First Day of School

After the long hot month that we had, I think we were all SO ready for school to start.  I feel so lucky to have such fearless and outgoing kids, there was not a single shred of hesitation as I got them ready to get on the bus to their new school.

I really worked hard to make sure that they had a good first morning of school.  We got up nice and early, ate a big breakfast, packed emaculate lunches and snacks, and STILL managed to miss the bus!

Apparently the bus left a lot earlier than it was supposed to, and we weren't at the right stop.  Luckily we were able to catch the bus as it came back.  I walked back to my apartment, frazzled, to see both of my kid's lunches sitting in the parking lot.  Truthfully, I was happy to have an excuse to meet them at their school without seeming like an frantic mom who doesn't trust the bus to get my kids to school safely.

Fortunately, my kids made it just fine, I was able to walk them both to their lines, and they both had great days.  We're already a month into the school year and they're really enjoying school.

August in New Jersey

I'm not going to lie to you, August was a tough month.  REALLY tough.  When I came back from Idaho, I was not quite prepared to spending so much time in a weird new area by myself with the kids.  Not to mention how hot and humid it was, and knowing almost no one.  However, with a few tender mercies we got through it and now we're much happier here.

One of the best things about the month was meeting our neighbors.  There is a family a few doors down from us with the sweetest boy named Myles and the kids are just obsessed with him.  The kids played outside a ton, which initially was hard for me because I'm not used to being able to just send my kids out to play.  But, after getting to know the neighborhood better and feeling more comfortable, it's gotten much better.

These first few pics are of Jayda's birthday.  Since we had her big party in Idaho, we did a small night of "Homemade Kiwi Loco" which is a frozen yogurt place we love in Idaho.  She picked out two kinds of ice creams and three different toppings.  All of which had no business combing with each other.  I believe it was birthday cake and mint chip ice cream with Skittles, M&M's and Sour Patch Watermelons to put on top.  Hey man, kids love it.

Jayda is very much an aspiring hairdresser, as you can see.

The three amigos.

One night, hours after putting the kids to bed we went to our room and found this.  It was hard to put them back.

Celery boats! 

Sky's deconstructed celery boat.  Kid doesn't like peanut butter.

One of the biggest life savers was that I found a GREAT gym.  I'm head over heels in love with it.  I honestly didn't think I'd be able to join one with the prices out here, but I found one having a special and got really lucky.  It's a medically based facility so it's never crowded with muscle heads, but still full of people serious about fitness.  It has child care (woo hoo), gorgeous locker rooms and great classes.  As crazy as it sounds, I felt so blessed to have a place where I could do something good for myself, and the kids could get a break from me, especially when I'm being grumpy.

Our Move to New Jersey

All through HS I was a really dedicated journaler, but a lousy picture taker.  Now I'm a really good picture taker and a really bad journaler.  I'm hoping to be better at both from now on.  So from now on there will probably be more picture-less journal style entries so that I can remember the little things as well as the big things. 

Our move to NJ went really well.  We had a lot of great help from our friends in the ward (THANK YOU!) and loaded the truck up the night before we'd be leaving, knowing that we were going to have to drive it all to NJ and unload completely to have the truck back that night.

The next day I got up in time to go to Body Combat for the last time.  I'm so glad that I was able to go and say goodbye to all of my gym peeps, but it also left me SO exhausted after such a long day of moving.

We saw our apartment for the first time when we pulled up to it.  I love that we have a first level private entry (if you had to go up and down elevators ten times a day for four years, you'd understand), and the quiet neighborhood.  I did not love how little storage and closet space I had.  However, it's amazing what you can fit when you get really creative, and it felt like home in no time. 

We met quite a few people in our new ward that night, who were so sweet to come help complete strangers move in.  I don't know what we would have done without their help.  We managed to get everything unloaded and the truck returned in time.  We finally had dinner that night around 9pm, KFC.  Since we didn't have our silverware unloaded yet, we fashioned spoons out of the tin foil and got a kick out of our creativity. 

