Welcome Home

Oh man, where do I start?! I do not have any pics to post....yet. I'll tell you why in a second.
First of all, our family trip to Hawaii was GREAT!! Yes, great - the flights(!), the hotel, the luau, the beaches, the pools, the hot tubs, the sea side massages, the shaved ice, the company - all GREAT. I will post my one million pictures really soon. They are nothing short of amazing.

Our return home - not so great. Mostly because someone broke into our home while we were gone and took our computer and my jewlery box. I've had my pity party, mostly because we've lost a few years of pictures and videos. The pictures aren't as upsetting as the videos because I BLOG. Woohoo! Thank goodness. The videos brought me to tears on more than one occassion. We've lost the birth of our babies, their first steps, their first words...everything. I was/am so sad but I always remember IT COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE. It really could have. So we feel blessed that we are home, healthy and hopefully safe. So now you know why I haven't blogged nor posted any pics lately. We're hoping to decide on another computer soon.

Also, now that we've been home for a week, the little ones are finally adjusting back to east coast time. For the first 5 or so days they were not falling alseep until close to midnight and wanting to sleep in until 10am. NOT cool. I use to think this would be nice but I've changed my mind. Early to bed and early to rise. We've always done this (sometimes not by choice) and since they were thrown off schedule, we quickly decided that we do not like the late to bed, late to rise concept. We're grateful for our early risers now.

Well, now you know the rest of the story. I'm hoping to be back soon with better entertainment i.e. pictures. School starts in 2 days so I'll have a lot of catching up to do!

Pioneer Day

We had the opportunity to celebrate Pioneer Day last Saturday. The handcart ride is always the highlight. We enjoyed a great breakfast and fun games for the little ones. So grateful for the pioneers - Rob and I enjoy what we do today, all because of their sacrifice.

I Do Not Like Snakes

On Friday, the kids and I were heading down the drive way on the way to the Y when I casually glanced up the hill like I always do just to check out the house. It took me less than a second to realize there was a 4 foot rattlesnake stretched out right in the middle of the front yard. I slammed on the brakes and threw the car in reverse almost hitting the mailbox. I hit the shrub instead. My thought was to slowly creep up the hill and run him over nicely. Well, that did not work. So I reversed again and decided to go faster up the hill. Well, that did not work either. My tires were spinning, the kids were getting edgy, and my nerves were beginning to escalate. By now, the snake was on the move and as you can tell by the tire tracks in the yard, so was my car. I was finally able to run over him on the left side of the yard. When I was done, I looked down at my right leg and it was shaking like a leaf - my adrenaline was working overtime. I was so determined not to let it get away. After the drama, I called our neighbor to see if he could get rid of it for me. He was over within minutes, chopped the rattle off and hauled the snake off. Thank heavens for good neighbors like Tyler! After everything settled my thoughts were - I am so happy I found it before the kids did. We then had a short lesson on what to do if they saw a snake. Their answer now is, "Run! And take Klein with you."