August 4-10: Island Park, Pocatello, and Grace, Idaho
We went to the Millward Family Reunion, and it was a blast! It was so good to see all of my family and to introduce Shaun to everyone. We flew out Tuesday, the 4th, and drove back with TJ, Hailee, Mom, Dad and Dustin on Sunday/Monday, the 9th-10th. At the reunion, we did all kinds of fun things. The first night we went to a play at Island Park and saw "Footloose," and the cast did an incredible job. The next day we toured West Yellowstone. We saw Mud Pots, Old Faithful, a few other Guisers, and many animals such as Bison, Moose, and some saw a Bear. My favorite was going to the 'Grand Canyon at Yellowstone.' It was a long hike down, and harder on the way up because we had to try not to fall off the edge of the path, but it was worth it! (See pictures below).
We did some fishing, spent some quality time in Grace with everyone at Gma's house, and went to the Extended Millward Family Reunion. I only knew a couple of people there, but it was nice to go and support Gma and all of her hard work to organize it.
SCHOOL...
We have been very busy lately. We are both in school and working. Shaun is a Full-time Graduate student at Kansas State University (KSU) with 3 semesters left until he graduates with his Masters in Industrial Engineering, and he working part-time at ICE Corporation as in IE Intern. He is doing a wonderful job at work helping the compan, and his boss really likes having him around.
I have been working 2 jobs--Full-time at College Hill Preschool as a Para from 7am-1pm, and Part-time as a Babysitter/Tutor for a mother w/ 4 kids (ages 7,7,7 and 8--triplets) from 2:40-5 or 6. When I get home from a long day of work, I quickly grab something to eat and get started on homework. I am a part-time student at Fort Hays State University (FHSU), and taking 3 online classes.
It is really hard sometimes because Shaun and I don't get to see each other very often. During the week I leave for work before he wakes up, and I'm in bed before he gets home most nights. On Saturdays Shaun is usually at the DZ helping with a First Jump Course, and I keep myself busy catching up on homework, cleaning, or more babysitting. We do our best to have a Date Night every week though, and that helps a great deal.
TRAVELING...
While Shaun has been busy with the Parachute club on the weekends, I have been doing some traveling every other weekend or so to see family. I went to Overland Park for Ashlee's baby shower and to get pics of my two pregnant sisters, then 2 weeks later went to Wichita to a friend's baby shower, then back to Wichita 2 weeks after that to throw Hailee a baby shower, and Shaun and I both went this weekend (3 weeks later) just to visit. Hailee was supposed to have a baby this past week so we were going to be here to see Addison, but she didn't, so I'll probably be back in another week or so...we'll see.
RECENT EVENTS...
Right now we are in the process of looking for a new apartment. The one we have has worked for us up until this point, but with recent findings and events, it is time to get out. We have had bats in the attic since we moved into the house, but a few months ago we learned that we also have mice. When we caught 3 mice and a bat in the wall, I wanted to get out right away. Shaun wasn't too convinced, and after talking it over we decided we could probably be alright living there for a while longer. THEN, events from a couple of weekends ago did it for us, and we want out ASAP...
There are two girls living on the second floor of the house we live in (we're on the third floor). They have recently started dating army guys that have been over quite frequently. The like to all sit on the front porch at night and drink and smoke, and the boyfriends stay the night quite frequently as well. At first we ignored it all because it's none of our business--even though the contract says that there is no smoking, no drinking, and no boys (unless married). (The property is leased by Manhattan Christian College, and they have certain rules to keep their Christian values and morals enforced on their property.)
We continued not to say anything and deal with everything even though we knew it wasn't right. We could tell there was something wrong with the guys when we met them, but didn't know how wrong. ANYWAY, a couple of weeks ago we were sitting in our apartment getting things done, and we heard some yelling and fighting outside. We figured it was the neighbors since they often have arguments and fights. We heard the cops heading to our neighborhood, but realized the police, firefighters, and EMS were coming into OUR house and not the neighbors...
Long story short, one of the boyfriends tried to commit suicide by over dosing on prescription drugs that belonged to his girlfriend.
We left when the cops were questioning everyone to get out of that environment and stayed at Shaun's parents' house that night. We don't know what all happened, but we know the boyfriend had to go to the ER and have his stomach pumped. I was hoping that after everything had happened that my neighbor would get rid of him and open her eyes and see what had happened and figure out that it could happen again, but he was back the very next night laughing and joking around, everyone acting like nothing had happened. When I asked the other boyfriend what had happened a couple of days later, he just said that "D*** is going through a rough time right now...," and wouldn't tell me anything else. Well DUH he's going through a rough time! He just tried to kill himself!
When Shaun and I were leaving while the cops were at the house, he said "We can move now. I'd be okay with that."
So, we're looking for another place with no success so far.
APARTMENT HUNTING...
Well, we have been looking and looking for available places to start beginning of November. We found a couple of places we really liked and made appointments to tour them last week. Wednesday we showed up at 1:30 as planned, and the Manager was a no show. We waited 20 minutes and left because we had to get back to school and work, but I called and left a message. He called back apologizing and saying he had a "personal emergency," so we rescheduled for Thursday 1:30. Shaun could not go because of class, but I went. We walked in, and the manager started telling me about the place, then said "actually, now that I think about it, we don't have any of these available anymore because just this morning a ton of people turned in applications to fill all availabilities... the only one I have left is $*** a month" which was WAY out of our price range. FIGURES! If he would have met us the day and time he was supposed to, and we would have decided that was what we wanted, then we could have had one. Instead, we had to meet a day later, which gave others a chance to turn in applications and fill all availabilities. Grrr...What a waste of time and gas!!!
Well, I finally decided that there was no use in being angry because that wouldn't help anything. We had another viewing on Friday at 1:30 at our second choice and we were pretty excited. We thought this would probably be where we ended up. We arrived right on time and...AGAIN, no manager! WHAT?! We called and called, and waited and waited. We walked around the place looking for the manager too because the sign on the door said she was on the property. Just as we were getting ready to leave we found the maintenance guy and asked if he had seen her. He called and called with the same luck as us, but he was able to show us the apartment. It was nice, and we could definitely see ourselves living there. I continued to call the rest of the day to try and get a hold of the manager to learn more information. I finally got a hold of one of the assistants, and she told me the requirements and conditions for the apartment, and we found that we don't earn enough per month to be able to rent at that complex, and that the rent was actually higher than advertised. ARGH!!! Why don't people tell us these things BEFORE we waste the time and gas?!
Shaun went on Friday to pay rent and discuss our living conditions with the woman in charge of housing at MCC. They talked for a bit about the events that had taken place, and about the mice and bats, and she told us there is a cockroach problem as well... great... She said they have a duplex (1 or 2 bedroom) available in January, and they want us to take a look at them. We might look at it, but the problem is that we don't want to have to stay in our current place for 4 more months, and I'm not so sure I want to have them as our landlord anymore after seeing how they DON'T take care of their apartments and a few other things that have happened...
Wish us luck in finding a GOOD place to live!!!
