We like to party

For almost two weeks I sulked around feeling sorry for myself. New place, new house that needs a lot of my time, new people (=I miss my friends). Then the 4th of July weekend hit and we partied hard, and it was just what I needed to pull me out of my funk.

Friday night one of the residents who happens to be in our ward invited us over for dinner and then took us to a free concert in the park. They have a little girl Macy's age and a boy that is 10 months. We had a great time with them and then kids loved the concert. Too bad he is a senior resident and will be moving next year.

Saturday we went back to the same cute little town to watch the parade. It was miserably hot, but as soon as the candy started coming, the kids didn't care anymore.

All three of the kids wanted to be sure and wear red, white, and blue to the parade, but we couldn't find all of the colors in their drawers, so I had to improvise with some flowers for the hair. I LOVE Macy's hair in pig tails!

Macy did some dancing in the street to entertain us before the parade started.

Samm is already showing an interest in photography. Not a bad picture from her.

The always cute Samm

Always a goof ball, James

After the parade we even snagged a free lunch at one of the local churches.

Saturday afternoon the same couple who had us over, called to invite us to the lake with them.

I have been dying to find a lake close by. Imagine our surprise when the beach popped up less than ten minutes from our house. And it is free to residents of the city. We've already been back once and there are a lot more return trips planned. Basically, it is where the kids and I will be surviving the summer.

This is probably my all time favorite picture! I love Josh's nose smashed into that little mask.

Dad's are so much more fun in the water than moms are. James begs josh to flip him in the air anytime we are in water.

Samm likes to get thrown too, but is not really into getting flipped.

First time snorkeling

Gotta love the sand! Hours of entertainment, and then it comes home with you.

Saturday night we did some investigating and found where some fireworks would be. The kids had a good time catching fire flys, and even enjoyed watching the fireworks despite a huge tree being in the way of our view. We also got horribly lost on the way home in the dark. What should have been a twenty minute drive turned into almost an hour. Oh well, at least we made it.

Sunday night we were invited over to another residents house for a barbecue. He is also in orthopedics, and in our ward, and they will also be moving next year. Bummer.

Then Monday I braved the unknown and took the kids to the ward picnic. I was only lost for twenty minutes before I found the park, but it was enough to rattle me. I hate driving to new places and I am horrible with directions. It didn't help that the directions to the park was only the street names of the intersection, and the actual park was no where near the intersection given. It ended up being a good time anyway.

And how is this for crazy. One of the full time missionaries in our ward is from my home town, and I used to babysit him! Josh was quick to point out that I should feel old, which I do.

A fun weekend, and now I really have to get serious about getting the house put together. Maybe

Were Michiganders now

Yep, that is actually the technical term for people who live in Michigan. I thought I heard wrong at first, but no it's true.

So, what have we been up to? Well, we are finally done unpacking all of the boxes, but now I have a million things waiting for me to hang up or just figure out where they will be put away. Have I ever mentioned how much I hate moving?

We live in a really great quiet neighborhood though, which I am loving. In two weeks we actually know more of our neighbors than we did in four years at our other house. It helps that these neighbors aren't weird or scary or dirty, or possibly a combination of all three.

I'm hopeful that I may be able to resume some semi regular blogging because there is a brand new library less than two miles from our house. And a puppet theater station right next to some computers that has kept the kids entertained for almost twenty minutes now! Even if I can't get on long enough to blog, I'll for sure be popping in to read all of yours.

Sorry that's all I have for you right now. Just thought I would let you know we are alive.

Samm's articles of faith

Samm has been working really hard to memorize the articles of faith before we move. She was really worried that she wouldn't make it because we do one a week as a family and with Josh and I being gone so much we couldn't be there to help her. Grandma stepped up though so she could be sure and get her award on sunday. If you want to see her recite them check out Betty's blog.

House adventure aka nightmare

So, did I ever mention that we sold our house? I didn't think so. Well, we did. And then we didn't.

It happened really fast. This girl showed up the last possible day for first time home buyers credit and loved our house. She was cute and clean and absolutely perfect to take over all of our hard work.

Everything went really smoothly. We did have a list of things that needed to be in better working order, but even that wasn't hard to take care of.

The day of closing was set for the day after we got back from our cruise, so we opted to pre sign before we left just in case something happened and we didn't get back in time.

Closing day came and went and we talked briefly about how our house was really no longer ours and we celebrated by going to a movie.

The next morning I got a horrible phone call. The closing never happened! I felt like I was going to throw up. Long story short. The lender approved her for a loan that she was never even close to qualifying for. The bank caught wind of what he was doing and fired him, and then called her that morning to tell her she was no longer approved. I feel almost as bad for her as I do for us.

Anyway, we weren't really sure what to do, but the broker said that she still really wanted the house and asked if we would be willing to do a lease to buy type thing. It's not really what we were hoping for, but at least it's something so we said yes.

