I see His hand in many things . . . .

Finding the good in the bad!
So this past week has been pretty interesting. For a while now, our dang car will just die on us, but after a few hours, it will start back up. Well, it finally quit on us - it died as my hubby was driving to work, luckily he coasted into a parking lot and even made it into a parking spot. It sat there for a couple days until we could get someone to help us tow it back to our house. It obviously decided not to start after a few hours. It sat dead for several days, at the same time, Dustin was sick as a dog. He works as a CNA (he's working on moving up the totem pole, but for now is CNA). He had been working a lot of doubles, overtime, re-roofing my mom's house, working more doubles, etc. It caught up to him and he was exhausted and one day slept for about eighteen hours, without even moving. So I went out visiting teaching the other day and was just chit chatting with the ladies and we were talking about the price of gas, so I mentioned that our car was dead and Dustin has been sick and unable to check it out, so maybe it was a blessing to have our car dead 'cuz we can't go anywhere and therefore don't have to buy outrageously expensive gas. We finished up with the first lady and went on to house number two. After being home for about thirty minutes or so, my phone rings, it's a guy in our ward. He says, "hey, I hear Dustin is sick?" I said, "how do you know that? We haven't really told anyone." To shorten the story up, he then said he knew our car was now running and that he had received his info from another guy in our ward, who is the son of lady # 1 that I went to visit teach. He then went on to say that he is in Idaho for a month and has his truck just sitting in his garage, not being used and told us to go get it while we work on getting our car fixed. It was such a blessing. I have never experienced ward members reaching out like this to help. We are probably far too prideful to ever ask for help and it was so great and the biggest blessing for these two men to jump right on the "service band wagon" and help us out. Otherwise we had no idea how we would go about getting parts for the car, and all that kind of stuff. So after Dustin's LONG day of rest, he was on the up and up. I went to google and just typed in 'my jeep won't start'. Lo and Behold others in this world have had the same problem and had asked the same question. An answer kept coming up several times - change the crankshaft sensor. So Dustin heads out to the car, finds the sensor and is a bit frustrated as he says he can't reach it and he doesn't know how anyone could without the high-tech tools that are used in a shop. So I return to google and ask how to change a crankshaft sensor. Again - lots of answers - but one little one shined the brightest - 'you need an extension.' So we go to Walmart (good old Walmart) thinking, they won't have this tool, just because we need it. But yet - there it was.
Dustin laid under the car, remained calm (even while working in this 110 degree weather) as he fought changing a crankshaft sensor in the tiniest amount of space to work with. Needless to say, he eventually got it changed out and it was do or die time. He went to start the car - we were so nervous, but it started. I was such a baby and cried. I knew what stress it had been to him to know that our car was not working and would possibly end up costing us a lot of money that we just do not have. And I could see in his face and totally feel the relief of stress leave him. It made me so happy. So, let's see - there is good in bad:
Bad, being of course - the only car we own braking down and us having no transportation. The good in the bad:
- My visiting teaching partner is so great at keeping us up on our VT.
-Lady #1 was caring enough to share our misfortune, that I jokingly mentioned, with her son, who is our home teacher.
- Two men in our ward were so willing to be of service and did not hesitate to lend a helping hand.
- Our car broke down in the summer, when we only really need to get Dustin to work, and do the occasional errand running. It could have died when we had to take Dustin to work and to school and also take Charly to school.
- Google :)
- Walmart :) ( although being able to go there puts us out of house and home 'cuz we love to go there and always end up spending far more than we need to.)
- There were others before us with the same problem, which helped us to fix our problem.
- It cost us much less than we thought it would to fix it.
- Dustin - what a blessing it is that he is so smart and so handy, I'm telling you - the boy can fix anything. I love him.
So moral of the story is, when things go wrong it's easy to get mad and place blame where it does not belong, but instead we should find the good in the bad because His hand reaches forth, and often times in the goodness or mishaps of others. And clearly there is obviously more good in the bad than the bad itself.

Us

Well, here we are - we have joined the blogging world! I'm still new to all of this and am still "googling" how to do extra things. I could have been completely done with this whole thing already if I would have googled less and blogged more. Oh well! For those that may not know, "we" consist of Dustin, Heather, Charly, Mason and Porter. This picture was taken at Tuacahn, which is down here in red rock country (St. George area). We went to see the Beach Boys in concert with almost all the fam (my dad, his wife Michelle, my step-brothers Robert, John, my sisters Jen, Lisa, my brother Trevor, my brother Brian, his wife Ashley, my brother Adam, his friend Nikki, and us were all there). It was a lot of fun and I can not believe that we knew pretty much all of the songs, it was great. Charly danced and cheered the whole time- so cute. It's hard to believe that it was 104 two days earlier, but the temperature plummeted and we had to bundle up for the concert. Still- we had a good time. Thanks Dad and Michelle!!
Dustin and I recently celebrated our 7th Anniversary. Well, didn't really celebrate - it was a Sunday and all five of us were sick with rotten colds. He went to church to fulfill our duty as primary teachers. (Charly went - good choice on her part), and I stayed home with the two sick boys. Other than that we are glad to have the summer break from school and hope to do some projects and fun things over the summer to keep us busy in this desert heat.

