Unpacking

The day Russ went back to work, the moving company called and said that they would be bringing our stuff by. Of course they would! Isn't there some force of nature that makes things like that happen? Anyway, I was slightly irritated with the thought of having to hold Allie for 2+ hours so she wouldn't get stepped on. Therefore when the movers showed up 2 hours LATER than when the said they would be there I wasn't in a great mood.

The two moving men that came, where WONDERFUL. They handled our stuff gently, even though they were going up a flight of stairs with it. The would ask me which room I would want things in and they would listen to what I said. The driver who was helping very minimally was very rude to me, and he was the one in charge! He made snide comments to me the whole time about the amount of stuff we had. (Did I mention we had 8,000lbs which is a VERY light load for coming from a duplex?!) He also wouldn't ask where I wanted things, or if he did ask he wouldn't put it there anyways. At the end I asked him for a copy of some of the papers that listed things broken in the move. He said he would give them to me, then never did! That one really made me mad, because I wanted to know what they "thought" they had broken. In the end we sent in a complaint about the guy. We didn't seek out to do this, but ATLAS sent us a survey asking how the driver was. I couldn't lie, I HAD to tell the truth.

Another upside to this experience beside the two polite movers was how FAST they got it done. They had everything unloaded in about 2 -3 hours. How wonderful it felt to have our stuff back with us, even if it was only in boxes!

I fed the girls quickly and then started in on unpacking. Here is one of about twenty boxes this size. This beast comes up above my waist!

This is how much paper came out of it! Again, that is above my waist, and probably about 4 feet wide! I'm glad they used this much paper though. Not ONE of dishes got broke!

Lily was my little stomper. She would get in this HUGE garbage bag and stomp all the paper down so more would fit in. Througout the week, I got a lot of things unpacked. On Thursday I didn't something really stupid. Allie had been crying so I was holding, and I was on the phone with my mom. I didn't have any hands free to move our box of Encyclopedias. I decided to move it with my foot. I KNOW stupid! I ended up straing the muscle in my leg. The next few days I was in a lot of pain if I walked on it.

As far as unpacking goes, we have all the "necessities" unpacked. Our extra bedroom is still packed with boxes of books. We have soooooooo many of them. We are trying to move them out of there, so we can set up our bookshelves and get the books on them. It is real slow progress since Russ gets home at 6:00. He doesn't want to be moving boxes around. He'd rather do things with the family. I can't lift most of the boxes, so they just sit there. We'll get it done someday! We joke that we will get it done just in time to pack them up and move again! :D

Out of everything we've unpacked we haven't found too many broken things. The girls dresser is completely gone. Russ was able to jimmyrig it till we get paid for a new one. One of my side tables that my brother-in-law made for our wedding. This one made me mad because you can tell that they broke the top off, set it back on, then put something REALLY heavy on it and smashed it to smitherines! It isn't like I can go buy a new one of these either! The back of our rocking chair came off because the bolts had been sheered. Hmmm...can't think of anything else...yet!

Nothing to do

Our whole purpose of getting down to Texas mid-March was to have a week to unpack our stuff before Russ had to start work. The company had alluded to us that it would be there around the same time we arrived there. Yeah, that didn't happen. It came later...but that is a different blog entry! :)

We found that without our stuff we had A LOT of time on our hands. We rented a few movies from Redbox....went to a few parks in the area....went to the library to find out we couldn't get a card until we had a piece of mail with our current address on it (GRRRR!)....bummed around the house....went shopping for things we needed....did laundry at the DISGUSTING laundromat at our complex....went on a BUNCH of walks (Like two or three a day!)....etc. Nothing really all that exciting. We couldn't even go to church because we hadn't packed church clothes. I wanted to go anyway, but Russ said no. Hmph!

Sunday afternoon Russ decided that he wanted to go see one of the local beaches. I pulled out the maps and gave him directions on how to get there. I believe the one we picked was called Surfside. It was only about a 10 minute drive. For some reason I didn't realize we were THAT close to the Gulf of Mexico. Maps I had seen before moving here had disillusioned me into thinking that we were AT LEAST 45 min. away. NOPE!

