Goodbye to Summer

My how summer has flown by! It has been a busy one too. We started summer out by getting ready for Joe & Stephanie's wedding, then of course we celebrated a wonderful Father's Day with Rob, his Dad, and the Harston Family. Rob's mom was in California, so we had everyone over to our house. It was so funny because my sister-in-law, Dawn, and I planned a dinner for him complete with homemade banana cream and coconut cream pies. Then neither one of us remembered to invite Dad over. It was so funny. We planned on having Dawn & Mark bring him over after church, and then Dawn called him up to bring him over, and of course he knew nothing about it. He was planning on heating up some leftovers and spending the night alone. We ended up having a great evening at our house. :)

We have also been busy getting ready for Christy and Craig's wedding. We've had an engagement party, 2 bridal showers, and this Saturday will be the Bachelorette Party. We've also had fun picking out dresses, buying shoes, jewelry, etc. I get to be Maid (not Matron- LOL) of Honor, Rob is a Groomsman, Cody is a Jr. Groomsman, Jacqui is a Jr. Bridesmaid, Carissa is a Flower Girl, and Clark isn't in the actual wedding party, but he will be in the pictures. My how time has flown! It's almost here, and we are all so happy for Christy & Craig, even if they are making us do the Soulja Boy as party of the Wedding Party Dance. I really need to find my inner Beyonce or something.

We've also had 2 birthday parties. Cody turned 12, and we had a luau at our house with some of his friends from Summer Camp, Church, and School. It was a lot of fun.

Then we just had Clark's party at our house. It was a dinosaur themed party, complete with a dinosaur shaped cake that I made. Then we went to the Science Center so that he could see the dinosaurs there. It was a blast. Happy 3rd Birthday Clarkie!

Christy and I had a lot of fun going on different outings with the kids this summer too. We took them to Grant's Farm, the Zoo, and Purina Farms. It was great to get all of the kids together. We took Cody, Jacqui, Carissa, Clark, Kaylee, Jake, Sheridan, and Cassidy along. With the exception of a few kids getting a bit too much attitude here and there the outings were great!

Then for 6 weeks the kids went to Day Camp at our local community center. They had a lot of fun. They got to swim twice a week, do different activities, and they always have a really nice end of the year program. This year Jacqui's group danced to a compliation of Michael Jackson songs, and Cody's group performed to "Rock this Town" by the Stray Cats.

Rob and I also took the kids to Nauvoo to look around and learn about how life was back in the mid-1800's and also about our church history. We didn't manage to go camping like we wanted to, but we still had a lot of fun this summer, and we are planning a camping trip for sometime this Fall. The weather might be better then anyway.

This summer Grandma Berger graduated with her Masters Degree in Nursing as well. She is going to be a Family Nurse Practitioner, and she will also be teaching at UMSL this year as well. We had a really nice Graduation Party for her at St. Norbert's in their reception hall. Yeah Grandma!

Well this wonderful summer vacation just finished up this past week. Carissa went back to Preschool today, and Cody & Jacqui went back last Thursday. Clark missed the cutoff for turning 3 by 2 weeks. I was really disappointed about it at first, but then I realized how nice it would be to have some time with just Clark before he goes to preschool next year. Carissa has Ms. Becky as her teacher this year, which is wonderful. Jacqui had her when she was in Preschool, and Ms. Becky is literally the best Preschool teacher on the planet. She was eager to go on her first day. She had her new Ni Hao Kai Lan backpack all ready, and she couldn't wait to put on her new outfit. I'm so proud of her and how she is growing up.

Jacqui started 3rd Grade this year. She's smack in the middle of elementary school. Wow! She has Ms. Foster, a permanent sub., which to be honest kind of stinks. We aren't sure how long the perm. sub. will be there before a regular teacher is hired, and that means that Jacqui will have to get used to 2 teachers. Maybe it will be kind of fun, though. Who knows? Let's hope so!

Cody started 7th grade, which means that he is in Middle School now. I just can't believe that! Seriously, where did the time go? He has been so excited about all of it, though. He gets to ride the bus to school, which he hasn't done before. There are just so many new things, and he seems so happy to be a little older now. He has 2 locker combinations to memorize, and he practiced over the summer to learn how to work the lock without any trouble. He went to school on the first day and was already a pro with his locker. He memorized both combinations. He has 7 classes each day. He's taking choir, pre-algebra, English, science, social studies, gym, an advisory (homeroom pd.), and a reading/writing workshop class. He turned 12 over the summer, which means that he got the Aaronic Priesthood. He gets to help pass the Sacrament at church now, and he looks so cute up there carrying the bread and water trays around. He was really nervous about spilling the water on someone, but he is doing an amazing job! He takes each responsibility that he is given very seriously and always wants to do his best. He got a cell phone when for his 12th birthday as well, and you would have thought he won the lottery or something. He was so excited.

