Provo River

 Four generations of men in my hubbies family.  From left to Right, Captain E, Uncle Taylor, Dr. J, Great Grandpa Wid, Grandpa Bob.  We took the opportunity to spend as much time as we could with family.  That meant we went to see Grandpa Wid and Grandma Jane.  When J's parents got divorced when he was three he lived with his grandparents and his mom for eight years until his mom married Bob.  Jane and Wid are some of the nicest, best people on earth.  It is hard to watch them age and know they might not be around forever and so we try to enjoy every second we can with them while they are still with us!

We also took the opportunity to go out to some family property that Bob's dad left to his kids when he died.  He and his siblings shared a piece of land bought by their parents and now Bob and his siblings share it as well.  It is basically just a place where people keep RVs but it is on the Provo River and it is beautiful.  My kids had so much fun shooting tubers as they passed by the camp and when that go slow a family water fight ensued. 

 They spent much of their time out on this log because it gave them superior distance on their shots.  Pretty much you couldn't pass this part of the river and not have my kids spray you. 

 Grandma and her girls!

 All three generations of men in this family enjoy spraying random people boating by. 

 When Cheetah has to be removed from the river!  The girl wouldn't have left unless forced. 

July 4th

We had to leave our house only July 1st but we weren't going to be able to move into our new places until the 10th.  Because of this we decided to stop in Utah to hang out with our families.  Luckily they didn't mind.  We were hoping to make it to Utah July 4th.  Forth of July in Utah is a big deal and we really didn't want to miss it.  Luckily we pulled into town at 3.  Grandpa Bob headed off for food and fireworks.  Uncle Rob and cousin Andy headed over as did aunt Niki.  The girls were excited to get out of the car and happy to see their cousin Andy. 

 

 I have to say July 4th is the most fun when you are married into a family of pyros.  Our first run these were the fireworks we bought.  Midway through the night this was deemed too few and two more firework runs were gone on.  Two other families in the cul-de-sac were shooting off as well and probably each had at least double this number, then one guy a few streets over was shooting off professional grade stuff.  It was awesome.  We didn't even have to leave home to have quite a show!

  Lighting things on fire...a family affair and yes we start them young!

 The kids loved lighting these smoke bombs off by themselves. 

 My younger girls really love their Uncle Ta.  Can you tell from this pic!

 We also lit plenty of stuff off once it got dark.  That is sort of the annoying thing about July 4th though.  It takes forever to get dark.  By the time we finally got the kids in bed it was probably eleven.  They were covered in soot and smoke, ice cream and root beer and totally hyped up.  Luckily we only had two mishaps.  One of the little kids stepped on a piece of ash.  Probably Cheetah although I can't really remember now but she is the one not wearing shoes in this pic so it was probably her.  Everyone else listened when I insisted they put shoes on.  Also grandpa accidentally set Taylor's shirt of fire.  Oops!  I'm surprised the kids next door shooting bottle rockets off their heads and out from between their legs didn't end up hurt but luckily everyone else was fine.

Playing Catch Up - Our last weeks in Indiana and the Drive

I'm so behind on the blog right now it almost feels like there is no point in even trying to catch up but here I go.  So one of the things I loved about my house was that we were only a 1/2 a mile away from a little branch library.  It was right in our neighborhood.  We could walk or bike there easily.  Honestly it was easier than getting to the kids school because there was a side walk the whole way.  This library was tiny but super cute and every summer my kids had a good time doing the summer reading program.  They had great prizes like tickets to the country and state fair, free bowling, and baseball tickets, tickets to the Children's Museum haunted house and then my favorite books.  They also had lots of cheap prizes like erasers, jelly beans, stamps, bath toys, finger flashlights extra.  I'm not going to even bother with having you guess which ones my kids preferred although there ultimate favorite this year were these Iwako puzzle erasers.  They collected every one they could find and even now my older kids have theirs displayed in their rooms.  Peach has to keep hers hidden because Cheetah has eaten all the ones she had and is looking for more to chew on.  I was a little concerned about doing the summer reading program this year since we were only going to be in the state for a month but I should have worried.  Three weeks in Peach and Cheetah had earned their full 600 points.  The forth week, right before we moved Captain E and Gigi (who I only let get points for books they had read to themselves) had completed the summer reading program as well.  Every kid who gets 600 points gets to put their name on the library walls.  By the end of the summer the walls will be completely covered but at this point in the summer this column was the only place with kids names.  Congrats kids on being some of the first ones done. 

