Lexi WON!

I forgot to post that Alexis won her bid for treasurer. She found out on Monday. I know I'm a little late. Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers. She's very excited and I hope this will help her self esteem and social life.

I've created a MONSTER of a tradition!

So when Alexis was in 2nd grade and Merrit was in kindergarten I started making their classes treats at Christmas and cupcakes for their birthdays. Ever since then they expect to have these things at these times. Well the treats I made were white chocolate covered pretzel rods that look like snowmen. It was fine when I only had to make them for 2 classes, but this year I had the great pleasure of doing them for 4 classes! I took about 5 1/2 hours yesterday and made 100 snowmen. I feel it's quite an accomplishment and am glad that Lexi will be going into middle school so I won't have to make for her any more. Here is what they look like:
I couldn't find any pretzel rods so I had to use pretzel logs instead. They aren't as cute when they are this short, but what are you going to do? I only had a couple with their scarfs on when I took the pictures. But eventually all had scarfs too. The kids got to pass them out today. They were so excited.

Here's one for Les!!!!!

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1457935458

I wanted to join in!

I hope you enjoy this little show!
http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1445995481

Finals

So for the next 4 days my life is going to continue to be unfun and stressful. I'm not looking forward to taking my finals, but I can't wait to have them over and finished! I will be taking 2 on Monday and 1 on both Tuesday and Wednesday. So please pray for me because I am worried about a couple of them and I just really want to do well. I will be seeing you all very soon! :)

Hillary and Kristi I loved the dancing elves that you posted. Thank you so much for doing that because it gave me a great, much needed, hearty laugh.

I did one for us too, except for Les :(

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1441950589

O.K., I felt left out too

We didn't have an eighth person, so I just added a happy face to look at.
http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1439028703

Alexis felt left out of the last clip

http://www.scroogeyourself.com/?id=1438905786

Check out this fun Christmas dance from the kids

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1438646604

Our Christmas Day

We celebrated Christmas today as a family. It was fun because we didn't tell the kids we were going to do that. Charlie and I got all the presents wrapped lastnight and put them out so when the kids got up they could see them. They were so surprised and excited. We only got a few presents per child this year because we decided to invest in a Wii. The kids were pretty excited about that. For the most part, they loved their gifts. Only a few of the gifts we got them had low reviews from them. It was fun to be able to have our own little Christmas as a family before we head back to Michigan to have Christmas with the rest of our family. Can't wait to see everyone.

Student council debate

Alexis will be debating tomorrow, at her school, to be elected as treasurer of the school's student council. She is up against two other kids, all fifth graders. She's really excited about it and we all hope she wins. I plan on going to the debate tomorrow to give her some family support. She won't find out if she wins until Monday. We hope you can keep your thoughts with her.

I am not coming home for Christmas

Last night the fuel pump when out in my car. And Les and I where hoping to have money for me to come up at less after Christmas but it will not happen now. SO i am sorry to everyone. I wanted to see you all. I just want to say Hillary and Kristi WOW your kids are growing so big. I will call you the day you have the party so we can all talk. I love you Jocelyn

We put an offer on the house this afternoon. Now we just wait to see how the sellers respond. I'll let you know. Keep you fingers crossed for us.

After we saw the first one, we found this one

This was pretty funny too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghs0nNF1YZ4

My sister, Jana, posted this to the Hutchinson blog

My kids thought this was hilarious!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx1XIm6q4r4

Snow Day!

We had an ice storm come through last night. It was bad enough to cancel school for the day. They didn't call it until late though so Charlie had already gone in to work. He didn't mind though. It allowed him to get some grades put into the computer. He has a doctor's appointment tomorrow and will have a sub for the day. Going in this morning helped him prepare for that too. It looks like he has a broken finger. It happened at wrestling practice. He went to a family doctor who has sent him to an orthopedic doctor. That is the appointment tomorrow. He is suppose to be able to confirm if it's actually broken. He's had the injury for about 3 weeks now. He thought it was just dislocated, but it hasn't gotten any better, in fact it's still pretty swollen and painful. We have decided to make an offer on that house today. I haven't called out realtor to make the appointment yet though. We had tentatively set it up for 6 pm but now that we don't have school, we might be able to do it earlier. I'll let you know how it goes. I've also posted some pictures from our second significant snow storm. It happened last week. If you can tell from the pictures, the snow was up to Jaxson's mid-thigh. It was pretty deep, but they didn't call off school. I have a feeling it takes a huge storm for them to school around here.

The newest house on our list

http://public.mlswis.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi?20071207043635923222000000&id=2
Check out the house we saw today. Follow this link and it's the very first house in the list. We really like it and are seriously thinking of making an offer on it. Let me know what you think.

Even more snow!

