Before I talk about our amazing trip to Chicago, I have some updates. I'm not sure of the order these things happened in because I have a terrible memory (that's what Nate is for) so I'm going to write about things as they come. And this is going to be boring because I don't have any pictures. I'm not good at carrying my camera around everywhere.
First, the bad news of our life. The rain here in Ohio is absolutely insane and our car certainly didn't like it. I think it prefers the dry Utah weather. So probably about 3 weeks ago, it rained for 2 days straight and in the morning I got in the car to go to work, and the car was struggling with getting going. Every time I had to stop for a light, it would struggle to go again, but it finally got better after I had driven a bit. So I was a bit worried, but it got better, so we decided not to worry about it. (By the way, I changed the air filter all by myself at this time! I just watched a YouTube video so I would know what it looked like, and then I went out there and did it! I was so proud of myself! But it was so easy!) Anyway, the rain wasn't too bad until about 2 weeks ago. It had been raining the day before and all night long and when I went to try the car in the morning, it wouldn't start! And I was supposed to go to someone's house to babysit their kids! (more on that later) So I had to call the mom and she came and picked me up. Luckily we could use their car for that whole weekend since we had to have a van to cart everyone around. By the time Saturday came, it had finally stopped raining so we tried the car and it worked! We were debating whether we should take it in or not, but we opted for buying a car cover and putting it on when there was rain. We figured $20 was a lot cheaper than whatever it would cost to fix it. So Monday and Tuesday it rains and rains again. We try our car Tuesday evening cause we were done babysitting and needed to go home, and...it doesn't work. By this time, all the car repair shops were closed so we didn't know what to do. We stayed at this family's house one more night (the parents weren't back yet and the kids were all at different families' houses, so we weren't infringing on them, luckily). The next morning we called the Honda dealer as soon as it was open so we could get our car towed there as soon as possible. We finally got it in and they had all sorts of things to fix so we wouldn't be getting our car until Thursday, which was the day we planned on leaving for Chicago. But they got it fixed and now we don't have any worries about rain anymore and we made it to Chicago! Just later than we had planned. And the family we were babysitting was sooo nice and let us use one of their cars until we got ours! So we were blessed that all of this happened when it did. I don't know what we would've done without any car at all. There are certainly some wonderful church members out there!
Now the good stuff. Like I mentioned above, during the car troubles we were babysitting a family of 4 girls from our ward while their parents went to Hawaii, ages 14 to 5. We stayed at their house, made dinner, drove them where they needed to go, and were like their parents for about 5 days. They were such good girls though it really was easy. However, I was still really tired after that. How do you moms do it? But we had fun.
We've gone to some dollar movies over the last month. Tangled and Yogi Bear. We went to Yogi Bear with the girls. We all enjoyed it!
We went to a free Akron Zips basketball game with church members who are from the Law school so that was really fun too. We were the only couple without kids!
And good news from my side! My little sister is getting married! She's marrying a great guy, so we're excited. And one of my older sisters is going to have another baby! Hooray! #10! And one of my best friends is going on a mission (yes, at 24. You are never too old as a sister) to Honduras! She'll be speaking Spanish and she's a nurse so it will also involve teaching health and sanitation.
Sorry about the long post, but other than the usual work for me and school for Nate, that's what's been going on in our life for the last month!
It's been quite a month for you! As for being able to keep up with multiple children, luckily they usually come one at a time. And it just works. Your capacity to care for them and yourself just grows each time you add another child to your home. Personally, I just also learn what works better for my body...certain exercises, certain foods, certain amount of sleep, daily scripture study. I find if I slip up too much in these areas, I sure pay for it...and when I pay for it, my family pays for it, too. So, it's worth it for me to have better habits.
ReplyDeleteLove the updates! We miss you, Annika talks about you guys a lot!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you posted all of this about the weather, the car, and tending the kids, etc. What an experience!
ReplyDelete