September 21, 2013

Whoops, I haven't done this in a while.  Just get busy during the day, and at the end of the day, it's just a race to finish some paperwork so we can go to bed.

Anyways, this is the picture of the week, I guess.  I mean, it was from over a week ago, but it's the only picture I have since the last time I posted.  Anyways, here's the deal:  every night, we have to set an alarm that goes off if any of the kids leave their room or anything.  But one day, it turned off.  Like, the batteries died, and there was not getting it set that night.  So, we had to sleep out in the living room.  It worked out okay though, because you remember that couch/bean-bag thing we got a while ago?  It turns into a mattress, so we didn't have to sleep on the couch, we got to sleep on an actual mattress.  Our assessment:  better than an air mattress, not as good as a real one.

September 8, 2013

Well, it's been a crazy week for us.  Sunday through Tuesday of last week, we were really just pushing to make it through to the end of our on-duty stretch.  We made it, and actually, as hard a time as I had making it to the end, I spent a surprising amount of Tuesday night thinking and talking (and some planning) about our boys.  And even then, we weren't really free from work, because we had to make a 3-hour trip to go to some training for work on Wednesday.  but then, we really were done. :)

Thursday, we really had some time off, but even then, we couldn't really just sit down and you know...rest.  Instead, we got our house pretty much cleaned up (or at least, we got the junk off our table. :) ), and got packed up for our trip.  And then, Friday, we got up super super early and left to catch a plane back to my home, for my sister's wedding!  Friday we got the place all set up and decorated (...which was mostly done by the time I got there...), and did the rehearsal and everything, and then Saturday we ran around doing last minute things and getting ready and taking pictures, and getting my sister and her now-husband married. :)  It went so well, and we all had a great time :)

And then today, we packed up (or you know, put the boxes we packed up yesterday in our cars), and drove home, unpacked, took my brother to the airport, and just kinda hung out (and watched Duck Dynasty, which I just found out my parents are big fans of. :) )  Anycase, we're gonna rest and sleep up tonight, and tomorrow we'll get up at a much more reasonable time than we did to come here, and catch our flight back to where we live.  And then we'll get to just sleep up tomorrow night, and then go back on duty the day after that, so we got some nice vacation time in this week. :)

Anyways, considering my sister got married, you'd think I'd have a ton (or at least one) pictures of her wedding.  However, my husband borrowed my camera...for the entire weekend.  so, I don't really have any pictures from it.  I did manage to catch a few pictures though, so because it's been a whole week since I posted something, and in honor of her wedding, you get all three of them!

This is a picture of my husband, the night before we left.  He decided to shave while in the shower (and thus, no mirror).  He did ask for me to tell him once or twice where stuff would be evened up, but...obviously not enough.  After a while, he just gave up, and shaved facing a mirror (over the sink) after he got out of the shower.  And he looked very nice after that. :)

This is a picture I took while running some errands after getting picked up on Friday. We had to go pick up a keyboard from the music store in town, and when we pulled up, I noticed that the strip of buildings in which the store was located had a funky swirly chimney.  I thought it was cool, and so here's a picture.  

This is a picture at the rehearsal dinner.  The restaurant we went to set this out as an appetizer (I think just for the bride and groom).  It's a rose, but it's edible.  The stem is made out of some fancy bacon (I heard some one say that it had something special done to it, and it sure looks like something was done to it, but I have no idea what was done to it.)  and the flower part is made out of a deviled egg.  

And this is the only picture of the wedding day that I have.  My sister and I went to run errands the day of the wedding (because we had to get our hair done, and pick up the flowers).  Anyways, I ended up needing to parallel park while we were out, which most people make a little bit of a big deal of, since it's kind of uncommon to do anymore (which probably adds to why people always say it's hard).  It was also more of a big deal for me, because (though it was debated later that day), that was the part of driver's ed that everyone (including my dad, which is kinda impressive in and of itself) thought I didn't actually need, and never made me do.  Anyways, first time time having to parallel park, and with no one else in the car (coaching or otherwise), this was my second attempt.  ...The first time, I got between the cars, but I was only like a foot in from the street.   But, by the end of the day, I was a pro at parallel parking (and backing up and down steep, curvy hills.)

