I have the best friends and family ever!

I just wanted to take a minute and thank my friends and family, they are the best! Thursday I hurt my back and have been in bed ever since. This just happens to be the WORST possible timing for this to happen since Jeremy is coming home tomorrow! So since I was in bed on muscle relaxers and pain pills, I obviously couldn't take care of my kids. Mo and my mom have been awesome and have had all 3 of my kids since Friday. They played, had sleepovers, the works. I know that has not been easy, especially for Mo because that meant she had 6 kids to deal with at her house, and of course the "Terrible Twos" (Tylie and Carlie) struck again. This time it was with fingernail polish everywhere! She said that the girls had been very quiet for a while so she asked Carlie what they were doing and Carlie told her "Ty's piggies mommy." Well, that is exactly what she was doing, painting Ty's piggies. I am sure that Mo will post the pictures because they are great. Polish everywhere... the entire top of her feet, and the bottom, all over the tile, and Tylie decided to run from Mo when she found them so a little got on her carpet too. Oh, and Carlie got it on her face! I don't know what we are going to do with those two!

The next people I want to thank is my BFF Leighann and her daughter Aubrey, My brother Shad and SIL Julia, my brother Kyle, and my dad. They all knew how stressed I was about having my house and yard all cleaned and nice for Jer to get home, and since I couldn't do anything, they all came over and worked for the entire day helping me. I sat in my bedroom and bawled because I couldn't even help. They washed walls, scrubbed my wood floor by hand, scrubbed bathrooms, cleaned out my garage, mowed the lawn, edged the lawn, cut down all the weeds in my side yard, took loads to DI, and the dump, and whatever else needed done. I seriously have the best friends and family in the world. They are so selfless and would do anything for anyone. Julia had also already come over earlier in the week on Thursday and totally cleaned my room for me. She is the BEST organizer and de-junker around, so she got a sitter for her kids and came and went to town.

I can't say thanks enough for everyone who has been helping to make this homecoming such a special time for me and our family. It truly means more to me than I can ever tell you, and I know that I will never be able to repay you, but I am sure going to try. THANKS, I LOVE YOU GUYS!!!

Back in the US!!!

I got the best phone call tonight. Jer called me from Minnisota on his way to Texas. YEA!!! As soon as the phone rang and I saw that it was his buddie's cell phone I was so excited. They were stopped to refuel so he got to call. He left Kuwait yesterday afternoon, and was on the first flight out of there. I can't even imagine that long of a flight. It is such a relief to know he is back in the US. So if everything goes as planned, he will be on the first flight back to Utah on Monday! I honestly can't believe that we are that close to being together again. Woo Hoo!!!

The Best News Ever!!!

I finally got a phone call from Jeremy this morning at 4:00 am and it was so good to hear his voice. He is now in Kuwait and waiting for a flight to come back into the US!!! I am so excited! Then this morning I had an email telling us that it looks like they will be flying in on three separate days, starting on Monday! I feel like a giddy little school girl today. But at the same time, I am really trying to keep in mind that this is the military and you never get your hopes up when they tell you a date because it can change at any given moment.

We decided before he left that he wasn't going to take the two week R&R leave they give them, and that worked out good for us, so it has been a whole year since we have seen him. This has definately been a learning and growing year for us as a family. I can honestly say that this deployment has made us so much stronger as a couple, and as a family. We have not even had an argument since he has been gone. I look at some of my friends who are constantly fighting with their husbands who are over there and wonder "why" ? Why would you waste your time that you get to talk on fighting? To me that is just plain crazy, but that just tells me how strong we are to just trust and rely on each other to get through this.

Another thing that I have realized through all this is how strong I am. I have always known that I could deal with almost anything, but having to do it for a year alone without Jeremy has made me realize that I am strong, and I can do whatever I need to.

I am so excited to begin this new chapter of our lives together as a family. We have both grown so much from our experiences, and we have learned not to take anything for granted, especially the little things in life, and especially in our marriage. We have made it a goal when he gets back to attend the Temple once a month, and I really hope that we can stick to that. It is so hard sometimes with the craziness of life, but I know that if we do that, we will be truly blessed.