When we got there we parked outside in a parking lot. We thought we had to, but as soon as we walked through the gates we realized that we could have brought the car on the beach. There were a lot of people on the beach with their cars. Since I lived in Utah most of my life, I've never really been to many beaches. I've visited two in December in California, but that is it! This was a new thing for me.

We didn't do a whole lot at the beach. Just walked along it and picked up seashells. There were so many seashells! Russ even commented that there were a lot. Lily had fun finding a "family" of seashells. One momma shell, one daddy shell, an Allie shell, and a Lily shell. She comes up with the funniest things!

Here is the Gulf of Mexico. I love how the camera caught some of the spray coming of the waves. Look into the far away waves to see it.

Lots of birds at this beach. I didn't remember there being so many in California. Also, look how close those houses are to the water! Are they nuts?! Don't they know hurricanes come straight for them? Hmm...guess not!

Look at all the shells! Those aren't rocks, they are almost ALL shells!
I showed Lily that she could use a stick to draw things in the wet sand. This really intrigued her. She loved pulling it along behind her.
My family walking off into the sunset.
Don't leave me! Lily tends to be a slowpoke, and lags behind us. Then she'll get upset when she notices how far behind us she is. She really believes that we are leaving her! What a weirdo!
I wish I could say our adventure ended there, but no, it didn't. On the way home I was reading my book (Twilight Series) and asked Russ if he could find the way home. He said he just needed to take the 288, which should be easy. So, I read. Then I noticed it was getting REALLY dark. It also had been over 30 mins since we left the beach. I asked Russ, where we were. He answered honestly...he wasn't sure.

Of course, we got lost! After looking at street names we figured out that we were in a neighboring city, and that Russ had accidentally taken the 288Bus instead of the 288. OOPS! Another 15 mins later, we were home! I have learned that I LOVE maps since moving down here. I seriously can find ANYWHERE I need to go even though I don't know the area. Who knew I was such a good map reader?! ;)

Flashback Friday

For awhile now I've wanted to do a flashback Friday.  I find it really fun to look back on pictures and see where we have come from.  Since my photo albums are still in boxes I thought I would start with the oldest digital pictures I have from around today's date.

 March 25, 2007

Random shot of Lily after church.  She's all flushed because she had just been WWF wrestling with daddy.

The MOVE: part 5 -- Texas

Day 4
States traveled through: Texas
Miles traveled: 305 = approx. 5 hours
Ending destination: Home, Lake Jackson, Texas

This was the day that we realized exactly how BIG Texas really is. We had traveled most of our day in Texas the day before. Now today, we were going to travel ANOTHER five hours until we made it to our destination of Lake Jackson. This day was also the day that we discovered Allie's two teeth on top had broken through. Yeah, it didn't help her feel better. In fact I think it made her feel WORSE!

As usual we got up early. We had chosen to do this because our girls our better travelers in the morning than late at night. We had breakfast at the Comfort Inn, which I was not particularly impressed with. They really didn't have much food the girls could eat. No fruit, no cereal, no bread. We made do with what they had and headed out. Other than the very nice pool, our hotel was awful. Dirty, old, etc. We don't think we will be staying at a Comfort Inn again!

Off we went travelling again. By this time Lily was done with travelling. She watched more DVD's but it took a little convincing. Also, this was the day she got into trouble. Lily sits behind the passenger seat, so I can't see her when we are driving. Russ can see her if he flips the mirror, but he tries not to because then he can't see out the back window. So we basically ignore her unless she is creating a fuss. Well, this particular day she was quite watching her movie. About 30 mins into her second DVD we hear, "Uh-oh, there is marker on my eye."

Me:
"No honey, you don't have a birthmark" (She likes to say that she has marker on her eyse so she can be like Allie with a birthmark on her eye).

Lily:"It's ALL OVER my face, mommy"

Me:"What?!"

Of course I turned around and was not happy with what I saw. A dear friend had given Lily a going away present of a Crayon Roll. The crayons were the new "washable" kind. Little did I know, and I am sure my friend didn't know either, but those crayons go onto skin VERY easily. Lily of course had colored ALL OVER her face, hands, arms, legs, and feet. GRRRR!!!

