An "I'm Sorry" Breakfast

A couple weeks back when Chase was off in TX and OK testing for jobs I had a funny experience with the kids. One of the nights Chase was gone the kids were particular stinkers and got in trouble fighting over computer games, so they got grounded. The next morning I awoke to a lovely breakfast which they had prepared in order to sweeten up my disposition towards them I guess. They actually did a pretty good job and I just realized I posted the pictures a little backward, but you can get the idea. There was a card included with the meal, and after opening it I realized it was a contract they wanted me to sign afterwards. It was funny, and I can't say it didn't make me a little less angry, but they were still grounded from video games.



This is the back of the card. Basically, it says..."Now sign this deed for semagoediv ? (I still don't know what that word means) today and forever. Some parts of deed need magnifying glass." Then there's a place for me to sign and date it I think. Then it goes on to say..."This is agreed with Bailey Fox, president of these offical deeds, and this deed cannot be undone! Here is Bailey Fox's signature. So please think carefully before signing your name. Deed for semagoedive, love code.(Oh, I guess "semagoedive" is a love code) Semagoediv means love in Bailey language. Sign here for the deed."

This is the middle of the card. It says... "Sorry we acted like that, please forgive us. So, we hope you like your breakfast, love from your children. P.S. this is not to make you let us play video games again. Mom Love."

Front of card. "To Mom, From Addie, Bailey, Cameron, and eventually Emery."

This is my very sophisticated breakfast created by Addison and Bailey. There is juice with a cherry inside and one attached to the lip of the cup. There is also a cookie, two pieces of cinnamon toast, strawberries, cherries, and sliced bananas.

Running Away

On Sat. Cam came home from playing next door with a friend. He promptly told me that Addie had taken hand sanitizer and rubbed it into his hair and hit him. So, I told Cam to go and tell Addie she had to come home and would be getting a time out. Well, apparently Addie decided to run away instead of come home and face the music. Cam came running back inside and told me Addie was running away. I told him to go tell her to come in or she was in really big trouble. He came in and was all worried because Addie had just turned and ran down the street.

Chase took Cam outside and had him show him where Addie had run off to. Minutes went by and they came back with no Addie. So, I went to several neighbors' houses and asked around for Addie, no one had seen her. I searched the house top to bottom including the back yard and stairs to make sure she wasn't hiding anywhere. You should know that out of all my kids Addie is the most emotional and dramatic one of the bunch. When she was younger she would cry if she thought you were looking at her the wrong way. As a baby and a toddler she would cry when there was a slow song playing, even if it wasn't sad, she interpreted it to be and there would be no consoling her until the song was replaced by one with a more upbeat tempo.

So, it's fair to say that Addie has threatened us with running away before and actually has run away outside, but usually only goes down the sidewalk a little ways before someone tells her to come back. Once she hid around the side of the house. Well, after not finding her close by or hiding at a neighbor's house I began to worry and visions of some psychopath following Addie and taking her away filled my head.

Chase got in the van and drove around the neighborhood including our walking route and the local school playground, but found nothing. I again started to knock doors and make phone calls and wasn't able to find her. As I left one house and crossed the street to go inspect the church again (which is directly behind our house), I said a little prayer that we would find Addie safe and sound. I was becoming increasingly worried because I had seen Chase drive around the church and he didn't find her there either. I couldn't imagine anywhere else she would have gone and she was missing now for about an hour. I had little hope of finding her there. Not a minute after I concluded my prayer I looked up and saw Addie's tear streaked face poking around a brick wall next to the church, somehow Chase had missed her. I called her over and gave her a relieved hug. She realized how upset we were and was crying along with me. I called Chase and told him I'd found her and we headed home. Bailey told me later that she had said a prayer as well and as soon as she was done Chase had pulled into the driveway and Addie and I had come up the walk. She was so excited that her prayer was answered. I too am grateful that we have a Heavenly Father who know's us and is watching over us. Even though we were extremely grateful and relieved to have Addie back, she was indeed in big trouble. So, in hopes that Addie will think twice next time before she does such a scary thing again she will be grounded for a while. We love her and hope that she doesn't pull this kind of stunt again.

Jobs and Venting

Chase decided last minute to drive to Las Vegas early this morning and take the Air Marshal test. He was planning on taking it when we went to CA next month along with all of his other testing for the CHP, but was notified by the air marshal people that he needed to finish his application process before the 30th. We debated whether to pursue it or not, but Chase decided what the heck and drove there today and took the test. He's driving on his way back home right now.

