Destin

Okay, so I am moving to Destin, Florida!

I always say that after a fun vacation, but this place was beautiful. White sandy beaches, BLUE crystal clear water. Like nothing I've seen, and I've seen some beaches. Supposed to go to Hawaii with the Builder's Club in January,and I'll tell you how those compare when I get back.

I also LOVED driving through Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee, with Alabama being the most beautiful from the interstate. Who needs Colorado or California with Alabama and Florida within reach?

Lee and I are so taking the kids down soon I hope. Rates keep getting cheaper, tourist season is over, and we drove my gas hog suv down and back and it was less than the cost of one ticket. You can drive there in one day. I love all the cool things Heavenly Father made for us to enjoy.

Have an appointment at Sylvan learning center to see if they can help me with my test taking skills, and thank you to Esther for her faith and support in me. Makes me smile.

I will post pictures as soon as Laurie gets them together. All for now.
Love y'all.

From Florida

I have been here for two days and must leave tomorrow. So sucks. Laurie, Heidi and I are having an awesome time. We are all burnt and exhausted, but having a great time. We ate crab omelets on the beach. Had guacamole made at our table as we watched, they cooked for me (spring rolls, salmon pastry puffs, fondue, sticky rice with mango. Yum Yum.

I have gotten a lot more comfortable with the ocean since I have been here. We are mostly on a sandbar so I feel mostly safe from the sharks. We rented a wave runner today and we all 3 rode it. It was so fun. Jerky, but fun. Guys on a jet ski out by us were totally flirting. Weird I tell you.

There has been lots of good conversation and lots of good food and it's great to have good girlfriends. Tomorrow we start the drive home, and that will be really fun, too. Have to figure out how to eat up our food though. Oh yeah, and we went on a dolphin cruise which was way lame until we got to actually see dolphins and they were so close we could almost touch them. All for now. Pray for our safe return.

Tests and Stuff

Well, not doing so hot in my classes. Gotta study a lot more. At least on my chemistry test I know I just screwed up my fractions (got them upside down). Microbiology is another story. He told us in class there was a chart of people in the back of one of the chapters, but that it was'nt necessary to write them all down in our notes, but they were on the test. Probably 8-9 of the questions on the test were not covered until the 20 minutes before we took the test that evening. It is very frustrating because you have a hundred or so pages of text you have to memorize now, because he admits he doesn't talk about all of it in class. Wish me luck. I may be dropping micro if it doesn't get better.

That said, I do hate details, am a big picture person, analyzer as you all know. So I might look into hospital administration some more.

Collin starts his preschool today. that will be really exciting for him. Also, I think I have decided on a vehicle, the Honda CRV.

On Vensdee (Wednesday)

So is it weird that while my microbiology teacher is talking I am reminded of the King of the Fusas from Madagascar? You know, the one who sings "I like to move it move it" and calls the animals from the Zoo "pansies". Maybe it just make class more entertaining.

Well, I have had my first Chem test and tomorrow I have my first Micro test. Wish me luck.

Got to watch Caleb play a little of his game tonight. He is on a team with really skilled kids.

Collin is ORNERY AS EVER. DUMPED gatorade all over the inside of Lee's truck today-on purpose. Wiped Chip fingers on my walls and carpet. Crunch chips on the floor-on purpose. Ugh!

Have another friend suffering from breast cancer to keep in my prayers. Lost a friend a few weeks ago to breast cancer. Another dear friend had to get a breast biopsy friday. Ugh!

I get to write an article for the paper on behalf of the Home Builder's Association about fire sprinklers. (I am excited about it)

All for now.

Class, Work, Kids, Family

Seems like everything is a checklist lately. HOWEVER, I have been really focusing on reading my scriptures in the morning. It has made MONUMENTAL difference, down to way more patience with my kids. I am reading Alma, who is supposed to be one of the "easy" ones to read, so we'll see what happens next. So, even though everything is a checklist, at least I am able to make a "check" by most things on my list almost every day.

It IS a little weird right now, though, I must say. Caleb leaves with Daddy at 7:30 and I leave for class (monday through friday) before he gets home from school. On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday night I am done at 7:30pm and on Tuesday and Thursday not till 10 pm! Ugh! I have SO much studying to do of late, but I REALLY enjoy the challenge and learning new stuff. :)

Caleb has his first game of "coach-pitch" tonight. And, I am so bummed I won't get to see ANY of it. SUCKS. But, next semester it shouldn't be so bad. Sacrifices I guess, huh? At any rate, he has games sometimes tues thurs, sometimes tues wed, so I WILL get to part of some of his games, which is better than nothing. Lee said he was throwing a football around with Caleb last night and Caleb can HURL a football. Lee said he "stepped it out" and Caleb was throwing it 30 FEET!! I am so glad he is athletic and artsy I am just praying that he doesn't starve as an adult!!

