Long Lost California Photos

So, I've been having a bit of a rough week. Since we got back to Milwaukee almost two months ago I have been doing such a good job of always doing the dishes immediately after they are used and keeping up on cleaning the house a little bit here and there all the time so there is never a big mess that will take hours to clean -- and it feels really nice to have it clean all the time. This week we got extra busy, even though I was thinking that things couldn't get much more busy with Michael being gone early every morning and me taking the kids back and forth to school all the time, keeping up with the housework, and running all the errands. But our van got totaled and we were looking for a new one. We found one we really liked that was in our price range, but the bank that the car dealer tried to get us financing with turned us down for the loan of a few thousand dollars that we needed after we used the pay-out from the totaled van. Because Michael doesn't have a job and we therefore have no income (and no, they don't count the student loan money that we live off of as income), we are considered "high risk" and they wouldn't give us a loan. I was concerned that we were not going to be able to get a loan anywhere, and that the van that we liked would get sold to someone else while we were trying to figure out the financing, and then we would be stuck without anything because the other guy's insurance company would only pay for a rental car for 4 days after our van was totaled. Anyways, we ended up going to our bank and they didn't give us any problems (although they did give us a nice high interest rate -- but we aren't too concerned about that since it is a small loan and we should have it paid off before too long). Anyways, we got our "new" (2001) minivan, and we love it! But I was rather stressed out this week with the whole process of trying to get it paid for and all the other little things that had to be taken care of (and several that still do) with the van being totaled, getting a loan, and getting the new van. So, all the normal everyday things got put on hold and I was yelling at the kids a lot more than I know I should have been the last few days. Today has been better. One of the things that got put on hold was the cleaning, so in a matter of one or two days the entire house looked like a hurricane had gone through. We suddenly had four-day old dishes sitting in the sink, the kids had gotten food all over the floor that hadn't been swept in days, there were little piles of "stuff" all over all the furniture and countertops, there were loads of unfolded laundry, and toys, clothes, blankets, and other assorted things were spread all over the floors. So, besides being stressed about the car stuff I had also lost that good feeling from having the house nice and clean. It took two days to do all the dishes, scrub the kitchen floor, pick up all the stuff around, and get it looking nice again. And then, when I had a minute to "relax," I started thinking of all the unfinished things that I would like to catch up on. (Yeah, sounds really relaxing, huh?) One of those things is getting caught up on posting all the photos and videos from our trips and from after that on the blog. I keep thinking I will just not worry about the photos from January, since that was so long ago, but then I look at them and think, how could I not include the pictures of Kolby's first time skiing and all the other fun stuff we did? So, I am still going to try to catch up. I think I'll just make a few big slideshows of all the photos, though, instead of taking the time to upload each one separately, then hopefully I can get caught up quicker. (By the way, I am feeling a little better these last couple of days. Not so stressed, even though I still feel like there are still a ton of things that we need to get done. But I feel a little less like I am drowning now, and even though it’s probably only about 30 degrees outside I have bright sunshine streaming in through my window at the moment, so maybe this depressing winter will actually come to an end sometime in the next few months. At least we have another good day to look forward to – Match Day is only 6 days away. Next Thursday we find out where we are going for residency. And then that night we are going to go out to dinner to celebrate (hopefully it will be a celebration). [Anyone up for babysitting four adorable little boys that night for us?] :)

These are the photos of our trip to my parent's cabin in Mammoth Lakes, California in January (Mammoth is six hours north of San Diego, near Yosemite). We always have so much fun in Mammoth. Camden was being especially cute the first night up there when the cabin was not yet heated up and I wrapped him in a big down blanket on the bed -- he was all smiles. My brothers, Matthew and Aaron, had a lot of fun playing with the boys. And the one picture of the three older boys shows how deep the snow was on their back deck -- just about as deep as Camden was tall. I love the photo of Camden folding his arms for prayers -- I had to take a picture of this before he starts growing up and is big enough to reach his arms all the way across his little belly; I just love that he rests his little arms across the top of his chest when we tell him to fold his arms for prayers! And then there are the pictures of Kolby skiing, of course. That was so fun! And Kolby was lucky to have my dad as his ski instructor. And then the last photo is of Eli in his uncle Aaron's old "moose hat." Pretty cute!