Farewell Old Friend and Companion

14 1/2 years ago, my wonderful, dedicated Phys. ed. teacher, Mr. Craven came to my wedding reception. He and probably 13 other people gave us a crock pot. There were many choices, colors, and styles. I kept his... not cuz it was the prettiest, not cuz it was the fanciest.. I picked his because it was from him! Mr Craven means a lot to me... he was, and is a wonderful man. But... it is time to say good bye to the crock pot. After nearly 15 years of service, she still works. Her knob falls off and has been lost. It was melted once, but still works. I don't use my crock ALL the time, but frequently enough to notice that our family has outgrown her 4 quart capacity. She just doesn't hold enough chow for all my hungry mouths. (Don't tell her, but she STINKS at transporting too.) I tried to take some soup somewhere once... not good. And so, farewell old friend and faithful cooking companion. May you go on to serve another cute little family.
WELCOME TO THE FAMILY:
BERTHA (named for not only her older heritage, but her mass capacity.) *sorry if your name is Bertha and you read my blog*

...6 quarts

...low, high, and WARM settings.

...A seal, and snap down lid

...A little spot to slide in your place card that indicates what is inside (great for that chili cook off)

...And even came with a spoon that fits right in the spoon rest on the lid.

Her first day on the job will be Sunday, when she will cook up some pulled pork for our family and our dear friends the Fullwoods who will dine with us from England. :-) We are all excited... including Bertha.

Speed Blogging Part deux

So another update of my speed blog, aka facebook... for all my non facebooking pals, here's what you missed.. for all that FB. Carry on.... skip this one, you know all the news. :-)

Christie Cook Wall...

June 16.... just got a move date.... must be in TN by July 6th to get our stuff.

17.... s heart is racing.... chest is heavy... On the computer trying to forget. The truck is scheduled and now... Im feeling the pressure... this is really happening.

18...had her brows done.. and an awesome face massage from Scarlet, and now, I can take on the world. :-)

...sewed a new zipper in her formal for graduation.

....has 8 children in her house at 9 pm. Must be summer.

....sewed herself the cutest apron today... yes, with the 8 kids in the house. LOL!! what a day.

22...s taking the crew to the pool. Gotta love all the prep work, but totally worth it!!

..."This snake is orange...and it is so pretty, and the girl frowed it like this, and she said, I don't fink it's pretty. and so she went eww and frowed it like this." Katie sang this little song to her plastic snake. :-)

...is part lobster. Remember Sunscrean is your friend

...can't find the remote. There goes my sleep in. Dang!!!

23...termites check, moving est. check, HVAC guy... on his way, tree guy.. @4. Almost done

...my arm just flung out there and knocked it into the sink... then it went pop!" Liza Wall.... (Breaking my vase)

24 ...is trying to be patient with children who are getting very cranky about the move, they don't know that's why they're cranky, but Im pretty sure that is why

...is wishing she'd have gone ahead and got the cheese cake last night, so that I could have some tonight. :-( Bummer

25 ... can't believe that ARS tried to rip me off again!!! (They installed a fan that was too big for my unit!)

...$900! Wow... the equivalent of 2 packs a day? NO WAY! (cost of Radon and what the guy told me the damage it was causing to our lungs.)

...Finally has all 6 kids asleep!! all by midnight.. that must be a record!

26...Got a new hair cut and color. Loving it!

27...wants to crawl under a rock and hide from everything.

...is wondering if Dogs act out when things are changing, like kids do? He is making me nuts!

28...is so glad to have her hubby home after 4 days away at board review course

...is thinking there are WAY TOO many good byes. :-(

29...Can't believe there's only 2 days left. Wow I better get going...

...is already crying. It's gonna be a LONG week

30...really should be sleeping

...s resting heart rate is 78 , woah

...HE IS DONE!!! IT IS DONE!!! AND OFF WE GO!! 15 years.... now it's my turn! :-)

JULY 1 ...this is it. Good bye MD

4....bummed internet from the kind neighbors here in TN. We are safe and sound and loving all the space. Kids already have a trampoline and I've soaked in my garden tub. MMMM

5...Tennessee has chosen to do my hair it's own way... I straighten it, it curls it.

