I think I losst the last 2 weeks!

And I blame it all on Dylan...... last time the boys were here we went to a bookstore, and Dylan picked out a set of vampire books that looked good, the next day while Zander was sleeping I picked it up and he never saw his book until I finished it the day before he left (thanks bud, you rock!!) On a funny side note one day while I was reading this book, which had a picture of a woman on the cover with a pretty low cut shirt, Zander came and looked closely at the cover and then smiled and said "nice milk!" that kid is so funny!! Anyways, I told him I loved it, and was excited to hear what he thought, he started reading it and said he liked it, but the Twilight series. So on a whim in walmart about 2 weeks ago I picked up the first book, I swear I could not put the dang books down! I finished the 4th one today and loved every minute of them! So now I am left sitting here thinking about all the things I have ignored for these books the last 2 weeks, and all I want is another book!

I did manage a few things, I took Aidan to get a haircut before school pictures, and Zander said he wanted to look like Aidan, so I asked the stylist, and she said sure, so Zander hopped up on my lap and watched in the mirror as she cut the front of his hair, but as soon as she went to do the sides or back he freaked, so he got a nice bang trim, stubborn little monster! At least Aidan looks handsome as ever, I may be biased, but I sure think my boys are cute and wouldn't trade them for any girl!

I also took a huge leap and made the decision to go back to school, I am getting my associates degree in business with a focus on medical billing and coding, I am in a fast paced school and can have my degree in 13 months, I am excited yet terrified! I have already talked with the biggest hospital on Oahu and they are actually partners with this school, so I have a good chance of getting my foot in the door as soon as we move!

Zander and I are both healing up from the car accident, I am still in physical therapy, and I had and ultrasound of the lump they found on my thyroid gland when the did the ct scan of my neck in the ER. It turns out I have 2 large lumps, and a scattering of small ones on 1 thyroid gland, I have a 2 day long test in about a week and a half to see if it needs to come out. That is the center of my worries lately.... I just don't want to have surgery, or to have anything wrong with me for that matter, but on the plus side if there is something there they caught it early (thanks to being in a car accident) My car has been declared totalled, so I will have to give the rental back soon, then we have to decide if it is better to buy a car here and ship it to Hawaii, or just wait and get one when we get there. If we wait it will save about $1200 in shipping, so that is most likely what we will do.

We are excited for the kids to all come up here in a couple more weeks, Aidan is counting down the days, and Zander pretends to call all three of them and tell them that he loves them every day. It will be nice to have everyone back together!

That's it for now, I guess I should do some housework now that I don't have a book to be completely immersed in!

Love really does conquer all

I never really bought into that until I met Adam. Our Relationship was not conventional at first, we were nothing but friends, close friends, he helped me through my divorce, actually tried to help me save the marriage by strongly suggesting I give counseling a try even though I was ready to through in the towel. After my marriage fell apart Adam was there for me as a friend any time I needed one, he loaned me his strong body to help move my stuff, and a nice shoulder to cry on. He was there as I ventured into the dating scene, he was the one I would call and say how much men just sucked, and I would just forget about it and get 10 cats and live alone because every single man in Show Low was either toothless or illiterate..... I actually went on 1 date that I thought wasn't so bad, and the next day this guy sent roses to my office, with a card that said something alone the lines of "I had an great time with you, you are the coolest person I know..." all great except that about every other word on the card was a cuss word.... not quite fitting my idea of the perfect, or even sorta exceptable man. Needless to say I didn't date that guy again.... Adam jokingly put a bumper sticker on my car saying something about how men suck after that incident. He was my friend, and nothing else, the normal pressures of dating were not there, we would go hiking, and it didn't matter that I didn't wear makeup or dress up, he was a friend..... eventually he to got divorced, and at some point our relationship changed, I am not even sure of when it happened, but one day I realized that my best friend was also and amazingly good looking guy, with strong family values, he loved my son, and he was just so nice! Once we started dating we fell in love fast, and were married by our CPA who also happened to be a bishop with his office staff as the witnesses on the spur of the moment.... it was great! No wedding to prepare for and stress out over, no deciding who to invite and who's feeling would get hurt, and we saved our money for a fab. honeymoon!



Last night we layed in bed holding hands and snuggling, and remembered those days, I remember the first time he said he loved me, how he bought me the simple rings (just platinum bands) that I had seen online and loved and had them engraved and gave me mine at the outback steakhouse one night. We have been through good times and bad, just like anyone, but through it all one thing has remained solid, we love each other deeply, and we are best friends. I now not only believe, but I KNOW that our love can get us through anything, that nothing and no one can take that away from us.... I know that life is not all roses, but I also know that even though there will be fights, and problems in our lives, one thing will never change and that is that Adam and I were meant for each other, and true love CAN conquer all!!

