The Rest.........

My very good friend, Jolene, has been asking when I am going to put pictures of the house up on my blog to which my reply has been;"when I get things put away and clean." Well, this is taking a while and so I just made myself go around the house and snap some pictures and didn't allow myself to move anything to make it look nice. One of these days I am going to try and add a slide show to a post again. It would be much more efficient and attractive to just have a slide show instead of a long string of pictures, oh well. I barely have time to do posts at all let alone figure something like that out. :)

So, here are some pictures. There is a picture of the living room and then the "theater" room. The "theater" room is too small to be considered a theater so we are spinning it and calling it a media room. We didn't know what to do with our new super comfy sectional so we decided to split it up and put it in the room. It actually works pretty well.




Then we have the dining room and the finished stairway in case anyone was curious how it turned out after my "tears on my banister" post.


Lastly we have a picture of the family room and a couple of pictures of the kitchen. You can see our dog crate in the 2nd picture. We haven't figured out where we want Cody to sleep yet, so he is just kinda in the middle of the walk way between the family room and kitchen for now. It is nice and close to the backyard for easy pee access for him so it works for now. I have some more pictures, but it was looking like too many for a post so I just went with a couple. If you want to get a true sense of what the house is like, you'll just have to come visit me and see for yourself! :)

Lighter

This Saturday I had finally had enough of my hair. It was the longest it has been in years and I was really trying hard to keep it long for my sweet husband who loves me with long hair. I think I did due diligence for keeping it for over a year plus all the growing out time. Every time I went swimming I lost half of my hair because it was just a huge rats nest. My hair is quite deceiving because it is fine, but I literally have a ton of it. This made blowing it out to straighten it take forever!!!!! So, I was getting increasingly more and more lazy and just wearing it curly. I'm not a big fan of my hair curly. I don't know what the deal is, I just don't like it much. So, I went in and told the girl to take it all off. AAAAHHHHHH, what a relief. I instantly felt lighter and more free. The only thing I will miss is my 2nd day no wash day and pulling it up into a pony tail, but I have enough for piggy tails anyway so it will be fine, maybe? I have left it down on the 2nd day and it didn't bug too bad.

Bless This Mess

Moving in to our new home has been quite the process. It feels like it is taking forever especially since I decided to take a break from the house. I have been playing outside with our new dog, jumping on the trampoline with my daughter, swimming and baking cookies instead. I would say that is a much better use of my time than finishing up the house. Anyway, I got pretty far in the process before I quit. It is now down to the junk that really has no good home and I don't feel like dealing with it just yet. I have another party at my house on Friday so I will most likely finish up by then. In the mean time I thought that I could help someone out there feel good about their mess by showing mine. The pictures are of the exercise/guest room, the office, the loft, the boys room and Jordyns room. Since this picture the boxes are out of the office and their contents are spread out all over the floor with the hopes of finding a home for all the crap. I cannot even tell you how much crap I threw away before we moved and then again when I started opening up boxes here. We also got rid of a lot of furniture this time too that I was holding onto just in case I needed it. Just looking at these pictures overwhelms me. :( I think I will go and finish off the pan of cookies ( I have had 6 already!)---I'll never get down another size anyway so I may as well enjoy it! :)

