Blessed - Consider the lilies of the field...

My husband and I were talking yesterday about life.  I just keep thinking that things are supposed to get easier at some point.  He thinks that maybe 'that's life'...just the ups and downs all the time, and trying to work through them.  Maybe he's right, and maybe he isn't.

These flowers are probably my all time favorite flower - Calla lilies...last night during scriptures, we read in the Book of Mormon, the section where Christ has just come to visit the Americas, and was preaching messages which were very similar to the messages he taught in Jerusalem.  Here's one of my favorite passages - we read it last night and it gave me peace.  It is found in 3 Nephi 13:26-34, and says...
 "Behold the fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them.  Are ye not much better than they?  Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?  And why take ye thought for raiment?  Consider the lilies of the field how they grow; they toll not, neither do they spin; And yet I say unto you, that even Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these.  Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, even so will he clothe you, if you are not of little faith.  Therefore take no though, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?  For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.  But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.  Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself"

I love these verses because they teach me that Heavenly Father knows what I need (right now - like a house), and things will work out - I just need to put my faith and trust in Him, and things really do work out.
Today I saw that happening.  I've been very blessed today.  Today my walking partner went to do some service in the temple - like she does every Friday.  I asked her to pray for us today - because things have been a little rough.  Suddenly - part way through the day, everything just started to shift.  In an amazing way.  Really.

First off, I started working on some primary stuff, and made a phone call to ask for some feedback, and ended up a short while later meeting with two amazing women, and I got a lot off of my plate and sorted through some major stuff this morning with these ladies.  Yes, we sorted through the primary program AND the ward Christmas party that we are in charge of.  More on my plate, but we made a huge dent in my mental list and worries.  (Which is good since I'm moving in a month)

My activities for 2013 and our primary budget started to round themselves out, and things I've been stressing about getting done are finally moving from that back burner to the mid to center of the stove finally (and hopefully off of the stove into my 'done' pile!)

This afternoon, I got a call from our renters in Colorado.  Back in the beginning of the month our renters told us that because of a lost job and that things were pretty iffy.  We said we'd work with them.  Then, last week, they told us they were moving out.  So - I've been frantically trying to get our Co. house posted all over the place and take care of adds, and set up showings, and put together contracts and figure everything out.
While we did find renters, they weren't able to move in until mid November - which was still difficult for us and I was starting to work on utilities and a vacant house for a month and a half...so not joyful during this uber stressful time.

Until this afternoon - when they called and said that things had worked out, and they decided that they really wanted to stay in our house, and that their employment situation had changed, and that they'll be staying there.  Wooowhoo!  What a load off of my mind!

And finally - with a cherry on top, we've been trying to get a specific loan program - oh yeah, for the house we are going to buy.  (Yes #5 - refer to previous post).

My dad (who is an amazing loan officer) told us about a fantastic loan product - and we fit the criteria.  After dealing with 4 different loan officers who just couldn't understand what we wanted and told us it didn't exist, he suggested that I call someone from his company in our area.  Lo and behold - we found someone.  We started everything up with her, and then the next day got an email telling us she'd switched to another company.  She said she could still do the program, so I've been bustling around, digging through boxes for old tax returns etc.

Then yesterday, she found out she couldn't do the program we wanted.  So, more phone calls for me - trying to figure out where to go, and how to get this product we want.  Finally, this afternoon, the skies started to clear.  Right as I was having the phone conversation with our renter, I got an email from our loan officer, and it looks like they can do the program we want and they've approved us for it already.

Rounding out my evening and gradually clearing skies - we got to go on a date - to the local football game.  My husband enjoyed the game.  I enjoyed the shake with him afterwards....and he even made it through a movie with me.
Sigh - things are looking up.  I'm blessed, and so grateful for today's blessings! 

More house shopping

Number 5.  Maybe it is our lucky number. 

Last week we saw another house (#4) and were ready to put in an offer.  We loved the house, and the setting, but not the schools or distance to our church.  When we contacted our realtor to put in the offer (after agonizing over it) he talked to the agent, and was told that the sellers pulled it off of the market due to health problems.  Grrrr...  so - we've been frantic.  Really trying to find anything in the area we want - we've been making concessions and justifying and rationalizing, but not finding what we want.
However, this beauty - might be the one.  We are keeping our fingers crossed.  It was put on the market last week and we saw it yesterday.  We are putting in an offer tomorrow and keeping our fingers crossed.  It has the right schools and is still fairly close to the church (which is important when early morning seminary kicks in)...

