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My week at work was pretty intense.  I was involved in the hiring process for a position at ALMACO. Normally, this isn’t a huge deal, but the interviews were quite lengthy and required me to keep my schedule clear for most of the day. As a result, things were pretty slow in between interviews making the days arduous. I think they went well overall, and I’m glad I had an opportunity to contribute to the decision. This is just one of the many reasons I enjoy working where I do; I love wearing different hats.

Tuesday we did BW3s and haircuts after work. The kids and I were overdue. We’ve been going to SportClips and while they aren’t the best in the world it’s quick and not too expensive. We still are having trouble finding someone to cut Isaac’s hair well. This lady does better than anyone has to date, but there’s still room for improvement.

On Wednesday, we surprised Aaron with a new bike. He’s needed one for awhile now, and we’ve been holding off. With his most recent growth spurt it was unavoidable. Aaron now has a new Schwinn that he’s absolutely in love with. Convenient for us, because we recently told him he would have to curb his video game playing. Not because he’s been playing too much, but because he’s been asking to play too much. Anyway, immediately following our trip to Toys-R-Us, we met Jeff and Melissa at Chuck E. Cheese. Both of the boys played until well past their bed time and were still awake by the time we got home. It made for an interesting evening, but once they calmed down the

Thursday we put together the bike and played outside. We took pictures with Candice’s new camera to share with everyone.

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We took Aaron to get his hearing checked again today.  We’d had his hearing tested when we were living in Fort Dodge and the tests indicated he had slight loss in his hearing.  The doctors felt this was due to fluid in his ears.

This was my first time going with him, and I was really impressed with how good he was.  They did a simplified version of the hearing tests I remember taking.  The woman doing the tests told him to listen in one ear and raise his hand if he heard the beeps.  Once he finished one ear they moved on to the other side.  He was really patient and did exactly as she asked.  When she finished she said Aaron’s hearing in his right ear is bad.  She did another test to see how the ear drums behaved while it is being vibrated.  From these tests she was able to see that Aaron has blockage in his ear canals preventing the drums from vibrating normally. 

As a result she did a final test to see how his hearing would be if the blockage was not there.  This involved two sets of headphones, this was to block the sound in his left ear (the good one) to see how his right ear would compensate.  We were very relieved to hear his hearing will be fine.  Now we’ve just got to get his ears cleared out.

Yesterday was Aaron’s 5th birthday.  Aaron celebrated by having cake and ice cream for dinner and by doing anything he wanted.  Which consisted of playing video games until his heart was content and staying up late.  We had a fun time hanging out and playing.  Aaron is really looking forward to his birthday party on Saturday.

Well I know I haven’t updated in quite some time, and I certainly haven’t put any pictures of Isaac’s birthday up…   Here’s an attempt to update everyone on what has been going on.

The summer went really fast.  Living in Des Moines has been a great experience, but a huge burden in it’s own right.  There is so much to do here, and so many people to spend time with that juggling our nights and weekends has been a challenge.  This summer we really tried to see everyone and do all of those things that you HAVE to do each summer.  We really enjoyed hanging out with everyone and having our friends (Jeff and Melissa) move back has been awesome.

From a housing perspective, we lived with my parents all summer long.  A couple of weeks ago, I talked to our Realtor and discussed the likelihood of our house selling.  The situation in Fort Dodge looked grim so I did some research and learned we could rent our house even though we got an FHA loan.  So, with the plan to rent in mind, and the understanding that we’d need a few months to get the house ready to rent, I leased an apartment for 6 months.

We have moved.  We’re living in an apartment on Park Ave, west of Fluer drive.  We’ve got everything but the back room and garage cleared out from our house in FD.  Once we get those things and the storage unit emptied, we’re ready to go.  The last piece of the puzzle is to get things situated in the new apartment, and start living with the space we’ve got.

On that note, last night we got an offer for the house.  Great timing right?  Well, it’s not all peaches and cream… what they offered would leave us with a short sale (meaning we’d lose money).  Gotta love the economy.  We buy a nice house in a great neighborhood in FD, live there for 5 years, pay our mortgage every month, and end up having to pay someone to take it…  The upside is we’ll be able to get out of the monthly payments and can eventually buy the house.  The downside is the short sale will require we use the little money we’ve saved up for a down payment.

Considering all of that, I’m very thankful we’re doing as well as we are.  Not everyone is fairing as well as we are in this current crisis.  I know we’re in God’s hands with this one, and I trust he’ll lead us in the right direction when the time is right.

Wow… words can’t describe how awesome this weekend was.  I didn’t realize how much I missed being together as a family (Candice, me, and the kids).  I mean, I feel lonely pretty often without them with me, but I had so much fun I didn’t want the time to pass.  We met up in Ames on Friday night because Cameron (Candice’s youngest brother) was in town to see Marcus.  We got a chance to chit-chat and enjoy Cameron’s company before we headed back up to Fort Dodge.  That night was pretty tame; we put the kids to bed and called it a night.  The next day was absolutely gorgeous.  The sun was shining and there was a nice breeze.  We got the kids dressed early that morning and spent as much time outside as humanly possible.  I got a chance to clean up my car and the boys played outside all afternoon.  Around 5 PM, John brought over his two nephews and his niece to play.  The kids were a lot of fun to have around.  I got a feeling of what it’d be like to have a large family.  Candice did too, and mentioned that we should consider having 5 kids… yeah right!  We grilled out, had a few beverages, and let the kids play until it got late.  John had to drag the kids out… they wanted to stay the night.  Sunday was pretty lazy.  Candice helped me with the laundry and we vegged for most of the morning.  In the afternoon they packed up and headed out.  It was painful to see them go, but hopefully we won’t be doing the long distance thing for much longer.