Recap--again!

July 1- Family moves in!  Nathan's youngest brother Jonathan, and his family of 7 moved in with us!  They are moving back to MN after being in Texas for 10 years!  They are in transition and don't have a house yet, so are staying with us until they find a place of their own.  They have 5 children as well....a just-turned 8 yrd old, 6, 4, 2 and their almost-adopted 17 yr old.  So 9 of the children living in our house are 8 and under!  Thank goodness Alma (17) can help out!  They've set up shop in our lower level and everything seems to be going well so far, except the few arguments between kids.

They also brought their 2 dogs, including a great dane!  Yeah, he's huge....pretty much a small horse!

Nathan is back on the road in Chicago, driving home on weekends when he can.  He's trying to find work around home so he can move back asap.  Everyone misses him and he can't stand to be away.

July 13th--Chickens come!!  I went to the post office at 5:45am to pick up our box of chicks!  We wanted 60 chickens, half layers and half broilers.  Jonathan and Becky also wanted some.  I had a couple more friends order and few as well which they came and go so now we have about 120 chickens between the two of us.  They are living in our garage in a box for now but as soon as their chicken tractor is ready, out they will go!  It's been super fun for the kids to watch the chicks but the kittens have even been more fun!  Yes, kittens!!

So I went to my friends house after picking up the chicks at the post office to look at her kittens and maybe bring two home to entertain the kids for awhile.  Well, I came home with SIX!  Yeah...6 kitties on my lap on the way home...yikes!  They have been great for the kids and almost enough for each kid to have one but when Nathan came home this last weekend, he said enough is enough and they need to go back to their original home.  Just too many crazy things around here as it is!

Dipping the chickens beak in water so they drink something right away.

Ariella rocking as she watches her kittens :)

Another exciting thing is that we got an offer on our house!!  Originally they had low-balled us, to which we countered at a price that our realor felt comfortable with, but still lower than what we hoped for.  The buyer denied it and came back with a counter only 5k higher than the first one.  We said no way.  A day later they came back and upped it another 5k, to which we still said no because we still would be losing way too much money to justify moving.  We thought and prayed a lot and just resolved to stay put.  I told our realtor to take it off the market.  We would stay here.  He told the buyer we were no longer interested in selling.  They called back and offered 15k more than their previous offer....now we were getting somewhere!  But we also had to decide if we really wanted to sell.

Of course we don't *really* want to sell, but if Nathan ever wants to come home and get a "normal" job, we wanted to have a financial freedom to do so....so the house hadda go.  We signed the rest of the papers today and closing will be Sept 4th!!  But please don't ask where we are going, as we have NO idea!  The Lord will have to show us that before Sept 4 :)  We could rent, buy, be back on the road??...no clue.  Guess you will just have to wait and see! :)

The dramatic exit

I hardly have enough energy to type this right now, but I am...because I need to....and I want to.  So much has been going on that I know I will forget if I don't get in down in the blog....

So two days before we were going to leave Chicago (tuesday), Brayan gets sick.  We thought it was because he ate a lot of junk over at a picnic earlier in the day and if anyone was to get sick because of eating too much junk, it would be Brayan.  He continued to throw up throughout the evening...which is always fabulous when you live in a hotel with no washer near by.  Thankfully he's old enough to run to the bathroom. 

The next morning, everyone seemed fine and Brayan was doing much better.  Whew!  That was a close one!...or so I thought....

So that next day (wednesday), I was busy, busy packing up all our stuff because the kids and I would be leaving for home in the morning and Nathan would follow after work.  We were also expecting company to come over and bring us dinner.  A sweet lady that we met at the last birthday party we attended (who asked for our phone number at church), called us on tuesday and asked if she could bring us pizza on wed evening and spend some time with the kids.  Sure!  I'm not about to turn down a provided supper, especially when I'm busy packing!

So she came around 5:30 with pizza and drinks.  Not 5 minutes after she got here, Ariella was complaining that her tummy hurt.  Uh oh....  Grab the bucket!  Yep...Ariella's sick.  I apologize to the lady (whom I've only met one other time and who doesn't have children herself) that she had to see that.  As I'm getting Ariella cleaned up....Caedmon whines "Mommy....".  Yep...Caedmon's sick.  I can't believe what's happening...the night before we leave and in front of a sweet lady we've only met once.  uuuuuggggghhhhh.....

I called Nathan and asked if he was almost home.  I needed backup.  He was.  So he finally arrived, we finished eating, and Therese made the kids some more oragami things.  It was time for her to leave and I needed to go with her to pick up Nathan's car from the shop.  Right as I was getting my purse to leave, I looked over at Tiernan and he was standing with his hand over his mouth!  Oh no!!!  Grab the bucket!!  Ugh...3 kids throwing up at the same time...in the hotel.  By the time I got back, no one was better and Nathan was begging for help. 

We still needed to start loading the van to get it ready for the morning.  As we were getting everything loaded, I told Nathan I was starting not to feel well.  He just says "Oh, you're fine.  You've just been around sick kids today."  I figured he was right.  I asked him to load up the things for me but he said he was tired from the day and made me do it anyway...at least I made him help a little.

We finally crawled in bed for the night and for me that lasted about 2 minutes until I was up at 10:30 in the bathroom...yes...throwing up too!!  I continued to be sick for the w.h.o.l.e. night but was SO thankful that Jaeger was a complete saint that slept thru the night, whom I only fed once just a little at about 3:30 so he's sleep longer and he did! 

Nathan got up about 5:45am for work and I told him that I thought we'd have to stay another day because I wasn't sure how I was going to drive 8 hours while sick with sick kids.  He started getting dressed and realized himself that he wasn't feeling well.  Yep, you know what happened.  He's sick too.  He called into work and crawled back into bed.  A couple hours later, I started to feel better and the kids seemed okay enough to travel.  Nathan wasn't doing so hot, but he was ready to get out of the hotel.  We decided to load up the last few things and head out! 

It was so nice to be able to travel together instead of at seperate times....makes for breaks and peace of mind better.  We stopped twice, instead of just once, for this trip...mostly because everyone was drinking their share of fluids, which was encouraged.

Once we got into MN, it took us forever to drive around the cities as the main road was one lane.  It was so hard to be that close to home, yet taking such a long time!  We FINALLY pulled in after about 9 hours and we were SO glad to be home!!

And a lot would be changing again in another couple days with our company arriving....this is when it starts getting crazy.... :)