6...just watched Liza stumble out of bed and onto the Trampoline. :-) Perfect.

6.. just saw horses clip clopping around our little development. Again.... perfect. (humm, till they poop in front of my drive way)

7...truck is here, now my work starts. It's fun to see the house become ours with all our stuff.

...is too old for the trampoline :-( My Legs ache, luckily a good jetted tub and a few Tylenol took care of it

8...needs to take a brake from the boxes. MAN we have a LOT of CRAP!!

9..Back to work. I think I am about 1/2 way through. Once I get this done, i feel like I could focus on the closing of the house in MD.

...last night I went to bed at 3:30, night before that 2:30, night before that 1:30. It's 10:15 and I am off to bed.... Man, I'm just not as young as I used to be! :-) Night all.

10...is back at it.

...UH, too much stuffs.. please pass the Garbage bags!

...Oh she SO DID NOT dump that whole bottle of windex down my brand new stairs!!!! (That was Liza)

...Kitchen: Check! Kids rooms (3) Check! Great room... here I come!

11...needs to blog.... after the great room and grocery shopping and lunch and dinner. Then i shall

blog. :-)

... saw a girl at the commissary with a Tattoo of the "TWILIGHT" logo plastered all across her chest! REALLY?!?!

12...took the day off... I needed that. Church, dinner with new friends chillax with my hunny to watch a show. We won't talk about tomorrow.

13...Is sad today... missing Maryland..... realizing that the Maryland chapter is over. It's kind of like reading the "meadow scene", when it's over you sigh, and then put the book down. But I can't go back and do it again. :-(

...IS MOTIVATED! Thanks H! (plan was in the works to go see Heather and Don)

....is very excited to go and mend a bridge tomorrow. :-) So looking forward to it!

16...had a great time.. glad to be home and NOT in charge of kids for a few minutes.

17...is avoiding..... I am going to have to do it eventually. Uh... here we go, gotta sort through that last bunch of junk today

...needs someone who has cigular/AT&T as a cel phone carrier. I am in phone with drawls, and no minutes left... Any takers?

...needs something yummy.

18...got ice cream at Wal mart and DIDN'T even eat it! WOW!

...is it seriously saturday?!?! Where did that week go!?!?

... Just realized that I need a notary to do this TODAY!! Yipes (signing house closing papers)

...missed the Fed Ex pick up... :-( Now what's for dinner? Gotta love days like this

19...wanted a girls night... ended up hanging out with Rosie... She's a little quite, was looking for a little more spunk then that. :-) but I'm not complaining.

...How can the whole day be gone by and I got so little done?!?!

20...Settlement on MD house today! Boy will that feel good when it's all done.

...dinner is made and waiting to be cooked. Oh, and our house is sold. :-)

21...is up! Why... cuz this is when stuff gets done! (2am)

...is worried about the 'dog hater" at the end of the street. Poor guy is surrounded by dogs. 6 dogs live all around him. He is getting kind of cranky.

22...s husband just called a $27,000.00 plane a bargain. Where has he been the past 15 years?? not watching me!

...Misses Jeri..... it's been 3 weeks, I didn't die you know?

...IS DONE!!!! All the boxes are unpacked and rooms are vacuumed and even the storage space is organized. YIPEE!!!!

23...has got to get to a Gymboree before my Gym bucks expire on the 25th.

...wasted the morning loading cardboard boxes into the van, only to find out that the dump/recycling is closed on Thursdays!

...why do they call it "stainless steel?" Really, it should be "stainful steel". These things are annoying!

24...Better get working on her talk that she is supposed to give in 36 hours. :-) Oh dear, it's worse when I say it like that. HUMPH!

25...Is DONE her talk.

26...talk went well. Happy to have that done. Now for my sunday nap :-)

27 ...Is happy that the neighbor who i am "sharing" internet with has gone to work so that I can have a faster connection again.

28...needs an interior decorator.

...is listening to 3 of 4 play rock band...LOL I can't even tell what song it is supposed to be. Too Funny

...stupid cable company..... now they're saying Thursday!!!!! ARE YOU KIDDING ME. And they were saying monday till I threw a little fit. GRRRR

...misses family and friends today. :-(

And there you have it 6 weeks of thoughts that ran through my head that I randomly chose to share with the world. LOL!! Hey, you know, it's like a journal right?

