I Meant to Post About This MONTHS Ago - Part 3

There will be no pictures today. Today there is just a really long story. A really long story that isn't about the kids, but a story that I've been meaning to share because it's just so...REALLY?! That being said, my feelings will not be hurt if you decide to skip over this one.

WAY back in August, I broke my phone. If you remember back to February 2011, you'll remember that I had broken my phone before and Josh got me not only a new phone, but an upgraded phone. So this was my iPhone 4, that broke in August. This phone would randomly throw itself off of counters, tables, couches, whatever. I cannot tell you the number of times I've put my phone down somewhere, walked away, then came back and found it on the floor. So one night I was doing dishes and listening to music on my phone. I walked away from the sink for a few minutes and when I came back my phone had jumped off the window ledge into a plate of water.

Now, the phone essentially worked fine afterwards, but I couldn't hear anything on it. None of my apps made any sounds. My iTunes no longer played through the speakers. I could hear it ring if someone called or texted, but if I answered the phone I couldn't hear what anyone was saying. This often lead to me answering my phone like this, "Hey Whoever! My phone is broken, I can't hear you, so I'm going to call you back from my house line." Good times. Eventually Josh convinced me to go to the local Double B (I'll not put their "real" name for whatever reason) and get it fixed.

SO, I got down one in the beginning of September and tell them I need to get my phone fixed. They look up my phone and, of course, there's a problem. Apparently when Josh upgraded my phone back in February, the people at the Double B in Alaska did NOT change over my phone insurance. They left it on the old phone, because apparently your insurance covers your phone, not your phone number. So, I was told to call their 800 number and explain why my phone doesn't have insurance, ask them to insure it, and then go back, but mention nothing about needing my phone fixed while getting it insured.

The next day I called the 800 number and got an incredibly helpful woman (no sarcasm here). She was SO incredibly irate on my behalf at what had happened. She told me to march myself back to my local Double B, INSIST they insure my phone and then she filled out the necessary paperwork to have the past 7 months I'd been paying insurance on a phone I didn't have refunded to me. Sweet!

SO, back to the Double B I went. I got my phone insured, and was asked to wait about a week before I requested they fix my phone just so things didn't look shady. FINE. I left, and returned a week later. They took my phone, gave me a replacement (which I HATED - seriously whatever kind of phone it was it was terrible) and told me they'd call when my new phone was in. Apparently they return your old broken one and send you a new unbroken one. Okay.

However many days later I got the call that my phone was in and so I went to pick it up only to find out that they had sent me an iPhone 3 instead of my iPhone 4. Yeah. "Oops! Our bad" they said. "We'll take care of that right away" they said. "We'll put a rush on it and have your new phone, your correct phone in 2 days" they said. Riiiight.

Almost a week later, I call them to see if my phone is in, and they say it is. So I scurry down (SO sick of my replacement phone by now) only to find they sent the wrong phone AGAIN. AHHH!! SO now I have TWO iPhone 3s sitting there waiting for me and NO iPhone 4s. Not sure if I should laugh, cry, or punch someone in the face at this point, I explained my entire situation (for the 5th time) and was finally given to someone with some competence. He took my information, the information of the people who had helped me before and set it all straight. This nice young man, kept me informed the entire time. I think he called me 4 times as each phase of his plan was put into place and finally FINALLY my new phone, my correct phone was there. Hallelujah!

Of course, once my phone was there they had to transfer all of my contacts and things from my old phone to my new one. Somehow I wound up with 3 times as many contacts (which I'm still trying to figure out and combine and delete), and no saved calendar entries. I was a bit upset by that as everything we'd done for the past 2 years was on that calendar and ONLY that calendar. Needless to say I now have a calendar book that I physically write in. Anyhoo...the point of all this long-winded-ness is that it only took Double B a month and a half to replace my phone for me. A month and a half of ridiculousness and irritation. Sigh. You gotta love technology, right?

I Meant to Post About This MONTHS Ago - Part 2

So way back in November, I had the amazing opportunity to go to the annual PWOC conference. This year was the regional conference, and it was held at Sandy Cove Ministries in Maryland. The location was gorgeous. The conference was FANTASTIC. I seriously had a great time.

