on the road again

Aaron and I talked extensively about how to simplify our family life in 2012. We wanted more quiet evenings at home. Scripture reading every night by the fire. Journal writing about things we are grateful for. Date nights after the kids are in bed. pretty simple goals, if you ask me.

We haven't done so well. In fact, these first few weeks of 2012 have been some of the most chaotic weeks of our married life. Two weeks ago we were in Arizona. We spent last weekend in Utah. Tonight I am writing from a comfortable bed at a Hilton hotel in California. Only three of our kids are with us. Ben and Zack wanted to stay with friends and we didn't have room for them in Aaron's car anyway. It's time to get a newer, bigger car for our family. We hope to sign our lives away on a 12 passenger van tomorrow. You heard me right.

Last Thursday was a really hard day for me. Aaron came home after a long day of work and a basketball game and told me "tomorrow will be better". But Friday Simon flooded the bathroom on the 2nd floor (water coming down from the ceiling in the kitchen). He also threw a basketball in Romy's face and bit her fingers... along with spreading a tube of toothpaste on Aaron's night stand and emptying a can of formula on the stairs. Later that night, Sunny broke off the faucet to our backyard hose. Water was spraying everywhere and I just wanted to crawl in a hole and never come out. Thanks to facebook (and some awesome friends and neighbors) the faucet was fixed in no time at all. When we went to bed on Friday, my optimistic husband told me to look at the bright side and said, "this will make a great blog post." Had I been in the right mood, it could have been.

Out of everything that's happened in the past few days/weeks the only things written in my handwritten gratitude journal are the lessons I've learned in quiet moments with Jane. I knew she was an amazing person when I first met her and I have grown to love her even more over the past 5 years of our friendship.. but I am completely BLOWN AWAY by her strength, powerful insight and testimony through this very difficult loss. She has taught me so much over the past few weeks. So grateful to have her in my life. Read her recent optimistic and emotional blog post HERE.

Hope to be home, back to "normal" and uploading pictures soon.

Love from Cali,

Janet