Camera Time

So this is the camera I finally decided on..... It's a Nikon Coolpix S600.!!!

I didn't really want a big bulky camera but I needed something faster than the Kodak one we had that mysteriously disappeared! I still need to play with it and figure out all the fun things it does but we went to the park tonight and took some fun pictures(I'll post some later- sorry).

It's pretty fast and it lets you get super close up for being an itty bitty digital! Now, I will probably need another week to download the software onto my computer since Manuel is at Scout Camp ALL week and I'm playing the single parenting game, but I'm super excited to be able to take pics again.

Hopefully this will get me out of my blogging rut........I just couldn't justify blogging without pictures.

"I'm Bored"

Okay, is it possible to be this BORED this early in the summer. I promised myself that we were going to have a fun summer packed with activities and we've done well but now on the days that we don't go anywhere you'd think the world was coming to an end!!! Seriously, we do have things to do around the house, we do need days to relax and Avery doesn't have the endurance of a 10 year old so we can't always be gone.

So today Alex was BORED, the other kids had managed to invent some game on the trampoline and were playing so good.

Alex- "mom, it's so boring outside"
Mom- "alex, I can't imagine that there is nothing for you to do outside"
Alex- "no mom there is NOTHING to do outside"
Mom- "go climb a tree, go swing in the hammock, play basketball, just go outside"
Alex- "but it's too hot and all that stuff is boring"

So this is our conversation at least several times every day. Were we this bad when we were growing up? If so, I apologize to my parents for the torture I put them through!

So I've decided to put a whole bunch of little pieces of paper in a "BORED JAR", the next time they pull the bored card, I'm going to let them choose something out of my jar, some of them are fun and some not so fun (clean out your closet, take out any trash in the house etc. etc).

SO..... wish me luck!!!!

P.S. I'm open to new ideas from any of you other moms, with BORED children!!!!

The little white house

Back in September 2006, Manuel got this bright idea that it would be fun to "flip" a house. We had looked at a few houses "for fun" but just never jumped on any of them. Really, we weren't even sure if we could qualify for another house because we were self-employed and still had some debt from starting our business. But, Manuel loves to look at houses and "dream" about all the things he could change and fix to make them beautiful. So after months of casually throwing the idea around we actually decided to get pre-qualified, but for me it was more to tell Manuel that we couldn't buy another house and he could stop looking anytime. So when the loan officer at the bank gave us the green light, I was shocked and actually scared that this may all actually happen! It really was a dream of Manuel's so I started going with him to look at properties, we came accross this little white house and we both liked it(as much as one can like a house that is in serious disrepair and seriously dirty/ gross inside), it was on a corner lot and really needed a lot of help and it was really close to our house. Just what Manuel was looking for- a house he could rescue!!!! So we found out it was going into foreclosure only 10 days after we looked at it, which meant we had to make some decisions super fast! So after some intense praying and a miracle worker loan officer we were buying another house. YIKES!!!!!!!

This is a semi-before picture of the front room, there was nasty carpet in here that they tore up before I was even allowed in the house.
This is the after picture of the family room.
This is the before picture of the kitchen
This is the picture after Manuel worked his magic. He truly is amazing!!!!!!! At the beginning of this process we thought it was only going to take a couple of months. About a month after we bought it, I got really sick with that Staph infection which slowed Manuel's progress down, we decided to take it slowly and just figure things out as we went along. It was a rough year and a half of paying an extra mortgage and utitlities and renovating costs, but we just made it work. Now, a year and a half after our purchase we have finally SOLD it. We feel so blessed to have been able to pay off ALL our debt and even were able to squeeze enough out to buy our airplane tickets to take our family to Panama to see the temple be dedicated. We truly feel blessed and grateful that things worked out the way they did!!!!