One Crazy week

Here is the letter I wrote to my youngest brother for this week. (He is in Canada on an LDS mission)

Dear James,

John and I think we were punished last weekend. (Not really, but I guess we shouldn't have messed with the Sabbath). We got home from church last week and realized that we had no meetings or appointments, and we had a vision of moving our furniture in our bedroom and then relaxing with the kids for the rest of the Sabbath. You see, Sister Howell was getting rid of TONS of stuff so she would have an easy move. One of the items that we got out of this was a large entertainment center to go in our bedroom. I have had my eye out for one for a long time. We had no good furniture in our room, other than our bed and nightstands. Anyway, we had just left it backwards against a wall, and we were running into it every time we turned the corner. So we thought we would go ahead and arrange our room to get that all set up and out of the way.

As we were moving things around and cleaning up the mess that was under the bed, it started to get really hot. I left the room to catch a break from the vent in the living room, where it is always the coldest. I then realized that it wasn't really any cooler, just very muggy. So I went to check the thermometer in the hallway, which read 82, and should have read 78. So I turned the A/C up a notch and went back to work. When all was said and done, it was hotter than before. The A/C was out. I couldn't believe it. (I guess we shouldn't have moved furniture :)

We called one of our friends in the ward and asked if he could come over and assess the problem. (He works with this kind of stuff). We thought he might have the magic touch and would know the right thing to hit to make it work again. He very willingly came over at about 7, and half an hour later we received the bad news that the compressor was shot and we needed a whole new unit. (That's really expensive BTW). So we called Mom and Dad, who invited us to stay the night.

We had no idea when Chris, our friend, would call us the next day, but he said he would call and let us know what kind of unit we needed and what the best deals were for us. He didn't call until lunch time, and he couldn't get the unit until the next day. So I had John go home after work and get us all one more set of clothes for the next day.

Tuesday, we waited for Chris to tell us when he could get the unit over to the house, but he didn't call until 6 PM. He was still waiting for one part to come in, but he would get things started the next day. Luckily, I had already been to the house and picked up more clothes just in case. Another night at Mom and Dad's.

Wednesday, John came home from work and waited for Chris to show up. I stayed with Mom and Dad, but John waited in the hot hot house. Chris finally showed up at 8, and they worked on the unit until 11. John just stayed at the house and slept. But the coil Chris had was the wrong size, so the house was still hot, and that also meant another day at the Crawford's.

Thursday, John did the same thing--went over to the house at about 7 and waited for Chris. Again, he showed up at about 8 and they worked until 1 AM. Everything was finally fixed. So Friday morning, I cleaned up the space that the kids and I had destroyed (like the kitchen and bathroom), and cleaned towels and sheets, and then we headed back to our nicely cooled off house.

I'm not complaining. I got to enjoy some time out and about with Mom and some time with Dad. It was almost like vacation. But it was so unexpected, and Mom was busy with life, and I think that maybe they got a little too much of us that week. The kids certainly were not in the best mood. Kaylee was a pain and a half to get to bed every night. But it all worked out.

Now, to add to all the craziness, I had planned a surprise UN-birthday party for Mom that Thursday night. But I had it planned several months before. It was supposed to be at our house, and Karie was going to have the whole afternoon to decorate our dining room while I was taking care of baking a cake and getting food prepped. Then Dad was going to come up with an excuse to get her over to our house. First of all, she told me that she was leaving for Utah on the 18th. That was fine. But then she changed her mind and decided she wanted to leave on the 17th (that Thursday). I wasn't sure what to do about that. She was going up with Granddad, so he could be there with Aunt Kristen when Murphy came home from his mission. So I called Granddad. Funny thing was, Dad had the same idea I did. When I called Granddad's house, Dad was there with him talking to him about the situation. So Granddad called Mom and said, "We can't leave Thursday, I have something I forgot about," and that was that. But now we had the problem of being stuck with no A/C, and I had to figure out how to get their house ready, and Mom out of the house. Dad and I ended up going to Costco to buy a cake, since I would have to time to bake one at their house. We had to hide that from her. Then, after much craziness, I got Mom out of the house for about 45 minutes--in which time we had to decorate and get food out and ready. Karie arrived to decorate five minutes or so after she left, and I was running a marathon to make sure I had all the food out and ready to go. Mat ran to the store for me for last minute stuff, and John and the kids were on the look-out for her arrival. (Dad was out with her as well). Mom was completely surprised when she walked in. It was great! We all said Surprise! and then we all had fun talking, opening presents, and eating to our hearts desire. Granddad showed up after the surprise part, but we were all there. Mom got a Michael Buble CD, two large pinwheels, reflexology certificates, and a Josh Hamilton shirt (which we all laughed at hysterically). The theme was summer and pinwheels. It was just plain fun.

So we had a crazy week, but after much waiting, secret purchases, food hiding in coolers in office closets, and re-planning, it was fun. I hope we weren't a burden on anyone, but everything worked out in the end.

Vacation...and then some

Who knows if anyone actually even looks at my blog anymore. I just can't seem to find enough to say more than once every three or so months. But for those of you who do check it out every once in a while, here are some pictures.

Breanna and her friends Sarah, Shelby, Lauren, and Natalie, graduated from Joyshcool this past Saturday.

For anyone that doesn't know what Joyschool is, it is a program developed for preschoolers to teach them the joys of life, about manners, how to verbally communicate well with others, help them be creative, and help them see their self-worth. We, the mothers, took turns teaching.
As much fun as it was to have Breanna a part of the program, I am glad it is over.

We decided to take a short trip to East Texas over the Memorial Day weekend. We visited historical cities, saw an airplane show, went to a lake for a picnic, and did lots and lots of swimming. (We swam 5 times over three days).

The General Store in downtown Jefferson, TX

We bought ice-cream at the general store. It was very messy.


Historical Jefferson, TX

Caddo Lake



Here we visited the rose gardens in Tyler, TX. I think the season for the roses had just passed, but there were some beautiful plants and scenery.





The annual airplane show in Jefferson



And on a different note:

These pictures I just thought were cute. The first is Kaylee, and I took that about a month ago (age 13 months). The one below is Breanna, taken about 4 yrs. and 1 month ago (age 18 months).