Getting a few things done

Today I needed to get a few errands done. Guess who is sick of errands?
Yup. Poor kids. So this morning when I had to go call the dr's office to get them to send me a fax so that I could copy the fax, and sign the release and fax it back, so that they could fax my kids shot records to the army, so that I could put the kids in school, Liza opted out... She whined that she didn't want to come. I figured, she's nearly 11, she can stay home while Brent studies. We made a few pit stops while on our errands. She DIDN'T like that she missed the pit stops.
First of all, for some reason, the Kinkos near our house offers the BEST customer service on the planet, and this includes a little snack on your way out. Yup, both times I've been there, they've had little pre wrapped hostess products. This time all 3 of the little ones got a package of "zebra cakes". (2 cakes! each!) They were thrilled beyond words. We then drove out to the post to pick up the paper work that we were looking for. We found a lovely red/white/blue playground that the kids loved, while we waited for the lady in MD to get off lunch and send our fax. Then we ran over to hospital/clinic, to pick up our special forms. We waited an hour there too, but the kids were so good in the waiting room. (Shark Boy and Lava Girl on the TV didn't hurt either.) Then we went out in pursuit of a "Splash Park" that we had heard about. After asking only 2 people for directions we found it.
This is 1/2 of the park that is in front of the splash park. (WOW EH!?!?!)
This is the splash park. I guess 'they' have to do SOMETHING nice for all these little buggers who's daddies are active duty. It sure was a great day reaping the benefits of being Army. (Even if I did wait in a waiting room for 2 1/2 hours total to get 3 papers filled out.)
Good times. We will be going back for sure!!! It was SO incredibly fun!
I worried tho, as it didn't smell of chorine... Humm were they really pumping fresh water through that thing, or were they recycling water w/o cleaning it? I don't know.. But I tried not to think about it.
After the long day of playing. We went to "taco bell" for some lunch and headed home.

Tonight for Family Home Evening I did a little thing that Jeri and Christina told me about. Apparently credit goes to Amy Perish on this one... but the idea is... there are two families, the Rock family and the Feather family. The rock family treats each other nice and does good things, the feather family is unkind and makes back choices. Then when adversity strikes (a hair dryer) You get to see what happens to the families. The poor Feather Family ends up scattered all over the floor, no where near each other.... the rock family stays put. You get the picture anyway. So it was good, the kids liked it. And now I can say "ooh that sounds like a feather" and they change how they are acting. We'll see how long it lasts eh? :-)

... but it all worked out

I woke this morning with a list of things that I wanted to get done

#1: Get all the boxes out of the house

#2: Schedule trip to Dolly wood

#3: Get to the mall in Nashville to spend my gymboree bucks.

#1, Packed the van full of boxes. It was nice and toasty outside and many flies got in the house as I loaded back and forth. Took me quite some time, as the kids were all playing outside at the same time. Mean while the dog barking in his crate because he is no longer aloud to run about (we have a grumpy neighbor). I call my friend here in the ward who told me about the landfill/ recycle spot, and make sure that I understood her directions right. She reminded me that they aren't open on Tuesdays and Thursdays. OH! Today is thursday... FABULOUS! Unload the van in order to do #3.

#2, Call Dollywood, ask about scheduling a package deal w/ military discount. Sorry for you, only do discount at the gates. No luck. Now I need to look into things and see what I can set up on my own.

#3. About 11:30, all else is done and I head into Nashville (45 minute drive away) to go to a mall with a Gymboree. Of course, I get in the car with my goal in sight, not even realizing that we are moments from lunch time.... $25 on lunch @ the mall. Pass a shammy sales man... humm... will those clean my stainless steal appliances?? $20 on shammies. Caught by the nail stamp lady.... she offered Liza a nail stamp... sneeky sneek. You know me and nails..... $30 for nails. Oh yeah, we are really low on hand soap... $35.. (had to get bubble bath too.. for me and rosie). Finally arrive at gymboree. Pick out outfit for Katie off sale rack, outfit for Tori, off sale rack. Reject ridiculous outfits from liza's picking, start Alex hunting for something he likes... mention the coupon to Alex... Lady over hears me and tells me that because they are an outlet, they don't take that coupon. GRRR. Put it all back, stop at the Gigi's cupcake stand and spring $6 for 2 cupcakes to share! (I HAD to see what a $3 cupcake tastes like.) It was alright... for those who are dying to know. :-) Leave the mall $108.00 poorer and w/o getting my free stuff from gymboree which was the WHOLE PURPOSE of the trip.

