The Hoyt Family

Well today has not started off so great... Steve is in Vegas for the week with work for his POA meeting so it has been just me and the kids.. Yesterday Allie got a ride home from school with a boy she likes (not sure I am liking that) and so she came in through the garage instead of the front door like the kids usually do when coming home from school.. So she left the garage door open.. Well I usually check all the doors when I go to bed at night especially when Steve is not here and I didnt think to check the garage door this time. So when we woke up today we found we had no water in the house.. At first I thought it was something wrong with the toilet but came to realize we had no water anywhere which meant frozen pipes.. When I went to the garage where I believe the pipes are since our water softener system is there I found the garage door had been left open...

I was so furious... Not only can that freeze our pipes, but we have no lock on the door going out into the garage so anyone could have walked right in to my house last night and taken anything or worse.. I am counting my blessings that that did not happen... It's been so cold here with temps down in the - digits at night so its no wonder our pipes have froze...

I have had space heaters running out there since 6:30 this morning trying to heat the pipes up and it is now 12:30 and we still have no water... And of course all the kids had to go to the bathroom this morning so all my toilets have pee in them and we have no way to flush them...

You know my family has always kidded me about having all these apple juice bottles filled with water along with all my water barrels down in my food storage room for emergencies.. And I had to dump all of them out when we moved a month ago and I never got around to filling my water storage barrels back up so now that we need some we have nothing.. Now I bet their laughing!!!!!!!!

So I decided to take a 5 gallon bucket and fill it up with some snow and brought it into the house to melt so I can at least flush my toilets.. LOL Hope they thaw soon before night comes or we will probably be without water again tomorrow... plus my electric bill is goint to be through the roof with running 2 heaters all day.. UUGGHH Got to love them kids!!!! :(

Well from my last post alot of time has transpired so I will do my best to do a catch up.. Again my new years resolution is going to be to stay up and current with this blog of mine.. You cant even imagine how crazy busy this summer has been for us.. So to start of first in April Steve and I decided to run a race in Flint for St. Patty's Day.. Sorry I cant get my text to stop underlining.. UGGH this blog stuff drives me crazy.. Anyways it was a 4 mile run so not to bad however it was so crazy hot that day.. The temps were near 100 and it was at 4 or 5 in the evening so it just about killed me.. once again I started off to fast and really struggled through it, however I finished and ran the whole time but nearly passed out afterwards because I was so hot... It was still alot of fun though to be able to run a race with Steve. This was his first race and because he was so nice and didnt want to leave me he forfeited to be in the top 5 runners in his category. Instead he took 6th when he probably would have been in the top 3 and received a medal.. Me I cant remember where I placed.. It was around 23rd or something like that.. Not so great...

This was 2 of Steves reps he managed over in MI and his reps wife that was hanging with us.. They did great.. Got medals and placed in the top..

One of the many great things we got to do this summer was go to Florida for Spring Break because Steve had to go to a convention down there so we made a little vacay out of it..

I think we got a little sun that day.. It was really hot!! But we had a blast!!

Also in April I got to fly back to Utah for a Shelf Reliance Convention and also visit with famiy for a couple days.. It was awesome and while I was there got to go see the Brigham Temple as it was getting finished built. It was absolutely breathtaking..

While at convention I was able to go with one of my downline consultants and friend over to the new City Creek Mall in Salt Lake City.. It was awesome and really pretty..

Then in June at the end of the School year Jessie had a 4th grade trip to Mackinaw that I signed up to be a chaperone at.. It was so much fun spending those 3 days with her and getting to explore and learn about Mackinac Island. This was at the butterfly house..

Exploring on one of the trails..

Over looking the Island from the fort.

A pretty view from one of the trails.. Looking down at the water through the Arch..

It was really cool because part of the trip there was to explore the island by following these maps and riddles to find a treasure that was hidden somewhere and when you found it there would be a stamp to stamp your book and you in return would stamp there book hidden with the treasure.. It was fun and I learned so much more about the island this way and saw things I normally would have not seen otherwise..

Dont ask me where I got her.. This was one of the forts where it showed where the soldiers would go to the bathroom..

