A Single Gunshot

So yesterday was quite a day. Here is the story.
To start out I have to give you a little backstory. (I going to try to be as anonymous as possible so that I do not embarrass anyone involved);
I have someone who is close to me who has an ex husband with depression among other things. I heard yesterday morning that this ex husband recently had threatened to take his own life with a gun in the presence of his family members. That made me feel sad for him and his family and also a bit uneasy. I went about my day and after putting a second coat of paint on some shelves at naptime I headed back through my yard to my house. As I was climbing my steps, I heard a gunshot. Now I have heard gunshots up in the hills behind my house and up in the mountains and this sounded like neither of those things. This shot was west of my house, somewhere down in the neighborhoods of Lake Point. It was LOUD. It was not a shotgun. It was a loud, sharp "CRACK!" I immediately felt on edge, and waited for a minute or so to hear more. I heard nothing.
 I called Mitch upstairs and he and I began to listen and watch for anything strange. I then texted my friend who lives a few roads away and asked if she had heard the gunshot. She replied back that she did and it was very loud. I knew it was a stretch that the gunshot had anything to do with the news of the persons ex husband earlier in the morning but it still made me feel very uneasy. Why weren't there more shots? If someone was shooting at targets there would be more.... Why was there no noise? If someone was hurt I would expect a neighbor would have checked on them after the shot and I would hear something.
A few minutes after my text conversation with my friend, Mitch and I saw a man in the property neighboring ours, at the West end. (We have never seen the people who live there) He was wearing a black hoody with the hood up over his head. He was looking all around and kept glancing at us. After a minute or so, we realized he must be looking for a dog, as we could hear a faint whistling. He did this for a few minutes and then walked away. Then a white beat up Bronco slowly left the house and crawled along the road leading away from our houses. We waited to hear anything else and made a few jokes about how the guy was pretending to look for a dog and scoping out who might have heard him commit a murder. We joked that he was coming to our house. We laughed and headed back inside.
I called my sister Jana to tell her about the weird gunshot and she told me I should call the cops just in case someone was actually hurt. So I reluctantly heeded her advice, cause, she was right, what if somebody was hurt and I did nothing? I thought, "someone else will have called, I don't need to" but I did it anyway.

"9-1-1 What is the address of your emergency?" Oh boy. So much for reporting it and not having to have the cops over. I told the dispatcher all of my info and what I heard and she said the cops would be by shortly. I ran around cleaning up my house so that when the cops came in they wouldn't call DCFS on me for my messy living area!

Shortly before the cops arrived, I realized they wouldn't know to come around back, so I ran over and woke my sister and asked her to send them back when they got there. Benjamin woke up and sat on the couch all bleary eyed and pantless. Ally called and told me they had arrived and she wanted me to come answer the door cause she needed a shower. So instead I put my sons pants on as fast as I could and carried him as I walked around front. The deputy was super friendly and I was at ease as we discussed what I had heard.

As I was describing things and answering his questions, I glanced around and for a split second and noticed a white bronco at the top of our circle. In the few short seconds I registered it and dismissed it My thought-there was no way it is that guy, that would be crazy, its just my neighbor who also has a white bronco. I continue speaking to the Deputy and suddenly the man is approaching us from a few feet away. He is wearing the same black hoodie, he has a shaggy hairstyle and a shaggy full but shorter beard. He seems to be kind of dirty and from close up I notice the hoodie is full of holes. His hands are both in the kangaroo pocket moving around and, I realize, making it hard to tell if hes hiding a gun. I think Oh crap, he really did come to get us and he's just approaching us out in the middle of the street with a cop next to me. How will I save Benji if this man draws a gun on us? Can the cop save us in time? I guess I just have to trust he will. I can't say that I'm scared right now and this is suspicious cause I will just sound crazy in front of this cop. I keep my cool though and he asks us if we have seen a black lab. We both tell him we haven't. I say we were outside because we heard a noise. The man says someone from a vets office called him and said someone has his dog. The cop tells him that if "we" meaning the county, took the dog, it will be at Roundy's Vet office in Tooele. So the man leaves.

After he has left, the deputy and I finish discussing where the shot may have originated. I tell him West of me and South of my friend. He asks if Mitch and I saw or heard anybody or anything else. I tell him we saw the man looking for his dog and thats all. He asks if the shot may have come from the mans house. I say it very well may have. He thanks me and leaves to scope out the neighborhood and see if he can find out what happened.

After I walked back to my house, I realized that if the deputy was suspicious of him, I was not being too paranoid in my suspicion and maybe I need to be careful for awhile. I called my sister and told her the latest. I talked to both her and Mitch about how uncomfortable I still felt, even though it was most likely nothing. I start to settle down and think about making dinner.

