stuff, stuff and more stuff

So my new glass frames are a bronze-ish color in front and pinkish inside. The arms are black with sparklies down the side, with gold & black tiger stripes on the inside. They have way more personality than my last pair, and are way more "there" but I totally love 'em. At least I think I do. Still getting used to wearing them, but yeah. They make me smile. :)

 

I needed to take a shot of just the frames to show the colors, stripeys &sparklies better. Maybe I'll get to tomorrow. I think that maybe tomorrow I'll have the chance to relax a bit. It's been a crazy kind of weekend.

On Friday Brandon & I had our doctor appointments for the immigration stuff. Found out that turning 18 made it so that B is behind in immunizations by a few. Fun! Then I flunked the blood pressure test horribly and have to get a note from my family doctor (I didn't even have one on Friday, but have an appointment on Monday with Vern's internist) written to homeland security with either a diagnosis of high blood pressure & a treatment plan or an explanation of me just having a bad day on Friday. (Yeah, I'm a little ball of stress, and when I freak out I can break blood pressure monitors, but it's not like I walk around like that all the time. I just have bad moments, I swear. :p) Either way, B and I both came out of  that appointment having to do more stuff in order to be clear for the immigration papers. The doctor (who had a hard time believing I was old enough to have an almost 19 year old: "you're his mom? You don't look old enough... I thought maybe..." lol) took my blood pressure again to be sure and said it was way too high to let go. Such a bummer. I almost cried when he said he couldn't sign the papers without me getting a note from my personal MD. It just seems like every baby step forward leads us 3 steps back, with so much needing to be done & lots on my mind, and I'm supposed to be able to relax? In the middle of blood tests & such? (That we couldn't afford in the first place, but that's another story.) Yeah... I'm not really super-relaxed of late. 

Ooooh, but Brandon's birth certificate came Friday. Now we're just missing mine, which the tracking says will be processed on Aug. 10th. (*crosses fingers*)

Anyway, that was Friday.

We spent lots of today in Layton with Vern's family again. There was a dinner at Ben & Wendy's followed by a few hours at a swimming pool up there. The kiddos had a blast with their cousins as always - the little ones were sound asleep long before we made it home. It's nice having Brian & Beth in town. Haven't seen them as much in the last year or so.

I'm a little tired myself, but so wound up. I'm really hoping Dissension gets to raid tomorrow. I could totally use some play time. Even if it's just dying repeatedly on Sindragosa with rotating pugged dps. lol Yeah Lore, I swear it's fun even if there's little hope of progressing. I love spending time with you guys that much. :)

Then Monday I have that dr. appointment, plus we have to go back to the clinic and show them our arms are clear from the TB test. (Or not, which would mean chest x-rays, but yeah I think we're good there.) Then I guess there's another family dinner because Vern's aunt is in town. And we have to get B in to get his immunizations. (He's in the same boat I was - no primary care physician, and the internist's office only does immunzations for established patients, so yeah... We'll find someone Monday for him. I hope.)

Oh, and Monday's my birthday. 

That's as far into the future as I'm willing to look at the moment. Right now I really wish we had a bathtub I could fill with some yummy smelling bubbles, am needing some lotion after the chlorine-filled night and just might take some meds to make myself sleep.

hugs!

lol

So we have our immigration physical doctor appointments set up for Friday. Yay!

The funny thing is that they want us each to have picture id. 

Uh, yeah...

There is a  photo on my gym card, and I think an old costco card. 

Oh, and I got a Canadian passport for when I moved here 14 years ago.

I hope one of those things will count. :p

Yeah, I'm kind of looking forward to being able to prove who I am.

yesterday

July 24 is a holiday here in Utah. We celebrated by hanging out at Vern's sister Jill's house- having a bbq and letting the kiddos get wet.

It was a good day. A little warm, but yeah. :) Maiah loves the water, Elijah loves it when Brannon is in town, Vernie loves playing with Sadie, Brandon had a wild party at home with the rest of us gone (not really lol) and I got some new pics of my kiddos. Hooray! :)

(Oh, and I'm supposed to explain that Kirsten's face is healing from her burn - less owie now, but yeah - that's not what her skin normally looks like. :p)
Hugs!

no pictures

Yeah, I haven't been playing with my camera at all of late. Will remedy that soon, promise. I did want to peek in and update anyway, but yeah - all I've got is a little time and the ability to type.

We're trying to order long forms of B's & my birth certificates for the immigration stuff. We hit a little snag but I'm hoping we can somehow work through it quickly. (Having been here for so long the number of Canadian citizen professionals I can ask favors of is surprisingly low. Yeah...) 

