I FEEL LIKE.....

TOYS ARE COMING OUT MY EARS!!!! Plain and simple we have to many toys! Anyone have any good ideas on how to keep toys organized and to a minimum? I can't take it anymore!!!! My goal is to go through them this week or next week and get a better system down. I am dreading it though because that means I have to pull all the toys out of all the kids rooms, look under all the beds, couches, etc. and pull them all into the family room, get rid of all the misc. that the kids have thought they just "have to keep" and put them in a new order. Then try and keep the kids from mixing it all up again and putting it back to where it belongs! Not a fun task! Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!

getting back to life

These pictures are from last years July 4th, since I didn't get any this year. Can you believe how bald Sarah is! and Megan looks so much more grown up now, she has lost 5 teeth since then!, Joseph I think looks the same, except lately he doesn't smile for pictures!

On our way back from our trip, Brent and his mom got sick with the flu, then tuesday afternoon I started feeling yuck again. It felt just like strip throat, again! I was just in at the doctors June 7th and it was July 1st and I had it again. I had not been to the doctor since May of 2007, I never get sick! So I went to the doc on wed. morning, so by thursday night I was feeling well enough for the big july 4th parade here in west des moines. Unfortanetely, I did not bring the camera because I wasn't up to fighting Sarah for it. We had a good time though and on July 4th we went over to a junior high, where we can usually see fireworks pretty well from a park not to far away. This year though, we couldn't hardly see them, but there was a game going on over at valley stadium next to us and they set off fireworks. They were close enough we could actually feel the big boom when they would go off. So that was exciting. Sarah kept saying "fireworks...scared" over and over. I don't think she enjoyed them as much as Megan and Joseph.

So, now that the holiday is over and I am feeling better and the kids have not come down with what I had or what Brent had, I am hoping things will settle back into a good schedule. If there is such a thing!

vaca-trip

I don't usually think of our vacations as relaxing but I don't think of our trips as to hectic. So I classified our last one as both. A vaca-trip. Here are a few pictures. I will write more about it later. Enjoy!

pictures from vaca-trip

So we are heading into "bear country" and the kids are scared. We are driving and they are searching every where to see if they can spot a bear. So after about 30-40 minutes of trying to calm their fears, I finally say "the chances of us seeing a bear is very small." In other words, we won't see a bear. We drive all through yellowstone and see about 5 buffalo, a few deer and some pretty birds. woo-hoo. We head out of yellowstone and hit tons of cars on the side of the road we think more buffalo. To our surprise, there were 3 bears! So we got out and got a closer look after we assured the kids they were going to be okay. You might have to click on it and look more closely.



This is a lot of what we saw in yellowstone. Kind of sad.



My sister had baby kittys! They were soooo cute.



My dad is a kid at heart and actually has a cotton candy machine! So this is Megan in heaven with a huge ball of cotton candy!


All the grandkids enjoying cotton candy.

pictures from vaca-trip

Having fun in the hotel room!



I love this picture. Do you think I consider myself an Iowan!?



All of us in front in front of Mt. Rushmore.
It was bright as you can see Joseph covering his eyes.




Old Faithful in Yellowstone going off.




This is all Sarah wanted to do when we pulled out the stroller, so we stopped pulling it out!

colors

I chose new colors for my blog to reflect my mood. Blazing red mad!

The need to VENT!

I need to vent! Maybe if I get some of my frustrations out in black and white, I will be able to let this go and move on.
My brother-in-law was to get married this saturday, he emailed us and gave us the info for a Holiday Inn Express for all the "wedding party" to make reservations at. So I looked it up online and made reservations, using the "special" code he gave us. This was a month ago. We get our credit card bill and the hotel has already charged us, I thought sometimes this is normal, we have been charged a fee in advance before, but this was the whole $220 bucks for 2 nights.

This last week we found out the wedding is off. No, this is a good thing. It did not sound healthy from the beginning. Anyway, I call to cancel, and they tell me they can not refund a penny!!!!!!! I am fuming still and it has been 3 days. When I went online it pulled up a list of rooms under this "special" code and I just clicked on the cheapest one. Who wouldn't??? Appearently this wasn't part of the whole "special wedding party" (so why wasn't this mentioned?) this was an advance purchase price. Are you kidding me?!?! How in their "honorable" company policy can they expect people to pay for a hotel room and as the "general manager" said "take a risk" at paying for it a full month in advance!

The wedding was called off, not our doing, but I think the least this lousy hotel can do is give us our money back. They won't even give us a credit to use towards another of their hotels! I wouldn't even care if they charged us a fee of some sort for canceling, but for heavens sake give us our money back.

Either way, we are not paying. I am disputing the charge on my card and if that doesn't work my brother-in-law is paying. We are still heading out to Idaho and Utah and I am doing everything in my power to stay away from Holiday Inn! They better watch out if I ever stay in one again. They might end up missing a few items!!!!!!!!!!!! GGRRRRR!!!!!!!