A midnight visitor

For the last three evenings, we have had a visitor show up on our doorstep. He has been there from sundown till sunup each night. It is like we have a little security guard at our door. We haven't thought of a name for him yet...

I have to say, we have seen lots of wildlife here in Texas. HUGE spiders for one (and tons of other bugs and creepy-crawlies). Geckos for two. (One was in our mailbox one day... when I tried to catch it, it detached it's tail...) Snakes (our new guard snake...) for three. Toads for four. (when I caught a baby one, Autumn was the only one brave enough to hold it.) We saw a dead turtle, but none alive yet. And, I have seen LOTS and LOTS of dead armadillos on the sides of the roads. I would LOVE to see one alive. If I see one, I will try to get a picture...

Oh, the things they learn...

Autumn came home from preschool last week singing a wonderful song. They were learning about the letter "B", so they learned the "Baby Bumblebee" song. I have heard it before... but not this way! Autumn has been singing it all week, so I thought I'd share it...

B-R-E-A-D spells "delicious"

I love to bake. I love the smell that fills my home when I have made fresh bread, rolls, cakes, cookies, and pies... I love it because it smells good, it gives me a feeling of satisfaction when the crust turns out just right and my family can't get enough, and I love it because I get to eat it. Baked goods are my ultimate weakness. I love the taste, texture and aroma from freshly baked goods. Why is it, again, that I have this constant 10 lbs to loose around the middle portion of my body? Oh yeah...

A new friend in Texas

We have a new friend! We met him shortly after we moved into our house. He lives outside. We call him Peter. He gives me the heebie-jeebies! You can't tell in the picture, but he is at least the size of a silver dollar (legs and all...). Everything truly IS bigger in Texas!

Our Abode (for a little while...)

We are finally getting settled into our home. We are renting a little house in a cute neighborhood in Wylie. It is a three bedroom (but the bedrooms are huge!), two bath house, with a large living room and a good sized kitchen. We have a nice backyard that the girls can play in, and a neighborhood park across the street. Now that the weather is getting cooler, maybe we will go play there! For the two weeks we have been here so far, it has been too hot to play at the park... but I am looking forward to nicer weather that we can get out and do more! We still have lots of boxes unpacked, and I don't honestly know if they will get unpacked. We are planning on staying in this house at least one year, but who knows after that?!? On a side note, Dave bought me Carcassone for my birthday (a game we played a lot with the Hamblins in Logan). It is the little things that make it feel like home, you know? (Although it isn't as fun without Scott and Amy...) Also, did you notice that there are only two bedrooms pictured? That is because Ciera and Chloe's room has been a constant pig-sty since we moved here! Life is busy and I just haven't had as much energy to get after them to keep it clean... Oh well, there is more to life than a spotless room, right? Well, now that things are getting more normal, I promise to be a better blogger! (I could only get better than what I have been doing, right?!?)

