Life in the Fast Lane (Pics coming soon)

The last few weeks have been nothing but CRAZY! 

We officially moved on January 30th.  It was a CRAZY day.  Cris got the stomach flu.  Of all days to get the stomach flu, this was THE worst!  He laid around while we moved stuff into the truck.  I  am not proud to say I got a little resentful of him, slightly irritated, but tried to be understanding, it was HARD!

We didn't fit everything into the truck we rented and that made me BONKERS. Some things we left behind were a broom, dish soap, any and all cleaners, my pants and clothes for the next few days, pretty much anything that was laying around at the end before we drove out.  I was so busy so I didn't get any pictures of our last day, which is pretty disappointing!

Some ups of leaving the above mentioned things were I got a new pair of jeans because mine were packed away in some box, not to be found for a couple of days.  I INSISTED we get me some new pants before people from the new ward helped us move in!

Cayten has started at his new school and he LOVES it.  It seems to be a much more advanced school so he has a bit of catching up to do, but I am not worried at all.  He has already met many friends, some of which are in our ward as we found out yesterday and he was thrilled!

Rysa was probably the least affected by this move.  She didn't really care and hasn't cared still.  We moved in and there were purple curtains in her bedroom left behind and she has been in heaven ever since.  There is also a little castle playhouse built into the basement and they LOVE that! It has almost been a heaven sent while Carsyn is napping, they go play.

I have missed my friends dearly, but came to realize quickly that home is where my family is.  I thought it would take a long time for this house to feel like home and quickly realized that home is where Cris is.  Although the area of Cache Valley still feels like home, I am with Cris and so much stress has been lifted off my shoulders.  I can be me again, a fun mom that wants to do things with her kids, not shut down and sit on the computer all day to forget about her life!

Carsyn was pretty good with the move of course.  It actually took him about a week to get use to it here which is WEIRD! Every time we entered his bedroom to put him down for a nap he would cry and not want to go in the room which is not like him.  He is back to himself now.

I am sure Cris likes it here.  His commute is only about 15 minutes top, even with traffic so it has been nice having him home nearly at 5 every night.  As our house gets more unpacked, it will be nice to settle back into a routine of FHE, nightly scripture study, basketball games, mom nights, girl nights, etc.  I am really excited to be here in this new chapter of my life.  PICS will be coming soon, when my house looks somewhat presentable!

Moving

We are moving on Monday to Spanish Fork!!!  So excited to be done with this "single mom" part of life and be back as an entire family!  I am going to miss many friends here in Cache Valley and I hope I can find just as good of friends there.  Here's to a new chapter in our life.  When I get a minute to breathe, I will post pics!

Welcoming 2012

2011 brought many changes, a new baby, a new job, a time without my husband, a new vehicle, a sold house, and 2012 will NOT leave us disappointed.  We should be moving around January 25th to Spanish Fork.  This entire time we had planned on building a home.  We found a builder, found a plan, picked the design, but it just didn't feel right.  We decided to go down to Utah County and look at some homes and found a few that really would work for us.  We ended up choosing a home that had 6 Bedrooms, a finished basement, a beautiful yard with established fruit trees that I probably wont kill.  The only thing I don't like are the kitchen countertops and cabinets so look forward to seeing a kitchen re-do sometime in 2012!

At first I was a little reluctant to let go of my pride and vain-ness of not having everything new, but I couldn't sleep, I tossed and turned, knowing that this was the home we were suppose to choose.  Now I am getting SO excited to embark on this adventure instead of feeling tremendous amounts of pressure.  Life is GOOD!

We had a WONDERFUL holiday.  My grandma made me the most BEAUTIFUL quilt I have ever seen.  I got to pick out the design and fabric and it turned out more beautiful than I could have EVER imagined!

My sister's little boy came to play one night in December.  They were all watching a movie and we found Gunner holding Cayten and Rysa's hand! 

My cute boy on Christmas morning.  He went to bed before we opened the pj's on Christmas eve so I hurried and threw in in to his pj's so I could get some cute pics!

All in all we had a GREAT Christmas and time with the family.  We were able to visit almost everyone in our family and sad for the ones we missed.  I am looking forward for 2011 to be over and rush into 2012!  Is it bad that I am old and probably will not stay up until 12.  I had a friend say "tell your kids new years is at 8, they don't know the difference"!!! I think I may do that this year.

Life in the FAST lane . . .

