Marissa

Today I felt liking writing about Marissa. She will be 5 in November and is still just so small. I don't know what I would do without her, she is Brett and my entertainment. If we ever need a laugh we just turn to her. But she is also so very sweet. The other day she did something to hurt Kaylie and make her cry. While having a talk with Riss explaining to her that she can't do things like that and that she made her sister cry, Marissa realized what she had done and was broken hearted, she herself started to cry and went and laid down and cuddled up with Kaylie. Then it was Kaylie who was doing the comforting to her little sister. It was a sweet little lesson that she learned.
My grandma passed away this last January and she had spent the previous couple of months living at my Mom's. Since I was in school there was a lot of time that Riss spent at Mom's with my Grandma. They became good buddies. Since Grandma wasn't moving around much, Riss kept her entertained, by cooking all sorts of things that Grandma was craving but couldn't eat because she had had some cancer cut out of the roof of her mouth and couldn't eat. Anyway, the two became good friends. A few months after Grandma died, Marissa was riding in the car and she and Sophie called Jesus ( on thier pretend phones) Marissa wanted to talk to Grandma Pat and ask her some questions. It was so cute. Later on Marissa asked me "If we water Grandma, will she come back to life." I told her no, so then she asked if we put the water in her mouth, would she. Once again No she won't. So how about if we give her medacine. Poor thing, she really misses Grandma. She is also aware that she is in a box, in the ground. But she really does know that she is in heaven with Jesus.
Many of you may also know that she is going to be a lion when she grows up. And she wants to be Scar from Lion King. Right now she thinks that she is growing lion hair on her arms.
She is such a joy to us and we just adore her.

Call Shift

Not a lot has been going on here. Because Brett is now the only provider at the clinic he has been pulling quite a few extra call shifts. It is hard because we can't leave town, and because he gets home around 7, then he almost always gets called in between 8 and 9. The last two nights he got called in in the middle of the night. Last night he had to admit his patient so he wasn't home till 4 and then had to get up to go to work this morning. But every time he gets called in we just think about the fact that we are paying off bills. They have still not hired any other providers yet, and the few that they did interview weren't what they needed here. So for now it is still just Brett. But he loves it here and loves the job so he really doesn't mind.
On another note, we might have found a house to move into. There is a great 2500 square foot house that we can rent with the option to buy, so all our rent will go to the price of the house when and if we decide to go ahead to buy it. This house will be perfect, it sits on a hill and has a great big deck out front, with a nice view of the town. I am very excited. But we are not sure when we will be moving, the owners have to find a house for them to rent first. I will keep you all posted.
We are also putting our house in Oregon up for sale, but I am not sure how the market is doing so it may be up for a while. We do have renters in there now, but I am not sure how happy they are going to be when they find out about us putting it on the market. I am not sure if they will move out or not. But if they do, oh well. I just would love to get rid of the house and not have to worry about dealing with it anymore.
The girls are enjoying summer. They have lots of friends who live so close to us and they get to play all the time. There are some great people here and I am enjoying getting to know them better. We continue to help Keri and Dave with their house if ever they need us. Sometimes I go to help watch the boys so that Keri won't have to worry about them and she can work without distractions. It is so fun to see the house coming along and I can't wait for them to get it done, so that they can have more space.
It is getting close to time for Nathan to come home. He arrives in Medford on September 1st. The girls and I are so excited to see him. As long as they have hired some new providers we are going to take 2 weeks off and spend one in Medford the other at the coast. I can't wait. If it is still just Brett here then just the girls and I will go. But either way we are all very happy.

