Crazy Summer

Yes...its us. We're back to the blog world after a summer long break from our keyboard. Entering the summer season I thought that it was going to be pretty uneventful, but obviously I was wrong about that. Marin and I ended up spending about 3 weeks in Michigan, while Daniel worked long hours here in Durham. My sister Erin drove back to NC with Marin and I and spent a week here with us, before heading back to Michigan to get ready for school. We really enjoyed having her here. We worked in a day trip to the beach with her so that she could be properly introduced to the ocean. We had a great time and brought enough of the beach back with us to prove it.


After that I spent my days gearing up for the looming task of POTTY TRAINING. It was pretty much terrible, but Marin doesn't appear to be too emotionally scarred for life because of it (although I'm sure her therapist someday will have something to say about it :) I really shouldn't complain, Marin did great!

During potty training boot camp we found out that hand, foot and mouth disease was going around the ward. So guess who gets it... Yep! Marin ended up having blisters all over the inside of her mouth, and feet. Poor kid. She couldn't leave the house for 2 weeks and we all went a bit insane being indoors so long. I was a little upset about the whole thing. Before having kids I always told Daniel that I'd let our kids eat dirt and be germy so that they would be healthy adults. Well, I've changed my mind. I get kind of crazy when people bring sick kids to play group and to nursery. I've since calmed down and have realized that there are worse things to deal with out there than a fever and some blisters. Unfortunately though, we had to cancel a trip to Delaware to visit Daniel's sister (for the 4th time). Sorry Chris! Someday we'll make good on our plans.

So after all of our summer craziness we've been left flat broke (what's new) and exhausted. I guess what I'm really trying to say is that I have felt like life has been really hard lately. But leave it to the Lord to humble us when we'd like nothing better to do than complain about why life stinks. We've had a bunch of friends and family go through some really tough trials the last couple weeks and I have realized we have nothing to complain about. We're all healthy and we have a beautiful soon to be 2 yr. old, who makes us smile everyday. We also have a steady job and a roof over our head. So yes...I'll admit there are worse trials than potty training :)