Fun without the kids

Considering that past 2 months have been awful - we decided it was time for a break. We have never gone skiing together so we thought we would try it out in Flagstaff over the weekend. I have only skied once and that was in high school and Paul hasn't been since college so we thought it would be fun to do.
My mother GRACIOUSLY watched our kids and we headed out to Flagstaff on Thursday morning. We hit the outlet malls at Anthem where Paul insisted I buy a few things for myself. What husband normally encourages this! He was surprised to see how difficult it is for women to shop - what with the sizes never being the same in any one store and the fact that all the styles are strapless, sleeveless or see through! He now knows why I don't particularly like to shop for clothes. Anyway I don't need to write all the details of my shopping experiences but I did get a few new things and so did Paul so that worked out well.
Friday we hit the slopes and it took awhile for me to get comfortable skiing again. We basically stayed in the "easy" area because I kept falling down. I would get to where I was going really good and then I would speed up and become nervous and bite the dust. The good thing was everyone else was falling too. When we rode the ski lift up to the top of the mountain the slope under us was littered with people who had fallen down. The one amazing thing though, was the number of little kids that could ski. Better than me infact! And they didn't even use poles, they just skied straight down the hill using their arms for balance.


I am looking very sunburned but actually I wasn't, must've been the glare from all the snow

Paul the pro skier - he didn't even fall - lost his balance once - but no falling down the slopes like I did several times.

After 5 hours of skiing, I was physically exhausted. I hurt in places I didn't even know could hurt. We headed back to our hotel where once we walked in the room, I promptly fell across the bed and slept for two hours! Anyway we had a lot of fun and it was so nice to just get away and be together - heck we even slept in until 7am! Around here that is late...ha.ha...

little update

Well all my kids are home for a 4 day weekend and surprisingly, they are behaving quite well, which is why I am taking a quick moment to write on our blog. My mom and sister were telling me I needed to post some pictures of our new living room furniture that was delivered yesterday so I agreed. We really like the furniture though I almost cried when Paul had to break down our old sofa and throw it in the garbage.

The past week and half have been filled with so many mixed emotions. At first, I think I was in shock that someone had broken into our home and wasn't really feeling anything. But as the days went by I started to get angry, depressed and even fearful. Needless to say I have been very comforted by one thing and that is, even though the Lord didn't stop this person from breaking into my home (because He won't take away our agency) he did make it possible for me to be removed from the situation. And that is where all my daily prayers of "please keep us safe" come into play. The only way I could be safe with my boys was not to be home.

So anyway we are getting back into the groove of things again and like the day after the break-in, Paul and Jarom zipped over to Wal-mart and bought a new x-box with some new games. Our new TV is supposed to be here any day now and of course we have furniture that we can actually be comfortable on now. Oh and we are putting in a top of line security system on Monday! (That's where another one of my biggest comforts is coming from). I am a little ticked that half our refund is going to fixing this mess, but on the other hand it's another blessing that we have the money to even do it all. Granted we will get most of it from our insurance except for our $1,000 deductible, the security system installation, and the depreciated value of our couches. But hey things could have been a lot worse. The guy could have trashed our house and he didn't - we were so blessed. Have I said that enough? Okay I will quit and post the pics of our new furniture. Sorry they turned out so badly, but the sun was really pouring through the windows when I took them.




Our new couch




We decided to skip the matching love seat and get two chairs instead




View from the kitchen





A very grainy view from the stairs and my two boys!