Some fun new photos

Soph and Kaylie at the park

Sophie lost a tooth, she actually lost the other top front tooth a few days later and now has no middle top teeth
One of are small snow falls
kaylie with her birthday cake


Here's a flower for you




Kaylie at her birthday party

Back To Montana

Well I am not sure that anyone still looks at this anymore, since it has been 7 months since my last post but oh well if they don't. Brett came back in March to Montana, to the same town we lived in before and to the same job. The girls and I stayed back in Oregon and I was going through the LPN program. But the girls and I were having a very hard time being away from Brett, so we decided to just pack up and come be with Brett. It was a little hard quitting school after all the work that I had put into it. But I am not at a point where I have to work so there was no one saying that I had to finish school now. We discussed and prayed and realized that it is best for our family to be together. So at the end of April we loaded up and came to be with Brett. It is great to be together and great to not be so busy with school that I can actually spend time with my kids. The only thing that stinks is that we are stuck in a tiny 2 bedroom apartment. This town in so small that there is not a lot of housing options. We have a great house that we are looking at out of town on 2 1/2 acres. It has a green house and a shed where you can ride straight out onto forest service. It will be available in September and if that doesn't work out then we will look at buying something. When the weather is nice it is not bad cause we spend our days outside. The temperature here is perfect it is not to hot that you can't spend the day outside, like in Medford. And it cools down at night, unlike Medford. But the trade off is mosquitoes, oh my goodness they are bad. The girls and I are all covered in them.
On another note. Brett got here just in time. He is now the only provider working at the clinic. So he is taking a lot of extra call shifts. But it is helping us to pay off bills and get a bunch saved so it is worth it in the end.
The girls were very happy to be back here, back to their friends from before. The only thing new was the teachers, they finished off their school years. Next year Kaylie will be in 4th grade, (can you believe that she is old enough to be in 4th grade) and Sophie will be a first grader. I still get one more year with Rissa before she starts kindergarden.

changes

Well I will start by apologizing for neglecting my blog. I recently found out that I got into the piratical nursing program. So I will be starting that in January.
Brett will be headed back to Montana in March, back to his job that he had there before. The girls and I will stay here until I am done with school and then we will get to go over also. Brett is very excited to get back there. He was very disappointed with his job here. They were very concerned on how many patients a day they could push through. He would sometimes see 30 people. He would then no get home till 8 or 9. S needless to say he can't wait to get back to a clinic where they actually care about their patients.
Sophie lost her fist two teeth. Her bottom, middle ones. The first one Brett pulled. Then Kaylie and Soph were jumping on the trampoline and Kaylie accidentally kicked soph in the mouth, loosening her tooth. A couple days later Kalyie tied dental floss to sophie's tooth and slammed the door. Out came her tooth. She was so excited to lose her teeth an to get a visit from the tooth fairy.

Baby Joseph

On October 8th my little sister Jana had her little baby boy, Joseph David Hughes. I am a very proud aunt and my girls just love him so much. Her husband david was out to sea when Joe was born, but returned a week later to meet his newbaby. He is so cute with his son. They had to return to Sand Diego where David is stationed over a week ago and I miss them all so much. Jana is required to send me a picture a day and it so so exciting to see what I will get each day from her. So here he is

THis is my SOphie with her cousin

Little jaundice(spelling) here

They live in San Diego so he gets to dress in spring clothes.

Aint he so sweet. I miss them so much. I have never been to close to Jana before, but she came for about 5 months and stayed with our parents. We grew very close and it was exciting to be with her through her pregnancy. I was there for the birth and got to cut the cord, it was awesome.

On another note, two weeks ago I taught Sophie to ride her bike without training wheels, she took off right away and has not stopped since. She loves to ride her bike. Kaylie doesn't know how and is to scared of wrecking to try. Sophie brags about it and it makes Kalyie so mad. So i asked Sophie to please stop, so she says, "i loooove riding that bike" I had to try so hard to not laugh. It was very funny. So she enjoyed riding all around while kaylie sticks to the scooter. Rissa rides her tricycle and even rode it back and forth to the school twice in one day last week, I was surprise that she didn't get tired, but I told her before we left that I was not gonna carry her bike home, so if she didn't ride it all the way we would leave it on the side of the rode. She did it and was so proud of herself.

yippee

Just eanted to let everyone know that I got into the LPN program here in Medford. I will start in Januray and finish in September. I am so excited and am glad to have one less step to my finishing goal of my RN. Thanks to all who have supported me through all this school. My Mom especially who has helped so much with taking care of my girls and gets to do so for the next 9 months. She is the best