I am going back to school on the 24th as well. This is my last year in Graduate School before I graduate. It's all gone by so fast. This year I will be doing my internship as a counselor at a local high school. I am not doing school counseling. This district is starting a new program where they offer professional counseling to their students. This is really great because a lot of the time school counselors end up doing scheduling and don't have as much time to sit down and talk with students as they would like to have. I am very excited about it. I know that I will learn a lot! I feel that God has blessed me with the perfect internship for our family. I have been really worried about how I would fit it in. I don't get paid for my internship, so I have to arrange child care and pay for it myself. I was also worried about being gone too much because being home with my kids is my top priority. All of these issues were concerning me, but Heavenly Father has taken care of all of them. I will only be gone 2 days a week from 10-2. I couldn't have asked for more perfect hours because I can still take the kids to school in the morning and pick them up in the afternoon. As for child care, my wonderful family has stepped forward to help out. Rob's mom, my mom and Dwight, and Christy are all going to help out. Grandmas are doing it for free, and Christy is giving me a really great deal. That way I can help her out with a little bit of cash as well. She is in school for teaching right now and could use the extra cash. I feel so blessed, and I know that I am on the right path.

Rob is doing well. He loves the work that he does at his job, but he has some really difficult bosses. I have really been praying that things get better for him at work because I hate to see him stressed out and unhappy. We are very grateful for his job right now, though. We know that many people around the country are really struggling right now, and Rob's job pays pretty well. It's enough for our needs, and we are very thankful for that.


Rob and I are both enjoying our callings at church. I am the First Counselor over our Primary Organization (children ages 18 mos - 12 years), and Rob is the First Counselor over our Elder's Quorum (men ages 18 and up). The First Counselor position is kind of like the 2nd leader. There is a President, then a First Counselor, and a Second. The First & Second Counselors are helpers to the President. Anyway, we enjoy our callings and the people that we work with.

We have also been doing some remodeling on our house. Our kitchen is very close to being completely done. It's very open now with a great island in the center. We have really nice dark, cherry stained cabinets that are beautiful with our dark green counter tops. We have really been struggling with being happy in our house. We love the size of our home. It has 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a large kitchen, dining area, living room, and a large basement that we could finish off. We have had a really hard time with our neighbors, though. They are just rude, mean people who look for opportunities to yell at our kids and us. They will sit outside and talk badly about our family, knowing that we can hear them. I've tried to talk back, and each time it's ended in yelling. Once I even had to call the Police on her because she was being so threatening, and I wanted her to know that I wasn't playing around. They also have a loud, aggressive dog that barks all the time and bit Rob once when he tried to pet her. There is no talking or reasoning with these neighbors either, and they are outside every chance they get. The wife in the family positions herself on her deck so that she can stare into our yard and into our kitchen. She's just plain weird. We have also decided that we'd like to live out in the country so we can have animals and some open space around us. Part of us wants to move really badly, but like many Americans right now we are upside down in our mortgage because home values have dropped so much. We would have to take a loss of about 20,000 dollars if we were to move, and we can't afford to do that. We have decided to try to be happy in our house. We are going to build a privacy fence between us and our neighbor. Hopefully that will help some. Their deck sits up really high, so even with a 6 foot privacy fence they can still see into our yard, but the fence will definitely block their dog from sight, and that would be a blessing in and of itself. Their driveway is on the same side as ours is as well, but we are just telling ourselves to think "happy thoughts" when we see them. All of our other neighbors are great. It's just this one set, and no one else in the neighborhood that we've met likes them either, nor did the people we bought our house from. That means at least it's not just us. The hard thing for me is that I don't like feeling this way about someone. I'm praying that Heavenly Father will help us to make things better. I'm the kind of person who likes to send gifts to the neighbors at Christmas time, or if I make some bread I might send over a loaf. It's hard to have a set of neighbors that make you angry every time that you see them, but I'm working on that. This is meant to teach me a lesson. I know that, and I'm trying to learn it.

So our goals for this year are to have a great year in school, beautify our home and make it a place where we are happy and the spirit can dwell, find peace with our neighbors, and proceed with our adoption. Hopefully we'll have some good news on that front in the next few months. We also have Christy and Craig's wedding to look forward to this September. I will post more on that soon.