Where does the time go?

Wow! I can not believe it has been a month since I have posted anything! Where does the time go?  I am starting to think my dog eats it with all the rest of the scraps in this house! I have so much going on and we have been so busy with the end of school.... yikes! I have hopped onto my blogger and started several drafts, however none have been completed! Oh well... tis the life of a busy mom and her family!!

We have many changes happening around our house... and beyond.

Our wedding photo - in Maui.

my bracelet

First of all, my hubby and I celebrated our 9th anniversary this month. He took me out to an incredible dinner and bought me a beautiful Pandora bracelet. I just love the idea that he can add charms to it as the years go by. It was such an incredibly thoughtful and meaningful gift. My hubby is not a big gift giver... which is ok, because he is an incredible husband in so many other ways, so I don't mind. But when he does want to do something special - he REALLY does something special. I just love my bracelet! And a night away from the kids - well that was spectacular all by itself!

What else happened this month? Oh... let's see... we bought another new car.... and gave it back again. Not being able to get a car loan has to do with the status of our house. Since losing my income in February 2012, we have been trying to work out a loan mod with the bank. We tried Keep Your Home California, hired a mortgage counselor.... all to no avail. We just couldn't get it modified and they are proceeding with foreclosure. Feeling as though we had no other choice (since the bank waited till 3 days prior to auctioning our home to tell us we were denied!) we have decided to file bankruptcy.

taking our car back 

Not only does this affect our home situation, but we have been unable to get a car loan because we are in default of our mortgage. Doesn't matter that we can afford the payment, the banks only see that we haven't been paying for our house. Crazy how it all works, but we are just glad to be moving forward. We owed double what our house was worth, so getting out from under it will be a good thing. We really wanted to stay, but we know that God must have other plans for us because if He wanted us to stay He would have worked it all out!!

That leaves us as a one car family with my husband driving 100 miles a day to and from work in a gas guzzling truck - ouch!! ...to the tune of $200 a week in gas. Which in turn leaves me car-less. I really don't mind. I just forget that I don't have a car sometimes! This past weekend, my friend called and invited us to a BBQ. I told her sure, we'd be there in a couple of hours. When telling my kids to get ready for the BBQ, my super smart eight year old daughter says, "But Mom, how are we going to get there?" LOL Oh yeah..... I forgot again! We ended up walking. Took us 45 minutes, but hey, we go for long walks all the time.... they are just not always on busy roads. For the most part though, I have just had to become super diligent in writing my menus down and creating a thorough shopping list. Basically, I have had to become super organized! And if there is something we need right away, we live within walking distance from a major supermarket that carries anything we might need at the last minute.

....wrapped each other up like mummies!

We peeked into our Egypt study and....

Thank goodness for the end of the school year. We have this week to finish and then we are done for summer! Even though I say we are done, we still do some studying during summer. I like to do some- thing "schoolish" 2 days a week, just so we don't have to spend the first month or so doing review when we start school again in the fall. This summer we are going to study Egypt, with a few spelling and math lessons thrown in for review. Kids are super excited to study Egypt. We do mostly fun stuff in our summer studies. For example we are building a salt dough map of Egypt, making Egyptian drawings, reading novels about children that take place in ancient Egypt and cooking up some Egyptian foods. We are basing our study off of the "Greenleaf Guide to Ancient Egypt" History for the Thoughtful Child by Rob and Cyndy Shearer. We will end our study by going to the Egyptian museum in San Jose, CA. And to top it all off, I am hopeful that I can start getting school work planned for the next school year too.

To make our schedule even more hectic, I have decided to help out a friend and foster four puppies (yes, that is not a typo I really mean four!) My friend runs a dog rescue and is constantly rescuing abandoned dogs, which requires looking for foster homes. So we decided to help her out since she really needed someone. I figured - what the heck... it's summer, we are still in our house for at least a month or so and the kids will be able to help. The puppies arrive on Wednesday and we are all super excited.

I just hope that in between feeding, cleaning, washing and playing with the puppies I will have time to pack up our house! The new auction date for the house is in three weeks and then if it sells, we will find out when we have to move! So sorting, purging, packing and preparing for a garage sale will start as soon as we finish up school work this week. I really am not looking forward to moving, but I am kind of excited at the same time. My husband is dreading it. I keep saying if we end up in an apartment, at least we will have a pool for the summer! Hey - I'm always looking on the bright side and when our summers are over 100 degrees... I am always wishing for a pool! Kids and I will live in the water if we do move somewhere with a pool. Hint, hint, God, we want a pool!

As soon as the puppies arrive I will post pics with links to the rescue if anyone is interested in a puppy or with donations. Thank you for your support!