non crazy faces

For all you non crazy faces who still can't seem to come up with time for a phone call now and then, I give you the update. Yes, I have stones again. What does this mean.... Probably a kidney removal. Blah blah blah. Anything to get me healthy. Yeah! Joe has his next round on Tuesday. X-ray with a barium enema. See, there could be worse things. Ha ha. I told you it all made me laugh. I would fill in more, but I have to go clean my garage. Dun dun dun...... Yes, it is that scary, but I will have cars in the garage before the day is through! Then we have to tear down last nights campout. We even watched a movie on the side of the house. It was super fun. Less expensive smore alternative... make brownies and cut them up small. After roasting the marshmallow, place on top of brownie and enjoy. Mmmmm. Love you!

Crazy Faces!

I have decided that you are all crazy faces and am grateful for my relatively calm life right now.  But in case you didn't know I wanted to let you all know that my sister Deborah is getting married next Friday in the Mt. Timpanogas Temple.  I get to fly out Wed and will stay until Saturday.  I'm hoping to visit Michelle one day and play hard without little boys on my heels.

I have a feeling that Deborah will keep me quite busy as she is still teaching Elementary School and doesn't have a break until Monday when she goes off track (year round).     She's a crazy face, too, so I'll have to go and make sure everything runs smoothly. . . I get to be in charge!  Well,  I hope you all have a great week!  

Top Gun Ladies

Well, we are in Virginia as a family. Marquie flew in on Monday and we went to the Air and Space Museum. We decided that our grandchildren would love seeing all of the planes so this will have to be a stop when you all come to visit. Wanted to share this picture with you because they both wanted to know where the "Top Gun" plane was. Eat your heart out Tom, these ladies are in our family.

cause

I promised Mom I would blog tonight. I think she might need a little something to do in that motel all day. One can only shop in Front Royal for so long. So, the update. If I was doing this in person, I would be laughing. When I am done, you will understand. Joe had his Colonoscopy and they took a few biopsies. Yes, he really did have a complete lack of short term memory. We were on our way home, in the subdivision, and he told me he really had to go. April reminded me I must go the speed limit. "No Mommy, don't", was his response. I quickly hopped out upon our arrival to help him inside. He immediately headed for the the bathroom and was at a loss when I took him toward the bathroom. Yes, it was that bad. he then proceeded to fall asleep on the toilet. I have to say, it was really quite hysterical. We should have results on those tests by the end of the week. If it shows nothing, he gets to swallow a camera. Now how many people get to do that? Really? I went in for another CAT Scan and X-Ray on Friday. My doctor did not call today, so I will be calling in the morning. We had to throw about $1200 into fixing our vehicles last week and two days later our computer crashed. Are you laughing with me yet? Yes, we had to replace the computer and lost everything. The hard drive went corrupt..... then my camera broke.... then my cupboard door fell off.... hmmmmm. Worry not, Joe and I are feeling very blessed and very happy. No, I am not joking, totally serious. I have never felt so blessed in all my life. On a super happy note, I was just called to be the 1st counselor in...........Young Womens. Yipppeeee!!!! There isn't going to be a second counselor as of right now. We only have 5 active young women. 2 Beehives and 3 Laurels. We don't really want to out number them. I am over the Beehives, which are the McGreggor twins. I am so excited. Joe and I calendered on Sunday, holy crazy. Oh, well. Better busy than lazy!Marquie came to visit this weekend! I'm pretty sure she just wanted to get out of the drive, but that is so okay with me. She babysat so we could go to the temple and played for us in sacrament meeting. It was awesome. I'm pretty sure she is going to survive, but we may never know cause she won't blog! School is super! April asked me today if she can do all her subjects everyday instead of alternating.? UMmmmm...... Yeah!She didn't complain once today about any school stuff. I am so excited. She is also having a hay day with Rosetta Stone. While she was water sliding for P.E. today, I went out to read a book and watch. She immediately stopped and told me what "woman reading" was in Spanish. I'm sold. She even sounded hispanic. Of course, that is kind of the accent here..... I just finished three quizzes for her reading class. We looked at her reading list today and she was not satisfied, so she read three more. To the library tomorrow I think. I think that pretty much sums it up. Yes, still laughing. Hope you got a kick out of it too. I'll update you if we hear anything! I would post a current picture, but hard drive crashed , camera boken......... Use your imagination!