Here is the proof and the pruduct of our love, little Zander has been such a blessing in my life, and I thank god, and I thank Adam for him all the time.... he has so much of his daddy in him, I love to watch his personality take shape and see more and more of the man I love in him all the time!

Is bettering ourselves really a selfish move????

It seems like that question gets a split response.... people who have not been divorced tend to tell me yes, most divorcees on the other hand are on my side and think, as I do that by each individual parent doing what they need to do to be happy, the kids do better than if the parents "settle and are not really happy.....We have a few people in our lives that think that moving to Hawaii and enhancing our lives is a selfish decision, and that we should do what they want instead of what will help us in the end. We really thought hard about this, and think it is the best we can do for our entire family. Of course Adam's ex would like us to move to California, where she lives, and my ex would like us to move to Phoenix, where he is, but where do WE fit in to the equation?? Adam wants to go to law school, U of H has an enviromental law program that he wants to get in to, and we love Hawaii, and the kids all love it.... I know it is hard on our exes, but both of them moved away long ago, for their own reasons, and we were supportive, we changed visitations, and took on half of all travel costs, even thought it was inconvenient on us, and emotionally hard (on my husbands side) for the kids to be so far away, and to miss out on their daily lives..... I can't tell you how many times he was brought to tears missing a pinewood derby, dance recital or baseball game that one of his kids were in. And now the time has come that we HAVE to leave Show Low.... I Our income for this year is close to zero, we have been living off yard sales, ebay sales, and by selling our house and living in a camp trailer we got rid of alot of expenses. But we can't go on like this, we NEED to get out of this town and on with our lives. So the question is should we move to where we already know there are great opportunities for us, and where our dreams lie, or should we move closer to an ex, for their convenience.... and if so, which one?? My opinion is since we were willing to work with them when they moved, it is their turn now to work with us. I hope and pray that they both come around and do this amicably because anything else WILL hurt the kids involved. Split families are so hard, also very much worth it.... I just really wish that Adam, myself, and both of our exes could be friends and work things out... I pray that it works out that way because we are out of choices in my opinion!

So, honestly, could you give this up????? Hawaii is paradise to us, we honeymooned there, and have been back 3 times since, we both have felt that we BELONG there, it is right for us, the "aloha lifestyle" is just our way of living, living with love, we lived that way long before falling in love with Hawaii...... you know sometimes you see something or someone and you are inexplicably drawn to it, you just know it is right for you, that is Hawaii for us! I know that things will work out, and we will be there, if not this year, then a few years down the line, we WILL obtain our dream!!

We have a decision.... I think!

After much deliberation and thinking about all possible pros and cons it looks like Hawaii is the place for us! Our plan (unless it changes again of course!) is to move over there after Adam does his marathon in Tulsa in November. There are awesome aspects, and not so awesome ones.... the hardest part was decided if it was okay to move so far from both of our ex's...... Adam's ex wife is in LA, so it really is not much farther from her, just the entire trip will be on a plane instead of 1 hour on a plane and 4 in the car. We thought about moving to California to be closer to them, but the only reason in the entire world to move there would be to be close to them, and we can't control the lives of others, and no one can garuntee that she will still live in California for the next 3 years.... no ones fault, but life happens, and just like we have to do what is right for us, if it came down to it she would have to do what is right for her family. So that ruled California out, My ex is in the valley, but he doesn't know if he is staying there, he is trying to get into a PHD program at ASU, but if that doesn't work he might move to whatever college he CAN get into, so that took Phoenix or Tucson out of the running..... we thought and thought and decided that we need to follow OUR dreams, and improve OUR lives..... U of H has a great environmental law program that Adam really wants to be a part of, and ever since our first trip there in 2003 our hearts of been there. So, that is the plan for now. I am so excited, a little bit scared, but mostly just looking forward to an awesome fresh start! Wish us luck!!!!

Oh yeah, it is funny that before we told our kids that moving to hawaii was a possibility Lyndsay asked me earlier this summer if she could convince all the kids to give up birthday and christmas gifts for an entire year if we could all take a trip to Hawaii around christmas..... and now we get to live there! Life is good!

What a day!!!!

