missing my boy after only 5 seconds...

The last few weeks my little brother J has been visiting. We have had a blast....especially my hubby...him and J are quote the pair...and have spent MORE than  lot of time playing COD...ha ha. 

Anyways, my parents came home from their vacay and drove through town to pick him up. Very last minute we decided to send A back with them...he LOVES them to death and really wanted to spend more time with them...so we conceded. 

I have NEVER been away from that little boy for more than a few nights...and he'll be gone for like 5 or 6.....eeeeekkkk! I'mn already freaking out! ha ha...logically I thought it was a great idea, he really wanted to do it, and there isn't anything going on this week...so why not? But...man...he has only been gone for like 5 seconds...literally...and I already miss him to pieces. 

Oh how I love you A!!! I hope he has a great time, and doesn'\t miss me too much! I'm sure I'll be calling him daily, ha ha...he's such a sweet little guy:) 

(and on a funny note...our japanese students...well, at least one of them...is having a complete meltdown in the  other room because J and A left...she's been crying since they left....I'm pretty sure she misses J more than A though...apparently he is a japanese-girl magnet, lol...all of the girls are crushing on him, ha ha)

LOST in translation...;)

Well, most of you probably know that we get the opportunity to host exchange students...I think we are on our 9th or 10th one since we started up last summer. 
This summer we've been crazy busy with them...the max that we can hold in our home at a time is 3...and we have had around that most of the summer so far. 
A lot of these students are young, some have never  traveled...and they all only have a small grasp of the English language (most of the time)....so a LOT is lost in translation. 
For example...one of our students was trying to explain to us what her dad was....she said "an officer"....we thought, okay, police officer, cool. Later on we were talking about it, and pulled out our hands as pretend guns...and she said "no, no...". Apparently she meant officer, as in "works in an office" type officer, ha ha.

Well...one of the girls we have right now 
l i t e r a l l y speaks NO English....well at least she didn't when she got here 2 days ago. I think she has finally figured out what I am saying when I tell her what my name is...so that's a start. When we picked her up, I introduced myself(while pointing to me to make it obvious it was my name)...and she tipped her head sideways and said "ummm..." and looked at me like I was from a different planet. LOL. The English has been VERY slow going...but luckily we have another student from Japan as well, and she acts as a translator for us most days.

On the drive home today I was driving this student and a friend home. I asked them: "What did you learn in english class today? what words?"...again she gave me the typical confused look, and after a while (with me repeating myself slowly) she said...."um, so-so"...ha ha...um, not the right answer, lol. So I ask the other student I was driving home (who also speaks little english but has gotten better....so little that he told me his last name was his first name...and I've been calling him by his last name all week, ha ha): "what did you learn in English class today?"...he replies: "Cloak." that's it...the end, ha ha. Cloak? 8 hours of English class today and you learned one word? A word that you may only use a handful of times in your English life...unless your reading/writing or talking about Harry Potter...in which case "invisibility cloak" is a must-know...but I'm pretty sure they aren't reading that, so it does seem like a pretty useless word to learn. 
If I were the teacher I might start with "hi, hello" or "food, shower, bathroom, sleep"...words that might come in handy while staying with us, since how all I do so far is use hand signals, and the occasional google translate, to explain really important things.
Regardless...it has been pretty fun and funny...I just wished I always remembered to write down the funny things that happen with our students, because they are amusing!:)

some blessings come soon...

You know, my last post, about trials and waiting for blessings...some that may come in much longer than we had hoped and prayed for? 
Well....one of the things we have been struggling with is money(suprise, suprise, who isn't? ha ha). With my hubby's work being so random and sporadic, it's near impossible to save any money or ever get ahead. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE him bring around so much...and spending so much time as a family. Although, this does make it tricky to, you know, pay the bills...or buy groceries? lol...it's probably not as bad as I'm making it out to be...we really have been blessed throughout this whole little journey. 
Our main goal throughout this whole summer or very little work, has been to not using any of our hard-earned savings. It took us several months to save up all of it, and we want to use it on something REALLY awesome...like student loans, lol...or vacationing in Hawaii...we'll see which one wins out, ha ha. 
Anyways...that has been our whole goal...and yesterday as I was grocery shopping I was getting really disheartened about our monetary situation...and thinking that maybe we would have to dip into that fund...I was grumpy all day. 
THEN...lo and behold...I came home and checked out account, and some wonderful government something-or-other had come in...some random twice a year thing that I never remember about...and yes, we got almost $650!! 
What a blessing! If it had come on any other day, I might have not cared as much...but yesterday with all of the disheartenment(did I make that word up? lol) I had felt over our situation, it was really the perfect time for it to come in. 
I know it "said" it came from the government...but I really know where this little blessing came from...little does the government know they are secretly working for the Lord:) (www.lds.org) 

"Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don't come till heaven..."

