Been a while... SORRY!

It's crazy how busy life can be. It would be a heck of a lot easier to stay up to date if I had internet at home, but I'm thankful to have access to it at all. So I won't complain, I'll just apologize for not keeping you all in the loop sooner.

Since our trip to Seattle we have been busy busy! Derrick has especially been busy. He's been up and out of the house a little after 5am and home a little after 5pm on work days, he has jury duty this month (so does my Mom and Uncle Bill, funny huh?), he built us a nice 10X12 storage shed, reinsulated our house, and did a total remodel job on our garage and made it his shop. It looks so great. I'll post a picture of the paint job he did on the floor before he moved all of his tools in but because I don't have a before picture handy most of you won't really be able to tell how much he did. This garage used to have 2 rooms in the back and he took both of those out, did drywall, mudding, painted, put a new ceiling in, more insulation in, put a wood stove in for heat, put in a microwave, mini fridge bought a bunch of new tools and took about 5 trips to the dump with a borrowed trailer full of junk. We also took a load of scrap metal to the steel yard and made some big bucks! Who knew you could recycle old car parts for such a large chunk of change? I am so glad and happy for Derrick though. He has wanted his own shop for forever, a place where he can get away and put his genius mind to work and now he has that, just in time for what is supposed to be another long winter. I sure love my hard working husband.

I stopped working for Urgent Care on the 15th of this month and am now just waiting for the new baby and enjoying time with the family as is. Rad and I are having a lot of fun hanging out together, playing trucks and motorcycles and we're about to head to the fair. I burned my hand on a poptart almost 3 weeks ago and received some nasty third degree burns. Yes, a poptart. I'll include a picture in this post. It's healing really well, thank goodness.

Rad is saying new words and doing new things every day. A few weeks ago Grandpa Bob and Derrick were trying to back up a rather large trailer in a tight spot. So there was quite a bit of hand movements made by one guy to show the other where to back up. Rad watched and watched and now he'll line up his trucks and use hand signals to back them up. It's really funny to watch. Last night he was wearing truck pj's and tried to back those up too. He is loving spending time with Uncle Shane and Uncle Mike and says their names a ton better then he says mom... he still says "Ma" but Mike comes out crystal clear with a special long "K" sound at the end.

Shayli is in her last couple of weeks of summer vacation before she starts the 6th grade. She already has her first day of school outfit laid out for our house and the jewelery to match. She's a little anxious about what class she'll end up in but she's such a great kid and student that I know she'll do great wherever. But I remember that anxious anticipation well and don't so much miss it. Shayli has 2 fish now, Finn and Ruby and she's a great little mommy to those fish. They have the cleanest tank ever I think.

As a family we've had some fun going to a rodeo, a motocross a couple of fairs and believe it or not we have finished our Christmas shopping. I think that Derrick and I are both in a nesting stage of this pregnancy and we are going crazy trying to get everything for the rest of the year done.

Heidi, Ben, Samantha and Andrew (Hi, Bun, Ma, and Ew if you ask Rad)are coming tomorrow and we can't wait to spend some time with them. I'm 80% effaced as of last Monday and I'm going to try to deliver this little guy while they are here. We're looking forward to Shane's first football game of the season next weekend though, so if I don't have him while they are here, I'll live. I LOVE SHS FOOTBALL!

Hope that all is well with you and yours and OH! We traded in the 4runner for a.... MINIVAN! Yes, a minivan. Derrick and I always said that we would never drive one, now we do and we really love it. It has so much room and surprisingly so much power and it also has built in car seats! It's a 2000 Chrysler Voyager and it's probably my most favorite car that I've had. Derrick calls it a treasure. He says that they are so ugly on the outside but then you get on the inside and drive and it's just awesome. Ha!