...and many more...

On this day 15 years ago, I was lucky enough to marry my best friend. He is my whole world and I can't imagine living life without him. We have had good times and bad. Hopefully we continue to have many more good, although I will take some bad too because making up is the fun part. Over the years we have spent many months apart and our love always seems to get stronger. I can't wait to start our new chapter in life together.

For the 15th anniversary it is traditional to give crystal, but modern gifts include glass and watches. So what will you be getting us? We got each other a Caribbean Cruise on the Disney Cruise line in November and he bought me tickets to Houston for next week. Can't wait to go and spend some "alone" time with my honey. I love you babe!!!

Ahhh, the smell of fresh paint!

I was set up this week. My mother-in-law, bless her sneaky heart, told me that if I would like to paint the room that I am staying then I could. She also told me that it was on her to-do list this summer and it just didn't get done. So I said ok. Thinking that she would forget and I wouldn't really have to paint. Well, I was wrong. She took me to buy paint this week and said I could choose whatever color I wanted. Mistake on her part, I chose purple. Don't think she will ever give me free-reign again! Here are the before and after shots. Sierra took the before pics.

Now I just need to find some fun fabrics to make curtains and a bed spread. Oh and maybe some new carpet?

We Have Arrived

I have one of the most incredible daughters in the world. I should rephrase that, I have three incredible daughters. Brooklyn however, blew me away Friday night. In order for me to tell you the what she said, I have to give a bit of a back-story. Brooklyn had been extremely nervous the 4 days or so before we left to fly. Her big brother filled her head full of plane crash stories. She was not so much worried about dying as she was about James being alone if our plane crashed or us being without James if his plane crashed. She decided it was very unfair that we were not able to travel together. She had such anxiety over it all that we had to explain to her again that we are an eternal family and no matter what happens we will be together forever.

I too have been stressed and nervous about traveling alone with four kids. Brooklyn was so stressed Friday that she started crying as our plane took off from Roma. We landed safely in Brisbane and she relaxed a little. I think that she could see the stress on me that night and told me, “Don’t worry mom, I know we will be just fine.  Jesus is going to help fly our plane.”

We landed in Los Angeles Saturday morning and she said, “See, safe and sound.” We blew through customs and you have no idea how good it was to hear American accents again. I was surprised that they didn’t even x-ray our bags. They just asked what kind of food we had and I told them and they said, “Ok you can go.” I was sure that they would stop us since we had 10 checked bags and 6 carry-ons. 

We were all so tired that we laid down on the floor in LAX and the two little girls and I fell asleep. Brooklyn got up and started to walk away. Kayla told her lay back down because we still had another hour before our next flight. She kept walking and laid down next to some other lady. In the meantime, Kayla had woken me up to tell me she thought Brooklyn was sleep walking. The other lady told her that her mom was over there. She grunted and walked back over to us and laid down. We boarded our flight to Seattle even though Kayla thought she was going to be sick and kept getting dizzy. We all slept so good on that flight that we missed the drink service and Brooklyn woke up and thought we had missed our flight to Boise.

Our flight to Boise was delayed because there was too much weight in the cargo and we had to take on extra fuel due to the high winds Saturday night. We arrived in Boise and the wind almost blew the plane sideways. We hit the ground hard and the captain said if the winds had been two nots higher we would have diverted to another city. After flying for essentially two whole days, I was very grateful we didn't have to divert. Can you believe that after all of that, we only lost one bag. Don't worry it was found and delivered safe and sound just like we were.

The Final Countdown

I do keep singing that song in my head, so you have to do it too... Here is the song and the words to help you...



We only have 5, that's right FIVE more days here and then we're leaving on a jet plane and don't know when we will be back again (if ever). Almost all our bags are packed and we're ready to go.

The garage sale was a HUGE success. We put 8 o'clock start time and we had cars lining the street at 0630 waiting for us to open the doors. We made a thousand dollars in 45 minutes. It was so crazy, people were even buying stuff out of our garbage pile. Being the keen business woman that I am, I sold it to them. I have never seen that before. So different from garage sales in the States. We still have lots of crap to get rid of, so I am going to try it again on Wednesday afternoon.

We are dropping our shipment off on Tuesday and we have Cooper's flights home booked. It is all coming together so easy. The hardest part of this whole thing is the fact that we have been without our furniture for almost a week and I am tired of sitting on the floor. Thank goodness I still have my bed...can't say the same for the poor kids.

Random

This is what happens when a 15 year old gets into a hot shower and faints.

It's Official

We are coming home, and not just for a vacation. After months of frustration with life in Australia, we are heading back to the United States. More to come later but just thought I would post a quick note.

Ugh!!!

I am dying here. I potentially have some wonderful, thrilling news that I can't wait to share with everyone. You have no idea how hard it is for me not to say anything. It is the only thing that I can think of to blog about and I can't say anything yet. I can't even talk openly about it with James because the kids don't know yet either. I can tell you that I am super excited and really hoping that it all works out, for all of our sakes. Then I can complain and celebrate. I won't have to wear my everything is fine and I am happy face anymore. Keep your fingers crossed for an awesome post later in the week.

Grandma Campbell

My Grandma Campbell passed away on July 2 and I thought I would share with some of my memories of her. Growing up, my sisters and I would visit every summer and sometimes on Christmas or Spring breaks. We didn't have many cousins and so some of them would usually be there too. I think that the thing that sticks out most in my mind is that she was always taking our pictures. She would dress us up and take pictures. She would take our pictures when she visited. We hated it. She must have taken hundreds of pictures of us and sometimes she would make us sort through all of them for our photo albums. I am grateful now that she took all those pictures to preserve the memories we made there.

As kids, we thought she was eccentric for collecting dolls and stuffed animals. We thought she was too old. I now know that you are never to old to collect something that brings you joy. Her porcelain dolls were her pride and joy. When I was about 10 years old she had all of the grandkids go through her house and pick at least one thing we wanted when she died. As a young girl, I thought it would be awesome to have the first porcelain doll that she ever got. She made dresses and hats for it and would fix it's hair. She loved that doll. The last time that we saw her she told me that doll was mine.

She would have us do chores around her house. We used to think that was the only reason that she wanted us to visit was to do the things she didn't want to do. She would have us wash her car, weed the garden, pick the chokecherries, and even washout the bread loaf bags and ziplocs that she kept. As tortured as we thought we were, we actually had a lot of fun. Washing the car would always turn into a water fight and we always turned the other chores into some kind of game that usually got us into some kind of trouble later.

Grandma would always make sure that Grandpa took us camping. First time ever that I had to use a leaf instead of toilet paper. She said as long as we were in nature, we should use nature. I always carried my own toilet paper with me after that. She also made sure that we went to church with her when we were there. She would make us sleep in these really hard curlers and then get up early so that we looked perfect before we left.

Everyday at noon we had to be absolutely silent while Paul Harvey was on. We were not allowed to sit on her bed during the day. She would play board games with us. She was an excellent seamstress. She tried to teach me how to sew but I was not a good student. She would have us exercise every day to Jane Fonda. We went to Deseret Industries every Saturday. We got lost in Pocatello and got onto the Interstate going the wrong way once. She seldom drove. She wouldn't let us use our left hands to eat. She fed us bread and milk for dinner once. We would walk all over McCammon collecting aluminium cans. She made huge bunny cakes for everyone on Easter. She always had push-pops in the freezer. She loved spending time with her grandkids and great-grandkids.

She was a crazy old lady that did things that made us question her sanity, but she had a great love for her family and she will be missed. 

Cat in the Hat a.k.a Brooklyn

Post-It Note Tuesday: It's Not Always Nice to Share