Well we got about 3 more inches last night. I swear I have never lived in this much snow before. I asked a guy from our ward lastnight if this is typical for this area. He said no, not really. I was so relieved because I'm not sure I could survive several years of living through winters like this one. I only hope that the whole winter isn't like this past week has been.

I dumped our realtor a couple days ago. A lady from church hooked us up with an old family friend who is a realtor. He is showing us a house tomorrow. I'm not overly impressed with his service yet, so we'll see how tomorrow goes. I'm kind of excited to see this house. It is literally just up the road from Charlie's school. You can see it from the front porch and it has a quarter of an ache of land with 3, potentially 4, bedrooms. I just hope it's in good condition.

I also sent a letter to the realty agency who I am fighting with to get that money back from. In the letter, I informed them that I have three other witnesses besides myself who saw that the water had not been turned on by the plumber. I told them if they didn't refund my money that I would go to the Better Business Bureau, file a formal complaint with the realtor's association they belong to and take legal action. I gave them until Tuesday next week to respond. I hope they just refund the money without my having to do anything else. This is really just annoying to me. I can't believe that $175 is such a big deal to them, it is to me, but why would it be for a business who deals with thousands of dollars a day?

Lexi has been facing some bullying issues at school. It's been going on for about a month now. She's trying to be a real trooper about it, but I can tell it's starting to wear on her. I'm going to have Charlie give her a father's blessing, but if you guys could send some prayers her way I think it would help. At first there were only a couple kids making fun of her having a big foreheard. However, this week, someone wrote some bad things about her on the stalls in a bathroom. They called her a B.... and a Mother F..... She doesn't understand why and feels bad. The principal is involved, but they don't know who did it so really don't have anyone they can punish. They spoke with Lexi's class as a whole, hoping that whoever it is is in the class, and told them how inappropriate it was. But that's about all they can do. I will probably try to meet with the principal if any more happens. I don't want Lexi to start dreading going to school, and I don't want her to start to withdraw into herself. I'm going to try to get her, and all the kids, in a different, better school district next year. They are a neighboring district and have open enrollment. I'd have to transport the kids there, but that's not new to me. They only have limited space though so I'm hoping they have room for my kids, at least Lexi at the very least.

On the Farm Home Front

Everyone of you know that Dad only had a job for 3 weeks but it was better than nothing. I feel very blessed that we didn't buy a house there. I am now trying to hold down two part time jobs, nineteen hours at MSU Extension office and some at LCC. I really don't know when I will know my official hours at LCC, hopefully soon. I am doing as much as I can and Dad is doing a wonderful job at being Grandpama again. During his spare time he is keep up with the house work, and job hunting.

Sabrina has found an apartment just north of Grand Rapids and moved over this past weekend. So hopefully she can get the sleep she needs now. And she will not have that long drive on snowy roads everyday.

I just completed my last year of being the Howell Ward Nativity coordinator. It was a wonderful year. I had more help setting up and taking down than I did in any of my other previous years. The weather was yucky so it made attendance down but the display was just beautiful. I am truly amazed on how the Lord was always giving me ideas on how to set up the display to keep it beautiful, interesting, and different. I'm not creative when it comes to decorating but I can do it without any problems when I work at the nativity display. Thank you Heavenly Father.

JT was home with us for three days at Thanksgiving and things went fine. He will be home with us for about five day at Christmas time. He just made level 3 this week so let's hope he can hold on to it this time. He has came a long way but there is still a ways to go.

That's our life in a nut shell and I don't have much more to say except I am getting excited about having everyone home for Christmas.

Oh Christmas Tree!!!!

Today we finally put up our Christmas Tree. The boys and I set it up this afternoon and when Les got home, at 7:40pm, we decorated it. Les is taking a professional development class, that is why he was sooooooooo late.

They were such great helpers. Logan kept looking at Bradyn when I was trying to get a picture, he was just so excited.
Finally we got him to look our way. They had so much fun putting everything up. Their excitement really set a nice tone in our home tonight. I couldn't help but feel very happy.

Late Thanksgiving Pictures!!!

This year for Thanksgiving, it was just us. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. Actually, it was quite nice and relaxing. We had our Thanksgiving at lunch time and then in the afternoon we went to the movies and saw the Bee Movie.



Parker took this picture of us, isn't he just the great little photographer. I thought that I looked pretty good :)

More Snow!

We are in the middle of our second significant snow fall right now. It started at about 4 pm and now it's about 7 pm. Alexis was suppose to have an Activity Day activity tonight but on my way to take her there I slid a couple of times, one slide was pretty scary so I turned around and went home, much to her chagrin. The first snow fall was a slippery one too. The snow just seems to be pretty wet and heavy. Not what I was used to in Michigan. I just hope that not all snow falls here are like this. The streets are pretty slippery even with just about an inch or so of snow on them. I won't want to go anywhere whenever it snows. That won't be a good thing for me. I can't deny though, that it would be fun for school to be canceled tomorrow. It'd be nice to have Charlie home.