Next month we plan to visit Grandma and Grandpa Fox while Chase does more testing, so we'll update you on anything on that front. Currently, Chase has everything checked off for his Border Patrol application except the background check, but it is underway, so we hope to hear back from that soon. I have applied at 3 different school districts for various positions and hopefully maybe one of those will work out. I might try to get on as a sub again though, so I will have the flexibility of turning down jobs that interfere with Chase's ability to job hunt and interview. We don't want to leave my parents stuck watching the kids if Chase has to leave and I'm working. Also, Chase might potentially have a part time job as a postal carrier which we are crossing our fingers for.

I think that's all on our job updates for any of you who are curious or for any of you who think we are complete slackers, moochers, losers, whatever you like to call us. It has come to my attention as of late that some people think we are living it up here in the lap of luxury in my parents' basement and I guess partying it up on vacation or something.

First of all, my parents did us a favor by letting us use their time share in Mesquite so we wouldn't have to drive all the way to get Bailey. Second, we only went to the Park City time share because nobody else could go or would take it. For your information we also offered to pay and at one point gave my parents $60., but they gave it back to us. We would have much rather enjoyed these trips under different circumstances.

I'm sorry if we are offending anyone by not being miserable enough for you or suffering enough for you. I will explain again that we do NOT enjoy being unemployed and are trying very hard to get a job. We were forced to sell our home at a loss and had to borrow money to make up the loan difference (that was way fun!). We were forced to move into my parents' house and take our kids away from their friends as well as leaving our own friends and a great neighborhood, ward, and school. We are greatly humbled to be in the situation that we are in and will be forever grateful to everyone who has helped us out and continues to help us out. We truly hope to be able to repay everyone some day for their kindness and if not directly, we hope to pay it forward.

We were as prepared for this situation as we possibly could have been. Thankfully, we had a huge food storage supply that we continue to use and can pull from more in the future. Chase helps out around the house with fix-it jobs and mows the lawn. I have been cooking meals and doing some cleaning (whatever cleaning my mom lets me do). We watch and take care of our own children and that should have no impact on anyone else if they need my parents to babysit for them. We aren't the losers that you may think we are and I don't expect my parents to be live-in nannies. We pay for groceries and try to contribute where we can.

If I have learned anything from this experience it is not to judge others. I have no idea what kind of circumstances other people may find themselves in difficult situations, but I will certainly be more careful before I pass any judgement on someone else ever again. As for some of you out there, may you never end up in a situation where your spouse or yourself loses their job. Any one of you at any moment could find yourselves in this exact situation or worse.

If I have ever cast unrightous judgment on any of you or made any of you feel bad, I am sincerely sorry. I know how it feels to have hurtful things said and people looking down their noses at you like they are so much better than you. It feels awful to be made to feel this way and I pray that I never said or did anything as hurtful to anyone out there. If I have I offer my deepest apologies and hope you can forgive me. For some of you who have been hurtful towards my family I am searching for forgiveness myself, because I know none of us are perfect, but it may take a while. I will keep trying. I stress again that I just hope none of you ever find yourselves in a similar situation, especially with children involved. It has been the worst thing watching my kids go through this difficult transition in their lives, by no fault of their own. If you do by some misfortune have to go through a similar experience, then maybe you will finally understand what we are going through. If you are fortunate to not have to go through something like this in this crappy economy then you do not have any right to judge us, talk down to us, or think less of us!

No Job... Yet

So, I finally got a phone call yesterday from the place I sent my resume to a while back. They asked me to come in for an interview today, so I was really excited. They told me they could only offer me 8 hrs a week right now and the shift would probably from 3-7 am, but it would be something and I could probably work up to more hours later when they became available. Well, we were on our way to Salt Lake earlier when they called back today and I didn't get the phone in time, but listened to the message that was left. Apparently, they had looked again and saw that other employees had picked up the extra hours, so they wouldn't need to hire someone after all. I was bummed, but maybe it's for the best. They said they'd keep my resume on file and contact me later if they needed someone. I might try to apply at some other places, we'll see. I think maybe after all of Chase's crazy testing and flying all over the place, I might have a better idea of what's going on.

4th of July

Happy belated 4th of July everyone! Well, this is going to be a long post, at least there are a lot of pictures. I was kind of camera happy I guess. We started out the 4th of July by getting up early and driving to my Dad's office in Provo to watch the parade. His office is right on the parade route. This was our 3rd annual visit and I guess has become somewhat of a tradition. It's great because we see everything with no people in front of us, we didn't have to camp out to get our spots, and we are inside where it's cooler, or in case of rain like this year. I also don't have to worry about wrestling with Emery and losing her in a crowd because she just refuses to sit still. She had a whole office to run around in.