Once School got out my parent decided to come for a visit and they were going to be coming down through Mackinaw so we drove up there to meet them and stay for a couple days with them.. This is Steve and I having a race up the rock climbing tower.. It was a close race but he kicked my butt.. Of course I had the harder side...

Then came June 23rd my last baby's 8th Birthday.. It was really neat because she got to get baptized on her actual birthday so that made it really special... It was a pretty intimate service with just us and my parents.. It was very nice and spiritual.

Logan has Daddy wrapped around her little finger....

For her Birthday this year she wanted to do a Harry potter Themed Birthday and what was so awesome was our very good friends in MI just happen to be Harry Potter Nerds and love throwing Harry Potter Birthdays so it was very awesome and I couldn't have done it without the help of the Bourett Family, because at this time we were also in the process of selling our home to make a big move out west to Idaho to be closer to family so we had alot going on during this time...

I really was happy despite my gloomy face... LOL

Potions Class

Kill the Demeantor class..

We even had a game of Quidditch!!

Herbology Class

Then right after Logans Birthday we headed to Washington D.C with my parents to take the kids to the Smithsonian Institute.. It was really cool..

Washinton Memorial

Lincoln Memorial

And of course we stopped by the Vietnam Memorial in honor of my 2nd Dad who fought so courageously in..

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers killed in the War..

We also got to Stop by the Washington D.C Temple One of my favorite Temples and explore the grounds..

After D.C we parted ways with my parents who took Jessie and headed up the East coast to Main and Virgina while the rest of us went and hit kirtland Ohio on the way home..

The John Johnson Home

Once reunited back in MI we took the kids to the Detroit Zoo.. It was a little dissapointing.. Not much to see and it was very hot and most the animals were not out..

We also had alot of rain on night and our whole yard flooded.. We had a canal that ran down the back of our yard and it was over flowing everywhere.. We found some little critters running around our yard due to all the water so the kids had a blast going and collecting these in a bucket.. It was weird we thought you could only find these in lakes...

I dont know why Allie felt she had to stop and pray.. LOL and looks like Jessie was digging for gold too..

We had some area around our culvert collapse due to the water

Part of our back yard..

One of the final things I got to do before we left was go to Cedar Point Amusement Park with one of my best friends in MI.. She wanted all summer to take me there and said I had to experience it before I left MI so we did and we took Allie and Aubrey with us.. It was so beautiful there overlooking Lake MI.

At one of our last dinner get togethers with our friends the Bourret family.. wow 15 pounds heavier when you actually see yourself in picture it makes you sad to see how fat you actually are.. Hope I dont put it all back on..

Some shots of our MI home the day of the first move out to Idaho.. Yes I said the first move.. Its a complicated story.. And now you will really understand why our summer besides all the trips was so very crazy and hectic!! we had sold our house in June and was just waiting to close on it in the first week in Sept.. Steve was already working over in Idaho since July.. So he would come home every other weekend. This was very hard on the family and we wanted to get out to Idaho as soon as possible so he could stop traveling out and we could spend more time with him.. So of course while he was in Idaho working and living I was in MI trying to get the house packed up and dealing with all the stuff that comes with selling a house.. Crazy stressful.. Well the day was almost here and we decided since School started here in MI the day after Labor day and School in Idaho started 2 weeks prior that we would leave at the end of August and get them into School there so they wouldn't miss to much and get behind there so we got half the house packed up and loaded the truck and van up and decided to make the drive out west..

The first day of travel we made it to Desmoines Iowa.. Allie had not been feeling to well and was complaining of stomach pain.. I thought it was just nerves from having to say goodbye to her best friend and it would pass.. However as the night went on it got worse and despite the pepto, Advil, and tums I gave her it didnt go away.. I really started to worry when she said the pain was moving to her right side and she was having some rebound pain.. I said we would check her in the morning and see how she felt.. Sometime in the wee hours that next morning she began to throw up and I checked her for rebound pain which she had and decided we better take her in to the hospital... We were so very fortunate to find an excellent childrens hospital very close to where we were staying and after a couple tests were ran sure enough she had appendicitis.. So she was scheduled for surgery that afternoon.. And thanks to more great friends in MI Anne Burns she called the mission president in Iowa and was able to get some local missionaries to stop by right before they took her up to surgery to help assist in giving her a blessing.. Talk about miracles.. I truly believe we were meant to be there for Allies surgery she got the very best care there from the staff and the doctor was amazing.. However back to the story.. So due to the surgery we were delayed a day but Allie was a trooper and the very next day the Doctors let her get back into the car to finish our journey to Idaho..

