Paint projects

On my before we leave to do list was to pick up some painted pottery projects.
We started these at the beginning of February. I thought it would be a great platter/gift for my mom's birthday (also in Feb.)
Unfortunately, I'm really a slow painter and it took about 4 sessions, and I just picked it up today. Happy belated b'day mom!

Here are the kid's masterpieces!

Back home

We are back home now, and really digging into the packing.  Argh... so not loving that.
I spent the entire day from 6:00 am - 1:00 am scanning music and getting wedding stuff ready for the month of July.  The good news is - all of my musicians have their music for the whole month, their checks will be sent out right after their gigs, and I found the sub that I was desperately, frantically seeking.  Phew.
My music is now all packed.  My closet is 95% finished, the study 65% finished, the bathrooms 97% finished (they just need to be cleaned), and we are making headway.

Tomorrow is the big packing day.  Moving trucks will show up at the end of the week.  Carpeting will be put in, and we will finish cleaning our home, and say goodbye.

By the way.  We did find a house...I forgot to finish my story.
We LOVED one of the houses we looked at.  It had a pool, a screened patio, garden space, and an AMAZING kitchen.  The other house was nice too, but it didn't have any of those things.  But it is in a neighborhood with some pretty amazing neighbors, and lots of kids.  And 1.4 miles from my husband's work, and .25 miles from the church.

We really prayed and struggled trying to decide which house we should rent.  While our first choice was the one with the pool and the amazing kitchen...when we prayed about it, we both felt inspired that we should choose the other home.  Guess I'm still working on trusting in the Lord, because that definitely wasn't my pick.  But, as we've continued to pray about other things concerning this move (and that house), I keep getting the answer that everything will work out, and that we just need to put our faith and trust in Heavenly Father and the answers that we've received.

Since it was pretty much a miracle that we found something to rent (2 homes actually - both of which weren't even listed), we are very grateful for the divine intervention that we've seen all along this journey.

Siblings

After the funeral services and a great lunch with all of Grandpa Carl's descendents, we headed over to my parent's house to say goodbye to my siblings and their families as well.

Out of seven kids, I got to see all but one of them - that's pretty good odds - especially as 4 of us live out of state!
With my younger brother


We missed my other sister - she had to go to work before we thought of getting the camera out.
While it was a little wild and crazy, here are the rest of them/us.
(For the record - I am not showing off my guns....we have a family portrait from when we were younger, and my brother was visibly pinching me...I was just going for paybacks)

My grandparents

Little silly pants - wearing her uncle's super silly glasses.

Destination

Just before we headed out to hunt for a home, we received the news that my husband's grandfather had passed away.
He lived a very full life and had just celebrated his 95th birthday.
He loved cookies.
Really loved them.
He was a precision machinist, a rock collector, polisher, and jewelry maker.
He was a wonderful man.
I'm so grateful for the legacy he carried on to his children, thus blessing my husband and our family.

Grandpa Carl

The great grandchildren were asked to sing at the funeral - they sang The Family is of God.
It's lyrics are:
1. Our Father has a family.
It’s me!It’s you, all others too: we are His children.
He sent each one of us to earth, through birth,
To live and learn here in fam’lies.
[Chorus]
God gave us families to help us become what He wants us to be—
This is how He shares His love, for the fam’ly is of God.

2. A father’s place is to preside, provide,
To love and teach the gospel to his children.
A father leads in fam’ly prayer to share
Their love for Father in Heaven.
[Chorus]
3. A mother’s purpose is to care, prepare,
To nurture and to strengthen all her children.
She teaches children to obey, to pray,
To love and serve in the fam’ly.
[Chorus]
4. I’ll love and serve my family and be
A good example to each fam’ly member.
And when I am a mom or dad, so glad,
I’ll help my fam’ly remember:
God gave us families to help us become what He wants us to be—
This is how He shares His love,
for the fam’ly is of God.

by Matthew Neely





While we are sad to see grandpa go, we know how much he has missed Grandma Edla for the past year and a half, and we are so happy that they could be re-united once again.
We love and will miss you grandpa!

