When I learned that today we would be having our mediation appointment to try and work out our dispute with our previous apartment landlord I became so nervous about it. JJ said that we were not going to bring the kids but we called about 7 people and we had no luck finding a baby-sitter so we fed them a lot for lunch, packed colouring books, crayons and toys and took them with us. We sat them down and told them that we were going to a meeting and they had to be very quiet and play toys and colour like they are at church. During the beginning of the meeting Rebekah and Sariah began to fight over crayons but I just took Bekah, threw a blanket over us and nursed her...one of the few times that JJ is happy that Rebekah still nurses :) …  and she stayed quiet the whole time and Sariah coloured and played with her Fisher Price Noah’s Ark animals.

I’ll be honest and say that I was really upset with the apartment managers and I was not looking for a ‘compromise’ but waiting in the waiting area of the BYU Mediation Office did soften my heart as there was a board with a picture of Christ and several scriptures with words such as “love those who despitefully use you” and “those who are full of contention are not of me”. JJ joked that they should have the “eye for an eye” old testament type scriptures up.

Because of Legal issues I can’t talk about what was said in the meeting but I will say that we are very happy with the outcome. We received the amount of money that we felt we were entitled to. Before we left the mediator told us that he felt that things went well because JJ and I were calm and just stated the facts and were not confrontational. He said that most people come to the mediation ready for a fight and nothing gets worked out. So moral of the story if you want justice don’t be confrontational :)