hermit and never leave my house. At least not on my own. For those of you who have known me long, know why this is a big deal. I have no sense of direction and get lost VERY easily. It took me years to figure out how to get around Salt Lake City. SALT LAKE CITY!!! It's on a grid!! If you can count you should be able to get where ever you need to go. Easy peasy, right? Not for me! My Dad used to laugh at me when I would call him to help me figure out where I was and how to get where I was going. I did eventually figure it out and after living there for a while was able to find my way around quite well. But now I have been removed from Utah and the blessed grid system *gasp* and am easily confused and lost. After living in Kansas City for 4 years I knew the area well enough to be pretty comfortable getting to where I needed to go. I was even able to find new places on my own. (Took me about a year though.) But in that 4 years I never, NEVER drove south of the river on my own. The thought struck fear to my very core. I would do it if I had someone to follow, but even that was terrifying and I only did it twice. I take that back, I did drive down that way on my own a few times. There is one major road that is okay to drive. You just have to be sure to stay in the same lane. One wrong lane change and you end up in Wichita.

Soooooo, you can understand why it is a little nerve wracking for me to move to a new, unfamiliar area and why it would take me 2 weeks to finally go somewhere on my own. But I went out armed with my cell phone and good ol' GPS. Which actually let me down and lost my trust. From now on, I stick to my trusty, printed out, google map. It wasn't too bad though. I was just going to walmart which is only 4 or so miles away and right on the main road. So, I was a little confused when it told me to turn left off the main road and then right on to some random, scary street that had me scrambling to lock my doors. Luckily I didn't venture far of the main road and it was easy to make my way back to where I needed to go. I am glad to be home though. Hmmm...where to next?

Why such a mystery??

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090611/ap_on_fe_st/us_odd_card_photo_prague

Really, why is this such a mystery?? Strange? Yes. Strange that someone would choose a random family photo off the Internet to advertise a grocery stores delivery service and strange and very coincidental that a friend of the family would just happen to be driving around in Prague and spot it. But really, do you have to "ask a professional photographers' organization to help" you figure out how your image wound up in Prague? Come on, it's the WORLD WIDE WEB people!!! Meaning, if you post a picture on your public blog, people all over the world have access to it. You google family images and your gonna get a bunch of photo's people posted of their families. That, my friends, is how your family Christmas photo ended up in Prague!! Mystery solved.

The Beach

Saturday we decided to ditch all the unpacking and head to the beach. We planned on it for earlier in the week, but it just never worked out. Saturday, we decided to just go. We got kind of a late start and it started raining about an hour into our drive, but we still had a pretty good time at the beach, despite the clouds and rain. It was still pretty warm, but not warm enough to put the kids bathing suits on. So Lizzie and I just rolled up our pant legs and waded in the water. Mike and Jacob had shorts on already. Next time hopefully it will be sunny and warm so we can play more in the water. Assuming Jacob will go near the water next time. hehe. Actually, neither of them were real fans of the water. They were okay as long as someone was holding onto them.
Lizzie got a little nervous when Mike would let go of her.
Jacob loved the sand. He especially loved throwing it at everybody. The turkey. Mike had to drag him over to the water.
As you can see, he was not happy about it. I love this one. "Don't let it get me". He did not at all appreciate how the water came at him like it was going to get him. As soon as Mike let go of him he started crying and didn't stop until about 5 minutes before we left.

We gathered quit the collection of sea shells. One of my favorite things to do at the beach. :) Lulu thought they were pretty cool. While she was admiring them Jacob prepared to attack.

Here is my attempt at a happy family picture at the beach. It didn't work out so well.
As you can see, my hair and skin do not do well in humidity. Here's Lulu, still disgruntled about the sand in her hair.
Now to get rid of all the sand in our car.

Hi George!!

We had 3 guys come pack our stuff into the moving truck. One of them was a tall, skinny, younger guy with dark hair that Jacob kept calling, "Daa...", cause he would realize after starting to call him dad, that it wasn't dad. And 2 afr am guys, one of which was the driver who we didn't see a lot of, because he stayed outside most of the time. But the other 2 guys were constantly going in and out. At one point we had both kids outside and they were playing in the back of Mikes new truck. The white guy walks out with a load of boxes and Jacob yells out, "Hi Daa...", then sees this guy... walk out and yells, "Hi George!" Where he came up with that, I will never know. I have no idea what his name really is, but I'm pretty sure it's not George.

