We bought our first house in November! We closed a few days before Thanksgiving and started moving the day after. Remind me never to move on a holiday... I wasn't supposed to lift much or do much so I really couldn't help. Laren came down and helped move some of the bigger furniture but otherwise, Loren was pretty much on his own. We borrowed a truck for the big furniture then our friends lent us their Jeep for the rest of it. We had a pretty good system of Loren hauling and moving things while I started cleaning. I would come over to the new house when he did and keep track of Ethan while putting things away. After several very long days we were all done!
We took a bit of a break and just relaxed for a few days before digging in to really getting unpacked. The nice thing is that we just moved down the road so we didn't have to have everything really well packed up. That made it easier to get it all unpacked. It took a while but somewhere around mid January(just in time for Jared!) we got everything completely unpacked and organized. Oh wait, I lied. Actually, we still have all the books to unpack. We need to find a book case though so that will have to wait until we do. And my mom finished up my breakables when she was here. We also bought some shelving for our food storage and she got that put away. I wanted to get it all inventoried and sorted before it was put away, but sometimes you have to let things go.
We love our house! It is the same layout as the place we were renting before except that it has a nice big master bedroom added on. I really want to add a dining/living room and a great big pantry/food storage area as well. I'd like to do sliding glass doors when we do that so there is an entry to the back yard from the house. Right now we have to walk around from the front. I would also like to have a deck or sitting area back there too. There is one in the front, but it would be nice to have one with more privacy.
There are a couple of garden boxes in the back. I'm not going to be quite as ambitious this year as I was last year. When I got pregnant and so sick my garden kind of died. Except the cherry tomatoes. They were scrumptious! There's also a clothes line which I don't know what to do with(As much as my mom tries to convince me they smell good, I don't like the stiffness of line dried clothes. Plus, I wouldn't be great at getting them in right away so they'd probably be sun bleached pretty quickly.). There used to be a dog run and it still has the poles and the cement base. I'm planning on making that into a playhouse for Ethan and Jared. I'll use the poles that are already there as supports and it has a cement foundation so that should work out really well.
We have a small shed but I may eventually want to figure out something bigger. The one thing that does really bug me in the back is that there is a big pipe type thing that goes to the cystern(?) that sticks out of the ground several inches right in the middle of the yard. My mom was saying we should put a flower planter around it but we want to have space to run around with the kids. We don't want anyone tripping over it though. I'll still be working on ideas for that for a while.
The front of our house has gorgeous flower beds. I had seen them before but we weren't planning on buying this house at the time so I didn't really pay much attention to them. It will be fun to see what pops up this year! I know there are roses and I think there are some tulips but I really don't know what else.
Oh, one of the best things about this house is that the entire backyard is fenced in! Most of it is that really high privacy fencing that will really keep Ethan in! The back that borders the field of the park is chain link, but we may put up privacy fencing there. For now, as long as I'm back there, Ethan can't get out.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Ethan's 2nd Birthday
On November 10th Ethan turned 2! We celebrated his birthday the weekend before because my mom and sister were able to visit. It was really fun! They brought a Lightning McQueen cake for him and WAY too many presents! He loved it! We had some friends over with their little girl who is around Ethan's age. She is pretty mellow compared to Ethan but sometimes they play pretty well(Like the other day when we went over and she was going crazy because she was excited to see him! She is normally a little scared of him so he got mellow for a while and didn't know how to react. It was funny to see the switch of roles.). I think Ethan had a lot of fun. I know we all did seeing how excited he was about everything.
Funeral
Last September on Labor Day we got a call that Loren's brother Lence had been shot and had passed away. The circumstances around his death made it especially hard to cope with. It took us quite a while before we were able to feel secure in our daily activities. Before we went to his funeral we were very unsure of how to handle the whole situation. It was a very emotional time.
I have only been to a handful of funerals in my life. I really hate going to funerals because I lose control of my emotions. Not only do I look scary when I've been crying, I hate being unable to control my emotional reactions. Up until this point, only one other funeral had been for someone young. It was for an 8 year old boy who had suffered with illness his whole life. The rest had been for elderly people who had lived long lives. Even for the 8 year old, it was somewhat foreseeable because his illness was likely to be fatal to him at a young age. This was the first time I had been to a funeral where the death was totally unexpected and the result of another person's actions.
When we went to the funeral, it hadn't really sunk in to Loren. Later, he kind of retreated into himself and distracted himself while he dealt with his emotions. I have never seen him cry or show any strong emotional sadness. I have to admit, I felt a little uneasy because I wanted to help him, but he just needed to have time to himself to deal with everything. He has handled it very well, but he just had to do it on his own. I on the other hand was a mess. I'm sure it didn't help that I was dealing with pregnancy hormones that made all my emotions even more intense.
The whole time from finding out until the funeral I was a disaster. It really hit me hard. Even with my dad always being in jobs where he deals with so many emergencies and tragic situations, I had never had to deal with any myself. Going to the funeral changed my whole outlook. I have always known that families continue beyond this life. I thought about that a lot before the funeral but I was missing a comfort that came during the funeral. I had been praying for comfort but I think there was a reason it didn't come until then.
During the viewing I felt really awkward because I just didn't know what to say or do. We haven't been super close to Loren's brother or his wife and I wanted to say something that would comfort her but had no idea what. I knew my intentions were genuine, but I didn't want to say anything that would be anything but helpful. I usually am really good at knowing what to say, so being so unsure made me retreat from the situation a little. I also had no idea how my sister-in-law was feeling or how she was coping.
