Car update....

It's about time for a car update... sadly yes, Suzy is still in my parent's driveway... she's had a rough time and shared it with us... it took much "umph" and shear will power to get the drive shafts and axles out and replaced... such a pain and yes, I had many opportunities to get my hands dirty helping... well those new parts are in and we backed her out of the driveway and "crunch, groan...growl" back into the driveway... repair needed in the rear differential... ouch. New socket set for Joe... ouch... but on sale! A couple new bearings, a couple new seals, a new crush sleeve on it's way, and then more gear oil.

Checklist:
*2 new front axles $112,
* 2 bottles gear oil $8,
*2 seals $29,
*Borrowed 2nd jack from neighbor
* "Broke-in" and borrowed creeper from grandparents
*lots of almost swear words as they were really (understatement) really difficult to remove.
*Help from: Me, Dad, Dustin (brother), JR (new brother), Tom (neighbor) & Dave (super nice co-worker)... axles finally out.
*Deliriously Delicious and ginormous homemade (by me) Cinnamon roll sent to Dave.
*Need to fix rear differential.
*Need different socket... bought a set, $54
*More help from Dad and I. Out much easier and faster.
*2 new bearings, a new seal, a couple other things I don't know the name of and a new crush sleeve $90, will probably need a couple more bottles of gear oil $8

Soon our sweet Suzy should be all put back together, Thank goodness, seriously for awesome employee discounts for parts, a super nice co-worker who came and helped out (he is also our parts guy)OI love my amazing husband that happens to be a mechanic, who is doing all the work so we don't have to pay someone else- I don't think they would accept monopoly money do you?

Now for your viewing pleasure some pics I took:

Hello Kitty...

Yes, she's mine...
yes, I am allergic to cats...
it was love at first sight, her name is Speckles. She's adorable and hilarious. She is going to be an inside outside cat to combat my allergies, that is, as soon as Tonka decides she's one of the family- not dinner. Cookie, my dog loves her, follows her around trying to lick her they play pretty well together..

notice Cookie's tongue is out in both pictures... cute! .. don't know how long our relationship will be but for now it's someone to love..

-S

Post #150

Congrats to the 4 people who voted for 30 days..yup no lying. Washington law is that we will have a home visit within 30 days of placement and then finalize. Sorry that's all for now.. more to come later!

-S

1st celebrity swine flu fatality...

And we all know who gave it to him!!

*giggles*

-S

A good news moment for Adoption

Some of the things we learned in our meeting with our caseworker was a change, a VERY recent change in LDS FS policy. There was a 6 month wait between placement and finalization of an adoption... blanket policy, it didn't matter what state you live in that WAS the rule. Now it is according to the state... umm Washington is awesome in that respect... now to make it fun (for me at least) I am making a poll... so vote I will post the correct answer shortly. Happy Voting- no cheating!!

-S

For those of us who are watching our what we eat...

... here's the final word on nutrition and health.

It's a relief to know the truth after all those conflicting nutritional studies.

1. The Japanese eat very little fat
and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

2. The Mexicans eat a lot of fat
and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

3. The Chinese drink very little red wine
and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

4. The Italians drink a lot of red wine
and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

5. The Germans drink a lot of beers and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

CONCLUSION:
Eat and drink what you like.
Speaking English is apparently what kills you

*giggles*

-S

Being VERY Thankful!

Seeing as it's our 3 year 1 month anniversary today I wanted to have a post of good things and being thankful for lots of stuff in our lives right now.

* I am thankful for my amazing husband! Who wakes me up in the morning on his way out to tell me I am beautiful, Say I love you and give me kisses before he goes... like this morning ;)
*I am SO incredibly thankful for Joseph's employment. He is starting his career and he LOVES it!
* I am thankful for the two men, Baldy and Coach who are fighting to hire me.
* I am thankful for the weather and that Joseph is adjusting to it very quickly...it gets really hot (I love it, but I was worried about how he was doing when it was 104 last week)
* I am thankful for a sweet couple who have agreed to let me use their swimming pool to teach lessons this summer. Oh, and clean it too!
*I am thankful for Zyrtec.. it allows me to be helpful with outdoor chores & projects that I couldn't do before.
* I am thankful for a wonderful meeting with our caseworker. We were nervous and things went so great!
*Thankful for wonderful family in both Idaho and Washington, and lots of other places too.