1. 
   

Traveling 2

After 3 flights the next day, we got home. Stopped in and the girls said hello to the cat, my husband grabbed his jacket, and we headed out again. This time for a 6.5 hour drive. Yeah - we are seriously crazy!...we'd been up since 3:00 am
We saw lots of this:

And then were gifted some amazing sunsets as we drove west to our destination.

Travel, Travel, Travel

We got home from the gymnastics meet around 12:00 am.
The next morning, we had a flight that left at 6:28 am. Here are the girls on their second super early morning. We had to be out the door by 5:15 again!


Just as we were fixing to take off....

This is the part where I talk about blessings.
As we've begun this whole new adventure, we have been immensely blessed.
It started out with months and months of my searching for and applying for jobs for my husband.
We went to South Carolina and he interviewed for a job which they offered to him. After the interview, my husband and I went to the temple, and as we prayed about that job, it just didn't feel right, or peaceful. As we prayed about it, we just didn't feel like this would be the right job for him, and the right place for our family.

The next week he interviewed for a job in Florida. From the very first phone call, this one just felt better.
After my husband interviewed, we fasted and prayed together as a family to know if he should accept the job if it was offered.
This experience has really provided some growth for our family - this is the first real family fast we've done together, and since it affects us all, it has been pretty important. As we talked about our impressions, and feelings after we'd fasted together, we all felt excited and peaceful about the decision.
When they offered the job, after some negotiation, we said yes.

I began spending hours online searching for housing.
Apparently, the majority of the homes in Florida for sale, are short sales or forclosures. As such, it takes on average 3-6 months to purchase a home. I stopped focusing on homes for sale, and started looking for rentals. Those options were pretty bleak. We had such a narrow list of homes to choose from. What to do?

As we traveled to Florida to house hunt, we started with a prayer as a family, and continued to ask for guidance and direction - asking for Heavenly Father's hellp in guiding us to a home that would be a good fit for our family, and possibly be an answer to someone else's prayers as well.
After 2 flights, we arrived Saturday afternoon.
We were welcomed with a deluge. A little on the scary side, but luckily my husband was driving :)
We drove around for a while. Then collapsed back at the hotel.

On Sunday, we headed to church.
Everyone was so excited to meet us. I'd made a few phone calls in the previous weeks, trying to find out about gymnastics, piano, schools etc. and talked to a few of the ladies, seeking their recommendations. Apparently, news of our coming had spread. We sat down and were immediately asked if we were the new family moving into town. Yep - that's us!

Someone had mentioned that some of the ward members were moving away, and we were introduced.
That afternoon, we stopped by their houses, and drove around the area trying to get a little more acquainted with everything.

We were appreciative of the Bishop inviting our family to dinner that evening...he rescued us from a night of frozen meat pies and pb&j.

We met with a realtor bright and early Monday morning, and spent most of the day driving around with her and viewing rental homes.
We saw so many different houses, but ultimately realized that we liked the first 2 (the church member's homes) the best.

After lunch, we grabbed our stuff and headed out to find a beach, and some fun. Enough with the houses.
Several people had recommeded a beach that let you drive right down almost to the water. We were amazed.
While it started to rain when we rolled into town, I LOVE tropical rain because it is always so WARM. Mmmmm
We splashed in the waves, and played in the ocean - it was really almost perfect. And then we started seeing lightening, and decided maybe we should get out and head back to the hotel.

We couldn't believe that the beach had driving lanes - all the way down to the water! So wild - but so nice because you don't have to haul all of your stuff for miles and miles!

State Gymnastics Meet

This past 2 weeks has been a complete whirlwind.
Last week, we traveled to a state gymnastics meet.
Our youngest daughter competed first - at 8:00 am. That meant we left our home around 5:15 am. Quite the feat for our little girls.
Here's the team with the coach just before it started


While this was our youngest daughter's second meet ever, she made some great progress from last time.
She took second place overall in her age group for the vault.
Pretty amazing!

