Video of LIlly

Emmy was giving Lilly some sour spray and she would cringe and then ask for more.

MOre FuN

Ashton made a pirates hat at reading time at the library. He wore it all day and kept telling me he was going to pirate school.

Family Weekend

I was on an awesome roll getting packed for our move, and then it was time to take a break and head to Pocatello to say our goodbyes to our family before we head 2,000 miles across the country. We are on the final countdown with only 4 days to go before we pull out.

We got to visit with family as well as some close friends and it made the weekend wonderful. We started off by leaving Friday after Jaron got off of work and pulling into Pocatello rather late. We stayed at Brent and Kristi's house that night. Saturday we went to visit with Angie and Truman Lackey. Our kids are super close and they loved the chance to visit. That evening Jaron went to the symphony while the kids and I went to my parents house to visit. Grandpa Eldon rented "Bed Time Stories" and the kids loved it. That night we spent the night at Kristi's again. At about 2 in the morning Carter woke up unable to breathe (he is allergic to my moms dog and it really aggrevates his asthma) so I had to take him to the E.R. where he received some breathing treatments and prescription for steroids. He is doing much better now.

Jaron's two sisters (one who lives in Florida and the other in Lewiston, Idaho) came to town with their kids, so all of the grandkids were together and they had a ball. If you ask all of the adults who were there it was a little noisy (ok, a lot noisy). We got some really cute pictures of the kids, so enjoy the show!

Easter

Alrighty then. I know it's a little past Easter, but better late than never right? The Easter Bunny came on Saturday like he does for us every year. The kids had a great time finding their baskets and then some eggs. Grandma Kristi made some adorable dresses for the girls, so on Sunday they got to wear them. Daddy took a few pictures for us. My fun was trying out a new hairstyle on Emmy. There is a really cute website that Kristi pointed out to me that has step by step instructions on how to do some awesome hairstyles. http://hair4myprincess.blogspot.com/
Check it out, it's great! p.s. Gramma Kristi. . . the girls had tons of compliments on their dresses at church!

Old Friends!

One of the best parts of my trip was that I got to hang out with Teresa for 3 days straight. Her kids were really good in the car and we had a fun time driving through the PA mountains!

House Search

I have spent the last week in PA looking for a house for our family. WOW. First off, I need to thank my awesome friend Teresa and her husband Glen and their two adorable kids for picking me up at the airport in Philly and then letting me crash on their couch on Monday night. Tuesday morning, me, Teresa and her two kids took off in their car to the Bloomsburg area to find us a new home.

I went with a few places to check out that I had found on Craigslist. I had 2 1/2 days to find a place, so we started out by driving around to get familiar with the place and check out neighborhoods that looked appealing. There was NOTHING. Everything we saw was scary or stinky or too small or just plain disqusting. I pulled up to a house that had a for rent sign on it at the same time another girl did. She was meeting the landlord there in the next few minutes and said I could look with her. The place was nasty, but he told me he had a friend that had something I might be more interested in. I called his friend and he gave me the address for the house he had. We drove out to the place which was in the middle of nowhere and I loved it! I made an appointment with the guy to see it the next day and when I talked to him I told him I definitely wanted it. I filled out the application, took some pictures and then left. He sounded really positive and told me he would have an answer for me by that evening. We had already spent one night in a hotel and if he said yes, then we would drive back to Philly that night. If he said no, then we would stay because I would only have one more day to find something. He called that night and said he and his wife were still deciding. Great. So we went ahead and got another hotel room, just in case. The next morning we went through the motions of looking, again not seeing ANYTHING worth living in. We had stayed the night in Frackville, which is about 45 minutes from the Bloomsburg area. We decided that we would pick up a local paper that day since we hadn't checked the paper yet. There was n0thing in the Frackville area, which was ok since that would have meant a 2 hour commute for me both ways every day. We drove back to Bloomsburg and decided to get a local newpaper from there as well. I circled a few of the places and then saw one that said "New today". I circled that one and then called to see if I could come see the place. The landlord told me he could meet me there in about 20 minutes, so off we went. It was actually nice compared to everything else we saw, and while I was talking to him the other guy called. He was going to rent the home (an actual home, the only one we saw the entire time) to some tenants that he had rented to for the last two years. They had found out he was leasing this place out and called him to get it. I tried really hard not to cry because I had really had my heart set on this place. Meanwhile, I told the new landlord that I wanted a 6 month lease instead of 1 year and to go ahead and process my application. I had one more place to go look at and then he could let me know if it was a yes or no. If it was yes, then I would let him know based on this last place I had to look at. Teresa and I went to this last apartment which sounded really nice. 3 spacious bedrooms, new carpet, new paint, a nice back yard, a park down the street, washer/dryer hookups (I love my washer and dryer and the other place already has some installed that are stacked to fit in a small closet), and so on. When we got there it was horrible. Unfortunately new carpet can't cover up nasty smells and uneven floors. The house was bad anyway, but the absolute deal killer was when the lady told me the washer/dryer hookups were in the basement. The stairs going down were rotting and it was a dirt and cobblestone floor. I would never do my laundry again if I had to go down there to do it.

