are we having fun yet?

the old married couple

Both Eric's mother and I refer to Eric and Grant as "the old married couple" - they are so funny together.  Granted, they are still at an age where the "play around" each other, not necessarily together (unless they are destroying something!).  We always have to wonder where they've snuck off to, because they are usually doing something VERY naughty.  Their relationship is so cute - Eric, who is a giant compared to Grant, seriously thinks he and Grant are the same size.  It cracks us up.  (I had to carry them both out of the car yesterday, and I had to know their weight difference - Grant is 26 lbs and Eric was 42 lbs) They constantly want to play with each other, but for one reason or another, 10 minutes later, Grant usually ends up coming back home.  Grant is a stubborn little kid, and Eric has a very similar personality, so the two of them together are quite a package. 

The funniest story about our house being painted a couple weeks ago has to do with Eric.  All of us (me, Justan, Jaden and Grant) had left to buy Jaden a new bike before afternoon Kindergarten had started.  We'd been gone for close to two hours, and we had to run home and get Jaden a pair of socks for school.  We were running late, so I ran into Jaden's room, and saw the painter, and Eric kneeling at Jaden's bed with paint all over his face, hands, and clothes.  I was taken back to see Eric in our house, alone, with the two painters.  I was running late, so I told Eric he needed to leave.  Well, anyone that knows him, knows that he is going to do it on his terms and very slowly.  I got him out to my driveway, called his dad to let him know that he was at my house and I tried sending him home (for the record, Ronda wasn't home!).  When I got back, I asked the painter how long he had been there......oh, close to 2 hours!!  They said they had no clue who the kid was, and that he sat on my couch for close to an hour playing with a toy.  They weren't sure what to do about him, so they just talked to him!  LOL!!! 

I can't wait to see this kid in about 15 years.   :) 

a little more real

my lack of posting means we are really working hard around here getting this house ready to sell, and the fact that we had a BLAST in California last week.....but, I thought I would drop in quickly to show how real this process is becoming.  They came today to move Justan's car to Michigan.  I believe it only takes a few days, so this car will be sitting in Kyle & Erin's driveway awaiting Justan's arrival soon.  Pretty surreal. 

progress

the re-painting of my entire upstairs is now done.  It took them 5 days to repaint the ceiling, baseboards, casings, all doors, walls and some closets.  Justan has worked incredibly hard, decluttering closets, getting rid of so much junk, etc......just to get it to a place where it looks super clean to show when people come through.  I still feel like we have a million things to get done, but we are making a lot of progress.  I think our goal of having it ready to be listed and show by tomorrow is not going to happen, and I'm okay with that.

Justan officially started work on Monday.  He attended a new hire training in SLC, and then flew out to meet his team and see his branch yesterday and today.  He went out to dinner with his brother Kody last night, and then drove around for about an hour.  That was his first time seeing Michigan, and where he'll be working, as his interview for this job was in Seattle.  Kinda crazy, eh?  I hope to fly out in a couple weeks to start looking for a home to buy.  I still think it's completely insane that we are moving to a place we'd never been, visited, etc.......what an adventure!

We have a fun little family vacation planned to California that our kids don't know anything about.  We are going to Disneyland/California Adventure, Sea World, Legoland, Universal Studios, etc...we've never been, so we should have a great time.  I'm excited to do something fun, although we all know a vacation with kids is a lot of work itself!  I can't wait to see the look on my kids' faces.  I'm not even telling them until we go to each place!

When we get back, Justan has to have gum graft surgery (again - didn't work the first time).  He then has an offsite in Chicago with his boss and peers, and then officially begins out in Michigan in July.  The next couple weeks are going to be jammed packed.  I'm just going to take it a day at a time.  :)

Michigan bound

it's official - we will be moving to Michigan.  The job is in Farmington Hills, which is a suburb of Detroit.  If any of you have advice on places to live or any advice in general about moving an entire house and family to another state, please give it to me.  I'm so excited because we will have some family out that way!

one year anniversary giveaway

remember my talented niece and her fantastic camera straps?  She has reached her one year anniversary and is doing a special giveaway on her blog.  Click here to find out more!

P.S.  She also has a fabric store on Etsy called, Just Fabric.....check it out!  She has some great fabrics!  My only problem?  I would collect all the fabric and then wish I could sew!  :)

quite the week

While we were out back gardening on Monday, Jaden sliced a nice gash on the ball of his foot on some garden shears .  He got six stitches - isn't that perfect for a six year old? :)   It was quite the traumatic event...blood ALL over my house, rushing to get stitches, etc...I hope we don't have to go through that again any time soon!

Sande took me out to lunch on Tuesday.  She spoiled me with gifts, and gave me my new favorite pen from France!  It was SO great to see her, and her new scrapbook studio.  I love her orange walls!

On Wednesday, I turned the big 33.  I woke up and went to the gym.  At lunchtime, I met Loni at the MAC counter and I tried on about 10 different colors.  I finally settled on 3 colors.  We grabbed lunch, laughed (as usual), and then we were accosted by the tiny, aggressive saleswoman at a kiosk inside the mall trying to sell us some type of nail buffer that shines your nails.  It was pretty dang funny. 

I came home, and grabbed my golf shoes, and Justan and I met our friends, Adam and Jen DeWall up at Mountain Dell golf course and golfed 9 holes on the Lake course.  It was great fun.  We all then went downtown to Al Forno's for dinner.  Perfect way to end the day.  I was able to do most of this stuff on gift certificates I had saved over the last year - score!!

