Changes...

It seems like it has been forever since I have written….so much has been going on in our lives that I have felt like I’m sinking in a deep deep hole sometimes.

I know many of you are aware of the drive that Scott makes to work everyday (2 hours 15 min. one way). Between that drive, gas prices, his company not allowing overtime in the past year, and a very large mortgage, we are struggling very bad. We finally realized, with the help of my parents telling us, “Do you two realize how much stress you are under?”, that something had to change. I don’t want this to be a whining session, but felt like I needed to talk about it.

We moved here 3 years ago, that far away from Scott’s work, strictly for Zoe’s health care, in the hopes that a job would come available closer. Well there aren’t any jobs that will pay him enough and with the benefits we need. Zoe’s first year here wasn’t too bad, but her next 2 she has had a rougher time. So I guess between her health, him driving so much, being worried about my older childrens schooling and futures, a horrible financial situation, I have been extremely stressed. I don’t give Scott any attention hardly, I feel like by the time he is home, I have been touched, prodded, depleted of anything left to give to him. So, pretty much everything has been leading to a down hill spiral. We decided to talk about it and figure out exactly what is in our control. So, our mortgage and how far he drives are two things that we can adjust. We are selling our home, looking for a rental about an hour north of where we are now, which will take about 40 minutes off his drive one way and cut our housing payment down quite a bit. It has been a hard decision to make, my older kids have made friends here, they are on a swim team 3 miles down the road, I hate taking them away from all that. But, we have to try anything so that we can make it.

Zoe is sick again. She was on oral Bactrim twice in the last 2 months, then well for a couple of weeks, now she has had a fever of 101-103 since Wed., they started her on Keflex today for two weeks. We will see what happens.

I do have some good news, our Zoe for Life team ended up raising nearly 10 thousand for Great Strides. We don’t normally take the prizes that you can get when you raise enough money, but this year I was looking at the list and saw that we had raised enough to receive a camcorder, well, ours has been broken since last October, so our cff office ordered one for us. That was so nice because we knew we couldn’t afford a new one and I feel like we are missing so much live video of the kids growing up.

The kids have done awesome on their swim team. Austin(14) has placed 1st in nearly every race he has been in. Alex(12) has placed 1st,2nd, or 3rd in every race he has had. Madison(10) has gotten a few 1st, 2nds, 3rds, and 4ths. Sydney(6), this is her first year on swim team, has placed 1st in almost all of her races! She loves it and needed the self-esteem, she is kind of quieter and stuck in the middle of older siblings and then Zoe younger.

Please continue to pray for Zoe's health......thank you so very much....

Love,
Jada