Life...what not!

A blog post is LONG overdue. Life is....well....CRAZY! I can't wait until summer--no, I'm not wishing my life away, and I'm not looking forward to the heat YUK! But I love the days of not rushing to school, cub scouts, piano lessons, dance class, meetings, and campaigning has, of course, taken over our house and Scott's little bit of spare time. It has been quite an adventure so far! T. and O. love to go out knocking doors, and S. would like to go, but taking her is like trying to herd cats--IMPOSSIBLE! There is a reason the last child is last--I'm just sayin'! O. did officially disown S. today, she said she was not her sister any more and she wanted to trade her for a nicer sister. It's one extreme to the next with those two and I have to say O. is usually right, I feel her pain, but my sister really feels her pain O. is just like my sister, sweet, kind patient, nurturing and I was a total button pushing, stubborn little punk like S. Mom....you know it happened, I got one just like me--it serves me right!!!
(sorry no airplane picture, it was not my best day of photography! Like there's ever a really good day with my skills)

It's that time of year again when we get to go to the air show. The kids had a great time as usual. I wasn't sure if we were going to make it because O. spent most of the night up with a tummy ache, but she was not going to miss the air show. They actually had to cut the show a little short because of "technical difficulties" don't know what that means but we certainly wouldn't want anything to go wrong and put someone's life in danger. The night before a guy in our ward who is an F-16 pilot came and talked to the Cub Scouts at pack meeting about his job and he was telling us how much of our "tax dollars" it costs to fly the planes, and all the parents responded with "we have NO PROBLEM with our tax dollars going to help you guys protect our country." I can't imagine doing that job--those guys are true heroes! That's where are tax dollars are supposed to be spent!

Well, we thought we lost the lizard the other night--I was not super thrilled about the thought of a little lizard crawling into bed with me. We searched high, we searched low! Finally the next day, little Markus lizard crawled out of his rock! Who knew that he could crawl under the bark and into the rock--yes we did look there but couldn't see him. Phew--disaster averted!

Let me just say that earthquake in Chile was something. Not surprising..no..having lived there for 16 months earthquakes are a common and I mean common occurence. We felt little ones all the time. And although I don't think you're every totally prepared for a natural disaster as devastating as an 8.5 earthquake--how could you be?? The people always told me that they expect every 10-15 years to have a BIG one. Isn't it also interesting that even though the magnitude was much greater in Chile then in Haiti, the devastation and death in Haiti was much worse? Prepared..not prepared! I feel so horrible for the people in both countries, and we all better get prepared. You know I have a little obsession with preparedness, not crazy like I'm out spending all my money on stuff, but I'm finally really understanding how it all works. I know that probably doesn't make sense, but even though I've always tried to be prepared...72 hour kits, food storage etc. it always seemed so overwhelming and I didn't know how to make it all work together. I felt unsure of what to buy so I would just buy random stuff from the cannery, but I'm finally getting it! AND I'm really getting the benefit of cooking more from scratch, growing a garden (wanted to do that this year... too late to plant in the desert, going to do it next year) etc. Not only is it more budget friendly, you become self-reliant, it's more healthy (less worry about food recalls) and the food is really much more yummy AND that is how you rotate your food storage! Okay, off that soapbox. It's just been like a huge light bulb moment that I really wish would have turned on like maybe 20 years ago for me...better late then never.

More pictures to come--I can't believe how long it's been since I updated the kids pictures. I'm on it!