After the parade we drove home and prepared our BBQ. I made a patriotic cake and chip dip and Chase did all the grillin'. My brother Glen and his wife Rachel came over with their two boys Jaron and Noah. Also, my sister Monica came home for the weekend from working at the girl scout camp. We had a lot of good food and a lot of fun. The cousins had a blast playing together and squirting water guns. We ended the evening watching fireworks in the culdisac. We almost drove back to Lehi to watch Thanksgiving Point's fireworks, but it was so late. When we lived in Lehi, we could see them from our backyard and even better if we walked down to the park at the end of our street, oh well, maybe next year if we're still around.

Addie drinking from the hose.

Cam aiming to squirt me.

The boys chasing Bailey.

Cute Monica enjoying some patriotic cake : )

Cam was entirely soaked after the water guns. I don't know if you can tell by this picture, but he was dripping wet. He also wasn't very happy about it and got even madder when I told him he would have to go through the garage and strip down with a towel before going inside.

Emery, armed and dangerous.

Emery trying to drink from the hose like the big kids.

Addie and Jaron drinking from the hose together.

Jaron aiming water into Addie's mouth. I guess I need to get this girl a drink once in a while, or at least a cup.

Jaron squirting Emery, she was an easy target.

The boys ambushing me as I came out of the house. They got me pretty good, I had a really wet butt.

Cousin Noah and Emery copying eachother. Emery just loves Noah and they spent the day following eachother around immitating what the other one did. It was pretty funny.

Noah and Emery.

My masterpiece edible flag creations. Chip dip on the left, cake on the right if you couldn't tell.

My master grilling chef Chase!

Polynesian dancers from the parade. This is the first time I've ever seen Polynesian dancers with huge frilly material on their bums.

This was a float from Lehi. The theme was "If I Could, I Would...". It was written on the side of the float, but I'm sure people were thinking "Huh?". The only reason I know that it was the city's theme for "Round Up Days" is because our old ward makes a float with the Primary kids every year and they had started working on it before we moved. I thought it was funny that they had dinosaurs. I'm curious as to how that finishes out the theme. If I Could, I Would.... get chased and eaten by dinosaurs? I don't know, well at least it was a pretty cool float and it was actually one of the best ones this year. Good old Lehi!

Here comes Paddington Bear, he was randomly huge!

Senator Bob Bennett ended up getting out of his car and helped push it to the side of the parade route after the hood on his car started to smoke and the car died. I was impressed that he got out and did that, but even more so that he continued on walking the parade route. I thought it strange though that they didn't seem to have any security or anyone following him. He's getting up there in age, I hope they had someone come and give him a ride for the rest of the parade.

This is probably one of my favorite things in the parade. They had a pipe band perform. This was one of the first entries in the parade, you can still see the wet road from the brief rain we had before the parade started. Unfortunately, they sandwiched the band in between fire engines and police cars. You could barely hear the bagpipes because the sirens were so loud, not much thinking on the parade schedulings part.

Cam looking on and Emery waving to the people outside in the parade.

The Fox gang minus Chase in front of the window overlooking the parade route.

Excited kids!

Emery gets in these weird, silly moods every once in a while. I just happened to catch her in one on this day, making this goofy face.

Grandpa and Grandma Beebe with crazy Emery.

Emery face planted against the window and everyone else looking on.

Freedom Festival

The day before the 4th of July my mom, Bailey, Addie, Cam, and I went to the Freedom Festival in Provo. We walked through many booths and my mom bought snow cones for the kids. We walked over to the Colonial Village which was pretty neat, not to mention also free : ). The kids got to play a bunch of old fashioned games from that time period and had a lot of fun trying to master them.

Bailey and Addie watching the girl prepare some bread with apple butter-mmmmmmm! The pair of pistols on the table were actually a carving or cutting set. Cam trying out the stilts with mom's help. Addie still crying from being whacked with a stilt after Bailey tried to get on by herself.

Here's Addie enjoying her turn on the stilts. Addie actually did really well and was the best out of all the kids on the stilts, even after her injury. Bailey was taking these pictures so you get a finger in the corner of the photo.

Bailey got confused while on the stilts and started to do the splits. Instead of going forward she'd go outward until she was spread eagle.

Here the kids are playing a game where you hold two sticks and toss a hoop wrapped in cloth. You toss the hoop back and forth and try to catch it and throw it with your sticks. Cam was the master of this game and caught on really quickly and was really good at it.

This was Bailey's best game, she mastered the art of hoop chasing. In this game you try to keep a hoop rolling by nudging it along with a stick.

Cam catching the hoop with his sticks.

