10.30.2008
Marco?
Photo Tag
10.29.2008
Country Bumpkins
10.21.2008
White Men Brought Diseases
I am SO incredibly happy to announce that we have the internet!!! YAY!! I've been seriously so depressed without it but it was a good thing too. I have been so much more focused on taking care of my family. I have been actually cooking dinner, laundry, dishes, getting us dressed and ready for the day and all that other not so fun stuff. It's amazing though how much you need a happy medium. Because although I've been doing really good with homely things, I've been so depressed feeling like I've been cut off from the world. So I'm going to put my best foot forward with keeping up with the chores and still leave time for myself to indulge on the computer. Besides my exciting news, I have some for my sister Nikki, who had a little baby boy, Collin Michael McBride, October 15th, 7 lbs. 9 ozs. and 21 inches. I can't wait to go up and visit them!! Sadly on another note I still don't have my camera battery charger, so still no pictures but it's in the mail...right mom? I've been dying to take pictures. It's fall right now and all the leaves are changing. I LOVE the colors of fall. We already had our first snow fall too. It happened last weekend and we woke up on Sunday with two inches of snow on the ground. Happily enough it warmed up and by the end of church a lot of the snow had melted. I also now understand why there weren't any diseases in Hawaii until the white men came. It was because there's not winter there. Since my kids have been here their noses have not stopped leaking. Especially Brody's! He's one big snot monster. Then yesterday both the kids had caught something and they were puking their guts out. We've been here barley a month and they already got sick. Besides that we are having fun living here. For now at least, I'm sure once it starts to get really cold it won't be as fun. Since being here we've had dinner with friends a couple of times, we went repelling, which even Drew went commando down a 50 ft. drop attached to Kurt, went up the mountain to cut fire wood, played rock band till 2 am, acquired laying hens, chicks, a rooster, and pigeons, went to a horseshoe tournament in somebody's back yard, bought my own bb gun, which I have to brag am a pretty good shot with, and rode in a Rhino, the newest toy for adults. We were even lucky enough to have the Greenleafs come and visit us. It was SO fun seeing somebody from TVA. I've really been missing the friendships I've made there. You really do get spoiled living in such a tight community. Which brings on the subject of Halloween. I'm going to miss going down Moana St. and wish everyone in Hawaii luck that it doesn't rain. We're really excited for Halloween. I think Drew most of all. She's going to be a scary witch. Not a nice one, a scary one. She even said when she's a witch she won't be Drew be dew any more. Every morning when she wakes up she asks us if it's Halloween today. Brody for once does not have to be scary. I'm not sure if anybody remembers last year but Kurt made him be Scream. The mask actually fit him good but it was so sad that my 8 month old had to be Scream. This year he's going to be Master Chief from Halo. Kurt volunteered to make his costume and if anybody remembers Kurt's costumes from last year or the year before you know that Kurt can make a darn good costume. So he's only done with the helmet so far but oh my gosh is it amazing!! Well that's all for now. I can't wait to get my camera working again because you all are probably tired of just my writing. And if I write too much I won't have anything else to say.
