Wanderers in a Strange Land

For those of you not current on our continual state of moving - we moved again the end of June.
We are taking temporary refuge in Tom's boss's house in the Shore Acres neighborhood of St Petersburg while we wait to see what will happen on the home(s) we have under contract and what will happen
with our home in SLC.

We've been fortunate to get the kids involved in some really fun activities so far - they are all taking sailing classes at the youth sailing center that is practically across the street from Tom's office and they are all really enjoying it.

Theo & Ben hard at work =)

Tember practicing

Spencer is at the back steering the boat

Tom & I even got a trip out to the bay in on the 4th

Tember seems to have found a new gym and has been invited to be on the level 4 competition team (she is very excited!)
The boys are all swimming on a local swim team. - yep - all 3 boys - they have one lane on the shallow end of the pool for special needs swimmers and Ben has been loving it. He has been begging to join his brothers on the swim team but hasn't had the ability to swim in deep water so this has been perfect. It's only about 4 feet deep - just deep enough that he can't walk it but shallow enough that he can go and touch the bottom for reassurance.  He plugs along, grabbing the lane lines as he goes - with a huge smile on his face the entire time.

Theo also has a huge smile on his face each time he comes out of the water - the coach has him with the 8 & 9 year-olds because they are the only ones that can keep up with him. He is just one GIANT BALL OF ENERGY.  For some reason we thought that would lessen as he got older - but it really seems to have increased, ten-fold.  His sailing coach can hardly wait for him to turn 8 so he can join the racing team - they say he is absolutely fearless on the water (imagine that?).

Spencer is getting his stride back as well - he is sailing bigger boats than the other kids and really enjoys it. He is learning how hard it is to be a teenage boy with a clean mouth and mind (we are really grateful that he is still horrified by all the foul language of his peers out here, and even more mindful of the challenges that presents a young man trying to participate in sports and friendships). He is also getting his strokes back in the pool. It's fun to see him back in the water - he always comes out in a much better mood than he went in. =)

We are still working on where he will attend school in the fall - middle school here is a little scary and very tricky. All the schools are on a lottery system so he is on waiting lists which can take until the 10th day of school to shake down. Ugh - we are looking at private, homeschool and charter. Hopefully something will come together before too long.

Patience seems to be the name of the game this year - we like to think we are getting better at it - or at least better at continuing to live while waiting.  The kids have been good sports, but they need friends and a community and just to know where to plan on being for awhile- we could use some of that too.

Keep your eyes open for a few more photos and such over the next few days - in the middle of all the moving we've had some fun.

A truly royal wedding . .

While watching a few minutes of the Royal Wedding this morning I couldn't help but hope those two young lovebirds are prepared for the adventures and challenges ahead of them.
I couldn't help but compare them to two other lovebirds we recently attended a wedding for -
the pomp and circumstance surrounding the aforementioned nuptials pale in comparison to the

sweet tears and simple elegance that flowed freely as Tom's eldest sister finally made the long-awaited walk down the aisle just a few weeks before.

The weekend we flew to Denver is one of the sweetest experiences we have ever had with Tom's family - after months of separation since our move to Florida and with so many of his siblings spread across the country, we were so unprepared for the emotions of that event. For weeks prior to the trip we had been counting the days to see grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins we have missed so dearly, we tried to jam every second with time together.

Within hours of our arrival we realized how impossible it would be to spend enough time with each or our loved ones to be satisfied in the short 2 days we had there.  What was even more overwhelming was the amazing healing that had taken place in a once fractured family as Tom's sister and her fiance had reached out to include all of their family members in their celebration of love, renewal and commitment to each other.

So much has been said as of late on the importance of marrying, staying married and cherishing marriage.  In a world where so many people have chosen lives that make marriage seem old fashioned, unnecessary or even disposable - we are so grateful to have been allowed to participate in the celebration of great love that is the result of great effort and faith.

