Just words, words, words!

Whew! We're already approaching the end of April and I can't believe time has flown by so quickly. Wait - yes I can. Our little family has gone through a lot lately. Someone at church asked me what we'd been up to lately. I told her and she said, "Wow. You guys are up there on the stress index!"

I'm not sure what the "stress index" is, but I'm sure we're up there. For those of you who haven't heard yet, Ameri FINALLY graduated and started his new job. It was pretty rough for a while with the new baby, Charley needing attention and Ameri working so hard to finish his dissertation. He did finish it and he did an incredible job. I wish I knew we were allowed to take pictures during it because I would post them up here to let you see how professional he looked.

We managed to get through those days, weeks and months. The girls and I went to Utah for a visit to my parent's house so that I could have some help while Ameri wrote. (I'll post those pics someday!) We had a great time up there on very little sleep. Madie was a little devil . . . she still has a hard time sleeping in her crib at night. She's not a devil anymore though! :)

Ameri defended and the next week (his week "off") we moved! We weren't planning on moving so quickly, but we found a decent condo with a washer/dryer and affordable rent. The landlady was going to let another lady have it if we didn't move in right away. We ended up paying rent in both places for 2 weeks. Blah! The move was horrid because we moved across the street and didn't pack anything. I wanted to paint the place before we moved in so when Ameri came home from work I rushed over to paint while he watched the girls. It was a piece-meal affair and took about 1 week for us to move everything in. We're still working on putting up paintings, etc.

In the middle of all of that, Charley got potty-trained and we fought our insurance company (that's a LONG story). Our marriage survived and we're looking forward to a semi-normal life by the Fall. I say that because Ameri still has a few articles to publish with his professor before he is truly "finished" with Caltech. His actual graduation is on June 13th, 2008.

The girls and I are going to Utah for 10 days in May and Tennessee for 10 days in June to help the progress of the article writing. We're looking forward to both trips, but we'll miss Daddy. He has to stay and work. We can't wait for our family vacation in October to Mexico though. Hopefully by then Caltech will be a thing of the past and we will be officially graduated!!!

I'm planning on starting work again in July. Just 10 hours a week. I may have to say no to some of my long-time clients. It will be a hard thing to do, but it's the only way I can still work some and have sanity at home. No more clients in the evening or on the weekends. We'll see how it all works out . . .

Blah, blah, blah. There's our life in a nutshell. It's a good thing we have Faith in God! Without Him and without our family and friends we'd be broken little pieces. Thanks to all for your love and support through our flux!