Addie on a stick horse. Me in the background playing the stick game with Cam.

Good Old Abe Lincoln stopped by to take a picture with us in front of the Mayflower. I'm not sure exactly how Abe found himself in this time period, unless he had a time machine.

Eating snow cones under a tree, it was really hot.

Cam making a suicide snow cone. The kids couldn't decide what flavor they wanted.

Job Update

So, I'm not so confident about the job I just tried to apply for. My friend had said that they were always looking for night watch people and gave me her supervisors' names. I did a little research before I applied and read up on the company and stuff. It looks like an awesome place to work and it would be doing basically kind of what I had experience doing before which was working with troubled teens. I was really excited about it, but I called up the HR like their website asks you to do and I could only leave a voice message. I never got a call back, so I tried calling again and finally got through to their HR. The lady I spoke with said she wasn't aware of any night watch openings but said to send her my resume and she would forward it to the Night Watch Supervisor. So, that's what I did, but I haven't heard anything back at all. I didn't even get to fill out a real application, it's just my resume. I'm bummed because I was excited about doing this. Heck, I can't get a sub job, can't even get a census job that I applied for back in Lehi. I guess I'm just as jinxed as Chase, but I guess you also can't change the crappy economy. Too, much competition for one job opening and either that or they cut back on how many they're hiring to none at all.

Well, a little happier news... I picked up Chase late Tues. night or rather very early Wed. morning from the airport. He felt pretty good about his tests he took and he thought the areas would be nice to live in. He liked Oklahoma better though, more of a small town feel. He found an awesome neighborhood where they're building new houses starting from $110,000. and it's 2 blocks away from the temple there. Cost of living is cheap in both OK and TX. I'm trying not to get my hopes up though until I hear anything concrete, because I'm just setting myself up for dissappointment. He scored a 93 on his test in OK and feels he got 100 in TX. His chances for TX are better because they are hiring 120 and he says there were a lot of guys testing there that were not in physical shape and would probably have a hard time passing the physical test portion. He finds out if he'll be going back the end of Aug. to test for the physical part in TX and I think he goes back for the physical in OK in Sept. Also, he tests in San Antonio on our anniversary. Chase also was called to get a drug test for the border patrol and he did that this morning, so that is gradually moving along. Now, we are still waiting for his background check. So, we hope things move along and that we will have a job soon. If he gets hired on for Houston Fire Department, he would start their academy in Jan., if he gets hired on in OK he'd start their Fire Academy in Feb. Who knows when the border patrol will be? So, we basically just have to sit and wait.

The Job Hunt Continues

I drove Chase to the airport this morning. Well, he drove there because I wasn't quite awake yet, but I drove the car back home. We left the kids asleep at home with my parents. He's in Oklahoma to test for a firefighter position. Then after he's done testing there tomorrow he will fly from Oklahoma to Texas to test for another firefighter position in Houston and then fly back home. So, pray for us and wish us luck. We're still waiting for background checks for the border patrol and air marshal as well. Chase will also test for the highway patrol in OR this September. You gotta think that one of these will happen for us, all we need is one!

In the meantime I'm going to apply for a job that my friend told me about that sounds like it would be good. I'll tell you how that works out. It's so weird applying for jobs after not working for so long. I subbed briefly as a special ed tech in OR, but that even seems ages ago and that wasn't very long before we moved back to UT. Trying to write a resume was really challenging for me. When I got to the "skills" portion of my resume I kind of just froze. Is changing a diaper under 5 seconds flat considered a skill? Well, I actually haven't timed myself, but I know it's pretty darn fast. What if I added that the diaper changee is a squarming toddler who doesn't want her diaper changed? How about baking delicous goodies and dinners that even the pickiest of eaters will try, well at least sometimes? Breaking up fights over who has the most pieces of watermelon? Or, my multiple uses of tinfoil to reduce my need of dish washing? Maybe I could include my persuasive(nagging) skills that get my kids to finally remember to change their underwear and socks?

I just hope they don't want a lot of names and phone numbers of past employers because I have forgotten a lot of them and/or they have changed and I know of one manager who has since passed away. One of my places of employment also doesn't exist anymore, it's a different bank there now. Many of the people and teachers I worked with also aren't around anymore and I don't know where to find them if they wanted references. Well, I guess it's worth a shot. The worst they can tell me is no thank you, we have enough diaper changers on our staff already.

Park City

My parents had points that they needed to use up before July and couldn't go, so they let us use their time share again and we went up to Park City for 3 days. We had a lot of fun! For being unemployed, we've had a pretty busy and fun summer vacation so far.