We are doubly grateful to be part of a family that cherishes each other - to be married as best friends who are committed through the eternities and to raise children with the knowledge that the work required to bring them up in a righteous, loving family prepared to start righteous loving families of their own is the most important work on this earth.

Life is so hard, and sometimes days get dark even in the sunshine - but we have no doubt there is an All Powerful Creator lovingly watching over us and guiding us. There is no doubt in our minds that He knew our greatest trials would come as we struggle together as families made up of individuals - but He also knows our greatest joys, blessings and rewards would come as we succeed in loving and making family relationships work.

A return to the blogosphere . . .

I wondered what it would take to bring me back to the blogosphere -
 the past many months have been
well-
I don't really have words for them or I guess I would have blogged before now.
We have seen tragedies and miracles
Lots of laughter and tears
And we are grateful that spring is upon us and each day is new.

Perhaps the most monumental of moments for both Tom & I took place about a week ago.

Ben decided to be baptized.
The decision was absolutely his - 8 is the earliest you can choose to be baptized in the Church and both Tom and I wondered if Ben would be ready or even interested in being baptized at age 8. Developmentally, Ben is a wild card, most of the time behind his peers. But as his birthday
approached it was all he could talk about.
He could hardly wait. 
His interview with the Bishop went well.
He choose the program from the prayers to the speakers to the songs.
(he asked September to speak on baptism and Spencer to speak on the gift of the Holy Ghost, Grandma Debbie to give the opening prayers and aunt Jenny to give the closing)
He even knew he wanted strawberry shortcake for refreshments.

Tom's youngest sister Jenny drove over from West Palm Beach (about 3 1/2 hrs away) the night before and Grandpa & Grandma Elggren flew in that night as well. 

It's always a bit of work to get talks completed, refreshments made and everything put together then transfer it to the chapel, but the day came together beautifully. 

With all the craziness, it wasn't until Tom escorted that little man down into the baptismal font that the sanctity and miracle of that moment hit both of us. 

I pray I will never lose the picture that is still etched in my mind of Ben standing straight and tall in the warm water with Tom's arm around him. Ben is smiling and tears are running down Tom's face as we both realize the miracle we were experiencing.  

It wasn't too many years ago we were told to expect that Ben would no longer be walking independently by the time he was 8 years old.

Yet, here he was, walking down the stairs and standing straight and tall in the font, smiling ear to ear.

Apparently the doctor's forgot to tell Ben.

Aside from a slightly weakened heart and lungs, Ben is in great shape. He is learning to read and add double digit numbers and has a huge crush on a cute girl in his 2nd grade class. 

No, he is not able to keep up with his class on everything and gets lots of help to be where he is, but he is progressing, running, jumping, reading, even playing basketball with his younger brother.

I think we only had to coax him out from under the table a few times (he still panics when too many people are looking at him), but he wanted to be baptized and confirmed so badly that the coaxing was brief when we promised only people who love him were there that day. (not everyone that loves him could be there, but the few who were there are all special to him)

It was a different sort of day than the baptisms of our older children that had been full of family and friends and food - March 5th was a very Ben day - for a little guy who came into the world without fanfare or even a cry, the day was simple and sweet, touching, profound even and full of great love -  the experience was beautiful.

Dia De Los Muertos

Okay, so it really is just Halloween - but after the past 3 days "Day of the Dead" seems a bit more fitting.

The kids don't wear Halloween costumes at school here - so no parades this year. Friday night was Trunk r Treat at the church - it was a big hit, lots of kids and fun and we forgot our camera. (kids didn't hold still anyway . . .)

Saturday was full of parties and events - Tember had a girl scout field trip in Sarasota and the boys all had swimming in Sarasota. Spencer had practice and an hour of beginning water polo (which he LOVED) and the two younger boys had a swim party - luckily at the same place and close to the same time.
We spent a few minutes at the Sarasota Goodwill working on a Halloween costume for Tomer - scroll down and see what you think.

