Waiting

We're still waiting and it feels like waiting and waiting for Ray to get a job.  

I wasn't going to write about this because I am one who usually likes to write about the trial after it is done and I have learned from it and now know it is a blessing. But we have had so many blessings from this trial and although some days it seems hard, I just have to think a few minutes and know that I have been blessed & I shouldn't complain.  I see others' problems and I'm grateful for my own.  We have a happy family life.  We have our health.  We have the gospel in ou life.  We have very good friends.  We have food on the table and a roof over our heads.  And so many other things that we may not realize we have.

I know you're probably wondering what this picture has to do with our unemployment woes.  This was taken at one of our fun church youth activities.  A few leaders dressed up so you wouldn't recognize them as easily and hid in the store (Fred Meyer).  The youth had to go around and find them & have them sign a piece of paper saying that they found them.  A Where's Waldo? game.  It was a lot of fun, we had some great disguises.  This was in March of 2012.

The next day, I was at Walmart shopping & I got a terrible phone call from Ray saying that he was being laid off. This was extremely difficult for us.  Ray had been working there for 16 years, most of our marriage & we didn't really know what we were going to do & what other jobs even looked like.  

Luckily he had been going to college online & was close to finishing his degree (mid -August).  The Capitol (where he worked) was good to him and gave him time to look.  They didn't really give him a end date.

He found a new job at Orange Commercial and started June 1st.  It was hard for him to get used to.  He left behind a lot of close co-workers.  We also had taken a $500 pay cut. We still felt blessed.  The hours were great, he worked M-F, 7-4:30.  After a while, the job wasn't really what we thought it would be.  After working their for 9 months, he was let go. We found out the day before my birthday.

This was really hard.  We had no idea what to expect and what to do.

Ray is really good about being on the ball and calling and finding out the best options for any given situation.  We are blessed by having his unemployment count on his previous state job salary so it is not much less than his Orange Commercial job. 

 We have had so many blessing, & I won't share them all, but I know that we are loved! Heavenly Father loves us and we have wonderful people surrounding us!  I know when you pay your tithing things work out.  I can't tell you how many times I have added things on paper and been so stressed about how it was going to work out, but it does.  I try not to write it on paper much anymore because it really stresses me out.  I have also felt so many prayers on our behalf.  It is interesting when people say things like, "I will pray for you or you've been in my prayers", I feel it.  I don't know how to describe it.. except saying that I feel love and I can physically feel the prayers of loved ones for us.  It is a wonderful feeling!

We have had a few good leads lately and we feel like Ray will be getting a job soon! We are hopeful and trying to remain positive. I know sometimes our ideas don't match what the Lord wants for us.  I'm learning that his are usually better or we couldn't even imagine anyways.

So keep the prayers coming our way & I'm sure soon I will have a mass message to send out about our happy news!

The talk "I hope you know we had a hard time" by Elder Quinten L. Cook has really touched me.  Here is the video of  it, they made it into a short mormon message.

A few new things on the frugal side.

Ray decided to build a picnic table!  We have had lots of spare wood in storage, so he decided to put it to good use.  I'm so proud of him! He's becoming quite handy! 

I remember when we first got married he didn't know how to do much.  In his house growing up, you called someone to come do something.  In my house growing up, it was the opposite.  I didn't even know that you could call people to come do things for you.

He got the directions from the Internet.  (What did we do before the Internet...?!?!) It was fun watching him measure more than twice, cut the wood, and place it all together.  He even carried over some wood to our neighbors house in the wagon to use his miter saw.

 I love our back yard! Especially in the summer time.  We set up our canopy and have the swing (that we got for free on craigslist a couple of years ago)  We got a new couch, so we brought out our "old" couch to make more room to sit and lounge. Now I think we need a party with all of our seating capacity! The couch will go downstairs when/before it starts to rain.

