Mare's Rincon

Happy Valentines Day

2012-02-14T07:10:00.000-07:00

Every year, we make our valentines day cards for the kids to give to their friends.
Last year - our cards were 'preciosos' - I don't know how to give them justice, but they really were pretty spectacular.
Unfortunately, our kids saw some of the kids take them, rip the homemade caramels off of the back, and stuff them in the trash. They were pretty disappointed.
This year, I found some cute ideas on marthastewart.com, and we made some cute little flowers with a hershey's kiss in the middle. Much less time consuming than our previous endeavors at least!

Here's the carnage from last night's melee!

Sending love to all of our family and friends!

Visit

2012-02-08T08:06:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was busy!
After the race, we stopped by the farmer's market for some orchids. (Hopefully we can keep them alive) and then hurried home to finish getting ready for my brother and his wife's visit. They were the first visitors we've had from my side of the family, and we loved seeing them! We were also excited that they only had 3 bags, and could check 4. We got to send some fresh Florida oranges, and strawberry jam back with them.

Kids 5K

2012-02-08T08:01:00.000-07:00

After the adults ran their 5K, the kids had a parking lot dash. At first our youngest was NOT going to race. However, we encouraged her, and her friends encouraged her, and she decided to run.

While we were waiting around, the kids were walking on their hands, doing push ups, V ups, sit ups, back bends, and walk overs - we were just trying to keep them busy and occupied. I couldn't believe they still had energy to race.
We were shocked when our youngest pulled ahead and finished 4th in the race...even past her older sister who came in 5th. The kids' friends took 1st and 2nd, but then, they are on track teams and do this all of the time.
I just wished that I'd signed up as well!

Our daughter in the back was disappointed that she only got a participation ribbon rather than a medal. :)

5K shots - read to the end

2012-02-08T07:53:00.001-07:00

My husband and his Saturday running friend Kirk decided to hit a local 5 K this last weekend.
Here are some of their running shots.
1st .25 mile

2.5 miles

Finish Line - notice the time clock on the left side. That's his fastest 5K since he was in high school!

My husband has been working on a new running technique where instead of going for a personal best every run, he does some longer slower runs as he trains during the week. It seems to be paying off!

My husband came in 3rd over all, and first in his age category. Not too shabby for an older guy!!

Additional shots

2012-02-08T07:46:00.000-07:00

As I was downloading pictures, I came across these. I think they are a little clearer than the previous ones - such a great day!

SRI celebration

2012-02-03T08:15:00.000-07:00

SRI. I wish I knew what those acronyms mean. I'm just not sure. Student Reading Index perhaps?
What I understand them to mean is my child's reading level, or having something to do with the lexile learning level.
This morning we were invited to a celebration ceremony to celebrate that our daughter jumped 175 lexile points between September and January. We are pretty excited about it!
Congratulations little miss!

Barbara Manatee, You are the One for Me

2012-01-21T18:17:00.000-07:00

If you know the old veggie tales song, you should be singing along by now. If not, I highly recommend you look it up for a good chuckle.
Today we headed up to Blue Springs State Park and watched the manatee.

AND (drumroll please) we saw our first Florida alligators in the wild today. 3 of 'em. 2 smaller ones, and a big 8+ footer that was huge. The water was crystal clear in several areas and we saw lots and lots of fish that were huge. We also about 10 turtles all lined up on a log. I guess they were sunbathing.

The highlight was when we walked out onto a pier and two manatee swam right over to us and broke the surface before diving back down and swimming away.

The manatee are an endangered species, and every year they swim from the ocean up to Blue Springs where the water remains a constant 72* year round.

New friend

2012-01-20T19:00:00.000-07:00

I got a new friend for Christmas, and I'm falling in love

Not to mention that winter in Florida is akin to fall in the Rockies - there isn't much not to love.

I've been out three times this week. Monday the girls and I did a 10 mile ride together. It took a lot of breaks, snacks, and 2 hours (we also stopped at a friend's house and dropped a kiddo off there).

Wednesday I got on my bike for a ride, and wasn't sure if my backside could handle it. Ow!

But, I got 10 miles in and was happy with my time - and just thrilled that I did it.

Today, I got the same 10 miles in, but shaved off 2 minutes and felt really good because it was easier today than it had previously been.

Yep...I wore a light jacket, and the sun shone through the trees and dappled the bike path which was littered with leaves. The air was crisp, and a light breeze whispered by.

Really, come August, I might be missing the mountains, but every morning when I head out to go walking (in my single layers), and see the stars, and feel the perfect 50-60* weather, I can't help but love Florida's winter weather.

Thanksgiving Gingerbread houses

2012-01-16T13:27:00.000-07:00

So, I just came across these photos from Thanksgiving. We dropped by a friend's house and made graham cracker gingerbread houses. Our friends just moved from the UK, and we had a blast going through all of the old Halloween candy that we used for decorations, and watching our friends trying out all of the US candies.
It looks like my daughter got chopped off in this photo. Nonetheless, she's here with her two best friends.

Kids Bookclub blog

2012-01-13T07:37:00.000-07:00

You know how in that veggie tales song "Where is my Hairbrush" everyone is embarrassed by the guy in the bath towel? Yeah, I know, my last posting was a little embarrassing. This one should be a little less uncomfortable.

When I moved to Florida, I was invited to join a bookclub.
I took my daughter with me since she's such a voracious reader.
My daughter went home and read the next month's entire book immediately.

Later, I was very gently told that while they all enjoyed meeting my daughter, she was a little too young for some of the discussions. We were both quite disappointed.

I decided to put together a bookclub for kids and moms, and invited some people to join us.
We've got a couple of families who are really interested and they read as much as we do!

Here's a link to our bookclub blog.
I'd love suggestions of any books you may have read, or that your kids have specifically enjoyed.

http://kidandmomreads.blogspot.com/

The Kali River Rapids incident

2012-01-09T15:25:00.000-07:00

Some things in our home, have come to be known as the '....incident,' based on whatever the root cause of the incident. For example, we have 'the icee incident'. That's all you need to say, and we all know exactly what and who we are talking about. But today's anecdote is purely anecdotal, and shall be hereafter referred to as the Kali River Rapids incident (or the animal kingdom bathroom incident for those of us who can't remember that long name).
Here's how it goes.
See this ride? You'll find it at Animal Kingdom in Florida.
It guarantees that you'll get wet, and warns that you'll most likely get soaked. No ifs, ands, or buts...you will get wet.

My family thoroughly enjoyed getting wet on this ride together last week.
My husband and I were in an interesting spot, and not only did we get wet, our seats (and thus our behookies) were also generously dampened. That's putting it gently.

Shortly after going on this ride, we decided to take a trip to the restroom (after the adrenaline rush you know). I calmly stepped into the stall, and pulled out a paper toilet seat cover which I daintily draped across the toilet seat. "Isn't that nice that I don't have to worry about toilet germs?" I thought to myself (grandma had taught me to never sit on a public toilet seat before covers were invented).
I did my business, and as I finished and was tidying up, and I realized to my horror, that my wet backside and legs which had previously been VERY wet, now had the tissue toilet seat cover melded to them.
Nothing dainty here no siree.
Just think about wetting tissue paper, and applying it to a surface, applying firm pressure for a few seconds, and then think about how to get it back off. Melded I tell you. Melded.

I hope that I've sufficiently painted the picture of my embarrassment, and don't think I need to go any farther.

And now that I've publicly aired my humiliation, words of wisdom which I impart to all - make sure you go before the ride...not after. :)

Happy New Year!

2012-01-07T11:43:00.000-07:00

I'm a week late.
The kids have been off school all week, and while I'd love to report that we just played and played (they did), I got sick on New Year's Eve. On Sunday, I was too sick to go to church, but since everyone else was out of town on vacation, and I was covering someone on the organ, and covering all of primary with our secretary - well, I decided to drag myself there.
Monday was spent packing up Christmas (you know how Christmas cute suddenly turns to out of control clutter on Jan. 1st and you just can't stand it anymore?)...very slowly. Mostly by my husband. I laid and watched him work a lot.
I thought I was getting better later in the week and we headed to Magic Kingdom on Thursday (quite crowded still - we thought the tourists would have headed home!), and Animal Kingdom on Friday (not quite as crowded).
Our oldest daughter LOVED the Mt. Everest ride. L.O.V.E.D. it. It made me sick. She went on it 6 times. I sat on a bench and chatted with Marcia from Brazil. With my Spanish and her Portuguese we mostly understood each other. :)

I spent the first 5 hours of today at the Dr. office and pharmacy. It seems that my New Year's Eve cold turned into a secondary infection, and I'm now fighting Bronchitis. Lucky me.
The Dr. gave me cough pearls (?), an inhaler, and antibiotics. That's what I really wanted - the antibiotics. I'm told that I'll feel a little better tomorrow, much better Monday, and almost back together (hopefully) by Tuesday. If not, I'll need to find a (non urgent care) doctor and get help.
I'm just happy about the drugs.

Christmas Projects

2011-12-28T07:45:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple of the handmade gifts I did this year for our siblings.
The family name is at the top as well as est - and the year of their marriage
Then the family member's names are at the bottom.
All of this information has been removed for this posting to protect the innocent.

I've been waiting until after Christmas to get them up!
Now, I just need to make one for my own walls :)

Hollywood Studios - our latest adventure

2011-12-26T09:01:00.001-07:00

I took the girls and some friends to Disney last week. Yes - what was I thinking?? During black out dates no less.

It was a crazy crazy zoo of people. But, we had some extra passes, and they needed to be used before the end of the year (I think we'll be burning two more this week as well). The word insanity is coming to mind.

In truth, we had a really good time.

Despite the crowds.

We spent the day at Hollywood Studios.

We got to be part of a flash mob, singing and dancing in the streets while we waited for the parade.

Then, the girls had fun making up words, and greeting strangers and passer bys. Especially those who had birthday pins or first visit pins on. And did I mention these girls LOVE LOVE LOVE to shop? But they are little misers, and while they enjoy the looking part, there's no way they will part with their money at those prices. (Guess we've trained them well). Despite their miserly tendencies, I was amazed at the insatiable shopping appetite!

We got there around 10:30 am, and got home around 10:30.

We hung out for a while at the Osbourne Family Lights and the girls found a corner that was mostly free of people where they danced, and sang, and spun each other. We loved standing in the falling snow, and feeling it's cool tingle on our cheeks before it quickly melted.

As we headed to the last show (that we'd been too late for earlier) someone dared the girls to start caroling.

I was surprised, but they did. 4 girls walking together singing Christmas songs. People would stop and look, trying to figure out what was going on. Then, people started to join in. Some humming, some clapping along, some singing out loud and clear. It was really fun to see the reaction they caused.

Happy Anniversary to us!

2011-12-16T07:08:00.000-07:00

We recently celebrated our anniversary, and did something we've been wanting to do.
Pier fishing (I almost typed fier pishing there)
Yes, so romantic I know.
But, we've both been wanting to do it for several months and our mutinous children haven't wanted anything to do with it. So, we decided to try it out without them.

It really was fun.

Despite the cold weather.
I know, how can someone say "Florida" and cold in the same sentence? It doesn't seem legal.
We weren't really that cold.
Except that it was sprinkling when we started.
And the tide was in, and it was really windy.

And did I mention that it was raining?
The news crews were even there filming because flood advisories were in effect.

We lasted maybe an hour and a half.
Then we were hit with a deluge and the water was coming down in buckets.
We decided to cut our losses.

My beautiful kermit the frog fleece here, weighed about 20 lbs when we finished. I had to wring it out in the bathroom over the sink, and then it kept dripping pools in the restaurant where we had lunch. They kept getting out the mop!
When we left, 4 news vans were in the parking lot, and we had some fun seeing all of the water everywhere on the roads.

