What a month!

So I realize that I have not posted in almost a full month. A look at the time that has past. April 23rd: Sean, Princess and I fly back to Mass. Leaving Smiley with Grandma for 10 days :( April 24th: Prep for Tag Sale (Yard Sale) which meant gathering as much as we could that we knew we didn't want to haul back across the country. Along with some furniture we no longer needed April 25th: Tag Sale -- we made more than we thought we would and didn't even end up selling most of the furniture stuff April 24th - 28th: Packing and more packing and then more packing although we did make time to go to dinner a couple of nights with friends. April 29th: Sean picked up the Penske Truck so we were loading and finishing the packing. When the truck was almost full and my kitchen hadn't been packed yet we knew we had to slim down even more. Needless to say a lot of the fluff that I thought I needed was left behind and I realized it really was just fluff and very replaceable. Most likely the only things that I will miss is a couple of sentimental dust catchers the important ones got packed though. Overall I was very satisfied with the slimming down and have continued to slim a little here and there while unpacking. April 30th: Finished loading the truck and Car, Ran last minute errands like getting health records for the kids and Princess' birth certificate (an important thing to have) then we loaded the dogs in the truck and car said good-bye to our house and hit the road. We were only an 1+ hour late picking up my dad in Albany then we drove to Buffalo it was raining most the way. Rain + Wind + Dark = not a fun ride. We pulled into Buffalo shortly before midnight and crashed for the night. (States we were in today: Massachusetts and New York) May 1st: We left Buffalo pretty early following I-90 west we had to be in Chicago by 5pm to pick up JD from the airport. Thanks again to Dad and JD for coming and helping us drive back. We stopped in Kirkland, Ohio and visited the NK Whitney store where the Word of Wisdom was given and walked on the same floors that Joseph walked on. It was a great uplifting and spiritual experience. I am grateful that we stopped. Also Princess decided that she was going to roll from her back to her belly while laying on the picnic table there in Kirkland - I didn't let her then but she started rolling over pretty consistently from then on whenever she has a chance. I got JD picked up and we continued driving we were going to go to Nauvoo but decided that the extra hundred miles was a bit much for this trip. (Yes I plan on taking my family one of these years on a cross country road trip) We spent the night in Davenport Iowa arriving there shortly after 10pm. (States: New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Iowa Landmarks seen: Lake Erie and Mississippi River) May 2nd: Left around 10am after making a stop at the Penske rental place and I finally found Dry Ice. I can not believe how hard it was to find. We drove straight thru only stopping to go potty and get nourishment we made it to North Platte, Nebraska around 10pm again ( States Iowa and Nebraska) Princess is starting to get sick of the car as well. May 3rd: Left fairly early finishing the trip with a stop at Adam's to celebrate some Birthdays ie Mel and Cole had cake relaxed for a little bit before finishing the trip. JD went home from Adam's with Lisa and my Mom came home with me. We made it to Adam's around 6 or 7 pm honestly I can't remember. We were happy to be home and have Smiley back. While we were gone though Smiley started off just sleeping alone in our bed then moved into his own bed where he has been ever since. So we no longer have 4 in the bed we are back to just the 2 of us. YEAH!!!! It has meant more sleep for all of us. Speaking of sleep our little Princess is for the most part sleeping thru the night she goes to bed between 8 and 9 then wakes to eat at about 4-5am going back to sleep until 8 or 9am which means I am getting good long stretches of sleep. Back to the timeline. May 4th we unloaded the truck (it took all day as there were only 3 sometimes 4 of us) May 5th we finished unloading and took a mattress I traded with Mandy and picked up our Fridge and Stove I have to regress. When we found out we were moving to MA I realized that I would have to leave my stove behind as 1- I didn't have the money to replace it 2- I didn't need a stove in MA as there was one there already. Looking back I wish I would have left our washer and dryer here in storage somewhere as we didn't need them either. So this stove/range was my dream stove and when we built our home 4 years ago I decided that I was going to go ahead and get it. It is a Maytag free standing double oven I will have to take a pic and include it. The bottom oven is convection and the smaller top oven is normal but is great for cooking almost anything as it heats up quickly and is the perfect size for casseroles and most anything you would cook in the oven with the exception of a Turkey or chicken. Also because it is convection you can cook up to 4 pans of cookies at a time which means you load the cookie sheets all at the same time put them in the oven and your done no more checking cookies every 7-10 mins for 4 batches instead you only have to keep track of the time once :) Needless to say when we dropped our price on our home yet again and I found out I would have a kitchen to put my stove into I took the stove and showed my house several times before replacing the stove. In fact we had picked up the new stove and were delivering it the house when - well I will tell you in a minute. But that is my stove story. Back to this month and I am sorry this is such a long post but I have not had time to write in my journal either and this is my backup journal. Bear with me or wait for the next post. May 5th to 11th was spent mainly unpacking, getting settled, showing the