Update on house...

So this thing with the flooring in our house is a bigger deal than I originally thought. I worked Wednesday and Thursday this week, so Friday Matt and I went floor shopping. There is so much to think about. We have been doing our research so we have an idea what we want and don't want. However, it is still very overwhelming. We finally had the insurance man out Friday afternoon. We do not have our estimate back yet. He has to send someone out who can detect mold and moisture in the house. I am not sure when we will know what we are eligible for as far as how much insurance is going to cover. All I know is that we need floors in our down stairs and we need them in this week. The kids can't be down stairs because it is concrete, dirty, there are still questionable mold areas, etc. As a result, the kids have been barricaded upstairs when they are home and they are not happy about it. I have been trying to keep them out of the house as much as possible though. I do have good news. Matt bought the boys bunk beds today. He found them off of Craig's list and they are awesome. We figured that since the boys end up in each others rooms every night anyways, we might as well move them into Noah's room together permanently. We need to buy a full size mattress for the bottom bunk and the bedding for it first before they can sleep in it. The kids are so excited!! Matt took our 2 boys along with his friend Steve and his 2 kids and their friend Chris to see a movie at the dollar theater. I know he is very brave. I don't know that I would take 4 kids to the movies at dinner time. I am looking forward to hearing how it went when they get home. Well I guess I should go try to get some cleaning done in my house.

Vacation picutues continued...

Vacation pictures

We're home!!

We are home and our vacation was wonderful!! It ended too soon of coarse! Sorry I did not blog more while on vacation. We could not get our wireless Internet connection to work in our condo. We had to walk to a different building to get the connection. Which by the time we got the kids fed, bathed and in bed and the kitchen cleaned, it was far too late to be walking somewhere to blog. So I will tell you all about our time now.

The kids had a fantastic time playing in the sand, burying each other, making sandcastles, and playing in the ocean. The adults had a great time watching them. They are our free entertainment! They say and do the funniest things! The 3 boys act more like brothers than cousins. It will be interesting to see how the dynamics change next year with the new baby around because let me tell you... all of them took turns being the boss. We had superhero's galore going on at the beach this year!! They were all really well behaved though. Reece had to go to the hospital on Saturday night because he was running a high fever. (103.3 degrees with the ear thermometer to be exact) Turns out he had swimmers ear. Poor guy :( He wasn't allowed to swim underwater for the rest of the week. He was a trouper though.

When we got home tonight we were greeted with a rather strong funk!! It kind of smelled like...let's see, how do I put this nicely? Rotten eggs, dog farts, beer belches, and mold all combined. Lovely huh!?! Yeah that's what I thought! My wonderful husband whom loves me so much decided that he would go ahead and rip up all of our carpet in the living room and take that funky stuff out to the curb before any of us started to have side effects that would not be so lovely to watch or experience. I didn't even have to ask him to do it. He just did it. He's so awesome!!! The insurance man is not going to come out until Friday afternoon. Note... the episode happened on Thursday evening. That goes to show you how many people were affected by the tropical storm. Please continue to pray for the people who have had a much more difficult time than us. We are fortunate, that is what we need to remember. I am very grateful for God's provision's in our life. We are blessed!

Beach day 1

Ok so we FINALLY made it to our vacation!! We left yesterday afternoon and came to the beach and got settled at our beach condo at New Symerna Beach. It is beautiful here. It definitely took our mind off of our house. Yes our house is still flooded down stairs. The entire living room and part of the dining room. However, it did not go into the office, bathroom, kitchen, or laundry room. It could have been much worse. We will think about what we are going to do after vacation. For now, we are thoroughly enjoying our family time and building memories together. Today it was bright and sunny. Really bright actually. The sun was glistening off of the sand beautifully. The waves were really rough though because of the left over storm. The kids had a ball digging in the dirt and finding sea shells. My dad and Scott (my sister's husband) flew a kite together because it was really windy. The boys thought that was really neat! My sister's belly is growing. She looks so cute in her bathing suit and "the boy" as Reece calls him, just hanging out in the sun. Around 1pm we came in and ate lunch and took great long naps. Everyone fell asleep. Reece woke up with a 103.3 degree fever. He has an ear infection again so Jenny and Scott had to take him to an emergency room to get antibiotics because no doctor's offices or walk-in clinics were open. Pray that he will recover quickly so that his vacation will not be dampered. My boys are having a wonderful time. They are truly enjoying all of the undivided attention from "Gramie and Grandad" and Reece. They are their 3 favorite people in their world. It is really cute to watch! Anyways, I am going to get back to my family now. I will post more tomorrow and post pictures hopefully.