Theo had a birthday party he was invited to in Parrish that afternoon and September and her friends did a make-up tumbling class since they all missed last Monday's class - (kids were out of school so we went hunting for sharks teeth at the beach in Venice instead)

And we all had been invited to a Halloween Party that evening in Parrish - it was a fun day - very long and LOTS of driving. The Explorer died - but the new part is on its way - and we are nearing 90000 miles on the MDX.  We spend a LOT of time in the car here - 

The missionaries got to come with us to the party - anyone guess what they came as?
A friend of ours got some much better shots of the event and I will add them when he emails them to us.  For now - the following is the longest I could get them to hold still:

Theo =GI JO, Elder Brinley, Ben - Iron Man, Elder Gonzales, Tember = rockstar witch, Spencer = ninja

couldn't see a thing until the camera flashed - so the pic is a bit tight

I'll give you 2 hints - 1. NOT Zorro

2. As You Wiiiiiiiissssssshhhhhhhhh

It was a fun night at the Wompey's - complete with a costume contest and dance floor.
We are tired today - not more than a handful of trick or treaters in the neighborhood tonight  - makes us miss East Mill Creek even more . . .
The weather here just doesn't feel like Halloween - it is still so hot and no rain for weeks.  The AC was broken in the chapel today - (sacrament meeting was very long).

More pictures to come - as the house comes together and we get some from friends I'll get 'em up here. Its nice to have the ability to sit and type again!

Landing - for a time

Traded in the little white house for the little yellow and green one.

The past few weeks have been full of crazy.

It has been a slow process - we had to be out on the 6th of October.
And the family who's home we have moved into weren't completely
out the day we moved in so we all felt a bit on top of each other for awhile.
Luckily we all get along really well - especially the kids, so it is more funny

 than frustrating.

We were grateful for the help of church members the night we moved - we
couldn't have done it without them.

The unpacking has been slow as I injured what I thought was my shoulder moving heavy furniture
so many times in such a short period. It has made typing and writing an talking on the
phone a bit painful so please accept my apologies on not being better at staying in touch.
I saw an Orthopedic Surgeon last week who quickly figured out that the pain in my shoulder was actually my muscles compensating for a crushed disk in my upper back. 

I can't remember ever being in enough pain to nearly pass out -

until that Ortho pressed on my back then gave me a couple of cortisone shots.

Luckily, the home owner of the place we are renting is a Physical Therapist with his main office just up our street (yep, walking distance) and I am doing much better after many days of physical therapy (3 days a week!).  

Otherwise, we are settling in. The 3 boys are sharing a room and a bathroom. Tember has her own room (she will share it when grandma's and friends come to visit) and she shares a bathroom with Tom & I.

The home owner & his dad just finished building an office for Tom in the garage and we are, for the most part, amazed that we can fit in 1600 square feet. The back patio is still full of empty boxes we aren't sure what to do with and there is a small pile of boxes in the living room. Those will be unpacked as I figure out where to put pictures and when we get some book cases.

The house is in need of some paint and a few repairs and there is this little ant problem . . . but we are trying to take it all in stride and are incredible grateful for good renters of our own back in Salt Lake.

Below are a few pics of the home we left behind -
super groovy stove - that also included the ONLY outlet in the kitchen.

 and a totally retro oven - previous owner never used it - she stored newspapers in it (???)

The little too detailed mermaid on the tub/shower door we really don't miss.

along with the strange cabinets in the bathroom

Wednesday

Last week we realized it was time for us to make a decision and get out of this house.

We felt we had really looked at everything and the best option seemed to be the townhouse near the middle school Spencer attends.  We called the property manager and told him we were good to go and he got things going on his end. We offered to come meet him to sign a lease, give him applications, whatever he needed and he kept saying not to worry about it - he would get something to us the following weekend.

