STRESSED, but here's some pictures!

I apologize to anyone I haven't answered e-mails to or commented on their blog or facebook, etc. I have found that trying to work 40 hours a week while still taking care of your 2 kids under the age of 3 and keeping a tiny apartment that houses 4 people clean is VERY hard to do, and very stressful. I almost envy those moms that get to drop their kids off before work and not have to worry about them til they pick them up at the end of the work day.... almost. I still am very grateful to be able to be home and experience all the giggles and new steps in the kids life, but boy has it been hard trying to do it all. Managing will definitely be worth the free rent + salary until we get some medical bills paid, but I am not so sure how much longer we will be doing this after that. SO, until then, don't expect too many blog updates... I will try hard, especially for the grandparents, but try to cut me some slack if I lag. To make it easier on myself, I think I will just post pictures we have taken and save some time by not always writing a huge long explanation, like so:

Crab Water

Don't worry, we are still here! Life has been CRAZY busy to say the least. We are still working on unpacking and finding a place for all of our stuff in this much smaller apartment while also dealing with John's busy season at work and me getting use to the new managing job... doesn't help that the previous manager left everything a mess! Anyways, just thought I'd post a real quick update and say that after Sept. 15th things should start slowing down for us, hopefully, and I will start posting more often then! In the meantime, here are some pictures I took the other day of Jackson playing outside in the water fountain that is really close to where we live- our apartments we manage surround this little man-made lake and there is a fun water fountain to play in. Jackson calls it the crab water because it has all these hoses that shoot up and into the middle, which to him looks like a crab I guess. Anyways, here they are:

Bass Lake

We had a great time on our trip to Bass Lake! It was a ton of fun to be all together with my family, thanks to the Silver Baron (my grandpa's nickname) and we were sad to head home at the end of the trip. The boys did really well in the car, mostly because we rented a new explorer that was really nice and spacious... it was worth every penny to rent it for the drive since we had a ways to go and way too much stuff to bring! Anyways, we spent the week riding, as Jackson would say, "fast boats!", did lots of swimming, enjoyed the 80 degree water of the lake, rode the sea doo's a lot one day (those are my favorite!!), went tubing, rode on the 6 man banana and stayed up way too late playing games and laughing so hard my stomach hurt! It was a blast! Oh, and John tried wakeboarding for the first time ever and got up and went practically half way around the lake! I was so proud of him... hopefully my knee will be a lot stronger next time because it was so hard just watching and not being able to ski or wakeboard myself. We took a ton of pictures, so be prepared to see a lot!

the only picture i got of John- before he stood up.... I was really nervous about getting the camera wet so I didn't bring it out on the ski boat much

we tried to get Jackson to go on the tube with us....

he wasn't too happy about that

But he sure was happy as long as he was driving the boat or simple just riding on it, going fast!

My mom & Baron.... he wasn't too happy about the life jacket

Dinner at Ducy's on the lake

we kept trying to get pictures of all the grandkids, but soon figured out that it is impossible to get 4 kids all under the age of 3 to be happy and all looking at the camera at once... we still tried multiple times though :)

We will forever miss you shiny blue explorer... thanks for all the good road trip memories. Oh how i wish you weren't so expensive!!