Crazy! On a positive note. After striking out w/ the boxes I find out from my neighbor that the moving company will come back and get them if you call w/in 30 days. Called... they are coming to get them. I will likely get a much cheeper rate on a hotel and save us some $$$, just won't be the nice cabin that was offered through Dolly wood. AND the kids loved the mall and now the want to earn a trip to

... see/pet/feed the sting rays, and ride the sea creature merry go round.

... eat at under the sea restaurant

... eat at rainforest Cafe.

... go glow golfing

... jump on the super cool harnessed trampoline thing.

... ride in the virtual roller-coaster.

Ahhh, lots of bribes.

We got home late, and decided to have a cook out.

I'll tell you a little something about TN. at 7:30 almost every night, the sun glows across the the land, and it is the most beautiful light ever! UH! I wish I could do it justice in this photo.
Here is the girls roasting hot dogs. This picture is also to show grandma that we really didn't sell off Liza, we kept her. :-) (only cuz no one bid when I put her on Ebay this week.) Just Kidding. She's a good girl. I see her growing up so much in the past 6 months, kind of crazy.
The girls scarfed down their dinner and then took off to Fish with Brent and Alex at our little local pond. After bugging some poor fisherman (customer) at Outdoor World, I found out that the best bait for pond fishing for bass would be a chartreuse grub. He even helped me find them and the hooks. Cuz that is just how nice Tennesseans are! HE WAS RIGHT!! Alex caught a fish tonight! His first ever!!! Brent said it was about 6 or 8 inches, he had his i phone camera there, but Alex wouldn't hold it. "MOM!! He wanted me to stick my fingers in it's gills!! If I could have held it by the tail, I would have!" So NO pic's for you! I am sad I missed his first catch, but Katie and I were chillin by the fire.
Then Alex and Brent came back for their hot dogs and we watched the sun set down, and ate up some marshmallows. YUMM. If you look closely behind Alex's head, you can see a little sliver of a crescent moon.
After the sun set, we sat outside and looked at the stars. MY oh MY can you see stars out here. Beautiful. There were no mosquitos, no flies, and the temperature was just awesome!! Everything was perfect. It reminded me so much of Canada. The locals tell me that this summer has been unseasonably cool and NOT humid. They say that usually they are roasting in their wet clothes and hair. Speaking of hair... holy curls. I don't know where they came from but my hair has gotten SO curly. Weird.

So all in all, it was a great day even if my To do list, is not ta done. :-)

Look What I Made!!!

A lady @ church owns a bead shop. They had an activity there tonight. I've never done this before! It was so fun! i really needed a girls night.

Click on the pic to see it closer. The letter beads are the kids initials. and I just HAD to have the dragon fly and I LOVE the clasp.

Really?

Honestly, could they make this more difficult. So we were scheduled to close on the house in MD today. I've never done this... okay so we did a long distance close on the house here in TN, but it seemed to be much easier and straight forward. Last week the Title company sent me a file via email. When we bought this house we saw the papers via email, but the title company sent us the papers with a bunch of those sticky arrows and we signed and notarized where indicated. I kind of thought this closing would go the same, until a later email from "beth" at the Title company who told me otherwise. It was clear that I needed to print these pages up and find a notary here in TN. So I put out an email to the ward to find one here. No one in the ward, but lots of advise. So I figure, we'll find one on Saturday (and have to PAY them!) and then send out the package via Fed Ex to get to to MD for Monday morning. Well, I should have seen this coming, but didn't, not a whole lot of places have a notary in house on a Saturday! Oh dear. After much chasing about, we landed at a place on base. Once everything was notarized she told us that she couldn't get it to MD until Tuesday. Their Sat pick up was already done. Yeah, so who knew that 12 pm is the last Sat. pick up for fed ex at most locations. No sunday service, and it was 4:55pm and we were at least 45 minutes from the next place that had a 5 pm pick up on Sat. Yes, My Friends, Once again, I over estimated the convenience of Fed Ex. Their commercials make me feel like they are at my beck and call, but sadly, now for the second time, I have found that they are not. So the papers will be late. They assured me that all was fine.. that life goes on and that Tuesday would be fine.