On Thursday, Justan received an offer for the Michigan job.  We are only in the very start - we are negotiating with them, as well as the Minnesota job. Maybe sometime this next week, we might actually know where we are headed! :)

Jaden's Kindergarten program

Today was Jaden's Kindergarten program.  I was so proud of him.  He did so well.  Spoke clearly and loudly enough to be heard in the microphone when it was his turn.  His singing was hilarious as well.  He accentuated EVERY letter and moved his body to the music.  Let's just say he really got into it.  It was very cute!  The theme was 'Snow White Goes to School' and they sang about 2-3 songs about not doing drugs - Justan and I got a few laughs out of it...it was one of those things you had to be there. 

Thanks to cousin Jake for letting us borrow some pants from him.  When we went to put on Jaden's size 6 dress pants, it wasn't pretty!  He looked like he was preparing for the flood....the kid has grown leaps and bounds in the past few months! 

Mother's Day weekend

My sister flew in for the weekend to drop her son off at my mom's house for the summer.  We had a BBQ at my mom's house on Saturday night and it was great to see her again!  She looks so happy - she totally deserves it!  Seriously, could Grant be any sweeter?  He is like this all the time.  He grabs people's faces when he kisses them. 

Me, my mom, and my sister:

As far as the job update goes, there isn't an update.  I'm not going to sugarcoat things- this has been an incredibly hard time.  Every time we think we are taking a step forward, it seems we have another step back of bad luck. 

You would think that now we have no income that we should qualify for assistance with things, but in fact, we are somewhere in the middle, basically in the position of receiving NO help.  We have too much in savings to qualify for Medicaid, we made too much this year with our tax return to qualify for WIC (for Grant), again too much (which I laugh about since we haven't had any income since JANUARY!) for CHIP, and now, the State of Utah wants to take back some of the unemployment money they already paid.   He is appealing the unemployment ruling and will meet with a judge in the next week or so, but we aren't expecting to win.  Justan has worked since he was 14 years old - so 21 years of full-time, non-stop work.  The actual time you NEED to use state assistance, we don't qualify.  It's crazy how they expect you to live on no income. 

He has flown to Minnesota and to Seattle (for a job in Michigan) in the past couple weeks, and we are hoping to hear some good news soon.  He had a really good shot at a job in Arizona, but they decided to go with an internal candidate.  I've looked at so many different places to live it's UNREAL.    I've accepted that I am going to have to move.  I've bawled my eyeballs out about leaving Utah - my family, my friends and my neighborhood - it makes me sad!

The hardest part of all of this is to watch Justan go through this.  He is such an amazing person and this really has gotten to him at his core.  Everyday we just can't believe this is our reality and this happened.  We can say over and over "this is so unfair," but it is what it is.  We can't change it, and we have to move forward.

And quite honestly, things could be so much worse.  I know in my heart there are so many people that think about us all the time.  Thank goodness we have our savings to live off of.  Thank goodness we are all healthy.  Our families, friends, and neighbors have been there for us anytime we've needed them.  Quite honestly, we are very lucky.

sick little guy

Poor little kid.  He has been complaining since Monday night that his 'belly hurts' - it seems like it is cramping on and off every 5 mins or so.  He cries out in pain, "I meed you Dad!"  I feel for the kid.  He's thrown-up almost every day, and it just makes you sad!  I keep thinking it's a 24 hour thing, but now we are to Friday, and he still is complaining.  I talked to the nurse today, and she said if his fever doesn't go away by tomorrow, to bring him in.  We need our happy, mischievous little boy back!

painting

So, we've decided we've got to get our house ready to sell.  It looks like we will be moving - no, we don't have a job for sure anywhere, but the prospects in Utah are slim.  Justan had his interview in Minnesota yesterday (and it went well), and he is applying for a job in Glendale, AZ.  Talk about two opposite extremes, eh?

I can't even begin to articulate how sad I am I have to move.  First, most of our family lives here.  All three sets of our parents are here.  I love the relationship that my kids have with their grandparents.  They help us out all the time!  Second, I *love* my neighborhood and my neighbors - or should I say my friends.......because that's what they are!  When I talked to Jaden about it the other day, he broke down in full blown tears.   It broke my heart, and it lead to us both crying together.

Oh, this is soooooo hard!  But, we have to do what we have to do.  So, I should have remembered from 3 years ago how difficult it is for me to pick paint colors!  LOL!!  Seriously, I got schooled 3 yrs ago on how many different 'browns' there are.  Some are very ugly, and some are just fine.  First, I picked the one on the very left.  I loved the sample Justan painted first, but then he put in his two cents, and I started second guessing my pick.  So, I bought the paint gallon of that small lighter brown.  Once it dried, he commented along with me that it looked bad.....so we went back to the original color.  Now, it's all that color, and I love it!  It's actually not *that* dark - it's the darkest shade on the light color sample for that shade.

At any rate, the last time Justan and I painted, we got EXTREMELY frustrated with each other (and that was about 10 years ago).  I say that jokingly, but seriously, we have different expectation levels.  His....well, he doesn't care what it looks like so much.....me, I lean on way too perfectionist side.  Can you see where we might have a big disagreement?  LOL!!!  At any rate, after just painting this tiny 1/2 bath, Justan commented, "call and get some bids to have the rest of the house painted......it will be best for our marriage in the long run."  LOL!!