Texas is calling but we can't find the phone.

So our plans to move have been put on hold. The powers that be and are controlling our lives still don't know what they can/will/should do for us with this house. Once the lightbulb went on in someone's head that the required paperwork to initiate this move was not turned in and they turned in said paperwork the ball started rolling ever so slowly but apparently it is going uphill. We had 2 appraisals done and they came back really far apart and so we had to have another one done over the weekend. This one was not good either and with the #'s they are giving us would not even pay off the house so in limbo we must stay as someone decides what to do with the mess that the real estate market has created for relocation rejects like us. Apparently the company lost their shirt on a deal out of California and so they are really leary about purchasing houses and the Vegas market blows right now and we are part of that. So as of last Wednesday night when we found out that they needed another appraisal we decided that we will just stay residents of Logandale for a while until someone decides what to do about this house and we have it in writing. Yes, my hsuband still has a job and yes, he still will be covering the middle of the United States but he will be doing it from Logandale and flying to Texas a few times a month-good news with that is that maybe he can wrack up a few billion frequent flyer miles so that we can go to Hawaii. Supposedly the real estate market is coming around so we will put the house up for sale with a realtor and see if it will sell and if not then we will get appraisals again in 3 months and see if the market has come up enough for them to make us a decent offer on the house. Not couting on that one though! I'm not sure what the purpose of all this mess is or what the grand design is for our family. We really feel/felt like we should pursue this Texas thing but we just keep hitting roadblocks, brickwalls and potholes and whatever other metaphor is appropriate here. So for the time being we are staying put. Obviously the lesson on patience has not been learned yet-I could have told you that without having this whole fiasco to deal with. Could someone please call the Lonestar state and put our reservation on hold?

EFY Rocks-ok those are my words not my son's!

Cody's pre-EFY lunch at Burger Supreme

The lovely accomodations.

Cody and dad

Cody and mom

Putting together the fan that we had to go and buy at Shopko for Cody because the room was so blazing hot.

Luckily there were no tools required for assembly!




We went to Provo again last week so Cody could go to EFY at BYU. He had a great time with his friend Daniel and met and made some other good friends. Luckily there was not a shortage of boys like there was at Summer Scholars. I talked to him every night and each time he said that the day was great. Hopefully he will post on his blog sometime what they did there. I gave him an older camera and he took a few pics but as he stayed at Grandma Penny's house for an extra week after we went home, the pictures are up there with him.

Major Disappointment

So Breaking Dawn came into my possession on Saturday night at 8:00pm. My sister Calley and Cody went to Barnes and Noble and picked it up for me along with a tasty Jamba Juice. I started reading it that night at stayed up until 2am. We all got up and went to church and when we came home I read for about an hour and then took a nap. After the nap I read on and off-mostly on all afternoon. I finished it about 8:00pm. Total hours actually reading-about 11. I was totally disappointed though not enough to stop reading it. It was too Sci Fi and where did the romance go? I thought that she totally could have done so much more with the book and it was very adult. Granted there was nothing totally immoral about it but Wow!-for the intended audience-teen girls-it was too much. I guess that technically that she can do another book with all that happened but it would probably continue in the same vein. Anyone want to chat about it? We have been talking in code and in low voices around the family members that have not finished it but they better hurry so that we can have a big discussion on the let down.

The Week in Review-Is it over yet?

