Can't Believe I'm Here

Here comes a post that is all over the place ... you've been warned!

Last Sunday Miss. Toni rode with us from church to Frans & Jenny's for lunch. I am not a photographer lady ... that I will gladly leave to others in the family. But, once in a while I manage to get a photo that I love. And this little face begs to be painted. Wish I had time to play with a brush.

Our passports arrived the other week. I always thought that you surrender your old passport when you get the new one. They send it back to you but it is marked as "no good" or whatever. Took a picture of my 23 year old one next to my new one. Decided I'd delete that picture. Time does fly. Quite the pile we've accumulated here. We should be good to travel for a while! We had already paid for passport photos when I found out that we don't need them yet this year to drive through Canada. The photos were done, the paperwork was filled out ... so we went for it. Now we don't have to worry about it.

Summer is coming to the Valley of the Sun much too quickly. I don't know what the temp hit today, but must have been in the mid 80's. So off to the lovely Target store we went. New flip flops for kiddos. I actually wore tennies this winter more than I ever have before. Believe it or not ... it helps with that nasty heel crackin' that we were comparing the other summer. Now we're ready for bare feet.

Brock & Tia were working on moving wood piles for me. The green cart has been a life saver. I don't know what kind of wheelie contraption we've ever used more than this one. It moves everything ... including kiddos. Back yard got cleaned. Today, with Anna & Tia's help, I finished slapping paint on the patio wall where it was concrete mud splattered. Alyx and the rest of the munchkins busily cleaned off the patio and it once again looks big. Awesome!!

The For Sale By Owner sign is up in the yard. We may end up using a realtor, but will try this for the next week or so and see what happens. I kept saying that this will be the easy part ... keeping the house clean. Then ... guess what I did? I decided to organize all my saving of kids school papers/birthday cards etc. I have it everywhere!!! So much for clean. We even played with those lovely bags that you fill with stuff, suck the air out with the vacuum and are space saving devices. The kids' favorite teddy bear from baby hood may never look the same again, but I fit them in small spaces now!

Yesterday I spent HOURS once again organizing photos on my computer. Still not done, but will be fun to move them all to disks in an organized manner someday.

Jari left for the cold north on Wednesday evening. Satellite showed nasty storm cells over Anchorage & Wasilla before he left. Hasn't driven in snow for quite a while and was renting a puddle jumper little car. Flight got in after midnight & he was driving to Wasilla. I was working on Thursday & a bit of a nervous nelly. No call, no answer to my text messages ... visions of snow banks and buried by snow plows ran around in my head. He got there safe, sound and exhausted. This weekend they are snow mobiling up at the cabin some folks' own. The weather isn't bad. He bought boots before he left. Even got me a pair on clearance. Hard to believe that I will actually need those when I was eyeing flip flops today. Shopping for a jacket & some more long johns was on the list on Friday. Hope he's staying warm. Will see what kind of pics he sends me when they get back to town. This one came on Friday.

I'll be back sometime soon!