Let me tell you how FUN it was rubbing that stuff off of her with a wipee at lunch time. Her poor little skin was rashy afterwards. She learned a good lesson though! Lunch was short again. We figured the faster we ate the faster we could get to our destinaton. Oh, and by the way. Texas has some REALLY nice rest stops.

After lunch, it was just a short drive to Lake Jackson! We pulled in around 2:00 and got our keys. We were so excited to be out of the car and into our new home! Yipee! We bummed around our apartment for the rest of the day, only going outside to find a restaurant to go to for dinner. NEVER eat at a chain called Ryan's. Yuck!

The MOVE: part 4 -- New Mexico to Texas

Day 3
States traveled through: New Mexico and Texas
Miles traveled: 531 = approx. 7 hours
Ending destination: Comfort Inn, Kerrville, Texas

Ugh! Another early morning. By this time we were getting tired of being in a car. Lily was still doing great though because she got to watch movies all day! Thank goodness for that DVD player! Allie was done. Every time we put her in her carseat she cried. Poor thing.

We traveled about an hour when we entered Texas. They had an awesome "Welcome to Texas" sign by the highway. Do you think Russ would pull over?! Nope. He missed the place to pull over because he was going too fast. Oh well, I am sure we will make this drive again in the future, so I will get pictures then.

Our scenery very slowly started to change. Instead of plateaus, there were a bunch of green grassy rolling hills. However, around lunch time things started to flatten out. We pulled over at a rest stop and had sandwiches...again. I ALMOST got as tired of sandwiches as I did fast food. It was SUPER windy that day. I had to hold everything down including Allie so it wouldn't get blown away. Our lunch was short with no play time for the kids. Back onto the rode we went.

We pulled into Kerrville around 5:00. Unloaded all our stuff AGAIN, then headed out for dinner. We dined high class this night at....McDONALD'S. Blah! I couldn't eat much. Again after dinner we headed to the pool at the hotel. This pool was a little nerve racking because it had HUGE glass windows for one wall. The other side of those windows was the lobby. So anyone in the lobby could stare at us as we swam. There was on terrific thing about this pool though. IT WAS HEATED! It felt slighter cooler than a hot tub, which was pure heaven! We were getting sore from sitting all day, so the warm water was relaxing. Allie enjoyed herself much more when her teeth weren't chattering. Lily and Russ are fish so they were just enjoying the water. I finally remembered to snap a few pictures of us at this pool. (Ummm...pardon the funky eye on Allie. My photo editing program keeps picking her birthmark as a red eye, so I have to do it manually. For some weird reason it is turning her eye silver. Anyone know how to fix that?!)

Lily, Mommy, and Allie
Oh, yes I am enjoying myself now!
Allie, Russ, and Lily
That night we all slept peacefully because of our LONG bout of swimming.

The "MOVE": part 3 -- From Colorado to New Mexico

Day 2
States traveled through: Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico
Miles traveled: 529 = approx. 8 hours 8 min
Ending destination: Holiday Inn Express, Las Cruces, New Mexico


We got up early again this day and went down to the lobby for breakfast. I loved that they served breakfast at all our hotels. That meant one less food item I had to squish into our car. (Did I mention our car was STUFFED?! Every spare inch was full. Lily even had to keep her legs straight out instead of hanging down because I had packed a bunch of stuff where her legs would go.) We were on the road around 8:00 which was good, because this was going to be our LONGEST day of travel. Eight hours....YIKES!

We traveled along for about 45 mins when we came to the 4 corners area. We had purposely planned on making this little detour. We wanted to at least get something good out of this road trip. We pulled up and realized that we had to pay money to get in. What?! We have to pay to go stand in four corners of land? We coughed up the money and proceeded into the parking lot. We had to wait about 20 minutes for a group of people to finish square dancing on the area. Poor Lily kept asking if she could get in the car because she was "freezing". It was a little chilly, and of course there coats were buried somewhere in the car. Once the people stopped we ran up and took our photos.

Russ, Lily, and Allie at four corners
Jewelle, Lily, and Allie at four corners.