I dropped our realtor today. After much discussion, Charlie and I decided that we should try to use a realtor who is from Racine instead of the guy we were using who is based from the city just south of Racine. I don't like telling people bad news so it wasn't fun for me to tell him we were letting him go, especially because he is a really nice guy. Thank goodness he didn't try to talk me out of it or try to make me feel bad. He was pretty nice about it. Which kind of made it a little more sad for me. I'm glad I did it though and I look forward to working with our new realtor. He is a long time family friend of a family in our ward. The wife told me that she threatened him that he needs to get us a really good deal. I hope that pans out.

So I'm actually reading a book right now. I know, I know, it sounds weird, but it's true. It's a book that a good friend of mine recommended several years ago and I just now was able to put my hands on a copy of it. It's called The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. I'm not quite finished with it yet, but I highly recommend it to one and all, especially those who are married. But you AND your spouse really should read it. Even if you don't think you need help in your marriage, it's still fun to read and try to figure out which love languages you and your spouse speak. I'm really enjoying it. I've discovered that I speak several different love languages, but Charlie primarily speaks the love language of physical touch with some dialects of quality time thrown in too. It would be cool if we all could read it and then we could talk about it. I just checked it out of the library. You should too.

My dad was released

Just thought I'd pass along that the Westland Stake has a new stake presidency and it doesn't include my dad. He's been anticipating his release for a little while now and I think he has some relief now that it has happened. Now he can finish his schooling without that added distraction. I don't know who the new people are except for the new 1st councelor was previously the 2nd councelor. His name is Bro. Christenson and I knew him from before the Plymouth and Northville wards split. The other two members of the presidency are also from the Plymouth ward. I thought that was kind of interesting.

It's December

I don't have anything important to say, I just wanted to be the first to post something in December. So it has snowed most of the day, and I am so excited for the snow. Jamie, Kristen, and I finally set up our Christmas tree this evening while listening to Christams music and watching the snow fall outside. I am ready for this semester to be over and Christams to be here so that I can see all of you again. I love you all and I will see you in a few more weeks!!!!!

Christmas tree pictures as promised

Our family home evening tonight was on cooperation. I thought it tied in nicely with "cooperating" in decorating the tree. Of course, the kids just wanted to decorate the tree. We all enjoyed it and now our home is feeling much more festive.

Time for Christmas!

Well now that we are back, safe and sound, we are preparing to put up our Christmas decorations. We were able to fit all of them in our van to bring back with us. Fortunately, we don't have that many yet. As much as I loved our vacation, I am glad to be home and able to rest a bit and get back into the swing of things. I have an amazing amount of laundry to do today. Good thing I don't have anywhere else I need to go. I hope to have the tree set up today so we can decorate it for family home evening. The kids love to decorate the tree. I'm looking forward to putting up my decorations. I think it will help this place feel more like a home. We brought a couple of pictures back with us to hang on the walls too. I think I'm going to try to get a new family picture taken so we can hang that on the wall too. I figure that if we are going to live here for a while, we might as well make it more like a home. Home is where the heart is anyway, right? So happy Christmas decorating to the rest of you. I post a picture of our tree once it's finished.

It was so fun to see some of you this past weekend. I look forward to Christmas and being able to visit more, and for a longer period of time, with more of you.

I am here in West Virigina

I'm here in West Virgina Finely. I have lived here scenes Tuesday. Tomorrow is the first time going to church down here. On Monday i am going out looking for a job. I'm going crazy sitting here a lone at night when Les is working 10-12 hours a day to 6-7 days a week. Well I love you all. Jocelyn

This Weekend

I was able to spend a little bit of time with Hannah this weekend. She was kind enough to pick me up from the airport at midnight and then even kinder to let me sleep in her bed. I just want everyone to know that I met her roommates and they are great. We don't need to worry, they will keep our Hannah safe :) We didn't get to see each other to much :( But it was still so great to see her.

Love ya Hannah

Update

Well, unfortunately we received some not-so-great news yesterday. That house I just wrote about, that we were very interested in, has had an offer accepted on it before we could get ours in. I don't know if ours would have even been high enough to even be considered, but we are all pretty sad none the less. Our poor kids. They go to these houses with us to see them and get their hopes up so high that they really feel it when it doesn't turn out to be the one. They really want to be in our own home. I can't say that I blame them. I'm right there with them. And though I ususally know better than to get my hopes up for any house, I did with this one. I'm pretty discouraged about the whole house hunting affair now.

GREAT NEWS! (potentially)

I heard from Jocelyn today that there is a potential buyer for her house. It's the mother of the man who bought our house across the street. I don't have any more details at this time. I'm hoping to get some more tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed and your prayers up that this goes through and that her house finally goes away!

