Max told us the Saturday morning after we got home, “I think our house is mad at us for being gone so long.” Why did he come to this conclusion? Could it be that his fish died, the back doorknob fell off when he went to let Daisy out in the morning, the soda exploded in the fridge outside, our jeep died while we were gone or the fact that my car also decided to act up (it wasn’t happy that all the attention was going to the jeep after it had just hauled us across the country). Then of course there was the mounds of laundry, four suitcases and multiple road trip essentials, on top of a furry lawn and dusty fan blades. It was fine. I had it handled. Thursday, close to midnight, we got home, completely unloaded the van and headed to bed. Bright and early Andy headed to work for some in processing paperwork, and I got woken up with Max holding the doorknob. The Walmart pickup order arrived (we had to do delivery because I had no car) while fixing… ok… attempting to fix the door knob. I began to put away groceries and found the soda catastrophe. No big deal. Good opportunity to clean out the fridge. It looks great now, just in case you were wondering. Then I finished putting away groceries, nearly forgot to down a protein shake (I started getting shaky so I remembered I hadn’t eaten), and made my way to the stack of suitcases upstairs. Started with Andy’s, had the help of the kids to do theirs (as helpful as they can be anyway) and finished my suitcase all by 2 PM. I was so proud I got it all done on the first day. Pretty sure this is a first time for me. We finished the afternoon in the pool with friends and headed to bed.
After! 
Oops 
One BIG blessing this week was Harvey is finally (most of the time) sleeping through the night. Sleeping with his siblings has helped a lot… even though we had tried that before, I guess he was just finally ready for it. 
We have even had a chance to go to the lake this week with some friends! 
They had a foam maker at the primary activity
Before the sun had a chance to heat everything up too much, Andy and I headed outside to work– he headed to the jeep, and I chopped away at the jungle of a lawn and garden. After 2 hours of work we both finished… But he needed to bleed the line and for the first time in our entire marriage (and me being the primary yard worker with his previously crazy schedule) I nicked a sprinkler head and by some amazing, house-revolting-at-our-absence happenstance, the sprinkler disconnected from the tubing underground and popped to the surface. Parts everywhere. “Hey Andy… I have one more thing for you to fix.” Not what he wanted to hear. Not what I wanted to have to tell him. Well it could wait. We had a “date” with friends to go swimming and the jeep needed to cool down before he bled the line so we got ready and loaded up the van to head out. Max went to start the car (it’s his favorite task) but all we heard was “tick tick tick.” If Andy swore around his kids I’m sure he would’ve let a stream out at that moment, but he’s better than that. He jumped the car and we headed to our friends. We swam, chatted, had all around fun and when we went to go home, once again we heard, “Tick tick tick.” Luckily we had charged our emergency jump battery we keep in the van. He jumped it once again and we went home. He left my car running to hopefully recharge the battery while he fixed my sprinkler head mess and bled the line on the radiator in the jeep. Ahh finally everything was fixed. Everything was unpacked. We could relax. So we did. For two hours. Andy was going to take my car to get it cleaned out (cause you know, road trip disaster) and once again, “Tick tick tick.” He jumped it again, drove it to Walmart, bought a new battery, replaced it, took it through the car wash and came home. We had a great evening with our friends, the Durrant’s, at a Korean restaurant we just discovered. We went to sleep thinking all was right.
Andy headed to ward council in his jeep at 7:40. At 8:00 I got a phone call from him. “The engine just blew up, y’all go to church without me, I’m waiting for a tow truck.” I finished getting the kids ready for church, thinking I would pass him on the way to drop off some water, but I never saw him. “Where are you?” I asked. “I got lost.” In his defense he didn’t get to go to church as often as I did during residency and it is a twenty five minute drive through the country, so I understand how he could get lost. I sat down in church with the kids. Andy told me to stay at church with the kids while he waited for the tow truck, but my gut or the spirit or maybe my anxiety wouldn’t let me. I left my kids with Lindsay Durrant (except Harvey) and headed towards his location which was about 12 minutes in the opposite direction of the church. We waited for a while. A tow truck still hadn’t been assigned and they said it would probably be 4-5 hours before one could get to us. I texted one of our friends in the ward who has a big plot of land and loves to tinker on cars (and a trailer) to see if he could help us out. He was happy to after church. After trying to come up with a plan on what to do for a car for Andy (he could use the motorcycle until we figured out what to do with the jeep) we headed back to church.
The rest of the week was ok.. we bought replacement fish.. they died. The kids started school and loved their new teachers. Maverick said he was scared on the first day, but by the second he seemed to have warmed up to his teacher and classmates. We bought more replacement fish… they seem ok for now. We enjoyed the back to school party put on by the stake primary and are slowly feeling like things are getting back to normal. Once Andy starts his shift work and isn’t doing in processing it’ll help because he needs my car doing this in processing work because he doesn’t know his way around the base very well and these signatures are all over the place. Harvey and Beverly start school in a week so I get to enjoy them at home one more week.
On top of it all I got a new calling. This isn’t a bad thing, in fact, I think it is the right thing, but it change that came in the middle of a lot of other processing. I get to be the secretary in the Young Women. I’ve been in a YW presidency twice before, but never a secretary, so I’m excited to try out this new role. I will miss working with the Relief Society Sisters, but after some time to process it all, I feel like I needed this change more than I realized. The ladies I’m working with are wonderful and I think it will be a great experience and hopefully I can help these Young Women in a way that they need. When I was set apart today for this calling the spirit was very strong and I felt and overwhelming sense that God knows exactly what he’s doing and knows exactly what I need and what these girls need. He knows the concerns and desires of my heart. Well, here’s to a new school year (all ready) and all that entails. Unlike Job, we have much left to be grateful for and some day I may understand why we came home to such chaos, but in the mean time I’m grateful for what I know, what we have, and most importantly, my family. I love our little bunch so much. I just hope I can be the parent they need to build confident, happy, loving adults that can work hard and love the gospel as much as I do.