So I will keep you posted on a definate date as soon as we get one!

Flashback Friday!

Monica, Lady, & Lisa

This was our favorite childhood pet ever! Her name was lady and we all just loved her (probably too much) and she was really good with us kids. It is so crazy how completely different Mo and I looked when we were younger, and now we can't go anywhere without people asking us if we're twins. We don't see it, but obviously others do. Mo was always the scrawny one growing up, and I was the chunky one. This picture reminds me of Tylie a little, probably just the pudgy arms and face! What fun memories :)

Flashback Friday :)

This post is thanks to my sister! Since I don't have a scanner for my computer, I have just been having her pick out my flashback pictures and send them to me... well, this is what she picked this week! I don't know what she was thinking, I guess she wanted everyone to have a good laugh at my expense!

This was from my Junior Prom...a couple years ago. That was back when the poofy dresses were the cool thing to do. I saw this and about died because I don't know WHAT is going on with my eyeshadow! Maybe it is a combination of my eyeshadow and my tight french twist in the back, but my eyes look a little chineseish don't they? Who knows, not me for sure.

So I hope you all get a kick out of this, and thanks Mo, I owe ya now so watch out!

Big Excitement in our Small Town!

I was going to come home and blog about this, but Mo had already started it on hers. So, since I would have ended up writing the same thing, I just went ahead and copied her post.

My sister Lisa, my mom, and I went for our daily 10:30 drink run this morning. As I was dropping Lisa off, one of our friends stopped and told us not to let the kids out to play. She had just heard on the scanner that there was a cougar loose by the church in town! The church is right behind Lisa's house through the block, so of course we had to head over and check it out. The kindergarten and pre-school kids were all getting off the bus, so we were trying to round them up and get them in cars. Anyway, as we were driving over we heard 2 shots and there were 2 or 3 cop cars there. Pretty soon the parking lot was filling up, so of course we had to go and check it out too. It's not very often our small town has anything this exciting (and scary at the same time) happen. Come to find out a cute girl form our ward (that I used to babysit) is getting married tomorrow and was at the church getting some things ready for the reception. She had the doors propped open and was walking out to the car to get something and out jumped a mountain lion?!?! She ran back in them church and called for help. What a wedding memory that will be! I guess when the cops got there it had ran to the side of the building and was hiding in some bushes. Luckily they were good shots and everything worked out ok and no one was hurt. You can see from the pictures that it was very skinny and obviously something is wrong with it. I would have never thought this would happen in our small little town, but I guess there's a first for everything.

Girls Weekend

Every year I look forward to our "Girls Scrapbook Weekend". We are a group of crazies, who are getting older (don't tell any of us that though) but we still act like nothing has changed. This year we were lucky to have everyone there... Me (Meadow), Brandy (Parowan), Taunie (St. George), Wendy (Aurora), Shelly (West Jordan), Jen (Clinton), Carol (Portland), Tricia (Cokeville), and Joanna (Idaho Falls)! We even got to have Joanna's sweet little baby Jayde come with us this time. Her first scrapbookin trip! Yep, we start em young! It is never the same if there is even one friend missing.

This year we went up Ogden Canyon to a resort called "Wolf Creek" and it was gorgeous there. Thanks to Jo for setting it all up for us. It was an amazing condo up in the mountains. We always have so much fun together. There is NEVER a dull moment :) We seriously laugh till we hurt, and I even woke up with my stomach muscles sore from laughing so hard!

I totally sucked on scrapbooking this year. I think I only got 10 pages done in 4 days! How pathetic is that? I usually do around 40-50 pages, so you can see how bad I did! But I was just enjoying not having my kids running wild and being able to relax! Don't get me wrong, I LOVE my kids, but it is so refreshing to get a break and rejuvinate... especially after this year.

We are SO lucky that we have remained such close friends over the years since High School. It seems like no matter what happens, we always have each other. Every time we get together we just pick up where we left off. It is so fun that we can talk about anything and EVERYTHING with each other!

Thanks girls for the friendships that we all have with each other. I know that whatever might happen in life, as long as we have good friends, we can make it through anything!