NOT California Dreamin'

Sooooo....

Around Thanksgiving Ryan told me that he had an opportunity through work to go work in Seal Beach, CA for a year. The company would move us, pay for our housing, pay us a bunch on top of that and make it financially very worth it. We would spend a year living on the beach about 15 minutes from Disneyland. No brainer, right? Well, it took me a LONG time to come around to the idea. I love my life here. I have an awesome life and I have NO DESIRE to ever live in California (I know, absolute blasphemy to some of you, but that is how I feel.) Finally, however, when Ryan got actual figures back about just how much money we were talking about, I agreed to give it a go. The plan was to go for the year (starting this summer) and rent out our house here.

So for the past three months we have been in total limbo over this. He had to go through an interview process but they had originally told us that we would know by the end of January. Then it got pushed back to the week of February 15th. Then on the 15th they put us off again. We haven't been able to make plans or decisions or anything. It's been frustrating. For part of that time I really wanted to go. I had all that money spent (and saved) in my head. But the closer it got to the time we were actually going to find out, the more I regretted agreeing to it. Just last Sunday I was sitting behind my friend Rochelle at church just chatting before it started and I was thinking about how much I didn't want to leave this place and these people.

Yesterday was the big day. All day long I was on pins and needles waiting for Ryan to call. I called him a few times to see if he had forgotten to call me (yeah, right.) Finally around 4:00 he called to say...
The contract negotiations between his company and the one Ryan would have been working for had fallen apart so they aren't taking anyone to California. Basically, if this wouldn't have happened, we would have been chosen to go.

YAY!!!

I guess more than anything I have learned that money really can't buy happiness. The money would have been great, don't get me wrong, but nothing really compares to living somewhere that you love, in a great school district, in an incredible ward, with a great job (Ryan's and mine) and surrounded by family and friends who you love dearly.

WE ARE STAYING PUT!!!! :)

Really, who could leave this...


for this???
or worse...this???


(I still think CA is a great place to visit, don't get me wrong...)

My cuties

We did fuzzy curlers last night for church today.
Before...

After...

And, not to be outdone in cuteness, Lincoln came walking around the corner last night wearing my Ugg's saying, "I Mommy. I Mommy." I love these kiddos.

Game night!!!

It can be hard to come up with cheap things to do as a family when it is cold outside. For the past few Saturday nights we have been doing movie night, but last night I decided to try something different so I stopped at Wal-mart on my way home from work and picked up Twister. I always wanted Twister when I was little and I figured the kids would all be able to play it. We had a blast!!! It was really a hysterical hour of laughing and having fun together. Exactly what I wanted.

I have seen the future...

...and it isn't pretty.

At least in my case.

We visited the Museum of Nature and Science on Tuesday--the kids were out of school for a staff development day so we headed up to Denver with some friends and had a great day. We hit "Expedition Health" again which is an absolutely fabulous exhibit. Last time we were there we waited in line for almost an hour to do the age progression thing but finally ran out of patience. This time there was no line, so we all got to see what we would look like up to age 70. It was interesting--a little unnerving even to see the kids as teenagers and young adults. Audrey said she didn't like herself at 70, but I reassured her that no one looks good that old (sorry to those of my readers that actually are that old...) So here we are in all our glory...

(FYI: The picture on the left is what we will look like if we use sunscreen and take care of our skin, on the right is without. SPF 100 for us baby!!)

Presenting...
Lindsay, age 70
Notice the uncanny resemblance???
Now here come the really scary ones...

Isaac, age 21
(The instructions tell you not to smile, and he happened to be wearing an orange sweatshirt, hence the convict look. Hopefully when he looks like this he will just be getting home from his mission, not hanging out in prison...)

Audrey, age 21
Is it just me or is she gorgeous?! This is so weird to see. (That's my hand holding her hair off of her face.)

Chloe, age 21
Again, this is just weird for me to look at.

Lincoln, age 30
(a disclaimer--it is difficult to get a 2 year old to hold still and look into the camera. He had a strange look on his face in the original picture so the aged pictures got pretty disturbing. He is such a cute baby--I hope this thing isn't too accurate!!)


Here was another favorite part of the museum--the Indian exhibit. Audrey wants to be an Indian when she grows up, so she was particularly excited to see this Indian wigwam and envision her future with Brian here.

XOXOXOXOX

Boys and girls really are soooo different. Audrey has been boy crazy since day one--she decided she was going to marry Jacob when we first moved here, then in preschool she changed her mind and decided to marry Lukie. This year it's been all about Brian, a sweet little disabled boy in her class. She is so cute with him--she just truly loves him and is very (sometimes TOO) affectionate. But she is also always watching out for him--bringing him his walker and making sure he has what he needs. On the other end of the spectrum we have Isaac. He had a girl in his class bringing him candy at school and calling him at home. He talked her ear off about pokemon--completely oblivious to what was somewhat obvious to me.

So today at school I was helping Brian with a math assignment involving conversation hearts. I saw one that said "Marry Me" and jokingly asked him if he was going to give it to Audrey. He just laughed and said, "We are already married." Good to know! I told him that made me his mother-in-law. When we got home Audrey and I had the following conversation:

Me: Audrey, Brian told me you two are already married.
Audrey: That's because he thinks when you kiss it means you are married.
LONG PAUSE
Me: Soooo....you've kissed Brian????
Audrey: Yes
Me: (gulp) On the cheek?
Audrey: Yes

Okay, then. I wasn't expecting to have this conversation with my kindergartner!

Bet you can't guess what this is...

My main New Year's Resolution this year is to get our financial house in order. Not that it is out of order, but I figure there is always room for improvement. We have a lot of ambitious long-term financial goals, not to mention four college educations, at least two missions and numerous other big ticket expenses looming in our future that we save for monthly. We have also had a few unexpected monthly expenses enter into our lives this year. In looking over our budget, we decided some cuts would have to be made and some sacrifice would be involved. So here is one of our solutions:


Any ideas as to what it is??

It is an antenna! Ryan built it and installed it in the attic. That's right. We are done with our satellite t.v. MAJOR SACRIFICE! Both of us work out at least 1 1/2 hours a day and we watch our shows while we do it. Ryan has a plan to make it all work--he is installing a DVR thingy on our computer so that we can still record our antenna shows. Yes, we will miss some of the fancy channels, but I love taking control of our money situation and making it work even better.