My husband was victorious and caught 1 blue fin - he decided that he could ocean fish every day, and be quite happy.
I'd never been so grateful for the heater in our car, as we were chilled from the wind after we'd been soaked.
It was quite the memorable day.

Happy anniversary to us - and hoping for many more to follow!

What we are UP to

2011-11-27T14:27:00.000-07:00

Loving the weather and all of the other months we get to play outside!

We met some friends a while back, who had just moved to Florida from the UK. We thought the move was tough for us, but they are starting a company on top of it all too! BOY!

Because I love to cook, and as we'd received several Thanksgiving Day dinner invitations, we decided to have an early Thanksgiving Day celebration. Since our new friends had never celebrated Thanksgiving, they joined us last Sunday, as well as their parents who were visiting from Ireland. While I didn't understand 'everything' my friend's father said, we learned all about the different sports in Ireland, the UK, and Trinidad. Ever heard of 'hurling'? I know, it sounds like a 'post Thanksgiving Day dinner, I've eaten too much sort of sport', or 'put your shoes back on, I'm going to hurl'. We laughed a lot! While we only had 14 people for dinner, I (of course) cooked for around 40. 6 pies, a 25 lb. turkey, and an exhausted me later, I didn't do much cooking for the rest of the week.
Later, on Thursday - the real Thanksgiving, I made 3 more pies, Hawaiian bread, and yams, for dinner with friends, we played on the golf course while the guys practiced a little bit, and then decorated gingerbread houses.
We headed over to our UK friend's home, and spent the remainder of the evening with them - meeting members of their family who had come in from Trinidad and California for the holiday. The girls all ended up with graham crackers and frosting, making mini gingerbread houses, and decorating the houses with left over Halloween candy. We loved giving our friends root beer barrel candies and watching their faces as they sampled the different candies here in the states.

Wednesday evening we took the plunge and bought Disney tickets. We headed to one of the parks - planning on staying all evening for the extended hours, but disappointed when rides took 3 times longer than indicated, and we didn't have a chance to find a good place afterwards for the parade. It didn't seem to matter where we went, we were directed by employees to find another place (in a not so nice manner). We ended up being directed right out the front doors - 3 hours earlier than we had planned.
We did spend the entire day on Friday at another park, and enjoyed our entire time there.

Finally, we finished up all of our daughter's allergy testing appointments, and got a final diagnosis on her eyes - convergence insufficiency-met with the school, met with the teachers, and have set up vision therapy which we are excited to start next week. From what we've read, usually within a couple of months, progress is pretty apparent.

I've been volunteering in the classroom and having lunch with our youngest daughter, and in the next couple of weeks I get to work with 3 of the classes doing science projects - my friend and I are the SUPER Scientists for this year. I can't wait for the science experiments!

Oh, and as for me, I finished my hardaanger project - the swedish cutwork embroidery one that I've been working on for about 4 years. Yep - I hit Michaels' 75% off custom framing sale yesterday, and am excited to put it on my wall.

We got our Christmas decorations up, and Christmas projects are officially underway.

The Waiting Game

2011-11-11T06:51:00.000-07:00

We cleared the preliminaries, and we are now excited contestants in "The Waiting Game"!!!!
Whoop Whoop!!

Yes, a little ambiguous I know.
So, 2 weeks after moving into our rental home, we were served with papers from the county letting us know that the property we signed a year lease on was going into foreclosure. It wasn't the greatest day I've ever had, let me tell you.

Of course, we went into a panic and started making phone calls.
We were assured that it was a mistake and that all was well. So, we went on with life, and periodically kept checking to see if anything was going away on the court case. While nothing much seemed to be happening, it didn't seem to be going away.

Two weeks ago I got a phone call, and the owners of the property let us know that they were putting the house up for short sale.

Hence, another flurry of activity, questions, (and I'll admit - a little anger) trying to figure out what now?
They told us that they were working on listing it with a realtor who would want to begin to show the property.
I felt a little rebellious and angry because we still have nine months left on our lease. I would have NEVER signed a lease that allowed someone access to my home for the purpose of selling it while I was still living there. NEVER.

After some prayers and consideration, we decided to put an offer in, and yesterday it was accepted.
As such, we are now waiting on the banks (like half of the nation) for a yes or no. It could be 2 months, it could be 6. No one seems to know.

While it initially came as a shock, as I've thought about it, I'm wondering how much might be 'coincidence', or better termed, Heavenly Father's guiding hand in our lives, and it may actually be a blessing - it's that shift in perception that turns everything around.

We initially wanted to purchase a home here in Florida when we began to consider our move.
I spent days poring over maps, trying to figure out which area we might want to live in. Then, I spent days on the internet looking at listings and talking to realtors, and even banks. They basically told me that it wasn't going to happen for 3-9 months because everything in Florida is essentially a short sale.

So, we started looking for rental properties - and we weren't very impressed.
We found 2 possibilities through people at church who were moving and looked at their homes. While my heart was set on the other house, we got a very strong impression when we prayed about which one to pick that it should be this one. I wasn't very happy about it because I liked the other much better. But, I knew that our prayer had been answered, and so albeit a little grudgingly, but trusting that Heavenly Father knows what is going on better than I do, we chose this one.

This house is in a perfect location. We have 2 neighbor girls who are the exact same ages as our kids. We live 1/4 mile from church and 1.5 miles from my husband's work. Our kids have lots of friends, we live in a really great neighborhood, and have some really great neighbors. I found out that things would have been very uncomfortable if we had rented the other house. The owner was going to move into an RV and continue to live on the property while we lived in their house. Ew - that would be pretty uncomfortable for me... We had no idea, but wow, we are sure glad in retrospect that we made this decision.

I think we are just learning over and over to turn things over to our Heavenly Father and let Him drive. As we wait to see how things turn out for our future in this home, we hope things will work out, but also trust that if they don't, they will turn out for the best.

Happy waiting to me!

IT IS A GAP!!

2011-11-06T15:47:00.000-07:00

This is what many of my relative's teeth look like.

Mine however, are so tight in the front that I have a hard time getting floss in there.

My gap is unfortunately, on the side. Let's pluralize that now. SIDES.
Instead of the lovely gap in the front genes, I got the 'gap on TWO sides genes'.
I'm so lucky.

After all, they are just teeth.

I wish the sunbeams in primary knew that.
There I am, singing away with the little 3-4 year olds, and suddenly one of them points to my mouth and shouts out, 'you lost a toof!!'. Yes, I did. I smile and we continue because if I don't, we'll have an entire discussion on lost teeth and gaps, and the tooth fairy, and I'll get to see lots of loose, or not so loose teeth. And then the stories about when so and so's brother lost his tooth.

Then the little 4 year old hasn't been to church in a while and viola - he re-discovers my 'lost toof', and once again points it out to EVERYONE.

Well, I was relieved when we moved from Colorado and I didn't think I'd be seeing that little guy anymore. Whew I thought, I won't have to deal with that anymore.

I was so wrong. Today in church, I was once again singing some songs with the sunbeams (3-4 year olds), when one of the kids stopped singing, pointed to my side gap, and said, 'you are missing a toof'.

Yeah, yeah yeah.

The Pine Tree

2011-10-31T19:04:00.000-06:00

Here's more of a body shot of the pine tree - really, it looks great from the front!

Halloween Costumes & Sunrise over the Atlantic

2011-10-31T19:02:00.001-06:00

Our girls wanted a "Colorado-esque" costumes this year.
Here's what we came up with:
The quinnessential snowman.
She had a really cute carrot nose, and we painted her up and gave her a scarf and a broom for the trunk or treat last weekend. Unfortunately, she ended up with a weird rash on her face that still hasn't gone away. As such, we went with simple tonight.

We went next door for pizza and dessert before heading out trick or treating. The green pine tree on the back right is our oldest daughter. I'm still trying to find that other photo of her full costume. The dark haired girl in the back is our neighbor who is just the right age for our oldest daughter, and the other two girls are another door down -the little one is just the right age for our youngest daughter too.

Here's a picture that sneaked it's way in here.
We got up early while grandma and grandpa were here and headed out to the beach so that we could watch the sun rise over the Atlantic Ocean. We got there maybe 30 seconds before the sunrise. In 2 minutes it was fully up - unbelievably quick!
We played in the water for about an hour, then our oldest daughter got stung by jelly fish and tons of jellies started washing up on the shore cutting our beach excursion a little shorter than previously planned.

Science Center

2011-10-30T20:48:00.000-06:00

Last weekend we headed down to the science center.
They had a whole exhibit about bugs set up.
It was pretty gross.
Really.

As we walked in, we were dared to eat a bug.
They said - I'll eat one if you'll eat one.
So, we tried a few.
I didn't care for the cinnamon sugar wax worms,

I didn't care for the fruit dip wax worms,
but the Cajun crickets actually weren't all that bad... They tasted like hollow sunflower seeds.

After the bug eating, they had a bug spitting contest.
Now - let it be known, that the night before, we had headed out to an outdoor concert on the edge of a lake.
While there, the kids and I peered over the railing at the black water below. It was glassy smooth.
We discussed how quickly spittle would disolve in such glassy smooth water - whether spit was heavier than water, or lighter...basically - all of the properties of spit.
My husband was appalled.
I taught my girls how to curl their tongues, and to get some force and really launch it.
(Yes, pretty ladylike I know - and yes, there is a pertinent point here that I'm about to make).

Due to my kid's recently discovered mad spitting skills (from the previous evening) my daughter and I were both champion bug spitters, and we both launched our bugs (yes, from our mouths) over 15 feet.
I'd say that's pretty impressive.

We touched some really big bugs.
Looked at some really dangerous ones.
Watched (and cheered and screamed) a cockroach race

And had fun playing in the exhibit - one of the girl's friends came with us...under that sink is COMPLETELY filled with cockroaches - ew..!

Blue Springs II

2011-10-30T20:31:00.000-06:00

We spent about 3 hours floating down the river. We bought a raft for the girls - which was a good idea.
It was a little trippy since we were swimming in a river where there was no where to touch the bottom, and only 2 places to get in or get out. While it was overcast - at first the water was pretty chilly (that brisk 72*), but after a while it felt great.
We swam up to the head of the spring, and swam over some spots from which the water was gushing. Our youngest daughter told us it felt like swimming over Sprite. She was right.
They took off in the raft and left me floating on my back, lazily down the river.
It got a little eerie when I heard the branches and twigs crackling on the other side of the riverbank, keeping up with me.
I was relieved when someone else showed up swimming in the area as well.

Later, from the dock we posed for pictures, and then thought that we had our first real alligator sighting!

It turns out it was just a log...bummer.

As we headed home from the park, we drove past several of these beautiful plants. They were pretty spectacular (and we were told - pretty poisonous)

Blue Springs State Park

2011-10-30T20:21:00.000-06:00

We spent some time a few weeks ago at Blue Springs State Park.
It was BEAUTIFUL.

Notice the little message on the sign to the bottom right

We headed over to a dock and across the river saw this bird perched in the tree

We think that the poles in the water are some sort of gate to help keep the alligators out maybe?

The St. John's river.
Blue Springs is a natural spring that emits 100,000,000 gallons of water each day - and it flows into the St. John's River.
The water stays at a constant 72*.
During the cooler months, the manatee swim from the ocean, up the St. John's river where they enjoy the warmer waters of the St. John's river.
We didn't see any manatee yet though...

Downtown Disney

2011-10-30T20:15:00.000-06:00

We found a sandwich shop we LOVE
Unfortunately (or maybe it IS a good thing), it is a ways away at Downtown Disney.

Grandma and Grandpa spent a week at Disneyworld after staying with us.
We headed down just before they left and met them for dinner at our favorite sandwich shop - Earl of Sandwich.
Mmmmm - my mouth is watering.