10.05.2008
I'm Not Complaining
Ahhh, this feels good! I finally had Kurt hook up our computer to my mother in laws internet because it's taking us a lot longer to get internet to our house than planned. So... if you were wondering, the flight over to Utah was great!! The kids slept the entire way to Portland, ran around like crazy for our three hour layover then slept the entire way to Vegas! When we got to Vegas the dumb airline lost Brody's car seat but luckily they had an extra one for us to use until they could find it and send it to us. Since the kids practically slept the entire way to Vegas they were awake and kinda cranky the three hour shuttle to Cedar. It didn't get bad till we were six minutes away from home though. So all in all the flight over here was great! We stayed at my mother in laws house for a couple of days till we could move into our... da da da daaa... trailer! Yup people we bought a trailer that belonged to Kurt's aunt who bought it from Kurt's brother who bought it from Kurt's sister, that sits on the back of Kurt's grandma's property. I wanted to take pictures of it to show you but stupid me couldn't find my camera's battery charger before we left Hawaii and now the battery is dead. Have no fear my mom found it and will be giving me the hand off later this month when she flies to Utah to help my older sister Nikki with her newest addition, yet to come. So in the meantime let me explain. In Hawaii we don't have trailers. We have a bad stereotype of people in crap holes with girls in daisy dukes and all the guys have mullets. And although you may find that more in a trailer park, it really isn't as bad as people think. We remembered the trailer when Kurt's brother and his family lived there. The outside is very, trailery, but the inside was very nice with a new paint job and carpet and just all around NICE! We didn't get to see it when it was being lived in by Kurt's aunt and uncle, and as we most recently found, their three dogs. After they bought a house they started renting it out to a girl who was going to anger management because she had lost custody over her two kids. She was only on a month to month so when Kurt's aunt and uncle found out we were moving here and needed a place they decided to kick her out. Well it was a good thing too. She smoke and drank in there, which she wasn't supposed to, and she lost her job so they were pretty sure she wasn't going to pay for next months rent. So anywho, who go back to look at the trailer with our memories of it being nice and it turned out to look like my stereotype of a trailer. I wanted to cry. The smell of smoke hit you when you first opened the door, the blinds where hanging to one side, the curtains were a mess, some of the carpet was fraying on the side, there whole big nail holes all over and giant black scuff marks on the wall. We walked to the kids' room to get them excited and Brody put his hands up by his face in a claw motion and said, "Roarr", which means scary, and Drew said," Mommy I don't want to sleep here. My room is scary!" I couldn't blame them. I immediately thought of a bad motel room. We didn't move in immediately. We bought some cheap furniture first and provisions and now I'm happy to say that it looks a lot less scary. There's also a wood burning stove and after messing around with it a little bit our house smells like campfire instead of cigarette smoke which I'll take any day. The girl only lived there for a month, not very long enough to make her smell, stain. It's just so sad that we have to wait for money to be able to make as homely as we want. We want to put trip on all the windows and paint all the walls but it just money that we don't have. I also ripped down all the ugly curtains and threw them out. So now were feeling better about our place, our car was another issue. We didn't have the money to buy the car we found on craigslist so we applied for our first car loan. Turns out we have really good credit but Kurt didn't have any current work history in Utah, so we needed a cosigner. Kurt's mom was happy to cosign but between, stupid and stupider people it took us a lot longer to get that stupid car than we wanted. So now were happy to say that we have a 99 Dodge Durango with three rows and leather seats. After we got it home, however, we realized that there's a problem with the starter. It takes the car 3 - 5 times to start now. Talk about a humble beginning. We can't afford to fix it now but we're hopping that it won't completely bog out on us until we can afford to fix it. Other than all the materialistic things that are sadly needs and not wants, were doing good. The kids are loving, absolutely love living here. They see all kinds of animals everyday, play with their cousins almost everyday, have two grandmas that live 30 sec. away. Kurt's dad has a garden and the kids have so much fun going back there and picking fresh fruits and veggies. While they're having fun I'm keeping busy lathering up the kids with lotion, wiping runny noses because it's gotten cold, layering on their clothes, and yelling at Drew for taking of her shoes, that's a whole other story. When we put Brody's shoes on him, after it had been at least a couple of months since the last time we put shoes on him, he was walking around like a dog with shoes. Till he finally threw himself on the ground and started bawling. My kids hate wearing shoes. I had really forgotten what Utah was like until we went to Walmart for the first time. Picture this, we walk through the doors and it takes me a second to notice all the mom's dressed and makeuped to a tee, and every other women there pregnant. I noticed in the shopping carts all the little girls that are as equally as primed with cute little outfits and their hair all done up with ribbons and bang styles from the 80's. Then I look down at my cart at Brody with snot running out of his nose, clothes that he's been in for two days, and Drew screaming that she doesn't want to be in the cart, but she didn't bring her shoes and we told her to, she's wearing mismatching shirt and skirt because she picked it out and her hair is one huge rats nest because it's not doing well in the dry air. I just had to laugh. Now I'm not complaining, I'm not being mean, I've just realized what Hawaii does to you after you've lived there for a while. Oh, I miss it so much! I know this is where we're supposed to be, I just wish there was a little more laid back Hawaiian culture here.