I'm back!!

Since we moved, I've been out of the loop. We had to figure out what we wanted to do for phone and Internet since Qwest wasn't available in Pilot Rock. I talked to people around town and they were all spending $60-$80 a month, which sounded expensive to me. I went to the phone company in town and they said that to have local and unlimited long distance, it would cost me $61 a month plus taxes. That sounded a little high so I looked at High Speed Internet. They had broadband Internet which would be $53 a month but didn't include a phone. I remembered a friend of mine from Ontario who does her phone over the Internet using Magic Jack (it looks like a big thumb drive), which you only have to pay a one time fee of $40, and you get unlimited local and long distance calls. She's had it for a year and really likes it. Reviews of the Magic Jack were all positive, so I decided to try it. I mean if you divide $40 by 12 months, that's less than $4 a month, which beats all those other deals. I called the phone company, signed up for a month of broadband, to test things out and make sure it works well, and they told me that at any time I can sign a year contract and then instead of $53 a month, it will be $29! I got my modem today and everything works great, so I'm going to call them and sign up for a year and then my monthly phone/Internet bill will be just over $30 with taxes which beats the $70 + of all the other options. For any of you who have the option, I think this is the way to go. Other pluses of the Magic Jack is that next year, I can renew the membership for only $20, and you can take it with you anywhere. For example, if you go to a hotel that has free high-speed or wireless internet, you can bring the Magic Jack and your laptop, and make any calls you want without paying the hotel charges. Many people in the military use it because they can have a continental phone number on it and then the calls are free. I guess the only downside of the Magic Jack was that I couldn't get a local number. It is actually a Bend, Oregon phone number. But I figure if I'm going to be saving $30, I don't care so much. If you have questions, feel free to email or call me about it 541-508-3595.

Ellen is the total opposite of Calista

You might recall my last post about giving Calista away. Well last weekend Holly Hellburg Davison came over to our house. We ran into her at Walmart the day before and since she was going to be in Pilot Rock the next day, she stopped by. For some reason, Ellen really took to her. She sat on her lap, gave her hugs (really good hugs with her arms wrapped tight around the neck), played with Holly's sunglasses, and mainly just treated her like family. When it was time for Holly to leave, Ellen wanted to go. I tried asking Ellen if she wanted to stay with me, but she said no. Holly started to walk out the door, and I expected Ellen to at least look worried, but instead it was Calista who was yelling and crying that she didn't want Ellen to go. Aaron followed Holly outside to see what would happen. When Jacque learned what was happening, she stood in front of Holly's car door and wouldn't let Holly put Ellen in the backseat. We were curious to see when Ellen would start to miss us, so we let Holly put her in the car. Ellen was totally fine with everything. Then Holly drove around the block a couple of times, but throughout the whole time, Ellen was very content and smiling. Holly came back, Aaron opened the door and grabbed Ellen who smiled and waved good-bye to Holly. It makes me a little nervous that Ellen never acted concerned, but I'm glad to see how protective her sisters were.

Now Ellen doesn't always take to people that easily. At church her old nursery teacher said good-bye and asked for a hug. Ellen looked at her and said, "No." The teacher tried a few times, but still the same response. However, she gladly gave a hug to a man just down the hallway. Maybe its because he's the one who always gives her the bulletin when we walk into the chapel. She is definitely a social one, and I might need to keep a closer eye on her.

Do we keep her or give her away?

Some of you know how Calista acts around guys. She is usually scared of them, and for most of the time growing up she wouldn't even look at one when they came to our house...even if it was an uncle! She would either cover her eyes or hide in my chest the whole time. Well she's been doing better lately, which is great because we have been using a lot of "men" doctors. The doctor we have right now, she likes. Its her friend's dad and he's in our ward. She even said he could sit by her at our ward picnic yesterday and she talked with him.

But the reason for the post. Our home teachers came this afternoon, and Aaron got to teasing Calista that he was going to send her home with them. He said that she'd be really good at doing the dishes, sorting socks, pulling weeds and waxing the car. It was all fun because she was sitting right between daddy's legs. The conversation changed to other things, then the lesson, and then we had our closing prayer. After the prayer, the home teachers came around and shook everyone's hands and said good-bye. As one of the men went to leave, he came up to Calista and picked her up, carrying her like a sack of potatoes over his shoulder and said, "Good-bye!" For the first two seconds, Calista smiled and looked like she was going to laugh. Then I think she remembered the previous conversation, and all of a sudden she was stuck on some guy's shoulder and they were leaving. She looked at me with a panicked expression and yelled, "NO!! Mommy!!" and started crying. The guy felt really bad...he didn't mean to scare her like that, but it was nice to see what would happen if someone did try to steal her away. She wasn't going to go quietly! We decided we'd keep her!!