It was a little hard leaving as this was the first time EVER I've left ANY of my kids over night. That's right, in almost 6 years of being a mother, this was the first time I've spent a night somewhere childless. I was a bit sad at first, I'll admit it, and I did miss the boys terribly, but it was really a wonderful thing.

As you can see by the picture at the top of this post, Josh's sister, Linda, was able to come too. It was so great spending the weekend with her. It was also great spending the weekend with the group of ladies from my PWOC here who made the trip. It was also a great time to rest and reconnect with God, and to learn so many things.

Also, I climbed the rock wall. I scaled both the beginner wall and the intermediate wall. I am a champion.

I think my favorite part of the trip was the night we decided to play mini-golf at 10pm. It. was. hilarious. The lights weren't working (or something) so we played in the dark, with one little flashlight for lighting. Boy did we have a great time.

The best part of the whole weekend though? Was probably seeing this amazing woman again:

This is my dear friend San, known and loved by many as Glitter. She is a friend of mine from my beach mission days, so we've known each other for...um...what?!...15 years! Wow. She is such a fun lady and I truly adore her. I'm not sure when the last time I saw her was before this weekend, but it was probably close to a decade.

So there you have it. My first weekend away from my kids was a weekend filled with God, friends, fun, tears, laughter, and all kinds of cherished memories. I can hardly wait for the next one!

I Meant to Post About This MONTHS Ago - Part 1

Way back in December, one Sunday during Advent to be exact, Zeke had me cracking up during the chapel service. I'm not sure what got into him this particular morning, but he was doing a really good job paying attention, and made hilarious comments to prove it.

One of the songs we sang that morning was "Away in a Manger". As we were singing Zeke asked, "What's a manger?" So I explained that a manger was a place, sort of like a barn, but probably like a cave, where farm animals lived. We listed some animals together that might have lived in a manger, when he said, "But not dragons. Dragons take the sheep away." Yes. The ONLY reason a dragon wouldn't be living in a manger is because of the danger they would pose to the sheep.

Then, when it came time to light the Advent candles, Zeke practically jumped out of his pew and exclaimed, "They're going to light the pink candle! I'm so excited! I want the pink one!" This even made someone behind us chuckle.

As the chaplain was praying later (after offering I think - I really should have written this back when it was all fresh in my head), he prayed over the congregation, using the term "sheep" as pastors and chaplains are wont to do, when Zeke popped his head up and said loudly, "Sheep?! I'm not a sheep! That's goofy!"

My favorite part of chapel though, is that every week they ask for prayer requests and every week Zeke's hand is the first one up and he is putting out some sort of prayer request or another. Requests like, "My dad is gone, pray for his safety." or "My brother's stomach hurts. Please pray he feels better." Then there are requests where he says a whole bunch of whatever, and then Josh or I have to clarify. For example, "It's presidents no school my Savannahs birthday holiday school." which means, "It's Presidents Day so there's no school tomorrow, but tomorrow is his friend Savannah's birthday." And the like.

You may just have to trust me when I say it's making going to church a whole lot more fun.

Short Saturday (or should I say: Short Caturday lol)

I had no idea his superiority complex had reached this level.

Where the Obsession Has Led

Knowing how much Josh enjoys LEGOs and how much the bigger boys were getting into LEGOs, Josh's parents got him one of the LEGO board games for Christmas.

The boys, Zeke in particular, absolutely LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this game. This is where the obsession part of the post title comes into "play" (heh heh), because the boys are OBSESSED with this game. Zeke would play it every minute of every day if we would let him.

Since we won't let him play the board game all the time, he likes to role play the game with Deacon, or his toys, or his stuffed animals.

I should probably stop here for a second and explain how the game is played. As you can sort of see on the box cover, the game is set up like a maze and as your player makes his way through the maze he fights different bad guys and uses potions and has special powers and abilities. You roll a dice and each roll means different things as you go about the game. It's really kind of fun - or EXTREMELYINCREDIBLYSOSOSOSOOSOMUCHFUNBECAUSEIT'STHEBESTGAMEEVER!!! if you're Zeke.