Yesterday my friends spoke in church on getting through trials and adversity, and enduring them well. All of these thoughts and ideas come from their talks. 
We always root for those that are down....Harry Potter, Superman...any of our favorite heroes were at one time the underdog, yet triumphed. But in our own lives, we dislike adversity...it makes us uneasy, unhappy and upset.
The whole topic really touched me, as we are all enduring our own trials in our own way....and we are all struggling to endure to the end. 
This mormon messages video is an amazing message, that I really needed to hear:

The story was amazing...and watching the video today after hearing it yesterday, I teared up (okay, a lot). 
The quote at the end is what always get's me: 


Don't you quit. You keep walking. You keep trying. There is help and happiness ahead. Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don't come till heaven.But for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ they come. It will be alright in the end. 


Trust God and believe in good things to come. 

our summer so far!

We have been having some fantastic days lately! We spent a day at Henderson outdoor pool, the next day at the spray park, went to the river, the Magrath parade, spent a day at the indoor pool, and went to several playgrounds(all this last week). One night we drove to the north side to get some fantastic milkshakes and slushies, then took them to the closest park and spent the evening swinging on the swings. It was one of my favorite nights.
This is the life. Seriously. I just want summer to last forever, because we are LOVING it, and definitely making the most of it. 
I am still loving aqua-fit, and doing it as often as I can squeeze in...between the 2 or 3 exchange students we always have, watching my 2 little brothers, and of course my own little boys...it's been, and continues to be, very busy!
I'm helping a friend of mine plan her wedding (for this next weekend)...but when am I not planning a party, seriously? ha ha.
There have been a lot of up-sides with having JD's work be so random. He usually works 3, sometimes 4 days a week....but doesn't know until the morning of. This has actually been a lot of fun, because we get to drag him around with us on all our awesome summer adventures!
We still have a LOT of summer adventures to go...we have been to Waterton once this summer, but haven't yet visited the hoodoo's, Montana, or gone camping. 
We also have been thinking a bit about visiting my husbands family down in California, and taking the boys to Disneyland again...since it was SUCH a hit last time...they both loved it. I did too(maybe more-so than them if that's possible, he he).
I like this life of swimming all day, tanning...eating picnics wherever and whenever we get the chance...and pretty much living out of our van. These are definitely plus sides to having JD home more...I've been thinking that I may like this life even better than him working every day and making more money...it's just SO fun!! Maybe not so fun come wintertime though....it won't be nearly as fun to hang out outside all day, lol. Although, we still have plans to try and move to Hawaii this winter, if jobs don't work out...so we'll see. But for now, we are LOVING this life!! SO fun! My brothers have been fun too, and really good at helping out...I'm sad that they can't stay for longer:( 
I hope your all having a great summer too!!

a few cute things from the boys...

A got in some big trouble the other day....I can't even remember what it was for, I think running off somewhere when we were out. Anyways...we were giving him a talking-to on the way home, in the van. We told him that he was going to be grounded for the day (his day grounding's consist of no friends and no electronics for one whole day). Needless to say, he was none to happy.
He sat there silent for a little while, maybe a minute, just really stone-faced....glaring out the window, then said with angst, "I challenge you to agni kai"...ha ha ha....we could NOT contain our laughter...we were so shocked and surprised.
That might not mean anything to some of you...but we watch avatar, the cartoon series...and agni kai means a fight to the death. We asked him (after we regained our composure) how exactly he thought this would go down, as we weren't real air-benders, or anything benders for that matter. He said that we would wrestle, and he knew he would win, because he was so strong. If he won, he would be un-grounded. Sounds pretty sweet to me! LOL. 
Daddy told him that there is no way that he could actually win against us, because of our size and strength compared to him....A wasn't so sure. Apparently A then stated the rules, which were that we had to lay down on the ground, and that he got to stand up, ha ha.
It was a pretty funny conversation...and may have been less funny if A wasn't so serious:)


In the van again (boy, do we spend a lot of time there, ha ha) today....roo decided he wanted to say a prayer...so he did, for about 5 minutes, ha ha. He said it ALL by himself, which rarely occurs...and it was all what he was thankful for, nothing else (my family, my friends, this day, all things he made, dad, mom, ashur etc....the list went on). It was pretty cute!! It was also a good reminder that we need to say more prayers like that....sometimes I think I ask too much, and am thankful for too little...thanks little roo:)

Family photos!

A few weeks ago, we got the amazing opportunity to get our family photos done by Kels. She is seriously amaizng, and SO talented. I love every one of the pictures that she took of us!!! We try and get pictures every year, and we really wanted to update some of the photos in our adoption profile...as the boys are a whole year older than in our last family photo. Although, I don't think roo looks a bit older, ha ha...whatev.
 Here they are:

I know there were SOOOOOO....many to post on a blog...but I decided to post them all anyways, lol...hope you enjoyed!