Travis is home!

He was in St. Louis for the week. He got home last night. I am very thankful for Kim and Jared going to pick him up at the airport. The weather was calling for snow and I get nervous even riding in the car with it in the mountains, so I stayed home with the kids. They didn't get back until almost midnight, so it was a good thing. Madelynn would have been really tired for school today.

Here is a picture of the girls in the souvenir he got them. (Madelynn did not want a picture as you can see.)

Here are his picture from going to see the Arch. As you might be able to tell he isn't the photographer in the family. lol. He rode up to the top of the arch. Some of these pictures make me sick just looking at. I am not one for heights.

Busy, busy,busy

Thursday I celebrated my 30th birthday! It was just a normal day for me, shuttling the kids back and forth! Funny side note, when the kids were getting the candles out they told me we couldn't put 30 on, the house would burn down. lol.
I got these beautiful roses from my mom.

My friends Kim and Candi came by for a drink on Friday.



Sunday we went to Salt Lake City. The air quality is really bad there. Check this out.

This was on the drive up.


This is near Provo.


This was the view from the balcony of the hotel in Salt Lake City at night.

Ava was being goofy "sleeping" under the desk. She wasn't really asleep.
Travis seems to have a knack for getting Aden to go to sleep. He got him to sleep the night before too. lol.

We took the kids to Cabelas to see the fish.





We stopped at IKEA this morning (and I only spent $7.01 lol), then headed home.

. . .All I want is a hula hoop

A couple videos of the kids.

Blah!

I have not been in a mood to write anything too exciting, I thought I could explain about the house.

When we moved to Utah in June 2007 we had not sold our house in Wyoming. We were having a hard time selling it because the roof was leaking. We never had the money to fix it and it was our own fault for not getting an inspection before we bought it.

Fast forward to September 2007, someone wanted to buy it, but they wanted to do a land contract. Basically what this was is that we keep our mortgage, but the house is in the buyer's name. I tried to talk Travis out of it, but he was set on doing it as he thought no one else would want to buy it. The buyer paid all of the closing costs without issue, but from the very beginning she was late. She's been a month behind for quite some time now. In October she failed to pay the taxes on the house and in November we got notice that her insurance was canceled. The final straw was this December her check for the December payment bounced, so the escrow bank canceled her payment to us. She has not made a payment since that bounced one, so basically she's living there at our expense. We went up last weekend to serve her a notice that she has 10 days to pay. She has emailed Travis a number of times saying she is going to "walk away" from the house. I forgot to add that they discovered mold in the house after they moved in, because they didn't get an inspection, just like us being stupid. She says the house is worth nothing and she can't put the money into the repairs, that the house has to be torn completely down and rebuilt. (Although she told us a number of times from March to May of 2008 that it was being worked on, cleaned up, and fixed.) Because of that she just wants to walk away from it. What she doesn't realize is that if she does this our contract states she has to pay us in full for the amount she is buying the house for. So basically we are sitting around waiting to see if she is going to make a payment. She has until the 14th. I've been trying to get an attorney in Rock Springs, but they all seem to be too busy. That's really frustrating. What really ticks me off is that we are supposed to be saving money for our trip to Disneyworld in July and we are probably going to have to take all the money we have saved so far to make January and February's mortgage payments, and who knows how many more until we can get something done about this stupid mess.

To top it off our furnace down here is making a terrible noise and the landlord can't seem to send someone to look at it. We also got an eviction notice on Saturday, because apparently the bank was late sending our rent check to them. Ugh! I hope they got it, because I don't want to deal with this crap any more!

Ok, here's a few cute pictures of the girls. Did you know they are making crimpers again? Ava loves it!

Frusterated!

I am so annoyed with the woman who bought our house. She is mental!

A piece of advice, don't ever sell your house with a land contract or second mortgage. Especially to someone with the thought process of a 3rd grader.

2008 Survey

1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before?

