Pictures are Coming!!!!

I have some new pictures I am trying to get posted and will try to have them done by the end of the weekend!! :(

Boyer Park for Labor Day

Boyer Park for Family Day was GREAT!!! There was great food, great friends, great weather, and great fun!!! I think this will become a new traditon on Labor Day!! :)

Hello Everyone!! I am sorry that I have failed you at keeping these sites updated!! Things got a little crazy and then it was a spiral of unsuccess at updating all through the summer, now here we are the begining of September and I have decided that we are going to start updating the websites once a week to keep everyone posted!!! Here is to a better run at keeping things updated!!!

Bad Tuesday

How many ways can a Tuesday feel like the worst day ever? First I took the car in today to have some routine maintenance done on it and found out that there is alot more that needs to be done and all very expensive things. So I now have to save up for a few things that HAVE to be done before we do any more major trips on the car...so basically I have until May.

Then I thought my day was going to take a turn for the better, the girls seemed to be having an ok day, the total cost of the repairs we did do was less than I had budgeted for, which meant I could put some extra money into savings, yeah...

and then it happened...

I pulled my camera out to take a very cute picture of Faith playing with Brooke while Brooke sat happily in her Bumbo and my camera would not work...I changed the batteries...I tried cleaning it...I tried everything possible...NOTHING...Lovely...now I have to buy a new camera...so much for that left over money going into savings.

Ok fine...I can get over the camera thing, I kinda knew that was coming. It has been starting to act up in the last few weeks. Then after taking an hour to eat dinner and getting 2 time outs for hitting Mommy...my 2 year old has a massive temper tantrum melt down... and off to bed we go before Daddy gets home from work...

So that was my Tuesday...How was yours????

Address Change

So we found out that the University has officially ended the dispute as to what our address is. There has been some confussion about the exact address. This is no longer the case. The University has officially changed our address and it is now permanently...not the one we have had for the last year and a half. Our new address is:

675 SE Forrest Apt 606
Pullman, WA 99163


Sorry about all the confussion!!!

SORRY THIS IS A DAY LATE!!!! HAPPY 234th Birthday Marine Corps

TODAY IS THE MARINE CORPS 234TH BIRTHDAY!!!!! YEAH!!!!

THE MARINE CORPS HYMN!

From the Halls of Montezuma To the Shores of Tripoli; We fight our country's battles In the air, on land and sea; First to fight for right and freedom And to keep our honor clean; We are proud to claim the title of United States Marine. Our flag's unfurled to every breeze From dawn to setting sun; We have fought in ev'ry clime and place Where we could take a gun; In the snow of far-off Northern lands And in sunny tropic scenes; You will find us always on the job-- The United States Marines. Here's health to you and to our Corpsa> Which we are proud to serve In many a strife we've fought for life And never lost our nerve; If the Army and the Navy Ever look on Heaven's scenes; They will find the streets are guarded


MARINE CORPS QUOTES!!!
"Once a Marine, always a Marine!" (MSgt Paul Woyshner, a 40-year Marine, is credited with originating this expression during a taproom argument with a discharged Marine.)

"I can never again see a UNITED STATES MARINE without experiencing a feeling of reverence." GEN. JOHNSON, U.S. ARMY

"Do not attack the First Marine Division. Leave the yellowlegs alone. Strike the American Army" ~ Orders given to Communist troops in the Korean War; shortly afterward, the Marines were ordered to not wear their khaki leggings to keep the enemy from immediately fleeing

"To observe a Marine is inspirational, to be a Marine is exceptional." ~ Unknown

Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference in the world. But, the Marines don't have that problem. Ronald Reagan, President of the United States; 1985

You cannot exaggerate about the Marines. They are convinced to the point of arrogance, that they are the most ferocious fighters on earth- and the amusing thing about it is that they are. Father Kevin Keaney 1st Marine Division Chaplain Korean War

I am convinced that there is no smarter, handier, or more adaptable body of troops in the world. Prime Minister of Britain, Sir Winston Churchhill

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARINE CORPS!!!!