Tender Mercies

I thought January was bad but February has not been any better! Our home was broken into on Wednesday and while it has been a traumatic experience I have seen first hand the Lord's tender mercies in my life. It all started with us not receiving our daily newspaper. I called the Republic and requested a new paper from their automated machine but was told delivery wasn't available in my area. That's stupid, was my first thought. But then I figured it was no big deal because I could just pick up a paper later and stop by the post office too. Jarom was home, pretending to be sick, so I figured instead of dragging him into a grocery store I would just drive over to the nearest store with one of those machines you drop a few quarters into and it gives you a paper.
About 9:30 we headed out and were only gone about 30 minutes before returning home. When I drove up to the house I noticed by front door was open. The security door was still shut but the door was opened. I just chalked it up to forgetting to close it. I parked the car and got the boys out of the van and as I opened the door into the house I saw our picture window had been broken out in the livingroom. I grabbed Jarom by the back of his shirt and we ran across the street to our neighbors while I called the police.
Apparently they were chasing the perpetrator around the neighborhood just as I called because my neighbor, from across the street, had seen him jump my fence initially and called the police first. So anyway they lost the guy but they know what he looks like and the car he drove so they'll probably find him. After calling the police I called Stacey (Allred) and totally fell apart on the phone and asked her to come over and stay with me. She raced over with her two boys and we loaded my boys in her van and the 4 of them played around while the police did their initial investigation of the house. After it was all clear they let me walk through it. Unfortunately these pictures don't really do justice to how much glass was all over the place. The guy broke a double paned window that is about 5 feet by 4 feet - it was a big mess. He made off with our new LCD TV, the x-box, all the games for it, both controllers, an area rug, and wouldn't you guess - half the cushions from each of our couches! Apparently he was getting frazzled trying to figure out how to get out of the house because the security door was locked, and the key hidden and every window in the house that opens up, Paul put a heavy piece of wood in each track so the windows can't be open. And to get the wood out you have to pull it out with plyers, you can't lift it with your hands. So he had no choice but to climb back out the window he broke, throw the cushions over our wall (that drops off like 9 feet) and throw the TV and x-box onto the cushions. He obviously cut himself from breaking the window and there were blood smears all over the place, so forensics came and took some samples for a DNA match. And then when I cleaned up the glass I found a bullet outside, so he obviously had a weapon which makes the charges against him more severe than typical breaking and entering. So anyway all this went down the day after my surgery and it was insane! But I contacted a glass company that came out that day and put in a new window, we've got all the paperwork for our insurance company started up and we are now looking at buying an alarm system for the house. Despite this being very stressful we were so blessed to have not been home when it happened, that our neighbor saw everything and called the police, that our home wasn't vandalized or severely damaged and that he only took things that we can replace and no one was hurt. There were so many tender mercies shown to us through this whole process - especially from our good friends Stacey and Emily (Mather). I can only feel gratitude and a little excitement over getting new couches!

No more pillows!

Who would take cushions?

The infamous picture

I can't believe I am posting this but here it is - me after sinus surgery sprawled out on the couch!

What a month!

I am so glad that January is over with. The start of 2009 has been stressful for us to say the least. It all started with Lacey getting a very nasty cold that eventually got passed on to the rest of us. And it was bad - high fevers, hacking cough, disgusting runny noses, etc. Lacey and Joel both ended up with ear infections in the end but much to Jarom's luck he hasn't gotten sick.

It's always bad when I get sick because I have to keep plugging away and doing my motherly thing even though I don't feel good. However, I didn't get it nearly as bad as the kids so I can't complain. Between Lacey and Jess they missed about a week of school - which means I missed out on going to gym for most of the month because the kids weren't all sick at the same time! So not being able to go to the gym, getting sick myself, having sick kids, and then starting school all within a 3 week time frame about killed me. So I melted down (i.e. cried while Paul looked at me helplessly), called my mom who gave me great advice and decided to quit whining and just do my best. I originally signed up for 2 classes this semester but an opportunity came along to take a condensed version of Computer Info Systems so I decided to do it. That will basically be an easy "A", but then again it's additional homework. Oh well.

And then today I had Endoscopic Sinus Surgery and I am sitting here a little drugged up, looking haggard and wearing a strappy thing around my head that holds a gauze pad under my nose (it's collecting the discharge from the surgery). Paul snapped a rather atrocious looking photo of me while I was sleeping on the couch and I am debating on posting it. I actually can't upload it right now because Paul has the camera at the Pinewood Derby. I am sad I am missing Jarom's first race, but I couldn't really attend since I am still draining heavily. I will post pics from the derby as soon as I can.

So anyway, let's just hope February is a better month for us! Paul and I have planned a getaway to Flagstaff to go skiing in a couple of weeks and we are really excited about that. We haven't gone on any dates in like 6 weeks because we've all been so sick. But it looks like everyone is on the mend. Yeah!