Chaos continued....

The day after arriving in Michigan we had to register the kids in school. We also signed a lease on a duplex, but we couldn't move in for another 9 days!!! So we decided to get in the car, YET AGAIN, and drive to Kentucky to visit with Blake's oldest brother Brad and his family for a few days(yes, we are insane, thanks for asking). The kids did good, all things considered, and the visit was nice. That is until I got this crazy sinus infection, cold something that knocked me flat. Up until that point I was holding it together pretty good if I do say so myself. But once that cold set in I was so miserable, and add being at someone elses house, not having a home to speak of ourselves, and being sick, it took the last ounce of glue holding me together and through it out the window. We headed back to hang out in the hotel for a few more days before the house was ready, I hit Craig's List pretty hard looking for furniture, and got some great deals (picture me patting myself on the back here). But that is another post, with pictures! Anyway, we finally got into the house. Added a little furniture, and got the kids into school the day after Labor Day. They were surprisingly not very nervous. Below is a picture of them before they went to school the first day. Sam and Emily were more nervous to ride the bus than anything else. None of our kids have ever ridden the bus because the bus ride was an hour ride each way where we were before.

But they survived the bus ride and all came home with smiles on their faces. Well, everyone except Emily, who had skinned her knee getting on the bus home. It didn't endear her to the bus that day, but she has since learned to like riding the bus. Especially since it is literally a 5 minute trip from the school to our house.

More to come!

Chaos, the beginning...

I promised I would post about the "chaos" and so I have had it on my to-do list all week. So I am not letting myself go to bed tonight without getting, at least part of it written tonight. The end of July was when the chaos really started to get momentum. I was scheduled quite a bit more than usual at work to cover other Nurse's vacations. But I had also been called up for jury duty for the month of July. So far, I had been called off every week, but I was not so lucky the last week of July. Not only did I have to go in, but I actually got called to be on a jury for a criminal trial. That in an of it self is a long story, but it gave me an entirely new perspective of bringing 12 diverse members of a community together to try and come to a decision about other members of the communities lives. Let's just say, I am not anxious to be called up again anytime soon. Anyway, that ended up taking two days to get through, and it just happened to be two days that I was working at the Cancer center. They were very understanding about it though.

After that I had the opportunity to got the Girls Camp. I had not been to Girl's Camp since I was a "girl", so I felt like the first year beehive trying to figure everything out. I was asked to be the "Camp Nurse" and a YCL advisor. I was also the 1st counselor in our wards YW at the time, so I was also trying to keep track of the 14 girls we had up there from our ward. Needless to say, they kept me busy all week, and I came home thankful for the experience, and better for it, but VERRRRRY TIRRRED!!!! ( the above picture is of the cute welcome gifts we gave to each girl in our ward the first night we were at camp. Blake was appalled at the amount of "fluff and stuff" that goes on at camp. He found out that girls camp is definitely not scout camp)

So I mentioned how exhausted coming home from camp, but I knew that I didn't have more that a moment to rest because of the impending news we were waiting for from Blake's Company regarding a possible move too..........Michigan. I knew he would most likely get the "yeah or nay" while I was at camp. And I was unable to contact him until I was all the way down off the mountain at the end of the week of Girls Camp. So you can bet I was on the phone as soon as I had service on the way home. He confirmed that we had the green light to go to Michigan, and that we had exactly 2 weeks to get packed up and go, so that we could get the kids registered for school. To say that I was overwhelmed is a gross understatement. But when it was all said and done, we had so many people helping us that we were more than ready to go at the end of 2 weeks. It helped a lot that we kept our home in Twin Falls mostly intact. We only took the essentials. No large furniture (we would get what we needed when we got there) and were prepared to be "minimalists" for the next little while. The above picture is of the truck and the van all loaded up. Leave it to Blake to make our chaos look so neat and tidy. What a guy!

Here are the kids in front of our house in Twin Falls, the morning we left for Grand Rapids, Michigan. It took us three days of driving to get there. The kids were trooper through it all. It help a little that they got to eat out for every meal, and go swimming in the hotel every night. Blake kept asking them what it was like to live like "Zach and Cody" on the Disney Channel show. (don't pretend like you don't know who they are... and if you don't, I wouldn't loose any sleep about it.) So by Aug. 27th we were in Michigan, where the real "fun" was yet to come....

Soooo, it's been a while since my last post. It was a little intimidating to follow up after Blake's creative post. (He was quite proud of that by the way)Anyway, life has been quite eventful as of late, but I wanted to catch up on a trip we took in July before I move on to the chaos. Blake was able to take a few days off so we headed to Hebgen Lake for some camping, fishing, and bike riding trough Yellowstone with Grandpa Kern. Of course, it wouldn't be a post by me if I didn't upload the pictures backwards. So, we will begin with the end of the trip. We were able to do some really fun bike rides through Yellowstone Park with my dad. It was fun to do as a family. It is nice that the kids are getting old enough that we can do things like this as a family.

The one thing that made it all do-able was this contraption. Sam still has a hard time keeping up with everyone else on a bike, so we rented this great trailer that made it possible for him to keep up. He loved it, and loved whizzing by everybody else and saying "See yah, slow poke". He did get a little tired by the end of the day as you can see.


The day before (remember, we started at the end) We had gone to Virginia City. It was a fun old mining town in Montana. There were so many old "authentic" artifacts and antiques to look at. Jack and Sam both got a bow and arrow as a souvenir and had lots of fun practicing their aim.
And that brings us to the start of our journey, Hebgen Lake (I have got to remember how to post my pictures correctly!). We got a campsite right on the water. Which was great for water access, not so great for misquitoes. When we got there the kids couldn't wait to get their feet wet in the lake. It started out with just getting feet wet and quickly turned into full on swimming. Clothes and all. After we got back from this trip Jack had an unusual lump in his lower abdomen we were concerned about so we got it checked out. The next day he had hernia surgery. The doctor's originally thought that it was strangulating his bowel, but that did not end up being the case. Jack was a champ through it all, and so Brave! I couldn't believe how fast his body healed. The biggest downer was that he had to miss swimming lessons because of it. But he is back to his old self, and has a great story to tell anyone who will listen.