Small acts of Kindness

Today I needed to run a few errands. The kids were going in slow motion and we missed our window of opportunity to leave before Blake had to take a nap. He fell asleep at 10am which was about 2 1/2 hours before normal nap time. Then I went to check on the girls who were playing downstairs I found a sleeping Alyssa. She never takes a nap! Anyway, with my kids it is errand suicide if you go after a certain time. 3:30-4:00 hour is that time for us. I just have learned that if we want to have a decent shopping experience, go in the morning hours, it is just a more pleasant experience. Well, because we needed things for dinner, and I was determined to make it out of the house today, we left at 3:30. After a couple of fast errands, we went to the grocery store. Because I have 5 kids, and they are 8 and under, I get a lot of looks from people. At least I think that is why they look at me. Although when I got home today and saw my hair, (it was pretty humid today) that could have been the reason for the looks. Anyway, we were in the bread isle when a mom with a new baby stopped me. She looked at me, saw Zach melting down because he couldn't get Alyssa to let go of the frosting with sprinkles he wanted to hold, she says, "wow. You are amazing! This is my 3rd baby and I am terrified to take all three of my kids out together!" I said thank you, and held my head a little higher, and gave her my advice if you go anywhere, to go after breakfast, but before lunch or it won't go well. (kidding-well, sort of) we talked for a bit more, and she again said "wow, I just really admire you." and went on her way. Then right after that another lady pointed her finger at us and started counting. And she said, "wow. You are amazing. They are beautiful. Can we help you in any way??" The lady behind her also said some words of kindness, and smiled. After a couple more meltdowns, trying to hold Blake and push the cart, we finally made it to the check out. (Before we even got into the store, I was mentally prepared for melting down kids, mainly because of the hour. They were hungry and tired and we needed to be home. So I wasn't impatient with them, but at the same time we were supermarket sweeping as fast as we could.) When I got to the check out, I had two kids in the cart, and the other three amazingly enough were very close. I was putting the heavy things on the belt and I look over and all I see are hands reaching up all over the candy and gum. No faces just hands. They were clawing for treats. It was like the infery in Harry Potter grabbing for stuff. Can we have this? Can we have that? I had already gotten them a little treat earlier, so I resisted. Just as I was about to cave in, it was our turn. As I moved the cart through the isle Blake made his protest known that he wasn't getting any candy to the people in the next store over. He was so mad. After the cashier rang up my order in record time, I have really never seen anyone check and bag so fast, she reached over her register and patted me on the shoulder. "Hang in there she said. You are doing a great job." Can I just tell you the difference it made in my day and in my entire countenance to have perfect strangers try to lift my spirits? It made all the difference in the world. I got home got the dishes done, dinner started, house cleaned, I just felt so renewed by just a few words of kindness and a few kind smiles. So the next time you feel like complimenting someone, but think "what will they care-it is such a small thing to say something nice" Trust me, small acts of kindness will make a huge difference in someones life. And see, people in the east really aren't all that bad. :) And I am so happy to have a new favorite grocery store, just two minutes away from my house.

Not all doom and gloom

Sides of the road... use in case of an "emergency"

is there really a place called truth or consequences?

Ok, so I feel like I my previous posts have been more on the serious/gloomy side of things. Not all was/is sad/hard for us. For example, today it is raining and last night we had a good thunderstorm. LOVE IT! But that's not what I want to blog about today. The trip, for me at least, went by really fast. Before we left I was a little concerned about how the kids would do in the car. Sometimes driving home from school, which was about a 10 minute drive, seemed like hours. I am happy to report, despite Blake being really sick, it was actually really fun! We had a great time. By the time we got to Philadelphia, we were exhausted but the kids did really well. The part that took the longest was bathroom trips. Why is it that they always have to go after we passed the rest stops? Ok, so for the first time ever, we had to teach the girls how to go to the bathroom on the side of the road. Katelyn bawled. She DID NOT want to do this. (I did think ahead and had the girls wear skirts just in case...) So somewhere in New Mexico we had to stop. Zach jumps out and waters the farm over the hill, (TMI I know, but it was really funny because Ethan said "wow Zach, nice distance"-BOYS!) So as we are trying to get Katelyn to just take care of business so we can get going, I look over at Alyssa and she had just gotten right to business. She didn't care a bit. That was funny. Restrooms were always a little scary for me, mainly I was concerned about the kids. But no matter how stinky or smelly bathrooms were, the girls always would say, "we liked the soap, it had our favorite soap" (the foamy kind) Or it was especially fun if the soap was pink. No matter where we would go they would always talk about the soap. Girls.