I wish I were a more eloquent speaker/writer.  I read other blogs that go on about their lives and they are funny and insightful, and a pleasure to read.  I feel that my blog is just throw-up on paper . . . so here is my blah!
WOW, Life is crazy right now!  Cris is living in Provo and has since October 10th.  OH MY what a change in lifestyle.  It is crazy how dependent I am on my spouse, I didn't realize it until he was gone of course.  Life is very stressful as a somewhat single mom.  Cris leaves on Sunday night and comes home later on Friday night.  It makes for a VERY long week. I unfortunately become a very stressed out maniac.  My kids are neglected a bit as I get into my zone of survival.

It was a long 6-8 weeks but our house FINALLY sold!  We were even able to get more than our asking price, which was a huge relief and answer to many prayers. The only downside is the loan doesn't close until January 17th or it could be a week longer.  Life in the fast lane is beginning now however!  This weekend we are going down to Provo/Lehi to celebrate Cayten's 6th b-day at Trafalga, Next weekend we are going to Temple Square and Mo-Tab Christmas Concert, the next weekend is Christmas, then New years, then my anniversary.  The only way I will have a break on a weekend is if closing gets delayed by a week and I am truly hoping it does NOT!

We have decided to build a house in Spanish Fork.  I am so EXCITED and nervous and scared all at the same time!  Unfortunately we wont be able to start the building process until this house in Nibley sells.  We wont be breaking ground til the beginning to mid February which means we wont be in our new home until mid April or so.

http://www.utahrealestate.com/report/public.single.report/report/detailed/listno/943763/scroll_to/943763

 http://homesite.obeo.com/viewer/default.aspx?tourid=603506&refURL=http://admin.obeo.com/edit_tour.cfm?fn=1&HouseID=603506&locale=en-US

Cayten is LOVING school.  He is an excellent reader, stupendous in math, and loves having friends.  He is turning 6 next Monday and I can't wait to post about all his birthday festivities.

Clarysa is wonderful.  I love her spunk most days.  She sure knows how to take me for a ride but I wouldn't give her up for the world.  She misses her daddy and prays constantly for us to be together soon.  One of her spunky days she said "I am never being nice again until daddy is home forever" and even as I type that I can hear her saying it over and over and over again.

Carsyn is such a big boy.  He is already scootin around and can get nearly everywhere he wants to be, it just takes a while.  He is already 20lbs and 27 inches tall.  He is the size of a 1 year old at age 6 months!  My kids are always chunky but don't usually reach 20lbs until 9 months or so.  He is a happy baby and we love every minute with him.  He sleeps through the night pretty consistantly and loves eating food and laughing and smiling.

***A little disclaimer of my last post, nothing against Cris's previous place of employment, they were great to us for many years, but it was never a career and could never pay the potential Cris amounted too.  A little bird got back to me saying they were offended that I was posting on my blog what a horrible employer they were but that is not the case.  It was wonderful while it lasted, however, all things must come to an end and all things have their time and purpose.  I enjoyed the friendships made while he worked there and have no ill feelings towards those still there, it was just time for us to move on, so I apologize if things were taken out of context in my blog***

The Lord's Timing

The past few months have been hard in the blogging world.  I couldn't post what was really going on in my world, in my life, in my mind, and in my heart because no one could really know Cris was looking for a new job.  We have had numerous job interviews over the last 9 months and yet nothing worked out.  There was much fasting, prayer, and blessings and still nothing.  We decided to take a leap of faith and put our house up on the market in the beginning of August with hopes of it selling while Cris looked for another job so I wouldn't be stuck here when it happened.

During all of this, I was getting frustrated with the Lord.  We were doing all we could (scripture study, prayer, FHE, fasting, temple attendance (although we could have done better on this one), church attendance, magnifying our callings, etc.) and yet the Lord didn't see fit to bless me with what I thought we needed most.  There were times I felt he wasn't hearing my prayers and I became a little resentful of him and his timing.  Don't get me wrong, I know the Lord loves me and I know he has a plan for me, but sometimes it is a little frustrating when it doesn't go the way we want it to.  Last weekend was General Conference and a lot of the talks I was able to listen to were about prayer, the Lord's will, and not feeling forgotten.  I felt the Prophets were talking to me.  I finally had a peace come into my heart that everything would be ok, even if we stayed in Nibley for a while and Cris didn't find a new job.  It felt good to find that peace.  I started planning my next few months of living here by getting photo sessions lined up, thinking about new sessions of my workout group, and many other things . . . fast forward to the next day (Monday)!