I wake this morning to my cel phone. It's Beth (from Title company) She is letting me know how much I am going to owe at closing. After some chatter and emails. We have an amount. I tell her that I am off to overnight the papers and wire her the money. While I am out I find out that since all our $ is in a bank there in MD. No one will help me. Seriously! I tried a variety of options and no dice. No cashiers checks, no wires. I find out that I have to do a wire through my bank.... but will they do it w/o me standing in front of them? NO! Even tho, I can tell them my social security number, my account number, my mother in laws maiden name, my husbands social security number, my shoe size, his underwear size, his contact prescription and my first pet's name. They wont help me over the phone or the internet! Seriously friends. NOTHING! I have to go to a notary, have them notarize a paper with my transfer request on it. I have to over night the notarized letter to the bank and THEN and only THEN will they begin to do a transfer. The title company isn't too pleased with this, but what can you do??? How have they not encountered this before. If anyone could have seen this coming it should have been them.

The funniest part of this whole day was when I sat down in front of the guy at Western Union, with papers in hand, and he asked me how much I wanted to transfer, and I said $10,000.00, and his eyes bulged out of his head and he leaned forward and whispered to me, "Do you have $10,000.00 in cash on you mam?". I chuckled "No, am I supposed to have cash?" LOL!! Who walks around with that kind of $$. Yeah, I'm going to go to Wal mart with that kind of $$ in my pocket. LOL!! Why oh why won't they just take my personal check?!

WAY TOO LONG

This week I headed over to Knoxville, this visit was a long time coming! When I was just a young thing, about 13. Don came to live with my family for a while. He was like the big brother that I never had. He listened to me when I was sad, and gives some of the best hugs goin'. Really, when trying to explain our relationship to anyone... I usually refer to him as a brother. After 18 years of not seeing each other, we reunited! It was such a great feeling to see each other again. I got to meet his wife and 2 of his 3 children. (the oldest was at scout camp)
This is my buddy Aiden. We were pals. :-) He is such a sweet heart!

Rachel, such a pretty girl. She had to pose it up for every shot. One of these days I'll get her without some "cool girl" pose going on!
Liza and Rachel made fast friends. Don's wife, Heather and I surprised Don with my visit. He knew that I was moving to TN, but didn't know when. We cooked up this little surprise for him and had him cover his eyes till he got to where I was. It was fun to see the look on his face. It was like he couldn't believe that I was standing there. It was fun. The kids and i stayed at their place for 2 nights. On day 2 we took the kids to this great park where they had a little river to walk in and swings and all kinds of fun stuff.
They have 3 dogs of their own and they were dog sitting 2 more, so my kiddies were in HEAVEN!! 5 puppies to play with.. what more could they want! They absolutely loved this part of the visit, even if it did make them all very very dirty. They were happy.
The 3 girls spent a ton of time playing Bratz in the "cottage". They loved going out there and just setting up their stuff everywhere. Alex got a hold of "Uncle Dons" Harry Potter collection and watched a few of those.

Aiden and I played LIFE. Now he is 4 so we didn't really play life. :-) We counted squares over and over and over. I had to take a picture of him doing this cuz I loved when he would say "Triti turn." When it was my turn. (he is actually saying it here) He was SO funny. No matter what was spun he would turn it to 10 and cheer, "10!" and then count out 10 spaces. So I think I counted to 10 at least 200 times this week. :-) He is so cute and fun to play with. He would even let the other kids in to play so long as they didn't want his orange car, or my red one. Then he would say "boris turn" For Tori, and "kalee turn" for Katie.

