Church playground

On Sunday after the service, we saw a huge play set inside the church. I have never seen anything like this before. The boys LOVED it. We did like the church but we also did miss our old pastor. But if anything I know that boys will be asking to come back to at least play at the playground.

Here is Romeo trying to climb up it. Mr. Genius and I were a little concerned how we were going to get him out if he got stuck.



Here is Wild Man and Romeo trying to figure it out.



This is just one side of it. It was over two stories high. Wild Man went up it twice. So I think it is safe to say that Wild Man did not inherit JJ's fear of heights.



Also on the ground they had walls of magnet boards with little and number magnets along with all these toys on the walls for the kids to play with.

Even if we don't plan on making this church our home I am certain we will be back to play here.

Sometimes you just want to ask why

Today is not even half way through and it has been an emotional one.

Today Mr. Genius and I wanted to try out Christ Community Church this is the church of my new friend Meagan that I met at the airport. If you don't know this story, you can click here to read it. I have no doubt that God wanted us to meet.

So I have emailed Meagan to let her know I was in town now and was planning on visiting her church the upcoming Sunday. I was a little surprised that I hadn't gotten a response back. I just assumed she was busy.

I know that there are some people that are nice at first and then they just blow you off and then there are other people that you meet and you feel like you have known them forever. I really that I had known Meagan for a long time, especially since we have been emailing before we moved up here.

So today Mr. Genius and I got to the service late and when we were sitting down I was only half listening to what they were saying. Then I heard the name Meagan Ahlstrom and then I heard memorial and then I heard she is in a better place.

So you can imagine my shock.

I turned to the girl next to me and asked what happened to Meagan.

She told me that Meagan and her mom were driving back from Nashville last Sunday and was hit by a drunk driver. Meagan was killed on impact, her mom will be released this week from the hospital.

I know without a shadow of a doubt that God has a plan for everything and I know that He is just, good, and merciful.

But sometimes I do wonder why.

Why let a beautiful 24 year old that was truly living her life for Him be taken away from us?

I can't even imagine what her parents are feeling right now.

Please join me in praying for her family.

I only meet Meagan in person once for a couple of hours and my heart hurts, I can't even imagine what everyone else feels that had a more close relationship with her.

Click here and there are links to learn a little about Meagan and what she meant to everyone around her.


Sorry to be such a downer on Father's Day.

Happy Daddy Day

Mr. Genius, you are such a great dad. Thank you for all your help around here. We are so glad that you will be able to home more now and spend time with us again.

Love you

Finally, someone agrees with me!!

Well it maybe my 3 year old but it was somebody!

For Mr. Genius's birthday I got the boys to pick out a movie for him. Well it was really Wild Man cuz Romeo still doesn't care.

Oh I am dreading the day he really has an opinion, one opinion is hard enough to deal with.

Wild man picked out Spiderman.

Well actually he picked out Batman and we already have that, so we took it back and Wild Man wanted Mr. Genius to get Spiderman.

But that is beside the point.

Back on track now.

Wild Man has been bugging us to watch Spiderman. I really don't want him to see those movies yet. The cartoon one would be fine, I just don't want him to have nightmares.

We are also having to work on Wild Man asking for things nicely. He was doing good then a week with the grandparents and well... we are having to start all over again.

Thanks mom, dad and Teresa so much for watching the boys. I don't know what I would have done if I had them up here with me that week. But lets face it they do get away with more with you guys then with us.

Again back to the story.

Focus,  focus.
 
Wild Man came up to me today and asked very nicely without any persuading if he could watch Spiderman.

I felt like I had to say yes because it was the first time all day that he asked so sweetly without me telling him to say please and say it nice.

So I justified it by thinking that he won't pay attention very long because it wasn't a cartoon.

So I stuck the movie in.

And then this picture came up.



I have always said that this lady looks like my mom.

Usually when I say this people look at me like I have something sticking out of my nose and then go back to watching the movie.

Well Wild Man saw this and immediately says: Look mom, it's JJ!

Me: Yes, honey that does look like JJ.

Wild Man: No mom, it really is. Look at her hair.

Finally, someone agrees with me!!

Seriously though here is a picture of my mom.



Now isn't there a resemblance?

Our kitchen o boxes

Here is our kitchen about 4 hours after the movers left.






Now don't all of ya'll just want to run up here and visit now?

The big move

This move has been extremely stressful for us.

We have no idea what God has in store for us and I am pretty sure that we will not be spending the rest of our lives in  IL.

One thing I do know is that I am already not looking forward to the next move.