Monday -hmmm I can't remember-Oh yes I made my children earn their keep by forcing them into child slave labor. They cleaned the house that hasn't been cleaned since before we went to Dallas. You would have thought that I asked them to toothbrush the tiles and Qtip the baseboards but contrary to popular belief I am not the meanest mother in the world for making my kids do chores. They are all of the age to do manual labor and it is just a little payback for my giving them birth. Don and I ran to Mesquite to go to the new Quiznos and get some more totes for packing. We brought the kids back Del Taco-much less dinero. Don took care of FHE and treats which were a late dinner of pancakes. I started feeling sick on Sunday-thank you to Cayden who passed along the dreaded gomboo. I wanted to stay home from church but we have not been here hardly at all this summer and thought it was a good idea to all go as a family-plus I got released from scouts so that was a bonus. I kept getting sicker all week and of course Don left Tuesday for Dallas.
Tuesday-The younger boys got to go to Grandma Dottie's for the day and over to Aunt Dena's to swim while I took Cody to St. George for school/EFY shopping. I needed a hair cut desperately-insert complaint here-I usually like the way my hair is cut but I am telling you that no one can style my hair after it is cut the way that I like it. The UT thing is the straightener/flat look which I cannot pull off but the cut was ok so I just plan on washing it shortly after I get home. Cody and I went to Kohl's after my haircut. This is quite an easy kids to shop for. He got 3 pair of pants and some dress clothes. We then went to the mall. The St. George has improved in recent years. They now have an Aeropostale, American Eagle and Hollister. Cody does not even like Hollister so that was good because they are so expensive. He got 2 shirts at Aeropostale, 2 shirts from American Eagle and a pair of shoes from Foot Locker. He does not like me picking out his clothes but he is pretty good going shopping. He does not totally love it so he really just wants to get the stuff and get done. We ate at Ruby Tuesday and went to Sonic on the way home after a quick trip into Target. He even said that he would just use the backpack that he already has because the one's at Target were $30 bucks and we had already spend a ton of money. He is a good boy. I came home and basically went to bed-ok as much as a sick mother can go to bed with 4 kids and a traveling husband. It was definiely a Nyquil night but UUCCKKK that stuff is crap! Cody and I had grits around 10:00. My throat was so sore I could hardly swallow not to mention that everything just tasted funny.
Wednesday we did not do much. I woke up with my throat on fire so bad that I thought I had Strep but after a few hours it calmed down so did not go to the doctor. I did some laundry in the morning and had the kids do a few other things but by 2:00 I was miserable so I went back to my bed for the duration of the day. I pulled some frozen something out of the freezer for dinner and went back to bed again. I have Without a Trace and Good Eats on DVR so there were numerous hours of viewing pleasure. I did not take Nyquil that night and actally made it through pretty good. I am afraid to take it too much because the genes in our family suggest that it could become "mommy's little friend"-barring the horrible taste-if I let it. Connor spent the night at Grandma's Wednesday and Thursday so that was good.
Thursday I was starting to feel better so me and the kids drove to Mesquite for another tasty Quiznos experience and some backpack purchasing for Caleb and Cayden. We went for a delicious Jamba experience on the way home. That was basically the whole afternoon. I will be so glad to be able to go to lunch and Walmart and be back in less than 2 hours as opposed to the 4 it takes now. Don got home around 7 and brought PF Changs so that was one more night I did not have to cook! Yippee!
Friday-I had really good intentions of getting alot done today but alas-I was about worthless. We got a phone call from the insurance company about the car wreck and they gave us some pitally low offer and were being just complete horse's behinds. That just ruined almost the whole day for me. This whole car wreck thing has just about made us completely insane. It has been such an emotional roller coaster and we thought that the ride was ending here soon but no they have to morons. They seriously believe that I am better even though I have been sending them monthly compilations of receipts for all the doctors that I still go to. Their ridiculous logic is that I saw a nuerologist in July last year and because I have not had surgery yet or had injections then I must be better. Yeah that makes sense you bunch of *************! Anyway we contacted an attorney AGAIN and this ridiculous saga will continue. Plus we still don't have a place to live in Dallas. Don visited a few apartments-no way-and a few houses that are available for lease before he came home but we still don't have anything set. School starts in 3 weeks and we really wanted to be down there in 2 weeks. After fretting and stewing about all that BS all morning I was worn out and actually went to bed again. I got up around 4 and have been quite productive since then. I have packed the scrapbooks-very important and irreplacable and have been cleaning out my office closet. We have had lots of offers for help but we don't really know what to have anyone do. We have to dejunk everything ourselves and the moving company will come and pack and box everything when we are ready to go. Don and I will go back to Dallas next week and try and find a house to rent. There a few houses that will work it's just a matter of seeing them and getting the right terms. Most want a 1 year lease but we don't want to commit to that long because we want to buy a house as soon as we can. Anyway we will be leaving for Utah tomorrow because Cody has EFY starting Monday.

Funny story-Cayden came in here yesterday dragging around his doll "Loralie" That is the name of his school teacher's daughter and once in a while he gets a hankering to play house. Anyway I was in the office and he comes in and asks the lovely question that every parent waits to hear "Mom, how do they get the baby out of your belly?" I said to him "Well what do you think?' He said "I don't know. Do they use a pizza cutter like on Grey's Anatomy?" "I said "Umm no they just pull the baby out and they don't use a pizza cutter." Hmmm, good thing that I quit watching Grey's Anatomy for Lent-oh wait it was my New Year's resolution. He was good with that answer and said "oh" in his sweet high pitched voice and toodled off on his way.
Hark, I hear the laundry calling me.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation-Cayden Style

This is Cayden lounging on my bed amongst the pillows and his favorite thing to do is to make "Christmas trees" in his room. He pulls out the top drawer on his dresser and hangs items (shirts on hangers, ties, ribbon, scarves etc) from the knobs. He also likes to take my floral arrangements and add his own special touch. The pillows must be presents.

Exercise in Futility or Exercising Futility or Is Exercising Futile?

Is there a theme here? And which is it? My exercise in futility has 4 parts..
1. We are still not much more informed about this move then we were a month ago. The information is slow in coming and it seems that the procedure for us to move is being done backward and so any one that should know really doesn't and can only speculate and say "well usually they....." but since this isn't the usual thing then no one knows. We did have 2 appraisers come this week who should have their info back to the relocation company by tomorrow hopefully and then maybe someone will make a decision. We think that they want to know exactly how big of a hit they will take on the house with the way that the economy is in the toilet right now and once they know that then they will do something. Also we are hoping that they are working backwards because the house has been for sale already so to put it up while we sit here and wait is futile. Someone just decide already! School starts in 4 weeks.

