something good happened.

I'm going to get back to blogging here a little more often than once every four months. I like to share goodness online publicly, not just on my private social media accounts.

Well, if you know me and/or my little family you know we had a big change recently!

At the beginning of July, my husband had been working at a retail store for three years and a shop manager for one of those years. It wasn't as great as we had thought it would be, and he had been very down for a few months (real depression but also just hard stuff that I'm not going into detail about). . . . Then something good happened. Okay, most things were already good, especially from my perspective. This is us honoring the fact that we had met TWENTY years earlier:

And that same week my sister let me be in the room when her third baby was born! It was the first time I had seen a human birth in person:

Those were in February, just before the most difficult months. Then we enjoyed two of D's other siblings' weddings in May and July. (His brother who is four years younger than him got married last September, so all three weddings were within less than a year. Now all but the youngest are married).


But this was extra good for D and me, and such a relief long-term. Here it is: he got an email congratulating him because the Army was considering him for an AGR position -- Active Guard and Reserve. He's been in the United States Army Reserve since before we got married. Almost everyone in a Reserve unit works two days a month and two or more weeks in the summer, but a few soldiers need to run and plan things full time. We didn't want to get our hopes up about the position (the salary would be much higher), but he felt like it was really going to happen.

A month later, on August 4th, he got the orders! On August 21st, movers boxed and took almost all of our possessions ("household goods "). That was different and kind nice, especially that the Army paid for it. That week we also had going-away parties: a Watermelon Party for our kids and their friends, and an adults-only party with our family and close friends plus our oldest girl. We spent August 26th and 27th driving a total of 750 miles to our destination, with our whole family and suitcases in a PT cruiser, which is not a big vehicle.

We used exactly ten hotel nights, of the ten that the Army reimburses, while he worked short days and we looked for a home to rent. (We saw the outside of over 30 homes, and the inside of  few. I think we signed the papers for our home on September 3rd. We started living in it on September 6th.) Here are photos of the girls doing laundry with me in the hotel, but usually it was my husband who did it. I can't remember why.

 

And a fun picture from the day we left the hotel:

We started living in this townhouse the day before Labor Day . . . and finally received our first paycheck besides travel pay on September 15th, and our household goods back on September 21st. We had been using air mattresses after our hotel living ended, so we were excited to have our own beds back. Oh, and we bought a nice futon since our other couch had to go to the landfill. Another exciting thing was being able to use our real dishes and have more than one pan.

This has been such a huge blessing for my husband's mental health, for our finances, etc. "Better than [we] deserve" as Dave Ramsey says. We've already started to pay off our credit card debt, more than just ten dollars above the minimum payment. It is a career, which he has wanted for years, and it's easier and more suitable for him than the retail store was.

We had thought that we would be in our previous place (our 7th home; a condo we moved to a while after I made this list) for at least two years. It was only one year, but that's okay because we like our 8th home too. We're probably going to need to move every three to five years as long as he's AGR. "Come what may, and love it," right? :-) This townhouse is perfect for us: nobody living below (or above) us! a garage! our own little fenced backyard! the church is close enough to walk to, and so are some places to shop! The neighbors are nice, the layout is better, and it's a lot newer. We have an end unit, and we have almost never heard the neighbors who are to the east; even then I barely could hear their child crying or whatever.

The other change I'm grateful for is that we decided to do a trial year of homeschool. I was interested in doing it for over a year and last year was too soon for us. This August, I found out about a homeschooling conference (an LDS one) happening in our new city starting just the day after we would arrive. The mom I talked to who had organized it let D and me, and the kids, come for free. We attended it for a couple hours Friday night and longer on Saturday. Yeah, the kids got bored, but a corner with toys, coloring stuff, and other children was helpful. Anyway, we had had a few short "practice days" of school before moving, and then started to really do it with a routine and curriculum on September 8th. I'm so thankful for my husband unpacking and assembling our things while I was teaching -- the Army gives you ten days off to get settled. I'm glad that we started even when not having Internet yet was a challenge. We had to be in my closet to use the connection from the church, on our tablet and/or my phone. So then it got much better with our own Internet, and our computer back. I love teaching our kids and not having them gone from 8:30-3:15! It has been fun to learn/relearn some things along with them. They have more time to be creative . . . I like everything about it. The Family School is excellent. Another family in the townhouses homeschools too, and we have had one play date with their boys so far after the day she came over to meet us. It's funny that we met through a facebook group instead of the little neighborhood. They attend a different Christian church. During the play date I was home by myself, which is always nice. . . .