We noticed that there were a bunch of shops by the parking lot. We went and took a look. Most of the booths were jewelery made by Navajo people. A few had pipes, rugs, and other things. We bought Lily and Allie both a bracelet. I'm glad we chose to buy it from the guy we did. He just sat there while we looked over them. All the other sellers were so out spoken. Giving sales pitch after sales pitch. This guy just seemed content in getting whatever business came his way.

Once in the car Russ insisted we drive around the parking lot so we could say that we went through four states that day while driving. His thinking really cracks me up! After the brief stop we entered New Mexico. Everyone said this would be the worst part of our trip because it would be all desert, but I disagree. I really enjoyed looking at all the plateaus. I tried to get a few pictures, but since Russ wouldn't stop again they turned out blurry. None of them were even worth keeping.

For lunch we ate in a McDonald's parking lot then we went inside and go some ice cream so Lily could go play on the slides. We knew she needed to get some of those wiggles out of her or else it would make the next 5 hours of driving miserable. I wish we hadn't stopped though. This McDonald's didn't prop open the door to their playplace so the inside STUNK of sweat. Too many sweaty little kid bodies in one place.

We drug Lily away from the playplace, and started five more hours of our drive. We stopped about an hour out of Las Cruces and ate dinner at Denny's. Russ had a craving for the same dinner as the night before. I really didn't care so there we were again! A dinner and a short trip later we arrived at our HUGE hotel some time around 7:30. I think the hotel was 5 stories, and tons of rooms on each floor. I had never seen a hotel this big before. We stashed our stuff in our room and jumped into our swimsuits.

The pool was basically empty this time, which was nice for us. However, the "heated" pool was FREEZING. Allie started shivering as soon as we got in. She kept giving me this pitiful looks as I held her. Much to Russ's dissapointment I made him everyone troop back to the room after a short time. More TV was watched, more books were read, and of course an early bedtime was enforced.

The MOVE: part 2 -- Utah to Colorado

Thursday was spent with my family. Mom took the day off to spend with the girls. I was really expecting her to be a little more emotional than she was, but I think she was trying to be supportive. She knew how hard this was going to be for me and didn't want to make it worse. That morning I helped her get a digital picture frame loaded with all of her pictures from the past few years. She was excited because now she could see my family and also my brother, even though we live far away.

We also went and visited Grandma Price. Lily thinks the world of Deenie. She loves that grandma always has candy for her, and some toy cars to play with. We couldn't stay too long because Allie was cranky and we didn't want it to bother grandma. Before leaving we had to get a few pictures of all of us. When I saw how these turned out I was a little sad. Grandma just doesn't look good. She has progressively getting worse since grandpa died back in 2007. I worry that I won't make it back to see grandma again.

Deenie, Allie, and Lily

Four generations!
After visiting grandma we went home to see Papa Joe. Lily loves being around Papa. She always is asking for him. I think that is because she doesn't truly understand why he is gone so much! He goes to work early in the morning and gets home just a little bit before my mom. Tyler also came over since he was done with school.

While the movers were packing our house, Russ and I taught Lily to play Old Maid. My mom was so excited to hear this because it is her favorite game. She couldn't resist playing a game with the grandkids.

We of course had to take some pictures of the kids with the grandparents and cousins too.

Grandma Lala, Allie, and Lily

Papa Joe, Grandma Lala, Allie, and Lily
Tyler, Lily, and Allie

Mom and dad then took all of us out eat. Ken and Becky met us at the Hub, and mom and dad picked up Deenie. We had such a good time laughing, and cracking jokes. At one point in time my mom got really giddy. I can't remember what she had said was so funny, but we were all busting a gut.

Tyler had seen that we had packed our Wii in our car instead of sending it with the movers. He BEGGED to play it for a little while. Russ decided it might be fun for the whole family to play, so he set it up after dinner. Tyler and Lily played MarioKart, bowling, and boxing for awhile. Then Lily turned around and said, "Grandma, your turn!"

She lovingly strapped the remote on my mom and showed her how to "punch" as she calls boxing. Mom was a good sport and took a "jab" at it!