From there, we headed over to Little Miss Matched -
Have I mentioned that my husband took over the laundry duties here in Florida?
He gets upset if I even try to 'interfere'
He HaTeS, DetEstS, ABhOrs that our kids like to wear their socks in unmatching pairs.
If you check out his picture carefully - you can see the grimmace he is making in the background, as he considered the huge tub - filled with socks that didn't match.
Just for fun, the girls and I found some pairs, and started matching them. (The worker lady came by behind us and undid the matches)

Somehow the kids cooerced the grandparents into the sweet shop where they indulged them with their favorite "pucker powder".

Glasses

2011-10-30T20:06:00.000-06:00

We hung out at the gift shop for a while, and had a blast checking out the different sunglass styles...

I say - self portraits never seem to be very flattering though..

Pirates! Argh

2011-10-30T20:04:00.000-06:00

We hung out with some pirates at the pirates of the Caribbean section

Ripley's Believe it or Not!

2011-10-30T20:01:00.000-06:00

Photos with Grandma

And Grandpa

Ok - not really.

While grandma and grandpa decided to head off on their own adventure, the girls and I headed to Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum.
There we found some pretty realistic wax figures that we bumped into.

We spent some time making wax replicas of the girl's hands as well.

St. Augustine

2011-10-30T19:52:00.000-06:00

While grandma and grandpa were here a couple of weeks ago, the girls were out of school, and visited St. Augustine again.

We started out at a spot that purports to have the "Fountain Of Youth"
We drank some of the water - it was actually not very tasty. At all. It tasted surprisingly similar to Florida tap water?!

They had some games set up, and the kids had some contests throwing corn cobs through hoops..

We watched a canon firing

And saw the Spanish empire's original
"This is the place" monument where Ponce de Leon landed.

Cicada

2011-10-30T18:52:00.000-06:00

We woke up to this guy on our front porch the other day.
HUGE!!
After googling big insects that look like flies, we determined that it may have been a cicada. Whatever he was - he was really ginormous, and no one wanted to go out the back door for the rest of the day!

Highlights from the past month or so

2011-10-25T20:07:00.000-06:00

We've had some interesting ups and downs over the past month. Here are the highlights:

Our spare room (which was ceiling to floor full of the boxes we didn't really want to unpack) got cleaned out and organized.
We started a "mom & me" youth book club, and held the first meeting.
We had company come into town for a week.
The next week my husband was out of town. He enjoyed meeting up with his cousin for dinner, and meeting some of the people he works with in other locations.
We tried out a gymnastics gym - 30 minutes away, practices 4 x wk - including Saturday. We decided it was a little too much.
We tried out the swim team at the YMCA.
We've now got our eye on a running club possibly? Still searching for the right fit for our family.
We met with an allergist to figure out which drugs our daughter is allergic to (antibiotics that is). After an hour long wait, and then a 10 minute visit, we waited for 2.5 weeks to hear back from the doctor, to tell us that he wanted to re-do the tests that we'd already done in Colorado. I picked up her file as I began looking for other options. One thing I love about being here is that I actually HAVE more than one option!
I filled out a 45 page questionnaire to have our daughter screened for a few things, and received a phone call that asked us to come in first thing the next morning. We did a couple of screening tests, and were referred on to a developmental ophthalmologist. (I also learned how to spell that word correctly recently.) Did some preliminary testing and have 3 more visits set up to determine the extent of our daughter's eyes being out of alignment, causing her double vision, no depth perception, and even crossing issues.
The good news is that we can hopefully move forward with possibly some vision therapy, or something to help her get the help she needs, and begin to excel academically. The bad news is that our insurance won't help cover the costs and they are pretty daunting.
We also found a surgeon ophthalmologist and will be meeting with him for a second opinion a couple of days at the conclusion of the testing.
We also found 2 new allergists that we will get to meet with. (Did I mention how much I've been on the phone lately?)
We met some fun new friends who just moved to the area from the UK. We love their accents and the way they all speak!
We had the primary program this weekend. I made it through all of the pieces on the piano. Our daughter accompanied the kids on one song. I was glad. It was a tough song, and my least favorite of the whole lot (because it was the hardest one - she's gonna eclipse me very quickly!)
Our primary presidency is in charge of the church's "Fall Festival". I'm not even going to go there!
I've been rehearsing with some fellow musicians, and have put together a sextet to play for our stake conference - so we've been practicing on Sunday afternoons. It is so nice to have strings in the house again!
Finally, this week we had a bomb drop, when the owners called to let us know that they are listing their home (the one we are renting) with a real estate agent, and selling it as a short sale. Grrrr. I don't think I said that loudly enough. Did I mention she wants to come in and take photos? GRRRR
This evening we entered the throes of Halloween costume construction, and I should enjoy my creative outlet the next couple of days. The real estate lady is going to be really excited to get Halloween costume/ward party/room mother mania photos for the listing. Serves them right I say. GRRRR
I guess you've got to let come what may, and love it. GRRR

Answered Prayers

2011-09-24T20:48:00.001-06:00

This morning, we were awakened at 3:23 am by a pounding on our front door.
We were fairly scared out of our whits.
New to the area - there's no one we could imagine who might be at our door in the middle of the night.

I kicked my husband to make sure he was going to deal with it, because there was NO way I was going to even get out of the bed - much less, answer the door.
He pulled on some clothes, turned on the light in the hall, checked to make sure both of the kids were in their beds and okay, and then went to the door.

It was the police.

Apparently, when our trash container was brought into the garage earlier that evening, our garage door had been left wide open.

I've been pondering this all day (and much of the morning while I lay in my bed trying to release the adrenaline and get back to sleep). Is this an area where we have to worry about our home being broken into? Was it dangerous that we left our garage door open? Why was it important enough to get us up out of bed in the middle of the night to address it? As I said - new to the area, we still don't know a lot about everything here. In rural Colorado, it had happened a few times, but we'd never had a late night knock on the door, and it hadn't been a big deal.

This evening I went to a church meeting, where a worldwide conference was broadcast to all women from 18+ throughout the world. There, as I listened to the speakers, one of the talks really hit me. The last speaker, Dieter Uchtdorf spoke about how Heavenly Father knows every single one of us, and cares deeply for us.

Each evening, before we go to bed, we kneel as a family and pray together. Generally, my kids kick out prayer #6 or 7 as we sometimes call them. Rather than a prayer from the heart, and really showing gratitude and giving thanks, and really asking for the things we may need, sometimes they just sort of say the same thing. However, one thing that they usually ask is to 'please bless us that we can have a good night'. In my personal evening prayers, I also generally pray to something of that effect - 'please watch over and protect us' etc.
(but mine usually vary to some degree - no #6 or 7's here)

As I listened to an apostle of God speak tonight of Heavenly Father's love for each of His children, I was impressed that the untimely and somewhat inconvenient knock on our door last night, was an answer to our prayers - Heavenly Father was watching over and protecting us, and so he sent someone to help us (even though we didn't know that we needed help - but He knew) - he sent someone to answer our prayers.

Boxes, boxes, boxes

2011-09-23T10:47:00.000-06:00

There's just nothing like a visit from friends or family that gets things done.
We have a 4th bedroom in our home.
It has been the resident home of the boxes.
We originally dubbed it the craft room.
A table was set up, and many boxes of all things crafty were piled around.
And, of course, anything else we just didn't want to deal with at the time.
Yep, the boxes of photos, notebooks, business files, material, crafts - really I could go on and on.

Last week was the material project.
I built 2 storage shelves, bought tons of bins, and got all of my material and the crafty stuff organized.
This week I put together a bookshelf, re-organized the closet, and can ALMOST see the floor of the extra room. Once that room is put together, the only thing left will be the garage to re-organize.
Nothing like moving to bring on a good purge!

Food Storage Furniture

2011-09-11T14:36:00.001-06:00

So, in our move, we downsized.
We went from a house with a huge full basement, to a house with a little less living space and considerably less storage space.
Did I mention that we have a year's supply of food? Yep, rice, wheat, beans, .....
Our church teaches us to be prepared, and so we worked hard over the past years to put together our food storage.
Then we had to move it.
That wasn't very fun.
Our moving guys didn't think so either.

We put everything in the garage on shelves.
Then, the ladies from church told us that if we keep things in the garage, they will spoil, because of the heat and humidity.
Bummer.

We set about trying to figure out some althernate options and went back to my husband's original "Distributed Food Storage Plan".

It consisted of distributing the food storage throughout the whole house.
While we haven't completely done this, we have adapted it in several instances.

We hauled all of the boxes upstairs and had a tower in our bedroom which reached the ceiling. Seriously.
For a month, I looked at it, trying in vain to figure out a way to mask the food storage monstrosity.
Then, one day, I had a revelation.
I evened out the boxes, and covered them with a cute stripy shower curtain.
Then I moved my bookcases to encase the food storage tower.
Then I bought a plant to fill in some blank space, and we now have some groovy dimension in our bedroom rather than a ceiling high tower o wheat. And the best part is that you can't even tell.

We also made a food storage tv table - covered with a simple tablecloth...

Our kids needed night tables for their scriptures and lamps and glasses, and....

So - we made food storage night tables.
And covered them with cute material that matched the room.
Cute huh?

We still had several #10 cans. My husband put them all under the bed.
Here you can see their smiling faces, just barely peeking out. The point is, while space can cause an issue, it can work with a little material and some creativity.

I didn't remember if I posted this already or not, but just came across this photo. There on the top of the trailer you can see our two cars - after being hauled from Colorado to Florida.

The pool

2011-09-11T13:03:00.001-06:00

Have I mentioned our neighborhood pool?
Yep - the famous one I jumped into - skirt and all?
Here it is.
We spend a lot of time here

Yesterday we worked on some water acrobatics

She had been standing on her daddy's shoulders, but I wasn't fast enough here

What you might not be able to see very well, is that here, under my husband, is our daughter.
He's sitting on her shoulders, but her hair is over her face - like cousin it...
She's pretty strong.

Remember in pride and prejudice when Mr. Collins appears?
I told my husband I liked his pool hairdo here.
He called it his Mr. Collins hair

Downtown Disney photos

2011-09-11T12:56:00.000-06:00

Love this shirt...
Something about it just says - ME

IKEA

2011-09-11T12:51:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, we hit our pool instead of the beach, and since we live near an IKEA and have never been to one before, we decided to head over and search for a book shelf/storage system.
It was interesting.

We had to ask directions - we couldn't figure out the concept of 'walk through, see what you like, write it down, then pick it up at the end'...

We have a crafty room. Full of material and sewing stuff, and yarn, and all sorts of crafty stuff that our kids like to do.

While we had some great storage closets in Colorado, we've been at a loss of how to get everything organized here. As such, we have a room (still) full of boxes. But, I'll be picking up this baby tomorrow and getting organized.

Especially as we may have company coming our way.

Downtown Disney

2011-09-11T12:35:00.000-06:00

After the science museum, we headed over to Downtown Disney. We had no idea what it actually was, but figured that since there wasn't an admission price to get in - we would check it out.
We found some really cool lego creations.
We hear that a lego land is opening in the area
Fascinating what can be made with legos...

Then we found a sandwich shop.
We were really worried that it would be TOTALLY overpriced (like the $5 hot dog stand we'd just passed)

We had THE BEST sandwiches we may have ever had at a little shop
titled "Earl of Sandwiches"
Oh My Goodness
My husband and I are still in awe over their roastbeef sandwich.
Yum

And it was only $5.99 which wasn't the highway robbery we'd been expecting.
Our daughter went for the tomato soup, and while it wasn't as good as mom's (mine) she said it was pretty darn good.

We will definitely head back there again.

