Pardon my French...but this Sucks!

Soooooo....
we should be at the title company signing and then going to our house...
Well, the loan co. waited until the last minute to get some pertinent info from us and now we don't know when we get to close. The other really crappy thing is the seller was supposed to refinish the hardwood floors, when we got to the walk through last night...we found out she didn't! She wrote us a check and we're going to do it. That would've been fine since we thought we were closing today. We have to be out of our place by the 25th! We would've had thurs, fri, sat, mon and tues to: paint every room in the house, refinish the floors, put in new carpet, reface the cabinets and replace the kitchen floors. Well, now we have 1/2 of Monday and tues. if we're lucky. I have to do ALL of this ALL BY MYSELF now in 1 1/2 days!!!!!!!!! Joe has to work those days. His dad took this week off and was going to help us. I am so completely frustrated right now! I still have to pack our entire apt., clean, oh yeah did I mention take care of a baby?! OF course the day that I really need to pack and clean...Bella refuses to take a nap! I'm taking dinner to a family in our ward who's wife just passed away and then I have 2 students from 5-6:30! I need a clone! I appreciate how hard Joe works and how well he's doing in school. Sometimes I wish he had a different job and no school! I feel like a single parent/homebuyer whatever you want to call it. I feel bad asking him to help because he's so tired all the time.

Well, anyway, I feel somewhat better...no not really...oh well!

Camping!!!!

We went camping over Memorial day weekend with Zac and Courtney. It was such a blast. Zac and Courtney are awesome! I am a total ditz and completely spaced the fact that we needed to reserve a spot to go camping...well day of they drove up and down the coast tryingt o find a place. If it hadn't been for martyred deer Zac saw it would've ended up being a really crappy day...but, they saw said martyred deer and found a camp spot! We went to the Kilchis River state park. It was actually a pretty nice place. It was a pretty laid back weekend. We ate hot dogs, made some s'mores. Drove all the way to Cannon Beach for some yummy Moe's. I had a ginormous piece of chicken fried steak and it was so good! They had some of the best coleslaw I've ever had! After Moe's we decided we didn't want to go to the beach so, we went back and watched as Joe and Zac plunged into a freezing cold river and screamed like girls! It was too funny! After some chili and chips and getting our trashed kicked at berserker halflings we called it a night. We had to put Bella to sleep in the car because it was too light and too noisy. She did great! She was such a cutie! Sunday we went to Cape Meares lighthouse and got to see the Peregrin falcon perched on the cliff. We hiked to the octopus tree and got bombed with pine cones and I ran into a tree stump and scraped myself up! Where was my Edward when I needed him!?
Monday we went to the cheese factory and then drove to Rockaway. Bella was so stinkin' cute at the beach. She absolutely loved it! She was kicking and splashing and squealing!
All in all it was a great little vacation from our super busy lives!
We close on our house June 18th. I am so stoked! We're remodeling the kitchen. It's going to look awesome! We fouind really nice stone floor tiles at Lowes and I'm re-painting the cabinets white. The walls will be really light yellow. I'm building an island and the cabinets are going to be robin's egg blue.
My Scentsy launch party is tomorrow night. I'm pretty stoked! I hope it goes well! See you all there!

My cute little beach bunny!



See Zac and Courtney at the beach.....

see Zac and Courtney getting splashed by freezing cold water at the beach!

She just loved playing in the water!

Octopus tree!

Isn't she cute as pie!

A much needed break!

look at her matching swimsuit and sandals!!!

Life has been so crazy lately. We're busy with the home-buying process. We just had the inspection and it came back really good. There are just a few minor repairs that need to be made. They're mostly cosmetic. If all goes well we'll be closing the 17th of June. I'm super busy trying to coordinate paint and perusing craigslist for misc. parts.

Bella goes to Doernbecher's tomorrow for a VCUG scan of her kidneys. They want to see how her kidneys have improved/not improved since her surgery in Jan. This will give us a good idea of when to do the next surgery. I'm not looking forward to it all. I absolutely HATE watching her go through all of this. They might have to sedate her during the scan. If that's the case we'll need to stay the night. :( Other than that she's doing so good! She hasn't had a kidney infection since the end of Feb. She's still on constant antibiotics. She has started rolling all over the place! I'm a little nervous because the new house is all hardwood flooring. What can I say she's just about the happiest baby I've ever seen!