I love watching my mom play video games. She gets into it so much! She had no idea I was filming this!

Of course mom was a ROCKSTAR at the boxing. Lily decided Papa Joe needed to try too! He resisted a little, but gave in to our convincing.

Dad doesn't get into it as much as mom, but still is fun watching him!

After game time it was time for goodbyes. I felt bad when Lily gave Tyler a hug. She looks up to him soooo much. She calls him her "best friend". I feel bad for taking away Tyler's only cousins, even if they are girls. Bedtime was early because we wanted to be out of the house around 8:00.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Day 1
States travelled through: Utah, Colorado
Miles traveled: 332 = approx. 6 hours 20 min
Ending destination: Holiday Inn Express, Cortez, Colorado

We managed to get up on time and leave around 8:00. Before leaving we said goodbye to my mom. I tried to keep it light and happy so she didn't have a miserable day at work. She told me later that she cried all day :( We had decided to take this road trip a little slow for Allie's sake. That many hours in a carseat was pure torture for her.

We headed southeast to Moab. I had never been to this part Utah, so along with Russ I was in awe by the scenery. Russ wouldn't pull over very often to take pictures because he said there wasn't a place to! Grumble, grumble...it wasn't like there was anyone behind us! I did manage to get a picture of this arch though. It had a name, but it escapes me.

Around noon we pulled into Monticello. I thought I remembered there being a temple in the city so we looked around. First street we pulled onto we spotted it. There was a church building that shared the parking lot, so we pulled out a blanket and ate on the grass. We had packed sandwiches for all of our lunches along the way. We figured we could save money AND not have to eat fast food for every meal. Turns out most days Russ and I just skipped lunch. We did get a few stares from people coming out of the temple, but I didn't care. I bet they were just wondering if we were LDS or not. Oh, and it was REALLY warm so we weren't cold sitting outside.

This temple was soooo tiny. It really couldn't be bigger than most stake centers. Upon talking with my mom we remembered that at one time it had been an old church tabernacle. They then converted it to a temple maybe ten years ago. It was beautiful though. It was made out of sandstone....maybe....it was a brown rock. Not what you usually see on a temple. I wanted to snap some pictures, which my family humored me!

The sign out front

The templeThere really wasn't anyone around to take our picture, so I took one with Russ and the kids, then he took one with me.

After the temple we traveled over the border into Colorado. There were a lot of small towns with varying speed limits. Lets just say we had a problem in one of those towns :( After that "short" stop we got going again and made it to Cortez early. Before dinner time is all I can remember. Maybe 4:00?! We checked in and went swimming in the indoor heated pool. I use that term very loosely because the dang thing was not that warm. Lily enjoyed getting in the hot tub with me. We would get in for about two minutes, then go get in the pool. Russ was trying to entertain Allie who had never been in a swimming pool before. She did okay, but she let us know VERY LOUDLY when she was done.

After swimming we drove to Wal-Mart to pick up a few essentials...conditioner, New Moon (yeah, I finally started the Twilight series, and read about 3/4 a book a day!), and a Colorado spoon. We then went to Denny's. They had some really good food which wasn't too fast foody. By this time the girls were exhausted. We went back to the hotel, watched some TV, read a little and went to bed!

We interupt our moving posts for....

A few days before we moved, my Visiting Teacher Marci, called me to tell me that Lily had been invited to a Princess Party. The Beehives of our ward (whom Marci was an adviser for) was going to be hosting a Princess Party for all the Sunbeam and Star girls in the ward. It was going to be on Tuesday the 17th. I told Marci that Lily would be there. In my head I was thinking that this would help her handle the move a little better. Something to take her mind of the fact that ALL her stuff was GONE! Three year olds just don't understand where things go when you say, "They are in Texas" Trust me, I know, because I told her about 1000 times before our stuff did make it to Texas. I am glad we took Lily to this because she had a blast! (Thanks Marci, Katie, and Beehives!)

Even though I was told that I could just drop Lily off at the party I stayed. I wanted some pictures of her having fun with some of her church friends. I did learn one thing from staying...I NEED to buy her a princess dress. LOL!