BEACH BOYS - sorry, all pics were taken on cell phone.

Charly Bug (our little squirrel)

Our Charly is growing up way too fast, how can I slow it down? She just graduated from pre-school and will be starting Kindergarten this fall. She begs and begs me to let her ride the bus and I am SO scared to let her, however, I know I can't shelter her forever. She just got to participate in a dance recital with her preschool class; it was adorable and she really surprised us because she got way into all the dances and stuff. She was swinging those hips, posing like no other and even blew kisses to the audience. At their Christmas program she just sat there and acted so shy. We had no idea what her graduation and recital would bring, but she was an absolute doll. Well, along with her growing up so fast is her ever growing sassy attitude. She is a girly, girl and can be OH SO dramatic some times. She does not handle not getting her way too well and is put in her room for time outs often for throwing fits over the smallest of things. Charly loves to play outside and be with her friends, like her dad, she doesn't enjoy being cooped up inside for long periods of time. Charly has the sweetest tooth I have ever seen. Several times I have caught her spooning sugar into her mouth from the sugar jar. She's always trying to sneak goodies and stuff she should not be eating. I now hide the real good stuff and buy healthier stuff that she doesn't seem to mind. Now I've gotta break me from the sweets. When bed time is approaching Charly loves to snuggle in the bed with her mom. Depending on the time and whether or not I'm about to pull my hair out from the days events with the kids, I usually let her cuddle in bed with me until she falls asleep, why not, right? Pretty soon she'll be a teenager and won't want anything to do with me, might as well cherish it now. Charly is so fun and creative. She is SO smart and half the time I wonder where she has learned all that she knows. She is a great help with her brothers and she enjoys dancing and singing to/for them. She loves to entertain us, laugh and play with her daddy. She makes me laugh quite often with the funny things she comes up with saying. She is a delightful addition to our family.

Mason (nissom nissom), our Taz

Our wild Masy face - my mother in law cursed Dustin with 5 boys exactly like him and I think Mason is all five in one body. He looks so sweet and innocent but wait 'til you really get to know him!!! He is extremely active and is most definitely not a sit around and lounge kind of guy. But he is such a fun character and he certainly keeps me on my toes. He loves getting into things and tormenting his brother and sister. He has a scream that is the most high pitched sound you could ever hear and he does not give the courtesy of refraining to use it in public. He loves to tease and make people laugh. He likes to carry his sisters purses around and wear her dress up shoes and lip gloss, but he LOVES guns, basketball, and football - so we aren't too worried about the shoes, purses, and lip gloss. When he knows he is getting into trouble or is about to get into trouble he says, Lu you (love you). It is quite cute, and a lot of the time gets him out of trouble. He used to try to give us kisses when he knew the trouble was coming, but has now reverted to Lu you. Also when he knows he's not doing something that he should be he smiles the cheesiest smile ever. He totally squints his eyes and grins ear to ear. Mason loves to go outside and play with Charly and whenever he does, he says, "bye, mommy, lu you" and he ALWAYS walks over and gives me a hug and kiss. So, there is hope, despite his trouble making side. He also likes to dance and sing. He has taken a long time to start talking and he is doing it a good bit now, but often he seems to have a language of his own and he gets really frustrated because sometimes we don't know what he is saying. Whenever Porter is crying he says (or yells) "stop, baby." For a while he was absolutely obsessed with poking his fingers in Porters eyes (poor Porter). Although Mason frustrates me/us often with his neverending rascalness, we love him so much and he is such a doll and has the cutest personality and we are blessed to have him in our family.

Porter Pounder

Our sweet little Porter!! Always, always smiling! Unless he's hungry or Mason is attacking him, he is such a sweet, mellow (sp?) baby. He is happy and loves people to look at him and talk to him. He's the only one in our family that was not born in February. He was born in January, but if I hadn't made my doctor induce me I think Porter would have held on for February. He talks or shall I say, "baby talks" so much, it's adorable. We can pretty much take him anywhere and he behaves so well - we are very lucky to have him in our family - I think he is the peace in our home.
He loves to watch his brother and sister play and entertain him, and he is MOST definitely a mama's boy - at least for now! For the most part he is a pretty good sleeper, which is good especially since his older brother and sister still end up in our bed every night! (Guess we need a bigger bed!!!) He recently started eating cereal and only took a couple (separate) tries for him to get the hang of it and now he eats it like a champ! I love this little boy so much and am so happy to have him here with us. Sometimes he just sits there so still and so calm and I will catch him staring at me with the sweetest look on his face, and it makes me feel and know that it is worth all that I (we ladies) go through, to be a mom (moms). I can see that he loves me in his sweet little face and it makes me feel so good.