At this point it has been about one to two hours since the cop left and two to three since the gunshot. My boys are both awake and playing in the living room and Mitch is still downstairs at work. I walk into the kitchen to start getting my ingredients out for dinner and I see the white bronco pulling slowly into my backyard driveway, he has pulled past the house and is approaching where I park my car. As soon as I register what I see I run to the window I left open for hearing any other noises and shut it, then as quickly as possible, I open the basement door and yell to my husband "MITCH! HE'S HERE!". I grab the hands of my sweet little boys and rush them back into the bedroom and command them "Stay HERE!" As I am putting the kids away I am thinking I don't have time to call the cops, if I called them, I would not have enough time to explain the whole situation and its seriousness to them before the confrontation occurs, it will only distract me and it will be over before they can arrive anyway. You know how they say in an emergency you go into "fight or flight"? Well yesterday I found out I am a fighter, a calm and calculating fighter. As I run back into the kitchen, Mitch has joined me with his weapons. We watch the car from the window, ready to defend our lives and that of our children. We watch as he applies his brakes. Here We Go. He backs up and turns his car to face outward, and stops again. He's parking for a quick getaway. You aren't going to use it. Then he slowly drives out of our driveway. Mitch begans putting on his shoes. I go grab my kids to move them further into the house where I can contain them in their room and go help their father make sure we are safe. In their room, which faces the East, I look through the blinds out their window and notice him parked in front of my neighbors and walking up to their door. He still has his hands in his pockets but I am starting to calm down realizing it was a false alarm. I rationalize that maybe he thought he was driving down a private road or something. I call Mitch in and we watch him get in his car and leave our line of sight in the direction leading away from our house.

I have two minutes and I start to calm down and then Mitch is calling me into the living room. My visiting teacher is at the door, she has brought muffins. Mitch stashed his weapons when he registered it was not a man in a black hoodie on the other side of the door and we acted natural. I invited her in saying I had just cleaned the house in case the cops came in and she laughs and says uh oh. Then I start at the beginning saying I heard a gunshot. She covers her mouth and makes a sound letting us know she or someone she knows is the source of the shot.

I tell her the whole story and she tells me that her mother in law shot a dog who had come into their yard again after killing some of their chickens the day before. She said they had warned the owners and it happened again so they protected their livestock. She apologized for the crazy day I had and said she needed to rush home and tell her mother in law they needed to call the police and let them know that everything is okay. I told her it was perfectly okay, I understood, and I was just so glad that the man wasn't actually trying to kill me. What a laugh we had though. We of course, guessed that the dog belonged to this man instead of the neighbors she had warned about their dogs.

Through text messaging she later told me the man had found them and took his dog home. The cops came over and told them they were justified and everything turned out okay. But what a day we had...

I obviously grew a little paranoid in my time pursuing a degree in Law Enforcement coupled with my love of law suspense/dramas. But hey, I now know that in a real emergency, I will keep a cool calculated head and will be brave enough to take on anything for my husband and kids. And that feels pretty great.

My journeys

Hey ya'll. So I'm on a lot of journeys right now. A journey to lose weight and be more fit, a journey to be a better housemaker, and a journey (which encompasses all of my little journeys) to build, make, sew a less expensive, cleaner, healthier life for my family.
It started with a website and a love of Home Depot, Sutherlands, and Lowes. Since becoming an adult I have loved these stores for reasons that weren't always clear to me. My dad loved it, I liked joining him on his twice-thrice weekly, sometimes daily trips up to the local store, and maybe at the time it was being with my dad and working our ideas into life in the house he built for me. As I am sitting here writing this, I think I get what I love about it now. Its the possibilites I see when I go inside. Anyway, the website is full of plans for people just like me, total beginners, to use to build something beautiful and sturdy for a lot less than buying from somewhere else.
I have wasted many hours clicking through the free plans available from Ana (the mind and work behind the site and plans) and last spring we finally built something. Its a helper tower.

We built it for Benji to allow him to reach the kitchen sink and counters, and its adjustable so it grows with him. This last year Santa & Mrs. Claus built the boys a train table.

This year I have decided this is not the pace I had in mind when daydreaming over these plans. Maybe Mitch doesn't like this as much as I do? Huh. Maybe, just maybe I can do it myself.... And so, I picked the most simple of the plans I wanted to do, and I began. Ten Dollar Ledges is where I started. I decided it would make a good new design for our family photo wall. If you stick with the 8 ft length, there isn't even any cutting involved, so this sounded like the project to get comfortable with pocket holes.
I built them for both the family room and have just finished 3 ft shelves for the boys room to hold their books. Pictures to come soon!

It's been two years since you went away...

I graduated with honors from SLCC in 2007. We were told to gift our stole to the person who had helped us get to this point in our lives. My father forgave me when I tried to follow in his footsteps and get a degree in programming from Utah State. I hated it and slept in instead of going to class. I spent my days playing football with boys from my dorm, not doing homemork. I started with 13 credit hours and ended the semester earning a D in one class, passing bowling, and dropping all the rest. I lost his money, I felt like I had failed him. I fessed up when I started to realize the hole I was in. Instead of pushing me away in anger, he told me that some people are just not ready for more school after high school. Some people need a break or to work and take school a little slower. My dad didn't tell me that was it, my time at college was through unless I payed for it myself. He forgave me and gave me another chance. I took that chance and I pursued something I was passionate about. It was because of his forgiveness and dedication to me that I graduated with honors and without letting me come home and giving me this plan, I would not have worked security while in school and met my eternal companion, Mitch.

