Paisley's First Dance Recital

Friday night was Paisley's dance recital! She did a great job! She was in 4 numbers! We were definitely stage parents. I had the camera video taping her dances and Jason had the camcorder! Good thing we were in the second row! Enjoy!

The Jo Bro's are COMING!!!

OK I am so serious! On August 3 in Wichita the Jonas Brothers with Demi are coming! I am dying to go to this concert! I missed this last year because I just had a baby, but I am NOT missing it this year!! So please any takers? Who wants to come with me?? I don't want to go alone... but I will! :) CAN'T WAIT!

May Fete

Tonight was May Fete. It is basically the only fun that things goes on here once a year! The whole week has a lot of fun things going on. There is a carnival in one of the parks. Tonight and tomorrow are May Fete which is basically a big talent show in which Paisley's dance class participated. Friday is a holiday here and there is a huge parade and tons of activities all over McPherson, including a great petting zoo featuring some exotic animals! Yay for the week of All School's Day! We wait for it all year round. (* On a side note, I believe May Fete is also a cursed two days. There has been, for the past three years, tornado warnings on these days and today was no different. I spent a long time on the phone crying to Jason (who didn't heed my call to come home) while me and kids were downstairs in the basement praying and hoping our home would be spared. The sound of tornado sirens is the most horribly scary sound I have ever heard! Luckily the tornado touched down east of us by the freeway, it crossed the freeway and then headed for some other small town 15 miles away. Is there any wonder I want to get out of here?)

This was on our way to the performance!! About two weeks ago something clicked with Paisley and she decided she wasn't scared to perform in front of a lot of people, so she was really looking forward to this!

This is all the girls in her class. We ended up stalling the beginning of the program because this picture started out as just about 5 of the girls and eventually everyone got in on the picture!

Paisley and Maisie after their beautiful performance! (Paisley could use some sun! hehe)

*Another side note: I always thought we had a good camera until tonight and realized that the dumb thing couldn't focus on Paisley because of how far she was from me! Now I hate that camera! Luckily we also brought the camcorder so yeah for a clear picture of the whole event! But I can't upload that onto the computer so you get the fuzzy one. Paisley is second one in from the right, Maisie is last and Paisley is next to her.)

Three Years Ago

Three years ago today we drove through tornado obliterated Greensburg on our way to our new town to call home and I asked Jason "What are we doing here?" The answer I already knew. He had been laid off from his job in California and this is where the new job had landed us... Kansas! We were so grateful that Heavenly Father had his hand in that transition. Jason was laid off on a Thursday and we got this job in Kansas the next Wednesday (we had been looking for a new job for 6 months at that point). His previous employer also gave him a very generous severence package that made it through to our first paycheck here. He only really was qualified to get 1 week of severance instead of the two months they gave us! Another HUGE blessing. Once we got here we lived in a hotel for three weeks! At first fun, but it got old fast. We were blessed again by having our house get through escrow and close in a record three weeks!! I know that we are very blessed, that whole process was one miracle after another and we do continue to be blessed. We are so grateful. A couple weeks ago we had a Sunday school lesson about gratitude. What I took away from that is that you can have gratitude, but it doesn't necessarily make your situation easy, and you can feel grateful but it doesn't mean you like what is going on. I am so grateful Jason has a job, that we live in a comfortable home and have some great friends. BUT let me tell you, time has NOT flown by. I have felt EVERYDAY of these past three years and in some regards it seems we have been going half time and its really been six years! For now I am grateful and try daily to recognize all the blessing we have, but I also have hope. Hope that we will eventually get to leave this place, hope that it will sooner rather than later. Hope that change is on the horizon...

Breaking!

I don't know what is going on but this has been the week for things to break!! It started out with my cell phone. Jason and I do NOT have fancy phone because Jarom likes to chew on them, Paisley talks to people on them and I don't know about Jason but I drop my phone... A LOT! Well all of my phones have always been pretty sturdy, until last week. I dropped my phone in apparently just the right angle and BAM-O! the screen broke. Not from the outside, but when we took it apart, inside the screen has a big crack in it there for it now doesn't work. I can still use the phone to talk to people, I just have to know their number by heart, and not mess up while dialing. If I miss a call, I won't know it's you, but you can call me! I'm really sad because my phone is so cute! It isn't anything special but what it is is PINK!! Luckily we are due for upgrades so when I get sick of the busted screen we can trade in for new (but not fun obviously) new phones. I'm not quite ready to get rid of my cute pink phone yet though.

Then a couple days ago our car decided to register tilt and it turned off while we were driving. It kept moving but nothing happened when you pushed the gas pedal. Once we turned it off and let it sit for a couple minutes and turned it back on everything was fine except for that pesky "check engine light!" After a phone call to the dealership it turns out this happens so often they keep a spare part on hand so it'll be no problem to fix it. Umm... dropped the ball on that one KIA!!! Luckily again, we are still under our warranty so its a FREE fix! Dodged that bullet!

Finally our number three is NOT a free fix! The broken thing is our trusty television. In our home we have two televisions. One that was given to us, it is a 13 inch TV/VCR combo. You know the kind that likes to eat your VHS tapes!! That's the one! The one that broke was our Memorial Day of 2003 Circuit City great deal!!! Our lovely silver 20 inch $80 tube tv bit the dust! Now I know that a television may be a controversial item in some homes. Definitely not a necessity in some homes and vital in others. I would call a television borderline necessity at our house. Afterall, my wii isn't going to grow a screen so I can keep playing it! And if you have ever played a wii, you would know 13 inches isn't going to cut it, especially when there are 2 players involved! Also since I'm back to being obsessed with home improvement projects, I enjoy watching HGTV! Anyway, it's pretty sad! So, if your in Kansas and know someone who wants to get rid of a TV think of us, or if you have seen a good deal on a TV lately let me know.

Hopefully we're done with broken things for a while... knock on a big piece of solid wood something!! :)