Went camping in a trailer. :)

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I did for about the first 6 months. I didn't make any this year.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Yes, my friend, Traci did.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Nope.

5. What countries did you visit?

just the US.

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?

more self control

7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

Easter, first time camping with our new friends in UT and had a lot of fun

July 29th - Cruefest with Kim and Jared, was a ton of fun!

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

losing 40 pounds

9. What was your biggest failure?

gaining some of it back.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

I got diagnosed with sleep apnea and acid reflux. I also got tubes in my ears.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

camper lol

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

I don't know lol.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Dugout. he he

14. Where did most of your money go?

bills I'm sure

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Mom and Aunt Lisa coming to visit, camping, Cruefest


16. What song will always remind you of 2008?

Too Drunk by Buckcherry :) Or really any Buckcherry. I am really into them right now.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

a) happier or sadder? happier
b) thinner or fatter? thinner
c) richer or poorer? richer, I think. Hopefully the house situation works out or we'll be very poor lol.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

dieting. lol.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Sitting on the computer.

20. How did you spend Christmas?

At home with Travis and the girls.

21. Did you fall in love in 2008?

no

22. What was your favorite TV program?

How I Met Your Mother

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Nope

24. What was the best book you read?

The Twilight series was good. I read A LOT, so it's hard to pick just one.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Buckcherry and Papa Roach (sorry, I can't pick one lol)

26. What did you want and get?

I read this wrong, I wanted a new computer, and I got a laptop. :)

27. What did you want and not get?

A new dryer. Something is wrong with mine and it takes about 4 hours to get one load of clothes dry. It's very time consuming to do laundry over here.

Concert tickets for January 28th lol.

28. What was your favorite film of this year?

I don't see too many movies in the theatre this year, so I don't have one.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I turned 29 on January 15th and found out my friend was in the hospital. Travis had pool that night, so I was home with the girls by myself. It was sucky. Hopefully this year is better, 10 more days!

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

If the mine didn't call Travis into work so much.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?

I wear what's comfortable.

32. What kept you sane?

Hanging out with friends.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

I don't really fancy celebrity figures.

34. What political issue stirred you the most?

I don't care about political issues.

35. Who did you miss?

My family - didn't get to see them a lot this year.

36. Who was the best new person you met?

hmmm, I think I met Kim and Jared in 2007, so they don't count.

So it would probably have to be Dean and Diane, Mike and Wendy, and Penny and Maynerd. I don't think that I met them until '08.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008.

I'm not sure if I learned it in 2008, but it seems like things never work out the way you want them to unless you put a lot of hard work into it!


38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

You think I would have one for this, since I love music, but I can't think of one that fits my year.

Quick Trip to Rock Springs

We had to run up to Rock Springs yesterday to deal with a situation at our house up there. I forgot my camera, I was so mad. There was an amazing sunset on the way there and we saw a ton of deer. I ended up going to Walmart and getting a cheap little one, I wanted to for our trip to Disneyworld anyway.

I was so nervous about driving there. I hate driving through the mountains in the winter. I was so tense the entire way there that I gave myself a headache. It didn't help that we didn't get there until after dark. We checked into the hotel, drove by the house (i wanted to see it), and then Travis dropped the girls and I off to spend some time with my friend Traci. He had to go back to the house to serve the tenant some papers. After he got back we went to dinner at Winger's and took the kids swimming. Traci and I went shopping after that. lol. I forgot how much driving in Wyoming stinks with no salt on the roads. It was like pure ice all through town there. Yuck! My car didn't want to start this morning due to the cold. It was nasty. The kids and I all agreed that we were glad we moved, since we didn't like the cold and wind of winter there!

I have some pictures, of course. :)


Madelynn took this one.

Wyoming's idea of cleaning the snow from the roads.

Flaming Gorge

Ava took these.
And Madelynn took this one.
This is near Vernal, UT.


Through Indian Canyon.