Mason's 1st Day of School.

Getting a I pose great for a camera picture of Mason is impossible. I did succeed with at least getting a happy smiling face! Mason is having a great 1st week of school. He is exausted, mainly because we had to increase seizure meds. Also because as much as he loves school, it actually wears him out completely. So he will love when I pick him up today to go to therapy. Love being the bad guy!! :)

I heard someone wanted to see pics of my house--geez Denise give me a break :) haha...let me hang a few pics and then I will send some out of the new place.

Kids!

So as I was doing the previous post I realized that Carter was busy moving the coats that have not been hung yet to the hallway. When I asked what he was doing he responded, " I am putting these on Dakota so that she is comfty." He went on to tell me she was cold. I was kind of impressed that Dakota just layed there and had a look on her face that said kid why can't you just go mind your own business and let me sleep.

Tornado weather

What an insane week here in ND. We were having a wonderful evening on Sunday. Mike had been down to a priesthood meeting in Fargo, they kids were great and in bed on time. Mason included in that on time bedtime--miracle!! We had been observing a storm rolling in and I thought to myself it looked very much like tornado weather. We have had a few tornado watches, but nothing concrete. Well, I was into my new book and heard the voice over the loud speaker saying something. Next thing I know we have sirens going off. Which means seek shelter. I go get Mike, who had fallen asleep cuddling with Carter. Now mind you Mason had received a total of 8 hours of sleep in 3 days. He had seizures that day because of sleep deprivation, so the last thing we wanted to do is wake him up. We decided to wait it out and trust our guts about getting into shelter.
We turned on the radio to see if we could find out more. We found out that it was a tornado warning, a town called Northwood(about 28 miles from us) had been hit already. Our hearts sank when we heard that. We have been remodeling our friends house that is in that town. Mike had ripped out a kitchen and put a new one in, windows, walls, etc.. We were very worried about the house. We found out that the house actually received minimal damage compared to the rest of the town. Just roof, siding, most of the windows(Mike's new ones survived), gutters, trees. All in all, it is going to take a lot of work to now fix the house to sell again. I am including a couple links to some pictures that were taken. This is a very small town here in ND. They really haven't received the national coverage that others towns have when hit with a tornado. We just want to help in getting the word out. This is a sweet and loving little town that will hopefully recover well from this disaster. I guess I never realized that damage that occured when seeing pictures like these. It helps when you have seen the town before and then these come and hit you! Wow, nature is certainly incredible.

http://filestreams.com/northwood/tornado.html http://filestreams.com/northwood/tornado2.html

Unpacking...still

So I am kind of annoyed with all of this unpacking. Wondering if we made the right decision to move houses. I just really do not enjoy seeing boxes. Just when you think you are making progress in the house, you walk into the garage!

School is starting on Monday for Mason, a few weeks after that Carter starts. I am suppose to be teaching seminary, but don't have supplies, wasn't able to go to the inservice. So I am getting nervous about that whole thing. I want to be an assest to these kids who are getting up and making an effort to be here. I feel like I am failing before I even start. Ever feel that way?

On a better note. We had a fun vacation to Utah and Idaho. Utah is always stressful because you want to do so many things, see so many people. If you didn't sleep and required others to do the same then you might get it all done. We had fun with what we were able to do. Including visiting the temple. That is such a blessing to have so many so close!!! I love being there and the peace that is gives me. I wish our's was closer.

Camping was great fun. Carter couldn't decide if he wanted to go home or stay camping forever. On the 20 hour drive home....:) he would ask when we were going to be home, then about 2 minutes later he would chime in with, "why did we leave camp?" The kids had fun fishing. Mason was the only one who really wanted to actually touch the fish. He was laughing and just so happy about that. Taylor was a hoot playing in the dirt and having a contest with her cousin Kristopher over who could be the most filthy. That was until she got sick. What a bummer on the first camping experience. She didn't seem to mind to much, there were plenty of people to cuddle her.

I really should be unpacking instead of typing away at the computer. I guess that would help the stress levels to get one more box out of the house. Here I go...let nothing but fear stop me now.

Well, this is my first jump into the blog world. I dont' know how well this will work, but anything is worth a try! We just got home from a very busy vacation! We had a blast in Utah and also in McCall, ID. The kids are in love with camping, the first time ever. For some reason when you can play in the dirt and your parents don't care it becomes a contest of who can get more dirty than the rest.
This will be a test post and once I get this thing set up I will continue to expand--here goes nothing!!!