SEMPER FI!!!!!


(SORRY THERE ARE NO PICS OF FAITH or BROOKE IN MARINE ATTIRE, THEY DON'T HAVE ANY!!! I CANNOT FIGURE OUT WHY!!!)

FYI

Due to lack of funds our Cell Phones are being shut off. If you need to contact us call the house line. If you do not have that number please let me know so that I can get it to you!!!

Lots of Love~~
THE WASHINGTON JEFFERY'S

Alas Autumn Arrives

No more BBQ's...No more swimming...Rain...color changing leaves...clouds...cool days and Football season in Full swing. What does all this mean? It is Autumn or Fall or Harvest whatever you want to call it. OCtober 1st marked a change for the great. The weather changed and the leaves are beautiful and colorful and it Rained today. October 1st also marked a change in the house. That's right Fall Decorations. Then last night Garratt and I had warm tea for the first time of the season...YEAH!!! I love this time of year. Life is good...sorta!

A Very Adult Birthday

My Birthday was Thursday for those of you who forgot. Ha Ha Just kidding!! It was a very nice day. My husband got up early and went out and got me flowers and a cake. It was a very sweet surprise, and the roses were beautiful. Then I got phone calls from people like my mother in law, grandparents, and sister. I then got to go out to lunch with a friends without kids, Garratt kept the girls at home for me. After lunch I went home to relax. When I got home there was another set of flowers on the table, these ones were from my Grandparents. They were beautiful too, it was a rose and carnation combo. They are both now on my entertainment center and I love them. After hanging out with the kids for a little while I made dinner. Faith and Brooke played while Mommy sat on the couch after dinner. We put Faith to bed and then played a game while Brooke just kinda "hung out." Then we went to bed, (Garratt had school on Friday). Then yesterday Garratt took me out! We went bowling and then out for dinner. We also went shopping for a couple of things we forgot. Oh well! That was my birthday. I also recieved a few birthday cards that were all very sweet and very considerate. I appriciated everyone of them.

Great American Dine Out

This week is the Annual Great American Dine Out (20-26th). The purpose of this event is to help with ending Childhood hunger. Here is the scoop:

THOUSANDS OF RESTAURANTS ACROSS THE COUNTRY ARE HELPING TO MAKE SURE NO KID IN AMERICA GROWS UP HUNGRY.
The first annual Share Our Strength's Great American Dine Out rallied nearly 4,000 restaurants across the nation—from coffee shops to fine dining restaurants—and millions of consumers. These restaurants participated in a variety of ways— donated a percentage of sales, promoted select menu items, collected money from suppliers and guests and much more. The funds raised from this campaign will support:
Increasing participation in school food and nutrition programs
Increasing the number of community gardens
Food banks and food pantries
Increasing access to fresh produce
Increasing utilization of federal child food and nutrition programs, e.g. food stamps, school breakfast, etc.
Advocacy around Child food and nutrition-related programs

So do your part...go eat out this week. For a list of participating resturants in your area go to
http://join.strength.org/site/PageServer?pagename=GADO_homepage

From here you can input your zip code and it will give you a list of resturants that are participating. You have to eat so why not eat and make a difference.

When will it end??