The meet got over around 12:30, and so we went to lunch, found a place to nap for a little bit, and did some quick shopping for some books my husband needed.

At 5:00 we were ready to start again, but this time with our oldest daughter.

She received 8th overall for her vault.
While she had hoped to score a little better, we were pretty thrilled that she did so well for her first state meet!

Day 6 & 7

So I took a trip downstairs to inspect my freezer.
Day # 6 - I found a ziplock bag of chicken noodle soup with homemade noodles.  It was perfect - it thawed and re-heated in the crock pot while we were at gymnastics.  A friend brought by some amazing cajun chicken and rice.  My husband had it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  I'll be getting that recipe before I leave.  Thanks Anna!

Day #7 - Overnight - I thawed a spiral ham that I found in the recesses of my freezer.  Steamed some carrots, threw together a salad and some fresh fruit.  For dessert, I used a pie crust I had in my fridge, as well as some cream cheese that needed to be used up, and fresh strawberries to make a strawberry pie.  I'll be posting that recipe.

I realized that I'm just not sure how long this will last.  I've got some friends coming over tomorrow to help me start boxing up my food storage.  Kind of tough to live off of, it if is all boxed!  

Chronicles of the move part 1

This morning I decided that I will keep sane during this move.
I know I won't have very much time, but I want to be able to look back at this.

Last week, we came home from our family reunion realizing that the next project on the list is THE MOVE.  My brothers in law came by and helped us move a mammoth couch from upstairs, and a couple of tables.  We unloaded some food storage, snowshoes (so sad to say goodbye to those babies), coats, boots, sleds, all sorts of stuff on our family members as they headed out of town.

And then I got sort of side tracked.  We started pulling stuff out, and found the pile that we started last summer of things we wanted to sale at a garage sale.

We decided (I being the operative part of we) to have a garage sale.

I began boxing up my recipe books, and Thursday morning I got a call from someone wanting to see our house to potentially rent it.  I sped cleaned (cleaned probably isn't a correct adjective, but you get the idea) and was then completely exhausted and overwhelmed afterwards.  A painter also showed up at the same time to give me a bid for painting some of our rooms.  After feeling overwhelmed, I spent the afternoon, and part of the morning on Friday searching for housing in Florida.

We headed down to Lowes Thursday evening and picked up new blinds for the front room.
They cut them too short.  We got home and put them up, and they were 1/2 inch too short.  Bummer.

On Friday I got the girls to work with me and we boxed up 4.5 of the bookshelves downstairs.  We still have 2+ to go, but we got a lot done.  14 boxes down.  That's something to feel good about.

On Friday night we pulled out lots and lots of stuff from the attic.  The stuff we've been saving for 7-9 years...and not exactly sure why.  I had a tough time sleeping Friday night - especially knowing that I had to get up early.

Up at 5:45 Saturday to start pulling everything for the yard/garage sale out.
My girlfriend showed up at 6:20, and by 7:30 we were rocking and rolling.
It was a total blessing that I speak spanish, and I know how to barter.  :)

At 10:00 the girls opened a lemonade stand.
We had a very steady stream from 7:30 - 11:30.  So steady I didn't have a chance to get breakfast (kids had to forage), go to the bathroom, or put sunscreen on.  I got FRIED.

By 11:30 the cars stopped lining up, and we were left with a lot less than we started with, and my pants kept slipping down due to the weight of quarters in my pockets.

Meanwhile, my husband was prepping and painting the upstairs loft.  My girlfriend's husband is a painter, and he was drawn by the smell of paint, and helped my husband out a little bit.

We still had all of the big furniture (mammoth couch), chairs, desks, dressers, and some sundry books, clothes etc. We loaded it into our friend's van, and 5 trips later, the driveway was free except for the mammoth couch.  My husband made his famous tuna sandwiches and we all sat out on the couch at the end of the driveway resting and chatting.  We weren't sure what to do with the couch.