Aiden has cochlear implants, he was born profoundly deaf, so this is why I blog about his speech. It is so incredible to me that he can hear and speak. I loved listening to him. What a miracle.
Today, before we headed home I took the kids to the Zoo in Knoxville. It was a very nice zoo. I was glad to remember to ask if they do military discount cuz we got in for 1/2 price! Yeah! We got to go see a bird show, that was SO cool.They had a butterfly pavilion where they lady told us that the kids could hold the butterflies if they didn't touch their wings. The kids loved this!
Here is a shot of all my "WILD ONES". This zoo was quite fun and cool. It was a perfect day to go to the zoo too. The weather was a bit warm and sticky, but not too bad considering it's July. We got to watch an Elephant take a bath, which was really cool. but it was behind glass so I didn't get a very good picture at all. It was so cool tho, to watch the keeper spray and scrub this giant animal. My personal favorite part was when the keeper stuck the whole hose nozzle in the elephants trunk and she sucked it up in there and then sprayed it into her mouth. Just to see this beast guzzle the water out of the hose like that was amazing! The Elephant would lift up its feet, one at a time so that she could scrub them... it was so cool.
They also had a petting zoo like none I have ever seen before. The kids were given a little hair brush on the way in and were instructed to brush the goats on the back, and not pull their horns. All over the floor in this place were goats in "spa mode" they were all just laying around waiting to be brushed. It was so funny. Usually a petting zoo is almost a scary place as the goats are trying to eat your clothes and head butt your toddlers. Not these guys. They were so sweet.
Katie decided that this guy needed his beard brushed. He liked that! It was SO cute.
After seeing all the animals. Playing on the slides, watching the bird show, playing in a giant sand box: the kids got to cool off in this great little river with these squirting frogs. It was really nice.

We had such a lovely visit with our "cousins" and a great day at the zoo. We hope they will come to see us here soon.

Introducing....

This my friends, is my latest pal. Her name is Rosy. She has been a great pal since we've arrived here in TN. She was here on the day that we got here. She was here when all the stuff came, and has stood behind me as I've worked so hard to unpack all the boxes.

I've given her a candle... She likes it when we hang out with the candle lit and the jets on. I must say... a lovely union.

Please also meet Laverne and Shirley. Two lovely ladies who moved in not 48 hours after we arrived. I must say their beauty astounds me every time I enter their room. They are amazing at what they do. I don't know the last time I've ever encountered two ladies who do what they do as well as they do. They work in unison, and are lovely to have around.
Laverne likes to take her time as she is extremely proficient and is sure that each piece that she works with comes out smelling and feeling lovely. Shirley is a little quicker at what she does then anyone of her breed, but that's okay, she always does a great job too. They both sing pretty little songs when they are done. (if you look closely they are both working in these pictures.) Such good girls!

I have to say. I feel absolutely spoiled rotten with such beautiful new friends. They are pretty good listeners too, which helps as most of my melt downs happen in the laundry room. :-)

So there you have it. The new additions to my family. Aren't they lovely?

Blog To Do

2 blogs ago, I did a to do list. So here is that post. We took a day before we left MD to go and see Harpers Ferry. I really wished that I knew American History better then I do. I like to tell my children what they are looking at and the significance of where we are. I was not able to do this very well. I tried to read the signs and then "translate" for them so that they would get a bit of an understanding.
Mostly tho, we took pictures and went for a nice walk. We talked about slavery, but my kids are pretty well educated in this department. So really I didn't tell them anything that they didn't already know from school. Alex however did like the cool weapons. And Liza liked the statue of a girl making their food. :-)
We went up to a look out spot, as per the advice of a local who was doing some repairs on his 120 year old home. This is the Shenandoah river, um... He called the view AMAZING. not the word I would have used, but I took a picture anyway. Seriously though, there wasn't even enough blue in the picture to saturate it to look like it was really water and not mud. :0)
The highlight for the kids was the stop for milkshakes. Everyone but Liza enjoyed theirs. Liza said... "mine just tastes like milk" She ordered raspberry, I thought it was pretty good. When ever we go out as a family and purchase a little treat for everyone, we gasp at the cost, and then comment on why big families never go out to eat. Sometimes we forget that we are kind of a big family.
The rocks, and 100 yr old buildings and stairs around the town made for some perfect photography spots. The kids perched themselves up on this ledge all on their own.
See that cool rock behind Alex. COOOOOOLL texture. :-)
I think this is one of my all time fave pics of Katie! This is a total Katie face! She is such a sweet heart!
I would have posted some pictures of farther back with scenery, but I seem to be having trouble with any kind of shot where I have to back up at all. They go blurry, which is really a shame cuz there were some really cool 100 year old window and door frames to pose in. :-(

Also I said I would post about my hair cut. So after months of growing out my hair, my sides were long enough to do this A line cut. I do so love it. I set up the camera for Liza and had her take a few shots from all angles so that I could show my next hair dresser just what to do.
As per the request of some, here are the shots. I also got highlights, which I love. It's so fun to add some depth to my almost black hair.
Liza did a pretty good job.. wouldn't you say?

