We are home and back to normal.

I hate trying to play catch up at work when being off for so long. It takes me days to get back into things. So work is still going pretty well. I am one if not the top person in my office. I have been very consistent over the past 18-24 months and it is showing in my results. Hopefully I can get a great raise next year...it will be combined with a 3.5% across the board raise that the company is giving out. So I could potentially get 8-10%. That would be nice.

So the boys are doing okay...sometimes crazy, sometimes fine. It is such a rollercoaster. They haven't spoken with their mom for almost two weeks. Maybe they don't have phones on Montana reservations? So not much else is going on in that front. We are planning to take a few trips this fall. My parents invited me to New Orleans with them when BYU plays Tulane. Anna will probably come too. We'll bring B as the kids will be in school. Then some of our friends invited us to go to St. George with a few couples in October for three days. Becky or my mom will watch the kids while we are gone. B will not come with us on this one as no kids are allowed. So they should be some fun trips.

I'm excited as heck for football season coming up. Dang I love college football. I am doing security for the cougar club again this year. It gives me a little inside info at practices. I almost volunteered to coach pop warner for the boys, but the commitment was too much. Our football season tickets got bumped up pretty good due to losing our seniority last year. Oh well, it should be an excellent home schedule this year.

Anyway, life is good. Need to exercise more. Need to read more scriptures. Need to pray more. Man my life seems like a mess sometimes...lol

So we had a change of plans..

Due to wanting to see my granpda while he was in good health, we actually changed our plans from Montana to out in California. It probably isn't as exciting as hiking and swimming in a lake, but worth it from our point of view. Then there are some issues with my grandma after her knee surgery that care making a huge mess of things. Then my dad catches pnemonia and is in the hospital for two days.

Overall a crazy trip so far. Probably heading back Friday morning.

And cancer hits again!!!

Well my mom called me last night and let me know my grandpa has pancreatic cancer...that has spread to a few other organs as well. He will have an official prognosis soon as they do some more testing. I need to figure out when I can get out there soon to see him before things hit him harder than they are right now...I remember Anna's dad and some of the photos before he passed away.

Anyway, the kids are doing okay. Not much is going on as court got pushed back again another month. Not sure what the deal is but it seemed like some kind of legal tactic to buy more time. Whatever. Poor B didn't want to go on her visit today as she cried when Anna was leaving. She has done fairly well with attaching so far. She got very upset when I tried to leave nursery on Sunday.

We are headed out to camping next week. Hopefully all goes well.

I have become a bad blogger lately.

But it's partly because I can't share much info on what is going on with the kids due to Foster Care rules. Anyway, the two older boys continue to be a little crazy at times. They sure try our patience at least once a day. They have improved on some things, but still the same on others. We know things don't chance overnight, but the younger kids don't need to deal with some of the crap they pull. I think something may be happening soon with this.

So Anna has been away to a short conference in Burbank. It has been an okay time. We haven't done too much. I did cook some ribs last night that were pretty good. It was my first time cooking them and they turned out really well...other than a little overseasoning. We had Glen and Jeannete over. We are going on a couples only trip in October with them to their time share in St. George. It should be pretty fun as we haven't ever done that...actually we did go up to Park city with Geoff and Alisha a few years ago for a weekend.

Overall things are going pretty well. It has been crazy trying to balance our schedules this summer since school has been out. Anna's work has been more than accomodating. It just has never calmed down. And it won't really do so either as we are headed to Montana in two weeks for camping. And we have a day off this Friday...not sure if we are doing anything. Court is next Monday...not much will happen this week.

So our Tahoe, SF and Sacramento trip went well.

No major issues or blowups. The kids got along well and we the kids didn't break too much.. We hope they will be able to come with us to Montana for camping as well. We'll see what happens. There may be a few changes coming with our situation.

So the kids will be with us for awhile...

I'm not sure what is going to happen later on. But we have some tough decisions. Hopefully the therapists can help us sort things out.

Be of Good Cheer!!!

That was the title of the EQ lesson I gave today. It was okay, although the thoughts didn't flow too well. But I hope some people got the gist of the lesson. It was about being happy in our lives. I think some people don't know how to be happy while on the ride of life. It reminded me to enjoy the simple things as there is so much cynicism and pessimism in the world. I want to be known as someone that is happy and optimistic. Someone who see's the good in others. Not someone who needs to rip others down.

So court is Tuesday. I don't expect much to change, but it will be interesting to see what the judge says. So sad...