So - while I should be blogging about all of the fun stuff we are doing - really, I've been hanging out with our realtor - I think he's shown me 40 houses.  We get excited and put in an offer, and then for whatever weird reason - we don't get it.  Then, I get to go back to looking for houses and the desperation rises.

Which brings us to this point.  I'm hoping we'll know by Wed., and if that's the case, I can start packing boxes.  Hoping hoping this will be it.  :)

Slap of the wrists

It seems that I got too busy to blog this summer.  I can't believe it has been since July.  Naughty, naughty me.
Our youngest daughter found a ballet workshop during the last two weeks of July - it was pretty intense, but she loved it.  So, after searching for a gymnastics home, we settled with a cheer and tumbling program.  She didn't love it though, and so we looked around and found a classical ballet program.  She's attending twice a week and is enjoying it.  She's hoping to try out to be a mouse in the nutcracker this fall/winter season.  Hmmm
In the meantime...school started during that second week of August - so early!  We spent lots of time shopping and getting all of our school gear back together, and I've spent lots of time running around taking are of lots of things I've put off.  Mostly, I've been hanging out with our realtor.

Meanwhile on the home front - we don't have one.  What I meant to say is that after 11 months of wrangling, and trying to purchase the home that we've been renting, we were told to take a hike by the owner's bank.  As a short sale, we've been at their mercy - waiting and waiting.  Well, they decided to look at the file again just as we got the green light.  They suddenly raised the price $20K.  Our realtor (and theirs) squawked and said they were plain crazy, and asked them to look at it again.  They did.  And then they added another $20K onto the price - elevating it $40K.  Way over price for even a traditional sale - and even more than the owners even paid for it 8 years ago.  Then, they told us to pay it up, or take a hike - by 5 pm.

Hence, my daytime job looking at houses with the realtor.
 
We made an offer on one house last week, but it was rejected by the seller - she was not interested in negotiating anything - it was all or nothing and she was priced high.
So, we are in the midst of another offer and crossing our fingers that we will have a home to live in in the near future.  In the meantime, we have another realtor banging on our door trying to show this home to some new crazies who think they might want to buy this overpriced short sale of a home with no privacy or backyard and an itty bitty kitchen.

The good news is - after agonizing over the house we are currently hoping to get - we found out that the schools are all different schools.  BUT - because our oldest has been fervently praying that even if we move, she wants to continue to go to her school - our kids may still get to finish this year and next at their schools...if I'm willing to drive them to and from.  Guess we will cross that bridge when we get there.

It is almost 7:30 and my house is way too quiet!  Pictures on their way soon.

Life just seems to truck on by while we blink.
We've been renting the house where we live for the past year.  For 9 of those months, we've been trying (and trying, and trying) to purchase it.  It has been tedious.  And frustrating and exasperating.
We moved in partially, but still have boxes in the garage that we haven't even unpacked, because we thought we might be moving and didn't want to unpack these boxes just to repack again.

We also got embarrassed with the background in our skyping and online video conferencing.  Along with other food storage furniture, we had the food storage shelf, laden with food stuffs that couldn't withstand the garage heat of the summer, along with toys, and covered with a shower curtain.  Embarrassing.

My husband and I woke up on Saturday ready to move things around.  We've been stalling (for 9 months) since we didn't want to haul 2-4K lbs around this house (translation - up the stairs), just to move it all over again in a few months.  But we woke up 'over it' as we've been using the distributed food storage program which involved furniture in all rooms made from food storage.  Not very attractive, but that's how it has been this past year. Classy might not even be the right adjective. 


We got rid of some of the 'college dorm' like furniture.  (Like the tv, dvd player, and speakers all on a coffee table against the wall for example.  We've got a few ideas still on the backburner, but we have consolidated almost all of our canned (#10) into our extra room.  If you were planning on a visit, due to lack of visitors, we've re-claimed 12 inches in the guest room.  We now have an entire wall of food storage - floor to ceiling - the entire length of the room.  I think it is impressive, and it isn't even an eyesore.  Finally. 

