Stuff

Isn't he cute? :-) I can't believe Isaac will be 9 months old in a couple of days. He is such a sweet boy...maybe a little fussy sometimes, but overall, he's a champ. Maybe because Rose was our last, we realize how bad it could be. I'm still not back to normal--whatever that is--but I had a few moments and wanted to blog. Here comes my rant on how much we love it here.
Our kids are LOVING our new ward...SO much...the branch was like a famine for them and this is a feast. The boys just left to see HP 7 part 2 with a group of 10 or more other kids. They have this really great theater here where you can reserve your specific seats which I love (so all the teenagers did the facebook-y thing to work it all out), plus they have a theater for 21+ which is kind of awesome--sure it's mostly for the alk-y (they do food too) but hey, if you don't want to deal with little kids or even teenagers...how sweet it is. I am so excited to try it out. We might actually go out for our anniversary. And I am loving the dollar theater here too. It's a dollar except Fri/Sat (1.50), but Tues. you can get $1 small popcorn and $1 small soda too. We've done this a few times and I LOVE it! It's a pretty big Carmike and it's not a scary dollar theater (in the afternoon anyway).
Now Nick was going crazy trying to find a place to play basketball and he finally convinced us to check out the YMCA. We weren't too keen on adding more stress to our budget but if it was nice enough, we were considering it. And BOY was it nice enough! It's only a year old or so and it is awesome!! My favorite thing is the indoor walking track above the exercise room with giant windows--so pretty. And the kids' favorite things are the indoor pools--one's not olympic sized but it's a good size pool that only goes to 4 feet deep with a slide and then next to it is a splash pool with dumping buckets, etc. and there is also a small hot tub/spa for only those 18+ (tee-hee). Rose was so desperate to not have to wear a lifejacket (which they make you do unless you can swim the length without touching the bottom), she managed to figure out how to swim on her back yesterday and success--no lifejacket for her --which thrilled her to no end. A membership for military families is only $55 a month (that's a month's worth of sunscreen for us) and they wave the start-up fee too. How sweet it is. Our understanding is that they plan to build a full olympic size outdoor pool because the school teams really need it and then the teenagers would be happier because they'd have a more grown-up pool. They were supposed to build the pool when membership reached 2500 but they've hit 9000 and still no pool.
Money continues to flow in an alarming outward direction for us..I feel like a speck of sand on the beach watching it all flow out to sea, screaming STOP! at the top of my lungs, but no one can hear me, because I'm so little and helpless...The cars we handled, but now begins the real test...here's this week's expenses (although Suzie did warn me about the schools)...$350 for yearly pest control, $25 for 2 boys' new swim shorts, $25 for 6 pair goggles, $50 already for elementary school supplies (not close to being done either), $125 for Spencer to sign up for school (band and locker fees--we'll get to do gym uniforms and all his supplies later), $200 for Nick's school fees AND $240 more to take 2 BYU high school classes to fit in what he wants/needs to take, $60 for Spencer's school shoes/jeans, $20 for more black printer ink...tmobile wants $200 more than usual for some reason (Jer will call and fight with them later) and on and on it goes. We are still waiting on $3000 from the Army to cover moving expenses and over $2000 from GI bill (since Jer's doing more school) so I might be less stressed once we see that.
Junior and Nick have been doing their part this summer to try and get jobs but haven't had much luck--one place hired them to "try them out" for a dishwashing job but they hated it and only made enough to pay for their non-slip shoes before bowing out. Nick actually just got called in for an interview today and may be starting a fast food job on Monday. I say "may" because the lady told him to come in to fill out paperwork but didn't tell him when he was working at all. Junior missed applying to that particular restaurant. He and Nick usually come home on their daily job-hunt with 10 applications or cards to direct them to apply online and I guess Nick caught that one and Junior didn't. Hopefully soon though both the boys will be able to pay for their own car insurance because it is $100 a month each. That would really help us. And I think it's becoming more and more important for kids to learn life is not free. Plus Junior's got a mission to save for. And he needs his wisdom teeth out. At least his college is paid for this year. He and Nick have been really understanding about them needing to pay for gas, etc. if they want to go out with friends or on dates---it really makes me happy that they don't have that "entitlement" attitude you see so often.
Junior cracked me up this week though because he asked a girl in the ward out to a movie at the dollar theater Tues. and told her he couldn't afford to take her to dinner but he could bring over pb and jelly. And he did it!! They ate pb and jelly sandwiches at her house before they went. That's a nice girl too because she was totally fine with it.
We're trying to figure out what we are going to do next month when we need 4 cars too. Ah, life is just too fun.