News from the house front

We saw a pretty nice house Saturday morning. We really like it. The bad part is that it is listed at $159,900 right now. It was a foreclosure and the bank now owns it. The selling agent is the one who showed the house to us and she told us the bank is very motivated. She said we should just make an offer and see what happens. So all weekend we've been praying and thinking about this house. We feel like we will make an offer, although it's going to be tons lower than what it's listed at, and just see what happens. We know what we can afford and we won't go over that. With the market the was it is, being flooded with bank owned houses, we may just get this house for what we can afford. Keep your fingers crossed for us! Sorry I don't have any pictures of it, but if things go forward I'll definately post some pictures.

Just an idea

So I was thinking how wonderful it would be if we were to to get a nice, professional family photo taken while everyone was home for Christmas. I do realize that price could very well be an issue, but I really like the idea of having a nice family photo. So what do you all think?

My first parking ticket!

Well, I got my first EVER parking ticket on Tuesday. The city public library has metered parking. It only costs 25 cents for 2 hours of parking, but it might as well be $100 when you don't have any change on you. I went on Tuesday morning to take Chelsea and Jaxson to the storytime they have. When I got there I realized that I didn't have any quarters. Storytime was going to start in 10 minutes and I wouldn't have time to go home and get a quarter and come back. Because I'd already told the kids we were going, I couldn't just go home (That is one tip for all you new parents, don't ever tell your kids what you are going to do until you are practically doing it. That way if some act of nature happen, or you just change your mind, you don't have to listen to them whine and complain and cry about you not keeping your word). So I parked, hoping that no one would be by to check for the hour I'd be in the library. Of course, I wasn't so lucky. Although, I did deserve the ticket, I did break the law. Unfortunately, the ticket was $11. So my parking fee actually was $11 that day, not the typical 25 cents! Life sucks sometimes.

Wish me Luck!

Well, today I'm attempting to collect a refund of money from the selling agents of the house we tried to buy. They had me pay them so they could hire a plumber to go into the house and de-winterize the plumbing so we could have it inspected. The job was not finished completely, in fact, the plumber only hooked up the water meter. The meter he hooked up was an old version and it was illegal for him to re-hook it up. But that really doesn't matter to me, it's not any of my business. However, I did pay for the house to be de-winterized so it could be inspected, and that did not happen. Therefore, I am requesting the selling agent refund my money. I've left a message this morning for the woman we dealt with to call me back. I'm expecting that she will refuse and that things will get ugly. I really don't want to fight about this, but I think I'm entitled to have that money back and it's not like it's a small amount. I paid $175 for that plumber. I can't just forget about that amount of money. I'm prepared to go to the realtor's association, the Better Business Bureau and even small claims court if I need to. I just hope it doesn't have to go that far. I'm not very good with confrontation. My stomach is just churning right now. AHHHHH!

50's Day!!!!

Today is Bradyn's 5oth day of school. To celebrate they asked that the kids dress in 50's style clothes. How easy for boys since all we did was roll up the sleeves of his white t-shirt and slick his hair. I must admit, Bradyn is just too cute!!!

FHE

Last night for FHE we talked about being Thankful. It was pretty cute, hearing all the things that the boys are thankful for. After the lesson they helped Les make Choco chip cookies. They love helping Daddy.

Not much new to report here. We're back in the swing of things with the kids in school, Charlie teaching and me at home. We are already looking forward to the Thanksgiving break. I'm still pressing forward with Weight Watchers. I'm having a more difficult time right now with all the Halloween candy on sale. This and after Easter are the worst times for me indulging my candy cravings. I've found some sugar free fudgecicles that are 0 points and that has helped. My goal is to be 10 pounds lighter by Christmas. Then I would only have 20 more pounds to go to get to my goal weight. I'm losing about 1 to 1 1/2 pounds every week. If I keep that up I should reach my goal weight by March or April. That's pretty exciting to me.

Our house hunting is on hold right now. We've pretty much looked at all the houses in our price range that we'd even consider. We just feel like the right one hasn't come along yet. I'm leaving things up to the Lord and trying to have patience with His time table. It's not very easy for me, I've never really been a patient person, but I'm trying.

I'm interested to see how the fantasy basketball thing goes. I'm not planning on doing very well.

Oh, Charlie has finally received a calling. He's going to be the 1st councilor in the Elders Quorum presidency. We kind of had a feeling that he's be there because the new Elders Quorum president is one of the only friends we have in the ward yet (although he says he was inspired with Charlie's name :)). He'll be sustained this Sunday.

Anyway, sorry for babbling on so. I hope everyone else is doing well. Hope to hear from you soon.

New Home?

Dad, Kay, Bob and myself will be looking at homes in Cadillac tomorrow morning. We have asked Bob and Kay to come along because two more sets of eyes may see things that we don't. I am going to call Kay and see if she can bring her camera so you can see what we are looking at. There are over 300 homes in the area for sale so we should be able to find something that we both can agree on.