Boys and Bugs

Jacob has always loved playing in the dirt and getting dirty. But much to my dismay and despite my efforts to make him afraid, he has become very fascinated with bugs. He is VERY curious about them. He calls them "ew, stinkies"(because whenever I see a bug I yell, "ew, ew, ew", which converts to "ew, stinkies" in Jacobland), but he thinks they are pretty cool. More particularly, he likes to squish them. We currently don't have any play equipment in our back yard, but that doesn't matter to Jacob because it's got lots of dirt and bugs. There are lots of tiny ant piles in the yard that house teeny tiny little ants. At first I freaked out when I found him playing in an ant pile, but then I realized that these ants run and hide in fear (as would I if a giant 3 year old sat on my house). So, fortunately he does not come in covered in ants every day. But he loves to watch them and pick them up and then squish them.

Here he is trying to get a closer look at some bugs.

Whenever he sees a bug in the house he says "ew stinkies, a wipe!" Which translates as, "Mom, there is a bug, I need something to get it with", because he saw me get a spider once with a paper towel, aka, wipe. Today he came up to me and tells me, "ew stinkies". So I go check it out and sure enough, there is a smallish spider climbing on the wall, and just as I am about to go get something to smash it with, SPLAT! He smashes it with his hand and says, "WHAP, got it!" (got that one from his dad). Okay, I guess that works. So I go get a tissue to clean it up with and when I get back to the the scene of crime, there he is rolling the body of the spider between his finger. I about gagged and proceeded to scream in my high pitched, panic voice, "EW!!! PUT IT DOWN, DON'T TOUCH IT! GROSS!!!!". (Part of my efforts to make him afraid, which obviously hasn't been working.)

Later he walks over too me and tries to hand me a dead fly, which resulted in the same panicked reaction from me. Can't wait for him to discover reptiles. Eeesh.

Attack of the Mini Blinds

I've never been a big fan of mini blinds. I don't really like blinds in general. Unless they are the nice wooden ones. Blinds were NOT meant for households with young children. They just don't survive children. They always end up broken or mangled, AND the string thing you open them with is a strangulation hazard. It's like their only defence against children.

We decided that as soon as we could get curtains we would take all the blinds in the house down. Especially the ones in this house. Some of them I am sure the last tenants put in to replace the original ones but got the very cheapest ones possible that were the wrong size, and installed them incorrectly. I noticed right off how flimsy they were. You touch them and they crinkle like tin foil! I knew then that those weren't going to survive my blind destroying children. My second clue they needed to come down was what happened when I tried to raise them. I pulled the string only to have the whole thing come crashing down on my head. WTH! Okay, so I moved cautiously onto the next one. I was leery as I pulled the string. It raised with no problems, so letting my guard down I moved onto the next set. Pulled the string and IT came crashing down on my head! At this point I'm just mad and throw them all on the floor and proceed to kick the crap out of them. Okay not really. I wanted to but didn't want to have to pay for the stupid things. I decided to leave the others alone.

Then a week later, I was in the kitchen making dinner and decided I needed more sunlight. So, not thinking, I walked over to the blinds and tried to pull the string. They were about half way up when, you guessed it, down they came right onto my head. Can you say LAW SUIT!!! Okay, I wouldn't really, but I was mad enough at the time that I wanted to at least threaten!!

I curse you stupid mini blinds! May you all burn in h-e-double hockey sticks. And to the idiot who installed them, may you have mini blinds crashing down on your head where ever you go!!

Odd Ones Out

We've met a few of our neighbors. They are all very, very nice. I hope we get to know them all better. However, I can help but notice that I think we are the only white people in the neighborhood. lol :)

It Depends

There are so many funny commercial on tv. My new favorites are the Depends commercials. Sounds strange I know, but they crack me up. I think this one is the best. I laugh every time I see it.

Hey Brittany, what do you eat for breakfast? Hahahahaha! I couldn't resist. (Sorry, little inside joke.)

Save The Trees

Move yourself! Having someone come in and pack for you is not all it's cracked up to be. Having someone to pack it into the truck was probably the only benefit. Next time I will be doin' it myself. Yes it was nice having someone pack my stuff, but I decided that I would much rather declutter as I pack my stuff rather than try to frantically do it before the movers come so you don't end up with a bunch of garbage at your new place, only to still end up with a bunch of junk at your new place. Also, while it was nice having someone pack for me, it has been a nightmare unpacking. Why, because they rapped everything, EVERYTHING with paper. The remote to the tv, stacks of paper, laundry soap, cleaning supplies, all individually. And my favorite is when I find stuff like this...

Wrapped in 10 layers of paper. I keep finding little bundles like this. If I had packed myself, I would have been able to throw most of this stuff away, and the rest would go into one big box. It's not breakable. Why wrap it.

This is paper from 1 box. 1 BOX!!!!

It's sad that a whole forest had to die for this move. But the kids sure had fun playing in it...and Mike. :) Right now we have 6-45 gal. bags crammed full of paper. And we aren't even half way done. It is taking me FOREVER. I am fairly certain that had I packed myself I would be almost done. It seriously takes forever to unwrap everything. AAAAAAAAAH! So much for our trip to the beach this week. :(