We need to go do the medical tests again too - we waited too long to be ready to file, so we get to pay the $110 each to get poked & disease-tested yet again. Fun!

People keep asking me how excited I am and I'm not yet. There's still bunches of stress and things needing to be done just to be ready to file the papers to ask for an adjustment of status. So no, not excited yet. Ask me when (if) B & I each have a green card in hand.

Kirsten got a horrible sunburn the last time she went swimming with friends. She's an owie, peeling mess. It's called sunscreen girlie, sunscreen. Especially when planning to spend 8 hours at the pool. :p

We got to poke our heads into ruby sanctum again last night. Go Dissension go! :) It was worth missing the girls night out at the Olive Garden to get to play (and repeatedly die, lol) with my favorite friends. :)

Maiah has 4 new molars just barely through. (Hooray for being able to chew!) All of the rough nights this past month make sense now. Yeah...

Well, it's time to brave the crazy heat & bright sun and get myself over to the gym. Still working on my pace for the 10k, plus I have to work off the yogurt & granola I had for breakfast & the slice of pizza I munched for lunch. Fun fun. :)

Happy Friday!

blackberry blogging

So our home internet is down. :(  It has been almost all day. We're hoping to get it back up some time tomorrow. Cross your fingers for me and for the sanity of my family! I'm using Vern's blackberry to blog. Crazy, huh? Yeah, I know. :p (In there is a super-secret hint to my raiding friends that I'm hoping to be there Thursday night, but as of right now I don't have internet access from home other than this super-sneaky blackberry move. We should be able to get it back up & running, but yeah. Just in case.)


I was also hoping to be blogging with pictures, but under the circumstances I'm just exited to have a way to peek in here at all. So you all get a boring pictureless entry for now, but hey - I figure this is better than nothing. Gives me something to talk about other than the super-hot-100-degree-plus weather I've been walking/running in. :)


We have an appointment with our immigration lawyer tomorrow morning. Thanks to some amazing people we may actually be moving forward with things again. I've learned not to hold my breath in these circumstances, but with things financially set (hugs and so much gratitude to the people responsible for that blessing) and everything that's been asked of Brandon & I in order, things are looking more promising than ever. Wish us luck! Pretty please! :)


So yeah, coming to you from the genius of a smart little phone are some super squishy April hugs!
Have a great day! :)

Friday already?

Wow, this week flew by.
Let's see...

I, um ...spent plenty of hours at the gym. I heart working out! :)

Elijah had an emergency dentist appointment yesterday - his spacers came off on one side. It's all cemented back in place now.

I'm anxiously awaiting the call from the eyeglass place saying they're in! I ended up getting transitions lenses though and am worried about whether or not I'll like that in the end. Couldn't afford sunglasses too though, and I spend a lot of time outside, so yeah - it seemed like a good idea at the time. Crossing my fingers.

Made some killer quesadillas for brunch today. Mmmmm... quesadillas.

Now I just need some pudding! :)
It's supposed to be like 100 degrees outside again today. I don't mind the heat. It's the air conditioning that kills me. Brrrrrr...
I still have a headache. Or I have a headache again - depends on how you look at it I guess. Either way, my head hurts.

What hurts? :p

I'm planning to remember my music for the gym today. Makes me faster on the  treadmill. Working on my pace for the 10k. 

Ooh, and tomorrow we were maybe going to go walking in the avenues for the hills. If it's still this hot it'll be an adventure. I'll have to freeze my water bottles to keep 'em drinkable.

I'm trying to figure out what's eating me alive. I haven't seen any mosquitoes, but something keeps biting me everywhere. It had just better not be spiders. Ick. But seriously, I have bites all over the damn place. Not a fan. :p

Well, I wanted to play a little before getting started on everything I need to get done today. It's going to be a busy one. 

Happy Friday!

Hugs!

totally Tuesday

 I came home from the gym last night and crashed instead of playing anything. Bummer.

Woke up wanting pudding. Mmmmm... pudding.

Brandon & Spencer had one last very late night last night - Spencer leaves tomorrow for New Mexico.

Kirsten went skating with her friends yesterday - she had a blast.

We know which 10K we're running - I'm all excited but am not going to say more about it until we're all registered and it's official. 

Dr. Oz is on my TV sharing which foods we needs to eat for better health & I was just thinking a doughnut sounded good. Maybe I'll stick with my apple & yogurt. :p

I'm all set to spend a few minutes in the sun, but wanted to peek in here & let people know we're alive and stuff. Yeah - I'm here just slacking. :p

Have a great day! :)

smile, it's Friday!

