Trying to Make Lemonade

We feel like we've been dealt an extra load of lemons this year and so we are doing our best to try and turn them into lemonade.

Where do I even start?

Last October we purchased our dream home and moved into it. It was only a 2 mile move, but still the same amount of work as if moving 2,000 miles. A week after we bought the home, it seemed that the economy changed overnight. Up until that point we had been pretty immune to it in our area.

Anyway, our old home that we put on the market wouldn't sell. People wouldn't even come to look at it. The price began to drop on our old home. Several other things happened and all of the sudden it seemed like the perfect financial storm. After lots of prayer, our answer was to move back to the more affordable home and try to sell the new home.

So, after living in the home for about 6 months, we packed up and moved back. The day after we moved all of the heavy furniture, Gerry had surgery on his knee. That left me finishing up the move, etc. I was totally overwhelmed. Thank heavens for great friends and family that helped me through it!

So, we put our dream house on the market and have not been successful in selling it yet. We're even giving away a trip to Hawaii to whoever will buy it, but still no success. In the meantime we are turning it into a vacation home rental. http://www.teddybearlodge.com/ I am busy trying to get it furnished etc. Hopefully, this gamble will pay off.

I know we are very blessed and can't complain as many people have been hurt far more than us with the economy turn. At least we still have a job. We are just doing the best we can and praying that everything will work out the best way possibly.

As far as the adoption, I have not heard anything new in months. We hope we hear something soon!

Our Frugal Spring Break

This post is only two months late, but I figured better late than never. My kids keep begging me to write about our Spring Break. We were supposed to go to Hawaii, but our economic situation dictated that we had better stay close by and go cheap. So, we went to White Sands with plenty of sand, just no ocean.

However, we had a blast. We love to go camping in the motor home, or "rocket turd" as my kids call it. White Sands is a little known National Park close to Green River, UT. Our friends took us there a few years ago and it has quickly become one of our favorite places. It is hard to find as you exit off of I-70 on a ranch exit dirt road for about an hour. Once you arrive it looks somewhat like Moab. There are hills of sand dunes everywhere. Driving there takes us about 4 hours from our home. On the drive there the wind was blowing so hard that we about got blown off the road. By the first morning the wind had stopped and the temperature was in the low 60's for the entire four days we were there. We put on our jackets and climbed every sand dune we could find, including some that were hundreds of feet tall. The boys love the freedom and I do too!

One of our favorite games was "follow the leader" with the four wheelers. Every day we would take a morning trail drive. The scenery was spectacular- red rocks, wind blown rock formations, beautiful canyons and more. Usually I or Gerry would switch off leading the trail ride. The kids would be in the middle and the opposite parent at the rear. Then we would come back to camp for lunch. The afternoon and evening were spent riding the sand dunes.

I must say that I have become somewhat of a dutch oven chef. Normally I don't enjoy cooking, but I sure do when we are camping! Perhaps it's a change from the normal every day cooking, I don't know, but I enjoy it. The boys beg to have frito chili pie every time we go camping. Dutch oven carmel apple crisp has become my specialty.