To Vacation or Not Vacation: That is the Question.

Do you love a good vacation? Me too!! It seems that everytime I go on a vacation, I am planning my next one by the time I get back. I just can't help it! I love to get out of my everyday routine.

I have tried to trace back the reasons behind my obsession with vacations. They weren't really hard to figure out.

1. My mother. Yes, you can blame everything on your parents!! I do!! She has earned the nickname "tour guide" whenever we go anywhere because she will map out our vacations like she is planning four years at college. She claims she inherited this trait from Grampee. See, I told you that it's okay to blame everything on your parents!!!

2. Boxcar Children Books. Growing up, Lindsay and I were gaga for the Boxcar children books. These 3 kids lived in a boxcar and the books were all about how they made this boxcar into their home. Someone call CPS!!! This would never fly in real life but I always wished I was them!! They got to go wherever they wanted and do as they pleased.

3. Pippi Longstocking. If you have ever seen this movie, you will remember a part where Pippi makes a plane for her and Tommy and Anna and they fly away from home to start a new life. Everything is going great until their clothes get eaten by a cow and they almost go down a waterfall in barrels. I also always used to wish I was them too!!

So, there you have it. I have a vacation addiction. To escape real life for just a bit and enjoy time away. Which brings me to my point; wow, I had to say a lot to reach the point!

Anyway, I am dying to take another vacation!! The problem you may ask?? I married someone who doesn't love vacations!! (insert: gasps!!) I know, I should have brought it up before we were married. Now that it's too late, I'm trying to think how I can talk Wes into my latest plan. I just thought it would be fun to go away before baby #3 is born! I just look at the year after a baby's birth as too complicated to try and go on vacation. So that leaves......now!!

How can I convince Wes that we NEED a vacation? He said his idea of a vacation is to stay at home with the boys and just hang out for a week. HELLO???? I do that everyday and I don't call it a vacation. Help me!!!!!

A Heart of Sadness

Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.

Psalm 30:5

Life has a way of bringing the unexpected. Well this week went a lot differently than I had planned. My precious Aunt Pat lost her battle with illness on Monday around 2pm. She had battled lupus among other things that ultimately took her life. She had fought such a hard battle for the past 4 years. We got word last week that she had from 3 weeks to 3 months to live so her passing away was quite a shock for all of us. Everything just happened so quickly.

She left behind 3 wonderful children and 5 grandchildren. You can tell the mark of a great mother by seeing how deeply her children are affected by their loss. I know she will be greatly missed by them. I know her legacy will live on through them.

My mom is Aunt Pat's only sibling so you can imagine how hard she is taking this. As I put myself in her place, I kept tearing up thinking how hard I would take it to lose one of my siblings. My grandparents are also taking losing Pat hard. Grammie has been getting fuzzier the past few years but you could tell she understood what had happened. I know her and my grandpa share the same feeling: No child should die before their parents. My heart just breaks for all of them.

All throughout this time of mourning though, we all took comfort in the fact that Pat was a believer and is now with her Savior. She is no longer in her weakened state. She is finally at peace and is being comforted by her Comforter. That is something to rejoice over.

Stacy

Family/ Pregnancy Update

Well, I made it through the first 12 weeks of pregnancy! I'm worse for wear, but that's to be expected! I have been much sicker with this baby than I have been with the boys. I was always a little bit nauseated with the boys, but this baby has taught me to be pretty good at upchucking. Everyone says that maybe that means that it's a girl. That's my hope too....but I'm not getting my hopes too high.

I've been a major slacker when it comes to cooking these past weeks. I wasn't even able to open my pantry door without gagging. As you can imagine, that really puts a damper on dinner! But we made it through by eating out more and just eating less fancy things than I usually make. Yes, Wes once accused me of making "too fancy" of food for dinner. My thought is that dinner is the best meal of the day!! Why not make good things!? So that's what I do.

We are definitely going to be finding out what the sex of this baby is, hopefully in the middle of September sometime. We decided this time that we aren't going to share what the name is going to be so that there can be at least some element of surprise when this baby actually comes! And you know how hard a time Wes and I have deciding names anyway!!

The boys are doing great. Preston is getting excited for his birthday (which is still about 2 months away)! Wonder where he gets that from?? Everytime we go in the store he picks out things he wants for his birthday. The problem is he has no idea what the toys are but he wants them anyway!!

Owen is doing great as well. He is finally walking! I think waiting for that to happen shaved off at least five years from my life. His deadline for walking was 17 months. The doc said if he wasn't walking by then, he might have to be put in a developmental program to help him. So, I kept threatening him (nicely) but it wasn't working. About a week before he turned 17 months, he decided it was time. I now am going to be calling him "my little procrastinator." I can just envision the homework battles that this one is going to cause........"What?? Your science project is due in 15 minutes??? And you haven't even started???" Can you tell I speak from experience? Not me of course. I am perfect. (no comments, Mother.)

Wes planned a wonderful birthday week for me! We were able to have a nice date night one night and then we had his dad and uncle over for dinner another night. We like having people over, so it was a good time. I got some new dishes and placemats to go on my new table and I love them! Invite yourself over sometime so you can see them!!

Hope everyone is doing well!! Have a great weekend!

Some Pictures from FL

Chillin' on the boat.

Preston's sunglasses went overboard by the time we got back.
Wes' first fish on the trip. He caught the most out of everyone by the end, including a stingray!

Preston first fish ever.

He caught 6 in all!

(with a little help from Uncle Chuck)

He didn't get to go fishing, but he had fun crawling after the dogs, barking at them. He also fell asleep in Wes' arm on a sunset boat ride we took. It was really cute.

An Unexpected Blessing....

