Hello All!

Where to begin?! Well, for starters we are being very aggressive with paying off our bills! I started clipping coupons and joined a website called www.thegrocerygame.com I don't know if I will continue with it since my first week didn't go so well! I missed all of the sales! LOL But I did learn something so this week I will try again! Coupons and sales flyers in hand! I honestly HATE being on a budget! But our church has been in a season of simplicity for about 2 or 3 months and no end in sight LOL! It has been so good for me. I have cleaned out closets, dressers, my school stuff and decided what I really do need, and what is just fluff. I have a lot of fluff-this will also be a bonus when we go to move and I don't have to take it all with me! So in the spirit of trying to save money on groceries and gas I decided to be adventerous: in comes the nature study turned disaster!

I took the boys down to the creek behind our house-it was a bit of a hike and some pretty steep areas to scale. Once we got down there we were not dissappointed! It was beautiful! And it is where the creek dumps into the river making it even more fun. I must say, it's way too far for the boys to be going it alone. Eric insisted they weren't going near the river, but according to the boys, they ARE! So I banned them and told them they can only go with an adult. Much dissappointment availed! So we started hiking up stream to see what treasures were waiting and were thrilled with what we found. A little lagoon, bull heads under the roots, tons of baby fish, crawed adds, and millions of periwinkles! And to top it all off, a rock shaped in a perfect L. As we ventured up stream further walking in the creek since it was hot, I stepped onto a rock that slipped out from under my foot! Then it proceeded to land on my foot and I fell into the creek, catching myself before I was sitting in water-thank goodness! Unfortunately my ankle immediately began to swell, was black and blue and has some tiny cuts on it! I'm thinking to myself, I am never going to get back up that trail we came down on-so I hobbled back downstream and sat on the shore while the boys played for awhile. Then on the way back Luke took a nasty spill right on his ribs and hip-he's fine! Oh to be young again! There I sat soaking my ankle in the creek knowing that if I took my sandles off I wasn't getting them back on-it was already swelling that much. We ended up going out the trail on the other side of the creek that came out near the highway. I decided that it would be easier to get out on the trail that was made by the fisheries dept, which was more like a small road, than to try and scale bushes and mini cliffs with a sprained ankle. It didn't hurt that bad. By the time we got back to the house it was time to start dinner and it was sore and swollen but not too terribly bad. Then I made the mistake of sitting down to check my email. It swelled even more and then the pain set in! UGH! I made it through dinner and as we sat and watched a movie it got worse and worse-not an ace bandage in site and the ice packs melted. I took some Tylenol to help with the pain, it seemed like an eternity for it to work, and filled up a big pan with ice water and stuck my foot in it. Relief at last!! By the time I went to bed with a headache and a very cold foot it was feeling better. I slept okay, but everytime I would roll over I would feel the pain and wake up-I'm apparently very active in my sleep! When I got up this morning the pain was manageable and I hope to be on the mend soon. I am still hobbling around and I don't know how I am going to navigate my sister in laws outside wedding today, but I will manage! Now that I am up and moving more it is a little more painful, so I took some more Tylenol and stuck my foot back into the ice water-not much pain at the moment-but I think it's numb from the coldness! LOL

All this comes the day before we are doing respite care for the couple who took the girls. They have a big soccer tournament this weekend so the girls are staying tonight (Saturday) and will go home on Sunday night. I admit I wasn't too thrilled about it, but it seems the Lord always provides for us in ways we least expect. We do get paid for doing respite and it is a nice way to supplement our income!

Well, everyone just got here so I need to go and say hello!

Love Natalie and co.