 Sorry I haven't been blogging this week. Sometimes life gets going and I don't sit down at my computer as much. Crazy, I know. Just been up to the usual stuff - playing with kiddos, going to the gym, a small amount of gaming, lots of pudding cravings, summer walks and such.

We were without power for a large chunk of last night. There was a fire in the neighborhood that we figured was to blame for the outage - there were trucks there and traffic was diverted all night. We found candles, flashlights and Settlers of Catan - so we survived. The kiddos did declare that life without electricity is boring. lol I was just bummed to not be raiding. I look forward to raid nights and yesterday I think especially so since we didn't get to go over the weekend.

fire

I picked out some frames for my glasses and get to order them today. I'm actually all excited this time around. I really liked what I picked, and I hope that having something I'll wear will help with my headaches.

Thanks to Lauren I started training to run a 10k. There are a few coming up in the area over the next couple of months that might work - just waiting to hear from her what works for her. I'm all excited to try something new there too. Adding purpose that's both fun and challenging to my workouts works for me. C'mon Lauren - don't back out on me now... :)

Well, I have some hungry kiddos, the sun is shining & it's Friday! All good reasons to get moving and get started with my day. I hope you all have a great one! 

Smile!

ok, so I lied :p

I did end up taking the camera with me to the park on the 3rd - not to take fireworks pictures though, to take pics of my kiddos since I didn't get any before we left. B didn't come with us, so he's missing again and some of  'em preferred taking pics to being in them - so there's the usual bazillion pics of those of us who'll sit still when camera points in our direction and not hide. :p

There are flips too - but it took me all day yesterday moving stuff off of my hard drive just so I could upload these pics, so this is what there is for now.

I need to add my usual disclaimer about my lack of color-correction ability at the moment. Whatever my camera's inconsistent awb came up with is what you get. :p

Oh, and I guess it's obvious since I'm in so many of them that my kiddos and Vern played with the camera as much as I did.  I was on a mission to get some shots of Maiah when we ran out of cf card space. I got a few I like though. Elijah and Vernie were off playing a bunch too, and took more of these than they were in I think.

Oh, and I should say that Kirsten's grumpiness subsided when Grandma Nadine bought her a wristband to so she could go hang out and ride the rides with her friends the rest of the day. I felt bad that she was so bummed before Grandma rescued her - but she's beautiful no matter what mood she's in, wouldn't you agree? :p

Yeah, so this was our afternoon/evening at the park on Saturday leading up to the fireworks.

weekend festivities

So we went to the Riverton Town Days parade last night. The kiddos caught lots of salt water taffy & Kirsten got lots of hugs from friends in the parade.
The parade always has such a huge turnout, but I found it kind of long and boring this year. :p

Tonight there will be fireworks over at the city park. My plan is to just enjoy the show & not take pictures. I'll take the flip and grab some videos but yeah. I should at least grab some nice pics of Maiah & the other kiddos before we head over, but I'm not taking my big camera to the park. :p

The fourth of July has been an interesting holiday for me for the last 14 years. I used to get mad at Vern and we'd fight every 4th, but somewhere along the line I passed that point. Now I wake up every day thinking "I'm still here & nothing's changed." So on the day where everyone else is celebrating their freedom & the country they're a part of, instead of being mad & realizing that I feel like I should be a part of the celebration but am not I just woke up thinking "nothing has changed."
Vern told me yesterday that this will be my last year watching the festivities from the outside. I hope that's true. I would love to be celebrating freedom like everyone around me.

The freedom to make one's own choices is most definitely something worth celebrating.

I hope all you readers have a safe and happy holiday weekend. (If you're not in the United States celebrating the 4th, or Canada celebrating the 1st then have a great weekend anyway!)

Hugs!

quick little Thursday post

Elijah has his dr. appointment today to finish up his immunizations for kindergarten. While he's not a fan of pokeys, the realization that he starts school in like 3 weeks was just a little exciting for him. :)

Kirsten went and saw the Eclipse premier with Kyndriee and Denise on Tuesday night. (Thanks guys, she had a blast!) I'm dying to see it myself, but won't have the cash to do such things for at least a week. Bummer. :(  Oh, and for those wondering which team I'm on, I'd go Edward for Bella, Jacob for Kirsten and for myself, well I'd definitely be on team Emmett. Mmmmmm... Kellen Lutz is rather yummy.

Raid tonight! Hopefully, anyway... Yay!

LV's class ice cream party is today. Just one more day of 2nd grade!

Sounds crazy I know, but I'm considering training for a 10k in October with Laurie. Sounds intimidating & fun all at the same time. I'm still not sure, but yeah... maybe. :)

And yeah, I need me a little food and a shower before taking Elijah to his appointment. 

Off I go! 

Have a great day. :)