While we are talking about books have I mentioned the Who Was series of books.  Here in our house we call them the Bobble Head Biographies.  I started picking these up while I was doing homeschooling but the kids like them enough that they now pick them up on their own.  They are awesome and my experience is while they might not go into all the bad details in someones life they don't candy coat everything either.  A great introduction to biographies for younger readers!

We only had four weeks of summer and then we packed our whole house up to move cross country.  Getting the house ready to sell was extremely stressful for me.  Dr. J and I redid the floor in our bathroom and also in the kitchen and bathroom downstairs.  We used those stick on vinyl tiles and grouted them.  People they looked amazing and it was totally a job that inexperienced DIYers could accomplish.  I don't know how well the floor will hold up long term but it looked so much better than before.  We also painted everything.  Cleaned our yard up, packed up a bunch of stuff and got rid of anything extra.  I can't tell you how many loads I took to Goodwill (It was a lot!) and how many clothes I gave away, but there was probably two months where every time I saw friends or went to church I saw clothes that my kids used to wear.  After all that work we put our house up on the market.  We went with a real estate agent who had sold two friends houses.  He gave us a deal where he only took 1.5%.  Add that to the buyers agent's cut and we were at 4.5%.  It seems like a lot but it has actually become pretty common for agents to split 6-9% off the house sale.  People it is nuts how much money is made on the sale of a house.  There is inspections, appraisals, title searches, closing cost (which as far as I can tell is money your bank makes to give you the loan).  Closing cost are like 3-5% and people I think they are insane.  I pay someone that much money to make out a loan who is going to make a ton of money off my in interest (I mean a ton) over the life of my loan.  Here is the thing that bothers me the most about that particular cost, banks make that when they make the loan and then lots of banks immediately sell off the loans they make.  So they get paid to make a loan and then don't have to cover the risk of the loan they made.  Of course the housing market bubble happened.  The incentivizing there is just too much.  But now I'm on a tangent I'd rather avoid.  So we put the house on the market.  We did it over a Holiday three day weekend.  Have no idea what we were thinking there.  No one came and looked over the holiday.  The day after the holiday though we had someone look.  Then the next day someone else.  The day after someone else and within the week our house had sold for full asking price.  People I couldn't even believe it.  Turned out our house was going to be gone exactly when we needed it to be.  My mother in law flew out to help me pack up the rest of the house.  My brother in law (who happens to be a plumbing apprentice now but at the time was a mover) flew out to help us pack the truck and drive it out and like that we were gone! 

 I had this grand plan of taking pictures of each state we went through but honestly that lasted one state.  Bye bye Indiana where I had my youngest daughter and spent the last four years of my life.  Bye bye Illinois where I had my first three children and spent eight years of my life.  You states have been good to us but I'm glad to be moving closer to family.






These are some of the only pics I got from the trip.  One night we stayed at a hotel where they were doing a car show.  We saw some awesome cars!   We also stopped at this weird truck stop where there was an arcade and a ton of weird alien costumes in glass.  The kids of course loved it!  For the most part the drive was uneventful.  I was lucky enough to have my mother in law with me.  I think this is the fourth time she has driven this drive with me.  Can we just say she is a great lady!  J and his brother Ta drove the truck.  So glad I didn't have to do that.  For the first two days they made pretty good time.  The last day when they hit the mountains things got pretty slow for them.  Luckily that day they had taken Captain E along.  It was super quiet in my van after that and apparently was super quiet in their van.  This family of guys just aren't big talkers but we had fun traveling together.  Each night we'd stop at a hotel with a pool and let the kids swim out the kinks while the adults sat in the hot tub.  People I highly recommend this for any long distance traveling. 

