Honey, We've Been Robbed!

There are not another 4 words said all at the same time after a super long trip to Arizona and back that would bring such a flood of emotions in such a short amount of time. Laughter as in "Ha, ha very funny. Now help me get the rest of this stuff in the house" or instant sadness and tears realizing that you will never again see your wedding ring. This was the emotional rollercoaster that I was on when we came home after our 12 day WONDERFUL Christmas vacation. Mike said it, I saw it and it happened.

My jewelry boxes were broken on the floor in the front room, my drawers were all dumped out, all my craft drawers were open (nothing was taken so the police know they don't have to stalk the scrapbooking stores), Mike's dresser drawers were ajar; in short, our room was a mess.

The big screen TV, dvd player and cable box were gone (along with the controller to the TV - I guess they weren't that stupid). All the boy's XBox games were gone, but the XBox was left alone in my closet (fortunately for the boys, the XBox had been taken away for disipinary tactics before we left).

There were many, many, many things that they didn't take including a printer that they had unhooked and just left on the floor. But the thing that they did take that causes us the most headaches and problems in the future is our safe. Our safe held everything important "paperwise" that we had. Besides those great "emergency credit cards" it had all 3 checkbooks and extras, all SS numbers for everyone in the family, immunization records (the kids are really crying over that news), keys, titles to all our vehicles ETC. That is going to be a headache to fix. Mike and I started out the door about 9:30 am to "get our fix on" and after 4 visits to the bank, 2 to the DOL, 2 to Pasco High, stops to do our own police work, countless calls to any and everyone about it all, we got home about 5:30 or so. It's appearently our new full time job. I am so excited. The benefits at our new job are amazing. The knowledge that we gain from our experiences will either depress us completely or make us stronger. I am not sure which yet. Only time will tell.

I do have to say that we are all safe. We are so glad that we don't need to replace any of our scriptures or our baptism books, church DVD and videos or church books. For some reason, the true value of these things were hidden from the eyes of the robbers and they are ours to utilize and better ourselves with. We are so fortunate.

The only thing I really had to do at about 4:00 pm yesturday is go try on wedding rings. Now, we don't have the settlement from the insurance company for the ring yet or anything, but as I explained to Mike, I needed to do this to feel better. He totally didn't understand why you'd want to go look at something you couldn't buy right now, but I DO (and I am willing to bet all you girls out there agree with me). I needed to be able to know that I would soon be having a ring back on my finger and it would be beautiful. I went into Fred Meyer Jewelers and found the most beautiful ring. I am hoping Mike's brother Nate (though his connections) can help me get the ring with 1 middle diamond (instead of 4) in beautiful clarity for the same replacement cost. I am hoping all goes well in this section of our sadness, but know that

LIFE IS GOOD AND OUR HEAVENLY FATHER WATCHES OVER ALL.

Mykie had to circle the ring in the brochure and nicknamed the ring the "a lot" ring because we both like it A LOT! (thus all the "a lot"s circling the ring)