January thru March

January –
The Big Move… we are into our new house! Thanks to a lot of help from ward members and family, the old house has fresh paint, ultra cleaned and plumbing leak fixed to get it all ready for the renters. They moved in on February 1^st. They are really nice people with one son at home that is a senior.

Our new home is like heaven to us. The first night we were here I looked at Mike and said, I feel like we are staying in a really nice hotel. I just love so many things about it! I love that whenever anything isn’t working correctly, I just call the builder.

Our second week at church I was called to teach the 3 year olds in Primary (the Sunbeams). They are a handful, exhausting, but also so cute. I love them!

February

The Big Party. Having the Robrecht family reunion at our new house was great fun. How lucky are our kids that they get to have so many cousins that they get to hang out with? I feel so blessed that our family picture turned out so well. I can’t believe we caught everyone smiling with their eyes open. Mike was rewarded from work with a Nikon D5000 digital SLR camera that arrived the day before the party. What great timing to catch some memories in the making. I love the pictures it takes and can’t believe the difference, just on auto setting, between the SLR and a point and shoot. Yes, it’s big, but it’s worth lugging around. I enjoyed playing games, going to the park with the kids, and all going to church together. The Chinese Gardens were beautiful (went with Dan, Becca, and Mom) and then a few weeks later I took the girls (and Cassidy - who is basically one of my girls too) to a free day at the Japanese Gardens.

By February we were settled enough to start the twins on Tae Kwon Do and Ally on horseback riding lessons. I have also started to take voice lessons, trying to learn to sing Alto. The girls’ piano teacher teaches me for just $10 a lesson. It’s actually somewhat discouraging. Maybe I’m too old to learn something new? I can sing it at home when it’s just me singing and plunking out the top hand of the hymns, but at church it’s so hard to hear when everyone else is singing. ***sigh*** maybe I should just leave the singing to my girls. But I think I’ll try it for at least a year and see if I can make some progress.

We really enjoyed having Janet and her kids stay with us for almost two weeks. It was a bummer for them because they had to move out due to the mold in their rental house, but we had lots of fun together. We had a little “fireworks” party in the garage, the kids played lots of Wii games and “boys against girls”, and we celebrated Makayla’s birthday. We were so happy to have the extra room to welcome them in. I corrupted Janet by having her watch “The Bachelor” with me - it was the last two episodes. She was a good example to me (I even ironed some of Mike’s shirts the next week, after she ironed Jeff’s shirts. I mean, she’s in the process of moving, in-between homes, and yet she is still ironing his shirts! I have trouble ironing Mike’s shirts on a good week!) I also followed her example and decorated the downstairs after Katie and Liz went to bed for their birthday, like she does for her kids, and did for Makayla while they were staying here. We enjoyed some good late night talks and making meals together. Janet is amazing and just gives so much to those around her! We really miss them staying with us!

We celebrated Katie and Liz's birthday at Red Robin, and then a few days later they had a Spa Party with 12 of their school friends and some of their cousins. We set up spa stations for foot soak, hair salon, toes and nails, and making body glitter & bath salts. Then we all did peel off facial makes complete with cucumber of the eyes. It was a huge success.

I was sick for almost two weeks with a cold turned into sinus infection, ear infections, and two cold sores. Ick. To top it off, once I was better I had some sort of allergic reaction to something… maybe Augmenton (antibiotic) and Acyclovir (antiviral) combined that gave me a sunburn like rash all over my face. Sigh… this moral world we live in…

The big break – spring break! We enjoyed a fun trip to the beach with Jeff & Janet at the condo they stay at in Cannon Beach. The first two days were cold and windy, but the last two days were perfect. Nana and the girls played on the beach for probably 4 hours, climbing the rocks and playing in the ocean. We built big sand castles and dug deep holes and buried people in the sand. I love being away from home and playing games and watching movies and snuggling with my girls. It was also fun to come back home again to our new house J. Liz got tonsillitis the last day we were there.

Congrats to Jeff and Janet on their new house! We enjoyed a great birthday/Easter/House warming party this Saturday. Thanks for having us all over.

Today Mike was called as the Gospel Doctrine teacher and I got an additional calling as the Young Women ward camp leader. I am excited to get to go to camp with Ally and we both will get to know and serve more people in our new ward.