The worst though was when there was no where to pull off. The kids weren't very helpful either not giving us any notice that they might have to go to the bathroom soon. Zach was screaming in agony because he had to go so bad, and we were in traffic, with no shoulder to pull off. So I thew him a pull up. Go in this Zach. Next time I need to be more specific in my directions because instead of unbuckling and putting pull up on, (we were in stand still traffic) he placed the pull up strategically over his clothes and well, so gross. The pull up didn't even get wet. Ohhhh so many stories to tell. We had a great time, after months without being together as a family it was nice to take this trip together and just have time even if it was in the car. We got to see a lot of fun things. And yes, tv was a big help. I have always loved road trips though. Very good times.

Motels were a little bit of a different story. The coolest part was that even thought the beds were really hard, Zach successfully learned to do flips on them. Cannot believe I don't have video of that!!!

Punxsutawney and Pittsburgh 2006

Crazy freeways and bridges and people merging from out of nowhere. I refused to drive here.

At the Pittsburgh Airport -some kind of new security screening system :)

We ate here, POSITIVE this was the diner that Bill Murray stuffed a whole piece of Angel food cake into his mouth(What). In our defense, it was similar and we figured the movie was 20 years old, changes must have been made...

Punxy

We didn't get any pictures of this, but we stopped at a walmart on our way to Punxy and there were Amish inside buying stuff, and smoking outside the store. It was very much Amish there. The farms and homes that they have are amazing. So pristine! On our way into Philadelphia we also drove through Amish country, and they had quilt displays and a fabric store in a beautiful old home. They also had wooden pieces of furniture and swingsets that they had built. Amazing stuff.

These groundhog statues are everywhere

Sometimes hard to get a really good picture at 80 miles an hour.

