Sunday, June 7, 2009

rEpeNtaNce...& eVerYthiNg eLse...

OK...OK...pathetic I know. I haven't uPdAted oUr blOg in basically forever!! AND...so much has been happening since I last updated. So I have lots of catching up to do, so I'll try to do it as painlessly as possible and not bore ya (any of yous that still even check our blog...ha, ha) with too much craziness. OK...here's the quick to the point synopsis of our life for the last three months...READY, SET, GO:

•pack, pack, pack and then we packed some more
sell, sell, sell and sell some more (we sold almost all of our furniture, crazy...but good)
•lived in a really empty house...sleeping on blow ups, boxes to hold the TV up...it was great
•lots of really sad goodbyes (miss you Halifax fam!!)
•pack a truck with what was left of our life
•for me and the kids...one last 12 hour plane ride back to Utah
•for Mark, one long 50 hour drive back to Utah...yuck
•now living with the parents...gotta love it baby...really, it's great and are parents are fabulous because they put up with us!! and hey, gotta love built in babysitters!
•we got cell phones (iPhones, that is)...can I get a YAHOO...after four years without it has been so fabulous...honestly these things are amazing and oh, so worth it!!
looked at houses, then quickly gave up when we realized we had to be making $ to get a loan...ha, ha, imagine that...so that's on hold for awhile
•gave up on looking at cars...until we are actually making $...ha, ha...yes, we just have to laugh
GRADUATION...we took an amazing trip to Halifax with Mark's parents for his graduation. It was so more than AWESOME, and we were pretty dang proud of that boy!!
•Mark has been setting up his associateships with Dr. Mark Mackley and Dr. Jim Jones
•insurance, insurance and more insurance to figure out
•trying to fit back in, in good ol' Utah land
golfing...trying to get the swing back
•seeing lots of family
•Ilie got a bike...and loves it
•hangin' with the friends
•yummy Utah restaurants....oh, how I have missed you
Cienna turned one...& we had one crazy fun swimming cupcake party (pics to come!!)
•Cici started full on walking...yeah, you go girlie!
Ilie is making new friends (but so misses her Halifax buddies), is registered for Preschool and is going to start tumbling (I'm not use to all this big-kid stuff!)
swimming in Papa's pool...and Ilie is finally getting daring
•NOW...Mark officially starts his first day at work tomorrow...crazy, eh? But oh, so exciting! & we're still getting settled into a new life with lots to do and lots to figure out...but it's all exciting, just add a little faith and pixie dust we'll be just fine...fingers crossed!!

OK...did you survive? I think that about covers it! I am going to post a few more blogs with pics from the graduation trip and Cici's birthday...so don't worry there will be more, cause I know you are just dying for it, right? Ha, ha...yep, I'm pretty funny. OK...I will spare you and stop now. But to the blogging buddies out there, hopefully this is the start of a new beginning and I WILL do better!! 

3 comments:

Becky at VintageMixer said...

Welcome back to Utah! I have a local food blog with reviews of local restaurants maybe there are a few new ones for you to try out! Check out my blog at http://www.vintagemixer.blogspot.com. Looking forward to blogging with you in Utah and hearing about some of the yummy restaurants you love!

Mindi D said...

I'm happy you made it through! School is rough, especially in another country! Good job to all of you!! I'll be checking your blog so i'm expecting some excitement :)

Jessica Petersen said...

Thanks for the update, we miss you guys!!! I just wanted to make sure you knew about the IRS tax credit for first time home buyers (which you guys are since you haven't purchased a home in the last 3 years, right). It is a sweet deal, so if you can, close on a house before December 1st. You can google the tax credit or read about it on irs.gov or read about it here: http://www.federalhousingtaxcredit.com/2009/glance.php

It's a refundable tax credit which means after it reduces your tax liability to $0, then it'll pay you the remainder of the credit as a tax refund. Lots of tax credits are non-refundable and just reduce our tax liability but once it lowers your tax liability to $0, you don't get any more money from it. Just fyi, in case you didn't already know all this.