Get ready for a serious picture OVERLOAD! Just some of the best pics of Dad in my life. 

I miss you and love you so much Daddy. Thank you for building me and my family a home to live in and giving it your all, even mudding drywall in my basement with cancer in your pancreas. I hope I can live up to the type of person you were and that I can be the best substitute possible for those many people who still need your help. Thank you for all you taught me. You were such an example of what it means to be family, what it means to serve others, and what it means to work hard. I miss playing ball with you and your friends. I miss talking about the future and sharing silly stories about your grandkids. I wish I had understood how short your time on this earth with me was, I wish I had taken more photos, more videos, and made even more memories. I miss walking through the door from my house to yours and visiting you on those Fridays you worked from home, especially with Benji in my arms. Before I got a new phone, I used to reread our last texts over and over, from when you were sick, but not yet too sick to text, I would smile every time I read your text to me; "I miss my little visitor", which was code for "I'm stuck in bed and bored and want to see my favorite little buddy, Benji." I miss having your physical presence in my older son's life, and mourn the loss of having you in my younger son's. I'll never forget when you told me that you understood why I was so hard on my siblings and said that it was because I was "a protector". You could not know then how those words would stick with me and keep me striving to live up to them. I cannot believe its only been two years since you've gone, and I try not to really think about how someday the scales will tip on how long I've lived without you vs. how long I lived with. I am SO lucky to have had you for the 24 years I did. I love to hear from Mitch how much he misses you too. In such a short time that you were actually in his life, you became one of the greatest men he has ever known. That says something. Daddy, I love you, keep up the hard work, until we meet again. 

Love, Me

These pictures are all sorts of out of order, but I'm gonna try not to sweat the small stuff, at least for today. In case you are confused, I am the blonde one in every photo. Haha

Benji on his blessing day.

Jana, dad, and tiny me

My sister and I were able to throw my mom and dad a surprise party for their 25th Anniversary.

Dad and Benji on the day he came home from the hospital

Me & Dad

The first ER visit, he was hospitalized and we came to visit

Dad and Mom took us on so many wonderful vacations as kids. Memories I will always cherish.

Check out my sweet mullett.

Our last trip before dad got sick, Yellowstone. I was pregnant with the Bean.

Both pictures from Hawaii 2011, a few weeks before dad passed away.

I made dad a shirt with a photo collage of his grandkids. I love the smile on his face in this photo.

I think this is a week or so before he died and one of his very last smiles. Near the end his smiles were usually only for little Bean.

Jana, dad, and Bean February 2010

Thank you for allowing me the chance to share my dad with you on this special day.

More snow!

We got some more snow this weekend. Here are a few pics of Benj playin outside. Funny story, about five minutes before I took these pics of Benji, the neighbors huge labs came in through the open gate and terrified the poor kid. Daddy came to the rescue and dug out the snowed in gate so we could close it.

 I can't believe how big this kid is getting. I am registering him for preschool in the fall. Dang. He is going to have a stinkin blast!

 I had Lasik two weeks ago, and this was the drive in on the morning of. I was pretty nervous about having my eye under a laser but it was easy, fast, painless, and now I can see! Its crazy and wonderful. The doctor said my eyes may continue to improve because there was still some swelling at my 1 week post op, but at that appt my eyes were 20/20 and 20/15. So I may end up with sniper eyes. Yeah. Sweet.

 This is a newborn-12M sized tutu I made for my best friend's new/last baby who happens to be her first baby girl. I love how it turned out. I started out just making it with the dark pink and the light pink and I ran out. So then I found a little more tulle with some glitter/sequin things and added those in. Cute!

 Baby is expected to make her appearance any day now and I went to a shower for her this weekend. Seems like just yesterday her and I were driving around being silly and prank calling guys and going out on dates with weird guys we met off the internet. Ah the old days. Now between us we have 6 little boys! It's about time a girl came along.. Can't wait to meet you little Paige!

Catching up...

Here we are! Every year or so, I get on and make a post. Its been about two years, so I guess its about time.  Cute little man had a cute little cast on for 3 weeks this summer. I fell while holding him and his tibia was fractured. This photo is of the day he got he got his cast put on. 

Jackson, is our cousin who lives in Arizona. He was born in May of 2011 and Nathan was born in November, they should be pretty good buddies as they grow up! We got family pictures taken in October. I have some handsome boys if I do say so myself!

Here are some pictures of our December

We went on a mini vacation to Midway Ut, to ride the Polar Express. The boys had a blast. They got to meet Mrs. Clause and Santa and got bells. We loved the area around Heber City and decided we want to move there someday!

 ^^This look alone made the trip and the money spent worth it.^^

I spent a lot of time on a birthday party for the two boys in October. I will have to post about it soon!