Vacation Time

Alright folks. Sorry for the long delay between posts! There has been a lot going on. First, we went to Utah for a week or so for Michelle and Jeff's graduation/vacation time, which I will show pictures of here. On the way home from said vacation is when all the excitement began.

We made it about four hours out of Provo when our car decided it didn't want to drive anymore. We started slowing down and had no acceleration whatsoever. Lucky for us we were right by an exit to Sugar City, Idaho and not out in the middle of nowhere. We made it half way up the ramp before we ran out of juice completely. Chelsea was asleep at this point, so I stayed in the car with her while Rick started walking to the nearest gas station. He was still in sight when a car drove past me on the exit. That car stopped and picked up Rick and drove him to the gas station. Well on Sunday in Mormonland most all things are closed, including gas stations. So the nice people brought Rick to their parents house in Sugar City (they were visiting family that weekend) to make phone calls and arrangements. Rick called a tow truck place, which was open, and then several fix-it places, all of which were closed, being Sunday. So there was no hope of continuing the journey that day. Well the nice folks lent Rick their car to pick up us stranded folk and necessary luggage for the night and their nice folks let us stay in their home for the night. They fed us roast beef and mashed pototoes with gravy and corn and homemade bread, and cake. It was much better than the peanut butter and jelly we had planned. :)

So the next day we waited. We found out that the fuel pump and fuel injector needed replacing. :S They said it would be $800. We got a deal and only paid $795! It took a good portion of the day to get fixed, but we did manage to get three more hours of travel in before stopping for the night. We were very blessed with the circumstances overall, being close to a city, being picked up by the first car that drove by, having them be a very friendly and welcoming family that were able to comfortably accommodate us, and having the car fixed the next day, and not having it break because of an accident. I had to push my doctor appointment back a week, but that was no big deal. So that was our first adventure.

When we got home we discovered that our basement was wet! Our carpet on one side of the basement was completely soaked, which happened last year when we had thunderstorm after thunderstorm and many days of rain all together. With all the snow that we got this year melting, we were afraid it would happen. I didn't discover it for a couple days, but when I did I cleared the room of furniture and toys and started sucking up the water with our carpet shampooer. It was that same day that Rick came home on his lunch break and told me the news. He had just been laid off. No notice. Effective immediately. Well sheesh. That was kind of a slap in the face kind of a surprise! So our top priorities became clearing the basement of water (which took a number of days and then had to be shampooed and rinsed and dried again) and finding a job for Rick, which we are still in the process of. I've been spending MUCH less time on the computer, and didn't have time at first to blog. Then I left my camera at Grandma Heit's house and didn't pick it up for about a week. But now, as you can see, we've got our camera back and we can blog blog blog. Let's talk about some fun stuff!

The picture way above is Chelsea checking out the koi fish pond in our hotel after our first day on the road to Utah. She loved the fish!

Here she is checking out one of the several hot tubs at the hotel. We stayed at the C'mon Inn in Billings. It was kind of pricey, but worth the experience. And it was very comfy. We had a crib brought up for Chelsea but she ended up sleeping in the bed with us in the end. Good thing it was a King!

This picture was taken in the game room. It was actually dark with black lights, but you can't tell in the photo. Chelsea is checking out the cool effects on her clothes from the black light.

Swimming! This little kiddie pool was ideal. It felt like a giant bath tub! Chelsea loved getting in and out of the pools all by herself. She wanted to use the stairs in the big pool with no help and wanted to just keep walking even after her feet couldnt' touch! Crazy girl. She objected to being held up or in this floaty at all times in the big pool, but oh well. She fell over a couple times in this little pool and needed help up! She's just so light that any waves knock her over! She had a blast though.

This is the one hot tub in the pool area. All the other hot tubs are interspersed throughout the hotel's main area and around the koi pond. Chelsea wanted to get in this one too, but we only let her dangle her feet a little. We don't want a cooked kid! I only dangled my feet in the hot tub too, so that probably made it acceptable for her. We don't want a cooked baby either!

This is just cute. What more can I say?

Aunti Michelle and Chelsea at the place where we got our family photos taken. I didn't take any big family shots with our camera, but we got a couple cute ones of Rick, Me, and Chelsea. I didn't put that one up because it needs to be cropped and a sun spot taken out of Rick's hair first.

Mommy and daughter...and Grover.

This is just precious! I love this picture. Oh, and a big thank you to Reed for sharing his sippy cup with Chelsea. She was dying of thirst apparently and we were unprepared. We forgot the diaper bag altogether, but even then I wouldn't have thought to bring water. Hey, there's was still snow at home at this point. We weren't used to heat/thirst. But we learned our lesson and carried water AND the diaper bag with us after this. :)

Grandpa Heit with the grandkids. Reed is tossing the ball into the frisbee golf thingy. I love the expression on his face.

Whee! Aren't grandparents great? Life would just be not as fun without them. :)

Chelsea got to spend a lot of time with Aunti Amanda, being as we stayed at their place during the visit. A big thank you to Chris and Amanda! You guys were great! Chelsea loved having Amanda's pen jar and Dr. Suess books to play with. She was also very good at getting Amanda to read to her. :) It was very cute. She still talks about Chris and Amanda and Jeff and Lois and Reed and Randy and Michelle and Greg and Grandma and Grandpa. Daily. Every prayer she has to thank Heavenly Father for all these people, along with other Grandma, other Grandpa, etc. :) Sometimes she even says thank you for other Randy too, hehe.

So here is the last picture we took on vacation before our batteries died. I figured they wouldn't last, yet I didn't bring extras. Silly me. Oh well. We missed some cute moments, but there are so many cute moments every day. I wish I had camera eyes, where I could just blink and capture a cute expression or dance pose or something. Here she is "singing" along with Rock Band while the rest of us do guitar or drums. She got somere around the lines of 22% of her song, hehe.

But anyway. We appreciate all the thoughts and prayers on our behalf. It's been just over two weeks of unemployment for us now. I'm actually feeling quite spoiled, except for the lack of income part. I love having Rick home so much more. Chelsea loves it too. She tends to cling to HIM instead of me if we are both around, so I've been able to get a lot more done for myself and for the house than I normally do. It makes it a little harder for him to get HIS work done, but he always makes time for her and also gets his work done. I love the family time we've been able to share. I say that Chelsea is going to have a shock when Rick goes back to work, but really I think it is going to be ME who gets the shock, hehe.

We are not sure what the future will bring. We've recovered from the shock and are now excited for a change. We don't know what will happen, but we've discussed several things that we want to have happen and goals that we have and what we need to make them happen. It's all up in the air at the moment until a few key things happen, number one being employment. Once that is established, we can get going on "the future." Dun dun dun. ;) In the meantime, we are being well cared for by the families in town. We have shared many a meal with both the Heits and the Kellys. It is much appreciated and we feel the love that goes into every meal. Thank you everyone! We love you!

By the way, Chelsea with be TWO YEARS OLD on THURSDAY. Whoa. We are having a Princess themed party. Pictures are sure to come!