Highs & Lows

I've always loved a good roller coaster ride - The Colossus at Lagoon was built when I was a kid and I begged my dad to take me on it. No matter how terrifying it appeared, I knew I wanted the feeling at the end of the ride that said, "Whew! I took that on and I'm still smiling!"
Life is such a roller coaster and this week had BIG highs and lows. Back-to-School week with 4 kids in three different school, back-to-school nights, two doctors appts., reading assessments, new carpools, canning classes, YM activities, soccer and piano lessons were just the ratta-tat-tat of the giant chain that hauled us to the precipice. I knew about those before the week started. It's the unplanned loops that brought the literal thrills and spills of the ride...
HIGHS / LOWS

• Zach gets into the charter school and the  uniform shop extends their hours just to help us outfit him (with a discount!)
• Lauren has a cold, but is determined not to miss her first day of school.
• We learn that Iona's battle with cancer is worsening & her pain level has her on morphine.
• My mom takes Max, Jared and me to lunch - Thanks again, Mom.
• Matt learns he'll be traveling for the next three weeks - during the whole soccer season when I have 3 little boys on 3 different teams. Aaarrrggh!
• Max floods the boys’ bathroom, which floods the stairwell, which sends runoff along the vents to Matt's office and rains toilet water on his HP laptop and breaks it.

Me: Max how much toilet paper did you use?

Max: (like a deer in the headlights) a million???

Me: (in my crazed mommy voice) Go to your room!

• The new SteamVac (my birthday/mother's day present)  is a huge help in cleaning up the flood.
• Matt ordered his MacBook Pro for $200 off and they threw in a free iTouch (for me!)
• I'm really glad I didn't beat Max. ;D
• Jared catches the cold. He's miserable and I'm painfully sleep deprived.
• The kids are all having a great first week of school (Zach is adjusting like a champ & Lauren is feeling perfect by Friday morning.)

• Matt let me sleep in on Saturday morning while he worked on yard projects - I LOVE HIM!
• Matt lost his wallet at Walmart.
• After hours of searching, someone finds the wallet and turns it in with nothing missing -YEA!
• Matt makes arrangements to fly to California early Sunday morning so he can spend some time with his grandparents.
• Matt is getting a new work laptop on Monday - he really wanted one before the flood damage so he's quite happy about how everything worked out.

Our family scripture study for this week has been about Joseph of Egypt and we've focused on how Joseph's faith and the hand of the Lord helped turn terrible hardships into blessings. It's so clear that our blessings out shine our misfortunes by far.

The ride of the week included screams of joy and terror, but the point is... we're still SMILING!