So, back to Zeke's obsession. It's gotten to the point where it shows up everywhere. Besides in every day play, he uses other blocks to make game boards:

He draws pictures of game boards and the monsters and everything:

It's a constant thing in the house right now. So, being the parents that we are, we've indulged it a little and made some "life-sized" boards for the boys to play the game on:

Zeke was beside himself with excitement. Deacon was pretty pumped too, but Zeke sort of stood there in shock for a few seconds. Once he saw what was going on, it was game on (literally):

This past Saturday Josh and his dad set up another life-sized board in the backyard. (We like to set them up while the boys are in bed resting, so it's a big surprise when they get up. And so they're not getting in the way while we try to set them up.) This time Deacon was beside himself with excitement, which apparently led to all kinds of fall-dee-rah.

So that's, um, that's what's been going on here. LEGOs, LEGOs, and more LEGOs. Sometimes I just shake my head and think "Oh those Walter boys."

How the Obsession Started

WAY back in October/November, Josh's parents gave us all of Josh's old LEGOs, as well as his cousin's and his dad's and his neighbor's second cousin's girlfriend's little brother's. Okay, not quite that many people's LEGOs were involved, but we got so. many. LEGOS. See?

All of those trays were full of pieces. That box was FILLED to the BRIM with just LEGO pieces. AND there was another box almost that size with MORE LEGOS! Once we had ALL of the LEGOS (in the WORLD!) Josh decided to put together all of the LEGO sets that he has directions for. Needless to say, this kept us (yes, US) pretty busy. There was much sorting to do and so many sets of directions to put together. We even let the boys help at times:

Finn helped by not actually eating any of the pieces. Just to give you some idea of what all we have and put together and what's it, I present, for your viewing pleasure:

Pirates:

Space:

Knights and Castles:

and Town and Country:

Complete with an incredibly old school kitchen set that Josh's mom bought back in the 70's, I believe:

I think we had it all finished by the end of 2011. It was insane. It was intense. SO insane and intense in fact, it took me until now to get over it enough to post about it. Oh yeah. We've broken down all the sets and put them into baggies so that whenever we're ready to do LEGOs again we can pull out one set at a time and know we have all the pieces for it. But we're not ready for that yet. Maybe when Zeke turns 10 Josh and I will be fully recovered from a month of intense LEGO building to bring them back out and build again. Maybe.

My Valentine to You

My valentine to you is a blog post! Not just any blog post, but a blog post updating you all on what we've been doing the past 2 weeks. Come on, who loves you?

So, what's been going on here in Walterland? Not a whole heck of a lot really. We've all been sick, so we've been laying low. See, first I had this awful head cold. Then Finn and Deacon got it. Deacon did alright with it - it only seemed to affect him for a few days. Finn wasn't so lucky though. After a week of stuffiness, he started coughing. Coughing so bad he was keeping himself (and me) up most of the night. I took him to the doctor's hoping for something to help with the coughing, and found out his head cold was turning into a double ear infection. YES! During the week between trips that Josh was home, he ALSO caught the dang thing. In fact, it got to the point where 2 Sundays ago Zeke went to church by himself. Josh walked him over, left him with a responsible adult, then came back home, but Zeke stayed and walked home afterwards with a neighbor.

Speaking of Zeke and everyone being sick, somehow Zeke managed to avoid most of it. He had the sniffles and a little bit of a runny nose, but that was about it. No coughing, no feeling bad, nothing. He DID wake up one night crying because his ear hurt, but in the morning he was fine. So, that was that. And that is that. We're all recovering now, and I'm not so completely worn out anymore - hence my being back here on the blog.

Since I don't have pictures of us being sick with headcolds, here are some pictures of the boys' recent "bi-annual" haircuts.

And that essentially brings us all up to speed. Kind of a lame post actually, but things here have been kind of lame I guess. I'll try to do better next time.

A Boy's Best Friend Is His Cat?

Usually, Peavey only allows this sort of attention from Deacon. He's made it perfectly clear that Deacon is his favorite, and therefore doesn't mind too much when Deacon uses him as a fluffy pillow. This particular morning though, Peavey was a good sport for all the boys as they vied for his attention.

After all, attention is attention, right?