We played in the splash fountain, walked through lots of shops, and more shops, and even more shops - window shopping all the way.
The we passed by a stage, where a gentleman was teaching kids dance moves.
We sat down to enjoy the entertainment.
Our kids eventually decided to join the dance lesson.
As the evening wore on, at one point, the kids brought an adult down onto the floor with them.
Guess who got to go up?
Yep. Both of us.
Then, the kids got to sit down, and judge the adults as we danced for the audience.
That was a little awkward.
My husband.
He didn't even try.
I was very disappointed.

I tried.
I was a finalist.
But I didn't win.
I'm glad I didn't win.
Some of the dances and songs they did were a little, ummm suggestive.
I don't know how (or want) to nasty dance.

But - it isn't every day you get to dance for a crowd and become a finalist!!!
It's a good thing I don't embarrass easily I guess.
It was fun, and I think my kids were pretty impressed.
Next time, I'll know though.
While my husband took a video, I won't be posting it.
I didn't mind strangers seeing it...but people I know? No way!

Orlando Science Museum

2011-09-11T12:25:00.000-06:00

We watched an interesting on Arabia in the planetarium....and tried not to throwup from motion sickness...

Then watched the stingray feeding which was pretty interesting as well.

They finally kicked us out at closing time. The kids enjoyed a rocket and airplane flight simultion, and learning about powering a village with energy.

We headed out for another adventure when they kicked us out.

Alligators!

2011-09-11T12:21:00.000-06:00

We finally saw alligators!!

We had to go to Orlando's Science Museum, but we finally found some.
We got to watch and help out in the alligator's feeding time - throwing puppy chow type food to them.
And the girls got to pet a baby alligator...oh...so cute...

We enjoyed the pinewood derby races

And this super interesting under the sea scene fascinated us once we found out that it was created completely with royal FROSTING! How weird! But totally cool.

Top views

2011-09-04T20:01:00.000-06:00

Our girls were in a posing mood. Which doesn't happen very often.
Here are some final photos of some views from on top of the castillo.

St. Charles Bastion

2011-09-04T19:58:00.000-06:00

I thought this was pretty cool.
The tower seen in the background was where the sentry rang the alarm.
You can read what happened in the second photo.

I love the faith seen here.

2011-09-04T19:53:00.000-06:00

It was amazing to see the stones that they had quarried - that were literally made from millions of sea shells which had solidified and cemented together.

The drawbridge across the moat

Rey Carlos' coat of arms. At the entrance of the castle you can see this in the stone.

The view of the courtyard (not sure if they called it that) from above.

Castillo de San Marcos National Monument

2011-09-04T19:48:00.000-06:00

So while we didn't have very much time (due to an extensive day at the beach), we decided to check out the castle (castillo) before it closed.

My hsuband points out that this "castle" was really a fort - since that was it's primary use, I'll have to give him that.

We had fun taking pictures with the sentry guard, and chatting with some 'period' guards later on

Canons seemed to be the thing at this fort. They were everywhere. We even got to watch a video that had a 17 minute re-enactment of how they loaded, and shot a canon.

St. Augustine

2011-09-04T19:40:00.000-06:00

We saw this little guy as we left the state park.
He was SO cute!

We headed into town - St. Augustine that is.
St. Augustine was founded in 1565, and is the oldest settlement in the US (not counting the native americans of course).
It was originally settled by Ponce De Leon, a spanish conquistador, under the reign of King Carlos of Spain.
They said that the sun never set on Carlos since it was always day time somewhere throughout his dominions.

Here's the historic lighthouse view from the castle.

Anastasia State Park (yet another beach)

2011-09-04T19:11:00.000-06:00

We headed to Anastasia State Park this weekend for more beach
We just can't seem to get enough!

This time, we came equipped - we brought the beach umbrella and some chairs, and some boogie boards. It was all we needed.

We had a blast riding the waves back to the shore - especially when we caught 'good ones'

Dad took both of the girls for a run with him along the beach. Here's the end of a two mile run.

Did I mention how beautiful it was???

Well, a nice 12 year old guy named Thomas asked if the girls would like to try out his surf board when we asked him when exactly to 'catch the wave'. Both girls had several tries.
Our oldest did well and LOVED it.
Our youngest got up on her very first try, and rode in ALL the way to the beach.
It was SO fun to watch!
We can't wait to go back and try some surfing... :)

So, how do you like Florida?

2011-09-04T19:00:00.000-06:00

Here's a photo of our new digs.

We had dinner last week with the Morelos family, and they had a super cool chair our girls couldn't get enough of.

Here's the answer to:
How are you liking Florida?

Hair bows

2011-09-04T17:11:00.000-06:00

The girls needed some new hair bows - here's our most recent projects

Seriously?

2011-08-30T07:03:00.000-06:00

Please forgive my small little rant. You've been forewarned - if you don't want to hear it, please leave now.

I met with my daughter's principal last week, because I wasn't sure that the teacher was a good fit for her.

Everyday she came home telling me about her teacher's punitive style: lost recesses, yelling teacher, getting after her for not writing fast enough.

If she were a naughty kid, then I'd say - give it to her, she probably deserved it.

But not this child.

She's a model (with a capital M) student. She's eager, kind, helpful, enthusiastic, and has a heart that's still mostly of gold. She emanates goodness.

New to the school, new to the area, with a mean teacher to boot. How hard on a kid.

After meeting with the principal, I met the teacher for lunch last week as we discussed some issues. She was totally surprised that my daughter was so unhappy. She was floored.

Fast forward to yesterday when my daughter brought home her math test.

It had a BIG FAT "D" in red ink across the top.

WHO does that? Especially to a child who is struggling academically, and trying to get up to speed on their reading (which affects everything else). Especially to a kid in elementary school.

It made me want to cry.

I so want this teacher to love her and build her up, rather than shatter her finite academic self confidence.

I will begin volunteering in the classroom next week. Hopefully, I can really observe the tone, and what's happening there, and make some decisions.

Thank you for indulging in my rant. Grrr

My latest pool adventure - and chronology of my non-swimming career

2011-08-26T08:48:00.000-06:00

I don't know if I've mentioned how much we love the beach. We've visited the beach every single weekend since we've been here.

We LOVE the beach.
And the water.

And the community pool.

When I was a kid, my parents put me in swimming lessons.

Then I had to get stitches.

They made me go and watch the lessons.

It was like torture.

The next year, they put me in lessons again.

I was in the baby class.

With the mean teachers.

They threw you into the pool and told you to swim.

I know other kids were way more scarred than I was.

Then I had contacts and never wanted to get my face wet.

Needless to say - I'm a horrible swimmer.

Fast forward to 5 weeks ago.

While I lobbied for a pool at whatever home we chose, ultimately, I didn't get it.

But, we have a very nice community pool 1 block away.

I have legs and can walk.

But sometimes I drive.

With a trusty set of goggles, I spent one evening practicing putting my face underwater.

And blowing.

My husband is so sweet.

He watched me one evening and said,

"Wow, you look like a swimmer"

High praise indeed.

Every time I go swimming I think of that.

And I'm so glad that I now feel much more comfortable in the water.

Unfortunately, this week I found I just might be a LITTLE TOO comfortable in the water.

The kids got out of school early.

We headed to the pool.

I was super excited that I found swim shirts, and we were trying them out and I wasn't going to fry!

We walked through the gate.

I set down the towels and my keys.

And we raced to see who could jump into the deep end quickest.

When I resurfaced, I realized I was still wearing my skirt!

Florida stuff

2011-08-22T22:19:00.000-06:00

I've been keeping a mental list of the things I find just a little bit different here in Florida.
I figure if I write it down, I can get rid of at least one mental list.

Some things, I'm still kind of scratching my head and saying, 'huh?' over, and others, I just find novel, or interesting.

Lizards. We have an entire army of them everywhere - outside our house. At any given moment I can look out the back window and see one on the window, or scurrying across the patio. These lizards LOVE to do push ups. Up and down, up and down. I figure it has to be a mating thing, 'hey baby, check out these guns...'
They also puff out their chins, which are red. Pretty cool.

Along with every size of lizard, we also have miniature toads everywhere. No larger than a cricket. Teensy little guys. When I walk through the grass, or past them, they hop out in front, or scurry across the sidewalk seeking cover. I think they are beetles until I look closer.

Let's talk about plants.
I love plants. I love gardening.
I just bought my first fake plant (EVER) today.

A couple of weeks ago, I was dying for some green in my house because I had to give all of my plants away back in Colorado. My daughter and I headed out to Home Depot and got a bunch of plants. She put together 2 planter boxes for her room, I got a pineapple plant (couldn't resist the novelty), a couple of pothos, a snake plant, and a pretty flowering plant, and a hanging basket for our backyard patio.
Here's what I've found:

My houseplants don't ever seem to dry out inside due to the humidity.
They mold.
I've killed most of my plants (well, after they succumbed to the mold, or dried up from not being watered because they always still feel wet).
Even though there is high humidity outside, and it often rains in the afternoons, unless watered with tons of water each day from my hose, my outdoor hanging basket will die. - It is in fact, dead now.
Plants outside WILL die if neglected without water (despite 85 - 100% humidity) for 1 day.

The next thing.

Soil. The soil here - it is sand. Like the beach. So weird. The grass here is what we call 'crab grass' back home. It is a week that we diligently dig out of our lawns in the west.

Well, not here. Here it gets fed, and trimmed and mowed, and watered, and covers every single lawn.

Finally - we have to talk about the water.

I've spent more time in my swimming suit here in the past 5 weeks than I've spent in my entire life put together. However, that's besides the point.

The tap water - yuck...it just isn't good at all. Not a bit. And I'm not a water snob.

However, when taking a shower, or after running the water for cooking for more than 1.30 seconds - the water is warm. Cold water does not exist here. They need cold water coolers here (like a hot water heater). Seriously, put on the tap, put your cup under there - patiently waiting for a nice cold glass of water. You get lukewarm, tepid water...and no matter how long you let it run, it won't get colder. So if you exercise and want a very cool shower to cool down with - you'll have to settle for a warm one, cause you aren't getting anything cold.

Finally, all of the parents walk their kids to the bus stop. And hang out. It is like a social club. Really? The bus stop is only a block away. I'd rather send my kid out the door 1.30 seconds before the bus shows up so that she can get there, and step onto that big yellow taxi. Nope - we've got to get there 10 minutes early for social hour. Then, I get to do it again picking her up after school. I could just rebel, but I figure I'll either be ostracized for being the bad mom, or else they must know something that I don't.

Finally (really this might be the final finally), after school here is CRAZY! I went in to initial a paper that I'd made a mistake on, on my daughter's registration forms today. The parking lot is a serpentine, windy ordeal. While I parked and walked in, I couldn't help but marvel at the line of cars. 2 deep, all the way out to the road 20 minutes before the bell even rang.

I asked the principal if this was normal. She said the first cars got there almost an hour and a half before school got out to start the que. It took me a full 12 minutes just to drive through my other daughter's school parking lot to pick her up last week.

PS - We still haven't seen an alligator. I think they may be a hoax.

First day pics

2011-08-17T16:59:00.000-06:00

It has been a while. I've even got some pictures to post - but I had a hard time getting them to upload.
Sigh - technology.
We've weathered half of the first week of school.
This year I was ready for the kids to go back to school. They needed to make some friends and I needed to stop running around jumping through hoops for the schools to get my kids registered.
Our youngest daughter said her first day was the best day of school she's ever had. She got to ride the bus and has 2 friends from the neighborhood she just can't wait to see each morning and play with before the bus comes.

Our older daughter started middle school.
Despite her auspicious beginnings (no schedule, showing up early to figure out where to go and them sending me away leaving her at their mercy), her day didn't get too much better.
She knew one girl in her math class from church.
She had 2 friends from church that she sat with at lunch.
I think those were the highlights.

I got a phone call at 4:39 (the time her bus was supposed to be here).
A tearful child was on the line. "Mom, I took the wrong bus - I have no idea where I am".
I sort of panicked.
She stayed on the bus, and rode it back to the school. I picked her up there.
We joked that because I took her in the morning, she was trying to make up for it on the way home with the bus.
I think she's got the routine down now.
Anyways - here are the first day of school pics.

