It's going to be a pretty busy week for us, so I thought I'd update while I have the chance.  It's stayed pretty warm here as far as highs go, but it doesn't stay warm for that long.  It takes a good part of the day to reach the high, and then it only stays that warm for a half hour or so.  The house stays really cool inside, though, and I've found myself opening most of the windows not only to get fresh air and sanity, but to stay warm.  I'm sure that won't be the case soon.  


I'm hoping we've resolved the cat issues.  We made an emergency trip to Petsmart Thursday to try and remedy, once and for all, the cat peeing fiasco.  Adam's convinced that George was peeing on things out of spite.  He's really only ever peed two places here (once in our clothes basket and several times RIGHT outside of his litter box).  We decided to take the shower door off the shower in downstair bathroom and put the litter box in there.  So far, it's worked out fine.  We've also beein feeding him more.  We both had agreed that he ate too much in the past, so we had taken to feeding him less and less often.  Maybe we'll just let him be fat and happy if that's what's going to keep him from peeing....we'll see how the theory pans out.


Earlier in the day, Thursday, I set forth to bake chocolate chip cookies...moreso (as always) because I was craving chocolate chip cookie dough than anything.  Luckily, I realized before adding any of the wet ingredients that we were out of sugar...a fairly important element of cookies.  Luckily for me, our friend Elizabeth mentioned she was going to the store and was gracious enough to pick me up some sugar.  I used the recipe off the bag of Hershey's chips and am quite pleased with the results.  As a result of that, I have consume many more chocolate chip cookies in the last several days than I probably should have.  Adam brought a bunch to work Friday, though, and put the rest in the freezer (as though that's actually a deterrent for me :-p).


Friday morning, I had the boys for a while so Heidi could go to her pre-op appointment.  At first, Jack was abusing the 2-year-old "Whhyyyyy???" card and driving me nuts, but eventually, lunch and a walk through the desert took care of that.  They boys surprisingly liked walking through the desert.  We saw cactuses (which ironically were definitely there as a part of landscaping and not actually native) and various pieces of interesting garbage.  Jack found a couple pine cones (which he left here)...and thanks to the less than swift pace of return, we came back to find Heidi enjoying her new book on our driveway.  Once the boys had left, I set forth cleaning and preparing the sunday school lesson.  By the time I was done with those things, Adam was on his way home from work.  Adam made some delicious turkey burgers with sun-dried tomato basil cream cheese and then we headed to Fosters for dessert with Heidi and the boys.  


After we returned from Fosters, we got an interesting visitor.  After proclaiming how cold it was outside (it wasn't) and asking us not to kidnap her, she asked to come in so she could sit down at our table (she ended up standing by the door).  She told us several different inconsistent stories (She was having a contest...boys against girls...and needed our help earning points; she was doing a career related activity and wanted to know what cool jobs we had; she was trying to win a trip to Bermuda; etc.) but finally admitted to selling magazines.  It seemed a little shady.  Adam gave her our address, though (she could've figured that out pretty easily) and told her we didn't have a phone number.  After a very interesting conversation where she didn't help her case with her aviation revelations and trying to name drop, we ended up giving her 10 dollars and sending her on her way.  I then text messaged the neighbor since this salesgirl claimed they referred her to us as the cool neighbors and I asked her what she bought.  Strangely enough, she said nothing....even though the girl told us she bought subscriptions to donate to the troops.  Oh well...it broke the ice with the neighbor and we're getting together Tuesday.  That's something.


