Alright...Here's your update:

This is going to be a very long rant-style post. But, hey, you wanted an update, so here it is!

Setting: Nielson apartment in St. Goerge. Beautiful weather outside. Nielson family (meaning Dot) is preparing for the move to Dot's mom's house in West Jordan. The move is still two weeks away but there is plenty to do...

But wait, help is on the way...hmmm...or not....

Jade's mom came down from Idaho to work at the Huntsman senior games. She also brought her brother-in-law and Angela, Jade's little sister. So I thought I might have some help, but it turned out that what we really got were three more adult mouths to feed and less room in which to work around the house. What was I thinking! (to Larie, Shane, and Angel: you are always welcome, it just happened to be bad timing, but we love you!)

It turned out like this: Angela, in the event that her mother, Jade and I, and Lori and Shea, were all moving away and would not be able to come back down for a while, decided to plan a wedding on the fly. Meaning that the last two weeks of packing turned into a week and a half of wedding plans and photography and two days of packing (thanks, Shea, for coming over to kick my butt into gear on Thursday!) Oh, yeah, and I didn't even make a list for the move!!! (that's a very big deal in my list-governed world)

All of you who know me know that i am a little (just a little) uptight when there are lots of people around. Well, this was no exception. I was having bouts of hysteria broken up by little episodes of rainman-like chanting...

...Wednesday, October 15th was the wedding and it was the most romantinc civil ceremony i've ever witnessed! Congratulations Sam and Angela (now affectionately known as Samgela)! Thursday was pack-the-trailer-clean-the-house day. Just as we were hitching the trailer up to S & L's pickup, we got a call from my mom. She had "good news"... she'd sold her house and we had to be out in three weeks. And we weren't even in it yet!!!

So...more bawling...more hysterics...more frantic packing.

Friday was supposed to be hit-the-road day, but it turned into do everything at the last minute and hope we get out of town befor dark-day...and we did...barely. But not before buying a new tire for the borrowed box trailer. Okay, so we were finally on the road and things were looking good for a couple of days....

Then we went back to SG on Sunday to clean the apartment, which was a joke because we were exhausted from the previous two weeks. It took us three days (not that it was that bad, we were just in bad shape) instead of a day and a half. All the while we kept saying to ourselves, "the Lord will bless us for following His counsel. The Lord will bless us for following His counsel..." (and He has, I'll get to that later)

Jaden was sick when we got back up North, but it wasn't anything we couldn't handle. But then Gabe got sick...really sick...he had fevers and didn't eat so much as a booger for four days. It was awful. He just kept puking and laying there not moving. We were really worried, but then Jade fixed it. I won't tell you how, but this is what Gabe had to say about it: "Daddy gave me medicine in my bum and I'm not sick anymore!" So, there you go. He eventually got better and started to eat.

Meanwhile, Maya was suffering from another ear infection, complete with ruptured eardrum and oozing. We were also dealing with her seemingly incurable diaper rash. After two months and two courses of treatment, and with the ear getting worse and worse, I finally found a doctor up here. First I have to explain how bad things were for poor Maya. The rash was so bad that it had turned into puffy, red, bleeding, blisters. And it was spreading. Her face was also infected with what looked like yeast infection. Little red spots all over and around her eyes. She looked horrible! And the smell...well we couldn't figure out why she smelled so bad until I was holding her one day and realized it came from her ear! It was really BAD! Like something died in there, which I totally considered because of the smell.

So the Awesome Dr. Rasmus saved the day. She told us that maya definitely had a pseudomonas infection in her ear and a yeast infection...no, wait, let me look again (that's what she said)... a STAPH infection on her bum and her face! EEEEEWWW! And it was spreading to the rest of her body. It's an oportunistic infection, so anwhere she had the slightest open wound (even pierced ears) it was growing. And, to add insult to injury, her pseudomonas infection had passed to me and I had the worst UTI ever! I know, t.m.i., but, hey , its all part of the story. So, we were both on anti's and eventually getting better. Oh, yeah. That was on Friday. On Saturday, Jaden dislocated Maya's elbow and we had to go to the emergency room.

Then we moved again. I mean the whole house. Twice in a month. With three kids and no babysitter. Super fun...

Okay, things are really starting to look up for us now. The Lord has blessed us for following his counsel and we were able to find a house in the same neighborhood as my mom's house and the owner is charging the same rent as my mom (which is very little). So, now you know why we haven't returned any phone calls or emails for a while. It's been crazy and not a lot of fun, but we've definitely grown and grown closer. Oh, yeah, and Maya learned to walk! It's awesome to see her toddling around after the boys! She's so cute!

I'll post pics of the kids and the new house and our crazy life tomorrow. I'm sure you're all blogged out after this anyway.