A couple of stories to wrap up all the photo craziness. As we were embarking on this move, I was having a really hard time convincing myself that the move was going to happen. I kept putting it off in my mind. One night, during my prayers, I asked Heavenly Father to help me to realize that this move is going to happen and that i need to get motivated and get some things done to prepare for the movers. The next day, I woke up and just started doing things, the to do list in my head was so clear and the jobs were just rolling along. It wasn't until about 4 hours into the day that I realized that I had my prayers answered. I had forgotten that I had prayed for His help, and it was quite a strength to me to know that He heard my prayers and helped in me in this little way. What a relief to be told once again, that I am not alone.

The Meow meow secret. Katie is so funny. Brent whispers to the kids all the time... tells them that he loves them. So for a while there, Katie would say "mommy, I want to tell you a secret." and then she would whisper "I love you." but one day, she said, "wait, I want to tell you the meow meow secret." I said okay... thinking hum, this is new... what could this be? I lean in for my secret and she whispers "Meow meow."

That's it... that's the secret. But she does it ALL the time. Probably cuz it makes us laugh. And she was so sure at first that it was such a secret, even though the name of the secret was the secret. :-) She has in the last 2 weeks developed many animal secrets including the ruff ruff, and the moo moo secret. I'll tell you what, you can't get out of her room at night with out hearing at least 3 secrets.

She is such a sweet girl.

Soon to come is pictures of: my 2 little additions... and the loved trampoline. Maybe a shot or two of the box chaos that is my house. And more on life in TN.

Where to Start?

Wow it has been a crazy time around here. The BIG move!! We are happy to be here and ready to receive our stuff tomorrow. The people here in Tennessee are SO friendly. I jokingly complained to a lady today at TJ maxx (we were buying bedding for the kids) and I said "Man, it's like a crazy treasure hunt trying to get things to match eh?" She said "what's that hunny?" I repeated myself and she began searching for my item.... "would this match?" LOL I wasn't looking for help! Too funny.

Church was good, lots and lots of friendly people. Each child came home having had a good experience. The neighbors have been very kind and full of information and tips. There seems to be something for everyone around here...

Liza has really enjoyed the close proximity of horses. There are about 6-8 horses living on a farm right behind our circle.

Alex has really enjoyed the fireworks for the past few days. Apparently Tennessee has pretty relaxed rules when it comes to shooting fire around.... :-) People are free to shoot off the "big ones" right on the street. So there was quite the show around here, we didn't even have to leave the house. Alex, Liza and Tori all got to hold a giant sparkler and were offered roman candles as though they were cookies. (I said NO to that one!)

Tori met a friend in Primary and is also loving the trampoline that we purchased not 24 hours after arriving here in TN. This trampoline has been a dream.. the energy that is uses up is amazing!

Katie has made great pals with the 2 1/2 yr old girl next door, if only she could get the poor girls name right. She keeps calling her Natalie (now, she does look a lot like Natalie, I'll give her that) but the girls name is Merin.. Humm, not close.

Brent was interested to see if the "private run way" that he saw on the map was actually in use, and this past weekend he has been delighted to find out that it is in deed. So every time we hear a small plane engine, he is running over to see what kind of plane it is today. It IS very fun. We have learned that the owners name is "Chris"and that he is very friendly.

The neighbors across the street who have been here the longest have a 15 yr old daughter named Katie who we are sure to use for babysitting. The wife has also offered to babysit anytime, "but she won't charge".

Well, I have a lot more to write and would love to write about Alex's "terrible horrible no good very bad day." but it is time to start a fire in the pit, and roast up some hot dogs and see if we can't make his day a little better.

All is good here. So far so good.