The girls making their tiaras. Lily took about 30 minutes coloring hers. She was the last one done...as usual!

Princess cake walk

This is YUMMY!

The girls all got to color a castle and take pictures by it. Why didn't I bend down when taking this picture?!

Since Lily had taken sooooo long on doing her tiara, the girl who was painting fingernails had packed up all her stuff. She was sweet enough to get it ALL back out for Lily.

Lily chose about four different colors for her fingernails.

I can't tell you how excited she was to tell her daddy about all the fun stuff she did. She just kept repeting herself over and over. I think this might be something I have to do with her again!

The "MOVE": part 1 -- From Idaho to Utah

(Just so you know, I don't know how many parts there will be to this. Hopefully not too many!)

Bright and early on Monday the 16th our move began. The movers came with tons of boxes and went to work. There were three movers there. Even though they fit the "typical" stereotype of movers, I thought they were very polite. They dealt with Lily asking them a million times, "what you doing", in a very nice way. They were never mean to her. Also, as I watched them pack, I noticed they were fairly careful with our stuff. They were also FAST! By 5:00 that night our house was completely in boxes. That night the girls slept in our room on the floor. Russ and I were able to sleep on our bed even though it didn't have any bedding. Sadly, that was also the night that our Fast Food diet started. Yuck! I love fast food, but seriously how many meals in row can you go with out having something else?!

Our neighbor also came over that night and apologized to us. She apologized for being so loud. Loud = fighting with boyfriend. We assured it was fine, and mentioned our own apologies for the baby crying so much at night. She just laughed and said she never heard it. I'm glad we could end on a good note with our neighbor.

Tuesday morning the movers showed up. Again there were three of them. One guy was the same the other two were different. One guy stayed in the truck most of the time, organizing what the other two men brought him. This was the truck they brought to put our stuff in. It was bigger than a Uhaul, but smaller than an 18-wheeler.
Our dinning room was the area where all the boxes were stashed. (Pardon the blurry picture, Russ took it!)
Lily and Allie wanted a picture with the boxes in their room.
Who knew we had so many boxes of "stuff" in our bedroom?!
The movers were so FAST! They got everything packed into the truck by 10:30. It was kinda sad watching our stuff drive away, hoping it would make it to our home in Texas safely.

While the movers had been moving things out of our house, we noticed our neighbors front door would keep popping open. The movers would close it and then go on their merry way. Russ decided to go close it one time it had popped open. He came back and told me to come look at the door. The door molding was completely demolished. Someone had obviously broke into the house. Scary!

After the mover had done their thing and left, the real fun began! CLEANING! Okay, so I was kidding on the fun thing. Have you ever tried to keep a 8 month old who just learned how to crawl out of the cleaning supplies?! Near impossible! Also, have you ever tried to get a 50 year old house clean?! Absolutely impossible! We scrubbed and cleaned until about 1:00 in the morning. We were really up that late because we were shampooing the floors. Most of the real cleaning was done by 7:00.

For dinner we had to go out and get fast food again. So we were bundling the girls up in their coats and stuff when we heard LOUD shouting. I mean REALLY loud! Quite a few swear words were being thrown around, a lot of I'm going to call the cops, a lot of loud bangs, and then one LOUD bang and a shattering crash. We looked out our window just in time to see our next door neighbor come out the door yelling, "Get back here, you broke my door, and stole my stuff!" All I could think was "Oh please! Can we move any faster?! I WANT to get away from this nightmare!" (This wasn't the first fight we had heard coming from them)

Since we were going to be up late making a lot of noise we went to apologize again to the neighbor lady. We walked into the hallway to knock on her door, but didn't have to. Her, her brother, and his friend were tearing the door jamb apart. Apparently they were trying to fix it, and get a new lock on the door. Our neighbor proceeded to tell us that her scary boyfriend mentioned above had broken in while she was at work. Can I tell you just how glad I am that I am moving?!

One sad note about Tuesday was that it was St. Patrick's day. We didn't even realize it until we had gone to Sonic's for lunch. They had a bunch of green balloons tied everywhere. It took a moment for us to realize the purpose. I was kinda sad that I didn't get to do anything with the kids to celebrate. We didn't even where green! *sigh* maybe next year!