Collin is going through a rough patch. He has been in a bad mood for like, a month. I don't know what to do for him except comfort him lots. I think he hit his terrible twos way late!

Lee stays challenged being "Mr. Mom" 5 nights a week. The kids are enjoying it, and they all just have to live through 7 more weeks, and then things will go sort of back to normal a little bit.

I am looking at getting a different vehicle. Originally I wanted a van to haul more people, then I decided gas mileage was an issue and I really want to stay in a vehicle under warranty. SO, I have completely done a 180 and decided a camry or scion might be the way to go? 33 miles to the gallon on the highway. Whereas right now I get almost 18. It is a little strange to think of driving a car again just because of turning being different and stuff. Anyway, off to start my day!

OOPS!

Okay, so I made a blog in the wee hours of the morning, and I went to check on it a few minutes ago and it didn't come up so then I re-wrote and now low and behold there is a redundant blog. I think I will leave them. Why not?

Lost my Kitty Cat

My cat is missing. She is about 10 years old and thinks she is a dog. At my last house, she would go out for a week at a time. We have been in our new house about 8 weeks and knew we would have a battle with keeping her in the house. Needless to say, she finally got out and has been missing about 5 days. I pray she comes back to us. She used to move around a lot at night, but there are so many huge machines and loud noises in my subdivision during the day that I don't think she even feels comfortable moving around at night. Wish me luck.

We have hired a kid I teach sunday school to every week as a laborer. A touch weird, but whatever works i gues..

Have some homeowners who are MIA. Need their input on decisions on their house and can't locate them. They are all in pretty bad health so I hope nothing REALLY bad happened.

Caleb seems to like 1st grade, although I think he is really just interested in being less bored and being surrounded by kids his age.

Bob went back to California yesterday and he and Pat will be back here September 13th with part of a semi load of stuff.

My Mom has recently been diagnosed with diabetis and has supposedly ceased eating sugar although she mysteriously hasn't lost any weight yet.

Looking forward to my "girls trip" to Destin, FL in a few weeks, Heaven knows I NEED A BREAK!! And lots of time with good girlfriends. Wish you all could come with me!

Microbiology is very interesting but my Indian teach from new Zealand is difficult to understand sometimes. Chemistry is sort of interesting but WAY slow and sometimes a bit confusion. I feel like he is hard to hear sometimes, as though someone is turning the volume up and down constantly.

Kids have been getting out of school early for the last 3 days due to heat. That is always quite difficult to deal with since it throws such a monkey wrench in my day.

More Later.

Lost Cat

I lost my kitty! My Zoe always wanted to get outside and we have had a hard time keeping her in the house. We have been at the new place since June 1st and she has finally gotten away from me. I look around for her late at night outside because I think she will feel more comfortable coming to me under the cover of night. She used to take off for a week at a time at our last house, but I don't know for sure now. Pray that she comes back to me. I'm not ready to be without her yet.

Checked on trading in my 4runner for a van today. Still waiting for a better negotiation from them. If I don't get one, I 'll keep what I have. Got to shop when you don't have to have it.

Microbiology has been quite humbling. Identification of things thru a microscope is interesting. I am enjoying learning things about the medical industry, and my Chemistry class actually lends itself to usefulness in Microbiology already. Got a member from the Highlands Ward in my Micro class. She is from Africa and our teacher is from New Zealand. Hope she can understand him better than I can.

Boys are doing okay. Caleb is back to school and I hardly see him. He is gone all day and I am gone every night at school. Don't see Collin much either, but at least most days I get to see him for about 4 hours. He is speaking much more clearly now and getting thinner.

All for now.

Back to Blogging!

Well, it's been quite a while since I've blogged. Thank you Katrina, for sparking my interest in it again. Let's see, a quite update would be: I start Chemistry class tonight, Microbiology tomorrow night. Caleb starts 1st grade tomorrow. Collin has a staff infection in his ear. The dogs are home from Grandmas. My shower doors get installed on wednesday. We listed our spec house for lease and have had more nibbles. Am looking at getting a Toyota Sienna soon, or maybe a hybrid Highlander. Lot's more to tell you, but I'll have to do it later. Till then!

I found her!

I found my Grandma's Grandma today. An Indian woman who shot her third husband when he came at her with a knife. My Grandma lived with her for a while. Got lots of cool stories. My Grandma was really excited to hear about it.

AND, up my Dad's line he has a cousin who has searched our Adam's line back to m o r m o n s. Funny thing is this relative doesn't know we are mormon. Her research stopped at the mormons 'cuz she didn't want to have to go through Salt Lake. Hmmmm

Grandpa slips away mentally a little more every day. Knew it was coming, still hard to watch. NO ONE is Lee's family is speaking. My Dad is torn apart 'cuz his girlfried of 2 years just broke up with him in the most inconsiderate way.

