Lots to be thankful for!

I have lots of reasons to be thankful this year.

It's been a while since I've updated my blog. I have been so busy...I truly think I've bitten off more than I can chew this school year. No rest for the wicked, right? LOL! I am Eric's room mom and there has been a lot to do there. We got handed a manual for the job. No joke! Plus I have started working at a pre-school two days a week helping in the pre-K class. Whew! That class will wear you out before you can blink!

Eric is in 1st grade and he loves school. His teacher this year had never taught First Grade before (she usually teaches 5th grade and up) and that was challenging at first, but you know she has worked out those kinks and is doing a fabulous job. Eric loves her. On his last report card he got 4 A's and 2 B's! He is the top reader in school right now, too! Woo! Hoo! He loves to read and is doing great in school! I am thankful for that!

Eric also started Cub Scouts and he is having a fun time with that. Scott is one of the Den Leaders and it is something they can do together. They both are having a good time and I'm thankful for that. Eric will be getting several belt loops at the next Pack meeting and he is stoked about that. He can't wait!

Scott loves his job and he works with some great people. He has been working a lot of overtime because they have a deadline to meet, but he doesn't mind. He loves what he does. I am thankful for his job! He is, too!

We have settled in nicely here in TX. I am anxious to see what the Winter will bring us. Eric keeps asking if it will snow this Winter. I don't think it will, but who knows? We are going to miss the Utah snow, the sledding hill and the beautiful snow-covered mountains. We were blessed to live there for a year and for that I am thankful. What a beautiful place!

We have been fortunate to live in some beautiful places. We have lived in 6 states the 15 years we've been married. We have seen a lot of this beautiful country and made some great friends along the way and for that I am thankful. We love our friends!

Time is passing so quickly. I can't believe it's almost 2010! I am so thankful for all the wonderful things God has blessed us with this year!

What does your mommy do?

Eric and I sat outside yesterday while he read me a story from Richard Scarry's book "What Do People Do All Day?". (He loves to read!) In one story it asks the question, "What does your mommy do?". He read the question and I said "Well, what does YOUR Mommy do?" and he said "You know hang around and shop and stuff." Seriously! Are you kidding me?!? LOL!

Camp PawPaw & Nana

We just got back from spending 9 days in AR with my parents. Scott didn't have any vacation time, so he was only able to be there on the weekends. He spent a week being a bachelor. He said the house was too quiet. :o)

There is so much to do at my parents and I think Eric did it all. 4-wheelers, tractors, trucks, fishing, etc. A boys dream come true! Eric's cup runneth over and my Dad's tongue hangeth out. LOL!

My parents have worked so hard on their place and they have added a pond with a pier and it is truly a beautiful spot. It is awesome! I love it! On the 4th, we shot off some fireworks by the water. It was so pretty with the reflection on the water.

My Dad has given Eric his first truck. It is a 1974 Datsun with 48K original miles on it. The two of them worked almost everyday on that thing. Eric had a blast working on his truck. He loves to tinker with things. He also had a blast driving it around. :o) I rode with him once and what a ride it was! He is tickled pink over his truck. Thanks Dad!

I love to cook and bake so I cooked and baked a lot while we were in. I have a picky eater for a husband, so I tested recipes on family. Ha! I learned how to make my mom's yummy homemade biscuits. Her biscuits are the best! After a week at biscuit camp, I think my husband was impressed with my new skill set. :o) I have learned one more thing since being back home, the type of flour really does make a difference. I have got to find the flour my mom uses.

It was fun to see family again. Eric hung out with Meemaw, Scott's mom, too. She said he acts just like his Dad. I told her I know I have two at home to deal with! A big version and a mini version. Ha! She gets tickled at the things Eric says.

I'm so glad and feel very blessed to live as close as we do now. (Thank you God for Scott's job!!) I want Eric to grow up and know his grandparents. He has such fun with them.

I can't believe summer is almost over...just over a month and he will start school again. I'm not ready for that yet. We need to get busy and do some fun things here in TX.

Thanks to my parents for letting us and two cats stay with them for 9 days! That's grace in action!

The Mini Bike

Eric is the proud owner of a mini bike. Scott has been telling him since we moved to Utah that we would get him a go-cart. So we went and looked at some yesterday, but they were really loud. Anyone who knows Eric, knows that's not a good thing. So we kept looking and found the mini bike yesterday afternoon and decided to think about it overnight. Bright and early this morning we went and got it and he hopped right on it and took off. He loves it! I can't believe my little boy is riding a "motorcycle".

