Ah, the first days of school :) Ty started a week ago and Anna started today. Both were very happy to begin and Anna feels amazing about all of it. She has her eye thing that she has really worried about but we talked to the teachers and they told the class about it so the kids wouldn't keep asking her. I'll turn into a big Bertha momma if I hear kids making fun of it. Ty feels like a seasoned student in his 2nd grade class and tells Anna everything she needs to know about school and what to do. I'm discovering little things that will slowly take over my life, like having 2 classes to volunteer in and 2 days each month to remember the class snack. I could barely handle one! All the grading papers and helping with class parties will be fun :) The kids had haircuts last week (though somehow we missed Anna's bangs) and we have all the new clothes for school. I am excited to have 2 of my 3 in full day school. Bray and I will find some much needed time together with no sibling competition. It will be nice. Here are the wonderful first day photo's. Anna's desk. She was moved before the day ended. She and a girl were switched because the other girl apparently was "too rough" with the boys. Anna was perfect to break it up. She can't handle the idea of ever breaking a rule.
Look how tough Ty looks.

He got right to work. I wasn't able to get a very good shot of him. I had the camera in one hand, bags of school supplies int he same hand, I was balancing Brayden with my other arm, and trying to keep an eye on Anna. Oh the joys :)

Some Random Pictures....

Here are the pictures that have been sitting on my camera for awhile. Most of them are of cute kids :)We saw Tarzan at Tuacahn. The kids loved it. I thought it was pretty dull. Phil Collins has no imagination in writing music and the story is just, well, Tarzan. Regardless, we had a good time and it's all about the kiddos anyway :)

Above is a picture of the pit orchestra. Ah, all of my friends. So glad to be in an air conditioned pit this year and not sitting in the Tuacahn sauna and bug trap pit. They did a great job playing the horrible Phil Collins music (sorry to all of you Phil Collins fans).

This is Nancy, Kristi, Amy, and me at the Pizza Factory. We were all in the same ward before it split and we have tried to have lunch once a month. This was a birthday/farewell lunch for Kristi. She recently moved to Austin, TX and I miss her so much! I love my friends.

We've had a lot of rain lately. This beautiful rainbow came across the sky after one of our storms.

Daddy's first parade. Kids were so excited (mostly to get the candy).

Yeah band!

Who's that hot band teacher?

Mike's dad, Bruce, was in the parade handing out flyers for the Forest Service. He had a special whistle for each of my kids.

Some random picture Ty took of Sophie. He sure loves that cat. Below is a picture of the robot Ty made out of Brays big legos. He was very proud.....and loved breaking it as well. He always smiles so silly. Funny boy!

More pics will be coming soon! Ty starts school tomorrow, Anna has her testing tomorrow, she starts school in a week, Ty is well into piano lessons, and Anna has just started ballet and jazz dance for the year. She is auditioning for the Nutcracker on Saturday :) I'll try to update more. I've been so bad lately!

School!

We are officially back to school and REALLY tired! Ty doesn't start school until the 23rd and Anna has to wait until the 30th. Blah. I have a sitter for the older two and then a sitter for Brayden. Bray LOVES his new sitter! Her name is Lauri. She does pre-school with the kids, basically has a park in her backyard, and is SO organized. She requires a minimum of 25 hours a week. I don't actually work that much, so Tuesday, Thursday and Friday he's there from 8-12 and Monday and Wednesday he's there from 8-3. Oh it was SO hard to leave him that long yesterday! When I came back he was asleep in a tiny little bean bag chair with a blanket and Lauri said he was perfect. She said she was amazed that such a young child said please and thank-you for everything. I was proud and SO happy to hold him!

With this schedule, I will be able to attend the mandatory PLC meetings for work on Mondays and I plan on working on SUPAF while I wait the 2 hours for the meeting. On Wednesdays I will go to Anna and Tyson's school and volunteer in the classrooms until school gets out. I still feel guilty though.

Mike is teaching basically the same classes- jazz, concert band, percussion, and AP music theory. The rest of the time he is in charge of the staff in his school- a huge job with lots of busy work, monitoring, planning, and advising. It's very time consuming and though he's happy to have a full time job at just one school, he looks forward to a time when he can just be the band teacher. We know all too well here at our house that being a band teacher is a huge job no matter how many classes you teach. He is also going to be teaching a class for the Online School of Utah. That will bring some etra money we can save. I teach part-time again. I have 3 classes, but have 115 students. My co-worker teaches two band classes- one is almost 70 (the intermediate band) and the other is another beginning band class of about 25. We have about 140 beginning students and over 200 band students total! We are thrilled.