Well I know there are a lot more I could list but I have already put up a few posts today... so that's good for today... now off to do some creative budgeting to see how we can come up with our adoption transfer fee and the cash to fix our car too (albeit slowly, but as soon as we know what we need it should go much faster!!)
-S

What else?!?! seriously!

Our car Suzy.. she's hurt. It happened almost a couple weeks ago. It was freaky, I was driving to the store with Joe to buy shoes he desperately needed. We were stuck and completely relied on others for help. SOoo many blessings connected to that...but still it's a really crappy situation Luckily:Joe was with me, I got scared with the first noise, signaled and started to pull over, then it got loud and sounded like it was scrapping then something dropped as I was slowing down. Thankfully my Mom had her phone with her, she wasn't biking right then, they were close to home, our lovely neighbors were home and had their flat bed trailer empty,the cop that pulled over was nice. Thankfully Suzy (our car) is in my parents driveway being pulled apart so we can figure out what we need to do to fix it. We've made good progress with it considering all that is going on. So far it looks like we will have to replace the front differential and both drive axles... ugh. It's been one of those weeks (a couple actually) when it's makes you feel completely beaten down.

In other news: My brother is graduating high school tomorrow. My cousin Dexter graduated today. My little sister Alisha is expecting :) and hopefully things go through so they can buy the little house they are trying to. I got a new brother. A pregnant cousin of mine is getting married tomorrow. My great-aunt and uncle both passed away last week (within two days of eachother) it's really sweet actually and I am happy they aren't sick and hurting anymore.

Adoption Update.. Finally huh?

Well we had our first meeting with our Washington caseworker last night...and we L.O.V.E our case worker Jason, he's stinkin' awesome.

So I will cut to the chase...

What we need to do:
yes, we will have to pay the $500 transfer fee, not cool, but oh well. We are old college students we know how to pinch pennies 'til our fingers hurt.

Background check - child abuse neglect specific. You have to have background checks in all the states you have lived in, Jason is checking to see how extensive ours were. So worst case scenario we will both have to fill out a little paperwork and wait for it go through. Good news no fee.

Employment verification form. We counted on this one. Just a form to bring to Joseph's Human Resources lady to fill out and send in.

Update our Financial statement. Good news, this is online.. easy peasy!

We may have to do more "adoption training" as to meet Washington State law... checking on that one... see if our adoption classes qualify.

So overall not too bad...the $$ not good... you'll see why in the next post.

Crazy Busy, What I've been up to...

I'll write it in list form, keep it simple you know.

*helping my mom with seminary graduation, she's basically in charge. So I hauled things around, spell checked as we printed out the diplomas,and put together the program and the list goes on...

* helping with Gma becomes full time some days. She was in the hospital almost three days when I last blogged about it. She is doing okay. She is done with treatment wahoo! But she has been really sick after.. weirdness. We expected that she would get sick during treatment not after. Anyway she had another trip to the ER this week and turns out things were okay.

* Fill in babysitter I have really gotten to know my little cousins, they are so funny. I have gone to their house so my uncle for work and get all the girls off to school. Joe was there too and he did the breakfast part ("take 3 bites then you can put your bowl away, hey!,that bite didn't count do you want to make it 5?") and I did hair.

* Ballet Mom Fill in: I have taken Abrie to ballet a couple of times now and I took the girls for their pictures which included lots of hairspray, gel, bobby pins, hairnets and time to make thee perfect ballet bun- very serious stuff here. I was also in charge of doing makeup- yes, it went quite smoothly for a 7 & 5 year old. They loved it! We did have some drama about the tights and how they should fit *ahem* where certain parts go... story for another post. so so funny.

* Lots of babysitting 5 year old girls. These cousins get along so well and entertain eachother, so it makes it easy to watch them. Abrie is hilarious on her own, but get her and Naomi together awesome. N doesn't talk to everyone... I experienced this for the first 10 or so minutes together... until we decided to have hot dogs together... now we're good.. I'm fun , or so she says.

Well thats all I can think of... things are getting slower which is okay, but I am looking for more to do. It's funny when you are so busy that you can't remember if you ate.

-S