Then, Thursday at 4:00am Josh and I hopped into the car to drive 15 hours up to Michigan to find a house for us to lease. We've never rented anything other than an apartment before but we didn't think it would be that difficult to find something. We were stupid.

A nice nurse at the hospital felt sorry for us and hooked us up with her friend who is a realtor. She felt sorry for us too, and dropped her entire day to help us. Unfortunately there was not a lot to look at. Everything was either about as big as a box, in a bad part of town (sometimes both) or way out of our price range.

Then finally, the last house we went to was in a great neighborhood, big enough for a family, and only slightly out of our price range. So, we made them an offer and prayed prayed prayed that they would accept it. And we waited. And then we came back home because we still hadn't heard back from them.

Sometimes faith is a very hard thing.

At 9:00 tonight we finally got the word that they accepted the terms of our lease and signed the papers!

Unfortunately even with the reduced rent, it's still more than we can afford so we are working on ways to cut back. Things like scratchy toilet paper and dates to the park have been discussed. One of the big things we will have to do without though is the Internet, and it makes me very sad. And scared kind of. What did we do before the Internet?

I don't know if I will have any time for blogging in the next couple of days, so I guess I will say goodbye right now. I'm sure that I will go through withdrawals for the first couple of weeks. I will miss my morning blog reading. I'm hoping that I can make a weekly trip to the library to use the Internet there just to feel like I'm staying somewhat connected.

Anyway, it's the start of new adventure for us.

Graduation/10 year anniversary trip

I'm sorry if you were expecting to see pictures of our cruise to the Mediterranean. Apparently I forgot to mention that our plans changed a little. We didn't save up enough for that one, and we couldn't justify taking money out of savings so we decided on a cruise of the southern Caribbean. Check back in about six years for pictures from Europe.

So if you are still interested in hearing about vacation, he it goes.

Getting to Puerto Rico was quite an adventure in itself. While we were going through security in Tulsa I noticed that the lady in front of me wearing a skirt was getting a pat down. So I was prepared for it as soon as I went through also wearing a skirt. I made a mental note of that.

Then as the flight crew was getting everything ready for take off, they discovered that one of the overhead bins wouldn't stay closed. I was so sleepy from getting up at 4:00am that I didn't really see everything that happened, but I do know they had to call someone in to fix it which delayed us for a while.

Fortunately we made our connecting flight, but some time into it (once again I was sleeping) An announcement came on that there was a medical situation and they asked if there were any nurses or Doctors on board. We were pretty far back though and about 10 nurses jumped up to help so Josh just stayed in his seat. We never did find out what was wrong with the old lady, but we had to sit tight once we landed so a medical crew could come on board and whisk her away.

We didn't have any problems getting to the ship, thank goodness.

On board was pretty cool. There was tons of stuff to do. This picture was taken at our first stop, Curacao.


The indoor pool where Josh and I spent a lot of time after getting burned the first day at the outdoor one. We even went tanning the whole month before to prevent that.


The food was all fantastic, but my favorite part was the deserts.

Every night they had a different chilled fruit soup option on their appetizer list and I am hooked. Watermelon was my favorite, but this strawberry one came in a close second.

Josh made me take this ridiculous picture.

An island shot of Curacao. They had this really neat floating bridge that they opened and closed when boats came through. Of course I forgot to take a picture of it.

I don't remember what island this was at, but that is our balcony that Josh is standing on.

My favorite island was Dominica. Pronounced Domineeka. It is a jungle island, and is absolutely beautiful. We took a tour up into the mountain, and then hiked a little ways up to some waterfalls. Dominica is a volcano island so it has cold springs and waterfalls and hot springs and waterfalls

There were a bunch of land crabs on the hike up.

The steam is from where a hot sulfur spring comes up and mixes with a cold stream.

The boiling sulfur water

Bananas grow abundantly there. As do avocados and nutmeg.

I don't remember the name of this cool tree

These African tulip trees were my absolute favorite.

Wouldn't you love to have this in your back yard?

A view of the city

Josh kept taking pictures of me so I snuck one in of him.

Our last stop was at St Thomas and we spent the whole day at Magen's bay. Apparently it is one of the top 10 beaches in the world and I have to say it was gorgeous. The perfect setting to sit and read

More of Josh's picture taking.

We both had a fantastic time, but like always I was ready to get back home by the end. The return trip was excruciatingly long. They dropped us off at the airport at 9:30 in the morning, but our flight didn't leave until almost 4:00. And, by the end of the week I had completely forgotten about not wearing a skirt to the airport, so I got anther pat down in Puerto Rico.

There weren't any broken overhead bins to delay us on the first flight, but there was some stormy weather heading into Chicago so they wouldn't let us land for 20 minutes, and we only had 30 minutes to catch our next flight. Fortunately though our flight leaving Chicago was delayed a little bit also due to the weather, so we didn't miss it. Our luggage missed it though, which is the second time in a row that has happened to us.