I am so excited to see my kids start school again. Tyson really needs to start school as he is getting sick of all of us and really having some issues at home, and Anna is just thrilled to be in kindergarten. She will do so well! I can't wait to see them in their little uniforms all ready for the first days. Love it. Anna will be taking dance lessons again and Ty is taking piano lessons and soccer. Mike is his soccer coach :) I might start a girl scout troop for Anna and some of her friends, we are just waiting to see where we will be living first. I will for sure post some adorable pictures of adorable children really soon. Stay posted!

5 yrs and still goin'

I can't believe I forgot to post yesterday! It was my 5th anniversary of the mass hemorrhaging in my brain. In a month I will have the anniversary of my surgery. That marks the real survival date for me. I lived through the hemorrhage and then an extensive brain surgery that could just as easily taken my life.

It was a huge turning point in my life. I quite literally became an altered person and for that reason, it wasn't a one time event but an ongoing event in my life. I had 24 years to get used to who I was before it happened, and now it's still taking time to get used to myself. It's especially hard to remember who I was before and wishing I still had some of the attributes that were lost. As hard as I have tried, I can't be that person again, partly because some of it was taken from me and partly because of the trial its self.

I mostly miss the fire inside me. The drive that I used to have. The way I could articulately express my feelings and my ideas. I used to be able to create as well, mostly through art but in other ways too. I found joy in it and I could come up with whatever the mind could give me. Now- nothing. BUT, I am here and I am happy about it. Life is good and there are new things I have found to fill the void of the things I lost....like running and the many activities I get to do with my kids. I am most grateful to Mike. It's a never ending 20 questions game around him. He answers the same questions over and over again until I can remember the answers and fills in a lot of blanks for me. There are times that I don't understand conversations I have had with people and it's nice to be able to ask him what the other person was talking about. He knows how to explain things to me and is not judgemental. It's therapeutic for me to be able to talk about this and really remind myself that I am here for a purpose. I wouldn't want to ever relive it, but I wouldn't change it either. Now on to the next 5 years.

Housing Woes.....

Guess it's time for a house update. As you know, we ended up doing a short sale on the condo about 5 months ago. We were SO happy to get rid of it, but it has caused a new problem for us....one of financing. We seller financed this home. The market hadn't crashed when we moved here and we thought the condo would sell fast. As it was, the condo didn't sell fast and we ended up with the short sale option. We heard from numerous sources that banks would not look at us for short sale unless we were behind on payments, so we stopped paying. This is the cause of our problems. A short sale in and of its self does not cause for refinancing problems, but delinquency does :( We thought it was one in the same, but it's not and we are not allowed to refinance this home for 2 1/2 more years. SO to complicate matters further, the sellers (who carry the mortgage) are in bankruptcy, which means the house is currently sitting in a bankruptcy trust. We have counseled with a lawyer who has helped us discover many little things that are of great importance and concern. First, even though we have never missed a payment on this home, they can foreclose it at any time because of the bankruptcy. Second, we are currently on no list to receive any information if the house is foreclosed on. Third, we will owe a lot of money in Oct. when our contract is up unless we settle now with the court. A lot to digest. So, here's the direction we are taking. We will not be strangling anyone. We did consider that option but felt it would be better if our children grew up with parents who were not in jail. Instead, we are trying to settle with the bankruptcy court on the amount we would owe the sellers (the equity they have in the house). Once that is taken care of, we have to work with the bank in convincing them to let us assume the loan. If they foreclosed the home, we wouldn't be hurt financially by that and our credit would still be fine, but we would lose the house and all the money we have put into it. The bank would then have to sell the home at a much lower price then the current mortgage. A lose- lose situation. If the bank lets us assume the loan, we keep the house, the bank loses no money. A win-win situation. Banks are known to be ruthless at times, and we are just hoping they will cooperate. If not, we will be walking away from this home, the money we have invested, and the area that we really enjoy living in. One positive- we can move into a place closer to our jobs and the kids school. We won't own again for at least 5 yrs. So, that's the ugly of it all and we are just praying a lot right now that things will work out. I was very upset about the whole thing and didn't want to even address it, but when we met with the laywer and started finding out little underhaded things that had been done by others leading up to this, I suddenly felt ok about it all. It's just money, right? I still get to keep my kids, my husband, and my life. We can start over and do it with a whole lot more education this time around. I don't know how it will go. Right now things aren't set to play in our favor and I am mentally preparing for a move, but if things do go our way, I will be so very grateful. We'll shall see.