Ok..so some of you know that we had problems with our car finance bank like a month ago. I took care of the everything and paid off the car or so I was to understand from them. There was the possibility that there might be a "SMALL" balance but the girl reassured me that it would be minimal if any and that I would get a statement telling me my balance. So today I get a phone call from the bank telling me that my monthly payment is LATE. How the heck is that even possible. I paid it off according to the girl I talked to on 9/2/09. Well apparently that girl was slightly new and misinformed me...story of their life around there...and so now there is a "LATE" payment. So I asked why I had not recieved a statement telling me that I have a balance anf that it is going to be due on X date? Her reply made me want to hit the roof...she told me that the way there system is that the issue we had cause the system to "mark" our account and that "marked" accounts do not recieve statements. WHAT??? That is just the way it is, was her statement after that. Ok so now I was pissed and she could tell so she went and talked to her manager and her manager is offering us a "settlement" on the account. She is willing to discount the $400 we owe down to $275 if we can pay it by the end of the month. CRAP. That is a fairly decent deal, but no I do not have a job. Basically the girl said that we have the option to take the "late" fee and make our monthly payments until we pay it off or we take the settlement but we have until the end of the month to do it. I am so frustrated right now because neither option is very doable at this moment in time with me not working. Just when I had things figured out so that we could "float" by until I find a job. There is always something. I am really starting to wonder when it is all going to end. If it is not one thing it is another. This whole process of deciding what to do about this and that and everything in between is really getting more and more trying. All I want to do is get my Career Certification in Event/Wedding planning and start my own business so that I can make a living and support my family and be able to make my own schedule so that I can be home when I need to be and be able to make enough money to pay our bills, put a little in savings and be able to go out on a "date night" with my husband once a month. Is that asking too much? Apparently so because it is not happening. Oh well here is hoping that something comes up in the Palouse Job Market soon because right now the only jobs are ones that require extensive degrees or are aimed at College students who are willing to work "ANY" hours. GRRRRR to life!

Loss of Job= Lots of Problems...GRRRR

Besides the obvious fact that a loss of job = the loss of income there is another very important factor that we have to deal with now. What is that?

LOSS OF JOB=LOSS OF MEDICAL INSURANCE
LOSS OF MEDICAL INSURANCE= VERY BIG DR BILLS FOR 2 GIRLS THAT NEED IMMUNIZATION SHOTS & 1 MOMMY THAT NEEDS BIRTH CONTROL PILLS

Yes ladies and gentlemen, when I lost my job and we lost our medical insurance I realized that this is right at the wrong time. Faith is scheduled for her 2 year check up and lots of immunizations (she has 2 to make up from when I was pregnant.) and In 2 more weeks we have Brroke's 2 month follow up which includes her immunizations too. Lovely. Plus, when I went to the OB last week He gave me my prescrption for my BCP and told me that because of the infant in our home that the other 3 of us all need to have both flu shots this year. GREAT! Now I am in a hard spot. I really need to find a job or come into some money and quickly.

All Smiles

Now What?

So I found out last week that somewhere along the line I lost my job. This was completly a shock to me. So at the beginning of the month a friend of mine who is a professor in the department I worked for called me and asked me if I had heard that the girl who was "filling" in for me while I was gone had gotten a permanent position in a different department. I said no and decided to email my department director and find out what that meant for my job. 3 days later I got a reply from him saying that they had already "posted" the job online to be filled and that I was more than welcome to apply for it. I emailed him back and asked him why it was posted when I was under the impression this whole summer that I would have a job to come back to after my maternity leave, as long as the money was in the budget for it. A few days later I got a response from him telling me that He was sorry but they had to act fast and they had already hired someone. He also told me that he did not realize in all our corespondances that I was "definatly" returning and that he assumed I was not. Then he proceeded to apologize for any inconvienience and said that he would be more than willing to write me an excellent reference letter if I ever needed it.
Needless to say I was rather pissed off and fumed over it for awhile and then I realized that obviously there is a reason that I "lost" this job. I know that God has something for me since he allowed for this to happen, I just wish I could figure out what. There really are no jobs here for a person like me with no degree and while I have the "financial aid" to go back to school I do not have the "financial" means to not work. I would love to keep the girls home and go backl to school. I could take some online classes for now and then eventually take some traditional classes later. I am still not sure what I want to do. There are 4 different things that I am really interested in and I do not know which way to go. 2 of the options would be "traditional" schooling the 3rd would be an online certification program, and the last would be an inbetween. The first two would involve traditional financial aid to pay for and the 3rd would be a monthly payment plan of $40-60 per month and the last I am still figuringout but I think it would invilve some sort of loan or payment plan, but it would be more exprensive. What are the options? 1) Nurse, I have always loved the field of medicine and the thought of helping people. 2) Teaching, I love working with kids and I think this would a great field to work in. 3) WEdding and Event Planning, this has been a passion of mine for a long time. I started the schooling for this back like 6 years ago and never finished it. Now I feel like I could get back into this, there is a real need in this are for that type of person and I could work from home and be able to set my schedule around Garratts. 4) Cosmotologist....I have thougth about this one for a long time. I wanted to fo this originally when I got out of High School but was told by a specific family member that it was a dead end and that I could not do it. So I guess at that point I gave up. This is also a carreer with a need and I think again I would be good at it and I again could work my schedule around Garratt's as needed. So now what? I do not know. I guess I put all this on hold and focus on tring to find a minimum wage job that will help us "float" by as much as possible and then maybe in 3 -4 years when Garratt is done with school and his internship and he has a good job then I can consider these options again. I guess that is what I have to do, be a supportive wife and mother and place everything else on the back burner.

