A Quick Catch-Up

It has been way too long since I last typed on my blog. I have a lot of excuses, and I wish I could say that I have been writing a lot in my journal to off set the lack of record keeping that I have done for my family. Unfortunately, I cannot. I feel sad that so much of the last two years of my life and my children's life will likely be forgotten. I can only try to do better. To capture some of the craziness, I will highlight a few of our family's recent adventures over the past year.

Since I last wrote, our life has gone crazy! We were very content with our life in Lima; we loved it. We certainly had a challenge here and there, but life was predictable and wonderful. In May (almost of year ago--good grief) I rode with our good friends, Ron and Ronda Tucker to stake conference in Perrysburg, Ohio. I remember Ronda distinctly asking me, "So do you think you'll be in Lima for a long time?" I told her that we love Lima and would be happy to stay for a very long time, but that our philosophy has always been that we would willingly go wherever it was that Heavenly Father wanted us to go. I guess God heard me and decided to try us and see if that truly was our philosophy. The next week, Michael had two different people contact him about new job possibilities. He basically told them that he was happy with his current situation, but with a little coaxing, they both convinced him to interview with their companies. By the end of May, Michael had two very tempting job offers. One was in Auburn Hills, Michigan, for a parts supplier of Fiat and the other was in Tulsa, Oklahoma working with on of his best friends from business school. Both offers were very attractive, and they were both a huge career move for Michael. After a lot of praying and deliberating, we decided that staying close to family would be the best thing for our family, and that God wanted us to go to Michigan, so we began getting our house ready to sell and looking for a new house to buy. The worst part was telling our friends that we were leaving. We had made so many wonderful friends in Lima; it broke our hearts to tell them goodbye.

Needless to say, our summer was a blur. We did make it out to Utah for a visit, while Michael was trained for his new job in Italy. The rest of the time we packed, cleaned, and searched for a new house. It was completely crazy!

The boys started school in Michigan on September 4th, which was also the day that the movers met me at our new house. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone. I still feel disorganized with school stuff. Hopefully next year will be better :).

I felt like most of the fall was spent in and out of doctor's offices. The school nurse thought Thobe might be having absence seizures, so in addition to making two house payments, I think we also paid the house payments of several doctors each month. We saw a neurologist, a urologist, several psychologists and pediatricians, and he had an MRI. It was determined that Thobe has ADHD (something that we already knew that he had). The good news was that Michael and I realized that Thobe would be best served by simply taking no medication and have worked with the school to come up with ways to help Thobe be successful. He is a wonderful, bright boy! We just need him to learn to do his worksheets and writing assignments at school. I think we're on the right track though.

We went to Utah for Christmas and had a great time. We were even able to see my sister Amy get married to Jeremy Black, one of her very best friends from her childhood.

Over the past year, we have had a lot of fun watching BYU sports and have even traveled to places where they have played out in this area of the country (is Mississippi considered this area of the country?). We got rid of our satellite when we moved and have loved not paying an expensive Direct TV bill each month and being creative with how Michael can still watch sports, and the kids can still watch their favorite shows. It's been great!

We also have enjoyed the blessing of making new friends, especially the Johnson family. I really feel like God has answered our prayers by blessing us with them. I remember before we moved, I prayed that our kids would be blessed with good friends that would be a good example to them and that they could be an example to. We have experienced them being good examples to each other on many different occasions already. The Johnsons have four kids that are the same ages as our kids, and they share same interests. The similarities that they have with our family are a little spooky to be honest (Ryan and Michael are both Buckeye and Cougar fans, Alisha and I are 10 days a part and are both moms--need I say more?, Alden and Corwin both love dinosaurs and Star Wars, Thobe and Broderick both love Army and playing games, Hyrum and Elise are both easy going and love to just play, and Griffin and Jacob are probably the best friends of all--they are both mischievous and are always overjoyed to see each other). They have been a great blessing to our family.

We really loved having a spring break this year. The boys got 10 days off of school, so we went down to Oklahoma to meet Aunt Emily and Davin and James and visit Aunt Amy and the boys' new Uncle Jeremy. We had such a great trip! We stopped and saw Bob Gibson and his family in Kansas on our way home, and then also stopped in Nauvoo for a few hours. We had such a great time!

Of course, I am neglecting all the cute things the boys said and did. That is the sad part to me. They are all growing like weeds. I'm so proud of the choices they are making and the people they are becoming. I really am proud to be the mom of four wonderful boys. What a great blessing they are to me!

For a video and picture summary of 2011, you can watch that at http://vimeo.com/33864516