Our AZ home!!

We just got news that the bank accepted our offer on this house in AZ!!! Yeah!! We are so excited! It is located in east Queen Creek on Ironwood/Ocotillo in the Pecan Creek development. It's right across the street from the park and around the bend from the school. It's got 4 bedrooms plus a game room and loft area. Oh, and it has a pool!! We have to put up a fence around it, though, which I am sure will cost a pretty penny so if anyone knows anybody who does this let me know. :) We close August 11th! Arizona, here we come!

Graduation

Here's our graduate! He walked on May 1st, but won't be officially done until he finishes his internship in July. I am so proud of him and so is his family. His Grandpa came up from California and his other Aunts, Uncles, and Cousins from Utah came to his convocation. It was a really fun and exciting night for Shiloh. Yay!!

Condo for Sale

Okay, so I would normally think that advertising your home on your blog was a really tacky thing to do, but, since we are selling it ourselves for the first 30 days to see how things go, I need all the exposure I can get, right? So, if you know anyone who wants to buy a beautiful 2 br/1.25 bath condo here it is!

We just installed brand new carpet in the bedrooms last week (the flooring in the rest of the house is less than 3 years old, though) and we painted the rooms in a two-toned fashion to match the rest of the house. We have loved this place, but as you all know, we are leaving for Arizona at the end of the summer. Anyway some other perks are that we installed the UTOPIA fiber optic internet wiring in our home a couple months ago and it has made a huge difference in the internet speed! We have a pool, a kiddie pool, several play areas throughout the complex, and basketball courts as well. It's nice. Here's some pics, some of which didn't turn out as well as I would've hoped, but oh well. We are on the second floor by the way which I LOVE. No water puddles in the winter, and no extreme heat in summer. Just cool and temperate year round. :)

How Hot is McDonald's Hot Water???

On Thursday I went to McDonalds to get some lunch for my kids. Ezra still needs warm milk so I got a hot water as well to warm up the milk I bought from them too. Well, as luck would have it, as I put the milk in the water cup a little of the scalding hot water spilled onto my hand. What did I do? I flinched and dropped the entire cup of scalding hot water on my hand and legs. Keep in mind I was still in the car. Fortunately I was stopped in the parking lot in "park" because my foot immediately went to the gas pedal and made the engine rev as I was screaming and pulling my pants away from my legs. I couldn't help but keep from crying because the burning and stinging hurt so bad. As I tried to settle myself I could hear Eliza in the back say, "Why you screaming, mama?"

Thankfully, I had ordered and ice water as well and so I started dousing my hand and legs with it on the way home. When all was said and done and I was able to get home to assess the damage: I had what looked like a second degree burn on my left leg and a painful first degree burn on my left hand. What was ironic about it all was that after about an hour of cool water over my leg it stopped hurting altogether and was just fine, but my hand burned and stung like crazy for the next 14 hours until 4 am the next morning. In fact, I couldn't stand being without the cooling affect of water on it for more than 1-2 minutes or so before the effect wore off and it started burning again. I have never experienced this type of burn before but it was awful. As I laid there that night on the couch with my hand in a tub of water wishing I could sleep, I just began to really be grateful to Heavenly Father for the rest of my life without this type of pain. And as 4 am rolled around and I started to get drowsy and realized the pain was nearly subsided, I thanked God for His mercy in taking that pain away. This was His hand in my life because I am sure things could have been much worse. And to add to His grace, I had a lot of friends and family come to my aid during it all (Shiloh called our neighbor to come check on me as well as his mother and Aunt Kassie--who later brought me aloe vera gel).

Now that it has been a couple of days my hand feels more like a bad sunburn and my legs are doing just great. Sigh.

Editing, Schmediting.

Whew. Here is my first official attempt at major photo editing. This took me about an hour and it would have been longer but I was getting frustrating with not knowing how to do what I wanted to do with my PhotoShop program. As you can see by my jagged head in the picture that I didn't make it perfect, but I am somewhat satisfied with the final product. Maybe when I am feeling a little more patient I will come back and make it prettier. Until then, enjoy!

Happy Easter.. Happy Birthday!

Here's our Easter picture! We take one every year with our camera, mostly because we are too poor to pay someone. I plan to alter it and fill in a new background with PhotoShop. That should be fun. The day was a great day of family and candy. Yum!

Ezra's Birthday was March 22nd (the day before Easter), so we had a little family & friend gathering to eat pizza, candy, and cake as well as color eggs. It was alot of fun.

Ezra still sucks his thumb whenever he's tired or sleeping and has grown quite attached to this vintage blanket that was made by my grandma Lois for my older brother Justin. The date on it is 1976. It is still in great shape!


Birthday boy! He was so tired by the time we had this family dinner at a local Japanese restaurant that he wasn't as happy as we'd hoped. :)

California

Well, we went to California this past weekend and it was one of our favorite vacations we have ever had as a family! Despite our fears about driving there, it actually didn't turn out so bad. We split up the trip and stayed overnight in St. George with family on the way down and then spent 3 days with Grandpa Lundahl. We mostly just hung out and talked, but we also were able to go to Sea World (a first for all 4 of us) and the kids really enjoyed that. Ezra and Grandpa Lundahl bonded a lot on this trip--it was very sweet to watch the glow that eminated from both of them when they were together. I think Ezra misses Grandpa already. We hope to make many more trips down there from here on out...