The townhouse would be nice. It would be much bigger than what we have now, it would be fine. There's a pool, a fitness center and it's a gated community full of expensive homes and a handfull of townhomes.
There was this funny little nag inside us - no yard, no kids in the community and it is pretty secluded from the rest of the area because it is flanked by busy roads and the water.  Our first few weeks here were so rough because we didn't have friends for the kids to play with yet - but we knew there were kids in this area so we had hung in there and sure enough, they are having so much fun now! Oh well, we will just have to drive them a lot or hope more kids move in over there.

A few days later our realtor (who is also a friend and neighbor) called.  There was this house that belongs to some friends of his that was coming up for rent. His friends had offered to buy another home in their same neighborhood last year and their offer had been turned down. That same home had just been put back up on the market at the price they offered last year and word had been put out that they were hoping this friend of our realtor would offer again.

The house they are buying is gorgeous - and the price was right, but they weren't comfortable making the offer unless their current home was taken care of - rented or sold.  That's where we came in.
We went through the home.
It's not big.
It's not fancy.
It has 3 bedrooms (big ones)
It has 2 Full bathrooms
It has a backyard - complete with trampoline, hammock, skate ramp, swing set & patio.

The kitchen is tiny
There's no office

And our first thought was:


no


Spencer and Tember didn't want to share a room any more.
It is not much bigger than the place we are trying to get out of.

It's in a different ward (different congregation for church)

But it had tons of kids, including their 5 who would still be living in the neighborhood (they are also Mormons).

We offered a prayer before bed with the kids and again before we turned in that night, we decided to stick with the townhouse.

I didn't sleep most of the night. I woke up the next morning with a pit in my stomach.

We had made the wrong choice.

I called Tom at work and asked him if he was sure about the townhouse. 
An hour later he called me back - he had come to the same conclusion I had -
the house was a better option for us. The kids will be happier and we will just have to
find a way to fit.

The owners of the house called us - in the middle of the night the husband had an idea - he could wall off part of the garage to make Tom an office. They have a wall unit to keep it cool and he would have more room than he has right now.

We went back that night and walked through it again.

After we left, September said to Tom - "Dad, I think we are supposed to move there"

We did too.

I slept that night.  So did Tom.

Their offer got accepted in a matter of hours the next morning.

They have been moving out all weekend - into an 800 square foot home owned by her parents until their new home closes.
Their home will go on the market next spring when we put our home in SLC up for sale again.
We can stay as long or as short as we like.
The property manager of the townhouse said we were free to go since he never got us anything to sign.
It is only a few blocks from the water, an amazing park and it is just across the river from the neighborhood we are currently in.
It is full of that funny old house charm.
It is closer to the beach.
They are happy to let us have chickens, a garden and even bees if we like.


It has a dishwasher (not me!)
Central A/C
She is leaving her dryer! (no more laundromat for me!)
and a full sized fridge
and they are leaving the ping pong table until they move into their new home =)


Funny how simple we really are.

We move on Wednesday.

Stay tuned for pictures. . . .

One week

Tuesday started bright and early - as it should!
Theo turned 6! And who would want to miss a minute of that day?
Grandma Debbie & Grandpa Steve called all the way from Egypt before
the kids got off to school with birthday wishes.

It was also International Day of Peace - and Wakeland Elementary celebrated with a program where the kids got to donate pennies to “Pennies for Peace”, sing a Peace song and have the schoolwide picture taken on the grass. They lined the kids up in the shape of a dove and the photographer stood on a ladder on the top of the school to get the shot. Should be fun to see the results.

After school was filled with birthday calls from family and friends, lots of birthday cards and fun. We ended the night with cake and ice cream with some new friends down the street.

Because it was a school night we put off miniature golf for a night (Wednesday is early out day here). The mini-golf facility is decked out as a pirates cove - complete with live allegators!

 

Check out the footage of the kids feeding the baby allegators and the Birthday Boogie Man!

Wednesday we met some of our new neighborhood friends at the park to discuss a possible camping trip for the weekend. (Camping!!)
At first we couldn’t figure out where one would camp in this area - but we were soon educated.
You camp at the beach!

