Life

I realize that I really haven't been keeping up with posts for the blog. Which is kind of sad since I do use this as our family journal. Life has been coming so fast lately. I leave for work early and come home late. By the time dinner is made, the kitchen cleaned up, and I've played with the kids it is time to put the kids to bed. Then its a quick check of my personal email and off to bed to start over the next day. There are a few things that I would like to document though.

1. My living room is as done as its going to get for now. Just in time for me to decorate for Christmas. :) I will post a couple of pictures as soon as I get the pictures off my camera. :) Now for the other rooms in my house.... No money though so they will have to wait awhile. :) I did purchase the material I need to mostly finish my bedroom. Hopefully I will have time over Christmas break to do some sewing. :)

2. Trip to Canada. We did a quick run up to Alberta and back the weekend of the 10-11. We needed to import the car so we drove 8 hours, stayed the night with Naomi and then drove home the next morning. Due to a few snowstorms and trouble at the border it took 10 hours to get home. Let's just say I am glad that was the last brush I should have to have with customs and immigration for awhile. I'm tired of the good cop/bad cop routine. We loved visiting with Naomi. The kids absolutely loved seeing her. We went swimming that night which was lots of fun. Even though Collin was determined to drown himself. So much fun. We met Naomi's boyfriend who was extremely nice. Landon loved Southern Alberta and wondered why we didn't move there earlier into our 7 years in Canada. I told him he would like it but he was determined to stay on the coast. :) The drive through Montana was fantastic. It is gorgeous in Northern Montana.

3. We have almost finalized everything for the purchase of our house. I can't believe how many things have gone wrong. Not to mention how painful financially it is to pay almost $300 more a month in rent than what our mortgage will be. Yikes! We hope to everything done by the end of the month. Just a few more wrinkles to iron out.

4. My sister, my life saver. I don't know if I would have survived the previous three months without my sister and her family. They have helped us out so many times. I keep asking how I can help her but she can't seem to think of anything. Seriously a SAINT!

5. Making new friends. In an earlier post I lamented about how I haven't made any friends and how sad I was. Well I woke up and decided that it was my attitude that stunk and to get over it. Very quickly things began to change. Instead of assuming that everyone had their own friends and that they weren't looking for new ones I just assumed everyone would love to meet me. I know how conceited. :) We have made some strides to creating some really great friends. We were invited to the home of our home teacher (who actually is the grandson of a missionary who served in Powell River when I was a teenager) to hang out with his family and another family in our ward. Emily had someone her age to play with and same with Collin. The older kids looked after the younger kids downstairs and the adults played about 12 hands of Scum. Jared and Elisabeth Stein are absolutely wonderful people. We had a blast and suddenly realized it was almost 10 pm and we needed to get the kids to bed. That was Saturday, November 6th. On Sunday I was chatting with our fabulous ward mission leader about his kids. His beautiful (insert beautiful and gorgeous so I am instantly intimidated) wife was standing across the room. Now he is good looking as well but he is so outgoing I am not intimidated. Beautiful people always intimidate me. :) I decided to get over it and went over and introduced myself. I told her that I loved her jean skirt which got us talking. I mentioned I was heading into choir and she said that she has always wanted to sing in a choir for the Christmas program. I invited her to come in with me since she mentioned she sang alto. We chatted between songs and at the end of the practice she asked if it would be okay if they invited us over for dinner. And they did! We went over Thursday night for dinner at Quinn and Suzanne Dance's house and they also invited another couple. Their daughter Maddy is one month younger than Emily and their son Bodie is a year older than Collin. We had a wonderful time and stayed until 11pm. They are a fabulous couple. I found out that Suzanne was family friends with my friend Taggart from USU. She went to high school with his little sister. I was invited out to another lady in our ward for a girls games night where you can buy the games. (Kind of like a Mary Kay party but with games.) And then Saturday we had Alicia and Blake over. I really feel like we have become a part of the ward and it feels really nice. We've invited other to our house but they have had to cancel for various reasons. I look forward to getting to know others.

Wow this post has gotten long! There is just so much going on and so much to be thankful for!