Family Fast

Mom has requested a family fast on Sunday. The people have backed out of renting the house in Flint tonight. We are fasting to find someone to BUY the house. Mom has also said you can invite anyone else to join the fast "(i.e. I will be asking Jen and Cody to participate in our family fast, they are practically family.) So if you have any questions you can call Mom on the home phone because Dad has the cell phone.

Halloween fun!!!!

Tonight we did a little trick or treating in a random neighborhood we found and had a great time. The kids loved it. Then we went to my friend Rachel's ward and had fun at their little Halloween carnival.

Halloween fun in Apt 219

I just wanted to share with you all pictures of my decorated apartment. Jamie, Kristen, and I had a lot of fun decorating a couple of weekends ago. The amazing pumpkin carvings were done by Jamie and Kristen, I just watch them work. We have received many compliments on our decorating, and we are really enjoying the overall effect. Sorry I am taking up so much space but I don't know how to get the pictures in a horizontal row instead of a verticle row. But anyway, enjoy the pictures!

I just found out that if you double click on the posted pictures they will blow up to a bigger size. It's nice for the smaller pictures because you can see more detail in the blown up version. Sorry if you already knew that, I just thought I'd pass on the info. for those who didn't.

Halloween pictures

Here we are in our costumes. Alexis is a spider queen, Merrit is Batman, Makayla is a princess, Chelsea is a giraffe, Jaxson is Tigger, Charlie is Superman and I'm a punk rocker. We also carved pumpkins and I thought I'd include a picture of that too. We love Halloween at our house.

Here I am

I just wanted to let every one know that I have a family for three to rent my house. So in two weeks I am moving to West Virgina with Les. Les and I are doing OK. We miss one another a lot and we are both happy we will be together soon. One of my co-worker is trying to get me a job with service master in West Virgina so I can keep the job I love. Les is working at Cable's and loving it. We hope that he will be hired in at the end of the season so he can keep his job. i love you all and miss you. Jocelyn

Hannah, any more dates with Tom?

I did it!

Today I got my acceptance letter into the elementary education program! I will be starting in the winter. Yea for me!!!!!!

Funny Jaxson

Jaxson has come up with this little thing he likes to do with the pockets in his pants. He came up with it all by himself and thinks he's quite clever because of it. He pulls out the inside of the pocket and says, "See my bubble?" He calls the inside of the pocket a bubble because it kind of looks like one when you pull it out. These pictures are him showing off his bubbles.

Welcome to Rubberville!

I had the first visit from my visiting teachers yesterday. They are a mother/ daughter team and are very nice. The family has 7 kids. They had five and then got pregnant with twins. I don't know if it was an "oops" but can you imagine if it was? What an "oops" to have!They informed me that we live in an area known to the locals as Rubberville. I guess there used to be a factory close to here that was the Rubberville factory. This neighborhood was where all the workers at the factory lived. The factory isn't there any more, but this neighborhood still remains a pretty cheap place to rent. This, we all know, doesn't attract the most cream of the crop bunch of people.

We already knew we weren't in the best part of town, but my visiting teachers confirmed that to me. What's sad is that this neighborhood isn't as bad as a lot of the neighborhoods in Flint. I'd actually compare this one to the one that was just a few blocks over from our house in Flint. Not really life threatening, but not really a place I'd like my kids to get to know people in. We are facing that right now in this neighborhood. Our kids are getting to know the local kids and wanting to go over to their houses and stuff. It's hard for me to know how far to let them go. I really want to keep them safe, but not over-protected and sheltered. I just pray hard that Heavenly Father will keep them safe.

Our house hunting weekend

http://public.mlswis.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi?20071010155631153554000000&id=1

If you go to this link you can see the houses we looked at on Saturday. The ones we liked the best are the third (614 Randolph St) and the fifth (2635 Maple Grove) houses. We didn't get to see the one on Green Bay Rd., but we'd like to. Our realtor just couldn't get it scheduled for that day.

The house on Randalph St. has an extra lot next to it that we could buy with the house. The contractor that owns the house owns the lot and would be willing to sell the two together, for more money, obviously. The house was just finished being built this year and looks great! If we bought this house we would build a garage in the back of the house and turn that one car, attached garage into more living space, probably another bedroom. The down side to this house is that it is across the street from a railroad track and there is a proposal in the works to bring a train station to that area and it would be right across the street from that house. That is also where the bus terminal is, so all the city busses make their transfers there. That means that there will be a lot of people in that area, and most may not be the greatest of upstanding citizens.

The house on Maple Grove is an older home. It's very similar to the house we owned in Flint. It's been well cared for and is bigger. It has a decent sized yard, not as big as the other house's side lot though. The yard would be about the same size as what we had in Flint before we bought the side yard. It is in a nicer neighborhood, from what we could tell. Probably the worse downside to this house is the yard is smaller than the other house. There isn't central air in this house either, where as the other house does, but we've lived without central air before.