They had a really nice indoor pool and spa which we swam at many times. They also had really nice BBQ grills we could use, so we bought a bunch of chicken and steak and Chase just grilled our dinner every night we were there.

Our first full day there we found out that Park City offers free public transportation which was sweet! So, we rode the bus up to Main St. and walked around and saw some of the shops. We thought about walking through some of the art galleries, but decided it probably wouldn't be a good idea with all the kids, especially with one rambunctious 22 month old. Also, our kids have this thing about touching everything. We saw a moose statue dressed up, and a bear statue on a bench, which the kids thought was cool. We walked into a jewelry shop and got the kids free polished rocks, which they were ecstatic about. Addie especially loves to collect things, especially rocks. I was just excited that they were free. The guy unlocked a case and pulled out a penguin necklace I was admiring. He started to go into description about how it was made of black, tahitian pearl with white gold on a white gold chain and stated the price was only $695.00. That was our cue to leave. We said thanks for the free rocks and left.

Some guy tried to sell us a timeshare up at the Canyons as well. They were going to give us $100. in cash with a free buffet and all we had to do was show up for a 90 min. "tour"(really a sales pitch). He started asking us all the qualifying questions.... "Do you make at least 50 grand a year?", "Did you pay for your accomadations while you're staying here?". I laughed and informed him that Chase was laid off and my parents were footing the bill for us to be there. He said, "That's ok, can you just say you make 50 grand and you're paying to be here?". Then he wanted $20. refundable deposit saying we'd show up to do the tour. Chase "unfortunately" had left his wallet at home since we rode the bus. He also had a job interview the next day in Salt Lake. He must have been desperate for some sort of commision because then he waived the $20. deposit and told us to just show up if we could and gave us his cell # to call.

We ended our first day with a free trolley ride up and down Main Street which was fun. It went up this huge hill to the top of Main Street, which would have been a pain to walk with all the kids. We caught the bus back to the resort and Chase grilled some more dinner for us. My sister Monica works at Cloud Rim just above Park City at the Girl Scout camp, so she came down and ate dinner with us. She also told us about a lot more free stuff we could do while we were there, since she knows everything there from working 7 summers there I believe. The next day we wanted to take her up on one of her suggestions and hike a trail to a historic farm, but the kids were too tired and we still had to eat dinner. We ran out of time to do all the things we wanted to do, oh well, maybe next time.

Our second day we decided to ride the Alpine Slide. We were a little nervous about this because you have to ride a gondola (ski lift) up the mountain to get to the top of the slide. We were mainly worried about Emery's reaction to the height. Unbelievably she was completely fine, weird kid. Chase says it's probably because she was wedged down between him and Bailey and she didn't have a clear view of how high up we were. It was cool because the seats were big and our whole family fit on one chair and rode up together.

The kids had a blast and loved riding the slide. Chase rode with Cam so I have no pictures of them because Chase had the camera. Addie rode by herself and at first pushing herself off the starting point just held onto the sides. I was riding on a seperate track next to Addie and had to keep yelling at her to push the stick forward or she wouldn't be going anywhere soon. Finally she got it, and in no time shot down the mountain at full speed ahead of me and Emery. Chase said she didn't even let up at the end when you're supposed to slow down and stop. She came careening to the very end screaming in excitement. Bailey caustiously went ahead of me, but warmed up and had fun. There were gophers all over and Bailey freaked out I guess because one ran across the track in front of her and she thought it was a rat. There was one gopher just calmly standing up next to the track when Emery and I went by. It was so close I could have reached out and grabbed it if I was fast enough. It was so weird, but I guess they're used to all the traffic.

We had so much fun and wished we could have stayed longer. Thanks Mom and Dad for the fun vacation, it was a blast!
We bought icecream bars and Emery really enjoyed them, as you can see.

This is Emery's intense eating/dancing face that she makes on occasion.

I can't believe how wide she got her mouth open.

Bailey nervously getting ready to go down the mountain.

Addie, screaching past the stopping point.

Mommy and Emery at the bottom of the slide.

Addie, excitedly anticipating going down the mountain.

Mommy and Emery waiting our turn to go.

I love the view behind me on the gondola.

Bailey, Addie, Cam, & Mommy high up on the gondola.

Cam, Addie, Bailey, Emery, & Daddy on the gondola.

You can see the Alpine Slide track below us behind Chase.

Addie on the trolley.

Cam & Bailey on the trolley going up main street.

Emery looking out the trolley window.

The kids getting ready for the trolley ride.

Kids with the bear statue on Main Street.

Riding the bus.

The kids playing around in one of the rooms in our suite.