Even as scarred as she was she still sported a smile for us..

She got a little surprise from her most favorite family besides her own.. The Bourret Family.. She is best friends with Aubrey..

When we finally got there we got a call from our realtor saying that the buyers of our buyers home had walked away from their home and they were not sure what they were going to do about our home and if they could still close.. This was very heart breaking news after what we had just gone through and driving all that way.. So we were basically held hostage in a hotel for a week not knowing what we were going to do.. Whether we should get the kids registered for school or plan on heading back to MI.. So during the week we got all the kids school shopping done while still waiting to hear back from the realtor.. Finally come friday 1 week after arriving there we decided to go ahead and register them for school however as soon as we got into the car to go register them I got a call from the realtor that the buyers were going to back out of the house.. So we had to turn around and drive back to MI.. which meant we also had to back out of our house in Idaho we were planning to purchase.. Very sad and depressed that this was happening.. On top of everything the night before we left Logan comes down with the stomach flu and spends all night vomiting every half hour. She was a trooper too because the next morning we loaded up back in the cars and started our journey back home to MI to re sell our home and spend more time apart from Steve...

Had to throw this in this was in front of the hotel we were staying at..

Fortunate for us we were able to sell our home again for the second time within a month and was scheduled to close on the home the first week of November.. we had also found a even better home to purchase.. It's funny how things work out even as horrible as the situations are there is always a reason..

This time we made plans for the kids and I to fly out and Steve would drive the moving truck out with his brother and father.. The first week of Nov. comes and we find out the buyers cannot close on our home due to some tax issues and are waiting to hear back from the IRS to be able to close and will need an extension. We had already booked flights which would cost more money to cancel and a moving company scheduled to get our stuff and bring it to Idaho, so we ended up giving the buyers a extension and left anyways to Idaho.. Of course due to this extension we could not close on our home in MI so everything had to wait.. Plus we had no house to put all our house stuff in that the movers were bringing.. Thankfully the home owners of the house we were planning on buying allowed us to store all our stuff in their garages...

A few weeks went by and still no word from the IRS and we were going to loose out on our home in MI if we didn't close so we asked the buyers of our MI home to see if they would be willing to lease the home and give us a substantial amount down to allow us to get into our home here in ID. They agreed and so we were able to finally close on our home here in ID on Dec 6th.. We were having a few things done with the floors of our new home so we didnt actually get to start moving in until the weekend of the 15th the week before Christmas... And this is where we are still at today... I will post more on the holidays and picts of our new home soon.. But back to our final days in MI..

we had to come back and register the kids back into schools there in MI until we could get our house re sold so this is there first day of school back in MI... Though frustrated to be coming back they were very happy to see all their old friends and have a little more time with them..

We was planning on doing Austin's eagle project when we got to Idaho but since we had to go back and didnt know how long it would take to re sell the home we decided to start his Eagle project and hope to be able to complete it before we had to move again.. He decided with the help of his scout and young men's leaders to do a Food drive for a Food Bank in Pontiac MI.. It was a really great experience for him even though it felt like I did alot of the work and really had to stay on top of him to get it done.. Yet another stress to worry about during this crazy time of selling and moving again.. But we did get it done just in the nick of time.. fe were able to get his final board of review meeting just 2 days before we were to fly out to Idaho.. Whew!!! We were sent his Eagle Award in the mail and just have to have our new ward present him his award at a court of honor.. We were really wishing we could have had it there in MI where everyone was that worked with him and helped him but sometimes it just doesnt work out that way... It was a great honor to get his Eagle just 1 day before his 14th birthday!!