We are going to try to go to the temple soon so we can pray about these houses there. We feel like we may just keep looking for the time being and go back to these houses in a little bit. We just really want to pick the BEST house for our family, in all aspects of it.

Cute Pics

Here are a few pictures of when we took the kids to the $ show the weekend before school started.

House hunting

We are going to check out a bunch of houses on Saturday with our realtor. He has about 6 scheduled and is waiting to hear back on a couple more. With any luck we'll find our dream house this Saturday. Then, hopefully, we'll be able to buy it if we find it.

The Job

Sorry it has taken me so long to do this but I had to remember how to get on. Some of are just slow, no comments please.
Anyway on October 4th Grandpa (Chuck) had a face to face interview with a company name Borg Warner (I think that's how you spell it). On Friday, October 5th they called and offered him The Job!!!! Acourse he said yes. There is only one thing to this yes, it mean a move for us after 22 years in the same home. We get to move to Cadillac, MI three hours north of where we are now. We had the wonderful opportunity to visit Cadillac this past Sunday and Monday. It was beautiful because the trees were at their peek of color and the weather was just great. I wish that I would have had a camera to take some pictures. Cadillac has a branch of our church there with about 35 to 65 people attending sacrament meeting. We met a few of them when we attended general conference there on Sunday. We spent Monday morning driving around and getting phone number of places to rent. Grandpa will rent a place until a home can be located for the rest of us. Right now I and the grandchildren will be moving at the end of January of 1st of February.
I know it sound funny to some but I need to be here for the kidding season of my goats. Nobody takes care of them like I do and I do not want anything to happen to them. Will the goats be going with us? As of right now we do not know. A lot depends on the 4-H program there and what type of place we find to buy.
Grandpa will be going back up on Thursday for his physical. At that time we hope to find out his start date and about insurance. He will also be going to the MSU Extension office to find out about 4-H and looking around more for places to rent, I hope he will also talk to people and find out about different school district.
My sister and her family have a cabin about 37 miles away from his future work sight that he probably use at first but when the snow falls he does not have any snowshoes to track back to the cabin with, so we are sure he will need to find something closer. That's it for now.

Thought you might like to see the kids on their second day of school. I forgot to take pictures on the first day. This is also the house that we are living in right now. When looking at the house, we live on the right side. It's not perfect, but it works for us right now. Sorry about the sideways pictures. That's how they download off my camera.

DAD, CONGRATS ON THE NEW JOB!!!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HANNAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Please tell us about your life

It's nice to hear from Kristi, don't get me wrong, but it would be nice to hear from eveyone else too. I know Hannah writes from time to time, but I'd love to hear from Mom and Dad and Jocelyn. Come one guys, even if you don't feel like you have anything important to write about, just write and tell us "hi" or that you love us or something. Thanks!

The house report

We got into the house today to check the plumbing. The main guy from the water department came and hooked up a new water meter and turned the water on for us. Right away there was a leak in one of the pipes in the basement. It started to squirt everywhere so we were unable to even pressurize the whole system. So we were unable to check the rest of the plumbing. The inspector looked at the pipes that he could see in the basement and there was a good amount of corrosion on many of the shut-off valves and connector pieces. He guessed that the whole house needed to be re-plumbed. With that news Charlie and I decided to back out of the deal and withdraw our offer. We go sign the withdrawl papers tomorrow to get our earnest money back. Our realtor is going to try to get the money back that we paid to have the plumber de-winterize the house. He didn't actually do the job, as the water department guy informed me, so we should get that money back. So now we are just going to keep looking and see if we can find anything else we like and that will work for our family. The kids are pretty upset about not buying that house. They really liked it, especially Merrit, since one of his classmates lives next door. But we asked Heavenly Father to let us know, without a doubt, if it was right for us and we felt like the shower in the basement was pretty loud and clear.

This world is scary sometimes

I just read a story on Yahoo about a brain-eating ameoba that enters a person's body through their nose and eats their brain. It's called Naegleria fowleri. Obviously, since it eats the brain, it is deadly. It's extremely rare, but 6 people have died from it this year. The report said that that number is a spike from other years. They warn that it's more common in warm, southern states. The cases of deaths were in Florida, Texas, and Arizona. Sometimes I think it's really scary that there are so many kinds of things are out there that can affect you or someone you love without you being able to do anything about it.

Hope eveyone is having a nice day :)!

Birthday Shout out!!!!!

Just wanted to give a little birthday shout out to MaMa Hicks. We hope that you have a great day! Love and miss you tons.

Feeling good

So I'm feeling pretty good about my interview that I had last week for the elementary education program. I actually enjoyed the interview and I was pleased with my writing sample. They get a week to grade the writing smaple so I'm hoping to hear whether I got in within the next couple of weeks. I'm not feeling so good about all the test I have to take this week. I have tests in 5 out of my 6 classes. So I will be real busy this week. I love you all!