Yesterday morning Zander and I were in a car accident, a pretty bad one. My car is most likely totalled, I had to go to the hospital in a stupid ambulance..... all right in front of my office of course! We were on our way into the office to get a little work done, but I decided to go to circle K and grab a coke first... this was my big mistake! not 100 feet from my office is a stop light, it was red, and I stopped with 5 or 6 cars in front of me. I was looking at Zander, and we were singing our favorite song at the top of our lungs when BAM!!! A truck slammed into me from behind and pushed me into the suburban in front of us. We were showered in glass, I had a case of water in the back and waters went everywhere. Zander's bucket of toys popped up and flew all over the car, my secret weapon for keeping Zander happy on drives, cheese pringles, were in the middle console, and the lid came off and chips went all over the car, it was a HUGE mess!! The airbags did not deploy because my car is small, and I guess the sensors are in the bumpers and both of the other vehicles were taller and my bumpers didn't get hit at all, so I hit my head on the steering wheel, then my head hit the back of the seat and did some sort of damage to my neck. The first thing I saw was what I thought was smoke coming from under the hood (Adam later told me that it was just steam, and I am silly) so I freaked and grabbed Zander from his car seat. I don't really remember much, the cops making me sit down, emt's checking me out, and a nice cop cleaning up my car for me. By the time the tow truck got there I thought I was okay, and the guy that hit me was driving a company truck, and his boss had come down to check everything out. I couldn't get ahold of anyone I knew, Adam's phone was dead, my mom was at work but when I called her no one could find her, and my dad was out of town. I was just about to freak out about being stranded when the boss came and gave me the keys to one of his company trucks and said I could keep it for as long as I needed. I thanked him and got Zander's car seat in and what little stuff I managed to grab before they towed my car away into the truck and decided I would drive to the hospital where my mom works to calm down. I drove for about 50 feet and realized that I was not in fact okay, so I pulled into the first driveway.... my office of course, I leaned out of the truck and threw up, went inside and threw up again and got some water, in the meantime a friend who had seen it went and found my mom and she called me, she said I was disorientated and called 911, so and ambulance rushed to my office, where all my co-workers could see and strapped me onto a backboard and took me and zander to the hospital. I had a cat scan and there are no broken bones, just a concussion and whiplash. That cat scan did find a lump on my thyroid glad that I have to get checked.... great!

So today I feel like a train ran right over me, my whole body hurts, mostly my neck, I have to go to my Dr. on Monday and get an MRI for the thyroid thing, and to check my discs in my neck. Zander is fine, he was scared out of his little pants, but thank god for good car seats..... and thank god for my husband the seat belt enforcer of our family who has taught me much better seat belt habits. If not for proper seat belts we both could have been much worse!

So, here is what my car (you know the one I got in like APRIL!!!) Looks like now dang it!!! All my super cool stickers (see the family of 7 turtles ruined, an my Bachi sticker..... what did I do to deserve this!!!! and my I'd rather be diving plate all ruined) I guess this is one vehicle that won't be coming to Hawaii with us!

The summer goes so fast

This visit was the most fun I have had in a year, they really helped to pull me out of my slump. We spent a few days at a water park, went to a couple of movies, played lots of board games, rode bikes, rode motorcycles, went to an arcade, did minuature golf (Zander made an excellent moving obstacle..... kinda like the windmill) took walks, talked, and spent true quality time together. I laughed more than I have in ages, I feel much more like my old self!

Then came today.....




This morning we had to get up at 3:30 a.m. to get the boys to the airport for an 8:30 flight. We have had a FABULOUS summer!!!! Too bad it flew by like crazy, when we left Adam and Aidan this morning to head to Phoenix Aiden Tanner was crying his eyes out because he missed his dad already, Dylan was clearly sad, but too big to cry, and Adam was feeling the sadness pretty badly as well. We drove down and got to the airport with over an hour to spare, so the boys decided to teach Zander all the joys of moving sidewalks. The airport was dead, andwe were at a very remote gate, so we had the place to ourselves, so the 4 of us walked, ran stood, and layed down (okay not all of us on that one) on the moving sidewalks in a circle, down and back, down and back about 20 times. Zander would not step on on by himself but he was a pro at jumping off at the end just perfectly, never fell once (though I WAS right there in case) They taught him that laying on your tummy for most of the ride and making strange noises is super fun, running the entire way is even more fun, and jumping at the end is what all big kids do!





Then came the inevitable time when we had to say goodbye, Zander took it hard, as you can see from the picture, he cried for quite some time, then for about the next 2 hours said "Dylan, Tanner, home" He sure does love those kids (Lynz included) The took off and got home just fine. Tomorrow they start school in LA, a big step and very exciting..... and we will be counting the days until the next vist! Hopefully we won't be missing our sweet Lynz for that one, it was lonely being the only girl without her!