K Graduation Day!

Eric graduated Kindergarten today! At 8:30 am! That's the earliest graduation I've ever heard of!! It was cute and he had a good time. He still has to go all day tomorrow, then gets out early on Thursday. Not sure why, but that's the way it is here. :o) Yipee...summer break is almost here! Praise the Lord!

Yay...it's a long weekend!

We are getting ready to go to AR for the weekend to see family we haven't seen in over a year. It should be about an 8 hour trip...we think. We haven't made this trip before so we'll see. :o) I am so excited!

When we get back, we are packing up to move again. Yep, that's right. We found a cute little house in the same town and same elementary school zone that will allow us to save $700 in rent a month!! That's a lot of money for us so we are very excited. It's a tiny little house with 3 bedrooms and only 1 bath, but I am stoked! I will be surrounded by my family at all times and I'm gonna love it. They may not love it so much. LOL!

First Field Trip

I went to the Ft. Worth Zoo yesterday with Eric's class and three other Kindergarten classes. I have to say it went really well. In Eric's class almost everyone had a mom or dad there and that was so nice because we were just able to go around and see what we wanted to see without having to be in groups.

The Ft. Worth Zoo has all kinds of animals. Gorillas, elephants, white tigers, kangaroos, hippos, bears, giraffes and lots more I don't know the names of. We saw lots of cool animals! The only thing I don't think we saw (that was on the zoo map!) were the baby sharks and Eric was really bummed about that.

The weather was nice for the most part, but it started getting hot after lunch. I was so glad we left when we did. We were the first ones at the zoo yesterday morning, so it wasn't crowded. By the time we left, it was packed! Buses, buses, buses! It must have been field trip day for several schools. All of our kids wore their orange school T-shirts, so it was easy to keep up with them. (Bright orange!) That was a great idea.

I'm an animal lover, but not a huge fan of the zoo. I don't think it's good for those animals to be in such tiny spaces...breaks my heart. All the kids seemed to have a good time though and that's what counts I guess. I'm sure we will have to go back and see the baby sharks. :o) Plus the zoo has a cool train that you can ride on. I guess it is about a 45 minute ride, too.

All in all it was a good day.

This TX climate stinks!

It is hot, humid and wet here. You can feel the air as you breath it. Seriously. I wish we could've waited to move after Eric finished school because he's already missed over a week of school. He has been diagnosed with asthma. Shocking! I knew he had been sick since Easter and I thought it was just the crud, but he got worse. I took him in, expecting the Dr to say maybe bronchitis, but instead he said asthma. So we started an inhaler twice a day, but he didn't get any better. So, back to the Dr. and after chest & sinus Xrays, he also had a sinus infection. Plus the Dr thinks his reflux is acting up because of all the allergies down here. At one point last week and for several days, he was on 6 different meds a day. I felt like I was taking care of a geriatric patient. I had to write everything down on paper.

Thankfully, he is much better now. I will have to say, once again, this is where I really miss his old school in Utah...LOTS!!! I had an issue with the PE teacher at his current school that made me livid, thus prompting me to keep him home for a week to insure my instructions were followed. That should not be. I have since spoken with the office staff and the PE teacher and we all seem to be on the same page...hopefully. The office staff is going to get to know me and my face quickly. I will not tolerate excuses. It will only take one episode for him to quite breathing and that will be it. This diagnosis has stressed me out and I pray daily that he outgrows this. I am so struggling with this and it is still new and my feelings are still raw from the school episode, so I'm not sure I should be even be blogging about this. I know, in time, God will give me the strength and the knowledge to deal with this.

I am a worrier by nature. It was hard for me to let Eric go to this new school when he was just a normal kid. It is much harder for me now that he is an "asthma child". I know God will watch over him. I pray that God will put a protective hedge around him.

"Welcome to Texas!" as his Dr's have said. Yay! God be with us...please!

Tooth #2 came out today...#3 is loose!

Eric lost his 2nd tooth today! He wants to keep this one, too. I bet he keeps them all. :o) I can not believe it. Tooth #3 is loose, too, and it's one of the top front teeth. If it comes out soon, he's gonna make some cute pictures. This is so much fun!!

The Tooth Fairy came after all!