This weekend was stake conference and it was wonderful. I really needed the spiritual boost.
I have come to cherish my Sundays. It's the one day I get to fully devote my day to the gospel. I actually relish in the fact that there isn't a tv going and that I don't need to go run errands or do household chores. Sometimes I get an itch (on the nice, sunny days) to go hiking or sit at a sidewalk cafe. Just because it's the only full day that Joe and I get to spend together. I've come to realize that spending this day how it should be spent has and will continue to strengthen our marriage more than any date out on the town will. I'm trying so hard to use my time during the week to clean, make lesson plans etc...it's been a losing battle lately but I'm trying. We're going camping this weekend and even though we'll be gone on Sunday we're going to try our best to keep the sabbath day holy. We're going to go to church in Tillamook. I plan on just relaxing and reading my scriptures. We'll have to make sure that nothing needs to be bought that day and keep our activities appropriate to the sabbath. Oh man I sound like such a molly mormon! Isn't that what we're all striving to be anyways??? :) Whenever I find myself slipping as far as sabbath day observance I always remember Mosiah 2:41.
"And moreover, I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God..."
Stake conference summed this all up for me. Especially President Nord's talk. It was so good and so uplifting!

Well, I don't know where that dissertation came from...I feel like I need to close with my testimony and in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Anyways, I don't know what else to say...so...I'll just put up some pictures of Bella!

Reading with her daddy

I LOVE this picture!!!

first things first...don't pay any attention to my face!
Okay...Bella and her cousind Zoe. My sisiter came over friday and they had on matching outfits. Totally unplanned!

this one is my FAVROITE!!!!!!!!!

We Bought a House!!!!

We are officially homeowners! Our offer was accepted yesterday. We can close on June 19th. We're moving in the last weekend in June after we get all the painting done. We are pretty dang stoked! The house is right off of 205 next to Legacy Salmon Creek hospital. It's a cute little starter home. We are going to completely repaint everything!!!!!! I found this really awesome textured wallpaper it's white with a fleur-de-lis pattern. I'm going to put it on the focus wall in the living room and paint a really icy blue over it. The other walls are going to be beige. We're going to remodel the kitchen. We're going to knock out a wall to open everything up and build a freestanding island. (btw does anyone know how to do this????? desperate!) I'm going to either put mosaic tiles or punched tin tiles on the kitchen walls and paint the caninets white. The family room is going to be red, black and beige. We're going to paint one wall red (the small one) and the other walls dark beige. All of the furniture that will go out there is black and white. It has a ginormous backyard! It has a covered patio. Lots of BBQ's this summer! We were hoping they were going to leave their trampoline. :( They already have a garden going that they're leaving. Hooray for me!!!! We'll be in the Salmon Creek ward. We're pretty sad to leave our ward because there are so many awesome people in it! I still plan on going to playgroup every wednesday. It'll be weird living on the west side of town. We like to consider ourselves "Upper-Eastsiders" :) just minus the filthy-richness. I don't even know where the grocery store is!
Here's the link so you guys can check it out:
http://www.rmlsweb.com/v2/public/report.asp?type=CR&CRPT2=BgUFB2ddDnZdVVRbQlBTWQzDzDizCMKmfadaruFV3Nm1WDTpgzDzDdgh

It's the last one on the listing.

lots going on

We have been super busy as of late! We made a split decision and decided to buy a house. We weighed out all the pros and cons and realized we could be buying a house for the same amount we're paying in rent! We've found the world of real estate is not all rose colered windows! All the houses we've found that are in our price range either need A LOT of work or they're in a really crappy neighborhood. We're leaning more towards a townhouse we found a couple that we really like. They don't feel claustrophobic and have a decent sized back-yard. We figure if we go the townhouse route we know they're brand new (built last year) they have all the appliances (once again brand new) and we'd be able to keep them as rentals easily. So monday we're going back to one we liked near Walnut Grove and if we still like it we'll make an offer. We're sad to move out of the ward because there are so many awesome people.

Next up...I just became a SCENTSY consultant. I'm pretty excited about it. I love meeting new people hanging out and playing hostess/party planner. I'm having my launch party

Friday May 29th @ 7pm. All are invited!!!! In other words...Please come!!!!!