While we were at the park figuring out menus and such the kids ran and played with a big group of kids from the area.  They ran and played and suddenly out of the corner of my eye I saw this:

Check out that smile! And he is giving his friend Emma a ride as well!

BEN RODE A BIKE!!! Why we didn’t think to put him on an old man’s bike I don’t know!! He rode and he rode and he rode - he pumped kids around and around! Needless to say - we are on a search for a 3 wheeled bike for him!

Thursday, Theo got to go have lunch at the Pittsburg Pirates training facility across the street from their school because he had been chosen as the kindergarten Student of the Month!

Spencer spent the week trying out for yearbook comittee at the middle school - going an hour early each day to design a cover that would be judged at the end of two weeks deciding who would get to stay on the comittee.
Unfortunately, the teacher didn’t feel he had all the skills necessary but  encouraged him to try out next year after he had a chance to take a graphic art class. He was a little disappointed but thought the class was a good idea.

We found a good swim team, but it is a bit of a drive. We are still trying to work out how to get him there. But we are still trying to work out a bunch of things so we will add that to the list.

It was so different from the camping we have done up north!
First of all you bring a fan, and extension cords because the campsites have power! (keep in mind it doesn’t get much below 75 degrees here at night - nothing like the near freezing temps we were used to in the dead of summer in the mountains)

The campsites were full of Christmas lights at night -
strung up between palm trees on the beach campsites. Totally magical!

Since we arrived after dark on Friday night, Saturday morning brought such a surprise - we were camping in a jungle!
Theo learned to swing on the palm fronds like Tarzan and September
spent the morning swimming with a few Manatees!
Unfortunately, our camera ran out of battery - the heat zapped it in the car the night before and
we didn't have the charger, but we have been promised pics from our fellow campers and when we get them I will post all I can.
Tom took Spencer and Theo to meet a group from church to go fishing on the south fishing pier before he went into work for a few hours.
Ben spent most of his time fishing with the boys and doing everything he could to get ahold of the 3-wheeled bike that belongs to one of the older boys. We had to RUN after him several times to bring him back when the owner of the bike decided he wanted to ride it!




Monday Ben and mom spent the day at All Children's Hospital in St Pete.  Unfortunately, Ben's heart function has dropped and he is being referred to the cardio myopathy clinic in November. We have several more appointments ahead of us in the coming weeks.  For news on Ben's health we update
www.caringbridge.org/benjaminswapp  - please feel free to check that out any time if you are interested.


Tonight we are hoping to get to the beach (tropical storm in the gulf = good waves) and make a decision on moving. We have a townhouse we are scheduled to move into next Wednesday - it is nice, and big and new with a pool out back and within walking distance to the Spencer's school. But there are very few kids in this community, it is gated and it includes some very exclusive million dollar homes. The townhouse has a private elevator (the only way we would do it with Ben) and a good sized garage for storage. It even has an office. But we are concerned about the lack of children in the community and hopeful that they will be tolerant of the noise and activity that comes with our family.

Out of the blue, this weekend, a family in the neighborhood across the river from us found out the house they have been trying to buy for years now has come down to their price.  It is in their same neighborhood and they have offered us their current home for rent for as long as we need it.
It is small - 1600-1700 sq feet. 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and a backyard full of toys. It is a neighborhood full of kids - including their 5. The price is right, they are willing to move out next week and are also willing to enclose the garage so Tom can have an office.
We have to make a decision tonight -
As a side note, I got a call from a woman whose husband is being transferred here from Birmingham, AL. They are also Mormon's (we have a mutual friend) They have 3 kids and have been looking for  a 4 bedroom home for weeks now and are so frustrated - we talked for almost an hour about this crazy market and all the messes that are out here. It was so nice to hear someone else going through the same thing - although we are sorry someone else is feeling our pain. I was able to give her some leads and hopefully they will be here soon so we can get to know each other.

Wish us luck - better yet, offer a prayer. We are a bit tender in light of the new information on Ben's condition and we need to get out of this house next week.