The next day at the funeral I started out still feeling unsure. Loren was pretty stoic the whole time. I wanted to comfort him but it still hadn't hit him and he didn't really want to let it hit him yet so I think he pulled away a little. While we were waiting before the funeral one of the helpers for the nursery brought Ethan to us because he had bitten someone(grr... that was one of the other challenges we were dealing with. He was really bad about biting for about two months!). I dealt with that then it was about time to go to the chapel for the service. I started getting really emotional again.
The service was amazing. So many people helped to bring the spirit and provide a setting that honored Lence and comforted those who were mourning. A man in the ward performed a song that he had written in honor of Lence. That was one of the two things that brought me the most comfort. The other was when Paige, Lence's wife, gave his life history. It wasn't until then that I realized she was handling it better than I had realized because she has such a strong testimony of eternal families. Not only that, but she had already forgiven the man who took Lence's life. That was what I was having the hardest time with. Seeing her strength and testimony bolstered mine. It allowed me to also forgive him. I had already known he had sever mental issues, but I hadn't really forgiven him. Once I was able to do that, I found the comfort I had been needing.
In the months since then, we have had to really learn that we can't predict what will happen so we need to live our lives in a way that if something does happen, we can move on without regrets. We are so grateful and inspired that Lence and his family were living like that. We want to get closer to Paige and her children. It has been kind of hard because of my pregnancy and having a newborn. Now that Jared is a little older though, I hope we can make it to visit them. We are also hoping to go through their city when we drive to my family's during the summer. It would make an extremely long trip during the winter when we can't drive through Yellowstone, but in warm weather it will work nicely. I have always really liked Paige, but I never went through the effort to get to know her better because she lived quite a ways away. She is one of those people that you just love to be around.
I have only been to a handful of funerals in my life. I really hate going to funerals because I lose control of my emotions. Not only do I look scary when I've been crying, I hate being unable to control my emotional reactions. Up until this point, only one other funeral had been for someone young. It was for an 8 year old boy who had suffered with illness his whole life. The rest had been for elderly people who had lived long lives. Even for the 8 year old, it was somewhat foreseeable because his illness was likely to be fatal to him at a young age. This was the first time I had been to a funeral where the death was totally unexpected and the result of another person's actions.
When we went to the funeral, it hadn't really sunk in to Loren. Later, he kind of retreated into himself and distracted himself while he dealt with his emotions. I have never seen him cry or show any strong emotional sadness. I have to admit, I felt a little uneasy because I wanted to help him, but he just needed to have time to himself to deal with everything. He has handled it very well, but he just had to do it on his own. I on the other hand was a mess. I'm sure it didn't help that I was dealing with pregnancy hormones that made all my emotions even more intense.
The whole time from finding out until the funeral I was a disaster. It really hit me hard. Even with my dad always being in jobs where he deals with so many emergencies and tragic situations, I had never had to deal with any myself. Going to the funeral changed my whole outlook. I have always known that families continue beyond this life. I thought about that a lot before the funeral but I was missing a comfort that came during the funeral. I had been praying for comfort but I think there was a reason it didn't come until then.
During the viewing I felt really awkward because I just didn't know what to say or do. We haven't been super close to Loren's brother or his wife and I wanted to say something that would comfort her but had no idea what. I knew my intentions were genuine, but I didn't want to say anything that would be anything but helpful. I usually am really good at knowing what to say, so being so unsure made me retreat from the situation a little. I also had no idea how my sister-in-law was feeling or how she was coping.
The next day at the funeral I started out still feeling unsure. Loren was pretty stoic the whole time. I wanted to comfort him but it still hadn't hit him and he didn't really want to let it hit him yet so I think he pulled away a little. While we were waiting before the funeral one of the helpers for the nursery brought Ethan to us because he had bitten someone(grr... that was one of the other challenges we were dealing with. He was really bad about biting for about two months!). I dealt with that then it was about time to go to the chapel for the service. I started getting really emotional again.
The service was amazing. So many people helped to bring the spirit and provide a setting that honored Lence and comforted those who were mourning. A man in the ward performed a song that he had written in honor of Lence. That was one of the two things that brought me the most comfort. The other was when Paige, Lence's wife, gave his life history. It wasn't until then that I realized she was handling it better than I had realized because she has such a strong testimony of eternal families. Not only that, but she had already forgiven the man who took Lence's life. That was what I was having the hardest time with. Seeing her strength and testimony bolstered mine. It allowed me to also forgive him. I had already known he had sever mental issues, but I hadn't really forgiven him. Once I was able to do that, I found the comfort I had been needing.
In the months since then, we have had to really learn that we can't predict what will happen so we need to live our lives in a way that if something does happen, we can move on without regrets. We are so grateful and inspired that Lence and his family were living like that. We want to get closer to Paige and her children. It has been kind of hard because of my pregnancy and having a newborn. Now that Jared is a little older though, I hope we can make it to visit them. We are also hoping to go through their city when we drive to my family's during the summer. It would make an extremely long trip during the winter when we can't drive through Yellowstone, but in warm weather it will work nicely. I have always really liked Paige, but I never went through the effort to get to know her better because she lived quite a ways away. She is one of those people that you just love to be around.
No pictures
I haven't updated in forever because I can't get pictures onto the computer from our camera. I'm going to just do text updates and hopefully add pictures when I can. A friend offered for me to use her computer to get the pictures off the camera so hopefully I can do that soon. I'm afraid if I don't get some things up soon though I'm going to be forgetting a lot!
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