I dropped my Microbiology class. It made me sick to do it since I worked so hard to get signed up for it, but I would have missed every single one of Caleb's games this summer, and Lee would have only been able to see one game a week. They are only little once, though, and so Caleb needs to play ball now. Lee will have a marvelous effect on the scouts, so my micro class can wait a little longer. Heck, it's been 10 years, what's a little more time, right?

I have to say that geneology work has always been an interest of mine but with the death in Dad's family and Lee's Grandpa getting to the point that he can't communicate, I have felt a real push to get some more of this stuff done. To say I was excited that I found her today would be quite the understatement. Some Indian in my history would explain some things, I will go into that more later. Miss y'all. Think of you more often than I call you, but I do think of you.

Too Tired To Sleep

Ever been too tired to sleep? I am. It is quite frustrating. I am up at Mom's, though, so whatever sleep I can't get tonight I will work on tommorrow. It is probably just very difficult for me to unwind with everything that's going on.

We moved everything out of our old place. It took a really long time and all Lee had to get was the washer, dryer, and take the boys' beds apart, and he lent me Matt from his crew to help me load a UHaul truck. Other than that, I packed, painted, everything all by myself. The girls who move in after me are already chomping at the bit to move in, and the guy turning over the house for my landlord is grumpy 'cuz he feels like he is being rushed.

Our new house is coming right along. We will call for an inspection on monday morning. Dad and Lee have been working really hard on the handrail that is made of metal and glass. Picked up my tempored glass for the deck today, too. Most of the appliances are set. Painters will finish up this weekend. Our quartz countertops don't come in until June 14th! Our tub surround will be right behind that, and our shower doors are several weeks out also, so we'll be using the boys' shower for a while, which is fine, at least we'll be in our new house. The yard looks incredible. We decided to sod the entire thing and we have a sprinkler system, and the trees are all mulched, now I just have to plant flowers.

I start microbiology monday night. Not sure how that's gonna work with monday and wednesday night classes when lee has scouts on wednesday nights and Caleb is playing summer ball on monday and wednesdays. The didn't have enough kids to pick different game days, so for the summer our only choice is mondays and wednesdays.

I am missing my office manager, Lita, so much right now I cannot stand it. I knew it would be tough. She is in Brazil renewing her dual citizenship and won't be back till the end of June. Sob. Doug leaves next week, our busiest week ever, for Germany for 2 weeks. Don't get me wrong, he REALLY deserves a vacation, but the timing is awful.

What else? Mom bought a new red truck, got a new brown puppy. Stephanie's bday is tomorrow. Oh, and I am missing all of you.

Status

They are operating on grandpa today. They moved his hip surgery up. Bob had to fly in at the last minute because the hospital said it would be best if he were here before the surgery.

umm

Don't even know how to start this one. Grandpa went back into the hospital yesterday morning when he was found again incapacitated and having lost control of himself. He apparantly has some internal bleeding due to either stomach ulcers or arterial ulcers. He broke his hip, but they can't fix that till they fix the bleeding. When they brought him in his heart rate was 180 beats a minute. He either was just walking and fell and broke his hip (his hips were weakened because of the cancer in his bones); or he got light headed from such high blood pressure and fell and broke his hip.

Doctor says he will need more than a year of round the clock care. Grandpa is refusing to take pain medicine. Doesn't know where he is or what's going on, but still remembers who he is. This just sucks. My friend lost her sister in law sunday, another friend lost her mother whom she had cared for for the last 20 years in her home. This defines depressing.

Rob and Tiffany are looking at moving into one of Newt's places so they haven't been living with grandpa for a while which means nobody really knows how long he laid there on the floor in pain with no help. And I can do nothing as I am just the in-law. Good lesson in patience, I guess, huh?

A little more to pack, but mostly ready to get moved. These days are the strangest days. Things start to look up for the business and family trouble rears its ugly head. At least my little family is healthy and happy. How I miss my friends.

OVERLOAD

I am ready to drop for the day. Got most of the kitchen packed. Next will be nearly all of our clothes. Then I'm gonna just start throwing stuff in boxes :)

Vanities for our bathrooms came in today. Painters will need a full week to finish. Lots more to do.

Manuscript

Recently there was a death on my Dad's side of the family. I have all his family history stuff so he asked me to look for it. Of course, I am moving so I asked him to give me some time. I very plainly found the box, though, as I emptied a closet.

And there it is. The manuscript of my Great Grandmother who worked for the OSS? I guess that what became the CIA?? She wrote a book about how physics proves the bible to be true. It was written during the time of McCarthyism. I am excited to find it, thought I haven't had time to read it yet.

I am not sure we'll be in our house by June 1st. It is officially a race against time. Pray for us!