New Calling

I got a new calling yesterday.  I sort of knew it was coming.  When our neighbor the bishopric member came over and asked if he could give me a new calling I knew what is was going to be.  I taught a CTR class as a sub a few weeks ago.  They were waiting for the new teacher to be called.  Apparently they said no because my new calling...team teaching that same CTR 4 class with Dr. J.  The class is actually pretty nice...considering the age ;). I am in need of an attitude adjustment though.  Right now I'm pretty bummed.  It isn't that I mind primary.  I actually enjoy it, but primary is pretty much a death sentence when if comes to meeting people and after only making it to two relief society meetings in this ward I would really like to meet people.  Don't get me wrong, I'm happy we moved.  We are so much closer to family, the job is great, I can't look at my bank account and not smile but I am lonely. Really lonely. I had amazing friends in Indiana, church friends, gym friends, neighborhood friends, and my mops friends who honestly were like my family away from family. It is hard to replace that kind of companionship, and being shipped off to primary this early in the game just makes it a lot harder.

Jordan Reunion

Nine years ago Dr J and I spent a summer in Jordan.  Nine years people...Captain E was two, I was pregnant with Gigi, and that was the summer I started to blog.  How have I been doing this nine years and am not rich and famous :)  Back on track though that summer I was a tag along wife along with a whole slew of tag along wives. Three of us started blogs that summer and via blogs and Facebook have done a fairly good job of staying in contact.

Nancy and I were actually roommate along with our husbands and E those two months and are now living parallel lives. Well there was that two year period where she went to Egypt but besides that we are pretty much on track. We support our husbands who are forever in school with odd jobs and paper help and pretty much keeping up the home front while they study away. We occasionally get to travel. We are both Democrats...well I'm a democrat and she is a Canadian so that is pretty much the same thing ;). We both had preemies. We both do the stay at home mom thing. Sometimes when I'm having a really bad day or something ridiculous happened church wise or politically or I'm just bored because my husband is never home I will text her. She is pretty much always awake...except in the morning and I never sleep so we make a good pair. When I found out I was pregnant with my fifth she was the first person I paranoid texted. When I had a miscarriage two months later she was again the first person I texted. We've seen each other a handful of times in nine years. Our parents live in Utah and for awhile her husband was in school there and so occasionally we'd have a play date. Her family also knows me via the blog fairly well, in fact it was her mother in law who first told her when Cheetah was born premature and it was her mom and sister who teasingly said last November when I came out to see my family that they felt like we should get together.

Last month we not so teasingly finally did get together. Nancy and her kids were in town and Myrna planned a family reunion that she also kindly invited all of Nancy's friends to attend. We took the opportunity to stop by and say hi. It was great to see how much all the kids had grown. I got to hold her youngest Zoe for a bit...until she pooped and then I handed her back over to mom. I also got to meet finally almost all her siblings. The one of note is Josie because she is funny and cute and like a younger cooler versions of us. She has totally great stories about the Young Ambassadors and I'm totally bummed I didn't get to hear more because of family pics. Also we got to see Andrew and he a J immediately started in on poly sci and stats talk....of course. Myrna was also very nice. It was sort of funny though because she said I didn't sound anything like she'd imagine I'd sound. I still wish I knew what she thinks my voice should sound like :)

My second Jordan reunion of the year was with Bridget. Bridget is the slightly cooler more accomplished version of us. Nancy does it bug you that I said that or do you think that is fairly accurate? Ok, Nancy is cooler than me but i'm going to lump her with me to make myself feel better. Bridget's and my husband were actually roomates and got the same undergrad degree. Her husband finished school earlier then ours did and she just finished five years in the UAE. They just moved to Finland where they will be switching things up a bit and Bridget will take on a full time job teaching while Jeremy takes on the family responsibility because see while they were in the UAE and she was being a mom and was pregnant and had a new baby she completed a masters degree. So her part time job was actually teaching and she has great stories about princesses who take bubble baths everyday and woman who sew pillows as teacher appreciation gifts. She also does things like vacation in Thailand, run relays, keep a pregnancy a secret seven month so she can have the best surprise trip home ever, and oh yeah she got another part time job (if you can even call it that because it seemed like full time work) accompanying masters voice students and choirs the last two years. I'd probably totally hate her except she is so hard working and deserving.

