Getting Real

I have an app on my phone called LDS Youth.  It has videos (Mormon Messages), articles from the New Era, Mormonads, and uplifting music on it.  I had a few extra minutes before we had to leave for church and was browsing the content of the app,when this picture caught my eye...

I clicked on the picture and it took me to an article titled "Getting Real" by Elyssa J. Kirkham.  The article is about a girl who played tons of video games but made a realization she was missing out on real life by playing too long in the virtual world.

This article hit me like a ton of bricks...and I saw it as a chance to make a change.

This morning I went in and deleted ALL of my facebook games!!  That might not be amazing to anyone who reads this...but it was a HUGE step for me!!  I have wasted SO MANY hours of my life playing FarmVille, CityVille, FrontierVille,Fluff Friends, SuperPoke Pets, Treasure Isle, Zombie Lane, Mafia Wars...etc.  As soon as I read this article, I just started deleting stuff!  I was scared that if I waited until after church, I wouldn't have the courage to do it later.  I am still kind of in shock that all my games are gone!

It was taking me forever to get my homework done each day because I would take a "5-minute" break to play my games and would end up wasting an hour or more.  I was not interacting with my family as much as I could have either.  The games start out only letting you play for a few minutes...but as you advance in levels, you get more "energy" and your playing time increases.  I have tried to cut back or quit before, but I always found some way to justify keeping the games open and available.  I hope I don't cave and reload one of the games!  I really hope that I can fill these hours with something more productive!

(Fast Forward two months...  Today is really Sept 27, 2011.  I am working on getting our blog up to current and I always backdate the posts to when they really happened.  I am so excited to tell you that I only missed my games for about three days!!  After that, I didn't miss them at all!!  School this semester seems to be going so much smoother for me...and not until I came to writing this post today, did I realize the connection.  Even though I have nine credits this semester, my school work doesn't seem to take up so much of my time!  I am so grateful for this article and that Heavenly Father helped me to kick my bad habit!  It is so amazing that the small act of deleting my facebook games could have such a huge effect on my life!  I have more credits this semester than I have for the last two semesters but I feel so much better this semester...stress-wise...it is amazing!  I am so, so grateful!!)

Yellow Car

Today was fast Sunday.  A lady in the ward got up and told us about a game she plays with her family where every time they see a yellow car, they shout out something they are grateful for.  What a great idea!  I hope we can remember to show more gratitude by using this little reminder.

My Hero

Today, I decided to drive downtown to go to a camera shop.  While I was driving around I realized that there was a HUGE bolt stuck in my tire. I drove to the mall (cause I was starving) and called Darwin. He came and put my spare tire on for me and then I took the broken tire to the Firestone on post for it to get fixed.  I never made it to the camera store, but I am so grateful that Darwin came and rescued me!!  Thank you!  I love you!

Gratitude

Had an excellent day! Church, watched the new Narnia movie and played six player Catan with Dar and the kids, ate ice cream, and then watched another movie with my sweetheart. So blessed to have a stress free day and the best family ever!

 

1st Day of 3rd, 5th, 7th, & 9th grades

The kids started school on Monday, Aug. 2nd.  This year, our family will have a student at every available (regular) school.  London and Isaiah are in Elementary School, Caleb is in Middle School, Brooklin is in High School, and I am going to college!! (but I don't start until Sept. 2nd).  The two little kids have a partial uniform they have to wear Monday - Thursday.  It is just a school T-shirt and then whatever kind of pants/shorts they want.  On Friday they get to wear whatever they want.

Monday is also the day the movers picked to deliver all of our things!  Lovely!  I was so excited to get our things, but putting that on the same day as the first day of school...while husband was gone...was not my idea of an ideal situation.  I had to ask for help.  There was no way I was going to get all the kids to school (at three different times) and pick them all back up (at three different times) and "babysit" the movers by myself.  Lucky for me we have a "family" where ever we go.  I am so grateful for my membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints!  I can say in Relief Society, "I need help" and there WILL be someone there that is ready to help.  I don't have to know them personally (they are all Mormons...what an honest, trustworthy, service oriented bunch of people...lol) but I can count on my Brothers and Sisters in the gospel to be there for me from day one...EVERY TIME we have moved.  There is a missionary couple here in our ward whose mission is a "Military Relations" mission.  I have never even heard of that...but they are here for all the military families in the area.  They were ready and willing to come over and help "babysit" the movers while I went and picked up my kids from their first day of school.  Brother Webster checked off the box numbers as they came off the truck and Sister Webster unloaded boxes of books into the bookshelves.  I'm so grateful for the service they gave to me and my family!!

The kids had a great first day of school.  Brooklin also started Seminary this year (on Tuesday).  She has to be at the church at 6am ready to learn.  They are studying the Doctrine & Covenants this year.  The class is 50 minutes consisting of a devotional(by one of the students), singing hymns, scripture study/instruction, and usually some kind of game.  After that, she has 90 minutes and just over a mile to walk to get to school.  She hasn't walked yet...someone always offers her a ride.