 Here is our new couch.  $5 at a garage sale!!! I've been wanting a different couch.  I was tired of chaise lounge part of the old couch.  When we first got it, it seemed cool, but then it wasn't really being sat on much and it was big and bulky in the living room.  Also the couch cushions come off easily and get misshapen easily.
So we were out in between activities looking at a few garage sales.  (BTW, Ray & I love garage sales!) There was 3 on one street, which is a bonus.  I saw this couch and it had a sticker for $10 on it.  We sat on it & I kept saying to Ray, I think we should get, really, I think we should!!  He wasn't to sold on it.  The owner of the garage sale said, $5 and 25 cents for every 15 minutes you sit on it!  We got up and walked to the other 2 garage sales.  The whole time I am saying to Ray, I think we should buy it, I think we should buy it! I was thinking for $5, even if it doesn't work out, we could re-sell it on craigslist.  So obviously, I talked him into it. :)  And we love it... At least for now.

Our first 2 apartments in PA

We have now lived in our home for 8 years.  It's kind of sad that we have been married almost 21 years and this is the longest we have lived in one place.  Before this house, we moved around a lot.  Although we lived mostly in the same area, we lived in a lot of different areas. I was going to blog all the different places we lived, but I think I will just start with our 2 apartments in PA.

Our first little apartment was so cute!  It was tiny! Our bedroom didn't have a closet, it was in the living room.  We could only fit one of those little 2 people round tables in the dining room.  BUT we did have a very cute porch with a swing out in front.  You can't see the swing, it was on the far right. It was an old house that was converted into 4 apartments.  We didn't live there very long because it wasn't very convenient to our jobs.  Can you believe that we only paid $290 a month!!  Ours was the bottom floor on the right.  This was in Mechanicsburg, PA.  I babysat my nephew Jesse in this apartment, we only lived a couple of streets over from Ray's sister. Jesse & I did a lot of swinging in that swing and singing preschool songs.

We then moved to New Cumberland, PA and lived in our large 1 bedroom apt for almost a year.  I think this apartment was only $345 or something like that, but that was A LOT more than our first place! It was nice, considering the time in our lives.  It had a huge closet in the bedroom, huge living room, it fit 2 full size couches, and a chair.  We had a big picture window that looked out over the to river.  

One of the bad things about the apartment was it very steep (bright green) stairs!! We lived on the top floor.  The other bad thing was that there was no laundry there, we had to go to the laundry mat! Yuk!! (There was a really great pizzeria right next to the laundry mat that had wonderful east coast Stromboli that I loved!) 

There was an old "white" house that was next to our apartment building. They tore it down & now it is a Rite Aid.  Sometimes we parked at that house and brought our laundry or groceries up the stairs.  That eliminated one set of stairs.  When we lived at this apartment, there was a major heat wave in the summer, major snow storm, and then when it melted, there was a flood!  The bridge that we crossed over every day was closed. If we wanted to go anywhere we had to travel a long ways to around it.

Our apartment was in the white section, the top window on the farthest right. It was off of a main road and the parking lot was by the tree in the first picture. Where the cement fence is, is where we would climb up and go to our apartment.  They didn't have the other fence on top of it.  It seems like there was an easier place to get into our apartment from there.  I got these pictures from Google.  Back then we didn't take very many pictures!

One funny little story about this apartment that wasn't very funny then...

It had snowed recently and was melting.  It was slushy outside.  Sometimes we would go start our car, leave it running to warm up and lock it, and use the other set of keys to unlock it.  Well, that is what we did, BUT my keys were locked in the glove box!  I had to walk to work while Ray waited for the locksmith to come unlock our running car.  

We didn't live very far from my work.  That is one of the reasons why we got this apartment.  But as I said it was slushy outside.  I got sprayed with slushy snow mess on the way to work.  I was NOT in a very good mood when I got there!  

I worked in a daycare.  When I got there, there wasn't enough teachers and I was over in my allowed # of children.  My boss then came in and I yelled at him. Whoops!!  At lunch time, he called me into the office.  Before he could say anything, I told him I was sorry for yelling at him and explained that I had a "rough" morning.  Luckily he didn't say much and said  something to the likes of OK, you can go back to your lunch.  

Mariner's Game(s)

Our family loves to go to Mariner's Games.  We don't go that often and wish we could go more!
We have some fun memories from Mariner's games.

When I was in middle school the Mariners were doing really badly!  They would give a set of 2 tickets if you got good grades.  I got 3 sets of them.  I think we went 2 times.  (I can't really remember)  I know my mom wasn't too happy with me because I fell asleep during the game... Our last set of tickets we didn't go and we couldn't even give them away!