Penn State area

City

Why Pennsylvania

Good question. To be honest, we are not really sure. It kind of started about four years ago. We lived next door to a crazy lady (no really, she was crazy) but I got to know her pretty well. She scared me a little at first because she did really strange and unusual things. (She showed up at her next door neighbor's house without clothes-that kind of crazy) Anyway, she had cancer and was really very sick and she lived alone. I would help her with odd jobs at her home, and helped her pack when she moved out. One day before she moved, she came over to talk to me about something, a footstool I think. Anyway, we somehow got on the subject of where she is from. She said she was from a town called Bethlehem in Pennsylvania. She described the town, and the home she owned and said that it was for rent. I had never heard of Bethlehem, PA so when she left two hours later I googled it. It was a cute little town and Dan and I began talking about how fun it would be to move away for a while for a little adventure. I grew up air force so after being in one place for more than 3 years I would always get the itch to move. Well, we kind of stopped talking about it, but it never left our minds. We were always thinking about it. So in Sept of 2006 Dan and I decided to take a trip to Pittsburgh, it didn't seem as far away as Bethlehem, plus Bethlehem is a small college town, and there really weren't very many jobs or anything. So grandma and grandpa Lawlor watched our kids (0f course two days before we left Zach was diagnosed with pneumonia) and we flew to Pittsburgh for a few days. We had a fun trip, and now that we have a GPS we think our trip would have been a lot more fun for us if we had one back then. We saw some beautiful country, some scary parts of the city, it was just different for us. Dan grew up in AZ and served his mission in Idaho. So this was something new and exciting. One of the funnest things that we did was go to Punxsutawney. (Groundhog Day!) The festival there is HUGE and people come from all over the world. It was very quiet when we were there though. (We are nerds, what can I say. We went all over that town so we could find the diner and the hotel ect... from the movie. We found out when we got home it was actually filmed somewhere outside of Chicago-the area where they have the festival in Punxy was too small for filming. We laughed so hard!) Still a cool place to see. Anyway, we left there not really feeling good about Pittsburgh, but still wanting our adventure. About a year ago maybe longer, my brother Corey talked to Dan about a job in Philadelphia, but nothing really came from it then. When Dan took his job with the charter school, neither one of us felt very good about it. In fact it took us a long time to tell anyone. We were desparate for a better paying job/career-we had been searching for so long. When you get that feeling that you shouldn't do something, no matter how right and perfect it seems, you should listen to it! Let's just say if certain people had been a little nicer, that experience would have gone very differently. Which was also the weirdest part. Dan did really well at that job, despite hardly any training. The kids loved him, and the parents seemed ok with him too. In fact, it was kind of the oddest thing that it didn't work out. All the pieces were there. Dan "quit" at the end of October, (someday I will blog about our miraculous two Decembers-in a row, but those things are almost too sacred to Blog about right now. I really can't talk about those events without a lot of tears. I will say again, prayers are answered and miracles happen.) back to the story... right after Dan "quit"-with no job prospects-very scary, Corey said that he got a call wondering if Dan was still interested in the job. There were some concerns that we voiced knowing that there was another person interested in the job, but were reassured that the other person interested was actually pursuing another company. We were so excited that Linda (the owner of the company) thought of Dan at this particular time, that Dan had just quit his job, if he hadn't and things had gone well, we wouldn't be here. And our house had just "sold". So we jumped. It took until the end of January to get offical word, and our dream was starting to come together. There were still a lot of things stacked against us, but at the same time it started to flow. But we also know there is opposition in all things, and we all have to go through trials. We knew it wouldn't be easy, but we also knew this was were we needed to be. So here we are. Bethlahem is about an hour or so north of us.