Anyways, I might be gone for another bit, since the battery in my camera is dead, but once we get back home, I'll find some more stuff to take pictures of. :)

September 1, 2013

So, our week wasn't been too bad.  and then it was the weekend.  And really, it's not even that the weekend's been that bad; the kids have actually been really good.  ... it's just that we're tired, and they got out of school early on Friday, and they don't have school tomorrow, so we have to come up with stuff to do with the kids while they're not at school.  But it has been good.  we've had a lot of fun playing around the house and at the creek.

Anyways, our picture for today:

We're having a group on campus this week.  They're going to stay in their campers and do some helpful things around the Ranch (though to be honest, I don't exactly remember what they're going to do.  I know the ladies are going to decorate Christmas wreaths and bake us cookies, but I don't know what the guys are going to do.  I kinda went into "I'm going to be off-duty that week; I don't really care what's going on then" mode when they started talking about it."  Anyways, just be praying that they can do all the things that they mean to do, and that they're blessed while they're here (and especially that we don't do anything to make them not blessed).  

Also, I found this picture on my camera today.  It's not really anything special, just a moth we found on our house the other day.  But it sure did look cool, so I thought I would post a picture of it. :)

August 29, 2013

Welp, I was wrong...that chair did get here today. And I even managed to squeeze in some time to get it unpacked and assembled... well, sort of assembled.  All you had to do was open the box, put the cover on the floor, then dump the mattress-cube deal into the cover, zip it up, and squish it some to get it to decompress.  I think it's still got some decompressing to do, but it's plenty comfy anyways. :)  Even better, it's just the right size for my husband and I to both sit on, which is exactly what we wanted. :D

Anways, the only other real exciting bit of news is that we're getting two new boys today.  The other boys are all excited to have them here, so I think it's gonna work out real well.  In any case, be keeping us in your prayers, and just that they'd settle in well and all that.  Also, one of our other boys started asking about salvation and so forth last night, so keep in your prayers too!

August 28, 2013

So, as we expected things are going fairly smoothly.  I mean, we've been on the receiving end of some temper tantrums and such, but...that's what we get for working with 7 year olds, right? But seriously, it's been going really well, overall.  Having them in school is pretty nice, 'cuz then we can catch up on sleep during the day and stuff, and that's been very helpful.

So...pictures.  yeah, last night, I went to bed knowing what I was going to post when I got around to posting it, so here it is.  When we first moved into this apartment, we noticed there were no blinds in the window (but two sets of blinds lying underneath the window).  Turns out, those blinds were too big.  We put in a maintenance request to get those installed...within two weeks of getting here. But other stuff was more important (and we do appreciate all the other stuff they keep running instead of us having blinds), and they had to hand-cut the blinds to the correct size, and this that the other... but finally, we got them installed yesterday.  Or, to be fully accurate...our wonderful handymen finally installed them yesterday.  And they look great, and we're excited to have them up in our apartment. :)  (Plus, I got our kitchen table cleaned off, so it actually looks like responsible people live here and stuff. :) )

BUT THEN, came the truly exciting story of the evening.  Or rather, the next day.  We have to set an alarm system in our house, so we know if kids are getting up in the middle of the night and that sort of thing.  Unfortunately, the kids in our cottage set it off a bit more frequently than we'd really like (especially once we find out WHY they woke us up at 1:30 and 4 in the morning).  In any case, last night the alarm went off  (twice, if you didn't pick up on that), and I ran out, turned off the alarm, and started to go to the kids room, but I accidentally kicked the door I had to go through, and scraped my foot. But I didn't realize I had until after I had gotten him all taken care of, and was starting to go back to bed. (I feel like the tape all the way across my foot makes it look way worse than it really is, but at the same time...it is kinda gross-looking underneath the gauze.)   Anycase, doing that meant that today I got to fill out forms about my injury, and what time it happened, and "the specific process I was involved in when I sustained the injury" and so forth, and it was really kinda a hassle.  ...Especially since I'm pretty sure the most this'll turn into is a week or so of me having to take an extra 15 minutes a day (throughout the day, not even all at once) to make sure it's clean and bandaged nice and that sort of thing.  oh well.