Joe Update

I just have to say, if you haven't heard yet, that doctor induced memory loss drugs are interesting. No I'm not talking about medicinal marijuana, unless they have it in a clear liquid, injectable into the IV form. After my procedure {colonoscopy} on Monday, I have literally 6 hours of my life that I do not remember. Full coherent conversations occurred with everyone, just not one iota of info or memory was retained. Just bizarre! For further details, just call Heather. I won't be of any help on this matter. If photos don't make you squeamish, check out my blog [Find the Humor in Life]. I promised Heather that I wouldn't post them on this family blog.

We are officially Moving!

So, I just thought I would post a little preview of the next few weeks for us. It has been a whirlwind week and the next few promise the same. Dad and Marquie are flying home tonight, after Marquie's first week of school--hopefully, she'll post what she has learned about living in Virginia sometime in the near future. Then, tomorrow morning, we are loading up all the stuff the moving company won't take and heading back to Virginia. Marquie is trying to weasel her way out of the 12 hour trip--yes, Heather, 12 hours (boo, hiss)-- by pleading to stay with Heather for the weekend and flying out to meet us in Washington, DC on Monday.

I will spend the week with Marquie in a hotel--slash, slash...no, MOTEL in Front Royal while Dad travels to some much neglected areas of the east coast for meetings. Hopefully, sometime during that week, Marquie and I will be able to see the home Dad has rented for us to spend the school year in.

Then, on (or before) September 7, I will fly back to Chicago so I can be here when the moving company packs our belongings on September 8 and 9 (they figure it will take 2 days--I can only imagine how many days it would have taken if we had not done such a massive clean-out before we put our home on the market). Then on September 10, I think a Wednesday, they will load all our belongings on a semi and head for Virginia.

Once, I have finished cleaning the house, which I am desperately trying to accomplish as much as possible this week, I will officially leave for Virginia. We will move into our new home on September 15 (and I'm sure 16, 17, 18....).

So, what becomes of our home in McHenry? We are still praying it will sell, but would really rather not leave it empty through the winter months...so I suppose that part of the story is still to be determined.

There you go. All are up to date!

First Week. . .

I was confused about this being my first week.  For me it is week 3 and week 4 and week 8 and week 1 and end of term grading, but I don't think that is what she was referring to or maybe it was.  Though, it was our first week with daddy gone and we did start school at home.  We set up a schedule together with the boys and they are very excited!  We have a little structure but a lot of freedom to just love learning!

I have really tried to not force them to do anything but to inspire them to want to learn.  Yesterday after cleaning up breakfast I headed upstairs and could just tell that they didn't want to stop playing for "school", so I tried to inspire them.  I pulled out a book and asked if anyone wanted to come and hear me read a story . . . like moths to a flame!  They came and we read some fun poems and fables and then started our handwriting.  We've really had fun with handwriting which has shocked me.  We do two letters each day and always practice and circle our best--which they apparently love.  Then, we always play a game where we find words that only use the letters we have learned so far.  Last night at dinner we were telling daddy about our new game and that tomorrow we were doing g and h and Michael said then we can use the word 'cabbage.'  We just about died.  Apparently it was Joshua's idea. . . it is a good thing they can read because they are already smarter than me and will need to learn from books.  :(    So, things are going well and we're having lots of fun.  Tomorrow we're learning about prehistoric life--after the dinosaurs . . . should be fun!

It is different not having daddy around but we're excited he has a real job and love supporting him!   Now we just have to pray that more people will audition!  

How is school for everyone else?