I think I will start praying now that the next move will go smooth.

The movers packed up all our stuff and loaded the truck then drove off on June 4th.

We were out of our old house on June 5th by noon.

Our lawyer called us at 5 minutes after 5pm on Friday the 5th to tell us that we will not be able to close on Monday like we thought. Apparently the underwriters decided they didn't want to work anymore.

Wonderful

So we had to call the moving company to tell them the stuff MAY need to go into storage instead of the house on Monday, but we will call on Monday to confirm. We made sure to say MAY need to go into storage because things have changed daily.

Mr. Genius and I packed up our minivan left the boys at my parents house and drove 9 hours to our new hometown.

Monday morning our lawyer called us to say that the homeowners will let us put our things into the garage just not into the house. Since we don't know when we are going to be able to close now.

So we quickly called the movers and apparently they unloaded our stuff on Saturday even though we said we MAY need to move our stuff into storage.

Then the movers said that the next day that they will be able to deliver would be Wednesday.

And then the real kicker, they gave us a quote for the cost of storage.

Are you ready...

Take a guess...

Just throw any number out there...

Now know this, we get a very big discount with Apple...

OK, they told us $2600!!!!!!!!

Isn't that outrageous!

Apparently I need to be in the moving business and make a killing.

So we of course went berserk. There was no way that we were going to be paying that.

And that was how Monday went.

Tuesday we were pushing the homeowners to let us move into the house on Wednesday so we would have to pay for storage anymore.

The homeowners said they wanted a clear to close (whatever that means) and then they will allow us to move in.

After a day of very intense pray, we got the call at 5:30pm on Tuesday that we got our clear to close.

We called the movers to tell them that we got our clear to close and that we are still on for our Wednesday delivery.

I got in the house and waited for 2 hours Wednesday morning....No movers.

I called the movers and they rescheduled us for Saturday!!!!

What the What!!!

Apparently not only do movers try to rip you of every penny you have they think that they are real estate agents too.

Our rep said that in all his years of doing this he has never had someone been able to move into the house early just because we got a clear to close. So he took the liberty to change our moving date to the next available day which was Saturday.

Oh and they charge more for weekend deliveries.

Oh it was On now.

I couldn't talk to them anymore for fear that God would strike me dead for the things I was thinking in my head to say to these people.

So I just got in my car went straight to the paint store and told myself that I was going to make the most of this and paint the boys room.

Um and if the lawyer of the previous homeowners are reading this. Since we technically didn't own the house at this time. I only went to the paint store to get samples. **cough**cough

So we finally were able to close on the house on Friday.

Then on Saturday we got our stuff delivered.

The movers were done at 12:30.

By 2pm our kitchen was already unpacked. The by 10:30pm we had unpacked and set up the boys room our bedroom, den, closets, and laundry room. We didn't get to the office or the playroom. But I thought we did really good for half a days work.

The reason for so much motivation?

My parents were bringing my boys the next day.

So we were trying to make the transition as easy as possible (which is why we were trying to close on Monday and have a full week to get the house ready, but whatever).

The boys did great on the plane!! WhooHoo.

I am glad we had one thing go good that week.

I took a picture of all the boxes we had piled up in our kitchen but we can't find the cord to connect the camera to my computer. Sorry. That will be my project tomorrow.

11 Things I have learned in the past 2 weeks

1. Chicago's interstate exits are not numbered.
They are named after the name of the road you get off on. So you don't know how close or far away you are from you destination... annoying.

2.Don't mess with Wild Man's food.
Wild Man had no problem when we started packing up his toys, nor did he have a problem moving our swing set away. But when I took our kitchen table out at the end of our driveway to sell...Watch out...He totally freaked out wondering where he was going to eat breakfast. Then when our neighbors bought it (Thanks Erin and Mike) and took it into their garage. He asked if we are going to start eating our meals in their garage.

3. Moving companies are a blessing and a curse.

4. Has learned to be a tree hugger overnight.
When you are charged for every bag of garbage you put out but can recycle as much as you want for free. You learn real fast to embrace your inner hippy.

5. Ikea is my new best friend.

6. It is inevitable that when you forget to bring a change of clothes for your potty trained son...there will be an accident.

7. It is more embarrassing for the mom then the bare bottomed child to wait for a change of clothes in the public bathroom.

8. When extremely motivated you can unpack 75% of your home in half a day.

9.The drive from TN to IL through Indiana is the most boring drive in the world.

10. The state of Indiana smells like poop.

11. People in Chicago consider themselves Midwesterners not northerners. In order to make friends I have declined to show these people a map.