Miracles and Gratitude

So I have been trying to find a good way to post some of the events that have happened to us. Ideally, it would be nice to write them in order, but today I am reflecting on some of the miracles that happened to us. I think I have said this a few times, but as hard as things were I cannot deny the miracles, and I don't know if I would have paid as much attention to the tender mercies if we hadn't been going through such a difficult process. But there are two signifigant instances that are on my mind today where I really felt like I was being watched over. The first came after the first full week we were here. We had been staying near the airport so the commute for Dan wouldn't be too difficult. But that also meant that we were staying in south west Philadelphia. (I had to laugh because the Fresh Prince of Bel Air song came into my mind so many times, "In west Philadelphia I was born and raised...) anyway... for the weekend we decided to go stay in an area where we were looking to live. We checked out of our hotel at around 11, I drove Dan into Center City, which is not my favorite place to drive, and then the kids and I went out to the area we were going to stay at. To preface this, before we left Tucson we had contacted some wards to let them know we were looking for a place to live, just to spread the word. One of the ward Relief Society presidents called me a couple of days before we left to see what she could do. Come to find out she and one of her counselors made it their personal mission to help us find a home. As I drove to our new hotel, I decided before we checked in to take the kids to the park. And to look at different neighborhoods. (During the time we were searching, I filled our car with gas at least 3 times a week-my poor kids.) Anyway, as we were driving I was feeling pretty distressed and discouraged. We had come so far, and we were so tired and just felt pretty helpless, but at the same time, there was a great deal of peace. I guess impatience is more the word I need to use about how I felt. Anyway, as we were driving, the relief society president called out of the blue to talk to me to see how we were doing. It was so nice to know that in this great big city, that someone knew we were there, and they cared about what was happening to us. It was just a nice feeling. Shortly after we arrived at the park, her counslor called. Her name is Charity. (No really, it is, and it fits her.) Charity offered to have us come and stay at her home. Charity has 5 boys and 1 girl. And she called me, a complete stranger and offered a home to my family of 7. I cancelled our hotel reservations, a little hesitant I have to admit, mainly because I really did not want to burden her family. But my kids needed room to run and friends to play with. What a blessing for my family. We stayed with them for a few days and then not wanting to overstay our welcome, we went to yet another hotel. This hotel was a "higher end" that we got a good deal on. However, we happened to arrive on a high school graduation night, and all they had available was a smoking room. After we arrived, the air stopped working, the sink had gotten clogged and flooded the bathroom and they only had a room with a king bed. So they moved us to another room, that didn't have hot water. Anyway, by the time we got settled it was well after midnight. The next day was Sunday, and the ward we wanted to go to was at 9am. Well, we found another ward that started at 1pm. The only ward around us that started that late was about 30 minutes away from where we were staying. Not really realizing how long it would take us, and not really knowing our way around just trusting a GPS that wasn't current on construction, (neither were we) we ended up being late. The temptation to not go was really strong. Our family is a big parade when we walk into church late, and it is one of the most uncomfortable feelings in the world. But we wanted to be there for solace more than anything, and decided to go. We were sitting in Sunday school and a girl tapped me on the sholder and asked if we were new. I kind of laughed and said, sort of. And told her we had just moved from Arizona. (Wait for this, you won't believe it.) She said, "So did we." come to find out, they were in my sister's ward, and knew all of the same people that we knew. If you have ever doubted that Heavenly Father is not aware of you, let me tell you that I know that he is. I have always believed that, but now I have proof. Mainly because of what happened the next day. We needed to check out of our hotel because they were going to raise our rate to a rediculous amout. So we packed up everything in the pouring rain and Dan went to work. Did I mention it was raining? Normally I love the rain, but this just was a lot to handle. No home, pouring rain, all the kids and our stuff smushed into our car. And I was alone to find somewhere to go as Dan had obligations at work. For an instant, I let a discouraging thought go through my mind. Then as quickly as it came, I made it leave. I started the car and headed for my new friend Autumn's house. I called her and said, "can we come play" hoping my tears of gratitude wouldn't show in my voice. My burden of not having a home wasn't taken away, but the burden of not having anywhere to go was lifted. And then came more peace. My kids had a place to play, new friends, it was a tremendous blessing. And I thank Heavenly Father every day for watching over me, blessing us, and helping me to realize how very aware He is of me. Even though it wasn't the right time for my burdens to be taken away, he lifted them, and eased them. Through the selfless acts of others. If a home had been immediately provided for our family it would have been a miracle, but at the same time, what would I have learned? We life in a world where everything is instant. It is so easy to be impatient. Learning patience, and becoming patient is seemingly very difficult. At the same time, when you are patient you can see things in ways that you wouldn't think of. Being patient makes things a lot more clear. There were days when I felt I couldn't go another step, the burden was just too hard. And even now, I sometimes feel that-who doesn't?? But I have these amazing miracles to remember and the 5 little (growing faster every day) miracles that surround me everyday and suddenly I become more patient during dicouraging times. If everything came instantly, there would be no reason for patience. I also think with increased patience comes a lot more gratitude. When you are patient you don't focus on things that you cannot change. You focus more on the things that are good and important in life. I am so grateful for miracles in my life. And today, it is so important for me to show my gratitude for those who walk beside me to lift my burdens. To me, you are are what make my life miraculous. So thank you. Ialso have to give a huge shout out to Dan, the most patient person I know. To watch him through all of this, I have to say I have NEVER seen a more patient person. Thank you Dan for your example. You are amazing.

Pictures in no particular order

city and another view of Dan's office

Watching tv while we were using wifi at Mcdonnalds. Looking for a motel on the internet was always a huge challenge for us.

The building with the spire is Dan's office. He is on the 51st floor.

Green!

Dan got razzed a little bit about not having a lot of driving endurance. He decided to prove everyone wrong and drove all day and night this is the sunrise that woke me up.

he's not really sleeping...

the fire that happened the day after we moved in. This pict is looking out of our living room window. (We are in a three story townhouse)

It's been a while...