When we had been going to our new ward for a couple of weeks both S and L got invited to birthday parties on the same day. This picture shows the ballerina that L decorated at Avery's party.

this May

Here are some a bunch of photos to show moments and events from May 2012. By the way, I would have published this post over a week ago if there hadn't been Blogger glitches and stuff. Actually, I think I'm done trying to fix the dumb glitches. :-)

"the bone shirt." L loves this shirt that is a recent hand-me-down from some ward friends.

my husband's graduation! It's still kind of strange for us that he is done with school. He finished his bachelor's degree in Exercise Science about nine years after starting it. He wanted to attend the convocation ceremony and not the huge commencement ceremony. It was great to have (almost all of) our immediately family members there. I don't know why my brother and his girlfriend, who made the lei with dollar bills and little candy bars in it, weren't in the photos. My sister and her husband and two young kids were also there but not in photos. Afterward we all went to a buffet restaurant for dinner (I should have brought a snack; I was so hungry!).

  

 

What an accomplishment: getting an education with two deployments interrupting it, while supporting a wife and kids!

Our kids and their four grandmas.

  

I'm so proud of him.

a new mom. On May 6th, the Sunday before Mother's Day, we met my nephew who had been born less than two weeks earlier.  He's adorable! He is the first child of my sister Angie and her husband Todd.  She gave birth naturally like she wanted to. I loved hearing the story and seeing the gorgeous photos her doula took -- so I have hospital photos and May 6th photos here. This is cool: While Angie was still pregnant she asked the baby, "What should we name you?" and a name that she had never heard before came to her mind. They made it his first name. 

My sister and I and our families brought dinner to them, but decided to let them eat it after we left so it would be enough food for them. (I hope they weren't too hungry . . . we didn't think we would all talk for as long as we did.) I also brought my cloth postpartum pads and newborn size cloth diapers in case she wanted to borrow them. She had wanted and received one-size diapers for the baby and I knew they were still too big on him.

almost 4 months and 2 weeks, 1 month and 2 weeks, and 2 weeks old

dinosaur museum. Our kids, especially the dinosaur-loving 5-year-old, call the natural history museum "the dinosaur museum." We'll have to go again. There is such cool stuff and it turned out that we arrived only two hours before closing time (it was a Saturday).

 

 

 

Beautiful sunshine, don't you think?

two years. It was the two-year anniversary of the end of my husband's second deployment. I love those reunion pictures!

job fair in Las Vegas. My mom watched our big girls from the night of May 15th until the afternoon on May 18th. We left the morning of the 16th and stayed at my husband's grandma's place. His aunt lives there too, and it's fun being with them. The job fair he went to on the 17th was just for veterans (baby and I hung out in a diferent part of the hotel). It was disappointing when we arrived and saw that the list of employers included Walmart and Verizon. We drove all that way to find unique opportunities, ya know? But he got some good advice and a lead for a management position. This was our first time going to Las Vegas together, but we were only there for part of a day because it was 102 degrees and our car's air conditioning wasn't blowing cold air (sweaty!!). I don't love that city anyway. We were there longer than anticipated because of two problems. 1) He lost his wallet in the hotel . . . got it back thankfully, but it took time. 2) He left the headlights on while we ate lunch and it took a while to get somebody who could jump our car. Other than that it was a nice little trip for the three of us. I'm pretty sure that I hadn't been more than an hour or two away from home since November 2010. It was baby C's first time in Arizona and Nevada. She was great the whole time, maybe just a little fussy when we were hot in the car. We were glad the weather was cloudy, rainy and cooler on the 18th. She is just such a happy baby! We're really blessed.

 

 

 

 

some of the beautiful scenery we walked/ran past

  

 

In the backyard after our workout and Mexican take-out.

 

I was the one taking pictures, with my hubby's iPhone. This is me helping him practice his "personal pitch" the morning of the job fair. (The iPad was what he wanted for his graduation gift. The whole family has enjoyed it.)

He likes an energy drink every once in a while.

  

his lunch at Denny's in Las Vegas

my lunch (veggie skillet)

They're cute. We stopped in Mesquite for a few things we needed at the grocery store, and cooled off.

 

Grandma's guest room. Her oldest daughter (my father-in-law's sister) painted the one on the right. They had made dinner and it was about ready for us when we got back from Vegas. We had planned on going to a restaurant again, but it was nice to stay where it was cool, have a home-cooked meal, and look at Grandma's old scrapbook.

 

real food for the drive home

 

five and a half. First Girl was excited for her half-birthday. I had told her it was coming, and she likes it when I say how old she and her sisters are going to be on their monthdays. She didn't get a gift. She just wanted to be five and a half. I did her hair really pretty with the curling iron, though.