Ray & I got to go last year, someone from work gave us some amazing tickets.  You could see everything without being on the monitor.  Even I was glued to the game. (I like to people watch sometimes more than the game..)

This is the pictures from last time we went as a family.  It was sunny that day & Keagan was tired! (And I didn't get upset with him that he fell asleep.:)  We got to see one of our favorites.. Ken Griffey Jr. I think this was the last year he played. Melissa even had on her pink Mariner's jacket.

Melissa has been raised to love the Mariners and baseball.  She makes her dad proud and really does love it!!  Ray & Melissa are comparing stats and players quite often.  I like baseball.  But I guess I am a fair-weathered fan.  I would also like it if it were only once a week or so.. not every day from March to September or October is you're lucky!

We took Melissa on a special mommy & daddy date when she was little and left Keagan with a babysitter.  I love how you can see her sitting on the edge in her flowered jacket watching the game, even when she was little.

 When Aunt Laura and Uncle John came we went to a Mariner's game with her.  She almost looks like a boy dressed in her Mariner's gear!

We even took her to a game when she was very little, 5 months I think.  This game was in the kingdome.  My sister, Cindy, was nice enough to leave early with me because it scared me to death and I had nightmares about it for the next few days.  Ray & I got cheap tickets in the 300 level and happened to get the first row.  Melissa was at a stage where she moved around a lot.  I could just see her wiggling free and falling down, the long long way down to the field.  It really freaked me out!!  My mom, Cindy, and Adam had good seats.  Cindy didn't really care too much about baseball, so she gave Ray her seat and came home early with me.

For Father's Day this year (2013) Melissa had just gotten her first paycheck and wanted to get Ray something special.  She found Mariner tickets for a pretty good deal and it was LDS night.  We would get free t-shirts with our tickets!  She bought them and was prob. more excited than Ray to give them to him.  She said that she would buy them for all of us and call it a Mother's day/Father's Day gift.  And then Keagan paid for our parking!  What a nice gift!  We had such a wonderful time.  We sat in the 300 level & they lost, but it didn't matter!  Luckily at Safeco field, there really isn't a bad seat and it isn't scary sitting way up high like it was in the kingdome! It was fun to see all the LDS people there and a few we knew.

 Before the game started.. The Stringfellows were sitting a few rows in front of us.

Kimmie, Melissa, & Katie with their free LDS Mariner shirts.

 One of Melissa's favorite (current) players is Felix.

Troubles sleeping

Luckily, I fall asleep pretty easily.  But most nights (mornings) I wake up between 2 and 4 a.m. to have to go to the bathroom.  A few times a week  I have trouble going back to sleep.  When this happens, I'm usually awake for a couple of hours.  I lay there tossing and turning, squeezing my eyes shut tight and trying to go back to sleep.  I think of all the things I need to do the next day and whatever problems I am having.  Sometimes I keep my ipod handy and write myself notes or emails, so hopefully I can get to sleep faster.

 I usually give myself an hour to try to get to sleep myself because most nights I can, but when I can't, I find my headphones & ipod and listen to a story, General Conference talks or Stories from General Conference.  There are lots of good choices!

As I was pondering this the other night in one of my sleepless states, I had this thought.. I think sometimes we laugh as we say things like,  reading scriptures & General Conference talks puts us to sleep.. but then I thought, maybe it is a good thing that they put me to sleep, because when I listen to those things they bring me peace and put my mind to rest.. no wonder they can help put me to sleep!  I like the idea that reading/listening to scriptures & General conference calms me down and helps me relax.. even enough to fall asleep when I am having troubles falling asleep.  Another blessing of reading/listening!  :)  (For the record, I usually hear at least one conference talk all the way through and then the 2nd one, I can't stay awake)

Here is a link to one of my favorite things to listen to. Mormon channel (I have the app. on my ipod)  Also another one of my favorite things to listen to is another app on my ipod -podcasts -Stories from General Conference, History of the Hymns, and Conversations.  Stories from General Conference you can get on the Mormon Channel, too. It is one of my favorites!!

First "real" day of Summer Break

We weren't even planning on doing anything.. but it was suppose to be sunny and the rest of the week rainy so we decided to skip chores (they can be done on a rainy day!) and go to one of our favorite beaches.  We love going to Owen beach in Tacoma.  It is the beach by Pt. Defiance.  It is so beautiful & peaceful.  We let the kids rent kayaks.  They had a great time.  They said they saw a lot of jellyfish. The ferry going by is the going to Vashon Island.

