Our trip to Utah~the drive out

When we realized Michael's sister, Julie, was getting married the Saturday of our kids spring break, we thought we'd take a family trip.  I was so sad that we couldn't all make it to his other sisters wedding in December that I thought it really important to be there.  At first, Michael wasn't sure he could get enough days off, but when he did, we mapped out our plan. 

We left at 4:30 on Friday, March 12th from Austin.  We swapped vans with my mom because hers is much bigger than our cute little Mazda MPV, and we are grateful she was gracious enough to share with us.  It didn't hurt that she also has 2 tvs, a navigational system, heated chairs, and a few other bells and whistles. I was strangely excited for the adventure of the drive.  We weren't sure where we'd stop the first night.  At first we though Abilene, but we ended up pushing it onto Lubbock, which is a 6 hour drive.  Now let me just say that I am AWFUL at long distance driving!  I love to drive, but after about 30 minutes, I get SUPER sleepy, even if I'm not that tired.  Something about the monotony of the road is tough for me. I like to help Michael up, but he ends up doing most of the driving, and I keep him alert with conversation or reading to him.  So, with that said, he doesn't function so well after 11pm most nights at home, so we just weren't up to risking it on the road. 

The kids were pretty excited about a hotel. 

My criteria for a hotel was waffles for breakfast.  Not just muffins, but waffles.  When I called ahead to find one each of the 3 times, that was a major deciding factor.  Michael was so proud of me that I packed my "big camera" under the seats for the drive out.  There were spots on my little orange camera, you will see in picts below.

One of the best things we did (which our boys begged us to do) was to put Cali in the back inbetween the boys.  I wish I had a pic of this, but this is a shot before we did that.  She was SO entertained by them, and they have so much fun getting her to laugh.  They could feed her baby food (though her clothes were quite messy after) and make her giggle.  I LOVED that!

Cali enjoyed this sucker with a mesh fabric.  We put grapes inside and she could chomp and such out the juice.  It was cute to just hear the sucking sound.

Saturday morning, we met up with Michael's brothers family who was making the same drive from their home in Ft. Worth.  For that day, we drove side by side and the kids swapped around a little.  We brought lunch stuff with us, so we just stopped at a picnic table along the highway to eat and relax a bit.  I was stressed because of the cars whizzing by us just a few feet away, but we weren't there too long. Thanks, K, for the pic.

We parted ways when we stopped for the night in Colorado Springs to stay with friends and they went on to Denver.  In CO, we stayed with our good friends, The Blacks.  They had just moved away from us in Texas the month before.  Their daughter, Ashlee, is a dear friend to Alyssa.  The girls had so much fun playing and we had fun chatting it up with them. 

The boys slept under the pool table in the basement and thought that was pretty cool. We actually stayed at Gabe's parents home (whom we know and love as well) because they were closing on their home a week later.  They even had a 10 day old baby...lots going on for them!  We are grateful for their friendship, and we will miss them.  Michael still has dreams of moving to Colorado someday, and they are working on getting us there, now.

I was trying to take a pic of the 2 girls and Matthew wanted to join in.

We went to church with them the next day, and the girls were having a hard time sitting reverently, so I took them for a "bathroom break" and they pretended they were teachers at church with the podium in the empty primary (kids) room.

We got to take a tour of their new home, it is fun to be able to picture in my mind where my friends live.  Their church building was in their backyard with a fence that gave them access--how cool is that?

Cute girls.

We said our goodbye's and left around noon and made the trek through windy Wyoming.  Not so exciting there, but we were pushing on to the bitter end.

The kids saw this snow as we drove by and wanted to get out.  At a rest stop, we let the tromp through a small patch behind a gas station.

Alyssa just ate an ice cream sandwich and I can see it around her cheeks.

We pulled into my grandparents driveway, in Ogden, UTAH, at about 11pm that night.  They had gone to bed and left everything out for us, and we made ourselves at home.  SO happy to have made it there, and truly--it wasn't so bad!  That last hour through the dark canyon was a tough one, but at least the kids were asleep. 

Home progressing

What a difference 10 days makes! I had a friend snap a few shots while we were gone, but this is what I came back to: doors, cabinets, painted walls and ceilings, crown moulding, tile in tubs, banister on stairs, shelves, fireplacae frame, sidewalk, and back patio. Wowzers! AND, we got a closing date of April 29th--a good 2 weeks before their previous "tentative" date. So exciting!
I took these yesterday afternoon.



The cement on the back porch was nearly dry, not wet enough for our handprints (I did put it on the sidewalk, but worry it will get covered due to city inspections). I carved the first letter of all of our names right by the back door.
Inside, I love the fireplace--don't have one now and SO excited to decorate around it.
Notice the paint and moulding up.
Kitchen cabinets in...

They were working on the tile in the downstairs bathroom while we were there.
The tile cutter was loud.
The "cap and riser" stairs that I changed to instead of the ceilings painted white. I am happy with that decision. I like to see the outline of the stairs instead of just the straight edge.
Banister up, but covered due to paint. Below is the shot of the kitchen in our original lot. It is exactly as ours will be....except we are doing wood floors instead of tile.
Now the pantry....I noticed only 4 shelves and it looked off. I was pretty sure there was supposed to be 5, and I went down the street to verify (can only do that for 5 more days because it sold to others) and sure enough there are 5. I called Greg and told him and he said they'd fix it. I said if he wanted to do 6 shelves, I wouldn't mind at all:) We shall see.

I posted a few pics of wedding stuff on my photography blog, but will post more of our trip here in the next few days.

Goin' on a trip

We are headed out to Utah today for 10 days. Driving for the first time. Michael and I are strangely excited for the adventure. I'm slightly worried about Cali tolerating her carseat, but for the moment, I'm feeling optimistic. I've been working all week and now today we just gotta throw the bags in the car.

Funny conversation with Alyssa in the car this morning...she was listing off the "bad words" she isn't supposed to say. Such as "not fair" or hate. She said, what is that word we aren't supposed to say that is like penis. It starts with a "d." Ummmmmm...... The boys asked me the other day if "D" was a bad word. I explained it can be a man's name, but mostly, yes, it is a bad word and we shouldn't say it. They asked what it meant. I like to be honest and open when they ask, so I said it is another name for penis (I have become comfortable in my mothering years using that word). Now they know, don't say it. I love it when the boys refer to stupid as the "s" word. They don't know the *other* "s" word, yet.

I will leave you with a few pics of our home. It is coming along quite nicely. SO fun to watch the little details. I took 3 friends on a tour last week and that was really fun, too. I'm getting really excited and with a SOLD sign on our current home, feeling ready to let go. I'm glad my parting ways with this home has lingered. It has helped.







Matthew was quite fascinated by the guys on stilts tape and floating the ceiling drywall.

It did look pretty cool.



So many fun things to do around the lot.
The next day, all the brick was done on the side.
Can't wait to see the changes after 10 days! I have a friend taking a few pics for me during. We are hoping that May 10th it will be all ready for us!

Cali 10 months

SNOW DAY

It snowed....and stuck! So much fun! I had to take the boys out of school to play.

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