And that's another...COUGAR FIRST DOWN!

So we may not have won but we sure had a great time.

Faith was all ready to go, she loves her jersy and her hair pom pom. We had to wait for Daddy to get home from work so Faith hung out by the door, opening it occassionally to see if Daddy was coming down the hill.

Brooke was all ready too in her Cougar colors, although you can't really tell in this picture.

Faith was facinated watching the players warm up, then she spent most of the game in this spot because she could watch the players run and she could watch the Marching band play, she was very excited about the band.

Speaking of the band here they are at the beginning of the game, approx. 5 mins prior to kick off. There are approx. 240 people in the WSU 2009/10 Marching Band.

Butch making his rounds at the game, making sure that everyone is cheering on the Cougars!!

Here is a picture of football players running...every together now..."ohhhhhh" "awwwww"

Garratt and Faith pause during 1/2 time to take a picture. We all had a great time. The Cougars lost to the Cardinals 13-39. This is the same amount that we lost by last year, although this year our team is showing SIGNIFICANT improvement. We are in our rebuilding years and we are hoping to have a better season this year than last year. Last year we won 1 game, the Apple Cup. We will keep you all posted on future games!! GO COUGS!!!

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly!!

Over the last week I have ssen it all. I have seen Horrible things happen to us, I have seen Bad things happen to us, I have seen Great things happen with my mom and her health condition, and I have see good things happen to other members of our family and I have seen the ugly part of members of our family, oh and REALLY EXCITING THINGS HAPPEN TO MY FAMILY. I cannot go into detail about it all but I can describle some of it.

Let me start with the REALLY EXCITING...

As of Yesterday, September 1st, 2009, My sister Sarah and her husband Joah are the "official" parents of my nephew Micah.(see picture above) The paperwork is all signed and the adoption is complete, the last step is to go before the judge and have all of the old records sealed and his new name legalized with a new issuance of a birth certificate and a social security card, but as far as the state of California is concerned he is legally and officially a permanent member of my Sister's family (meaning MY FAMILY!!!) YEAH!!

OK Now the good news with my Mom's health. They finally may have solved the year long "mystery" of what is wrong with my mom. The diagnosis is...peristalsis...what is this? Basically it causes a decrease in the digestive systems working ability. You see it takes the average person 55 minutes to digest a meal, through a special gastric test they determined it taked my Mom 11 hours to digest a meal, hence the pain and the lack of desire to want to eat. How would you feel if food sat in your stomache for 11 hours? The good news is that there are ways to help this. There are 2 different medications. 1 she has already been on and it did not work. The other can only be gotten from Canada, thank you Canadians!! SO she has to ship it in from Canada. If this second medication does not work there are a couple of more drastic options to consider. I am praying that the medication works.

