As Summer Slowly Ends... and a quick update on Faith

Its crazy to think that today is the first day of August.  This summer has just flown by...and so has this year! Have you realized yet that we are now 8 months into the year? There are only 4 months left of 2013...only 2 months until Halloween, 3 months until Thanksgiving, and 4 months until Christmas...INSANE!

Jeff started a new rotation because of the tech he is shadowing and will be doing 15 days on and 6 off for a little while. We just had his first "off period" of 6 days and we took a lot of time to just do things as a family. A lot of our time was spent at home and it was nice.

We purchased a table and a Blu-ray player that has wi-fi so we can watch Netflix on it (makes it much easier than hooking up one of the computers and trying to keep Phillie away from the dangling cords.) I bought 2 scented wax warmers on clearance for $5, and our house smells like vanilla and caramel now all day long instead of the hints of lingering cigarette smoke( a gift from previous tenants of the house..YUCK!) and that general mildew smell that comes with living in a REALLY old house with plaster walls...I'm loving the new ambiance that a yummy smelling house creates. Its weird, but everyone seems happier when the house smells nice... Our house here is starting to feel more like home and things are coming together. We do need to buy one more chair (we only bought two because Jeff thought the table came with chairs. He was wondering why I was so insistent about getting at least one more...LOL Oh well, we will get there eventually!)  Also, our new washer and dryer arrived and I am ALMOST caught up on laundry now.

On Saturday, we got to go to our first Wyoming parade...it was a first parade for the girls in general. Let's just say that Rock Springs knows how to throw a parade for fair time. We walked away with a grocery bag's worth of candy, 4 cans of soda, 4 bottles of water, 7 or 8 popsicles and one of the local flower shops even gave flowers away to the moms and older young ladies of the crowd...I brought cash expecting to need to buy drinks or popsicles, but I was wrong. It was crazy. Every float that went by, someone was handing us a popsicle or throwing candy or giving us a free drink! The girls had fun watching the horses, classic cars, and Shriner's circus cars ride by. The best part is we only live about 2 blocks from the parade route. We didn't have to deal with traffic or finding a parking spot, we just got to walk out there about 20 minutes before the parade started and wait. It was awesome!

Tuesday was Jeff's last day off so we decided we'd make the day really special. We went to Garnet Park to have a picnic and let the girls play at the splash pad. Unfortunately, we got there and were informed by some other ladies that the splash pad was broken. They had been waiting HOURS for someone to come fix it and had finally given up. We ate our lunch and let the girls play in what little water was bubbling up...it was kind of pathetic so we knew we had 2 choices- we could go to the rec center and play in the splash pad there and swim, or go buy a pool with a spout so that we could have our own private splash pad...

We opted for the latter since I don't have a car to get places when he's a work and we figured it would be nice for me to have a way to spend time outside with the girls as summer draws to its close.

After spending almost an hour trying to find one at Walmart (it took almost 45 minutes to find an associate to help us find where they'd put the pool stuff...VERY frustrating) we opted to go to Kmart because they didn't have anything like what we were looking for. At Kmart, we found several options and ended up with a circle pool with a water slide and a zebra head spout that sprays water onto the slide. Faith picked it. We held the boxes down in front of her and asked her which one she wanted. It was a good choice. We also were pleasantly surprised to find out that it was on sale. It ended up being $10 cheaper than we had thought it would be.

Here are some pictures of the fun the girls had:

So...we embark on the next 15 days. Jeff will be working and I will be having fun with the kiddos during the day, and we will enjoy the family time we get when he's home. I love that we can all just snuggle up together and watch a movie at the end of the day for a few minutes, say evening prayers and Jeff and I have the rest of the evening to talk about our day and smooch (yep- that's right, we're married and we smooch! Get used to it!)

We love our new ward and have quickly made friends. Jeff's one regret is that he doesn't have more time off in the evenings. There are several guys in the ward that play frisbee golf and Jeff would love to go out and play with them and do tournaments with them...

In short, as much as I wasn't sure if I wanted it to be, Wyoming is quickly becoming "home".  I miss my green hills in southeast Idaho and being somewhat close to my family, but the people here and the similar climate make it easier.

I am very blessed at the moment and I am on my knees every morning and night thanking God for bringing us through the Hades of unemployment. Hopefully, with any lucky, Jeff will be on payroll soon (instead of a contractor through SOS) and all of the nerves surrounding this job will dissipate and I can REALLY allow myself to settle in.

For good measure, enjoy some pictures of the fun we've had today:

and video of Faith dancing and then hiding from the camera inconspicuously when she noticed I had it out....

Faith is a little character. She loves to dance and copy dance moves of characters on the shows we watch (we definitely have a flexible little ballerina on our hands.) Her favorite moves are leg extensions and twirling.  She loves shows like "Shake it Up!" and Angelina Ballerina because she gets to dance every time a character starts to dance. Too cute and funny. Still no headway on talking yet, but she has gotten much better at problem solving and figuring out puzzles. Its a slow process. The Infant Toddler program here is going to do her hearing test and if that isn't the culprit, they have a developmental psychologist who will test her to see if we can get a firm diagnosis of what is going on and help us find better treatments once we have an idea of what the cause may be. I'm feeling very fortunate that we were able to move here where the program is a little better funded. We also talked today about the possibility of taking the girls to Kindermusic classes at the Child Development Center here for free. I am excited to do it and take part.

Hugs and loves until next time, darlings!

P.S> I will be posting a few recipes later today. Stay tuned!