On Monday (10/5) Cris got a call from a company in Provo he interviewed for over a month ago.  We thought he didn't get the job.  It had been over a month, they needed someone immediately, and they didn't respond to our follow up emails.  We figured, eh, oh well, who wants to live in Provo anyway (HAHAHA). He's always gotten emails about jobs saying they've chosen someone else never a phone call to tell us that so we kind of figured there would be an offer on the table and there was, one that nearly doubled our current income.  Of course there was no doubt in my mind that we would take the job.  There were little promptings of the Spirit the rest of that day telling me that Cris would accept the position, but he wasn't so sure.

On Tuesday (10/6) Cris went to work, not knowing for sure what he was going to do.  He had been asking for a raise for a while and it looked like they were going to give it to him (nowhere near the amount of this offer but a substantial raise), he was also looking into a training program that supposedly would place you in a job after 9 months (if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is).  All of these things weighed on him heavily.  He went to a meeting about the training program and found out it wasn't what we thought it was, and when he got to work he had an email from his boss.  It pretty much said you have 3 options . . .1) accept this salary and our terms (which was no where near what you would want to raise a family of 5 and still no benefits), 2) you can terminate your employment without any further notice, or 3) work with us for the next 2 months while we find your replacement and then you will be terminated.  Cris emailed me a small line that said "interesting timing don't you think".  I don't think the timing was interesting at all.  I think the Lord's timing finally worked out, was finally where it needed to be for everything to fall into place.

Needless to say, we took option 2.  Cris had planned on finishing the week out, but made Tuesday his last day.  I was able to have him to myself all week and we got a lot done on cleaning our house and getting it ready to sell.   Cris starts his job today.  He will be staying in Provo somewhere (right now in a hotel, who knows where after this week) during the week and come home Friday through Sunday.  There was a lot of crying involved last night before he left.  Funny to say but in almost 7 years of marriage, I have never been away from him for more than a couple days and it was me always leaving him for something, he never leaves me.

It's funny.  I was laying in bed thinking and praying at the same time.  I thought to myself, I begged and pleaded for Heavenly Father to give us a job.  Help us know where to go, etc. and he finally does and all I do is ask for more.  Do you think he gets tired of us not being happy with what we get.  We got the job now I want our house to sell (so much so that we dropped it by $10,000 so if you know anyone looking for a house, spread the word) ASAP!  I don't think He gets tired, but I think I would.  I guess that's why He's God and I'm Callie!  I have a new found testimony of the Lord's timing in all things and His Hand in our lives.  I know that I am scared for this new road, scared to move so far from family (even though it's pretty much the same distance from where we are now, it seems FAR), SCARED to be a single mom until our house sells, scared for a lot of things in my future, but I do not FEAR it, I am nervous more than scared, and excited to be going down a new path.  I know that Heavenly Father is still listening to my pleadings and always will be.  Even if my house doesn't sell tomorrow, it will when Cris and I have learned what we need to learn by being apart and then we will be together again!

OH YEAH . . .it's 4:30 AM, my first night alone Carsyn woke up at 12:30, 1:30, 2:30, and 4:00 and Cayten and Rysa woke up around 3:00 . . . needless to say I think they can feel the change in the air and I didn't get much sleep!  Here's to a good first day alone!

Weightloss journey

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3 Months!

        My baby turned 3 months old today. It really surprises me that time has gone by so quickly. I don't know if we will have any more kids and so it is a shock to me and I don't want it to go by. He is such a good baby. He constantly sleeps from 8-4:30 and then 4:30- 8:00 again (most nights, not all). He loves to talk to us in baby coos and giggle and smile.

        Today Cris took the older 2 kids to scouts with him and it was the ONLY time I had to fit in my 30-day shred. Carsyn should have been sleeping but he wouldn't. I was worried I wouldn't get the shred in before Zumba and then I wouldn't do it. I said a silent prayer that although Carsyn wouldn't sleep that he would be content for my 30 minute workout! It was GREAT. He cooed and cawed and his toys for 20 minutes then the last 10 minutes I put him on his tummy and he stared at the colors of the mat he was on or sucked his thumb. My Heavenly Father heard my simple prayer. It may seem so silly to pray for something like that but that is what this journey will be, constant times when I don't think things are possible, turning to Heavenly Father to make them possible, and he will!