Back Online

Oh, how wonderful it is to finally be back online, for those who don't know, we just moved out-of-state back to our home state, Missouri. And it has truly been an adventure...as it always is whenever a family moves, patients have been tried, but fortunately there has been a lot of love and laughs to help us deal with the circumstances we've been dealt.

First of all, the drive from Colorado to Missouri is only supposed to take 13-14 hours, and it took us 16 hours, but this was mainly due to this being our St. Bernard's first long road trip. within the first few hours, Leo had gotten car sick in the back of our Durango, then we constantly had to stop to let him stretch his legs. He also did not enjoy being in the back alone, so he would try to get into the middle row seating with the younger boys, lol! Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of this because I happened to leave my camera in Colorado with my husband.

When we arrived in Missouri at 10:30pm, it was very chilly and rainy -which makes for a great night sleep. We have family living in town who had decided to get the home, that we had been paying rent for over the summer, ready for us that night, but upon entering the home they could tell that it was or had been roach and rodent infested...GROSS! So, we decided to stay the night with my sister until I could get in touch with the owner in the morning, and did I mention the owner is one of my own family members?? Yeah, I wasn't a happy camper...and of course I was disappointed and so was the rest of my family. The shower didn't work in the only bathroom in the house and there wasn't a stopper for the bathtub, therefore you couldn't even take a bath. The kitchen faucet hardly even worked and what little water that did come out smelled funky. The floor in my bedroom closest was sinking, and the only heat source in the whole house wasn't working, well actually is still isn't working properly, but my mom and grandma gave me three awesome space heaters. Thankfully I am blessed with a great family, and my first weekend back in town we all worked our butts off cleaning up the house, and it is slowly but surely getting better everyday. A HUGE thank you to my Mom, Grandma, Sister, Mother-in-law, and Brother-in-law. If it weren't for them all this would have been that much more difficult to deal with.

I haven't had much luck finding a job, so your prayers would be much appreciated. It must be a blessing in disguise (me not finding a job yet) because my sister's son's daycare provider hasn't been able to work because her own son got e-coli while he was at Boyscout camp, so I've been watching Cam for the past two weeks. It's been a blast bonding with him. Instead of calling me Aunt Kristie he calls me Gramma Kissy, lol!

Here are pics of him playing outside

During our first week back we noticed all the walnuts on the ground from the walnut trees in our yard and my grandma's yard, so I asked my grandma how to harvest them since my husband and sons like them. She said, "You remove the green outter part then let them dry, but be careful your hands will get dirty." So, I removed the green from about 20 walnuts, then decided to go inside to get cleaned up....my hands were stained BLACK. Grandma said dirty not stained! It has taken about two weeks for the stain to wear off my hands, thank goodness I haven't had any job interviews, lol! Below is a pic of the average size of the walnuts we harvested.