Wednesday morning we were up early again. We hurriedly finished cleaning the house and met with our landlord to do a walk through of the house. She said it looked good and wrote us out a check for our FULL deposit. (I must add though that the check bounced. We called her up and she got us a new check which cleared. Phew!) We also felt compelled to let her know that some damage had been happening to the apartments because of the boyfriend. We had found out someone had tried to break in the laundry room window by slicing the screen with a knife. To bad the window has a lock on it!

After tying up a few loose ends we said goodbye to Idaho Falls for last time and started our trek down I-15. We stopped in Bountiful and had a great chat with Tawni (Russ's sister) and some of her kids. We missed seeing Rob but he couldn't get of work any sooner than he did. I'm going to miss seeing Tawni. She always amazes me how smoothly her house runs with so much going on. She is an extraordinary mother, and someone I enjoy talking to. Rob will be missed as well, he always made us feel comfortable in his home. We always knew that we could stop in whenever, and it would be okay.

We hopped back in the car and zoomed further down I-15 to Cori's house. Cori, Jake, their kids, Wes, and Sarah were all gathered there to see us. We had some awesome homemade pizza while the kids played and the adults talked. Can't get any better than that can it?! Again I am going to miss having those two sister-in-laws so close by. I enjoyed what little time we got to spend together. They motivate me to be more religouse. These two woman are so strong in the gosple. Wes and Jake are awesome too. With those two around you NEVER have a boring conversation. They talk about some of the randomest things!

After reluctantly saying goodbye, we headed up the canyon to stay the night at my parents home. Mom and dad got to play a little bit with Lily and Allie before they fell asleep.

Allie has a gift....

Allie has a gift.... for balancing Mac n Cheese on her nose for ten minutes, while eating at the same time. Allie got this noodle up on her nose with her first fist full of mac n cheese. Ten minutes later when she finished eating it was still there. Russ, Lily, and I were laughing our heads off at it. Poor Allie just kept looking at each of us wondering why were being so silly!

Quick Trip to Texas: day 4,5,6

Saturday morning we decided to go investigate Lake Jackson a little bit. Since we were living there we thought it might be a good idea to get acquainted with the area. Our first stop was to find our church. I looked at the map and found the road that we needed to go to. Russ started down it, and we saw some AMAZING houses. HUGE houses! After seeing all these houses we realized we were on the wrong road. I had read the map wrong! OOPS!

We then found where we were supposed to be headed. We found our church with no problem! It is really close to our apartment. Like a five minute drive! SCORE! We saw some signs on the doors, so Russ went to investigate. He came back with some very interesting/exciting news. I'll tell you about it later in the post though!

By this time Lily and Allie needed some time outside of the car. So, we headed to the library. I've come to realize that living in Idaho Falls has totally spoiled us. Our library here is AMAZING! The one in Lake Jackson?! Well, it is nice. The children section in REALLY small. They do have some fun puzzles, puppet show equipment, and a small reading area. While Lily was running around getting acquainted with the library, we met a lady who was there with her daughter. Before I tell you about her let me remind you of something. Texans are friendly, VERY friendly. This lady started telling us off different places and things to see. All VERY helpful. Then she asked me if I was a SAHM. I said yes. She proceeded to go into detail about how I should join this Presbyterian playgroup. It was the "best" around, but I had to be a member of the church. I gently declined. But she kept coming back to it. I was getting a little nervous by this time, so I decided it was time for us to go. I politely said goodbye to her. She told me how to get ahold of her at work so she could show me around town. Again I thanked her, then she dropped the bomb. Here is what she said,"Now when you get here I will set you up an appointment with my gynecologist. He is the best around!" By that time I literally fled the area, cursing Russell that he had left me alone. Being friendly is great, but seriously who says things about their gynecologist to a stranger?! Russ just laughed when I told him.

We scrounged up some food at the local Taco Bell, then headed back to our hotel. We all rested for a little while, and watched more TV. Isn't cable wonderful?

