"Count Your Many Blessings....

Name them one by one."
Robert went to check on our van during lunch today. (It's being repaired after our car accident last month). While working on it this morning, the body shop realized that our back axle is really bent and can't believe we drove to Kansas City and back (800 miles) without any problems. Our prayers were definitely answered that we would be okay driving up to KC.

Back to life, Back to reality...

After our 16-day trip to Miami, we're back. We got in last night. We had a great time, enjoying the beach and pool everyday. The boys really liked playing in the ocean this year. The salty water didn't bug them much, like in the past. Adam ran around shoeless and shirtless and got such a great tan, we started calling him Mowgli (from The Jungle Book). We kept the boys busy so they wouldn't complain about being bored. We took them to the zoo, sea aquarium (loved the killer whale show), Everglades for a airboat ride (saw and held alligators), saw Ice Age in 3D, went to Wannado City (a indoor theme park set up like a city where the kids can do all sorts of jobs to earn $$ and lots of ways to spend $$), Children's Museum, the port of Miami to see the cruise ships, and lots and lots of swimming. Sorry I don't have any photos. Our laptop has crashed and burned. I'm using the kids' computer right now so, we'll see if I can get the pictures on here. Rob took our van in this morning to the body shop to fix the damage from the car accident. It will take a week to repair. Thankfully, they lent us a car for free. So, now it's time to get back in the swing of things. Adam starts school in two weeks. Oh, Adam lost one of his front, top teeth yesterday. It's been lose for 2-3 months. So, he's got that silly, little gap now.

We're Outta Here

----See you in a couple of weeks!

Not much to blog about this week.
Took Matt for his 4 y/o checkup. He weighs 33.5 lbs and is 3'3" tall.
Boys are still a bit cranky this week.
Had a reality check when talking with a friend--currently she has WAY more stress than me.
Decided we're driving our van to Kansas City on Friday--hopefully no problems.
Sooooooo ready for the boys to have Grandma Chichi to play with.
Counting the days 'til we get to Miami.
Ate all the peas and lettuce from our garden.
Doing lots of laundry.
Tried to do my VT this week but Robert's got too many meetings.
Family ate a 24-count box of Twinkies in 24 hours (shared them w/ the missionaries).

**Warning--lots of complaining ahead**

Have you ever had a week that when you look back on it, the only thing you can think is, "that was a cra*py week". Thank goodness it's over. We got in a wreck on Monday. The car still works but now we're not sure if we can drive it to Kansas City on Friday. Our insurance agent has been MIA and hasn't told us if it's a problem to take it up there. If we can't take it, we've either got to buy another car or rent one in the next four days. All summer activities were on break this week, which means Adam was home and bored out of his mind. So, as you can guess, there was constant teasing and fighting between the boys. Which just led me to believe that I have no control or parenting skills. And since we're down to one car, Rob used it to go to work so the boys and I have a serious case of cabin fever. And then, Thursday night I came down with a cold. And so, that's my pathetic life. At least I have Saturday to look forward to--we'll be in Miami Beach....for two weeks.

Making Money....and Burning It

This past Friday and Saturday we had a garage sale. It's an annual thing for us. I just can't stand the clutter and holding onto things that we're not using. Blame it on my Army childhood. We made $600! We even sold our broken down, 18 year old car. There were people lined up outside waiting to talk with Robert about the car. It didn't deter them with they found out it didn't run. Saturday morning Adam sold doughnuts and lemonade. After the sale, he stayed outside on the driveway to sell more lemonade. Doesn't he look cute in this picture? In two hours, he made $15. A lot of nice people stopped, bought lemonade and then tipped him. He was very excited.

In other news, the boys and I got into a car accident (my first) yesterday afternoon. We were coming home from the pool when we got sideswiped. We are okay but the van has a big dent in it. Luckily no one was hurt. Adam was quite unnerved and upset. You know, he's our little worrywart. A few cars stopped to make sure we were okay. Then a friend drove by. He used to be a police officer so he made sure we had called the police. After he drove away though, I wished he was still an officer because he would know what to do and he would make sure we were fine. It was a bit humiliating standing out there, talking to the police, in my swimsuit. Robert has taken the van and is having it checked out right now. Hopefully, it won't be anything too major or costly and that we can still drive it until the repairs can be done. A month ago we had two, working cars, and now we're down to zero. Goodness--when it rains, it pours. It's tough, sometimes, because we try really hard to live frugally, but then stuff happens and it feels like we just can't get ahead.

Matt's Party

Matt had a birthday party this past Saturday. The theme was anything Super Heroes. He couldn't decide on which one so we went with all of them. It actually made it much easier for me. So, we had Batman invitations, Spiderman napkins, Transformer cupcakes, and the party favors were Incredible Hulk and Ironman. Initially Matt only wanted boys at his party, but I told him that only one would come because the other boy in his primary class was out of town. So, we decided to invite the girls from his class, too. We ended up with six kids--4 boys and 2 girls. We had planned on doing all the games and activities outside but it was raining. It never rains during the day here. So, we had to adjust our plans and bring everything inside.

We had a Mr. Freeze (from Batman) dance game. The kids had to dance around while the music played and then freeze when it stopped. Eventually it led to jumping on the couch.

We built a spiderweb out of yarn so the kids could pretend to be Spiderman. This was a big hit. We had built one outside the day before. We left the outside one up because the boys like playing in it.

We also did an obstacle course so they could use their "super powers". Our other activities included a candy hunt using their "xray vision", getting super hero tattoos, and decorating their bags. I think the kids had fun. They all know each other really well, so they have a good time together.