Back from the dead

I absolutely hate not blogging for a long time because I have so much to catch up on and then I leave out all the details, which is usually the funnest part to remember. But here I am with several weeks behind me, and the catch up game begins...

Saturday, June 21
My parents' stake held their annual 5K and 1 mile family walk/run. My mom was so nice to take my kids on the family 1 mile walk so that Kenny and I could run the 5K. When Tyler woke up that morning, he was so excited and all geared up for his "race". He put on his lightning mcqueen underwear and shoes, certain that they would help him run extra fast. So instead of a nice 1 mile walk, my mom ended up chasing Tyler, while pushing the double stroller with Bryn and Madi in it haha. He was determined to win, it was so cute. The 5K went well also. I really didn't know how I'd do, I haven't raced that since like highschool, so I just said my goal was to get under 26 minutes. I finished at 25:26, and ended up getting 1st place for women 20-29 (which there were obviously not very many of if I won 1st place with that time). Kenny finished a little bit behind me, but had a sore ankle from rolling it the other nigh at basketball. But anyway we all had a great time. Certainly not like the times I used to get in highschool, but I was happy, and it felt good to be in a race again.

During the weeks we didn't do much. Just a lot of playing, really. Continued preschool with Tyler, he has mastered the Wii, esepcially sword fighting and wants to ask Santa for one for Christmas :). There's a little boy next door named Walker, and he and Tyler are really cute friends. We also jumped into doing playgroups with the young moms in this ward, and of course loved going to the park and swimming often.

The next weekend, Saturday June 28th, we made a last minute decision to go visit my sister, Steph in Las Vegas. Her husband, Andrew, just deployed to Iraq and we figured since I didn't have anything here that I needed to stay for, why not go out and visit her. We made the decision, packed up the car, and were on the road within a few hours. Sometimes we are just a little bit nuts, and this was one of those times. Kenny quickly got on the computer and bought a ticket to fly back, after driving us out there. But once we got on the road, a couple hours into our trip, he realized that he bought the ticket from houston to vegas, isntead of from vegas to houston!! So Steph helped us fix it since we were computer-less and he got the last seat on the only flight left the next day. But it was going to be short on time. We didn't have a choice though, so we were bookin it! Thank goodness LV has a 2 hour time change btwn. here and there. We had some close calls and miracles on the way down. Like when we ran out of gas on the exit ramp and literally coasted up to the gas station pump. And when a bird hit the windshield in the middle of the night while going about 85+ mph and cracked it really bad, but it was on the side by the bar. Had it been a foot over towards the middle, it would have totally gone through the window and hit me. But after that 22 hour road trip straight through the night we only had one speeding ticket, and zero accidents. We went straight to the airport and without even seeing Steph or her kids, Kenny had 55 minutes to catch his plane back home. Phew!!

I stayed there for 2 weeks and it was, in a word, INSANE. Seriously, 6 kids ages 4 and under is a lot of work for two single moms haha. I will do a separate post about those two weeks later. But we did a whole lot, including going to California for 2 days to play on the beach. We were very brave (and probably stupid) but we made some great memories and isn't that what it's all about.

Oh and I forgot to mention how a couple days after I had posted on here that we were moving to Cleveland, Kenny's company told us to hold off again, because it was no longer certain. We had been getting yanked around so so much before, and I waited several days after hearing the news to post it on here because things change all the time with this company. But I thought it was for sure, and then it wasn't again and we continued to wait. We got our hopes up again for going to Idaho Falls and were so looking forward to that. But after a couple more weeks we were finally told that Cleveland was for sure again, and now we're starting once more to look for somewhere to live. So that all happened while I was away, which was a nice distraction to be at Steph's while we waited to hear the news. But anyway, we're getting very excited to start our lives there, and we'll be going up there July 1st (at least that's the plan for now).

On Thursday, June 9th, Kenny flew back to vegas and got in around midnight. He stayed the next day and we had a good time. Friday night we all took the kids to a buffet at one of the big hotel casinos and it was yummy. We were joking about how we looked like polygamists with Kenny, me and steph, and our 6 kids hahaha. Then we went home, put the kids to bed, a babysitter came over and we went to a Cirque de Soleil show!!! It was absolutely amazing!!! I have never been to a show like that and I totally loved every second of it. The next morning we packed up the car and headed home. We stopped at Hoover Dam on the way out and that was neat to see.

The ironic thing was the day after we left for Vegas, my sister Camille and her husband Tyler arrived here in Houston! I missed them by one day. And I missed my sister Kim, by one day the other way, since she had just barely left Steph's house. Pretty poor planning on our part in both directions, but oh well. I have loved being near Cami since we've been back. It's so much fun to hang out with her again. So basically we just sleep in every morning, go swimming every day at least once, and do lots of shopping as well :). We're still getting things sorted out with moving, and it's coming up all too quickly and yet not soon enough at the same time.

Well I realize this post desperately needs photos but I will have to do that later. I promise it will be soon!