Viva Las Vegas!

Holy cow! The last almost two months have been such a roller coaster! This job is crazy and insane, and so much fun, and challenging and trying and wonderful! Seriously I feel like I spend so much time trying to figure out how I feel about it, because it's like all of the above, all the time.   I LOVE that I get to spend all day with my boys!

Since starting this job we've had multiple different things we've had to deal with, including girls:

running away
getting in fights
getting suspended
failing tests
aliens
getting arrested
having other random kids in our house throwing eggs
UFOs
Teaching
teaching
teaching

Ok, so not all of the above, but some, or most, or none.


Ok but seriously have you ever cleaned raw egg out of industrial carpet? Kill me now. It took me more than a week! Listen and listen closely, SALT. It is your best friend, poor a TON of it on the egg while it's still fresh. Let sit. Vacuum up later when dry.   When in doubt, add more salt.


So teaching and the girls take up most of our time, as it should since we're both working full time. But we do get to spend a good deal of time with the other couples in the other homes which is the coolest part of this job if I'm allowed to say that. There's a couple two homes down that is also LDS (there's a total of three LDS couples in this job and the program ops is LDS and our supervisor.) has a baby that's 5 weeks older than Bowen and is super hippy, like us me. LOVE. We call each other and rant and talk about our babies and cloth diapering and breastfeeding (yes Bowen is still breastfed) and our babies being sick, and getting each other sick and all of us sick, and oh heavens I'm so glad that they're here. I'm not sure I could do this job some days without them.


Speaking of illnesses, we've been sick lately, which has been SO MUCH FUN! Not. Bowen was first by vomiting all over our bed, in the middle of the night. Then Shaun and i each caught it, for just a brief period of time, and then last week I was SUPER sick for three days. Ended up going and getting a couple of bags of fluids at urgent care and some zofran because I couldn't even keep water down. I some how managed to keep that illness to myself, thankfully! I was thinking we were over it all until Bowen got a fever tonight, but he seems to be doing well now. And my immune system is holding up well enough. So we're all good there.

I'm sure this is wonderfully boring to all of you out there, but it's nice to be able to see how far we've come, both in this job and in our lives and with our illnesses. I think I'll be sure to thank Heavenly Father one more time tonight that I'm not sick any more because that sucked.

The culture shock is wearing off slowly but surely. I think it helps that we don't go anywhere near down town most days, unless we're going to the main office, which is pretty close. But I have to remind myself frequently that this is a job and we're living here, and not just visiting, like I keep thinking...... oops.

We're super bummed that we're not going to be with family this holiday season. It's hit me really hard this year, because it's my first not being able to go home. Who would have guessed how much that meant to me? Because I didn't.

But life goes on, and so do we!

I've got many thoughts, on many things, but it's late and I must be going to bed now. Hope you enjoyed the update,

Love,

Kirsten, Shaun and Bowen!