Drivin' with the top down

This is the view from our hotel room in sunny San Diego, California. Nathan had reserved a compact car over the Internet and true to form ended up with a convertible once we arrived. I can't complain because I do enjoy having the top down and it also forces me to not spend too much time on my hair because it will get wrecked anyway so it adds to the relaxation factor. We caught a 6:30 am flight to Ca and arrived around 8 am. We thought it would be fun to get some breakfast, but we got some bad advice to go and try the GasLamp district which is an evening spot for sure with nothing but Starbucks for breakfast. From my earlier post I explained how I was on the verge of a mental breakdown and not feelin the whole walking aimlessly trying to find food so we thought we would head to the hotel and beg them to let us check in. By then it was 10 am and the heavens opened at they let us check in. Yea! I really didn't waist much time by crawling immediately into bed and falling asleep until lunch to which I woke up long enough to get some food and went back to the hotel and slept until dinner. When we got back I really wanted to watch Maid of Honor and wouldn't ya know it--I fell asleep. Truth be told I slept my vacation away and only watched half of Maid of Honor, Ironman and Zohan. I got out enough to hit some must do things and enjoy the salty fresh air but then back to sleep I went. We also ate some really good mexican food in old town 2 of the nights (we forgot how good the mexican food in Ca is!) I forgot to mention that I was going on week 2 of being sick while trying to move in and solve building issues so I just crashed--certainly not Nate's idea of a romantic getaway.
The weather was just phenomenal and we loved riding around with the top down. It just really felt good with the salty fresh air hitting our faces with all the pretty landscape and cool architecture to look at-it doesn't look anything like NM that's for sure!
I was completely relaxed and content.
I had my very first In -N- Out Burger experience and I went for the special sauce and didn't regret it. I am not a fan of pickles on a burger, but it was very tasty and I enjoyed every last bite!
Nathan's dream came true by spending 3 hours aboard the USS Midway and looking at all the different airplanes yadda yadda yadda.......seriously though it was very touching to be on a ship where people fought and lost lives and to see their living and working conditions was awe inspiring. It was pretty cool I have to admit even if it was really long. We also got to go kayaking and snorkeling, but I have to say that once you have snorkeled in Hawaii it is ruined for you in a place like San Diego where there is a ton of kelp and cloudy water with a couple of over sized gold fish swimming around. We kayaked for 3 miles in the ocean and that was a lot of fun. It had also been a long time since I had been around that many homeless people and it was pretty heartbreaking. Everywhere we went they were around and the park at Midway was full because they were all making up camp for the night when we were leaving.

Even though we didn't do a whole lot this time, it was one of my best and favorite vacations because I truly got to stop and rest and do some fun things too. It was the best. Thanks Nate.

Cody

Each Saturday morning Nathan takes one of the kids for their Daddy date which involves eating out for breakfast and then running errands with him. This Saturday was Ethan's turn and when they were gone for longer than usual I gave Nate a call to see where they were. They were at Petsmart where they were having a huge adoption day and they decided to go and check it out. Well when Nate saw that they had Lab puppies he really couldn't resist so he picked up this little guy who promptly licked him all over his face. Well, of course it was over for any other dog there because this was the one. He came with the name Yoko and the kids picked out Cody. There choices were Buddy, Chuey or Cody. I kinda really liked Chuey but Cody is really cute as well and it seems to fit him. He is 3 months old and part lab part golden retriever. He has the most beautiful brown coat and pretty green eyes. He follows us around and gives tons of kisses and is just sweet. He loves my hair and buries his head in it when I'm laying on the floor and takes a nap right there in my hair. What a cutie for sure. We had to leave him at home in the crate when we went to lunch today and the next thing we knew, Ethan was in the backseat crying that he missed Cody and Jordyn is just plain scared to death of him and has been screaming ever since we got him. I hope that only lasts for a couple of days. So, call us crazy, but we did it--we actually finally got a dog.

Pool Parties

One week after we moved into our house we had 2 big parties to celebrate Jordyn's 4th birthday and Labor Day. It was a little crazy, but everyone had a blast. By the 2nd party I was a bit more grumpy because I did more cooking and cleaning for that party than I did for Jordyn's birthday party. But, both times I got to hog little Cade for the evening and all was right with the world, plus I love to see people enjoying themselves and that is reward enough for me. I was a bit worried at the number of people coming to the parties because I thought there would be no room in the pool to play. As you can see from the pictures I was worried for nothing. We are absolutely loving having a swimming pool and are always happy to have people over
to enjoy it with us. Nathan and I love going for night swims and dips in the hot tub. It is so relaxing and really helps me to get a good nights sleep. We had our surreal moment the first night we snuck out to the pool after the kids were in bed. We couldn't believe that we were in our backyard in our swimming pool. The view of the house from the outside looking in was also a reality hit for us because we were thinking "wow, that's a nice house, I wish I lived there --oh wait I do!" :) So other than trying to get settled in we have been having friends over and doing a whole lot of swimming!