Well, I am really not sure where to begin. For the past year or so, actually a little longer I guess, things haven't quite gone how we would have planned. Or even how we would expect. I am not sure how much of the past year's events I will post about, I want to keep our blog upbeat, and most of the events of the past year have been anything but that. For those who don't know, we are in Philadelphia now. Well, in a suburb called North Wales. Dan started a new career in February and that brought us here. Although we miss our extended family and friends from Tucson, we knew even before we received the job offer way back in October when we "sold" our home that we were pretty much already gone from Tucson. It started for us a couple of years before that though. I won't go into that here, it is better to let things go, and for those of you who know me well, know that is not an easy thing for me to do. The stress of our life from the past year has caught up to me, and the only reason I bring it up is hopefully I can inspire people in some small way to keep going when you feel like you can't. Daniel took this job and left us on January 31st, the day after Ethan's baptism. (I will have to blog about that event and so many others later) That day was probably the biggest turning point for us. I remember being at the airport with all of our kids, and watching Dan hug them all. I remember hugging him, not knowing when I would see him again, and just feeling like I couldn't catch a breath. Our plans were not definite at that point when we would get to be together. I remember when it was time for us to go, I got all of the kids on the elevator and Dan and I looked at each other until the doors closed. I sobbed all the way out to the car. Then I realized I had left my wallet at home, and Dan had forgotten to give me cash and I was stuck in the airport parking lot with no way to pay for parking. So the kids and I scrounged for all the coins we could find, and drove away. Pulled into the wrong lane in all of my brainlessness and had to back up (it said cash only, but would only take dollars-since when do coins not count as cash??) got into another lane and the kid said "$2.00" (I want my two dollars!) Had to pay him in nickles, dimes and one quarter I even explained I forgot my wallet, he must get that a lot because he was unfazed. (Don't ever do that on a toll road by the way-also another story for another time). The next 11 weeks went by in a blur-well, the days did. When it was night and quiet, that was a different story. It was about the time that Blake dumped 2 gallons of stain on my parents kitchen floor that we decided house or no house, it is definitely time to go. So, no house, a seriously expensive trip in front of us, very little money, and off we went. I could sit here all night and tell you of the sad, and scary and heartbreaking things that happened on our trip. But I am not going to. What I will tell you that this was absolutely the challenge of my life. Dan's too, but he was at work most of the time. (and I am telling this story, he can blog about his perspective later :) ) But without this challenge (that sadly, is far from over) I would not have known some of the things I was capable of. I would not have relied more on the Lord than I ever have. I would not have felt more love, and seen as many miracles as I saw challenges. I would not have been as grateful as I am now for the little worldly things that I have. In fact, one dreary, exhausting day I was kind of grumbling to myself as I drove, just wanting a home to go to. (for those of you who don't know, we left the end of April, and were "homeless" until the end of June.) That day, I had driven Dan into work. (That is a feat in and of itself-not as bad as NYC I am told, but for me, ahhhhhh! Over bridges and everything!) As I was grumbling to myself about our plight our GPS took me to a part of town that you really don't want to know about. Minivan with a turtle top and all, down these streets with these rundown buildings and as I look out the window I literally saw people digging in dumpsters for their needs. This experience has happened more than once, and I am humbled every time, I am also reminded that I need to get a new GPS.
One of the funniest driving stories is here I am with 5 kids in a loaded down van with a turtle top driving down the freeways of Philadelphia. I was on my way to meet a realtor in a place called Conshohocken, and the best way to describe where I was is that it reminded me of the streets of San Fransisco, very hilly, very narrow. I was on the freeway GPS said to stay right. Tons of construction, so street made me stay left. I had to turn around, and it took me to the toll roads. I had to pay $1.60 to turn around! (that happend more than once too) anyway, as I am driving down this narrow hilly road to meet the realtor, a large man in a white tank top (can I get any more politically correct) was standing next to a police officer. I was driving very slow, trying to find where I needed to go, and all of a sudden he starts pointing at our car top carrier. I looked at him and gave him a thumbs up, "yes, it's a car top carrier, thank you." thinking he was making fun of me (I got that a lot) When I finally got to the neighborhood, I stopped the car, looked up and realized that the car top carrier somewhere on my trip (I had been driving for about 4 hours by this point) had flown up and was wide open. (Can I tell you how many times I heard the song "Bad Day" go through my mind?) That particular experience though, made me laugh so hard. I had been through the toll booths and on the crowded freeways... Thumbs up.