The saga continues....

We had the inspection on the house on Friday. The inspector didn't really tell us much that we didn't already know. The house does need lots of work, but most of it is stuff we can do ourselves. The thing that makes me mad is that we couldn't test the plumbing because it wasn't hooked up. The house is winterized. I paid the listing agency to get a plumber in to de-winterize it. But it wasn't done. I am so mad. I called my realtor yesterday and told him to tell the lising agency that the water needs to be on by Tuesday. Lucky for us, the inspector said he would come back and test the plumbing without charging us more. Our realtor is not happy about this and I'm sure he won't be very nice when he calls tomorrow. I hope he isn't. I'm so frustrated with this listing agency. They are not very professional. If the water isn't tested by Wednesday, we will back out of the offer and look elsewhere. I have mixed emotions about it. I can see the potential this house has and see how fun it would be to remodel, but I'm so frustrated and tired of the headaches we keep running into to try to get this deal to go through. AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!! I'll keep you posted on how this saga plays out. I did take pictures of the inside and as soon as I buy another memory disc adapter I'll post them so you all can see just how ugly this house is. It's actually funny just how ugly it is. To think someone thought that they were decorating nicely is so funny!

We will be home owners again!

The bank finally accepted our offer on the house! We signed all the paperwork yesterday to get things in motion toward a closing date. We are suppose to close on or before Oct. 12th. I hope we can do it. I set the inspection up this morning for this Thursday. If that goes well, there shouldn't be anything on our part to delay the closing date. Keep your fingers crossed. If you want to check out the house just follow this link: http://public.mlswis.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi?20070912174159300919000000&id=1

We are pretty excited! I'm just not looking forward to having to pack and move again. Plus, we have to get the rest of our stuff out of storage in Michigan and get it here. What a pain. I am looking forward to settling down though. It's been almost a year since we lived in a house we owned. It will be nice for everyone to have their own spaces again. It will be nice to have this stress of moving out of my life, at least for a few years.

Update time

Just thought I'd let you know that we haven't heard anything about the house yet. We talked to our realtor today and he told us that he spoke with the listing agent who said that he hasn't heard back from the bank yet. We have been told that it is normal for banks to take their time getting back to people about offers, but I don't understand why. I would think they would want to sell it.

I have a new calling. The 1st counselor in the bishopbric cornered me after church on Sunday and asked me to be the den leader over the 8 and 9 year olds. I find it very interesting because one of the things I was most concerned about in moving was whether or not the new ward would have a good scouting program. Merrit really loves scouts and I didn't want him to go from a good program in Flint to a bad one here. I think it's interesting that Heavenly Father would put me in a position that would allow me to make sure Merrit has a good program (since I'm in charge of his age group). I'm a little frazzled though because I don't know very much about scouts. I'm ready and eager to learn though. No calling for Charlie yet, but I'm sure it won't be long. Especially since the 1 st counselor in the bishopbric told me that they have many people in the ward with 2, 3, and even 4 callings and they would love to spread the work load around.

I went to my new Curves today. It was nice, but I miss my old one. I was a lot more comfortable there. I'm just going to have to get used to this new one though. I do like that it has all the machines for the circuit. The one I went to in Flint didn't have them all yet. When you have them all you only have to go around the circuit twice. Time seems to go by faster that way, even though it really isn't any faster because you are working out on more machines.

The kids are still excited about school. There is an open house on the 25th. I think it will be good for the kids to show us their classrooms, their desks and be able to introduce Charlie to their teachers. I was looking at the kids vacation days and realized that they have the whole week of Thanksgiving off. The school scheduled parent/teacher conference to be held the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday before Thanksgiving and they gave the elementary school kids those days off because of it. Charlie doesn't have that many days off though. I was bummed about that. It would have been nice to go back to visit a day or two earlier.

A new Me?

So I went shopping on Saturday with two of my roommates (Jamie & Kristen) and a girl from the ward (Victoria). Victoria talked me into buying some makeup and she showed me how to apply it that night. I kind of liked the end results but it will take some getting used to to actually be wearing so much makeup. I think I could handle putting the makeup on most days because it doesn't take long to do it. Just so you all know I did get my application for the El Ed program in on Monday. I have a group interview and writing sample next Thursday and I will find out some time after that if I have been accepted or not.
School is going pretty well but I am real nervous about my accounting class and worried about not doing well in it. I signed up late for the class so I have a lot of catching up to do already, which means I am going to be really busy with school work this weekend. But anyway, that's just how it is.