I didn't really care about the luggage though, I was just so happy to be back with the kids. I missed them so much the last couple of days that I went in and woke up Samm and James just so I could get a hug and kiss. I didn't dare wake up Macy at midnight, because I wasn't sure if she would go back to sleep, but I did pick her up carefully so I could rock her for a few minutes. The next morning was like Christmas for me. I could hardly sleep, waiting for them to wake up. As soon as I heard Macy making noise at 6:30 I ran into get her, only to find out that she was calling for Grandpa. She changed her tune once she saw me though and has been attached to my hip ever since we got back.

Now we are leaving tomorrow morning to drive up to Michigan to find a house. Macy might not forgive me this time.

PS. Josh and I just celebrated 10 years!

We're back

We walked in the door around midnight. Luggageless. More about that tomorrow. I'm working on the pictures right now. When I pulled out the camera to download all of them, Macy ran after me yelling "I wanna say cheese!"

I sure love this kid! More on that tomorrow also...

Dresses

I've been on a dress making kick lately. I've made four of them in the last six months. Only two turned out though. Two of them I made for me and when I got done they fit so horribly that I threw them in with my scrap fabric. So very frustrating!

This is Macy's Easter dress. I didn't finish it until this week though. I love the fabric, but I'm not really in love with the dress itself. She seems to like it though, because she picked it out Sunday morning to wear.

There was supposed to be two rows of bows, but I was so sick of looking at the dress that it only got one. Good thing she is so cute!

The dress I made for myself that actually turned out I didn't even want to make, but I was having the hardest time finding a dress for Josh's banquet, so I didn't really have a choice.

I actually found This dress at Shabby apple, but of course they didn't have my size in stock. Then I looked through my patterns and found one that was really similar, so I gave it a try.

It's actually a little on the small side. I have to suck in so I don't look like I'm 3 months pregnant, and the sleeves are really tight, but I'm just happy that it turned out well enough that I could wear it.

The bright gold shoes are my favorite part of the whole outfit. It's helps draw the attention away from the dress.

And now I am on a sewing hiatus!

Woohoo!! (repeated a million times)

Did you know that as of Friday, I am officially Mrs. Dr. Rollins? (consider this your graduation announcement)

I wish I could say that I feel this huge sense of relief, but really the next five years are going to be just as hard. I do feel proud though. I am incredibly proud of my husband for accomplishing his dream of becoming a physician. And I am proud of our family for making it through this together and making the most of some really stressful and difficult times.

This whole past week was pretty full of different graduation activities. Unfortunately due to weather and a class play we weren't able to participate in the family stuff, but Josh and I were able to get away Thursday night for the banquet. We went with our good friends Todd and Heidi. We have been lucky to have them in the same ward at church with us. Josh and Todd talked medical stuff in between meetings, and Heidi and I commiserated whenever possible. It was really great to have a friend who knew exactly what I was going through and we will miss them tons.

Somehow Josh and I ended up with Heidi's camera when the banquet was over, and things got a little silly.

OK, moving on to graduation. I know these pictures will be boring to most of you, but for me they represent a huge milestone for our family.

Walking in to the auditorium.

Getting hooded


Walking across the stage to get his empty diploma. Why exactly do they do that?

All finished, and very happy!

With his Mom and Dad

The happy couple!

And I can't talk about Josh's graduation without thanking all of our supportive family, especially Josh's parents who let us live with them when we first moved out here, and who have done so much for us over the past four years. I'm not sure if it's going to be harder on our kids or them when we move.

We did it! (Que Dora's song)

Dance hair

Let me start off by saying that little girls hair styling is not one of my hair talents. Mostly because I don't have the time to come up with something elaborate in the mornings and also because both of my girls have extremely sensitive heads so I'm lucky if they just let me brush it and maybe throw a little something in to keep their hair out of their eyes. Anyway, my sister in law Kory put a link on her blog last week to This site that is all about creative girls hair do's. And it inspired me to branch out a little. (Does anyone else think ist's a little strange that there are blogs completely devoted to little girls hair styles?)

Anyway, Samm had dance pictures today so we tried something a little more complicated than my skill level, but I think it turned out OK. I'm not a world class french braider to begin with, and it's even harder when your working with thin fine hair. Hopefully with a little more practice Samm won't have to scream and grab her head nearly as much.

Whenever I tell Samm that I'm going to take a picture of her she immediately strikes a pose. I dream of genie, any one?

This was Macy's attempt at joining in.

The serious ballet pose


This is her sweet angel face pose. I think it's my favorite.

I have a video of her dance to download for the grandparents and whoever else might be interested, but that will have to happen tomorrow because right now my bed is calling.