Long Time No See!

Hey! Long time no see! The past year got away from me and has been rather chaotic. But to summarize our life over the past year in a few short sentences, since I last wrote Luke was finally able to get a job in mid-February of this year at a factory called Freshway Foods. His job was to chop vegetables and bag them. Fun fun! He was working "second shift" but because they were so short on workers it was really second and third shift that he was required to work. So from 4:30 p.m. to at least 2:30 a.m. and very often it was more like 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 a.m.  But luckily after a little over a month at that job he was blessed with a recruiting job at Russ Hadick & Associates in Dayton. He searches for people to fill engineering jobs at various different companies. He has been working there since the beginning of April and he loves it! Much better than chopping onions! 

Shortly after he got the job we moved into a house that Luke's parents are renting out. However that did not last long because of two reasons: 1) There were several problems with the house as a result of previous bad tenants, and 2) Luke's drive to and from work is just too long. It takes him about an hour and a half just to drive home from work! Traffic is horrible....as well as gas prices. So last Saturday we moved out of the rental and back in with Luke's parents while we wait for our townhouse down in Centerville to become available. We will be moving there September 20. 

The other big event that has happened this year is that in May we lost our car. On this special day, Luke was driving home from work in a really bad rainstorm. It rained so much that one of the cities through which Luke had to drive got 4 1/2 inches of rain in 30 minutes, causing flash flooding in the streets and parking lots. It was in this particular city that Luke happened to be driving through right when the flooding was at its worst. As he got farther into the city, the streets got worse, so looking over at a nearby store parking lot, he saw other cars that were out of danger and decided to pull in there for a while to wait off the worst of the storm. He drove into the parking lot, saw a parked car that was sitting in only about three inches of water and tried to pull into the spot next to said car. Well, as he pulled in into the parking spot, he realized too late that it wasn't a "spot" after all, but a big hole! As you can guess, the car immediately was partially submerged in about 4-5 feet of water. So Luke forced the door open, and simultaneously letting all the water into the car and ruining the interior. He and a friendly stranger who saw he needed help tried to push the car out of the water, but to no avail. He ended having to call his dad to come and pick him up and bring him home, but when his dad arrived, the streets were so flooded that he couldn't drive out to where Luke was and so Luke had to wade out to meet him. Needless to say, by the time he finally got home, it had been a rough day. In case you're wondering, the car was totaled.  But we like to look at it as a blessing in disguise because we were needing a bigger vehicle anyway but weren't sure how we were going to get one, so this gave us the opportunity and excuse we needed, plus it cut our car payment in half. Happy day! 

As far as kid updates are concerned, there isn't a whole lot to report that's new. Brian turned 4 in March. We decided to keep him out of school for another year because of the moving situation so we will see what the next school year holds for him. Alli turned 2 in February and is a character. She is always goofing off and keeping me on my toes! We are currently working on potty-training her. Rosalie turned 1 in June, says a few words, has 4 teeth, crawls around in super-fast mode at all times, and is trying to stand and walk on her own. She is ALWAYS happy! 

So that is the basic update with my family over the past year. I must through a shout-out thank-you to everyone who has given us so much help, support, and kindness over the past year---really more like three years---we never would have made it without all of you! Thank you! Hopefully I will be able to post some pictures soon. My camera is currently not working and I have not yet figured out how to move the pictures from my phone to the computer using itunes or icloud or whatever it is that does that (I am not always the most technologically-savvy person you will ever meet). I'll figure something out though! :)