The only "downer" of the trip was seeing a woman who had taken her shirt off, going around the beach in her bra... REALLY?!!  It wasn't even that hot.. 75ish.  I guess hot for WA!

I hope we can go back a few more times this summer!

A trip to General Conference

Ray's Aunt Darlene from PA is serving a mission In Salt Lake City.  She works in the Joseph Smith Building.  She offered to pay for our gas to come see her for General Conference, so we jumped at the opportunity! We have never been to conference before and have always wanted to go.  We got 5 tickets for us all to go to Sunday afternoon session.  The kids weren't sad at all that it meant missing an extra day of school. (When we left it was still spring break).

We left Thursday and drove and stayed with our good friends The Reddings who live in Meridian Idaho.  They are so good to us to come let us stay with them when we travel.  We love them and are glad they are our lifelong friends! Unfortunately we didn't get a picture of them this time.. next time.  It was fun as always to visit with them.  We even got to celebrate 2 birthdays with them.. Kims and Mackenzies!

Friday we went to stay with our good friends The Herbert family. (We sure are blessed to have lots of good friends!)  We have known them for many years.  Ray & Cathy grew up in the same stake together, so they share a lot of fun stories about youth activities growing up.  Ray met Shaun soon after he came home from his mission.  I met Shaun soon after I met Ray. We were all in the same ward at Ricks college.  Shaun was a witness at our wedding at the WA DC temple.  Cathy was there, too. And we were at their sealing several months later.  Below is a picture of their family now.

Cathy, Seth, Jessica, Aaron, Shaun, & Sarah Herbert

A funny thing happened while we were there, when we came out to our car the 1st morning, someone had egged it!

We had never been to conference before.  Even though it made for crazy traffic, it was fun to see the crowds of people coming and going to the conference center.

 We watched the morning sessions with the Herberts and Sat. afternoon at Aunt Darlene's apartment.  She is across the street from the conference center.  It is really fun to be in walking distance! It was a little tricky finding a parking spot...

 I love that they are snuggled up together to watch conference!

 Waiting seemed to be the name of the game... This is outside Darlene's apartment.

 We wandered around Temple square area for a couple of hours.  We went in the Church History Museum. It was pretty cool.  We didn't get to see all of it because it was closing soon.  Here is a replica of the podium at the conference center.

 It was suppose to rain all weekend.  Someone told us that in Salt Lake it was raining. Near the conference center, it didn't rain at all.  It was a little gray at times, but mostly sunny.

 The statue of the restored priesthood.

 The trees are just starting to blossom.  Aunt Darlene told us that the workers have been busy planting flowers for conference.  It was beautiful!

 Here is Aunt Darlene.  Behind her is the Joseph Smith building where she serves.  Her office is the 3rd row up, over on the right.

We went into Deseret Book.  It was crazy!  There was someone singing in there and Michael McLean was there!  We heard that we just missed Marie Osmond.  It was a little too busy for us, the kids didn't like it much in there, being that busy.  They were showing me they are not amused faces.  (They have these faces down good!)

 I told them that they had these faces down good & that maybe that would next year's Christmas card picture, this is what followed.  :)

 This is the lobby outside Aunt Darlene's office (cubicle).  The work area was locked.

 The temple is soo beautiful!

 Sunday afternoon session of General Conference!  I didn't take my camera because I thought I read somewhere that they weren't allowed, so luckily I had my ipod to take some pictures.

 It was an amazing experience!  I love how quiet it got when the prophet walked in and we all stood!  I love our prophet President Monson!  We had really good seats.  We were in the middle section, Terrace 6.  We got there early enough to sit in the 3rd row.  The only problem was that we right in the middle so I didn't know which big screen to look at.  Darlene brought her binoculars.  It was fun to watch the apostles walk in and greet each other.  You can tell how much they love each other!

We were so tired of driving!  9 hours to Boise, 5 hours to Salt Lake City and then back again.  Poor Ray wasn't feeling well most of the trip, so he didn't drive much.  Thank goodness for a 3rd driver.  Melissa drove quite a bit.  When I got my ipod out, up above is some of what I got.