Many small things become great!

In certain cases, small things becoming great really happened here and it wasn't a great thing to have happen. Richard has learned how to change the oil in our cars now and with the help of a friend, changed the brake pads as well. It saves lots of money and it's great to learn, right? Easy, simple, small thing.
Well, he had changed the brake pads about 6 months ago and for the last couple of weeks we've been hearing grinding and squeaking again. So, Richard and our friend Steve get in there and change the brake pads again, turn the routers which were a bit warped and change the oil. Easy! This was last Saturday. Sunday morning we drive to church and while driving we hear some gurgling sounds and the car is jiggling when we turn. Our hearts sink to the floor and our stress level shoots up to the roof! We parked, got out, and notice a trail of oil. We follow it all the way back to the road where the oil had literally gushed out! Ahhh! We left the car in the parking lot since we probably didn't have any oil left. The next morning we had someone come out and take a look. Well, silly thing! There's a rubber sealant that goes on the filter, and when they had changed the oil, forgot to take off the old sealant. So there were two sealants on top of each other! We felt so stupid. We had to pay the guy for coming out and replacing the filter again and new oil. This isn't all. Steve checked our brakes and wheels again (because of that jiggling going on) and found the parts were so hot after driving that they couldn't touch anything for a while. So we took it in yesterday and they said it was the calipers that weren't pulling back after braking so it was making everything hot and warping the routers and ruining the brake pads! So those were all replaced.
SO! $400 later, our car is happy, we hope. Goodness gracious! At least the next time they'll remember to check for the old rubber sealant before the new filter goes on and save us some stress and more $$.

Birthday fun for the birthday boy

We had a fun, but, very active day yesterday as it was Preston's birthday. He asked every day last week if he was 5 yet, and I always had to remind him, not till Saturday. It's cute to see kids get so excited about their birthdays. (Why can't it stay that way for us adults?!) We invited his cousins to come with us to the Kangaroo Zoo. It's a big room filled with huge animal bouncy thingy's that are a ton of fun to go on! I especially like the very tall blow-up slides and amazingly enough, Sara did too. After, we picked up lunch and went to a park to eat and have hot wheels cupcakes (and a little more playtime for the kids so they get good and worn out for naps, which they did!) And for dinner we went to IHOP for pancakes which are his favorite. Despite a stomach ache in the afternoon, he had a pretty good day.

So, Richard and I have finally come to a decision about our life for the next year or so! Hurray! We are moving to a house in Pleasant Grove. It's still renting, but, we think this will be the last place we rent. The owners are great. They are moving to Louisiana for work and don't want to sell their house with the market being what it is right now. So, if we like the place and we can buy in a year, they may be willing to talk about price. I'm so excited about it! It has 3 bedrooms (unfinished basement), a walk-in closet in the master bedroom, a 2-car garage, 2 full bathrooms, and a big fenced in backyard with a grill and fire pit. The house is 6 years old and in a great location that seems safe and clean. My brother is the bishop of the ward which I have to say will be interesting. I won't have any problem staying on the straight and narrow! I'll have to get all my confessions to our current bishop before we move! :) It will be nice to live close to him and his family since he's my only sibling. We'll be moving to the new place in the middle of June, so I'm bound and determined to start now and sort through storage and get rid of accumulated junk! Good luck to me!

Richard is keeping his job at the church office building for now and he's going to finish his MBA and try to become a Japanese translator. We're hoping these will open more doors for us career-wise.

So, there you have it. Hopefully, none of this will change, but, knowing us and our luck, it probably will!

What to do, what to do?!

Well, I have to say that Richard and I have been on a roller-coaster right now! We have to move out of our apartment because our landlord's mother needs to move in and they need the space for her. And our washer drain is backing up causing flooding everytime we use it, and the only way it can get fixed is to tear up the driveway to get to those pipes that lead to the street and fix them. Nightmare for our landlord! So we can't do our laundry here anymore, so time to move!

We have lived here for 2 years (an emergency move to get us out of the parents house!) and it really has grown on me. The ward is great, we've made some really close friends and we love our callings. But, it's coming to an end. I originally didn't want to live here when it opened up for us, but, it was the smartest thing to do. And it's been good! But, I'm excited to move on now.

Question is...where to??? We aren't able to buy a house just yet. We need one more year to prepare ourselves for that and figure what kind of future we want. We want a house so bad. We see so many of our friends in their own homes and people wonder why we haven't purchased yet. Well, it's called student loans, credit card debt (which is now all paid off, hallelujah!) and not that great of a salary (good job though!). Sometimes, I don't know how people do it. Especially here in Utah, salaries aren't that great and people own huge homes. We just want to make sure that we'll be okay when that time comes to own a home. Seems logical, right?
We are discussing different options such as career changes, military, schooling, or just bagging it all and going to Vegas! I think we're getting closer to our decision. Don't worry, it won't be Vegas :) You know, these past couple of weeks I have learned even more about faith. I know the Lord is aware of us and we need to learn some things. I'm sure things are going to work out great, but boy, when you're in the middle of it, it's stressful!

It's hard because we haven't shared our thoughts with many people, especially family, just so that our decision will be completely ours and not influenced by others (some of you may understand this!) But, it's nice to vent on my blog. I could go on and on...it feels good to vent! But, I won't. We're hoping to make our decision by this weekend so we can pray about it and move on. I'll keep you posted. (We could get rich in Vegas though! Although, knowing our luck, probably not. ho hum.)