Our goal for Saturday was to try and be as productive but relaxed as possible.  We slept in until 8:30 or so (fairly late considering we had gone to bed shortly after 10 the night before).  We didn't actually DO anything until much later, though.  In fact, when the man from Lancaster Baptist was going door to door inviting people to his church's Veteran's service Sunday, Adam answered in a t-shirt and boxers, and I hid.  We played Wii for a while, that afternoon, had lunch, cleaned up a bit, and eventuallllllllllly made it out the door for a hike in the mountains with Lacy.  We ended up hiking for over an hour and came home for dinner.  Adam picked up an acorn squash at the store out of curiosity.  We cut it in half and on half put garlic, salt, and butter...and on the other half put cinnamon, brown sugar, and butter.  I thought it was pretty good, but Adam wasn't too impressed with the texture.  We'll see how the spaghetti squash we got at Trader Joe's goes over, tonight.  (Which got me to wondering what my parents ate before they had kids...).  After dinner, we just vegged and watched a couple shows and a movie while consuming wine, crackers, salami, and Brie.  We watched "The Calcium Kid" on Hulu...which had Orlando Bloom in it, but probably wasn't one of his proudest moments.  It was entertaining enough, though, considering we didn't pay for it.


Today has been a pretty productive, yet not too tiring (yet) day.  We went to church this morning, followed by lunch at Panera and shopping at Sam's Club and Trader Joe's with Heidi and the boys.  Since then, we came home, vegged a little, cut hair, and now are gearing up for our spaghetti squash.  We're heading back over to Heidi's around 7 since I'm spending the night there (she has to be at the hospital at 6 a.m. for her surgery.)


In case you had missed the memo, Heidi is having surgery this week and will be in the hospital until Wednesday.  We will be taking care of Jack and Colton until she gets back since Jedd is deployed in Iraq.  I don't have any qualms or regrets about offering to do this for her...and honestly feel like it is and has been my purpose here to serve their family, so this helps me fulfill that.  I think that while it will be incredibly tiring, and possibly trying at times, too...it will not only be good practice for the future (we're talking years down the road here, people...don't get any ideas :)), but it will be great to have her have one less (and pretty HUGE) thing to worry about while she's gone.


A couple prayer requests for the week:
-Adam is AWESOME with kids (no matter what he might lead you to believe when he's NOT around them), especially with Jack and Colton.  Sometimes, though, he has a hard time understanding and coping with 2 and 4 year old personality traits.  He's doing a better job understanding the correlation between tiredness and crankiness, but sometimes little things get to him.  The boys absolutely LOVE Adam, so when he's around them, he gets little time to himself.  Pray that Adam can have the strength, stamina, and understanding to get through the next few days gracefully...and that everyone's love for each other stays intact :).
-I, too, love kids.  I've realized lately that I am a lot farther down the road from being ready to have some of my own that I had initially thought, but saying that I don't mind being around other people's for periods of time is more than an understatement.  It has been almost 5 months, though, since we met the Lucas', and the closer the boys grow to us, the more free they are to be themselves (not that a 2 year old is ever inhibited from being himself.)  This means that while they love us more, sometimes we become more parent like figures to them then "idols"...and they tend to mind us more like parents at times, as well.  Not that I'm saying kids don't or shouldn't listen to their parents, but I'm fairly sure than anyone who has kids at some point realizes that they listen to and act better for other people sometimes.  Please pray that the boys and I can thoroughly enjoy our time together...and while I'll be getting a LOT less sleep than I normally do...that I can maintain the same level of patience and understanding that I would if I had the same amount of sleep I normally get.
-Finally, pray that Heidi's surgery goes without a hitch, that her nerves can be kept calm, that she doesn't get too lonely at the hospital (there's no wi-fi and children aren't allowed...though a couple people are definitely stopping by), that she heals quickly afterwards and doesn't have complications, and all the other things you can think of that go with having surgery.


I am actually really looking forward to the next three days.  I think it will be fun to get to spend time with the boys on a more "intimate" level and get to experience real life with kids (without breaks or being able to give them back :)).  We already have a play date scheduled with the neighbors on Tuesday and are possibly taking the boys to dinner 'cause kids eat free on Tuesday's at Tom's. As worn out as we will be when Heidi gets back, I'm sure she will be too, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to be able to help out in any way we can.  


And that is why I may not have much time for updating this for a while.  Even after Heidi's back, she won't be in full working order for a while.  I'll try and keep track of the highlights of our pseudo parenthood and update when we do get the chance...Until then...thanks for your prayers, and have a great week.