The other guy called me back and said they would love to rent to me, even with a 6 month lease. So we finally have a house, and even though it is small (3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom and a small kitchen, but it also has a basement(scary), an attic and a detached two car garage) it is clean and smells good with new paint, new carpet and even new construction in one room, and the landlord is someone I could totally see us becoming friends with. He is the same age as me and Jaron and has 2 kids, both boys ages 8 and 4, and his 4 year old is named Ashton! After we signed some papers and did the deposit I told him how glad I was I picked up a newspaper that day, since the ad was new and if I had gotten one earlier I wouldn't have gotten a new one. He told me he never remembers to place the ad in the paper, but 5 minutes to 5 (the deadline) the night before, something told him to place the ad, so he did it, and I am so grateful he did! Here are some pictures of our new place.

The bathroom is on the second floor and has a balcony right outside of it. This is looking out from that balcony to the garage.

Whirlwind Weather

So I have noticed that I blog really well until something really blog worthy takes place, and then I hold off because I really want to do it justice by putting the proper time into. What really happens is that by the time I actually get around to blogging it, I forget details, condense it all down into short paragraphs and end up doing exactly what I was trying to avoid in the first place.

In light of that we have had a lot happen here in the last week or so. I needed to go to Pocatello to get a signature from someone who had supervised me while I was in Guard. I took the 4 kids with me and we had a fun little trip. We got to spend time with everyone we love there. On Friday night when we arrived, we visited my parents and then I went and hung out with a bunch of friends from high school which was an absolute riot (as always). After our marathon coversations (I think we lasted till about 1:30 or so) we finally made it to bed. Saturday Emmy and Carter played almost the entire day with Alyssa and Logan (whom they consider to be cousins, even though they are just really close friends of the family).

Now, about this signature I needed. I have been trying to track down the PA who had been supervising me when I was a medic and I had not been able to find him. I had finally got permission from the school to get ANYBODY's signature who had even kind-of supervised me when I was in. When I called the armory I had found out that everyone I knew had been tranferred to new places or had gotten out. There was ONE person left for me to get a signature from. On Saturday morning when I walked in the armory, low and behold, the very PA who had supervised me was standing right in the entry way. Come to find out he was in Pocatello for this one drill. Not only was he there, but I saw four other soldiers with whom I had been really close who were there for this weekend only. Lupi Lopez (she was present at Emmy's baby shower and fought fires with me when I was 5 months prego with Emmy. She put up with my constant trips to the latrine) , Weizhaar (the PA), Jason (Hodge) Hodgekins, and Jeremy Johnson. It was a joyous occassion! I loved seeing these people who I had known from the time I was seventeen. They were there through the last years of high school, basic training, my marriage and the births of two children! They were all surprised to meet numbers 3 and 4 (Ashton and Lilly) and then most of them proudly shared pictures of their new children. It was so nice seeing them all.