Actually we forced Lily to watch a movie so we could watch TV

Allie didn't want to sit still, so we let her roam around on the floor. Eventually we got down on the floor and worked with her on crawling. She surprised us greatly and started to crawl! As of Feb 28th, my baby is a crawler. She was so pleased with herself you can tell in the photos.

She's a cutie huh?!

After some much needed rest we headed over to the Stake Center in Bay City. We had found out earlier that day that by reading the sign at our church that it was Stake Conference this weekend. They were having a dinner at the stake center in between priesthood session and adult session. We thought it would be a good idea to go over and see if we could find the Bishopric from our ward. That way we could get some phone #'s in case we needed help once we get to Texas. We met some wonderful people there. We met our bishop, the couple missionaries (who are from Utah), a lady my age that lives in our SAME complex, the Elders quorum president, and other members of our ward/stake. They were all so welcoming and talked quite a bit with us. Getting to know some of them, helped to relax me about the move. While talking to some other people in the stake, I looked over at a lady there. Then I did a double take. We both looked at each other then went to talk to each other. It was Elise from my ElEd classes! We had taken MANY classes together and had become pretty good friends. When we both graduated we lost touch. It was nice to see a familiar face. She isn't in our ward, but she is in our stake.

We were invited to stay for dinner but graciously bowed out. The thing was, children weren't invited to this. No one said anything about it, but I felt a little awkward. Anyway, we had been saving this last night to go out to a "nicer" place for dinner. We went to Chili's, but I wish we hadn't. The girls were tired and cranky. We also had had a late lunch, as so we weren't really happy. We hardly touched our dinners. But the chips and salsa were superb. That was the whole reason why I made Russ go there. The have these really thin chips that are to die for!

We came back to the hotel and gave the girls a bath. They hadn't had one for awhile and were in desperate need of one. The funniest thing happened while they were in there. All got up on all fours, twisted herself around, and plopped onto Lily's lap. Lily was soo surprised she started laughing, which started Allie laughing. Those two didn't stop laughing until they got out of the tub. Here is a picture of them right after Allie plunked herself down.
We packed up all our suitcases, and then we went to bed early because we needed to be up at 5:00 to get to the airport on time. We made it there with plenty of time to spare. This time we tried to be smart and ask the security people who we needed to show the baby food too. Ya know how they say "special items" over 3 oz can be taken on the plane. The security guard gave us this inquisitive look and just said, "Put it in your bag, it is exempt from the rule"

What?! Why did I have to have it "tested" at SLC airport. I guess every place is different! Since we were so early I took Lily for a walk around the WHOLE airport. She had a lot of fun. She saw baggage getting loaded, an airplane take off, and another airplane pull in. Quite exciting stuff for a three year old. We also checked out ALL the stores in the terminal. She begged for a pink/black cowboy hat, but I wasn't about to pay $25.00 for one!

We boarded the plane with no problem. We flew to Phoenix for a connecting flight. That flight was pretty bumpy because of turbulence. Lily just laughed every time we hit a bump. While at the Phoenix airport I took some pictures of us on the plane. I was in a huge hurry, because I didn't know when more passengers would be getting on. I guess I was in too big of a hurry because a lot of them turned out blurry :(

Allie in her own seat! Yeah right! She was totally a lap sitter. We weren't paying money for her to have her own seat when she could sit on our lap for free!

Lily wanted a picture with her seat belt on.

My two seasoned fliers!

Lily had to have ANOTHER picture taken WITHOUT the seat belt.

Did I mention that cow was a great flier too?! He never wandered off, and he ALWAYS sat down in his seat!

"One more picture with mommy please!"

After the people in Phoenix started loading I looked up and saw someone I recognized. My gynecologist! What?! So weird! I slunk down in my seat and tried to not be noticed. He didn't recognize me, thank goodness! (Oh, BTW he had only treated me twice during my two pregnancies. Who would expect him to recognize me?!)

The rest of flight was uneventful. We made it to SLC, picked up our car, and drove to my sister's home. We had a nice dinner there, spent the night at my parents house, and then drove home the next day. This whole thing was so fast, and unreal.