Eric's first tooth came out and at first, he was super excited for the Tooth Fairy to come. He even went as far as putting the tooth under his pillow...only to decide at the last minute that he really wanted to keep it. We were so surprised. Scott told him that if he didn't give his tooth to the Tooth Fairy she wouldn't leave him any money and Eric said, "That's OK, I have a bank account anyway. It doesn't matter." (Actually it's a savings account that we just opened for him so he could start saving his allowance. It's all the same to him though - Ha!) Scott and I just looked at each other and laughed. What can you say to that? However we were really bummed out by his decision because the Tooth Fairy is just as much fun for us. :o)

A few days later Scott told Eric that if he wrote a letter to the Tooth Fairy and left it with his tooth under his pillow she would probably leave his tooth and maybe a surprise, too. So, that's what he did. He wrote a letter telling the Tooth Fairy he wanted to keep his tooth and put the letter and tooth under his pillow. The next morning, he had a letter from the Tooth Fairy, some money and best of all his tooth was still there. The look on his face was priceless!

The Tooth is Out!

Today was the day! We were eating lunch at a catfish place in Ft. Worth this afternoon and Eric started complaining about how his tooth was hurting, so I told him I would look at it after we finished eating. So, after lunch we went outside and I looked at his tooth and wiggled it and out it came. Right there in the parking lot! Ha! He didn't even know what had happened. He was shocked and very excited.

He can not wait for the Tooth Fairy to come tonight.
This is so exciting!

Eric's Loose Tooth

Eric has his first loose tooth. The bottom two front teeth have been loose for a while, but the one on the left there is really loose now. I expect the tooth fairy will be paying him a visit really soon. How fun!

Rain and Thunderstorms

Aahh...a thunderstorm and the fresh smell of rain. I had forgotten how dark it got when it stormed. Nice nap weather. :o) I was so thankful for the nice soaking rain. Now I don't have to water the sod for a couple of days. Thank you Lord!

Everything is so green here right now. I need to take some pictures this weekend and post them.

Happy Easter!

We have had a great weekend. My parents and Scott's mom came over and spent the weekend with us. What fun! Eric has been so wound up all weekend. He just can't believe his grandparents were here...at his house! :o) It's an 8 hour drive between us and them now. Not bad.

Scott took us on a tour of the Lockheed Martin plant where he works and it is really neat. It was neat to see the airplanes on the line from start to finish. I've never seen anything like it before. I am so thankful for Scott's new job opportunity. I think he is going to love working there. (Thank you Lord!!)

Arches National Park

Last year we got to see the Grand Canyon (amazing!) and this year we got to go to Arches National Park in Moab, UT. It was awesome! We really had a great time in Moab. It's such a neat place.

We are in TX!

Well, we are finally here! We left UT on March 27th and got to TX on March 31st. We took our time and had an easy trip. (Thank you Lord!) We stayed in Moab, UT on Saturday and we loved it! What a great place! I wish we would've gone down sooner. Awesome! Utah is a beautiful state! I do miss the beautiful mountains. And we miss our friends, too.

Now for a little of what it's been like since we got here...

TX is really pretty and green right now. Being in the desert for almost a year, I had forgotten about trees. They are pretty and green. It is windy here, too. Like Eagle Mountain windy. That has been surprising. I guess we are in the plains (maybe?) and the wind just blows.

Everyone seems to be real nice. The little town we live in is very quaint. There is only one exit and if you blink you will miss it. No Wal-Mart or Target. We drive about 10-15 miles for that, which is not bad. The only bad traffic we have is before school starts and when is gets out. I like that.

Eric's school is just down the road about a half mile. He is going to school full days down here. What a change that has been! He gets to eat in the lunchroom and that has been really cool for him. Simple pleasures. It was so hard for me to send him the first day. I even went and had lunch with him that day. That night he told me I didn't have to eat food with him tomorrow because he knew what to do. :o) I walked him in the next day to be sure he knew where his classroom was and the next morning he told me he could walk in by himself. I wanted to cry. He is getting so big. I'm so thankful he wants to go to school. I was worried about the transition, but God has taken care of that for me.

Scott likes his job. It's only about 15 miles from where we live, so that's nice. He said everyone there is real nice. He said it's a cool place to work - real positive environment. I haven't been in to see it yet. Hopefully this weekend we will get a chance to do that.

We have had some issues with our rent house. It is new construction and has had some kinks to work out. I thought I'd share them because there are several and it has been quite funny. Probably not so funny for our landlord.