Well we have been quite busy in our household. In case you did not know, we were supposed to go on vacation today to the beach. We decided to postpone our trip until tomorrow because of tropical storm Fay. We are all packed and ready to go when I noticed a puddle in the middle of our living room floor. We have an area rug so I pulled back the rug only to find that most of my living room is flooded. Matt checked all of the walls and they are ok so it is not a leak. He checked outside... of course it has been raining non-stop for 3 days now, however, everything looked ok out there. So the only thing we can think of is we must have a crack in the foundation of our house and all of the water is seeping in. He called the insurance company but they said they have so many claims coming in related to storm damage, they are taking them in accordance to priority of severity and priority of claim arrival. I understand that, but selfishly, I want to have my house looked at ASAP so I can still go on my vacation tomorrow. Sounds stupid and selfish. I know. Many more people have it much worse than us. Well on a good note, my friend Kim Canada had her baby girl Hayley today. They both are doing well and are healthy. I'll keep you posted on what we decide to do about the house and our vacation. Please pray for those people who truly do have it hard during the storm and have lost everything. Thanks!

Sorry I have not blogged in a while. My technical support person (aka my cousin Angela) has been out of town and I have been having trouble with my blog site. I can't seem to down load any pictures or movies. She gets back in town tomorrow, so hopefully then I can post new updated one's for you.

I will save you all of the day to day boring details of our everyday lives and only tell you the interesting things that have been going on since I have last written you. Thursday night my parents and one of Matt's lieutenant's came over for dinner (Lt. Anthony Willis). I grilled out chicken, sweet potatoes, baked potatoes, and then I made carrots and broccoli. It was really good. They all hung out and talked until 945pm. We had a lot of fun. Friday night after work Matt and the boys picked me up and we went to the Orlando race track for a benefit for the baby I told you about in previous blogs... Camden Kibler's family. The fire department and their friends were trying to raise money to cover medical bills for their family. We had a great time. Saturday Matt's parents came over for the afternoon and then we went out to dinner with them. They offered to take the boys back to Clearwater with them for the night so we could have a night alone and we took them up on the offer. Shortly after they left, We decided to go to Clearwater Beach ourselves and get a room on the beach and hang out all day. So that is what we did. Today we enjoyed a beautiful day at the beach and hung out by the pool and ate entirely too much food. Around 0530pm we went back to Matt's parent's house and picked up the boys and came home. Now here we are. I work the next two days so I doubt I will blog again until Wednesday, but I promise I will as soon as I can. We leave Thursday for our vacation so expect more pictures soon!

Let's play catch up...

Sunday we went to church in the morning and it was awesome! After church, Matt and I went to a going away/surprise baby shower for one of the doctors that I work with. Her name is Dr. Jenny Carl and she is totally awesome!! It will be VERY hard to come close to filling her shoes. Herself, her husband Leighton, and their daughter Miriam are moving back to Texas. So anyways, that is what we did. We partied all afternoon with the doctors that I work with on a regular basis and nurses from my unit. We had a wonderful time. Sunday night we had our "young marrieds" group from church get together at a house and hang out. The adults are at one house, and the kids are at another with babysitters because there isn't a house big enough for all of us. Besides, we like the few hours to talk to adults without being interrupted.
Monday I worked all day again. I know to those of you who work at jobs that require you to be there 5 days a week I must really sound like a whiner. I give you all credit because I don't like working 3 days, much less 5 days. However in my own defense, I do work extremely long days and get up at 430am to go to work and still don't get to quit and go to bed when I get home at 8-9pm. Then my other job begins. I have kids, husband, house, and laundry to catch up on. The truth of the matter is, I am sure like everyone, I too would love to stay home and hang out with my kids and friends all day and eat gourmet meals every night(cooked by someone other than me of course!), but that is not reality. So I guess if I have to work, I love my job, but like all jobs, you have your good and your not so good days. Matt on the other hand had a wonderful day. He went to the tallest building in Orlando (Bank of America) and climbed the stairs, walked around Lake Eola and learned more about his health and fitness.
Today I worked, but I actually had a decent day. My co-worker became a grandmother. Congratulations Maria!! Aubrey is beautiful! I bounced around from assignment to assignment and did a little bit of everything today. Matt walked around Blanchard Park as a part of his exercise and rehab routine today. He said it was a really nice day out while he was walking. After that he had a lot of work to get caught up on. He had a good day. He is enjoying his position in the fire department now. He likes getting to see people he would normally have never seen or met, but under the circumstances has had an opportunity to do so. When I got home from work, the kids were watching Spiderman. They are very big into superhero's. The had both taken off their shirts so they could be like daddy. They are so cute. They are really growing up so much!! Well I have to go now. I'll blog more later.