Back to school....bureaucracy

2011-08-11T15:37:00.000-06:00

I'm not sure if I ever mentioned how patient I am.

Really

Well, to talk about it wouldn't be very humble now would it?

Today we entered the back to school melee...

You may remember 3 weeks ago when I dedicated almost a full week to collecting every scrap of identification we own, as well as proferring up my firstborn so that we could get the kids registered for school.

Grrrrrrrrr

I got it done and thought - whew...now we can enjoy summer.

Except, they wanted records.

Our schools we just came from were still on summer break (so no chance for getting records for a while)

And so the fun began

Kind helpful previous teachers scanned and emailed me information, and I dug through more boxes to find test scores and report cards. Scanned it all in and said, 'phew' - glad that's over.

Today we went to the middle school to pick up the schedule

We got in a line.

They didn't have my child's schedule and sent us to the guidance line

(along with all of the disgruntled kids and parents who didn't get the class they wanted)

The guidance person (after the 25 minute wait) told us, 'oh no - you'll have to go to the media center for that'

We went to the media center

They were handing out numbers

we got 43

After 30 minutes of waiting we decided to head to the transportation line to figure out bussing while we waited for our number to be called

It was only an 18 minute wait in line.

We got back to the media center in time to hear them call 20.

After another 30 minutes we headed out to some of the classes to meet the teachers. We figured we had at least a 2 hour wait in front of us still.

We did.

All of the teachers went home at 12

At 12:30, we decided to forgo the schedule since at least I had traded my pen with a worker for information that my child wasn't even in the computer.

She was nice enough to find the file (in an old box) and at least enter my child into the system.

We'll be back in line tomorrow.

Crocodile Cake

2011-08-05T15:24:00.000-06:00

I just did a posting on this cake on my recipe blog for this cake that turned out SO adorable.

Yes, my husband REALLY wanted an 'adorable' cake for his birthday. But the girls helped make and create it - so he loves it. And we think it is pretty great too.

Here's a link

Served Papers

2011-08-04T08:20:00.000-06:00

We got served some court papers this morning.

That server guy - he seriously has a pretty awful job.

He just gets to give people bad news over and over again all day long.

I wonder if he catalogs people's reactions?

I be there are categories like:

Relieved that it finally happened cause we knew it was coming

Total shock and dismay (me this morning)

I can't believe this is happening

This is a mistake

Denial

Total Anger

Quiet Reluctance

Embarrassment

That's all I can think of but I bet there are lots more.

He could probably write a whole book with stories of his experiences.

And make a million dollars.

By the way, who rings the doorbell two times at 8:30 in the morning?

My kids answered the door. They should know better!

Don't answer the door to strangers. But there they were - "come on in Mr. Stranger Man who is going to kill mommy's morning!"

I may appear rather calm. I think I finally am.

I've been told by the responsible parties (definitely not me) that it shouldn't have happened and is a mistake. (denial category?)

It has nothing to do with anything we've done - we were just being informed.

Thank you Mr. Server/Informant man for seriously putting a downer on my day.

Don't eat at our house

2011-07-31T20:35:00.000-06:00

Seriously. Today was one of my worst cooking days ever.
We threw some ribs into the crockpot last night, and added some barbecue sauce - hoping for some nice barbecued ribs after church.

Because we don't know anyone here, we invited some new people over for dinner - they just moved in last night, so we figured they might be hungry.

The ribs cooked all night, and were ready when we got home from church today. Sort of. They got a little over cooked, and the sugar in the barbecue sauce had burned and gave it all a bitter taste.
To accompany the ribs, we made fake flakes (potatoes) (because I found a box of them in our food storage and they needed to be used, and we liked them back when we bought them). Once they were made, I found they were stale. Our guests had just pulled up, and I didn't have time for a plan B. I made gravy.

We found a box full of jello mixes yesterday - last night I made cherry jello with bananas and whipped cream - my grandmother's old standard. There isn't a lot you can do to kill jello. I was relieved that at least something might be edible. Fresh fruit, carrot sticks, and broccoli salad - pretty tough to kill as well. I figured if we just stuck to the sides, we might make it through.

I was pretty uncomfortable with the meal, but past the point of being able to do much more to salvage it, short of peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, and they had a peanut allergy.

As soon as we sat down to eat, our guests let us know that his father is a professional chef, 'no pressure they added'.

I was really embarrassed. Really. And uncomfortable.

As we began to eat dinner, our guest's 3 year old began to eat.
He shoveled the meat into his mouth and to my horror - began to vomit. Yes, at the table. We all scattered while his parents both tried to catch it in their hands.

That's apparently what my food will do to you.

Okay. Not really.
After throwing up, he began calmly (the only calm part) to eat again.
He merely said, 'I put too much into my mouth'.
Except, his parents were the only ones who actually understood what he said. That's what THEY said he said.

I wonder if I should believe them?

Week 2 survival

2011-07-31T19:47:00.000-06:00

Another week - another Sunday.
It seems like a lot has happened this week, but I honestly can't think what.

We entered phase 5 of the move this weekend. At least that's what I'm calling it.
Phase 1 - pack. 2 into the trucks. 3 out of the trucks. 4 out of the boxes. 5 re-arrange everything that you thought you had in the right place.

That's right ladies and gentlemen - the sofa came from the family room into the front room. The dining table went from the nook into the dining area, and the table from the dining area went into the nook.

All of the food storage that was in the garage (remember that stuff? - filled up the whole garage?)...well...we have a pretty big master bedroom. One corner is now completely stacked to the ceiling with food storage.
We reverted to my husband's "distributed food storage plan". He even has a nightstand made from food storage boxes. I'll be doing some sewing quicker than I previously thought. It works though. Especially in Florida. We do have to worry about hurricanes and the like here, and I'm glad to know we have what we may need should we ever have a problem.

So - the latest and greatest is that I got a calling at church today - actually 2. Glad they are putting me to work. I need some adult interaction during the week.

This week I got a new iphone. 2 days later I sent it back. I found out a new one is coming out next month, so I thought I might as well wait for another month or so for the latest and greatest....
We tried out a new gymnastics gym. Didn't like it.

Headed to the beach Friday night. It was pretty heavenly. We got there around 7, and stayed until 9. Jumped waves, and played and played. Watched the sunlight disappear. It was so beautiful. There were some sailboats just on the horizon, and the sun hit their sails illuminating them against the pink sky. Pretty cool.

I found a cello teacher this week. I'll start once the kids are back in school. She's the principal cellist of a symphony - I'm really excited to meet her and make some personal progress. I'm meeting on Tuesday with one of the high school teachers here - she's going to be teaching the strings program this year, and she'll be referring her students to me as a private teacher.

The girls begin piano lessons this week. Their teacher graduated from Julliard, and got her masters from another pretty prestigious music school. Can't wait to hear them working again on the piano.

My husband got his license this week, and finally - my biggest accomplishment - I think I can see my desk top! What can I say? It is the little things.

The Beach!!!

2011-07-24T13:49:00.000-06:00

So, we got up, took care of some chores, and headed to the beach yesterday.
Unfortunately, the camera was out of memory, and we just managed to eek out a few photos. I'm sure we'll have more to come. :)
When we got there, it had been raining so we had to wait a few minutes for the storm to clear.
It definitely cleared though. The kids didn't get sunburned, but my husband and I did. Despite lots of sunscreen.
I actually did pretty good. After an hour or so, I pulled out a floppy hat, and put on a shirt to help limit my exposure. I just forgot to hit my legs, and they got a little toasted.

We sort of took turns playing with our little one since she didn't like wave jumping, and the boogie board that we picked up in San Diego broke. My husband and oldest daughter went out snorkeling...she got hit by an unexpected wave and she lost her snorkel and goggles.
That water was like a bathtub - SO warm. It was all delicious.

After 3 hours, we decided it was probably time to go. My husband's back was getting a little toasty. It wasn't until we got home when we really saw the sunburns that we were grateful we'd left when we did.
I think we are all excited to go back. I'll be taking the kids several more times before school starts.

Movers

2011-07-24T13:38:00.000-06:00

Further documenting our odyssey, here's the big huge diesl moving truck that houses three grown men. It lived at our home from 6:45 am - 9:30 pm a couple of weeks ago.
I don't think that these movers will every forget us.

The surveyor did his initial appraisal of the weight of our move. He estimated us at 14,600 lbs. The movers saw all of our food storage and couldn't believe it. Then they say all of our books (slightly less than the food storage, but we definitely have at least a year's supply of books). After the movers moved all of the books and food storage from our basement, poor Joey volunteered to bring up all of the shelving - which was simply cinderblocks and planks of wood. Poor poor Joey.
The movers said we had at least 10,000 lbs that they moved from the basement.
Here's Joey's cache of cinderblocks on the front porch awaiting the truck.

Here are our movers at the end of the day. I can read minds and here, they are thinking, c'mon lady. We are SO tired of moving all of your junk, and still have to drive back to Denver and can only go 35 miles an hour, so, get your photo done cause I'm really tired and ready to go. They were very courteous and nice though, and did a great job.

In the end, the movers weighed in with all of our stuff at 19,600 lbs.
That's a lot of food storage!

Kitty's last ride

2011-07-24T13:04:00.000-06:00

Here are some of the most important photos from our move.
7 years ago, a black little kitty came to our home to join our family.
Our daughter INSISTED that we name her "Allengia". We had several family councils about the name, but to no avail...her name became Allengia. The rest of us mostly called her "kitty"...it was easier to pronounce and she recognized it.
Even though kitty was sometimes tempermental (especially during those cold snowy winter stir crazy months) she became an important part of our family. At the first opening of a can of tuna, there she would be, meowing right at your side. She learned from the girls that if she whined enough, she would almost always get what she wanted...so she took to whining by the door to be let in or our.
She was a very polite kitty. She would wait to be let into the girl's room at night. Once you let her in or out, she always had a grateful 'meow' to say thank you.
She was also the mother of 11 little kittens...who we gave to other happy homes.

We were saddened to find that she couldn't make the trip with us to Florida. It almost broke a few girl's little hearts.
But then, our friend John did some painting for us while we were out of town, and kitty kept him company.
They bonded.
She would wait for him at the front door each day.
He would feed her yummy stuff she'd never dreamed of.
John is a cat spoiler, pamperer, & indulger. We were so thankful that we could send kitty to a new home where she would be loved.

We didn't take her for car rides very often, but here she is on her very last ride to her new home.

Here's kitty's new happy family. We've known these friends for almost 13 years. The latest report is that kitty is beginning to make herself at home. Though she shares the house with another cat Ephraim, they have settled into an avoidance routine which involves a little hissing and fur ruffling... We know she's definitely loved.
As for us...I'm still suffering from phantom kitty syndrome when I turn around and expect the kitty to be there. Maybe in a few years when we get another house...

Day 5

2011-07-19T08:52:00.000-06:00

Our cars came yesterday. We pulled up our chairs on the back porch and watched the driver bring our cars down from the top of a semi toting 8 different cars. Highly entertaining - who needs tv?

The kids tried out a new gymnastics gymn. They didn't like the coach or the program. It went from 5-8...it was REALLY long. Afterwards, we grabbed something to eat and headed out to the airport to deposit our rented car. Didn't get home til just before 11 pm. Long night!

Got the phone service set up today...except I can't find the phones. That's always fun! Still searching for the kid's immunizations cause I put them in a 'special' place so that I wouldn't lose them. That's how it goes I guess.
Ready for another exciting new day!

Latest and greatest

2011-07-18T11:16:00.000-06:00

We found a piano teacher - we will meet her tomorrow. She studied at Julliard. So great to hear my kids at the piano playing again. They are getting ready to play for her tomorrow.