I have not seen Bridget at all in nine years. Our parents don't live in the same places, she's spent a lot of time overseas, and when she did live here we lived on opposites sides of the country. We keep current on each others lives via blogs and Facebook. But this summer something weird happened...during the middle of her month long trip home I happened to move into a two between her and her husband's parents hometowns, so a week after I moved in she just happened to be driving by and stopped to have dinner at my house before they moved on. I was happy to see them, to be able to offer them a place to pee and eat and to get the skinny on a question I'd been dying to ask but they'd seemed to avoid clarifying on the blog.

It was fun to have my little mini reunions with my Jordan friends. I had no way of knowing nine years ago when I took that trip that I would be making friends I  would want to stay in contact with for the rest of my life. It was good to see you ladies!

So I Haven't Blogged In More Than a Month

 People who were paying attention would know that is because my family just underwent a monumental move for us.  We didn't have to sell everything we owed and move to another continent (you know who you are friend) but we did have to pack everything we own and move across country.  After 12 years of living in the midwest (8 years in Urbana, Illinois and 4 years in Indianapolis, Indiana) we finally had the opportunity to move back to the west.  We now live in Idaho.  Our third I state in a row although I'm fairly confident this will be our last.  Idaho was an ideal location for us.  It borders Utah the state that our parents and most of our siblings live in.  It also is a stopping point for my sister who lives in Washington and is much closer to my brother who lives in California, and more importantly it is in the west again.  Coming west again for me was like coming back home.  I've never lived in Idaho before but the mountains, the tumble weeds, the dry heat, the farming, the irrigation, these are things that are deeply ingrained into the background of all my childhood memories.  All of them.  With the exception of a short respite in Kansas as a child I spent almost all my life before moving to Urbana at the age of 22 either in Arizona or Utah.  The west is part of who I am and to return to it after all these years, well it just feels good.  It also is amazing to live so much closer to family.  I've lived here a month and I've already been out to see my sister.  She's coming this week and then I'm planning on heading down to see our parents next week.  This never used to happen when we lived in the midwest.  Every trip was at least two days of driving or almost 2000 dollars between plane tickets and parking fees. 

The job here is also awesome.  We moved to Idaho because Dr. J had finished his residency.  When we were looking for jobs our one requirement was closer to home and so every med/ped job in the west we would scout out.  There were a couple that looked interesting enough to apply to and they were all interested in J enough to want to interview him but when then job came up I insisted J call them right away.  It seemed perfect for what he wanted to do.  So far it has not been a disappointment.  It is what he wanted to be doing and almost more importantly everyone he works with is just super nice.  The perks at the hospital are great.  The money is great.  His boss is awesome.  His NP is a hoot and her husband is an excellent cook.  We are very happy to be here and unless something changes drastically are glad to make Idaho our forever home.   

 This was at a work meeting at J's boss's house.  He lives on 60+ acres and has a small family farm.  They had their meeting and then family was invited for a BBQ.  The kids loved being on all this farm land and one of the highlights of the night was when Richard (this is the boss) brought out tons of gravel for the kids to look through...gravel containing uncut sapphires.  My kids now think he is the coolest things since Grandma Sycamore Bread.  He also happens to have an oil saw...so you know all those uncut geodes and fire eggs we have.  Soon enough they will be cut! 

 First day in our rental house.  Love the set up, love the location, not loving the olive green color or the fact that the yard is sort of a disaster.  The first indication of this was the plums that are everywhere.  I don't know if you guys know this about me but I always thought I wanted fruit trees at my house.  Now I'm not so sure.  These plums were everywhere and every day I'd make the kids go out and pick up plums with me.  It was a daunting task and honestly there were just way too many to ever eat and I had zero interest in plum jelly or especially in making plum jelly right after I moved into my house.  No thank you.  This particular day I'd combined three of our grocery sacks into a white garbage bag and then into a heavy black one.  Imagine my surprise when the two garbage bags broke and plums went everywhere.  It looked like I had murdered someone and I may have screamed my dismay a little.  Luckily I was able to get them all cleaned up again.  This has prompted me though to get some professional help on the rest of the yard.  Everything is so overgrown and the lawn is full of thistles.  After three weeks of trying to battle it on my own I finally called a professional.