Miss y'all!

Everything and Nothing

When you are always chasing your tale, doing everything is the same as doing nothing. There's a line in "The Incredibles" movie that says something like we all want to be super but if everyone were super, no one would be.

So here's my nothing and everything. Lee and Caleb just left for a father and son campout tonight. Collin is at Grandmas. I just had an hour and a half session of reflexology and now am back to work at 5:40 on a friday night.

Went to a class about patriarchal blessings last night by the old stake patriarch, John Reid. That was very cool as ever. Went to lunch with the "Lunch Bunch", just a group of ladies from relief society who eat lunch together every friday.

Got re-ended a couple nights ago then the guy took off. He was mad that I didn't take off once the light was green, so he threatened to hit me, and then he did hit me. And then he took off . . . . so I chased him. Got his plate number, make model. He knew I was following him so he drove pretty crazy then finally pulled over. He tried to get me to get out of the vehicle, but of course I would not with 2 kids in the car. He was like 6 foot 6 or something crazy. Cops can't find him 'cuz his plates aren't coming up in the system, which tells the cop it's a new car and the plate number has not been processed yet. He will be arrested for hit and run and if the cop things he did it out of malice, he will be charged with assault.

House is coming along. We are really down to crunch time. I am just staying out of the way. Work is picking up, too so heaven knows I am buried at the office.

I think that the lady we hired last week to take my spot can't really think on her feet so I'm not sure how long she'll be with us. Off to work I go!

Routines

Right now I feel like my routine is so blah! However, I know that when my kids are too busy for me in the near future, I will miss all the time they spent ordering me around (I mean, needing my help) in the morning.

So, I get up. Take a shower. Get dressed. Do makeup. Start hair. Get snacks and juice ready for the boys when they wake up. Wake the boys up (usually Collin is already up by this time). Lay their clothes out for them to get dressed. Tell Caleb repeatedly to brush his hair, his teeth, and get his shoes on. Finish my hair. Put the kids in the car. Leave for Caleb's school.

There is also lots of repeated vacuuming every day, and with us moving soon the vacuum just stays out. I thought I had things pretty well organized before the last time we moved, but am finding that I didn't. So, I am sorting, consolidating, and my favorite way to pack is to THROW THINGS AWAY. I am the kind of packer who thinks, do I have to have it? No? Trash! I used to be the, I may use this some day so I better keep it kind of packer. No more. I move way too much for that.

The kids are upset about me packing up their toys. Now I just wait till they leave them out in the living room, and then put them in the box in the garage. They haven't noticed much missing yet and I have already packed most of it. Collin keeps wondering where all his train track went, though.

There are mexicans down the street from us that are framing a house and they give me the creepy crawlies! They just STARE when they drive by. I was unloading boxes yesterday into the garage, and finally decided to just leave. It is a nice neighborhood, or at least it will be after the house down the street is framed :)

All for now, back to packing and making sure idget is asleep.

A light at the end of the tunnel . . .

Well, I can see that little light at the end of the tunnel. 3 more classes of anatomy and I am done with that, then on to microbiology. Lots of us are making that migration so it will be nice to have about 5 people that I know in that class.

Caleb and I have been playing catch a lot lately so he can practice, and because I really enjoy it. The weather has been so nice here I just leave the doors and windows open all day and the dogs and kids come and go as they please (to the fenced in back yard, not the street!) I love this time of year.

Am signing Caleb up for summer school. I always thought it was horrible of parents to do that, but Caleb will be bored out of his skull if he doesn't have something scheduled to do with his peers for at least a little while this summer.

My baby will be 3 years old in less than 4 months. That is really depressing, but I am starting to look forward to doing more active things with the kids 'cuz they can both keep up better and they both get such a kick out of doing things (especially outside).

Lee starts setting our doors tomorrow. Someone looked at our spec house very seriously today and we are hoping they put an offer down NOW. Lee has lots of work coming up, so that has been turning around for us. It allows me to enjoy working with him a little more since I am in charge of the financial reports and stuff.

After this house is built I am so ready to start investing. I can't wait. I feel really old to have not started it yet, but better late than never, right?

Miss Y'all

Rear Elevation and stuff

So, this is the back of our house. See, I told you. COOL isn't it? I LOVE LOVE LOVE all the windows in the house, but of course, I wish there were still more. There is a deck in the middle that you can enter from the master bedroom or the kitchen. The screened in porch is on the right side, which walks straight out from the kitchen.

So, these walls have only been primed. The walls will be a dark purpely color when it's all over with and the kitchen will be a very light gray. This is the see=through fireplace from the great room.

Fireplace from the kitchen side. I love this bamboo! It's really dusty right now, but I will get a picture of it up when it is all cleaned up and shiny!

This is a tiny bit of my screened in porch.

Back to my studies!