Update on House

We've been planning on closing on our house on June 18th, but last week we were told that the appraiser couldn't commit to getting the papers all done before the 21st. So now we have a closing date of July 2nd. We were a little frustrated at this news, but this week we got some good news. Aaron signed some "Early Occupancy" papers today which will let us move into the house on June 18th, and then we just pay rent for the two weeks before closing. This means we still only have to move once and we don't have to pay an extra two weeks of rent here! It also means that the people who are going to rent our house after we leave can keep their move in date as June 26! Yay!! Prayers are answered!!! It just means that we need to start packing!

Another side note of what's been going on at our house. I've been working on potty training Ellen. I figured it was better to start here where there isn't any carpet, and its going pretty well. She's only had one accident so far today and its 2pm. We spend a lot of time in the bathroom singing songs and painting our fingernails and toenails, but she's a good sport. Hopefully it keeps going well during the moving process. It will be so nice to be out of diapers for a few weeks!

Pictures of the Inside!

Aaron and I got to go walk through the house again today. They've gotten rid of a bunch of things, but you can still see that they have a bunch of stuff still left over from the estate sale. Our closing date is set for June 18th, and we are hoping it stays there or comes earlier of course!

Here's a tour of the inside of our house.

When you walk in the front door you are in the living room, looking at the dining room. Just past that desk on the right is the hallway.

These next few pictures are rooms down the hallway, starting with the first door on the left, and going clockwise.

Bathroom 1. It has a bathtub and a big set of shelves across from the toilet.

Master bedroom. It actually doesn't have access to the bathroom, but its the biggest room.

Closet in the master bedroom. It is really big. The mirrored doors kind of make the picture weird, but it goes the full length of the wall. I think we'll have enough room for all of our clothes and shoes. What do you think?

The second bedroom.

The last bedroom.

The living room, where we walked into the house at the beginning.

We are back to the dining room/living room again. The door right after the dining table on the right is the furnace room.

The furnace room, which might be changed into a pantry.

The kitchen. It had more cupboards hanging over this near side of counter, but the sellers took it down to open things up. They kept the cupboards if we wanted to put them back up. We're debating.

The pantry off of the kitchen. It might be taken out to open the kitchen up to the living room. We would probably put more cabinets here. We'll see.

This is the hallway going from the kitchen to the family room. The brown door off to the left is the second bathroom.

This bathroom also has a shower.

The family room. It is really big!

The laundry room is actually a closet off of the family room. The other closet I think just has a shelf in it. I might end up putting a sewing table there and opening it up when I want to sew.

Outside pics!

When you come to our house, you pull up to the garage. When Calista saw the garage she said, "Oh look mom...aren't those blue squares beautiful!!"

Walkway up to the front door. Northwest view. Can you see that white thing on the deck? That is Calista's coat that she left there when we came for the estate sale. I guess we're already starting to feel at home!

Another northwest view.

West side of house. This is the front door.

The south end of the house.

South view. That shed is used as a garden shed right now. We haven't looked inside of it yet, but it might end up being a playhouse/garden shed, or it might be taken down.

South view again, just shifted to the left. Our lot goes all the way behind those two trees in the background. If you can see the chain link fence off to the left, it follows our lot to the back, and then there's a barbwire fence that lines the back end. We don't think any of the trees here are fruit trees, but we'll have our garden somewhere back here.

This is a southeast view of the backyard. The first set of windows is the furnace room, which may end up being a pantry. The sliding glass doors come out of the dining room and the kitchen is in the corner.

This is an easement just off of the backyard. I just rotated myself to the right from the picture above. Supposedly there's a 25 foot easement for a city road, but we're going to try to get rid of it because the city can't actually build a road there any more. There are houses in the way.

East view again, just zoomed up on the family room door/steps.

Northeast view. Backyard.

This is our Church just across the street. Plenty of room for riding bikes and scooters without me having to worry about cars!

Calista is learning to read

A couple days ago, Calista brought me the "Guess Who?" game and asked who one of the characters were. It was a simple name like Rob, and I told her to read it. She told me she couldn't, but I encouraged her. So she sounds out the word, "r--0--d." I had to correct her on the "b" and then she said, "r--o--b...Rob!" She was able to sound out the word and put it together all on her own. I got really excited which got her excited and we moved onto other names, keeping to the simple three letter names. She was able to do them all. Then Jacque came home the next day with a list of words ranging from 1 letter up to 5 letters. I sat down with Calista and she was able to sound out all the 1, 2, and 3 letter words: a, am, an, and, as, at, but, can, cat, dad, did, dog, got, get, had, he, him, his, I, if, in, is, it, mom, and not. I know these are simple, but it seems like when Jacque and Samuel were starting to read, I practically had to sound the word out for them before they could tell what the word was. Calista was doing it all on her own and she's only 4! I was also impressed with her because I haven't really worked with her on reading. This is just stuff she's picked up from somewhere. We've done a little bit of work on sounds, but I can't really take much credit for teaching her.