Hiatus Highlights & My 1 Year Blogaversary!

Before I get into my last two weeks of my hiatus I just HAVE to post the pics from yesterday's playgroup time. Since we moved three months ago I haven't been able to make it to any playgroup dates and I have missed them all so terribly! Today PandaGirl and I made the one hour drive to be with everyone for Mama Darling and Deshing Darling's baby shower for her mei mei (little sister), Hope, whom they are going to go get in China in a couple of weeks. This AMAZING cake was made by Team Mom (from Panther Pride) who says she isn't creative! HA! We gathered at Ski Instructor's (from The Warming Hut) house and we all had the best time! I love this group more than words can express!!!!!!!





Now for the last two weeks...

Saga #1: Drum rolllllll, please......guess what we are doing this week?

M-O-V-I-N-G.

Yes, you read correctly. After putting away the last of the boxes from our move here on May 1st, we are moving! This will make my 13th move in 15 years. And to think that I was born and raised in my same house until I got married. Hmmmm. PLEASE let this be my last move for awhile! Wanna know why? You know we moved into an apartment signing a YEAR lease in order to get to know the area before we buy a house here in our new city. Well, the ceiling above our master bedroom has the most annoying, irritating, mind-numbing SQUEAKING you have EVER heard! I have to wear earplugs (YUCK!) just to get some semblance of rest. The tenants stomp all over that place and continually drop bowling balls or elephants and then add that to the horrid squeaking sound that occurs everytime they go to the dining room or the bedroom and bathroom and I am going NUTS!! I mustn't leave out the BEST part---the hours they keep are not normal. The stay up anywhere from midnight til 2 or 3 in the morning and then get up EVERYDAY at 6:00AM. I am so fatigued that I am not functioning well at all. I am tired all the time and can't escape the noises they make. We told the management the day we moved in that something had to be done and now here we sit....three months later and us moving out. Several letters went back and forth to no avail. I told them they owed me compensation for the loss of sleep. They didn't agree. We are paying out the wahzoo for this place, the least I expect is to SLEEP! It was a total GOD-THING that they are releasing us from our lease agreement. That just doesn't happen. The sad thing is that we have a GREAT rapport with the office staff and will miss them. Within 30 minutes of us hitting the pavement last Wednesday night to find a rent house God plopped one down in our lap. I will give more details later on that wonderful miracle. I am totally THANKFUL for the squeak now! So many awesome things are happening as a result of us moving into this new house! You gotta wait for the post about all of it! He is so GOOD! For now, know that I am excited to move, but tired of moving!

By the way---all of this mess means we have to postpone our Disney trip to February instead of October. At least then it will be celebrating PandaGirl's Gotcha Day.

PandaGirl successfully finished her first year of swimming lessons and picked out this swirly sucker as her treat. We are so proud of her!

Another staff wife at church is getting me started on coupon shopping. She introduced me to The Grocery Game. However, I saved $80.00 last week on all these things and haven't even joined the game site yet! Yes, we use all of these items. PandaPop told me I couldn't get into using coupons if I saved $20.00 buying a 40lb bag of dog food if I don't even have a dog. He has a point.

Saga #2: Beautiful, new, red LazBoy couch...OUT. Functional, royal purple, canvas lawn chairs...IN. One month after getting our new couch, PP sat down as usual and...POP...it broke. It was actually a blessing in diguise because it ended up not being very comfortable at all and we wanted a refund. After being told I couldn't get a refund---even though my LaZboy paperwork said I COULD get one---I started down a long journey with Worker Girl-A in office not communicating with Worker Girl-B in store causing ME to come completely unglued at their lack of effort to get our refund back to us in a retarded game of "she said, she said". After a long and drawn out mess we finally got our check two DAYS ago. I should have had it two MONTHS ago! So now, we are sitting in our darling little red-neck chairs with a TV table in-between until we go and find a new couch that we like. Oh the joy.

Aren't these two just the CUTEST?!

VBS was such a BLAST! We had 450+ kids in attendance in grades K-6th!!! For PandaPop and I...THAT WAS HUGE! We had so much fun getting to know the kids better as well as the adult volunteers. Everyone wore name tags making my life MUCH easier. I worked in the Crafts room and was able to have all the kids come through allowing me to better learn their names.

Pudding and Princesses!

PG has gotten into being the "teacher" for all of her animals. Here they have had a lovely tea party and are now enjoying reading time.

PandaGirl and SpicyGirl having the time of their lives with shaving cream and the mirror!!! What a HUGE blessing to have our friends, The Spicy Family come up for dinner and a visit. The daddies went to the movies and the girls and mommies went for ice cream and lots of chatting and playing back at our home. WE LOVE YOU!!! They left at 10:30 PM...


PG upside down at 10:40 PM. I think she had fun and was completely out of gas!


Of course, there was lots more on our plate, but for your sake I am stopping here. Sunday night we celebrated the birthday of another friend from China complete with everything "Little Mermaid" and our pastor so totally ROCKED on Sunday morning. I'll post about that later, too. For now, I have to get back to packing boxes and swiping that paintbrush around a time or two.

Happy One Year Blogaversary to ME!