Cars should be here in 30 minutes or less. It will be so nice to have wheels again - that are mine!
Possibly checking out a few gymnastics gymns this afternoon/evening.

Tomorrow meeting the piano teacher, getting a new license, registering to vote, & getting all of the kid's immunizations records transferred to the Florida forms so that we can register them for school.

Phew...I thought it would be easier on this end of things but my list seems to continue to grow!

Sunday morning

2011-07-17T05:48:00.000-06:00

Sunday is generally my posting day. I should be getting ready for church, and will in a few moments.
I think I got the AC set now so that it isn't a freeze out for the family.
Yesterday afternoon I watched some lizards dancing on my back patio - scurrying about, trying to impress each other.
Friday night we hit Costco for some essentials, and last night we did our first cooking. Homemade waffles for dinner (that's what the kids wanted). They came out beautifully crisp - and quickly went soggy from the humidity. It's gonna take some getting used to with this humidity. I don't mind it, other than I'm trying to figure out why my windows are all completely wet in the mornings...and when it affects my cooking...and the sand in our kid's hourglass clumped together and stopped falling. :)

We got more boxes unpacked yesterday, and I was able to finally clear off my kitchen counters (YAY). We got many of the front room and office area wall hangings up, and some of the book boxes emptied into bookshelves, and most of my clothes are hanging up, but my husband's collection of tees, jeans, etc. is in a big immovable box in the middle of our bedroom floor.

While gas may be a bit cheaper, milk, dairy, and most consumables are actually higher here. We thought the cost of living would be cheaper, but it isn't! Agh!

Anyways, I'm hoping to unearth the camera this afternoon and get some pictures up. It seems like we have lots of kids in the neighborhood. Our girls are trying to figure out how to meet other kids. We are hoping that they can make some friends at church today.

We made it!

2011-07-15T20:38:00.000-06:00

We finally made it on our big cross country move to Florida, and are here loving the heat.
Well...we are adjusting to it (first day), but it really isn't too bad.
The kids have their own rooms for the first time - one of them is having a tougher time in her own room tonight...we'll see if she makes it through the night (she's on our bed right now).
We just got the computer up and running, ran to the store for some staples, got people to bed, and I thought I'd at least let the world know that I am alive and still here.
I'll post some pics...once I find my camera :)

We got to our house this morning just as the moving van got here.
While we had a floorplan of the house and had a map of where everything needed to go, it just didn't work out quite that way, and there was a lot of trying to figure it out, and I'm sure most everything will end up in a different room eventually.

Anyways, we are back and we really have mostly made it through the past 2 whirlwind months.
Phew.....

Thank yous and a party

2011-07-06T23:53:00.000-06:00

I should be in bed. I should be shredding my bank statements, and lease agreements from 1998. But my shredder overheated.
My computer will be packed in a big moving box tomorrow night. I will have no internet come Friday. I'm a little scared. I'll be un-plugged for reals for like a week.
I might sneak into the library just to get an internet fix though. We'll see if I can last.

I am so grateful for wonderful people.
On Monday, a friend showed up with lunch, and helped us pack all day. Then his family fed us dinner, and we enjoyed fireworks with them.
On Tuesday, a neighbor stopped by to help out, and a friend brought us dinner.
Today, 3 ladies came by and helped me clean and pack my kitchen. 1 neighbor came by to help us out with some odd jobs, and another showed up, and mowed and trimmed our lawn.
After I picked the kids up from gymnastics, dinner had been left on our porch.

Thank you thank you thank you to all of our wonderful neighbors and friends!

Some ladies from church are throwing us a going away party Saturday at 6:00 at the church. If you want to come and rob me because you know that I won't be there, you are welcome to. The movers should have everything moved out by Friday night, and we won't be staying there. (That was just a friendly message to any perps that might be reading my blog...its late - what can I say?).
It sounds like a meat is provided, bring a sidedish/dessert potluck sort of a party.

You should come. Even if you have to drive far. Cause, Florida is WAY farther. I promise.
I'm grateful for the ladies who are so giving of their time etc. to help us with this tough transition. We've been really blessed.

Lastly. We need to rent our house. It isn't rented yet. It is such a cute house. The garden and fruit trees are going crazy (fruit on trees that have never bloomed until this year even). We finished the landscaping. Tomorrow we are getting 2 tons of rocks delivered to cover up the dirt where our friend just dug up all of the grass from today. The sprinklers didn't have enough water pressure to keep it green so we are opting for rocks. 2500 sq feet, lots of storage, close to schools, bike paths, blm, and full of new carpet and paint. What's NOT to like? We'll be sad to leave.

I realize I'm rambling. Back to the shredding. Don't forget to come to our party - you are invited!!

Paint projects

2011-07-06T11:26:00.000-06:00

On my before we leave to do list was to pick up some painted pottery projects.
We started these at the beginning of February. I thought it would be a great platter/gift for my mom's birthday (also in Feb.)
Unfortunately, I'm really a slow painter and it took about 4 sessions, and I just picked it up today. Happy belated b'day mom!

Here are the kid's masterpieces!

Back home

2011-07-03T23:39:00.000-06:00

We are back home now, and really digging into the packing. Argh... so not loving that.
I spent the entire day from 6:00 am - 1:00 am scanning music and getting wedding stuff ready for the month of July. The good news is - all of my musicians have their music for the whole month, their checks will be sent out right after their gigs, and I found the sub that I was desperately, frantically seeking. Phew.
My music is now all packed. My closet is 95% finished, the study 65% finished, the bathrooms 97% finished (they just need to be cleaned), and we are making headway.

Tomorrow is the big packing day. Moving trucks will show up at the end of the week. Carpeting will be put in, and we will finish cleaning our home, and say goodbye.

By the way. We did find a house...I forgot to finish my story.
We LOVED one of the houses we looked at. It had a pool, a screened patio, garden space, and an AMAZING kitchen. The other house was nice too, but it didn't have any of those things. But it is in a neighborhood with some pretty amazing neighbors, and lots of kids. And 1.4 miles from my husband's work, and .25 miles from the church.

We really prayed and struggled trying to decide which house we should rent. While our first choice was the one with the pool and the amazing kitchen...when we prayed about it, we both felt inspired that we should choose the other home. Guess I'm still working on trusting in the Lord, because that definitely wasn't my pick. But, as we've continued to pray about other things concerning this move (and that house), I keep getting the answer that everything will work out, and that we just need to put our faith and trust in Heavenly Father and the answers that we've received.

Since it was pretty much a miracle that we found something to rent (2 homes actually - both of which weren't even listed), we are very grateful for the divine intervention that we've seen all along this journey.

Siblings

2011-07-03T23:26:00.000-06:00

After the funeral services and a great lunch with all of Grandpa Carl's descendents, we headed over to my parent's house to say goodbye to my siblings and their families as well.

Out of seven kids, I got to see all but one of them - that's pretty good odds - especially as 4 of us live out of state!
With my younger brother

We missed my other sister - she had to go to work before we thought of getting the camera out.
While it was a little wild and crazy, here are the rest of them/us.
(For the record - I am not showing off my guns....we have a family portrait from when we were younger, and my brother was visibly pinching me...I was just going for paybacks)

My grandparents

Little silly pants - wearing her uncle's super silly glasses.

Destination

2011-07-03T23:10:00.000-06:00

Just before we headed out to hunt for a home, we received the news that my husband's grandfather had passed away.
He lived a very full life and had just celebrated his 95th birthday.
He loved cookies.
Really loved them.
He was a precision machinist, a rock collector, polisher, and jewelry maker.
He was a wonderful man.
I'm so grateful for the legacy he carried on to his children, thus blessing my husband and our family.

Grandpa Carl

The great grandchildren were asked to sing at the funeral - they sang The Family is of God.
It's lyrics are:
1. Our Father has a family.
It’s me!It’s you, all others too: we are His children.
He sent each one of us to earth, through birth,
To live and learn here in fam’lies.
[Chorus]
God gave us families to help us become what He wants us to be—
This is how He shares His love, for the fam’ly is of God.

2. A father’s place is to preside, provide,
To love and teach the gospel to his children.
A father leads in fam’ly prayer to share
Their love for Father in Heaven.
[Chorus]
3. A mother’s purpose is to care, prepare,
To nurture and to strengthen all her children.
She teaches children to obey, to pray,
To love and serve in the fam’ly.
[Chorus]
4. I’ll love and serve my family and be
A good example to each fam’ly member.
And when I am a mom or dad, so glad,
I’ll help my fam’ly remember:
God gave us families to help us become what He wants us to be—
This is how He shares His love,
for the fam’ly is of God.

by Matthew Neely

While we are sad to see grandpa go, we know how much he has missed Grandma Edla for the past year and a half, and we are so happy that they could be re-united once again.
We love and will miss you grandpa!

Traveling 2

2011-07-03T22:55:00.000-06:00

After 3 flights the next day, we got home. Stopped in and the girls said hello to the cat, my husband grabbed his jacket, and we headed out again. This time for a 6.5 hour drive. Yeah - we are seriously crazy!...we'd been up since 3:00 am
We saw lots of this:

And then were gifted some amazing sunsets as we drove west to our destination.

Travel, Travel, Travel

2011-07-03T22:51:00.000-06:00

We got home from the gymnastics meet around 12:00 am.
The next morning, we had a flight that left at 6:28 am. Here are the girls on their second super early morning. We had to be out the door by 5:15 again!

Just as we were fixing to take off....

This is the part where I talk about blessings.
As we've begun this whole new adventure, we have been immensely blessed.
It started out with months and months of my searching for and applying for jobs for my husband.
We went to South Carolina and he interviewed for a job which they offered to him. After the interview, my husband and I went to the temple, and as we prayed about that job, it just didn't feel right, or peaceful. As we prayed about it, we just didn't feel like this would be the right job for him, and the right place for our family.

The next week he interviewed for a job in Florida. From the very first phone call, this one just felt better.
After my husband interviewed, we fasted and prayed together as a family to know if he should accept the job if it was offered.
This experience has really provided some growth for our family - this is the first real family fast we've done together, and since it affects us all, it has been pretty important. As we talked about our impressions, and feelings after we'd fasted together, we all felt excited and peaceful about the decision.
When they offered the job, after some negotiation, we said yes.

I began spending hours online searching for housing.
Apparently, the majority of the homes in Florida for sale, are short sales or forclosures. As such, it takes on average 3-6 months to purchase a home. I stopped focusing on homes for sale, and started looking for rentals. Those options were pretty bleak. We had such a narrow list of homes to choose from. What to do?

As we traveled to Florida to house hunt, we started with a prayer as a family, and continued to ask for guidance and direction - asking for Heavenly Father's hellp in guiding us to a home that would be a good fit for our family, and possibly be an answer to someone else's prayers as well.
After 2 flights, we arrived Saturday afternoon.
We were welcomed with a deluge. A little on the scary side, but luckily my husband was driving :)
We drove around for a while. Then collapsed back at the hotel.

On Sunday, we headed to church.
Everyone was so excited to meet us. I'd made a few phone calls in the previous weeks, trying to find out about gymnastics, piano, schools etc. and talked to a few of the ladies, seeking their recommendations. Apparently, news of our coming had spread. We sat down and were immediately asked if we were the new family moving into town. Yep - that's us!

Someone had mentioned that some of the ward members were moving away, and we were introduced.
That afternoon, we stopped by their houses, and drove around the area trying to get a little more acquainted with everything.

We were appreciative of the Bishop inviting our family to dinner that evening...he rescued us from a night of frozen meat pies and pb&j.

We met with a realtor bright and early Monday morning, and spent most of the day driving around with her and viewing rental homes.
We saw so many different houses, but ultimately realized that we liked the first 2 (the church member's homes) the best.

