Family Update

Wow! Time is just flying by. Hard to believe summer vacation is here. Well, at least school is out. I'm not sure Mother Nature knows its supposed to be summer. The weather has been so lousy lately. Here are a few things we have been up to lately:

*We finished reading/listening to the last Harry Potter book last month. The boys absolutely loved it (as did we)! If you haven't read the series we HIGHLY recommend it.

*We have decided to start a preschool this summer for some of the kids in the ward. I had been seriously thinking about starting one in the fall because I really want to teach Michael preschool stuff at home, but he refuses to do anything with me. But when we have other kids over he'll participate in anything. So I figured the only way to teach Michael at home was to start my own preschool. Everything is so much more fun with other kids anyway. Well, the boys were brainstorming ideas on how to make money this summer to put towards a family vacation and so I suggested that if they would help me we could possibly do a preschool this summer and then everything we earned we would put towards family vacations. Sometimes I don't know what possesses me! It was extremely last minute but I spent 2 weeks putting together a calendar, curriculum, etc. and then we took fliers around to the kids Michael's age. We have 7 kids plus Michael that are attending it and so far it has been an absolute blast! The boys and I are having so much fun planning the lessons and activities and they are so cute with the little kids! And Michael loves having friends over twice a week. He always turns to us after the kids leave and asks, "So, are you guys still my teachers?"

*My entrepreneurs have been hard at work the past few weeks! The boys seem to have limitless ideas on how to earn money. They keep me very, very busy!! In addition to taking fliers around for preschool they (we) took fliers around to all the houses/townhomes in our ward on our side of the freeway advertising for a Pet and Plant business. (They will take care of pets and plants while people are out of town). There are at least 200 townhomes plus another 20-25 houses so they should get pretty steady business. They've had 3 jobs already.
They are also planning on selling water and popsicles at the parades and emptying garbages for people for 35 cents. Those were big money makers 2 years ago. We are hoping to have enough money to fly out to Washington, D.C. next year. My best friend from high school, Maria, lives out there so we could stay with her and then most everything we'd want to do out there is free, so it's pretty much just earning the money for plane tickets.

*I think I mentioned last month that the boys have been saving their money and trying to find that perfect thing to buy. Well, they found it at D.I. this week. A $25 Star Wars foosball table. It was love at first sight! It was all I could do to keep Jacob from picking it up and hauling it out the door himself! They were sooo excited--it was like Christmas morning. I just didn't have the heart to tell them no. After all, it was their own money that was paying for it. BUT, we live in a townhome. We don't have room for a foosball table. So we spent all day on Friday reorganizing both of the kids rooms to make room in Tyler and Jacob's room for this new toy. The only option was to put their dresser in the closet, so that meant all the toys from their closet had to go in Michael's room and Michael's car/train table had to go in the crawl space. Oh, yeah and then once we got the table upstairs we discovered it didn't fit through the bedroom door....so another hour was spent unscrewing the legs from the top so we could bring it into their room. Sigh. I don't know what comes over me sometimes. But now that it's done both bedrooms have a lot more space and Michael loves having all the big kid toys in his room. Things are WAY more organized than they used to be and the boys have had SOOO much fun playing on that foosball table! So even though it was kind of a pain, I have not regretted it. I think they made a good choice in picking it out.
*Tyler and Jacob ran in the Hershey's Track meet this week. It was super windy and cold and we absolutely froze for the 4 hours we were there, but it was fun to cheer them on and see them compete. Jacob ran a 100 meter race and ended up getting a side cramp and decided not to race any more. But he got 10th overall in that race! Tyler ran in the 400 meter and he was at the back of the pack the first half of the race but he paced himself well and halfway through when the other kids ran out of steam, Tyler blew by them and ended up finishing 2nd right after his best friend. They had several heats though, so overall he ended up in 10th. He also ran the 200 meter and a 4 x 100 meter relay with 3 of his friends. Michael kept busy too! He ended up falling on the bleachers and hitting his chin real hard and then on the way to the car he tripped and scraped up his chin again on the road! Poor kid--he was really banged up!

(This is after several days of healing--it used to look a lot worse. Kids heal so darn fast!)

*Oh, yeah. And I turned 31 last week. I almost forgot! Birthdays just aren't as exciting as they used to be, ya know? We're celebrating getting older?!!? The kids were very sweet. They baked this cake by themselves and then got ambitious and wanted to "really" decorate--with words and everything! Let's just say cake decorating ended up being harder than they thought it was going to be! They were kind of frustrated but I thought it turned out great for a first try!

For my birthday Jeremiah and the boys got me the Fablehaven set of books and the game "Settlers of Catan". I was really excited. That is another EXCELLENT book series if you're looking for something to read!

*It's been kind of a tough week. We found out last Saturday that some good friends of ours--a lady I have been visiting teaching for 2 years now--has applied for divorce. It was a tough blow. We know their family very well. You always hope that maybe they'll change their minds and work it out, but I know it's not likely. For their kids sake I just have to hope. Then last Sunday I found out that another friend's husband had been arrested for domestic abuse and apparently attempting to strangle her. Here we've been planning primary activities together and 2 of her kids are in our preschool and I had no idea she was being abused. What a crazy world we live in. It's definitely been a sobering week. It sure has made me appreciate my trials and my wonderful husband. We are very, very blessed.

*We are still bound and determined to move this summer but have not had any calls on our home even though the price is WAY lower than anything else around us. We had a fast today that we could sell it. Please keep us in your prayers and send any buyers our way! We can give them a KILLER deal! (PS We just had our first showing of the house tonight! We'll keep our fingers crossed!)