You can check out my website www.scentsy.com/lindseyforscentsy.

I quit my job at Beacock's. I am sad because I have some really awesome students! I just didn't enjoy it. I want to be able to devote all my time to being "mommy". I'm teaching from home which I LOVE. I can do what I want, when I want and I have so much more flexibility. I can wear jeans!!! Bella turned six months old on friday! It's absolute craziness. She is becoming very active. She's rolling all over the place and she even has two teeth. She's just about the cutest thing ever!

Yesterday we went hiking with our friends Zac and Courtney. They moved into our ward a few moths ago and we think they're pretty awesome! We went up to Horsetail falls and I am so sore today! I can't believe it because I wasn't winded at all! Man I woke up this morning and felt 90 years old! I need a massage!!!!!!!!

\

Zac and Joe hurtling logs off the side of the cliff

boys will be boys!

oops

my france post accidently posted itself before I was done...how...I have no idea. technology is beyond me. I finished and added more pictures. Have a looksee!

just 'cause I feel like posting

Our Friends Courtney and Zach came over last night (Zach killed us all in b-movie game. It was a slaughter) Courtney worked in France for a while and it made very nostalgic. I thought I'd post some of my favorite pictures from my mission in France. I served in four cities: Angouleme (NW coast), Bordeaux (2 1/2 hours s. of Angouleme), Nice (SE coast or Cote d'azur) and finally my favorite, Marseille.

this was such a rewarding day. Bernard and Marie-Jeanne were finally baptized after 6 long years of learning about the gospel and seven long months of teaching them. The story goes so much deeper if you ever want to to know ask me.

Ah, "Les Calanques" this was my absolute favorite spot to go in Marseille. It's absolutely stunning!

Tien's baptism. This girl is absolutely amazing! She's from Vietnam and by being baptized she risked everything she had and can longer have a job there. She had so much faith and such a pure heart!

Vieux Port in Marseille. I loved this place. There was always so much going on. Life was always buzzing around you!

I guess you can't really see in the picture but this is a giant Poppy field. I had to scale the wall in order to get some. I had tons of pictures of the poppy fields in Provence but don't know where they are :(

Soeur Skousen and I would go on walks every morning. One day we found this abandoned lot with this written on the wall: Love one another-Jesus.

I was having a really bad day and I looked up and saw that these tiny flowers had made their way all the up into this drain pipe and sprouted out the seam. The name of the street was Rue Esperandieu. Which means hope in God. It was the perfect reminder to put my faith in the Lord and blossom where He needed me.

I loved being on the mediterranean. Everything was so vibrant and full of life.

My last pain au chocolat in France. That was such a hard day! I cried all day!

This was the hardest goodbye to say. Roselyne became my best friend in Marseille. I watched the atonment take a broken woman who had absolutely no faith, no confidence and no desire to be happy and turn her into an amazing woman of God.

this is in Angouleme. I had been there for two months, we walked through this square everyday and I never noticed this statue. I started laughing hysterically! I mean who misses a giant head in the middle of the street!

Once again in Angouleme. Almost all of the architecture was from the byzantine period and it was stunning!

Angouleme is the comic book capitol of France. Everywhere you go you see comic strip murals painted on buildings. This one was my favorite. It's a dog serenading a hen and the Rottweiler in the bushes is cursing the dog with the guitar because he thought of the idea first!

This was on the ramparts surrounding the ville in Angouleme.

Total randomness in Bordeaux

Nissa la bella. This is in Nice or the Cote d'azur. The water really is that clear and turquoise

I just couldn't decide which Ferarri I wanted...so I got both :)

Monaco grand prix

Monte Carlo in Monaco

behind our apartment in Nice was an abandoned trai station. One morning we woke up and found hundreds of sheets of colored paper. What did we do...played in it and had paper ball fights

Nice!

the Italian alps

this was my favorite statue in Bordeaux. It was Michael the archangel carrying Christ up to Heaven

this was in Nice. They're real basses that had been set in cast iron.

the best Christmas present I've ever received! 1/2 gallon containe of Nutella!

Sunset at Vieux port in Marseille

These are just a few of the almost 3,000 pictures. Man I sure miss it!