After lunch, we grabbed our stuff and headed out to find a beach, and some fun. Enough with the houses.
Several people had recommeded a beach that let you drive right down almost to the water. We were amazed.
While it started to rain when we rolled into town, I LOVE tropical rain because it is always so WARM. Mmmmm
We splashed in the waves, and played in the ocean - it was really almost perfect. And then we started seeing lightening, and decided maybe we should get out and head back to the hotel.

We couldn't believe that the beach had driving lanes - all the way down to the water! So wild - but so nice because you don't have to haul all of your stuff for miles and miles!

State Gymnastics Meet

2011-07-03T22:22:00.000-06:00

This past 2 weeks has been a complete whirlwind.
Last week, we traveled to a state gymnastics meet.
Our youngest daughter competed first - at 8:00 am. That meant we left our home around 5:15 am. Quite the feat for our little girls.
Here's the team with the coach just before it started

While this was our youngest daughter's second meet ever, she made some great progress from last time.
She took second place overall in her age group for the vault.
Pretty amazing!

The meet got over around 12:30, and so we went to lunch, found a place to nap for a little bit, and did some quick shopping for some books my husband needed.

At 5:00 we were ready to start again, but this time with our oldest daughter.

She received 8th overall for her vault.
While she had hoped to score a little better, we were pretty thrilled that she did so well for her first state meet!

Day 6 & 7

2011-06-21T18:49:00.000-06:00

So I took a trip downstairs to inspect my freezer.
Day # 6 - I found a ziplock bag of chicken noodle soup with homemade noodles. It was perfect - it thawed and re-heated in the crock pot while we were at gymnastics. A friend brought by some amazing cajun chicken and rice. My husband had it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I'll be getting that recipe before I leave. Thanks Anna!

Day #7 - Overnight - I thawed a spiral ham that I found in the recesses of my freezer. Steamed some carrots, threw together a salad and some fresh fruit. For dessert, I used a pie crust I had in my fridge, as well as some cream cheese that needed to be used up, and fresh strawberries to make a strawberry pie. I'll be posting that recipe.

I realized that I'm just not sure how long this will last. I've got some friends coming over tomorrow to help me start boxing up my food storage. Kind of tough to live off of, it if is all boxed!

Chronicles of the move part 1

2011-06-20T07:57:00.001-06:00

This morning I decided that I will keep sane during this move.
I know I won't have very much time, but I want to be able to look back at this.

Last week, we came home from our family reunion realizing that the next project on the list is THE MOVE. My brothers in law came by and helped us move a mammoth couch from upstairs, and a couple of tables. We unloaded some food storage, snowshoes (so sad to say goodbye to those babies), coats, boots, sleds, all sorts of stuff on our family members as they headed out of town.

And then I got sort of side tracked. We started pulling stuff out, and found the pile that we started last summer of things we wanted to sale at a garage sale.

We decided (I being the operative part of we) to have a garage sale.

I began boxing up my recipe books, and Thursday morning I got a call from someone wanting to see our house to potentially rent it. I sped cleaned (cleaned probably isn't a correct adjective, but you get the idea) and was then completely exhausted and overwhelmed afterwards. A painter also showed up at the same time to give me a bid for painting some of our rooms. After feeling overwhelmed, I spent the afternoon, and part of the morning on Friday searching for housing in Florida.

We headed down to Lowes Thursday evening and picked up new blinds for the front room.
They cut them too short. We got home and put them up, and they were 1/2 inch too short. Bummer.

On Friday I got the girls to work with me and we boxed up 4.5 of the bookshelves downstairs. We still have 2+ to go, but we got a lot done. 14 boxes down. That's something to feel good about.

On Friday night we pulled out lots and lots of stuff from the attic. The stuff we've been saving for 7-9 years...and not exactly sure why. I had a tough time sleeping Friday night - especially knowing that I had to get up early.

Up at 5:45 Saturday to start pulling everything for the yard/garage sale out.
My girlfriend showed up at 6:20, and by 7:30 we were rocking and rolling.
It was a total blessing that I speak spanish, and I know how to barter. :)

At 10:00 the girls opened a lemonade stand.
We had a very steady stream from 7:30 - 11:30. So steady I didn't have a chance to get breakfast (kids had to forage), go to the bathroom, or put sunscreen on. I got FRIED.

By 11:30 the cars stopped lining up, and we were left with a lot less than we started with, and my pants kept slipping down due to the weight of quarters in my pockets.

Meanwhile, my husband was prepping and painting the upstairs loft. My girlfriend's husband is a painter, and he was drawn by the smell of paint, and helped my husband out a little bit.

We still had all of the big furniture (mammoth couch), chairs, desks, dressers, and some sundry books, clothes etc. We loaded it into our friend's van, and 5 trips later, the driveway was free except for the mammoth couch. My husband made his famous tuna sandwiches and we all sat out on the couch at the end of the driveway resting and chatting. We weren't sure what to do with the couch.

Our friends left, and I began cleaning the kitchen and front room while my husband finished up the second coat of paint. We then decided to head back to Lowes to resolve the blind issue. There we met my cousin who had come to the area for a hike with his family. We had dinner together, and then we headed back home to collapse.

Only Sunday morning did we realize that we were out of milk, bread, produce, and most everything else! Our fridge is almost bare, and pretty quick here, we will begin eating the condiments. I'm joking of course, but sure don't want to buy food that I'm going to turn around and throw away.

Sunday morning - the couch was still there. Sunday after church - the couch was still there. How do you unload a sofa sleeper couch? It was huge, and heavy, and second hand when we received it. We don't have a van or truck. So we left the sign on it, and said a prayer that someone who needed it could get it.
Sunday afternoon our friend Placido came by. He is so sad to see us move - we've known him for 11+ years, and he just lives down the road. He joined us for dinner, and we visited, and he asked if he could help us with anything. Jokingly, I said yes - we have to get rid of the couch. I'm our HOA president, and I KNOW that people in the neighborhood have been having a coronary every time they drove by and saw my couch with the free sign sitting at the end of my driveway.
Well, just like that, Placido called a guy, and 2 hours later (when his wife got home with their van) Alex showed up and drove away with our couch. He was SO grateful for it. We were SO grateful that he took it.
I think I forget how often the Lord blesses me and answers my prayers. That was a relief.

Moving forward, today - I am tackling my laundry. I'll be able to cull through the winter clothing, and get rid of a lot of long sleeve shirts and jackets. It is a daunting task, but I've got to get started, and we've got someone else wanting to look at our place tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow I've got some friends helping me, and will dedicate myself (and my slaves for the day) to loading up our 1 year supply of food. Wednesday, we've got the moving company surveyor coming out, and we can finally get an idea of when our move date will really be! So much to do, and so little time!

While I know everyone moves, and this is nothing original, it has been a long time for us, and 2000 miles is a long ways to carry all this stuff.

I'm off to start my day.

Camping 2

2011-06-19T18:04:00.000-06:00

View of the lake.
The girl's favorite part was kyacking and paddle boating around the lake.
Our oldest daughter caught the only fish, and our youngest got one on, but didn't get it brought in all the way.

Bubbles at grandma's cabin

Camping

2011-06-19T17:54:00.000-06:00

As we were waiting for breakfast, the sausages just weren't getting done quick enough.
My BIL and I decided to take it into our hands. We pulled out the marshmallow roasters, and roasted our sausages over the fire a la hot dog style.

Our beautiful view of the lake

The kids had a scavenger hunt that the aunts put together - running through the woods searching for flowers, pinecones and lots of treasures.

Splash fountain and camping

2011-06-19T17:37:00.001-06:00

We found a splash fountain (okay - so I knew where it was and led everyone to it) :)

The kids got pretty wet.

Then we led them to some hot dry pavement, where they littered their bodies around as they sought hot spots to warm up with.

And then, later that night, all of the kids hung out at the hotel swimming pool - with grandpa, aunts and uncles, and cousins.

After church and dinner on Sunday, we headed to the family reunion, and the girls got to spend the night in grandma and grandpa's cabin the first night.
Here we are ready for bed!

Family shots

2011-06-19T17:32:00.000-06:00

My husband's entire family came for the baptism, and for a family reunion afterwards. Here is about half of the family - trying to get it together for a family photo. A little crazy!

While many members of my family planned to come out, for various reasons, my parents were the only members of my family who were able to make it. We were so happy to see them, and grateful that they were able to come.

Later that evening, we headed up to one of our favorite resort areas. Here's one of my husband's favorite statues:

Post baptisms

2011-06-19T17:23:00.000-06:00

Because our daughter's birthday is only one day apart from one of her friend's they were able to be baptized during the same baptismal service.
Here they are together just before

Just after her/their baptisms

Baptism

2011-06-19T17:15:00.000-06:00

We are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
Last weekend, our daughter made the decision to be baptized. She's been so excited about it.
Here she is just before her baptism.

She and I

She and her Dad - who had the opportunity to baptize her.
(I love that this photo almost looks like a family portrait with Christ as a member of the family)

Last day of school #2

2011-06-19T17:02:00.000-06:00

I just found some photos on my husband's phone that I didn't have.
On the last day of school, the kids (and parents) get to watch a slide show of photos of the kids throughout the year. Then, starting with the graduating class, the kids all march out.
Here's our very excited daughter

My daughters grade got to meet together and sit in a circle, and in open forum, got to thank each other, their teachers and the staff, and mostly share their feelings regarding the year they just accomplished. It was pretty interesting. Not many parents piped up, but our daughter shared two or three times, and then started giving me the Eagle eye...trying to ellicit something from me.
Truly, we are so grateful for all of the staff at their school these past many years. We will be very sorry to leave them all.

This year's teacher has vied for the favorite teacher status. We are really grateful to Mr. M. He definitely made learning fun. Bowling, helicopters, mentos in coke - you name it - they had a blast learning!

In art, some of the kids have an opportunity to paint their own ceiling tiles. Here's a collaborative work from this year. If you can't tell...it is a gecko.

Moving along

2011-06-16T16:55:00.000-06:00

I've been a little busy lately.
It's going to get worse.
I'm already overwhelmed. And then some whelmed on top of that too.

1 month ago, my husband and I were in South Carolina interviewing for a new job (I didn't interview - I house shopped).
The next week, he was in Florida, interviewing for another job.
Both jobs were offered, we accepted the Florida job.
I know..sun, sand, Disney..kind of a no brainer. Did I say sun? Apparently it is suicidal to move to Florida in July. Yep - that's the kind of people we are. Crazy to boot.

I just wanted to let everyone know that if they don't find me here in the next month, I'll be packing/cleaning/painting or freaking out.

We are trying to rent our home and praying that everything will work out - both here, and in our new abode where ever it may be. Thanks in advance for your prayers!

Chances are, I'll pick back up once the move is over and I'm re-settled.
On to new adventures!!

Before and After

2011-06-08T08:25:00.000-06:00

First Day of School 2010

Last day of school 2011

First Day of school 2010

Last day of school 2011

They were actually on time for the first day. Unfortunately, even today - they were late!

Candy Bar & Deco

2011-06-03T09:41:00.000-06:00

While I essentially only had a day to plan this party out, here's some of the deco.
I think the kid's favorite part was the candy bar.
Get it?...candy...bar

I thought it was clever at least.

I found directions on how to make these cool daliahs on Martha Stewart.
I love how they turned out!

We decided to add a little more frosting to the giant cupcake later on.

Yesterday was SUPER windy, and I wish I'd taken some pictures, but I was running a million miles a minute and didn't get a chance.
I bought some thick dowels, and cut out large posterboard circles - stapled them together and stuck the circles onto the dowels.
Tied a ribbon around the stick, and placed 2 foot high lollipops all over the yard.

Pinata & the aftermath

2011-06-03T09:34:00.000-06:00

After a while, the pinata had to be pitched.

