Finally Home!

We made it home tonight after a long couple of days of driving. I am sooooooo glad to be home! I am glad that we went, though. The weather was awesome, and it was great to see Mike's mom and grandparents and meet some more of his family. They are so nice! Mike hasn't seen his cousins since he was very young and they didn't hesitate to take us in and take care of everything we needed. We stayed at his cousin Jayme's house, which worked out perfectly because she has a 16 month old and so everything was childproofed and there was plenty to entertain Carter and Samantha. Mike spent a lot of time visiting with his mom and we were able to get some of the insurance mess cleared up. I am finally starting to understand what all the hoopla about the health care system is about. I have always had great insurance and I have seen plenty of needy people get Medicaid fairly easily. But Mike's mom just can't get a break! She was married to a Canadian and lived in Canada for the past 7 years or so. She is now divorcing him and has moved back to the states. But because her divorce isn't final, she is still covered by Canadian insurance--that sounds like a good thing, right? Well, they won't cover her down here in the states, but because she has this "insurance", she doesn't qualify for Social Security or Medicaid meaning she has nothing. She is too sick to work, so she is up against a wall. Mike and I spent the majority of our time there trying to figure out how to get her some sort of assistance. Her dad is still working on the Social Security thing, but we were told that it can take years, and most people are turned down a few times before they are finally approved. How messed up is that? I am starting to think that Obama's universal health care may be the way to go....

Anyways, we are just very glad that she has family there in Denver to take care of her. I was so impressed with how great Mike's cousins and aunt have been with his mom. They really taught me a lesson on what family is all about. I left very grateful for Mike's job, our awesome health insurance, our health, and our family. We have been very blessed and I know that I forget that sometimes.

I was also very impressed with Denver. This was the first time that I have been to Denver since I was too little to really remember and I absolutely loved it! The weather is great, we had sunshine everyday. Even when it did snow the night before we left it was gone by that afternoon. The people are laid-back, there are mountains, plenty of running/biking trails and I just really felt at home. I told Mike that when he is done at Kohl's, that is our next stop. 300 days of sunshine a year, can you really beat that? That is a full 295 days more than we get here in the frozen state. Plus they have the Broncos. Who doesn't love the broncos? In reality, I am just really hating Wisconsin weather right now. If it weren't for the great friends we have here I would be looking elsewhere.

Anyways, it is late and I am beat from the drive. I have some pictures, but they will have to wait.

So long...

I know it has been forever since I posted, but things have been crazy around here. Every day I think of something new that I want to blog about, and I just don't get to it. We had some friends over for Easter, so we were using that as a deadline to get some house projects done. We got a bathroom vanity installed and the office painted, some new office furniture assembled. I have pictures, but I am not at home right now to post them, so later on that....

Easter was so much fun. Carter is just starting to get the whole holiday thing and had a blast looking for Easter eggs. I have never seen a kid get so excited about a Pez dispenser. He was a bit disappointed when he found out that it didn't shoot out candy like he thought it would. He and Samantha both had colds, so they stayed with Mike at home for church. It was too bad, because our ward choir had a whole program and it was amazing. I am talking professional quality here. It was very nice. After church we had the 4th annual Easter dinner/egg toss. Our numbers have grown, so we had it at our place instead of at the Callisters. It was so much fun. I love having people over. Even though it is a lot of work, I love it. I would have people over all the time if my house wasn't completely torn apart half the time with our projects. The food was awesome, especially the dessert, homemade eclairs and strawberry shortcake. yum! I really had high hopes for the egg toss this year (you would think that after 4 years of hearing "soft hands!" I would get it), but our egg cracked on the 3rd toss and broke completely when I missed Mike and hit the O'Neill's car (oops!). Mike and Jessica Spencer won for the second year in a row. I guess we'll have to practice more for next year.

The big news as of late has been Mike's mom. She has been sick for a long time, she has Hepatitis C and is in serious need of a liver transplant. We talked to her on Sunday and she said that she needed to go to the hospital but didn't want to. We tried to talk her into going, and by that night she was slipping into a coma and she was taken to the hospital (this isn't new--her liver is shot and when the toxins build up in her brain this happens). Anyways, Monday we received a call saying that she wasn't waking up to eat, drink or take her medicine and she would probably die within a few days. We have always known that this would happen one day, but this really caught us all off guard and we were devastated. By Tuesday she still wasn't awake, and we were told that if we got here by Thursday it may be too late. So we packed up the kids and drove through the night to get here (to Denver) Wednesday morning. We went straight to the hospital where miraculously she had woken up. She still looked terrible and was very confused, but at least she was eating and taking her meds. By yesterday she was alert and talking with everyone and she was discharged today from the hospital. What a releif! She is still very sick, but her parents are staying with her up here and are planning on staying here and taking care of her. I put absolutely nothing past this woman, she is one tough cookie!

So anyways, here we are in Denver at an impromptu family reunion. We are now just trying to get her house in order so she can move back into it with her parents (she has been renting it out to some shady people). We are heading back Sunday and should be home sometime Monday. More then!

Sorry Sarah...


You Are Mulan!

Strong and spirited. You're no one's girly girl; actually you are very determined person with a strong sense of self. Never let go of that! The only thing that equals your sense of self is your family, but the traditions of society can always be bent to protect something or someone you love.

Which Disney Princess Are You?

Random Pictures

Here are some random pictures that I have taken over the past little while. Enjoy!

Carter taking a nice little foot bath. He thought that the foot bath is what made my toenails turn red, so he kept excitedly asking "what color do you think my toenails will come out?" I would have painted them for him, but I know that Mike frowns upon that kind of thing...Here I was really trying to get a picture of Carter with his ginormous headphones on, but I love the dirty look I got. He loves to take his time, listen to a little music, watch a little TV, just hang out on the potty. It must be genetic.

We resorted to making houses out of the cardboard boxes that we had downstairs. Where is spring?Samantha insists on crying herself to sleep every time she goes down. It makes absolutely no difference what we do, and we have tried everything. Apparently the other day it was just too much for her. When I went in to wake her up for church, this is what I found:

This is the best way to show you her new laugh. It totally sounds fake, and she does fake it, often. She just opens her mouth and lets out this loud laugh that almost sounds like a fat man coughing. It is hilarious. She does it whenever you laugh at her, or when anyone else is laughing around her, whether she gets the joke or not. Man, where did she get that big mouth?

She has discovered raisins. It makes no difference that she only has 2 teeth, she will gum them forever. She found a box in the diaper bag the other day and was so pleased with herself that I couldn't take them away. She probably had half of the box in her mouth at one point, she just kept shoveling them in!

Here she is doing the aforementioned laugh. She discovered that she got a reaction out of me when the nasty half-gummed raisins fell out of her mouth, so she kept doing it. After a minute of this, I was able to bring myself to take them away. Yuck!

Mike and Carter out trying to break up the ice on the driveway. My dad said that they have some green things coming up in Utah (plants). NOT FAIR! Look at all the nasty dirty snow. Why are we still here?