Smitten

I have recently become completely smitten by my little nephew, Caden. I keep telling my sister-in-law, Jenny, that she is going to have to keep an extra close eye on him because I just might steal him. Even my daughter, Jordyn, wants to keep him. I asked her if she wanted mommy to have another baby and she said "yes, I want a baby." To which she then corrected herself by saying "I want THIS baby." Even though Caden is on the most nasty smelling formula on the planted he still smells sweet to me. I can never get enough of that baby smell. I could inhale it all day long. Cade likes to show his mutual feelings toward me by spitting up- or should I say spewing- all over my clothes. We are talking large amounts that leave me soaked! Before you ask, yes I have a burp cloth! He just chooses to aim for my clothing. :) Emma is the best at getting little Cade to sleep. He is such a picky little thing. He loves to be jiggled to sleep which is very tiring. Every time I think I have finally got him to sleep and stop moving he pops his little eyes open with an expression of "hey, I didn't say you could stop." This is when I let Emma take over and the little booger just passes out for her. :) We are having lots of fun with a baby around here, but it is making it harder to keep getting the puppy dog eye look from my husband reminding me that he could just make me my own baby. No thanks, I'll just love on this little cutie and hand him back over to be raised by his Momma and Daddy.

Dinosaur Divorce

Every time I walk down the long hallway that leads to my children's classrooms I walk past a classroom display board. This class (I'm not sure of the grade) has big construction paper cutouts of themselves holding a book. The arms and the books pop off of the display board and it is very cute. I'm not sure what all the other book titles are on the kids, but there is one cutout kid holding his/her handmade book titled "Dinosaur Divorce." For some reason that is all I can see when I walk down that hallway and it makes me sad every time. The word sad seems too mild to describe the actual haunting feeling I get from that cutout. I can just imagine the thoughts and feelings that this poor child is having and that of all the books this kid could have dreamt up this was the one he/she went with. Having been a child of divorce myself it just tares me up to think that for this child they are trying to make sense of a life that has just been torn apart and everything in their world is relatable (or trying to make relatable) to their situation--even a dinosaur.

On the Verge.......

It has been a long couple of weeks full of anxiety, drama and exhaustion. We were supposed to close on our house on the 15th of August and by Wednesday night of the 13th we knew things were not going well. Very, very long story short we ended up putting all of our things onto a moving van and having them store it for a week while we stayed in a hotel until the 22nd when all of our things were to arrive at 9 am. When we showed up to the house to meet the truck it was not a pretty sight with the garage still being cleaned out and many things left to do still. I spent the 1st week in our house surrounded by workers finishing up our house. I had a 3 page list of things that needed to be finished/fixed---not having shower doors is just one of many things that we encountered that 1st week. We have become quite close to the 2 contractors that were in charge of the subs and the finish work because we hung out everyday while they worked on our house. I fed them dinner one night and we would bring home donuts from the store for them. To add to the already crazy existance we were living we also ended up having Jordyn's birthday party on Saturday the 30th and then a Labor Day party that Monday at my house--both of which had 19 kids and 12 adults at!!!!!!!! That's what having a swimming pool gets ya! :)

The closing on the house was also another ordeal and we actually moved in without having closed on the house. We finally closed on the house on Wed the 3rd of September and by then I was on the verge of a mental breakdown. We still had unfinished work and things were taking forever and subs kept not showing up and so after we signed on the dotted line I showed up at my Foreman's house (he is building just down the street) and just went off. Nathan had to smooth things over and another long story short--- there was much crying, yelling and cursing on my end. By the end we were laughing about how I was going to bring back a bullet with their names on them as a souvenir from San Diego for each of them. Side note it is now the 8th and those things still aren't done-----smiling, keep smiling....everything is going to be great!

Back to Wed, so luckily Nate had booked a trip to San Diego a couple of weeks ago for our annual Birthday/anniversary weekend away knowing that we would be needing it with all of the house drama. Nate's sister that just had a baby 4 weeks ago crazily agreed to watch the kids so we could go. Anyway, I had just had this huge fight with the builders and still had to come home and pack and get the house ready for Jenny and her family. They were coming to spend the night because we had to leave for the airport at 5 am. I went into my closet to pack and ended up just laying on the floor crying with my youngest laying next to me tickling my arm. What a sweet little girl I have. It was time to put the kids to bed so I pulled myself together and got them tucked in and kissed goodbye and then decided to go and relax in the hot tub instead of packing. Jenny and Rick finally arrived around 9 pm that night and I held little baby Cade long enough to heal my soul enough to go and pack. Holding a sweet little baby really can do wonders for the heart and soul.

So in the end or sort of end........I'm still here! I'm alive, my kids are alive, my husband is still alive , although I don't think all of this did any good for his ulcer (or his truck--another story) we have a beautiful home with the most amazing view and it is truly awesome having a pool and hot tub and I will live to tell of another day.