New Job

Well, after all these years I have rejoined the work force. I am now an employee at Lifetime Fitness. I work in the Child Center, so I am able to bring the kids with me. Which of course was a prerequisite. The center is just a big room full of fun. I know that Parker will have a blast and I think that Logan will too. My coworkers are great and I get a free membership to the club too. I think that this will be really good for us. I will only be working 2 days a weeks so I don't think the boys will get to overwhelmed.

We are on the internet again!

Well I can finally get on and check the blog. Believe it or not, I'm slightly addicted to the blog. I like reading what others have posted. I hope to get Sabrina and Kim on it soon too.

We have the kids in school finally. Today was their first day. They all said they had a good time and that they like their teachers. I hope that's their opinion in a few weeks too. Chelsea starts school on Monday. She is in a preschool class that will go Monday through Thursday from 12:15 pm to 3:14 pm. They call preschool 4 yr. old kindergarten here. I'm excited for her to go and she is excited to go. That is the time of day that Jaxson takes his nap, so I could have a couple of quiet hours every once in a while. That will be so nice. I'll probably be taking Chelsea to school. I'm not very comfortable with her riding the bus yet. We are too close to the elementary for the others to ride the bus. They have to walk. They are excited about that. It's a good excuse for me to get out and do a little exercising myself (I definately will not let them walk on their own).

Charlie is doing well in his job. He says his students are better behaved, overall, than the ones he had last year. He is enjoying that. He doesn't have his own classroom. He has to cart his stuff around on a cart. He actually uses three different classrooms. He says it's not as bad as he thought it would be. He has his own desk in the math department office. That's his home base. It's definately been nice to have him come home after work every day. That's something new for us.

I've already been visited by three women from the ward. They were all really nice and one of them invited me and the kids to her home this afternoon. She invited two other families too so we could get to know them. It was fun, cold, but fun. I feel very welcome here and look forward to getting to know more people. It's been interested to fill out emergency cards for the kids this year. I don't really have anyone I can put as an emergency contact person yet. I've never experienced that. I miss being by family and my friends in Michigan. They were a nice safety net. Now we have to learn to function apart from that. It will probably be good for us in the long run.

The house we were trying to buy earlier was put back on the market earlier this week. We put an offer on it late Wednesday and still haven't heard from them yet. It was listed at the same price it went off the market at. We felt fortunate since we thought it would be re-listed for more. It would be nice to buy this house and be able to get out of the rental. Although it's not a bad place to live, it's nicer to have your own place.

I'm glad to see that Hannah posted. Now we're just waiting for Grandma and Grandpa to join in the posting. I'll try to post pictures soon.

Hello everyone! I like that we have a blog so that we can all keep in touch and know what is happening with everyone. Well, school started on Tuesday and I have a feeling that this will be a challenging semester for me. I will be applying to the the elementary education program this semester, the application is actually due on the 17th of this month. If I am accepted into the program I will be able to start in the winter. Wish me luck. I will write more later but I have to finish getting ready for church now. Love you all very, very much!!!!!!!!

Today is the DAY!

I thought I'd jump on for a couple of minutes and update you all. I'm just about finished packing. I only have the computer and TV stuff to go. I'm am just about ready to implode or pull out my hair or something. I really hate moving. It's so stressful. I have our new phone set to turn on on Monday. Our new number will be 262-632-6721 and our new address is 3228 Republic Ave. Racine, WI 53405 (at least for the time being). I'll try to get back on the blog as soon as our internet is up and running again.

First day of school

I already posted this on our own family blog, but I will post it here too. Last week was Les, Bradyn and Parkers first day of school. Bradyn and Les both started on Monday and Parker had his first day of real preschool on Thursday. Logan was pretty upset that he couldn't go with Parker. I am doing a little mom's preschool with 4 other woman from church so, I will only have to teach about every 8 weeks or so. So far, we are liking it here. The weather is hot, but not unbearable. I have been able to see some of my friends from Michigan which has been a lot of fun. I have been hanging with my one friend Rachel and her kids quite a bit which has truely been a blessing from me. I feel so blessed to have her live near by.

Great Idea!!!

What a great idea Hillary! I love reading and being apart of blogs. I am already apart of a couple. For those of you who do not know, the address for Les and I's blog is
http://hickstexasadventures.blogspot.com

Please come and look at it and leave comments. It is so much more fun when someone leaves a comment on something that you have posted.

Hello everyone

I thought that since many of us are all over the country this would be a fun and easy way to keep in touch. When you want to post you click on the link that says "new posts". This will usually be up in the right hand side of the screen. After someone posts, there is an option to leave a comment about the post they left. That link will follow the posting and it just says "comment". When you write your own post there will be options for you to use for your writing. They will be in a tool bar at the top of the posting window. One of those icons will let you add pictures to your post and one lets you add video from your computer. This is a pretty neat website. Just take a look around and you'll probably be able to figure it out. If you have any other questions, you can ask me and I'll try to answer them.
I look forward to reading your posts and seeing your pictures.