After that I met up with Angie and visited for a bit before heading to Buddy's (my all time favorite restaurant) and meeting up with Kristi, Brent, Clinton and Corgin there. That evening we spent the night in Inkom and on Sunday (it was conference weekend) We listened to the morning session and then headed to Grace to visit with Grandma and Grandpa Simonson and some of the Simonson clan.

All in all in was a really satisfying trip. It became even more meaningful when Jaron called me on Saturday night to tell me that he was getting transferred to the Frackville, Pennsyvania Crackerbarrel and that they wanted us there by May 1, but would let us take until the 10th to get there. No, this was not a shock or an unwanted surprise. . . in fact it was quite a welcome event.

I just realized that I haven't blogged about my schooling for awhile. So here goes. I found a P.A. school in PA that will allow me to finish sooner than I had imagined and it takes nearly all of the credits that I have previosly taken. Jaron and I prayed about it and decided that it was the right thing for us to go to PA for this school. We made the decision to go before we knew if he would have a job, with no way to pay to get there, and many more major issues that were completely up in the air. The Lord has blessed us so much in the past few months that I can't even begin to express how grateful I am. I immediately applied for admission into the school and Jaron inquired at work about a transfer. At the time there were no openings available in any of the 3 stores that were within 150 miles of the school I am going to. He put in applications to other restaurants just in case, but nothing came of those. Then came the news of the transfer. The Frackville Cracker Barrel isn't our first choice, but it will do just fine. Cracker Barrel will finance our move, my credits have transferred better than I could have hoped, I got the signatures we needed, the children and I got to see people that we probably won't see for the next 3 years and there have been so many small miracles in this whole process that I can't even begin to name them all. One example is with my paper route. I have to put in a 30 day notice or else I will be charged a $200 fine for breach of contract, unless I can find a replacement who takes over before the end of the 30 days. I have less than 3o days before I am living out of state, not very conducive to a paper route. There are several people who put in their 30 days before me (due to some issues between carriers and the paper corporation) and I was at the end of the list for a replacement carrier to train. The girl who folds her papers next to me at the depot is new (only there for a month) and I told her about what was going on. She talked to her friend and the next day she came in and requested my route. Tommorow is the last day I train her and then I will be done with my paper route.

Again, I am not going to list all the small miracles that have occured over the last few weeks, but EVERYTHING is falling into place so neatly and this is honestly the first time in years that Jaron and I have felt hope for a better life for us and our children. I am so grateful for the Lord's blessings.

On another note, the Easter Bunny came to our house last night. We always ask him to come on Saturday so that we can do our easter egg hunting and then have Sunday as a special reverent day. The kids were up bright and early. I was still sleeping when Carter came in my room to tell me that Emmy was kind of sad because both of the boys had gotten a new toy and lots of candy and she hadn't. All she had gotten was a shirt that was too small for her and 3 pieces of candy. I had to laugh. . . Emmy had "found" Lilly's basket -- which the Easter bunny had left on the table for Lilly to find. Emmy assumed because the basket was pink that it was for her. She didn't pay very close attention to the letter the easter bunny left saying which color each childs basket was. She was relieved to find another basket filled with candy and a toy for her. She got a "skip-it". The easter bunny thought he was pretty clever hiding the eggs. ;)

Emmy's Day at the Spa!

Emmy had a great weekend last week. She got an invitation to go to one of her best friends birthday parties at a day spa. Also, Friday was "twin" day at school and her friend really wanted to be twins with Emmy, so her mom bought the girls new shirts, matching headbands and bracelets. They had a blast at the day spa where they had their hair and nails done and then went back to her friends house for a snack. Here are some pictures of Emmy with her fancy do, her new shirt and her nails all done up!