Still Here

Yes, we are still alive. That was quite a long break from blogging. This is what we've been doing.

I was called to be the Young Women's President at church. Yikes! Overwhelming and I really think I'm better at supporting than leading but we'll see how it goes. I miss our previous president but she had to up and move to South Dakota! What in the world??? :)

We went to the Winter Carnival at Jill's school, which was a lot of fun. The girls got corn dogs, cheetos, and root beer and thought they were so lucky! :) We played putt-putt, cake walk, ring toss, etc., and really had a fun time.

I took the YW and one of the YM to a dance in nearby Sweetwater and it was fun to watch the kids be all crazy. Our youth are really fun and the life of the party everywhere they go. They are always the ones dancing in the middle of the floor, doing the line dances, or singing the lyrics at the top of their lungs! :) Fun kids! The building was tiny and easy to miss, so we had to turn around twice. I'll do better next time! :)

Miranda gave her first talk in Primary. It was about how God's creations bless us. I printed out some pictures of some of His creations and she colored them and we were all ready to go and she came up to the front of the room about 3 minutes before she was supposed to and just stood there which was adorable. She was so excited! She climbed up on the step and repeated the first line I whispered in her ear but she was a little quiet, so I asked her to say it again and she went shy and wouldn't say another word. I think she was excited to speak into the microphone but they don't have it plugged in unfortunately and then she was too shy to speak loudly enough to be heard. So she held up the pictures that I passed her while I gave her talk. It was still cute. :)

I was offered a job to work for the Census Bureau as an enumerator -- someone who walks around and asks you who lives in your house. It was a part-time temporary job that I thought I could do with the kiddos but it turned out they wanted me to work 30 hr/wk, not 20 like was previously said, and they wanted me to cover rural areas in the county next to ours! I was thinking I'd be in this city, at least! So, I turned down the job, which made me sad since I had FINALLY found a way to help pay the bills while still taking care of my kids. But I have realized my job is really more than a full-time job and I need to focus on it in that way, rather than worry about bringing in more money. I take care of the kids and the house and the finances and I have my new calling to work on, so I will try to do each job better and forget about finding ANOTHER job for a while.

Ben's garage door has been acting crazy for months but recently stopped working altogether, so I thought I'd be sweet and surprise him with a new garage door opener. I researched, I went to the store and bought one on sale, they were going to call for the installation time... I left to get my haircut one evening (the only time all week practically that I wasn't by our home phone) and they called to set up installation while Ben was home and he said, "I didn't know we bought a garage door opener!" They said, "Well, this is the name and address on the work order," and he said, "Well, I guess we did!" Dang! I was so annoyed when I got home and he said, "Were you trying to surprise me?" with this knowing smile on his face. I immediately knew what had happened and was pretty miffed. I can NEVER surprise this man! But they came the next day and put it up in less than an hour and it is quiet and works wonderfully. And he is grateful. :)

Stake Conference came and Ben was asked to speak on temples. I helped him get some info together and he wrote the talk the night before. The morning of Conference I woke up feeling awful. I had a stomach flu or something, so I missed hearing his talk (I heard he did great) and missed all of Conference the next day too! Luckily it was only a 48 hr thing and I was fine by Monday.


Spring Break came and went too quickly. We all went to Kansas to see my family and had a great time. We went bowling, went to a neat place in Wichita called Exploration Place, ate out WAY too much, and just had a lot of fun with family. We came home to some rainy days that we DESPERATELY needed. As we were bringing things in the house and unpacking, Ben went out to get the mail (which he NEVER does--I do that every day) and he opened a package to find 2 brand new CDs that I bought him to SURPRISE him. See a pattern here? He's wanted these certain CDs for months but he never buys anything for himself. I thought he deserved a special treat and then he went and spoiled the surprise! I was so upset again that I took them and hid them. I told them I will give them to him eventually when I think he'll really be surprised. Ha ha. :)

We came home from Spring Break and got visitors a couple of days later. Ben's brother and his family visited from Dallas. It was their first time to see Abilene and our house. We had fun playing games, going to the zoo, eating out even more, reminiscing about the good ol' days, and discussing our travel plans for a younger brother's wedding this Fall. The cousins played non-stop and it was great.

This week the weather is HEAVENLY (although I'm hoping heaven doesn't have as much wind as Abilene) and we've been to the park every day this week. The sunshine is doing me good. I've been a little overwhelmed and frustrated lately and the gray, cool days were not helping my attitude. Yay for the sun!

The girls got dressed up in green yesterday for St. Patrick's. I didn't get a picture of Jill with her "The Leprechauns Made Me Do It" shirt but here are the other two girls. I forgot to tell Ben, so he got a few pinches and then colored his thumb green! :)

So that's what we've been up to in the last month. Well, a lot more than that but that was the exciting stuff. Pictures will be posted soon!