The last item I will discuss is my anger with the Financial Aid system that our government has set up. One I think that they do everything in their power to screw the little people. Second, I think that thet purposefully decieve the people who are trying to get assistance for school. THat is basically what has happened to us. We recieved half of the money needed for Garratt's schooling for the 09-10 year and we had to take out a loan for the 2nd half of it. The problem is we were mis-lead into thinking that we would recieve the entire amount of the Private loan, instead they put it through the school to certify and then the governement got their fingers involved and it became a split loan do we only got 1/2 the money, and we will get the rest in January, which is great for January but sucks for December. Oh, well...there goes our Christmas!

OUR MASCOT

The Washington State University Mascot, Butch T. Cougar was choosen to be part of the Capital One 2009 Mascot Challenge. This is very exciting. Butch was also choosen in 2005 and 2006, He actually won in 2006. Please feel free to go to the website and vote to help Butch win. You can vote EVERYDAY, and each week he will be up against a different mascot, there are 12 of them on the team. Then in November they will compete in a "play-off" based on the standings from the combined 12 weeks. The winner will be "crowned" in December!!!

GO BUTCH!!!!!!

The link to vote... http://www.capitalonebowl.com/

Family Night Out

Last night I needed to get out of the house. I was feeling a little cooped up. Garratt and I decided we would head up to the CUB (Student Union Bldg) and get dinner at Panda Express. We then took a little walk around just because it was a really nice evening out and we wanted to enjoy it. Then we decided to take the girls to their first sporting event. We took them to the Girls Volleyball game. We were playing against UC Davis (irony). It was a lot of fun. We only stayed for about half of it because it was bedtime for Faith and I was not FULLY prepared to be out as long as we were, we did not bring blankie with us. Brooke slept the whole time we were there, well at least in between being startled by loud and happy college student cheering on their team. Faith LOVED it! We sat on the second stoy right behind the pep band and she watched for them to stand up because she know that was music time. She also loved watching the cheerleaders dance and cheering with Daddy everytime our team scored. After such a great time out we decided that we are going to do this MORE OFTEN. We have a great opportunity living on a college campus to do stuff and give the girls (ok Faith more than Brooke) the opportunity to see and experience some pretty neat stuff.

Happy Birthday Jon!!!

Today is My Brother In Law Jon's birthday. I will be nice and not tell you his age, only that he is OLDER than me...HA HA!! There is a lot that I can say about Jon. He has a heart of gold that is willing to give anything to help anyone. He has an amazing talent for percussion and a love for music (that runs in the Jeffery family). Jon is an great Dad and Husband (from my standards). He is always ready to hang out and have a good time. He is a fun loving guy with a great sense of humor and an ability to laugh at just about anything. Jon is very laid back and that makes him extremly easy to get along with. All in all he really is just a great person. He is a blessing to our family. Jon brings a balance to our family that no one else could bring. Thanks Jon for being YOU!!! Hope that you have an incredible birthday and that the rest of the year is filled with LOVE, LAUGHTER, FRIENDS, FAMILY and MANY MANY GREAT MEMORIES!!!

WE LOVE YOU AND WISH YOU A HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

The Mommy Feeling

As a Mom I have realized that there are many things that you have to put your children through that they so not like. As I have had to do thins more with Brooke than I ever did with Faith I am also realizing that as Mommy I hate having to put her through it more than she hates going through it. So far in the first 10 days of life Brooke has been poked 9 days out of 10 for blood work of various kinds, mainly her Billi Ruben, she has had to wear a yucky eye mask and be placed under ultra violet phototherapy lights (billi lights) (which she screams at the whole time she is under there) and now today I found out that the Dr wants to run another test on her, but this test requires an intra-vein draw, yes that means through her vein, do you know how diffuclt and horrible that is for an infant? I am so not looking forward to this. I know that it is my duty as her mother and the fact that I love her is the reason I put her through this, but still does not mean that I like it. Actually I HATE IT!!! I do not want to put my baby through anything that is going to hurt her. SO, as we head to the lab to have this work done, pray for me so that I do not cry. Lucky for me Garratt should be home from his first shift of the day at work and have enough time to go with me before he has to be back at work for his 2nd shift for the day ( yeah he is committed, or is it I should have him committed? LOL).