The worst thing about a giveaway is not being to give something to all of you! Thanks to everyone who played along. Since 20 of you left comments, I put Scrabble letters A through T in a bag to represent comments 1 through 20, and from the Scrabble bag I had Isabel randomly pull out a letter. She pulled the "S," which correlates to.........
ELIZABETH!!!
Congrats! I'll get your stuff to you. Enjoy! (I just realized how fitting this is, as she's the inspiration for my color-coordinated bookshelves).
And now let's journey back through the events of our spring break week. There were many.
The Friday before break started I spent a lovely evening with a lot of friends at a
Charming Charlie social event. Have you ever been Charmed by Charlie? It's fabulous. A "girls' wonderland" as Isabel quipped when I told her about it. My friend Ashley arranged a social evening there, where many friends shopped together for an entire evening, enjoyed snacks, and all got a 20% discount off of our entire purchase. Um, pretty much the perfect way to spend an evening. I'm sharing my pretty new baubles simply b/c a few of you teased me about doing so ;) Simply buying new jewelry: not blogworthy. Spending a really fun evening such as this: blogworthy. At least in my over-documenting world. And perhaps you'd like to know that I did a dance of joy when I found me this turquoise ring, for which I only spent about an hour hunting.
The rest of our rollercoaster week:
Monday: spent the day with dear friends Kristie and Paula on the other side of the city for a marathon playdate (we are rather good at those). The kids played and played and we talked and talked, and even shopped a bit as Kristie's husband was home for the day and watched all the kiddos minus Mason. We stole away for a time so they could help me pull together boys' outfits for our upcoming family pictures. Let me just say: shopping with your photographer = perfection. Kristie (our talented photog friend) has such a great eye, and really helped me fill in my clothing gaps. It was most fun, and I am swooning - swooning, I say! - over the results. I'll give you a peek at the Amy Butler fabric I bought, which will be Isabel's dress (thank heavens my friend Jen is helping me sew it, I am rusty in the sewing-from-a-pattern department). This has served as the inspiration for all things family-picture related. Very excited. It's been 2 1/2 years since we've had family pics done.
Tuesday: I took the kids to the Under the Sea 3D IMAX movie. They really loved it. My only complaint is why don't they offer child-sized 3D glasses? Isabel and Lucas were swimming in theirs and had to hold them in place during the movie. But it was entertaining to see them reach out and try to touch the various sea creatures. The deadly poisonous sea snakes in our faces was particularly interesting.
Wednesday: In the morning I took the 3 older kids swimming at the rec center. Brian, who took some vacay time during the week, stayed home with Mason on a few outings such as this. Taking a crawler out and about is challenging, to say the least. We had such a fun time! For the first time ever Connor went off of the diving board, even doing full 360 flips.
In the evening I went painting at this incredibly fun place,
Canvas and Cocktails. Clearly, as non-drinkers, we went simply for the Canvases. I had a couple of friends who have done this, and thought it looked really fun, so I got some friends together and we spent an evening in artistic heaven. A (really bubbly, energetic, entertaining, almost-over-the-top enthusiastic) artist instructor walks the class through the entire process of painting a pre-determined canvas. But between instructions she plays great music and you just get lost in painting, and at times, singing and dancing. It happened to me. Shocker, I know. We all were happy with our finished results, and it was great to see how uniquely different everyone's paintings turned out. Awesome night.
I arrived home late, to news that we are moving. It hit me like a ton of bricks.
So, like half the country these days it seems, we've been renting our house. You see, Brian's in an industry that is... changing a lot, and not for the good. So much as we love the area we live, we don't feel like it's the time to commit to permanence. And in this housing market, you've got to be prepared for permanence (I just read an article that reported 1 in 4 homeowners are underwater in their mortgages; what a mess). Brian's company was sold last month and there are some uncertain changes happening and we'd really like to make a job/career change. Don't know how or when this will happen. I had just started working with a lender on the possibility of buying (because let's face it, amidst the uncertainly, it's a stinkin' good time to buy) when the very next day we got a call from our landlord that we have 30 days to get out. They are renting to a friend and planning to sell the house. I panicked. I had a near nervous breakdown. And then I prayed.
To get to the heart of the matter, within 24 hours we had found a new place. We will be renting from some friends in our ward (truth be told, he's our Bishop). They've been trying to sell for a year and were just getting ready to turn to renting, so it all sorta fell together. I'm incredibly happy to be staying in the same school and ward. But it's going to be an insane 3 weeks. And of course there are a lot of things happening in April. Just 'cuz it's fun to add 58 events to an already full agenda just with packing and moving.
So that was Thursday. Panic, worry, chaos and uncertainty quickly followed by peace, calm, reassurance and blessings. For that I am so very grateful.
Friday
The kids and I enjoyed a fun picnic, park and walk in Boulder along Boulder Creek.
Saturday and Sunday
General Conference came at a great time (it always does!). We were thrilled to
hear news of a temple being built in Fort Collins, closer to us than the one in Denver. Hooray!
Almost as sweet as that news were the caramel rolls I made. Bliss.
A couple of memorable Connorisms during conference: When the General Primary 1st counselor was talking about a boy helping an elderly lady walk, Connor (who has done similar acts of service), said, "She's talking about me!" I said, "Well, it certainly sounds like you, doesn't it?" "No, I mean she's really talking about me!" he said. "I LOVE it when they talk about me."
During Elder Holland's talk about doing family home evening amidst bedlam, when he then referred to children as "bedlamites" (my new favorite word), Connor asked, "What is a bedlamite?" I casually indicated in the general direction of the children, who were sitting on the floor. Connor, not catching the drift, looked around and said, "What? Bedlamites are those crazy pieces that come out of the carpeting?" ROLF.
So that's what we've been up to. In recording this series of events, I am reminded that there really are good, bad and ugly things that happen to us in life. But the most beautiful thing is coming out on the other side of trials, having endured and been strengthened and knowing that no matter what, the people I love the very most in the whole wide world are with me every crazy step of the way, from the highest hills to the lowest valleys. And that sometimes when we think we are experiencing a series of unfortunate events, the key is to find the "fortune" in the middle of it all. It's there.