And the really exciting part of the day is that we're supposed to get our couch/beanbag deal today (check out CordaRoys.com if you want to know exactly what I'm talking about).  I didn't believe that it'd get here today, especialy when it got to Memphis at 7:20 last night.  But, it was in town at 6 this morning, and on it's delivery route at 6:05, so I started to change my mind.  ...but it still hasn't gotten here, so I'm getting a bit more skeptical each second again.  I guess it doesn't really matter, since we won't really get to use it until next Tuesday or so (when we finally get some time off! :) )

August 24, 2013

Well, things at the Ranch never go quite like we plan on them going, but this past week has turned us for more loops than I really care to count.  Monday was the last day I posted about, so here's a quick update of the week:
Tuesday:  all hell broke loose in our cottage.  and yes, it was really that bad.  and keep in mind, the kids are in school for most of the day.
Wednesday:  our wonderful co-workers helped us recover from the previous night, and stuff is starting to look up a bit.
Thursday:  We went to training out of town for the day, and were supposed to go off for the weekend that night.  Unfortunately, our relief houseparents had a death in the family, so we got Thursday night, and Friday night off, and go back on Saturday morning.
Friday:  ...nothing super exciting happened. just slept up, and ..well, didn't really get a day off; we had to keep running to the office about kids we have to take to the doctor before the office re-opens and other crises with kids and stuff.  ...But we weren't responsible for WATCHING (or feeding. :D ) kids.


Which brings us to today.  We came back on duty fairly early (...I guess 9ams not THAT early...), and had a pretty good day.  The one good thing about being suprise on-duty this weekend, is that the hard day to plan (Saturday), was actually pretty easy, because our kids already had their day planned out from about 9-6, and they're supposed to go to bed at 8:30.  We had a church group come visit and do some activities (and feed!) our kids, so it was pretty chill for us.  We spent the majority of the day building and shooting off bottle rockets.  I helped one of our boys make one (and it went pretty good! :D  mostly straight line, and a pretty good distance),  but somehow my husband and I ended up with this one:

yeah, cute little ladybugs all over it and everything.  Pretty sure it's not one of the boys'. ;)

In any case, we're pretty tired, but today went well, and it seems like things are looking up, and will smooth out soon. :D

August 19, 2013

So maybe you'll get a two-for one today.  This was MEANT for yesterday, but it was late, and the internet was being stupid, and...I just waited to post it 'til now, but you still might get one for actually today!

The big deal for today was that it was the first day of school.  So, Nathan and I got to kinda take it easy and do paperwork-y stuff while all the kiddos were off at school.  That was really nice, and we definitely appreciated being rested up when they came home from school all crazy and amped up and stuff.

The other kinda exciting thing from today, is part of a sort of long story.  We noticed the other day, that the living room smelled kinda funky.   The next day, one of our co-workers came to our house and was like, "man, it stinks in here...I think you have skunks living under your house."  So we got with another of our co-workers, who said to put some old meat outside of the critter hole we found, and he'd try and get it later.  So we've putting some chicken outside of the critter hole for the past few days.  Last night, we were going to bed, and saw this:

Hmm...I thought I caught him, when you could actually see the stripe across his eyes.  He's a little hard to see, but if you look close (just above the blue bucket), you can see a raccoon eating up the chicken.  

And that was pretty much our day.