We moved the love seat no less than 5 times, and lots of shelves and shelving units.  My muscles are sore.
We sigh relief though everytime we look over into our family room.  Hurray for that.

West Palm Beach & the Famous Toilet

We spent this weekend in West Palm Beach with some family that came into town (ahem - that town, not ours) .  We spent the day at the beach (of course - where else?), and then headed out for some dinner.
We tried out a cuban restaurant, and while the atmosphere and live music was really cool, the food was disappointingly a little bleh.
We decided to check out the street and shops scene and stumbled upon a splash fountain, and an outside dance party in the plaza. 

After shaking our hips to a few songs, we headed into Sloan's ice cream shop.  It was whimsical with awesome painting - everything looked hand painted, with amazing details, and it reminded me of cotton candy.  Here's a link that you should check out so that your jaw can also drop http://www.sloansicecream.com/about-us/

As soon as we hit the door, our youngest daughter urgently needed the bathroom.
We had no idea that this awaited us:
 
Yep - the bathroom door is glass.
We looked around and saw that the boy's restroom was also just as see through as the ladies.
We panicked.  My husband said no way.  I said - you stand guard, I'll help her hurry.  I thought - what kind of a place is this?  How weird. 

We got in and shut the door, then turned the handle, and the glass instantly fogged like this, and we heaved a sigh of relief, and hurried so that the fog didn't run out (in case it was on a timer or something)

Today when I got home, I was trying to figure out how to describe this bathroom door, and looked online.  I found several articles that rated this bathroom as one of the 9 most incredible bathrooms, as well as reference to this bathroom having made the Travel Channel's 10 most outrageous bathrooms list.
And to think we used this famous potty through pure luck.
I'm really sorry about the potty post, but really - it was so cool.  

Mom and Me week

During flute camp week, our youngest and I got to spend some fun time together, so we decided to put our Disney passes to good use.
We spent the first day at the Epcot center.  In Mexico, we discovered a ride we'd never seen or done before, and then had lunch at the Mexican restaurant.  We think that my chicken tortilla soup is better than theirs.
  

We spent the next day at the Animal Kingdom.  We took the train ride and got to see a ball python, and learn all about snakes.
AND touch them.

 

We spent our third day of the week in court - dealing with local housing issues which still have not been resolved, but have been extended for a couple of more months.
We enjoyed the Magic Kingdom on Thursday and we think we've figured out a system to get the most out of our time in futureland where we stayed the whole time.
We did Monsters inc. laugh floor twice just to see if we could figure out if they plant people in the audience to pick on.  We also wondered if they use the same jokes.  No on both accounts.  We still haven't quite figured out how they do it.

On Friday we decided to hang around UCF because it was so stormy and we would had to leave early for the flute camp concert.
We got pedicures, and then little missy got her hair trimmed.  Pamper pamper.

Our summer seems to have finally started!

Honeymoon Island

My husband needed to work in Tampa last Friday, so we hitched a ride.
The girls and I did some shopping (they love shopping) while dad worked, and then we headed out to a Honeymoon Island, a beach that had been recommended.
Last week, Florida got pounded with tropical storm Debbie, and the gulf coast was no exception.  We were glad that some of the beach was left, despite some of the debris and part of the island off limits due to the flooding.
We really enjoyed the super gentle surf, and the warm water - it was so relaxing.
We enjoyed digging around with our toes in the water and finding seashells and sand dollars - the girls would then dive down and retrieve the treasures - we found lots!


A walk down the beach - we get excited when we find rocks in Florida because there are so few.
Sea oats

We stayed around for the sunset over the gulf of Mexico.  It was spectacular.  

The girls and I

 

Flute camp

Our daughter attended flute camp at UCF a couple of weeks ago
She was the youngest of the four middle schoolers.  When they first started, everyone was nervous and afraid to talk to each other.  She decided to break the ice and started telling jokes, and by the end of the week they were all great friends - looking forward to next year already. 

Final performance.  The performer on the far right is her private teacher who we LOVE!

The high school group performed several pieces - several full orchestral pieces using piccolo, concert flute, alto, tenor, and bass flutes.  It was pretty cool! 

