Out With The Old

 My dad and his AWESOME friend Tracy spent eight hours installing me a new beautiful door.

Trailers DO NOT have normal standard sized ANYTHING.

So it's always a big pain in the butt to replace stuff.

 

They tore out this HIDEAOUS, un sturdy, nasty metal door.

It's freaking orange!!

Who the hell thought this was an ok choice!???

 



And installed this beauty.

Sigh.

I am so happy!!

It was a lot of work because the door jam had to be complete redone.

It needed to be wider and higher, and then they ran into wires and had to move those!!

 

I thought of the poem "The house that jack built"

"they pulled out the door to get a new one,

they moved the wall to get in the door,

the moved the wires to move the wall

all to replace the door

in the house that Ashley has!!!"

 

I am grateful for my dad and his amazingly patient friend.

Tracy has a work ethic that I greatly admire.

He never got upset (I get PISSED when stuff doesn't go smooth)

He just steadfastly worked along side my dad as they tore everything apart and then put every back.

And it was great entertainment to listen to the two old men work out there!!

I heard hilarious stories, occasional cursing (especially when they found the live wire), some teasing, and even the occasional singing!!

And I am so grateful that my parents concern themselves over making the house nicer and prettier.

I feel loved when the lawn is mowed and the new door comes.

Or even something simple like new door knobs!!

 

Next on the list of projects is to cover the DISGUSTING HIDEOUS skylight!!

That is going to happen next week!!

 

Twin Day!!

The school had twin day!!

We had these out fits from pictures so it worked out perfect.

 

Ella also had a little friend that has the same outfit, so they matched in their class.

She's a sweet little red headed girl and I was happy to have them be twins!!

I guess it turned out to be triplet day for them!!

All I want for Ella is for her to be nice.

When she associates herself with nice little girls it makes me so happy!!



Valentine's Day

I always tell Brent to not order me Flower Store flowers.

They're too expensive!!

But he never listens.

And at the end of the day, that's ok. :)

 

 Beautiful fire and ice roses.

We had these when we went to prom.

Sigh.... Such lovey memories!!

 

My poor old Ipod has been dropped too many times.

It had a huge black spot but miraculously healed itself and simply had lines running threw the screen!!

But it was time to say good bye.

Brent replaced it with a new, pretty blue one.

I mourn my old, tiny, faithful Ipod!!

I have running shoes and old running shoes.

 I use those for Insanity, bike riding and my elliptical.

I also use them for Zumba and other cross training.

I decided it was time to get some actual cross trainers instead of just using old running shoes!!

Better for the knees and feet!!

I'm excited!!

Now I have practically new, beautiful (finally broken in) running shoes,

and cross trainer that make my feet feel so much better!!

 

 



The Mustache

The school had a fundraiser.

If Ella sold a certain amount of cookie dough, she got some prizes.

The favorite was the plush mustache.

 

 My very dashing man.

 

 It all started with this little darling sneaking up behind me and saying,

"Oh Mommy!! I have a furry nose!!"

 

Ella tired to wear for an extended period, but it caused sneezing!!

My family is so easily pleased!!



The Words of Malachi

Malachi 4:5&6

 

In January, we discovered that my great grandma's house was being torn down.

My dad was raised by his grand parents and it pricked at his heart to see it torn apart.

I walked around the wreckage, trying to find a scrap of something I could rescue for him to keep.

The longer I looked at the broken bones of the old house, the more I realized,

it didn't matter.

The house didn't matter.

The old doors and windows and the bath tub didn't matter.

 

The Spirit has been whispering to my ear often over the last few years.

I needed to do temple work.

The program is as simple as it can be, but still complicated.

My dad's family has NO records.

I would literally have to comb the world to finds them.

It was daunting and over whelming.

 

But that old ruined house seemed to cry out from the dust.

I went to the family history library that day and began the work.

I have slowly combed threw censuses, birth certificates, christening records, everything!!

I had hunted down and found maybe 6-8 people by myself.

I would get lost in front of the computer, and hours later lift my head to the smell of dinner and a setting sun.

I earnestly prayed that I would be able to find these people.

My father's family.

 

One rainy Friday morning I again renewed my request to the Lord and went on with my day.

I came across an interesting piece of the family puzzle and rushed to my dad to tell him.

He made a phone call to his uncle to check if what I thought could be right.

It was.

AND!!!

My great uncle knew a cousin who had a whole book.

A WHOLE BOOK

of records that we never even knew existed.

He had a copy and sent it to us in the mail.

 

TWO whole books that I have in my possession.

11 generations of people we never knew of.

We were all under the impression our great grand father didn't know HIS father.

And here it all is.

Thankfully, the Catholic church keeps its own methodical records, and the Alderetes have lived in the same small town for literally hundreds of years.

I am so excited!!

I have them now, and now the real work begins!!

 

Their ethnic back grounds are different than we thought!!

Bass Pro

Brent was able to have a day off this weekend and we decided to go actually do something as a family!!

We don't get a lot of Saturdays together, so we try to make the best of them!!

We decided to head into bass pro so the girls could see all the animals and fish.

 

 Ella wanted to get into the tank and swim with the fish.

Or catch one with her bare hands.

 

 Scarlet thought the fish were trying to attack her.

She felt this way about all the animals there.

Especially the giraffe.

So here lies the reason I have not tried to brave Disneyland yet.

Noises and people are not something Scarlet copes with easily.

 

 Ella has declared she wants a REAL bow with arrows that have POINTY ends, so she can hunt a turkey.

 

 Still skeptical that the fish will not attack her.

 

 Managing to be brave for picture.

 

She felt a lot better after a trip to the Disney store.

The animals were buy one, get one for a dollar.

We came home with Pongo and Purdy.

She spent 20 minutes just playing in the pile of stuffed animals.

And I must say, when she wanted to take home about 20 animals, and was only allowed 2, she quite willingly chose the ones she wanted and headed to the check out line.

Small victories.