Through all of this Blake had been sick. He was sick with the flu and respiratory problems, double ear infections, it was awful. We had stayed with a family who happened to have a nebulizer that we were able to use, but he just would not get better. The nearest urgent care that would take babies was about an hour away. The next day we moved to a different town to another friend's house (so many stories to tell!) anyway, at about 8:30pm that night, Blake was so bad we decided to take him to urgent care. Fortunately it was only about 5 minutes away. My friend watched the rest of our kids, and Dan and I ran to urgent care. As we pulled up, Blake had been coughing so hard he threw up in the parking lot. By the time we got in to urgent care, it was 2 minutes to closing time. They took us, amazing in and of itself. They gave us the forms to fill out. What is your current address-we don't have one. Do you have your insurance card-no, we have insurance but cards haven't been mailed (this is a Sunday night, no way to verify). They said, "we will do a one time courtesy visit for you." WHAT?! Who does that?? The dr. looked at him, he had pink eye, double ear infection, and severe breathing issues. She said, "we need to do xrays to make sure it is not pneumonia." It wasn't thank goodness, but we did leave with 4 different prescriptions. As we are walking out, we asked how much we owed, since we had not anticipated xrays too. They said "you don't owe anything. Just remember to bring your card next time you come." Seriously, who does that?!
So, you are probably wondering why it took so long to find a home. Well, for one no one can get approved for a mortgage so everyone is renting, so homes go really fast. We are also a lot bigger than the average family and although we were ok squeezing into a small house, there are laws about how many people can be allowed into rental homes. A lot of homes denied us because of our family size. (Several times, I would get to a home and they would look at all of the kids, and say no right then and there.) Then there is a cost issue. Although work has been really generous with us, homes out here are insanly expensive and we just couldn't make it work. We were told several times that we were being too picky, but let me reassure you we would not put our family and ourselves through all that we have gone through because I don't like the look of a house, or I wanted certain things. After what we went though in Tucson, I was grateful to have a home, regardless of what it looked like. There was also the issue that we only brought one car, and with the cost of homes, can't really afford another one for Dan right now, so we had to be in an area with a train. It was the perfect storm for failure. There were so many things working against us. No matter our planning or saving or calling or driving around it just would not come together for us. But all of a sudden, it worked out. It's still a little weird to drive somewhere with the kids, and be able to have a home to drive back to. As I said before, as tramatic as some things have been for us, I cannot deny that we have been tremendously blessed. We made it here, with no incidents (besides leaving a day and a half late because Dan was sick, kids were sick, and poor Blake) but we made it through. We stayed in scary parts of town, and survived. We were in New Jersey the first night we got here, and the lobby of the hotel we were going to stay at closed at midnight. Our GPS decided that it didn't want to work after midnight either, and we were driving around New Jersey until 3 am. We ended up in Camdon which we were told NEVER to go to Camdon. And there we were at 3 in the morning. Looking out my window when we were stopped at a red light, looking at a seemingly deserted building, until people started coming out of the doorways onto the pitch black side walk. We made it through that. Broke a few laws, but I think we were justified.
Really, what is life without a little adventure? Or in our case, a lot... But Iwill say that I don't go a whole lot of places these days. We are so grateful to be togther, to be in a home, and as Ethan says in his prayers "thank you for blessing us with a home so we don't have to stay in any more stinky hotels, motels or microtels." So, I do have a million more stories to tell, and a bunch of shout outs to so many people who made this adventure bearable. But for now, wanted to let whoever is reading this, that we are alive and well and so grateful to be here. I was asked the question the other day if I would do it over again. The answer is yes. 100% yes. Experiences in life help you learn and grow and help you to become better than you were yesterday. Would there be anything we would have done differntly? Absolutely. But again, it is all part of the learning process. Do I want any more challenges? Um, no think I am good for now.