It's a BOY!!!

My sister is 18 weeks and 4 days pregnant and just found out she is having another boy. We are so happy!! No names yet though. Their oldest son Reece (who will be 5 in November) is so excited! He could hardly stand keeping that a secret until I got off work and got there so he could tell our whole family at once. It was great! Well that's our big news. Let's get caught up on the last few days. I have worked two 13.5 hour days, that of which I have been so busy I have only peed once during my shift, eaten while standing up for 5 minutes (but I guess that is better than no food at all right!) and now I am exhausted!!! Probably too much information for you. Sorry. Thursday I got home and Matt went out and the kids stayed up all night so I got only an 1.5 hours of sleep. As you can imagine, on Friday I was feeling pretty tired. After work last night, I came home and crashed...HARD. Then at 3am and 5am my work called begging for me to come in and work. Yeah, that did not happen today! Matt worked Friday for the funeral of the baby boy I told you about in my previous blog. He said it was beautiful! He said their was laughter and tears and that Camden was well remembered. It can be very difficult when you are in the middle of great trials to really believe in your heart that God did not forget about you or that He does have a plan for you and your life. I KNOW, I have had many moments like this when Matt was going through his cancer or when we were going through infertility treatments. But the truth of the matter is, we don't know what His plans are and we never will. However, God is ALWAYS there and He never forgets us or our loved one's, or the wants and desires of our hearts. It just might not be the right timing. So, on that note, I ask that you will please continue to pray for Camden's parents in their time of need as well as anyone else that you know is struggling with something they are dealing with.

Sorry about the delay in the posting. We have had a rather busy and emotional few days. I worked yesterday and so did Matt. One of Matt's firefighter coworkers lost their 5 month old baby boy to cancer yesterday morning. Matt has been busy trying to help Lt. Anthony Willis set up arrangements and assist the family with whatever they need. Their blog is http//camdensjourney.com if you want to be praying for their family I am sure it would be greatly appreciated. We both were exhausted after work as you can imagine so Matt fell right asleep. I got a text from my mother at 11pm telling me to turn on the news. So of course I did and I discovered that the kids I used to nanny for were taken from their mother's custody from their father, he was now in police custody, however, the kids were still missing. So I woke Matt up and we started praying. All that is to say that we did not sleep very much. This morning I had my kids because I was not working today. My grandmother watched them for about 2 hours while I got my hair cut. On the way to my appointment I talked to my friend (with the missing children) and she said that because of the news and every one's prayers, the police found the kids around 1230am. PRAISE GOD!!! They were unharmed. They had been missing for 61 days. Anyways, my hair looks great, I am very pleased with it. Matt continued to work with Lt. Willis on things for the Kibler family. When he got home we went to my parents and we ate pizza together and went swimming to wear everyone out. The goal is to get the boys in bed by 0830pm tonight. With that being said... I will try to write again tomorrow.

To the Lopez family in Ecuador: I am very glad that you guys follow my blog every day. We love you guys and miss you very much!! I will definitely try to write more often in the blog for you. Hugs and Kisses XOXOXO Praying for you guys! Love, Stacy and all of "my men"

Matt's 1st day...

Well it's official... Matt is back at work!! His first day was yesterday. He had a nice day but a busy day trying to get everything back in order like getting his badge to work and things like that. A lot of running around. It felt good to be back though. Meanwhile, the kids and I cleaned the house, cooked dinner, did laundry, and got hair cuts so that he would be surprised when he got home. Which he was. After dinner we went to IKEA for the first time. WOW!!! That place is awesome! We didn't cover it all of course. The kids had fun playing in their play area and didn't miss us at all. We are looking for beds so that we can put the boys together in Noah's room. They end up in each other's room every night anyways, so we might as well make it official right? Ok... enough for now. More later. Have a good day!

Volleyball Day...

Today Matt and my brother in law Scott played in a volleyball tournament in Deltona and won the tournament! Matt is going great!! He is tired and sore of course, but over all great! For those of you who don't know, Matt is a fantastic beach volleyball player. He is used to playing 4-6 days a week and playing in lots of tournaments in the men's AA divisions. Of course that has died down quite a bit sense the kids came along, however, he still jumps at the opportunity whenever it arises. We took the kids with us and they hung out and watched for a while, then we went over and played in the nearby water park area for kids. It was a beautiful day!!