elizabeth

so, we came to the conclusion that it doesn't really matter in the end if something did happen with this neighbor. (ok, it does, but for right now, there is a more important issue) what really matters is that elizabeth knows that her parents believe in her, and that she can come to us with problems and we will do what we can to help her fix them.
however, it is hard to talk to the neighbors about it. one neighbor has a hard time believing that anything happened. one knew that there was something wrong with him when he moved in years ago, and warned her daughter to stay away from him. one thinks we did the right thing, even though they aren't sure what to believe. the police have spoken with him, and he has admitted to stuff. he ADMITTED it. what more do you need?

ring instead of serger

so, we went down to IF the first of the month to get some of shauns school supplies. in the process, we upgraded my ring. the ring that i had was a little thing from walmart. at the time, it's all that we could afford, and it served it's purpose, but, it was yellow gold. for years we had talked about upgrading it, but could never justify it. we finally did it. this one is white gold (yeah), and it nests. you can see here that it has a bridal band. the two diamonds that sit on the side are actually part of the band that the bigger diamond "sits" in. there's no need to weld them together, cause unless it's taken off the finger, they won't come apart.
the best part is that we got it for half off. it's a $1600 ring, but looks like it should be much more.
it wasn't until later that it occurred to me that i could have gotten a serger (or 3) for the price of what the ring is. oh well, ces't la vie. it just goes to show where my priorities were at the time.

life . . .

life has been extremely crazy lately. we are searching double time to find a place to move to. the front half of the house we are currently in has a dirt foundation. the dirt is starting to erode away from the house. we can actually see daylight in the basement. not good.
elizabeth recently started at head start (YEAH!). she has the morning session, which isn't really an issue, except that my classes start before hers. that means that shaun has to pack up all the kids, drop me off at school, and then rush elizabeth over to head start. then he has to take them all in the building cause they won't let him leave the other two in the car.
so, there are now 4 of us in school. which means that mom has 4 times as much homework. i have my own, fortunately, some of it can double as taylors. i have taylors, i have elizabeths, and i have shauns that he frequently needs help with. however, with everything that has gone on this last week, not much of anyone's has gotten done. i need to get a handle on our lives again.

SCARY!!

ok, some have heard this and some have not. since i don't want any incorrect stories floating around, i should tell you all.

elizabeth the other day mentioned some very scary things that led us to believe that a neighbor might be a sexual predator. if he is, he either hasn't registered as one, or he hasn't been caught. i checked my neighborhood, and didn't see any near me. so, we reported it and are in the process of an investigation. it involves having the children questioned by specialists trained in child "interrogation," talking with neighbors, alerting teachers, and questioning of the gentleman in question by the police. right now we are waiting for the detectives to get back to us with their initial findings.

since i know my daughter so well, i know that the only way to keep her away from this gentleman so that nothing further can happen is to move away from him. so we are in the process of trying to get into another house nearby, but far enough away that she can't easliy visit this guy (currently, he is only 4 or 5 houses away, on the same block. the move would put us about a block away, across streets, but still in the same ward; we hate bishop hopping!) if this house doesn't happen, there are a few others that we are considering.