I have been accused of being a little bit too positive........like Pollyanna. At first I was like "Hey!" but then as I thought about it, I figured there are worse things I could be accused of being like. In that same vein, I really have worked hard this past year to see God in all things. Which is funny because I used to tease my mom mercilessly about this and now I have become her.

She used to talk about all of these things going on and then always related them back to God somehow. It was like a gift she had. Whenever she would lose her keys, we would have to pray that she would find them and then we would have to pray again to thank God that she found them. "See, God is watching over us!" she would say. I remember thinking wasn't it God who allowed them to be missing in the first place?!

Well, God has really shown his blessing to us lately; in what may seem like insignificant ways to some people. To us though, it was huge. When we were down in Tampa, Sara and Chuck were getting rid of a bunch of furniture to make room for a new dining room table that Sara had been saving for. Wes and Chuck then came up with a great idea for us to get a trailor and we would take all of the furniture "off their hands." We inherited a sectional, a coffee table, a console table, a upright buffet, a dining room table and chairs and all new curtains. WOW!!

When we got home, I felt like I had a brand new house. It was someone else's stuff, but to me, it was like I had just taken it home from the showroom. I started thinking about how God takes care of us. We didn't need new stuff, but God allowed a way for us to have some new things. Things aren't all that matter, but I felt like God was showing that He not only wants us to be taken care of, He wants to shower us with love. To give us things we don't deserve.

I hope this doesn't seem like I'm bragging because I'm not trying to...I just wanted to share something special that happenned to us that reminded us that our Father is constantly watching over us and providing for us. Thanks also to Sara and Chuck!!

The new sectional. Owen loves the drawers since they house the remote controls.

Preston loves the drawers on this new piece because it is stuff from our junk drawer. I have caught him walking around recently with a few screwdrivers, some electrical tape and screws. "I'm fixing things!" he says as he rolls his eyes like he can't believe I'm so dense. He also came to me with a box cutter and asked how it worked. Sounds like it's time to put some child-proof things on those drawers!!

New Dining Table. Wes and I took an extra curtain panel that Sara gave us and cut it up and recovered the chairs. We expect they will stay clean for about 2 milliseconds. :)

Update on Chuck

Thanks for the suggestion for me to update everyone on Chuck! It has been a really long time! Well, a few months ago, he started chemo and everything was going well. Then, the week I went to Tampa in May, he started having chest pains while getting his chemo. They entered him into the hospital for 3 days while I was there. They were able to say that it was the chemo drug that was causing this chest pain.

They continued trying new chemo drugs and each drug gave him chest pain. So, they took away one of the two chemo drugs that he was taking and that seemed to help. Unfortunately, after seeking a second opinion, they found that by itself, this chemo was pretty ineffective. When you take away one, the effectiveness goes way down. So, Chuck hasn't had chemo for a few weeks now.

The oncologist gave them a few options going forward, none of which are ideal. One of the options is for Chuck to get his original chemo cocktail and stay in the hospital while he receives it so that they can monitor his heart. I know that Chuck is apprehensive about this option because he doesn't want to do anything that would do permanent damage to his heart and cause him to never be able to fly again.

Chuck's brother and sister-in-law are visiting this week so that will be a nice diversion for Chuck and Sara. I don't know when they have to decide the next step in Chuck's treatment, so I will let everyone know what I find out. As always, I ask that you pray for them as they make these tough decisions about treatment. It's hard enough to get treated for cancer, but then to worry that you might be damaging another part of your body; that's hard. Also, please pray that they feel God during this time.

Wish I had better news. We just got back from spending the week with them in Tampa and they were in wonderful spirits. Just please keep them in your prayers!

Thanks!!

On the way.....

I don't think I've ever taken a break from blogging this long! Hopefully ya'll didn't stop reading the blog! Anyway, we've been pretty busy and I've been feeling pretty crummy. Because.....

I'm pregnant with Cook #3!!!!!

Wes and I were taken aback by this one, but it was a great surprise. Apparantly, I'm not very good at calculating dates of important times not to get pregnant!! Reason #256 that Wes and I shouldn't have lived in the 1800's....we would have about 200 children. But I've always said that I've wanted to be surprised by a pregnancy, so there you go.

As with most of our lives, there's a quite humorous story to go along with how we found out we were pregnant. I started suspecting things were amiss so I told Wes that we should take a pregnancy test. After we got pregnant with Owen, Wes found this deal where you could buy 10 prenancy tests for $2!! This was a great deal since at the store, pregnancy tests are $6-10.

Well, when we got them in the mail, we realized why they were so cheap! They were all in Chinese!! And they were like little matchsticks that you were supposed to pee on! The instructions had not a stitch of English on there. Even the diagrams had Chinese written on them. But we thought they would be pretty obvious to figure out anyway, so I took one and two lines showed up. We both got goofy grins on our faces but Wes said, let's check the website where I bought these blasted tests just to make sure we are right. So, we read the comments and half said "Yup, you will know you are pregnant when you see the one line." Half of the others said, "Yup, you will know you are pregnant when you see two lines!"

Huh?? Can't they all decide which number of lines is right?? So, I knew what we had to do....I mean what Wes had to do. He needed to take a pregnancy test so that we could compare it to the one that I had taken. Because he couldn't be pregnant right?

I'm pleased to report that Wes is not pregnant, and I am!!! Woohoo!! I did go back and buy a real one from the store just to be sure! I've been to the doctor and already had an ultrasound and the baby is going to be due February 15th!

Wes and I are both hoping for a girl, but we'll see what happens!!

So there you go..........Wes' mom is ecstatic because Wes' sister Amy just gave birth to a boy last week and Wendy is pregnant with a girl to be born in October and Wes' cousin is having a girl in Dec and now our baby is going to be born in Feb! So, it's going to be a busy season to say the least!