Finally - here's the aftermath. It was a little scarey. I was really glad my husband came home half way through the party. I don't think I'll ever do a party without another adult there. I was fairly frazzled.
We invited a little girl who JUST turned 5.
At one point she decided to hide and for 5 minutes and we couldn't find her. We searched every room in the house, outside, at the park, everywhere. Everyone dropped everything to search for her.
Finally we found her.
Hiding in the kitchen curtains.
It was a little frustrating.

sUgaR aNd SpIcE

2011-06-03T09:29:00.000-06:00

We had a sugar and spice birthday party for our youngest yesterday.
They did a relay game with sugar cubes and cinnamon sticks. Racing to transport everything from one side of the room to the other - using a plastic spoon. Then, they had to work together to build something out of the materials.

We had a treasure hunt (see previous post for clues) and they found cupcakes in the oven which they all got to frost for later consumption.

Of course, we had two or three cupcake incidents.

Here's the "big Cupcake". We were grateful to a friend who let us borrow her cake mold.

Treasure Hunt

2011-06-02T23:34:00.000-06:00

We celebrated our daughter's birthday and the theme was "Sugar and Spice".
For one of the activities, we had a treasure hunt.
Here are the clues we used:

Let’s get started, here we go

A treasure you will find,

if you follow all the clues,

that I have left behind.

Ring Ring, Hello,…hello…, hello? If you need to find the phone, where would you go?

If you like to play a song, you’ll sit on me to play. I keep your music safe and warm – hurry and don’t delay!

I’m a favorite toy, for boys and girls alike, I’m always found outside you know, and I’ll bounce you if you’d like!

If you’d like to watch a show, or relax a bit, you’ll have to climb a lot of stairs – I hope you are feeling fit!

If you push and pump with me, you’ll soar into the sky. Your next clue is under me – I can’t wait to say hi!

If you’d like to dig a hole, or build a sand castle or two, climb my steps and there you’ll find your next awaiting clue.

Are you thirsty? Do you need a drink? On a hot summer day, I’m your pal. Just stay outside and turn me on and watch me gush, oh wow!

Congratulations – you are almost there. This is your very last clue. You’ll need me if you bake a cake, but bring your hot pads too!

Once they got to the oven, they found a tray full of cupcakes for them to frost and decorate.

The birthday girl got a JUMBO cupcake!

Pics to follow.

Trophies

2011-06-02T23:17:00.001-06:00

Our daughters got several medals from this meet - and it was a very long awards ceremony.
We were SO excited since our youngest had smoked everyone on the vault. Then, they gave first place to someone else. We couldn't figure out what was going on.

Finally, the coach went over and they sorted everything out. Apparently, they had her birthday wrong and had her in the category with all of the kids 3 years older. She smoked their scores on the vault too, but they didn't announce her because by then, the mistake had been brought to their attention.
She and her teammate tied for first place on the vault for the entire meet!
They called her up and gave her her medals all by herself. A little traumatizing for your first event, but we got through it~

Our team took 1st place in the meet,with our oldest coming in 3rd overall. Not too shabby eh?

Here's the team trophy.

The team girls voted that our daughter should take the trophy home for the weekend since she kind of got overlooked there for a while. It was pretty exciting! And then they were in the newspaper too!

Another Gymnastics Meet

2011-06-02T23:09:00.000-06:00

As promised, I found my camera - here are some photos from the latest meet.
This was our youngest's first meet ever. She actually did REALLY well for her first time. She got a 9.5 on the vault - out of 10. She and another girl on her team tied for the best vault score of the meet.
Here other events...well, they still need a little more work.

Here they are lined up ready to be announced.

While the judges were tallying the scores, they had a hula hoop contest. Guess who won?
Yep..that cutie in the middle. The girl on the far left came in 2nd but she used WAY too much motion.. Our kiddo has it down to a science and hardly even expends energy.
We asked where she learned to hula.
She responded - the Wii.
Yep, she hulas on the wii whenever she gets babysat while we are in the temple.
Funny girl.

This crazy tiger did an entire dance routine - splits, backhandsprings and all while we waited.
I'd never seen a tiger with such great moves!

Finally finished (almost)

2011-06-01T10:29:00.000-06:00

After having this project on the list for six plus years, we tackled it!
We excavated our yard six years ago and put in a rock retaining wall. Above the wall we planted some trees and always intended to fill it in with sod, or bark or something, but never got around to it. The kids used it as their own personal digging area and mud pit, and excavation site. The weeds used it as their own personal space and gleefully filled it in each summer.
My husband and I looked at it and theorized how much it would cost to mulch it. We even went so far one year as to get the weed mat down, but failed to get the bark and mulch down before the wind ripped it back up.

We spent A LOT of time this weekend weeding.
Yesterday I threw down the weed mat, and instead of buying a billion individual bags, we had a nursery bring their big truck and drop a full pallet of compressed wood chips and mulch over the fence into the back yard.

Don't I look cute trying to staple down the weed mat..always love those candid photos my husband sneaks in...

See that big plastic wrapped thing? That's our 'bale' of mulch.

And wallah!!!...the final product. I'm so relieved to look outside and not see a big weed patch that I feel guilty about! Hooray!

Gymanstics meet

2011-05-30T00:28:00.000-06:00

We recently had a local gymnastics meet.
I made 80 cupcakes for the bake sale. I was very exhausted.
This was our oldest daughter's first competition.
She did great!

While our younger daughter is also on the team, she was a little nervous, and decided to opt this one out so that she could watch. Once she realized that even the big girls several levels ahead of her also made mistakes, she decided that she wanted to compete too.

Last weekend, they both competed, and both did great. While our oldest daughter came out 3rd over all in her age division, her best friend took first.
Our younger daughter nailed the vault with a 9.5! She and one of her team mates tied with the highest vault score from the entire meet!
Once I find the camera I can load some of their pictures.

The waiting game

2011-05-30T00:06:00.000-06:00

Just before we were to head into the planetarium, a couple of kids have to go to the bathroom.
We got locked out and had to wait in the hall.
We kept the kids busy doing cartwheels, sit ups, pushups and hand stands.

The student teacher who was with us, began demontrating how to do proper push ups just as the security guard came through. We asked him to demonstrate his push ups. He showed us army style, and normal.
Check out that straight back!

I'm prettu sure that after this point, I lost the zeal of photo taking.

We ended up heading to bed around 11:20, and waited until after 12:00 for them to turn off the lights.
The next day we watched an IMAX film in 3D (Is that what Imax means?), then breakfasted, and had free run of the museum.
Afterwards, we headed over to the local zoo.

My group headed to the gift shop and took care of all of their purchases first. Then the kids wanted lunch (at 10:30 in the morning), and we wandered around for a couple of hours before the bus ride home.

My bed never felt so nice!

Electricity

2011-05-29T23:58:00.000-06:00

We learned about electricity and how static is formed.

We made a human chain and one person passed the shock to the next.
The teacher at the end got shocked after the electricity went through approximately 30 bodies!

Playing with a little static electricity

Night at the museum - the heart

2011-05-29T23:53:00.000-06:00

While it really sounds so cliche, we really did spend the night in the museum.
They did SUCH a great job with their organization and activities. There were somewhere between 500-1000 kids in that museum that night...and everything went SO smoothly.
Pizza for dinner

After dinner, we got to do some activities.
Here the kids got to learn about the heart and circuitlatory system.
Then they got to disect a sheep's heart.
That's my girl..just jump in and poke it while the other girls are 'ewwing'

Here's the brave one - she grabbed those scissors and went to work!

State Capital

2011-05-29T23:45:00.000-06:00

Right after returning home from South Carolina (we didn't accept the job offer by the way),
I got to accompany my daughter on a field trip to the state capital, the nature and science museum, and the zoo. It was quite the whirlwind! Here are all of the kids and a few teachers on the steps of the state capital.

Because I ended up helping a kid who had some fear of height issues, I let my daughter loose with the camera.
She did a pretty good job!

Looking up

Picturesque staircase

Looking down

Exhibition, and misc photos

2011-05-29T23:37:00.000-06:00

Within the past couple of months, we celebrated my birthday...
I love it when my kids create a masterpiece for me!

Our daughter's somehow got hold of the camera and decided to take a few shots of themselves - including everything around the house as well.
She has a purple tongue...kind of like a giraffe.
Pretty flexible eh?

Our oldest daughter got to participate in a cumulative project she's been working on for several months.
Her group explored shelter as it relates to poverty.
She performed some community service, and then helped put together a very compelling presentation.
Part of the presentation was to have people take a crack at sleeping on some newspapers on a concrete floor.
They did such a great job!!

Easter weekend 2011

2011-05-29T23:25:00.000-06:00

It looks like I'm going backwards in time! I've missed so much lately!
Our cousins came to visit.
We took the kids to an easter egg hunt. UNDER WATER

They had a blast.
They had to dive for their loot!

After lunch, we pulled out the sugar egg molds and the kids went to work decorating their own panoramic eggs!

The fabric counter

2011-05-29T23:18:00.000-06:00

I don't know where this photo came from...it just magically appeared.
Our daughter is getting baptized in a couple of weeks, and I decided to make her a dress.
This lady was crazy. I don't know why they stuck her in the sewing department. She knew nothing about sewing - and only had boys.
She also was working at one side of the counter. There was a sign right in front of her saying that we had to go to the other counter.
We did. There, we found a bell. She totally knew we were there, because I'd been asking questions all along.
She refused to help us until we rang the bell to request her service.??

While I had every intention of sewing a brand new baptism dress for my daughter, due to the scary lady and her lack of help, I didn't get enough material. I had to order it online, and it got here too late.
I'll be adding that to the summer projects list.

If I lived in South Carolina

2011-05-29T23:13:00.001-06:00

If I lived in South Carolina, this is the neighborhood I would live in.
It is in perfect proximity to our church, the best schools, and it is beautiful and very peaceful.
I spent an entire day with a realtor, and this was my favorite area.
We'd definitely have to put in a swimming pool though.

And of course - I'd have to have several magnolia trees in my yard. I heart magnolia trees!

After church on Sunday (we went to a couple of different wards to check them out) we
drove over to a nearby lake. We had a little picnic on the side of the road while killing some time before our flight left.

Here's my awesome view of the earth from my airlplane window. I'm sure the fellow passengers thought I was a nut, but how can you go up that high and not think about what things must look like to Heavenly Father, and how different his perspective must be. The things that seem so important usually aren't. Or maybe this picture just reminded me of home. Lots of fluffy white snow and a crystal blue sky!

Boats and plantations

2011-05-29T22:51:00.000-06:00

This struck my curiosity as we drove past. So - how do the boats get up there?
How do they get back down?

We decided to head out and sight see. Here's a country lane.
Off to the right is the Dreyton plantation.
We drove through a couple of plantations, but in the end decided not to take any tours due to the lateness of the hour.

Check out the spanish moss on this cool tree!

I met a local woman named Mary Morgan while in South Carolina. She mentioned to me that all of her friends (southerners) refer to the Civil war as "The great waah of no-then agression" (you really have to say that with the correct southern accent to get the full impact).
Guess this sign sort of tells it like that too.

Another Ocean!

2011-05-29T22:41:00.000-06:00

We decided to spend a day exploring near the coast. We headed to Folly Beach, and watched someone fishing off the pier pull this fish in while we waited for lunch on the pier.

I know, enough with the pictures of food. This was my ALL time favorite food of the trip. It was a breakfast entree, but the waitress recommended it. Poached eggs with grits and a creamy mushroom spicy sauce served with corn fritters with tomato jam. It was SO amazing!

Our beach photos.

Unfortunately, after spending an hour or so at lunch on the pier, and after getting the kids some souvenirs, we headed out to the water. After about 10-15 minutes, we decided that beaches are just SO much more fun with our kids.
We decided to check out some other features of the area and headed out.