Our friends left, and I began cleaning the kitchen and front room while my husband finished up the second coat of paint.  We then decided to head back to Lowes to resolve the blind issue.  There we met my cousin who had come to the area for a hike with his family.  We had dinner together, and then we headed back home to collapse.

Only Sunday morning did we realize that we were out of milk, bread, produce, and most everything else!  Our fridge is almost bare, and pretty quick here, we will begin eating the condiments.  I'm joking of course, but sure don't want to buy food that I'm going to turn around and throw away.

Sunday morning - the couch was still there.  Sunday after church - the couch was still there.  How do you unload a sofa sleeper couch?  It was huge, and heavy, and second hand when we received it.  We don't have a van or truck.  So we left the sign on it, and said a prayer that someone who needed it could get it.
Sunday afternoon our friend Placido came by.  He is so sad to see us move - we've known him for 11+ years, and he just lives down the road.  He joined us for dinner, and we visited, and he asked if he could help us with anything.  Jokingly, I said yes - we have to get rid of the couch.  I'm our HOA president, and I KNOW that people in the neighborhood have been having a coronary every time they drove by and saw my couch with the free sign sitting at the end of my driveway.
Well, just like that, Placido called a guy, and 2 hours later (when his wife got home with their van) Alex showed up and drove away with our couch.  He was SO grateful for it.  We were SO grateful that he took it.
I think I forget how often the Lord blesses me and answers my prayers.  That was a relief.
 
Moving forward, today - I am tackling my laundry.  I'll be able to cull through the winter clothing, and get rid of a lot of long sleeve shirts and jackets.  It is a daunting task, but I've got to get started, and we've got someone else wanting to look at our place tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow I've got some friends helping me, and will dedicate myself (and my slaves for the day) to loading up our 1 year supply of food.  Wednesday, we've got the moving company surveyor coming out, and we can finally get an idea of when our move date will really be!  So much to do, and so little time!

While I know everyone moves, and this is nothing original, it has been a long time for us, and 2000 miles is a long ways to carry all this stuff.

I'm off to start my day.

Camping 2

View of the lake.
The girl's favorite part was kyacking and paddle boating around the lake.
Our oldest daughter caught the only fish, and our youngest got one on, but didn't get it brought in all the way.

Bubbles at grandma's cabin

Camping

As we were waiting for breakfast, the sausages just weren't getting done quick enough.
My BIL and I decided to take it into our hands. We pulled out the marshmallow roasters, and roasted our sausages over the fire a la hot dog style.

Our beautiful view of the lake

The kids had a scavenger hunt that the aunts put together - running through the woods searching for flowers, pinecones and lots of treasures.

Splash fountain and camping

We found a splash fountain (okay - so I knew where it was and led everyone to it) :)

The kids got pretty wet.

Then we led them to some hot dry pavement, where they littered their bodies around as they sought hot spots to warm up with.

And then, later that night, all of the kids hung out at the hotel swimming pool - with grandpa, aunts and uncles, and cousins.

After church and dinner on Sunday, we headed to the family reunion, and the girls got to spend the night in grandma and grandpa's cabin the first night.
Here we are ready for bed!

Family shots

My husband's entire family came for the baptism, and for a family reunion afterwards. Here is about half of the family - trying to get it together for a family photo. A little crazy!


While many members of my family planned to come out, for various reasons, my parents were the only members of my family who were able to make it. We were so happy to see them, and grateful that they were able to come.

Later that evening, we headed up to one of our favorite resort areas. Here's one of my husband's favorite statues:

Post baptisms

Because our daughter's birthday is only one day apart from one of her friend's they were able to be baptized during the same baptismal service.
Here they are together just before


Just after her/their baptisms

Baptism

We are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
Last weekend, our daughter made the decision to be baptized. She's been so excited about it.
Here she is just before her baptism.

She and I

She and her Dad - who had the opportunity to baptize her.
(I love that this photo almost looks like a family portrait with Christ as a member of the family)