When we got here on the 1st we came over and the landlord was still finishing up the house. Final inspection hadn't been done yet. It did get done that afternoon though and he passed. Thank goodness.

No electricity for 2 days. Really cold 2nd day-no heat! Finally got heat. Yeah!

NO fridge. Yep, no fridge. Landlord didn't mention that!

Train tracks right in front of our house. Very loud trains ALL day and night! Landlord didn't mention that either! (Scott this is why we needed to fly down and LOOK for a place to live!!)

2nd day here - Plumbing backs up. Toilets clogged and standing water in shower. Movers come and unload our stuff. No bathroom service...nice!

Plumber comes. Fixes problem. Yay!

Sod is here. It gets put down. No sprinkler system. Two water hoses...big yard! Sure didn't sign up for this. Gotta make sure grass roots. Water everyday for 30 days! NOTE: Sprinkler systems will spoil you rotten. I do not like dragging the hose around to water...does that make me a snob?

Ants! Need I say more.

Several light fixtures do not work. Electrical issues.

Ran dishwasher. Guess what...doesn't work either.

Last but not least...no insulation in the attic. Can you believe that. We had the TV guy come and thankfully he had to go in the attic. When he came down he said "You don't have a stitch of insulation up there!" Unbelievable! While I was running the heat it was going straight up to God and the angels. Sure wasn't staying in this house. Ha!

Needless to say it has been a little crazy and these are all trivial things, seriously. I just thought I would share because I can't believe all this has happened. :o)

Our landlord seems really nice though. I just think he is overwhelmed with everything. He did come and fix the dishwasher yesterday and had the electrician come and fix the lights today.

Slowly we are making progress.

The tears have started...already!

I took Eric to school this afternoon and saw my friend Karalenn and she gave me a hug and it was game on...the tears came! I've been fine up to this point, but it's getting really close to the end of our time in Utah and I feel it.

We have made so many good friends here. I love the neighborhood we live in. It is so quiet here and so beautiful. We have great neighbors!! I absolutely LOVE the school Eric has been going to. It is AWESOME!! The principal, staff and Eric's teacher have been great! I wish we could take them all with us to TX. I was a little apprehensive about moving to Utah and having Eric start school at a new place, but what a blessing it has been. God knows just what we need. Friday will be his last day at school here. It's gonna be hard. There will be many more tears in the next few days. I'm sure of that.

I know that God has given Scott a really good opportunity in TX and I am so thankful, but it's gonna be hard to leave this place. However, if it dumps a bunch of snow tonight...not so much!! Ha! :o)

By the way we've found a place to live in TX! Nothing like waiting until the last minute, right?!? It's only half a mile from Eric's new school. Yay!

Only one week left in Utah

It's getting down to the wire.

The movers come next Thursday and Friday and we plan to leave out next Saturday. We've never had professional movers before, so this will be different for us. They said we are not to pack anything. I'm so used to doing things myself and it's gonna be hard for me to watch them work. Seriously.

This past week has been a stressful one. Some good things have happened and some not so good. As of right now, we do not have a place to live in TX yet. Yep that's right...moving in a week and no address to move to. I've said before that God's timing is not my timing. So true in this case. :o)

Hopefully, next week will be a better week and we will find a good place to live! :o)

We're Texas Bound!

Well it's official...Scott is an employee of Lockheed Martin in Ft. Worth, TX. We just found out this afternoon that he passed everything and he is to start on April 6th.

Thank you Lord!! And thanks to everyone for their prayers! :o)

A moving company is supposed to contact us next week to set up an appointment to come out and look at our things. The company will move our things and we will drive down separately. (Scott doesn't fly well) It's a 19 hour drive from here to Ft. Worth. It should only take us 2 and a half days to get there...hopefully. It took us 5 days to get out here, but we had fun and stopped to see lots of cool stuff along the way.

We are very excited to start our new adventure. We have enjoyed our time in Utah so much and have met some really awesome people that we hope to keep in touch with always. We are very blessed to have such wonderful friends! Even after all the hardships we've been through, it's been a blessing living out here. It's a beautiful place and God has been so good to us!

Antelope Island

What a beautiful place Antelope Island State Park is! We had the best time there...it was so cold and windy. We saw breathtaking views of The Great Salt Lake and we saw antelope and buffalo roaming the range. It was awesome! God is an amazing creator!