It's a Crazy Life...

Just wanted to update you all about our crazy life. Last week Mike was offered a job in Bismarck as the Assistant Attorney General. After a week, we decided that was the best option for our family at that time. On Monday, he accepted the postition, and Mikayla went to the first day of school, and Mandy started packing. Mike is still working 30 hours a week at his old job. Mandy has been packing from about 8am to 5pm with occassional breaks for visiting teaching, eating, changing diapers, doctors appointments, looking online for a new place to live, etc. Today, Thursday, we will go pick up Mike at work, at 5pm, and drive to Bismarck, 3 1/2 hours West of here. We have a few appointments to look at homes and duplexes to rent. We will come back on Saturday night, go to church on Sunday and hope to pack up the truck on Tuesday and drive out to Bismarck that day. On Saturday we have to be in Cardston, Alberta, Canada, a 12 hour drive from Bismarck, for Mike's youngest brothers' wedding. Mike will then start working on the following Wednesday, the 12.
In the meantime, we have to pack up the whole house, cancel all the utilities, take Mikayla out of school, clean and check out of our old place, etc. etc. etc....
Did I mention that I am 8 1/2 months pregnant???? Even writing it down is exhausting! Just wanted to share some of the craziness. We will let you know when we are settled and how it all went.

Here is another picture of Steven. The computer would not let me put more than one on at a time.

Steven Hits 2 Home Runs!!!

Steven finished his baseball season about 1 month ago. The tournament team that he was playing for did okay, but Steven had a very sucessful season. He hit two out of the field home runs, they were over 8 foot fences at a distance of 200 feet. Steven also plays catcher and did a great job, playing 20 out of 26 innings in one tournament.

birthday party-1

As promised, some pictures of Nick's party yesterday. To get an unbiased opinion you'll have to ask Richards in Seattle, but I think every one had a good time. After reading about Mandy's kids parties mine was pretty dull, but every one got some good burgers and good cake, thanks to Steven and Laura respectively.

Birthday party 2

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NICHOLAS

One year ago today, I was called at 2 or so in the morning. Dad asked me "are you ready to be a father?" The answer to that question is still no, but I'm learning, and Nicholas has certainly taught me allot over the last year. Most reciently he's been teaching me how high I need to put things if I don't want him to bite, throw, or break them. I'm not sure exactly what we'll do tonight, but tomorrow, Nick will have a nice party in a park nearby. More pictures will follow.

FYI...

I think I have told some of you about this, but if not, listen up. You can sign up for a yahoo group called www.freecycle.org. On there you can offer up things you do not want, and also recieve things from others and also ask for things. It's all free. It's nice because when you clean out a room or closet and have a bag or box of stuff, you can go to your computer and offer the stuff up and someone will email you and say they want it. Then they come to your house and pick it up. You don't have to just throw it in the garage and hope you'll get to a thrift store soon. You can also choose to get emails of offers and get other peoples things. You can ask for things as well.
We have given up bags of clothes, toys, furniture that we did not need any more. I have been given a cake stand, toys, maternity clothes, baby clothes and craft items. I also put up a request for a bassinet and was given one within the same day! It's great!
I just thought some of you might be interested. For me, it's kind of entertainment to see if anything fun is going to be offerd in my inbox each day. Give it a try if it sounds interesting to you. Let me know if you get/give anything fun!

Breakfast

Yesterday morning I was asking the kids what they wanted for breakfast, "Layla, do you want biscuits, or squares with no holes?" It got me to thinking that we have funny names for our cereal. Our favorite cereal is Frosted Mini-wheats, or biscuits. They also like Cinnamon Toast Crunch, or squares with no holes (Chex is squares with holes). Cheerios is circles. Cocoa pops is cocoa puffs. Stars is any sort of star shaped cereal. What do you eat in the mornings?

47th CSH

This last week, Laura and I had an interesting experience with news and perspective. For the last month I'd been working in the hospital on base and had no contact with the people in my unit, the 47th csh. On my first day back to the 47th, I found out that we are scheduled to deploy in March, 2009. I was very happy. I called Laura and told her that I had great news. When she found out, she was very sad. For several months, I had been steeling myself to accept the fact that I'll probably serve a tour in Iraq, and I had expected to go as soon as March 2008 but no later than June '08. Laura, on the other hand, was still very hopefull that I wouldn't have to go at all. Of course, with the way everyone I hear talking around here knows what's what politicaly, we might not end up going at all, or we might just be able to turn around and come right back. If I get any more news I'll be sure to let you all know.