house and figuring out our next steps. Yes Mother's Day came and went and that is all I am saying about it. May 12th I added another year to my age and spent the day cleaning up our old house as we were showing it on the 13th. We had a small dinner and cheesecake with my family in celebration. Overall it was a good day. May 13th Sean spent the day learning about a possible career option and the schooling required for it. I spent the day finishing putting odds and ends away and cleaning things up a bit in prep for Lisa, Erin and Camper's visit. I also showed the house 2 times once in the am to the wife and then in the evening to her husband they loved the house. Picked up a Bumbo for Princess May 14th to 19th ENJOYED our visit with Lisa, Erin, Camper and got to see Jon a couple of times as well. Showed the house another time I think but I was pretty much just going with the flow. Sean worked with his Dad a little but was mainly trying to get stuff together and doing a little bit more research on the next step. Beyond the time that we spent visiting I don't remember much else that went on during those days. It is kind of a blur. Oh yeah Jake is engaged - congrats to Jacob and Tonya. May 17th Celebrated Grandpa M's 86th Bday with a Family Dinner at which Sean learned of job working with a sister school and would help pay for his schooling. It was great to be with the whole Martin Clan again. May 18th Princess ate rice cereal for the first time. I couldn't feed it to her fast enough and she didn't spit hardly any of it back out. She's a champ when it comes to eating. For a couple of weeks and especially the last couple of days anytime I put something in my mouth she starts trying to get at it or get my hand or whatever I am eating or drinking with in her mouth. May 20th to 24th Helping my mom take care of Ty and Kaden. Smiley is loving having someone to play with in fact I now threaten him that he will have to sleep with me if he can't behave. Ty and Kaden have been sleeping in Smiley's room. May 20th we celebrated my bday by going to dinner with Brad and Jana it was good to be able to sit and chat for a little while. I got my haircut and I am loving it. Again I will post pics another day. May 21st: I met with the realtor who showed the house on the 18th while Sean was putting in the new stove at the house. The realtor had an offer for us and said that the couple would replace the stove . I told him that they were in the process of putting the replacement stove in. May 22nd: Submitted counter offer and celebrated the end of my Mom's Chemo and Radiation treatments. Also visited with Voy and Carolyn my great uncle and aunt. It was fun to visit with them as I missed the reunion last year. Their daughter Amber is having her 3rd in July and her husband is deployed and has been since Jan. It is the little things that remind me daily things could be worse. Then we watched Emma what an amazing woman and what a great example of love and marriage. I think I need to rewatch it and take a lesson or two from her on how to be a good supportive loving wife. Even with everything that was going on she stood by her man. What a truly amazing woman. PS the counter offer was accepted YEAH Leading me to today and I am exhausted May 23rd. Sean went with my Dad and Colby to Adam's to help him with his roof. A couple hours later My mom, I and the kids went for Cole's friend Bday party at Backyard America's Jurassic Gym. The kids got to play for 2 hours on one of the biggest swingsets I have ever seen and bouncy gym thing. Then we went back to Adam's and let the kids play some more. While Smiley was down for his nap I went and visited with Monyca (Sis Thomas comp from Mission) who had her baby on the 4th of May. I am not the best of making/taking the time and opportunity to visit so I did so today. She was home with the baby alone as Nate had taken her boys to Lagoon for one of their birthdays. May is the month of birthdays I tell ya. Then we (I mean my mom, me and the kids) got the kids fed then bathed and into bed. Leaving me the last 1 1/2 hours to write this very long blog. What a ride. I am glad that Heavenly Father is the one in charge of this ride. What a month we started here a month ago flew to MA packed and drove back across the country and are now starting a new chapter in our life and family. A month ago we were just trying to make sure we had a roof over our heads by moving back to live with my folks even though we have a very nice home here. We didn't know how long we would need to be here or did we have a plan beyond getting moved back to where Family could be of assistance. Now we don't have all the answers but we know this much Sean is going to Steven Henegars to become a Respiratory Therapist/ Healthcare Management it is a Bachelors Degree and will take approx 20 months . He is looking into a job working with a stepcousin in law that is with a sister school in admissions that would cover a lot if not all his schooling expenses. We are now seeing the light at the end of the debt tunnel Hopefully by the end of June we will almost be out of debt and starting over financially. We miss our friends in MA greatly and hope that we can remain close despite the physical distance. We miss the missionaries and the wonderful spirit they brought into our home so regularly. There are many things we will miss but realize that the Lord has other things in mind at this time and we are doing what we feel is best for our family. This also marks the end of I would say an unspeakable year. Not in a bad way but there are no word that really fits this past year. I feel closer to my Father in Heaven and know he not only loves me but knows what I need when I need it and how much I can handle/deal with. I am excited for what the next chapter brings. Who knows it could be really boring and dull -- we can hope can't we :) Have a good night. Pics are coming I promise