We're here...a travel log of the past 24 hours.

We made it to Honolulu last night.  We got on the airplane around 8am in Juneau, flew two hours to Seattle, wondered around the Seattle airport for nearly six hours (it was a long layover, but the airport there has more stores than Juneau so we had fun window shopping), boarded the plane for Hawaii at 4:30 pm and flew for nearly six hours to Honolulu.  We landed in Honolulu at 7:30 pm, found all 12 of our checked bags (plus we each had a rolling carry-on and a backpack...making a grand total of 24 bags!!) and then started the hunt for the paperwork with the name of the hotel we would be staying at on it.  That took at least 45 minutes.  I guess we both forgot to print off the reservation and neither of us knew the name of the hotel!  oops!  We headed over to the USO to see if they could help us (and so we could get a snack and use the restrooms).  While Darwin was going through a list of hotel names to see if he recognized one, I pulled out my laptop to see if I could find the email Darwin sent me with the reservation on it.  I prayed for wireless service...and it worked!  We found the reservation details!!  We took a breather and then realized that I didn't print off the car reservation paper either!  (Man were we not prepared or what!?)  I took the laptop out again, sorted through more old emails, and came up with the reservation...I am so thankful for yahoo email and for free wireless service!!

We got on the shuttle to the car rental place and got our rental van without a hitch.  The best thing was that the van they gave us fit all six of us and our 24 bags!  We couldn't see out any of the windows, but we didn't have to leave anyone behind with bags!  The other gadget I am extremely grateful for is our TomTom.  It is a little talking GPS that told us every turn to make and what lane to be in.  We drove straight to our hotel and were able to check in by 10pm.

This morning we got up and ate at Denny's.  Then we took Dar to his new office so he could get our check in stuff started.   After I had a slight freak-out moment (I misunderstood what was going to happen and felt at a complete loss about where I was supposed to be and what I was supposed to be doing...and Darwin was late for work and grumpy at me for freaking out) we all went in and met some of the people he would be working with.  I took the kids back to the hotel for the rest of the morning and spent the day calling about rental houses.  We went back to pick up Darwin from work at 3pm and went up to Tripler to get our medical stuff in order.  (On a side note...we haven't had to use military doctors for 10 years and we were really ok with that.  We'll see how this all goes...I am just really grateful that we have medical coverage).  We ate a yummy (extremely overpriced) dinner at Chili's and then went to the biggest Borders Bookstore we have ever seen!  It was gigantic and was two levels!  Brooklin thought she was in heaven...hehe.

I don't love the traffic or trying to park in parking garages, but I am so excited to be here.  I hope we can find a place to live soon and I really hope our car gets here FAST!  Sorry this was kind of boring...but I just want it recorded and had a few minutes to hurry and type it out.  I'll try to write a better post (with pictures) soon.

Lucky Lissa

Last Saturday we took the whole family to the home show here in Juneau.  It cost us $15 to get in.  ($5 each for Darwin, Brooklin, and I...the other kids were free).  We had fun walking around and looking at stuff, but we really went with two purposes...to find someone who would give us a free estimate for painting the inside of our house and to sign up for all the free prizes.  hehe!  We found only one person who was a house painter, (she called this week while I was in class to set up a time to come by, and I haven't returned her call...oops) and we signed up for every raffle we could.  The next day after church, I got a phone call from some guy from the home show.  He was calling to tell me that I had won a set of drills!  haha!  I went down this week to pick them up at Alaska Industrial Hardware and apparently they are really nice (and expensive)!

I won a DeWALT 18V Compact Lithium Ion Compact Drill and Impact Driver Kit that retails for around $270!  I don't even know what an impact driver is...haha!...but I am a nice wife and I'm going to give it to Darwin.  He is very excited, but hasn't had a chance to even see it yet, because he left early on Monday morning and I hadn't been in to pick it up by then.

The reason this post is titled Lucky Lissa, is because that is one of the names my family used to call me when I was younger.  One day, I went out into the backyard when we lived in Pasco, WA (so I was somewhere between five and eight years old) and found 23 four-leaf clovers!  My mom helped me save a few of them by sticking them in between two sheets of clear laminate paper.  I gave a few of them away and I don't really know what happened to most of them, but I'm pretty sure I still have one of them in a box of my childhood memories.  I think I am pretty lucky in so many things.  I have a great life...not gonna lie...I have the best husband for me, awesome kids, I've been able to live in some of the most beautiful places in the world (or at least the United States...hehe), I have the gospel, the scriptures, and a ton of cheerleaders and friends in life.  I have won a few things by chance, but I am grateful for the things Heavenly Father has blessed me with in this life.