The first two months were a blur, and very little of it was actually spent in NJ (Texas and Idaho).  However, we were here long enough to get to know our new ward and a few of our neighbors.  Our ward is AWESOME.  I gush every time I think about it.  The people were so friendly from our very first day and I grow to love it more every week.  Glenn had a place to go for dinner every Sunday that I was in Idaho, which alone endeared me to the ward very quickly.  We also have great neighbors.  The kids are outside playing every single day, and their parents are wonderful.  We've spent quite a few evenings chatting outside until the sun went down.  We feel so lucky to already have such great people in our lives.

Do I love New Jersey?  No, not particularly.  But there are a lot of things I love ABOUT it, and we're very happy here.  I would not mind if Glenn matched here and I'm hoping to get to know the surrounding areas a lot better (NEW YORK CITY!).

More pics and updates to come...

Longest Flight of My Life

I promise that this isn't a "complain post." It's more of a "oh-my-gosh-I-can't-believe-I-survived-that post."

One really annoying problem I have is that I get motion sick, really easily.  The older I get, the worse it gets.  I can't sit in the back seat during a long drive, I can't read in the car, and don't even think about getting me onto MOST carnival rides.  It's not happening, until I've taken dramamine, a ginger candy and have been partially hypnotized.

Needless to say, I don't fly well.  And idiot that I am, even AFTER throwing up four times on the flight TO Idaho, I still neglected to pack dramamine on the flight home.  We got on our squirrelly, thimble sized plane to head to Colorado and was immediately assaulted with crazy turbulence.    Since Colorado was really stormy, we were circled the airport until we ran out of gas, and had to go to Kansas to fill up.  Stomach in my throat, I called Glenn desperately looking for a solution to our flight that we were definitely going to miss.  Oh, and one of my kids peed their pants.

After finally getting off the plane, and missing my flight, I went directly to the service counter.  I was informed that there were no flights heading to Newark, New York, or La Guardia for at least two days.  But, before I could stab myself in the eye and throw a three-year old style tantrum, I was told that I could take the midnight flight to Chicago, and then the five am flight to Newark.  Basically we were going to have the longest nights of our lives.  However, it was a much more positive prospective than living at Denver airport for a weekend.

I felt a ton better after the raging motion sickness died down and we got some dinner.  I did my best make it seem like a fun game, "yay!  sleepover at the airport!"  We all got a neck pillow, one of which was almost stolen by a young man who thought he could snag it after my son dropped it.  Luckily Sky snagged it back in time, The Lord knew that I did not need to get in a fight at the airport that day.

I doped up with Dramamine (finally), and settled down for the flight to Chicago.  We all slept on that one, and when we landed I dragged my poor comatose kids about half a mile to our gate so that we could sleep until the flight.  I got to the gate to discover that the gate had change and we had to go CLEAR back to where we got off.  Sky was bawling at that point, so I figured I'd just let the kids sleep for a few hours.  I didn't dare doze off with my kids and bags sitting out, so I spent a good three hours trying desperately not to hallucinate from sleep deprivation and stress.  Finally around 4am, I hauled my kids back to our gate.

Before the flight I took another dramamine, which as it turns out, isn't necessary, and passed out immediately on the plane, along with my kids.  We finally landed and met Glenn frazzled and exhausted.  When we went to get our bags, surprise, they weren't there.  I did not care at that point and went home to sleep off the flight and overdose of dramamine. 

All's well that ends well though.  I got some sleep, Glenn got to spend the day with the kids after being away from them for a month, and the bags got back safe and sound.  It was a tough flight, but honestly, after something like that, I think I could handle just about any flight I had to deal with in the future.  I just won't forget my dramamine.

Quick Utah Trip

While I was in Idaho, I snagged the opportunity to run to Utah to visit friends and family.  It was a quick two day trip, but well worth it.  Our first day was in Utah where we were fed a delicious home cooked dinner, and enjoyed a beautiful day with my Grandma and Grandpa, Jordan and her kids and my Aunt Mardenne and William.  It was so nice to get to see all of these guys again, I hadn't seen them in quite a long time.  I LOVED being back in my grandma's house.  She keeps it so cute and I have a ton of nice childhood memories there.  My grandpa took the kids on a ton of rides behind his lawnmower.  They loved it!

