Facebook update.

I made a comment on my Facebook page about our weekend and it left people wanting. It said "Pamela Schilling Kirkwood had a long weekend filled with tons of houses, rain, vomit, assault rifles, mud and mice. Doesn't that combination just make everyone jealous? I need a few days to recover from the weekend..." So here is a very long update.
We sold our house to the people that came to see it from my last blog. Yes I know, it's amazing. So this weekend we sent the kids out to the family cabin near Elma with the Grandparents while Brandon and I went shopping. I've been making lists of favorite houses for a year now, so you must know that the excitement level was very high. We dropped the kids and our van off at the in-laws at 9:30 Friday morning and headed out. We got to see about 10-12 houses on Friday and I tell you, I was so exhausted. Emotionally, it was crazy. Brandon and I had planned to go out to eat and maybe see a movie without the kids, but we ended up eating a quick meal and falling asleep in front of the TV at 9. We were up bright and early to go out and finish our house list on Saturday.
When we were finished, we packed up our stuff to head out to the cabin. It had rained so much on Friday, but Saturday had been good. We figured the kids were excited not to be stuck inside. When we started down the drive that leads to the cabin, we felt the mud right away. Usually you drive up a small hill to park on the other side of the cabin, but as we made our way slowly towards the cabin, we saw the mass of tire tracks in the mud that used to be the road and all of the cars parked in the meadow before the cabin. Everyone that saw us coming motioned for us to pull up there. What a mess that place was! We gave all of the kids a hug and I noticed that the mud on Evan's boots was an inch thick! Crazy.
We had fun telling everyone about the houses we had seen. Brandon's cousins were out with their 4-wheelers and had made some new trails, so Brandon and I got to go for a ride in the woods. That was fun. Uncle Tom has something of a gun collection and he will bring them down once in awhile for fun. The men go down to the river to shot and the women stay to chat. Well, not this time. I joined the men and took my turn shooting first the assault rifle and then the pistol. Riley came down for towards the end and took a turn with the pistol. For some of you who are shocked (MOM) that I would let Riley shoot the gun, Uncle Tom is very good at the rules of shooting at the river and we were all very safe.
We had a fun dinner late that night and then marshmallows around the campfire. All of us, except the Delahunty's, were sleeping in the cabin. Our kids and Tanner, 2y, were bunked up with my in-laws in a bedroom. Brandon and I were on a mattress on the kitchen floor. Meri and Dustin were in the living room on a mattress with baby Gracie ,4 m, and Jake was on the couch. Lesha and Jeff were in the other bedroom with the twins, 3y. A few years back, we had worked hard to move the mice out. I found a great repellent that really worked and we plugged all of the holes so that they couldn't get back in. Well, the repellent doesn't last forever and they can chew new holes after awhile. So as I tossed and turned on the LOUD plastic mattress, I heard the mice living in the attic, making new holes!
After a hard night's rest, we woke up to rain. Lots more rain. It was very tight in that little cabin. Some people made the best of it, while others (ME) plotted our escape down the muddy path to sanity. I talked over my plans to leave early with my husband who agreed at first, but then stole me away to the woods to give me a lecture about accepting some things and trying to make the best of it. I thought of how I could get my way, briefly remembering the assault rifle from the day before, and then decided to try the "make the best of it stuff" that my husband had laid on me. So I made a really big, wonderful fire and sat by it with lots of the children under an umbrella in the rain.
The evening turned out nice, family gathering for dinner and a spiritual lesson. We watched a movie and sent the kids off to bed. Anna was missing us though, and had a crying fit over us sleeping in the other room. I finally got her calmed enough to fall asleep by 11 and went to bed. At 1 a.m. Lesha ran out of their bedroom looking for a pan to catch vomit in. Kayleah had gotten sick. She continued to get sick off and on for a few more hours. Poor sweetie. I felt so bad that they were stuck in their little room with one sleeping child and one vomiting! By 8 a.m. we were all up and we started packing. We were headed home by 10:30. Anna started getting what I thought was carsick by 11:30, but it didn't go away once we got home. We were supposed to take the kids to see a few of our favorite houses, but we canceled that. By 3 Anna gave in to the nausea and Riley had started feeling sick. At 9, he gave in. We're taking bets on who will be next and when. My vote is Evan around 1 a.m. Brandon's is Evan by 4 a.m. I hope neither of us win, because that would mean very little sleep. So that is the very long story that goes with my very short facebook comment. Hope you all enjoy and had a great weekend, too. Love, Pam

Months gone by...

So I do realize that it has been months! since my last post. We have just gotten through all of our kids birthdays,a few cousins' birthdays, mother's day, a big ward activity that I got to plan and a pretty intense class for Brandon. (He got a B!) All of the birthdays were great, but we somehow let them have both friend parties and family ones. We had 6 parties at our house in the course of one month. Not a good idea. I have lots of pictures to update later, but they are on the other computer. We also just got done telling everyone that we are now off the market, but that turns out to be a lie. Our realtor got back from her trip to find that we had accidentally expired on our listing. It was supposed to be June 5, but somehow went off May 5th while she was away. The realtor taking her place talked to us about it and we just told her to let it expire. Well, our realtor realized the problem when she got home and just fixed it without asking. Luckily we found out about it, just minutes before we got a call to show the house. Otherwise, we wouldn't have know what to do. Well, the couple that came to see the house really like it and are coming back to see it tomorrow night. Crazy! I'm not sure what Heavenly Father has in store, but He sure is keeping us on our toes! I'll update about this and add pictures of the other stuff later.