2. Because we don't know very much about when, where, how etc about this move I can't do very much packing. We found out yesterday that usually they send in a company to pack, load and move you in one day. But again that is the usual way and we don't know if we are the usual way or the unusual way. If they do come and pack for us then that is great but that means I can't pack much on my own. Insurance crapola or whatever. Also since we don't know if they are buying the house now or later, we don't know if we are going to buy a house right away or if we will go to an apartment or hotel or freeway underpass. Because of the lack of information I don't know whether we should pack the whole house or 75% of it. We can't fit the whole house in an apartment. By the way, they won't move the boat or the plane or ammuntion or the dog. I guess the boat and plane will have to stay. Maybe the dog will eat the ammunition so we have less to move on our own.

3. Me and the kids went through their rooms yesterday and they tried on all their pants and long sleeves so that I know what to buy them for school. They really don't need much. Cody and Connor need a few pair of pants, but really that is all that they NEED. We filled 2 huge boxes of stuff for DI and it is hard to justify buying a bunch of clothes when you throw out so much. I want to go shopping but don't want to buy a bunch of stuff that we just have to haul to Texas not to mention the fact that it becomes a whole day event to go to Vegas or St. George, gas prices are excruciating and who wants to drag 4 boys through the mall all day? I don't hear any volunteers! I have not been to Costco for a month and then it was up in Provo buying stuff for my mom. I keep holding my self back from going there because we are trying to empty out the freezer and the cabinets so that we have less to haul. It is making me crazy and I feel less secure knowing that I only have 4 cases of water instead of 8 and the only thing that separates me from the loony bin is 1 large package of toilet paper. I have such a compulsion to have lots and lots of stuff on hand"just in case". I even have coupons for Costco that are calling my name. Who doesn't need the value pack of 600 napkins or 15 count of scotchbrite sponges. What if the end comes and we have to build a raft out of those sponges to get out and we don't have them. AAARRRGGGHH-maybe I should start smokin crack or something. Maybe that would take the place the addiction to shopping I have.

4. My experiment to see how long it would take for my knee start hurting again has reached a conclusion. That does not mean that I am doing anything to change that conclusion but it has taken just about 4 weeks for my knee to start bugging my again since I quit exercising. I was doing really good and I even was walking at my mom's in Provo the last week of June but alas, I chose sleep rather than exercise and have continued in that vein ever since. I totally need to start walking again but have yet to motivate myself sufficiently enough to do it. I really have good intentions every day but every day comes and goes and my treadmill continues to collect dust bunnies and my behind continues to collect cellulite. I feel much better when I exercise and my knee is much less troublesome but that is still not enough motivation to get off my behind.

Does Anyone Have The Time?

Oh wait, yes I do. It is 5:22am!! What am I doing awake? Well we have been awake now for the last hour and a half because Cayden has the croup. He started breathing hard around 3:30 and got worse. We got out the nebulizer at 4:00 and after using on him for 45 minutes moved him to the shower for the steam treatment. The nebulizer is on the fritz. It sounds like a jet engine in my bedroom and is pushing very little air through it hence Cayden is not getting the medicine very fast. Well, it has lasted for 12 years and through 4 kids. We got it the summer I was pregnant with Connor and we were going to the Bahamas and Florida. Cody had really bad asthma but not croup if I remember right. We had to drag that thing on the airplane with us and it was a pain but we had to keep Cody breathing. Connor had the croup horribly when he was little and Caleb had it a few times but Cayden has had it the worst. He was seriously having flare ups once a month between 18 months and 3 years old but that has gotten much better. It is now only a few times a year but we don't have any idea what brings it on. I think it was last summer up in Provo around this time that mom and I took Cayden to the ER at 3:00am because of croup. Maybe it was 2 years ago-I would have to look at the pics that we took of him there to be sure. The last time he had it a few months ago and I took him to the doctor she wanted us to see a specialist because he is too old to be having croup. Connor still gets the barky cough sometimes when he gets sick and he is 11 so I am not overly concerned. Anyway the machine is literally on its last breath-haha and so the usual 15 minute med dose is taking much much longer. Cayden is wide awake and watching Pooh Bear on the loudest volume and I turned the fan off in there to help him breathe better so it is not a very relaxing atmosphere in my room right now. Don left for a 6:04 tee time-yeah he's nuts, but hopefully he can bring home a new nebulizer. I am so grateful that we have had the little machine because it has sure come in handy at 3:00 in the morning and saved us a few trips to the ER. Don took the boys to McGill Saturday afternoon to spend time with Grandma and Grandpa and to go fishing. They came home yesterday evening. Don said that Cayden did wake up a little hoarse yesterday morning. Here are few pics of their fun.

Connor's fort that he has been building for months and his fish that he caught.

Caleb is not thrilled because his fish got away. The boys at the McGill House.

Big smelter ovens in Ely


Caleb and Cayden climbing on the ovens. They look like huge beehives.

Connor and Caleb etaing the fish that Connor caught. He saved it and brought it home to show me and then Don grilled it for them.