The next morning, we swung by the Matson's before heading home.  I adore this family and it was really nice to see them in their new place in Utah.  I also got to get to know their new youngest, Ronan, who is such a doll!

Everything Else We Did In Idaho 2012

Even though the fire put a huge cramp in our vacation plans (I know right, geez fire!), we were still able to fit a lot of playtime in our month in Idaho. There are about ten million pictures on this post. I should probably be more organized about it (and maybe introduce myself to Picasa), but I really want to get caught up, so here we go!

A friend of my dad's lent us his gorgeous summer cabin in Lava while we were booted from my parent's house.  It fit my parents, Kendall's family and us very comfortably.  Jaclyn and Andrew visited a few nights too.  It was pretty remote, but very close to their big pool, we we took full advantage.

I hardly got any swimming pics at all, but we went to Lava a ton that month.  The kids did a ton of sliding, jumping and diving.  Jayda even jumped off the high dive, I almost died!  She didn't do it again, but I was just proud she did it at all!

My parents got the kids their own bikes and scooters for the summer.  The kids LOVED them and spent a ton of time outside riding.  Jayda prefers the scooter and Sky couldn't get enough of the bike.  We nursed A LOT of scrapes, cuts and bruises, but it was worth it.

As per tradition, me, Davina and Deanna went out a night.  Sushi at Sumisu and then to the movies.  It was a lot of fun, I can't get enough of these girls.

Lots of boating.  I didn't get in the water as much as I should have this year, but I'm always just happy to be out at the river with the family.

Sky on the iPad.  Sigh.  If you ask him what he wants to be when he grows up, he says a gamer.  Part of me wants to laugh and cry every time he says it.

Back to Sumisu (we love that place) for Andrew's birthday.  It was a great time, no kids, lot of sushi and all the gag gifts this family is capable of.

Back on the boat!

Snails!  Well, his name is really Kale, but he was given the nickname Snails.  I can hardly stand how cute this precious boy is, it makes me sad to think of how grown up he'll be next time I see him.

One of our days on the river we smashed a pinata for Jayda's birthday.  It's become a tradition for her.  It was hilarious to see all of my adult siblings rushing for candy after it was broken.

Surfing the wake, funnest and most exhausting thing ever!

Jayda's little party after our day out.  She was very pleased with her gifts and cake.  We did miss her daddy though.

Lot's of grilling, baking, cooking and eating!

Even though all of us HS girls are scattered around the country, we are somehow always able to reunite once a year.  Janna, angel that she is, hosted a big barbeque at her place and we got all of our families together.  It was so cool to see all the kids and how big they're all getting.  Afterward, we dumped our kids and went out for dessert at Applebees and then back to Janna's to talk until 3AM!  So worth it though.  It was so nice catching up with everyone.  I just love these girls.

I was able to grab a quick visit with my friend Heidi, who I used to work with at Better Outlook all those years ago.  She was easily one of the best things about working there.

Lunch at Winger's with the folks.  No lunch is complete without a frothy glass of Diet Coke. 

My mom took me and the kids to Don Aslett's Museum of Clean.  It sounds a bit cheesy, but I was actually quite impressed.  We got a tour from Don Aslett himself and the kids had a blast.  Washing windows is never fun, unless you get to do it at a museum!

Birthday dinner for my mom after another great day at Lava.

I never feel like I get enough time with my friend Suzanne, but it's always so great to see her.  The movie theatre in Poky shows kids movies for two bucks a person, and you get a soda and popcorn!  We met up for those, as well as lunch at the park a few times.  It's so great to see them.

My dad and his motorcycles.  He got the little one for the kids, but I think it was funner for us!  My dad also took me for a ride on his big bike.  You have to understand that this was not an easy thing for me to do.  I am a HUGE chicken when it comes to anything that could potentially turn my body into ground beef.  Fortunately, nothing like that happened and I had a good time.