 

 

 

Storms

Almost every day this past week, we've seen mother nature flexing her muscles and we've stood in awe at the remarkable power that comes from the sky.  


This past Wednesday a storm hit around 2:30 that had our windows rattling from the thunder.  Along with the thunder, lightening is a pretty scary thing here.  "In the United States, cloud-to-ground lightning strikes occur approximately 30 million times each year, most often in Florida and along the southeastern coast of the Gulf of Mexico".  (wonder.cdc.gov)
We've learned to head for cover if we even hear thunder, because Florida storms don't mess around. 


After the storm on Wednesday, we headed out to run some errands, and found this 1.5 miles from our home. 

 

Apparently, a tree was hit by lightening, and was blocking the road. 
An ambulance was nearby as we detoured through a nearby church parking lot.  I looked over and saw the attendant pulling out a chain saw.  My jaw sort of dropped!  
As we continued on our way, we saw lots of trees down, littering the roadways.  
I was grateful we'd been inside with a roof over our heads during that storm.   

Lane and Aubree, Sisters, Family, Music and the spoken word

Here's my brother and sister in law as they exited the temple after being sealed to each other:
All of the sisters and inlaws (except for the new girl - maybe we'll photo shop her in)

The immediate family members who were at the wedding

We stopped by Gossner's for some yummy root beer milk (and mango and banana and strawberry and vanilla - we love their flavored milk and cheese curds)

On Sunday morning we went back to temple square and attended Music and the Spoken Word.  An inspirational weekly broadcast that has been ongoing for 83 years!
The tabernacle choir sang, and we were uplifted.  It was gorgeous! 

 

The Christus, City Creek Malls, Logan LDS Temple

We saw the Christus in the north visitor's center at temple square


We took a break from temple square and headed across the street to City Creek Mall where our girls tried on almost every shoe in the mall.
It was an outdoor mall, and it even boasts a Tiffanys.  Quite Posh as my friend Heather would say.
While I wanted a little blue bag or box, I don't think I'm high enough maintenance for that place. 

We spent the evening with my husband's family and siblings - pizza and games, it was really nice.
On Saturday we drove up to Logan, Utah where my youngest brother was sealed to his sweetheart for time and eternity in the LDS Logan temple.

We waited around for a while, waiting for them to come out afterwards...and my husband took some shots
Here's my brother (just younger than me) and his wife.  

My youngest sister (whose husband and kids didn't make it and we really missed)

My grandmother

Family shot

 

Temple Square - Salt Lake City, Utah

While at temple square in Salt Lake City, Utah, our oldest daughter had the opportunity to enter the Salt Lake Temple and perform baptisms for the dead with her cousin who met us there.
Here's a link with information on why Mormons do baptisms for the dead
http://mormon.org/faq/baptism-for-the-dead/?gclid=CM-mk-yPybACFQSxnQodckXNYw

 

 

We spent time on Temple Square, and enjoyed visiting the Family History Center/Genealogical library.
Later we took a tour of the Church History Library.  There, we found information on some of our ancestors and learned some things we didn't previously know.  If only we'd had more time - we could have spent a week in there!  We will definitely be going back.

Idaho Falls Temple & skipping rocks

After getting our fill of West Yellowstone and Island Park (and rain and snow and cold)
We decided to head south for some warmer weather and wedding celebrations.
Since our kids don't get out much (West at least anymore), we decided to stop in Idaho Falls and see the LDS Idaho Falls temple.
My husband stuck our daughter in a tree
 

We had a cranky kid on the way home (all of the cousins were suddenly gone and her 'in car' entertainment disappeared).
We pulled off for a breather and to skip some rocks.
FYI, Florida has no rocks.  If you see some, they were purchased.  Skipping rocks is something we miss, so we had our fill.  We threw a stick out and worked on target practice.


After arriving at grandmas and getting in a good night's sleep, we headed to temple square in Salt Lake City.  The following pic was taken by our youngest daughter - maybe it was her height that gives this photo such a cool view  

 

Mammoth, Rainbow and buffalo

Mammoth Spring

Our daughter who was somehow cajoled into actually nicely posing for this photo - a rare phenomenon indeed. 

And another rainbow (after we got caught in a down pour (and this isn't a warm Florida downpour))
Pretty erratic weather.   

Finally, the bison who was pacing our car