Moving Story

SO we had big plans. How can your plans not be big when you are moving to Texas?!? We were filling our moving trailer ourselves and then the movers were to pick it up and drive it to Texas for us. Then, they were to drop it off at our new home. We were going to depart Logan at 7:30 am on Saturday, August 14th, and drive for 11 hours to arrive in our nice hotel in Pueblo, Colorado. We would then eat a fabulous FREE breakfast at the hotel, drive for 7 hours to arrive at the home of our good friends from Riverside, the Coxes, to stay for the night. Monday, August 16 we would drive from Lubbock to Wylie (which was to be approximately 6 hours), where we would find our keys to our rental home hidden in a secret location. We would walk in to find a clean, comfortable home, spend Monday night in sleeping bags and, on Tuesday, get our trailer containing all of our possessions.
Big plans make for big flops.
Filling our trailer went smoothly. Dave and I did most of it ourselves, and had some Elders in our ward help with the big stuff on Wednesday night. The movers picked the trailer up on Thursday, as scheduled. We were going to live in our home, without any furniture until Saturday morning. Friday night our friends threw us a great BBQ/going away party. After we got home we loaded most of our "left behind" stuff into the back of the van and truck. At about 10:00pm I started feeling poorly. By midnight, I knew I was sick, but tried to go to sleep anyway. At 2:00am I woke up, and took a trip to the ER. I had a raging bladder infection. Lucky me.
I got home from the hospital at 4:00 am, went to sleep and had to get up at 6:30 to get ready to leave. We didn't make it out at 7:30, but ended up leaving shortly after 8:00am. (Not bad!)
If you have ever had a bladder infection, you know how uncomfortable they are. We stopped in Brigham City at Walmart to get my prescriptions filled (and to get some caffeine...) and then got on the road.
Our 11 hour trip to Pueblo, CO turned into a 13 1/2 hour trip because we had to stop about a million times for me and our four little girls to use the bathroom. Dave was a really good sport... mostly because I was sick and he knew I HAD to stop. (I also blamed it on the girls if we had to stop soon after we had just made a stop...) Ciera and Chloe rode in the pickup with Dave and Brooke and Autumn stayed with me. Most of the journey, they did a great job! Autumn fell asleep once and after she woke up she cried hysterically for half an hour. I was about to lose my mind! We found an exit where we could stop for dinner and there was a Burger King with a play place. As soon as Autumn realized she could get out and play, she was happy. I think all of the girls were happy to get out and play for a little while.
We made it to our hotel (which was not great, but not bad either), checked in, watched some tv, and went to sleep. During the night, it rained. The stuff in the back of the pickup got a little wet, but most of it was okay. The free breakfast at the hotel left something to be desired, but it was free, and it filled our tummies. We traveled, without much frustration to the Coxes house on Sunday. Cynthia was cooking a dinner for us, which was so yummy! We let the kids play for a long time and just relaxed and visited. In the morning, Rob cooked breakfast (which was also yummy) and then we loaded up to drive to our new home. This drive was only going to be 6 hours, and we would finally reach our home, so we were pretty excited.
We had positive attitudes, directions printed out from the computer, and a relatively short drive. What could go wrong?
Well, I will tell you. Dallas/Fort Worth is a large metro area, with a lot of freeways with a lot of interchanges. I was following Dave. The freeways we chose to take went around Dallas so we wouldn't get confused. That didn't matter... we still got confused. We lost our way, tried to find it again, and ended up on Tollways with no "Toll Tag" on our cars. We got off at the last "cash" exit, and tried to find our way without using that Tollway. We got lost. Dave followed me for a while, and I ended up getting us lost too. After that, I didn't want to lead anymore, so Dave took charge again. We decided to try a main street that headed in the direction that we wanted to go, and eventually found our way to the 78 highway that leads to Wylie. It ended up taking a couple of hours more than we planned, but we found Wylie, and were almost to our home.
When we found our house, there was a truck in the driveway, and an old man with no front teeth in our house. We told him that we were the renters, and he said he was just finishing the repairs prior to our move in. We walked into the house and it REEKED of cigarette smoke. Maintenance man took about 1/2 hour to finish up what he needed to do and then left us. We finally were home. It was a horrible, HORRIBLE Monday, but we made it. Our trailer got here Wednesday (instead of Tuesday), and Dave unloaded it (I helped a bit) in over 100 degree heat with major humidity. It was awful! We got in touch with our ward in the evening and some guys came over and helped with the last 5 pieces of furniture (the piano included...), and we were finally done.
Now that we are here, and our stuff is mostly put away, and we are learning our way around it is getting better. The first couple of days, I wanted to turn around and go back to Logan. (I still wouldn't mind going back... but I don't dislike it here.) I will be posting some pictures of our home in a few days. Thanks for letting me rant about our move... I feel better.

First Day of School in Texas

Well, we made it to Texas. Barely. I will have to do another post telling our "moving story" when I have time, but for now I will focus on the first day of school.Monday, August 23, my Brooke started Kindergarten. In Texas (at least in Wylie) Kindergarten is all day. From 7:30am to 2:30pm. That is a long time... I was worried about how Brooke would handle it. I shouldn't have worried. She did great. In fact, when I was talking to her last weekend, I was saying how much I was going to miss her when she was in school. She told me not to worry, she would come home right when school got out. She is a good girl... and she did great.Ciera and Chloe got to start 5th and 3rd grade on Monday too. They both were excited and nervous, but of course they did great as well. Ciera started intermediate school and gets to switch classes throughout the day... which she loves. She feels so grown up. Chloe has a really good teacher and is already making friends... she does so well every time they start back to school!
I thought that Autumn would have a hard time with her sisters all gone... she is doing great. She loves having "mommy time" all day. It has been so hot that we bought a little inflatable pool to cool off in... Autumn played in it for a long time today.

This transition has been a difficult one, but I think we all are going to be okay.