Quick Update

So, I have no pictures to share- but plenty to post. We have had a really great few weeks, but time has flown by! My mom came and stayed with us for a week. We took her to see Tarzan and Cats (both out at Tuacahn) and she came and saw our show- Great Expectations. She watched the kids for us while we worked and it was fun having her around. She actually inspired us to finally get a bed for our playroom/guest room. I think she was happier about that then anyone else. It was really nice to have her here and we really appreciated her help with the kids during the week (among other things- like buying us toilet paper and such). Thanks Mom!

While Mom was here, Tyson fell off the new bed onto a toy and split his knee open. It was painful for him and scared him. It was Sunday (of course) but Instacare was open and we took him to get some stitches. Tyson has a really hard time with stuff like this, so we were afraid he would freak out and not let the doctor do it. The nurse numbed his knee and we had Tyson even laughing at one point. He did very well until it started. He was screaming and kept trying to move. The doc wasn't very patient about it, but the job got done and he had 4 stitches. We he had them removed on Tuesday, the nursed taped the stitches to a popsicle stick and let him take them home to show his friends. Awesome :)

The kids have been having a blast at the wonderful USF daycare while we work during the days and with Grandma Winslow when we work nights. The show is going well, but it's starting to get a little old. I didn't think this one would, but it is. They usually do. It's alright though. I still think the pit is a fun group of people and that makes it great.

We went on our last vacation the past two days....up to the cabin again. I could live up there! It is so beautiful and the weather is PERFECT! We didn't do anything spectacular, but we had fun. Mike's mom, aunt, and Grandpa came up and made us breakfast this morning. It was so yummy. The only problem with the cabin is that we tend to gain some weight while we are there. We always eat SO well and there are always SO many goodies. I swore I was going to work out up there but somehow I just never fit it in :)

The kids start school 1 1/2 weeks after we so because they are in a school that is not part of our district. We are trying to figure out what to do with them while we work, but in the meantime, we are busy trying to get everyone ready to go back....and in Anna's case....START Kindergarten! She is getting so excited! I can't believe she is this old! She looks darling in her little uniforms and she is thrilled to have new crayons, markers, etc. to start out with.

Ok, are we caught up now? Probably not, but that's a start anyway.

Middle of July?

Can't believe it's already the 18th. Tomorrow I get to spend some time with one of my very best friends- Cynthia. She is a beautiful mom of two boys and married to one of Mike's best high school friends. I met her in college and we were roommates for nearly 2 years. If I could describe her using 2 words they would be integrity and honesty. The kind of honesty that only displays its self through love. Not the kind of hurtful honesty that can pierce you- ever. She has lived far away for a long time and she is in town right now. I love being with her because she is an uplifting person and I we can always pick up right where we left off, just like we have never been apart. I will enjoy seeing her and watching our kids play :)

Another of my best friends, Cami, had a baby boy a few weeks ago. I wish I was able to spend time with her and her kiddos. I met Cami in college as well- in the music dept. We started the same year, both playing trumpet, but she later rebelled and turned to percussion :) Cami is also a very dear friend to me who I miss very much. She is an amazing crafter and I love her creations. She's also a super mom! She is the type of person that will never cause contention and is always a big help. I love her a lot.. She was married 3 months before me and moved to Oregon. Now she is back in Utah but lives 8 hours from me. When we get the chance to see each other we always take it.

Another friend of mine from here, Kristi, has been a close confidant and now she is moving as well....to Texas! I am in denial about her leaving. She has a personality much like mine and I can talk to her for hours if given the chance. She is a diligent person with two very awesome kids (one of which is our house/cat sitter when we go out of town). I will miss them all so much, but they are off to a better future.

I don't know how this post started. My best friends in life have been a great strength to me and I love them all dearly. I have had a lot as time has passed that have gotten me through many things. I am out of touch with a lot of them, but each has brought something unique to my life that only they could and I have learned many lessons from them. I hope you all know who you are. You have made life better for me. Thank you.