Our New Home

I'll just go ahead and start with the driving part and skip the goodbye's. Just know, they were quite sad. Brody drove the moving truck while Sal and I took the car. We both had books on tape to listen to and only drove half way Monday and the rest on Tuesday. Both of these things together made the trip VERY bearable.

This is what I got to look at for almost 12 hours...

It's a good thing this was also there to look at.
We slept over in Kanab on the grass in front of an LDS church...... I know, we're cheap.

We arrived at about 1 on Tuesday and even though we had a number of family and friends offer to help us move in that evening, we figured we'd just get it done since we got there so early. Surprisingly it only took an 1 1/2 to get everything shoved in to our apartment.... and then about 5 days plus to get it all put away and cleaned. It was nice to have a few days to get everything settled in before reality hit-- with school for Brody and the job search for me.

So far, we're pleased with our apartment (the brand new carpet helped with that) and we're getting used to the heat. I think. Well, actually it's pretty easy to get used to when you just stay inside all day, which is what we do if we can help it. We live right across the street from Thunderbird so Brody can just walk to school and we actually live really close to just about anything. It's pretty nice. Hopefully my job will be included in that 'just about anything' list. Here are some pictures of the before (with all our crap everywhere) and after of our place.

Our apartment is pretty small- 700 sq. ft. (i love it though, it's so cozy!) so it was a little hard to get a good picture of each room (especially the toilet/tub room). Also, I'm not quite done with all the decorations, so some of it's still a little plain. But you get the idea. At least it's all clean and everything's put away.

Here's the outside...

We have managed to squeeze in some fun activities since being here in between all the unpacking. We tried out a restuarant here called Bravi Italian Kitchen (thanks to Berg) and it was SO yummy.

After that we went climbing at the gym that's about 20 minutes away from our house. It was an awesome place except for one thing-- no air-conditioning!!!!!!!!! What are they thinking?!?! We only stayed for about 45 minutes and by the end I felt like I had just gotten out of the shower in all my clothes. It was horrible. We're re-considering our want for a year's pass. I think I'll be ok to wait for winter and just go outside.

On Sunday we made our very first ever Sunday Dinner. And it went pretty well. We did a roast with meat and veggies in the crock pot with bread and fruit on the side. It was pretty yummy, I do have to say.

We really like our ward a lot- it has a good mix of ages and there are about 4 other Thunderbird couples, and a few other student couples from a different school in the area. We've also made a few other friends that aren't LDS but that are students as well. It's nice because since everyone is new to the area and away from home, everyone is looking for friends! There's always a lot going on too. Well that's it, we're excited for this new adventure and we're inviting anyone and everyone that wishes, to come visit us!! (Although you may want to wait till winter...)

THE END!! (finally, I'm caught up)

Our last 2 eventful weekends

Causy

2 weekends before we left, we went to Causy with the Bundy's and Peterson's. It was kind of last minute, so I'm happy we were able to make it work this year! This is definitely still our favorite spot, but we discovered it's much easier to transport all our stuff in a canoe, rather than kayaks. It was hard, but somehow we fit 6 people in 2 doubles and a single (do the math, that's only 5 seats) PLUS all of our stuff-- 6 sleeping bags, 3 tents, 6 camping chairs, pillows, food, fishing equipment clothes and whatever other items we needed. I don't know how we did it, but we did!

I just love the green water!!

We had another awesome sunset, which I always love. The boys had fun fishing and catching crawdads. Brody caught a fish, gutted it and roasted it-- I had no idea I'd be so sad watching a poor little fish die right there in front of me and I was not amused when he asked me to hold his stick over the fire. But I did end up eating some of it, and it was pretty good!

I didn't do great with the pictures this year. You wouldn't even know that Lindsey and the Peterson's were there (sorry guys!), but they were. I was planning to take a group shot or at least one of the girls at the end before we got back into our cars, but when I dropped my camera into the water when we got to the shore, that plan disappeared. (Don't worry, it works fine now! It just needed a day or two to dry out.)

Farewell Party

The weekend right before we left, we had the Bundy's and the Densly's over Saturday to Sunday. We had a yummy dinner

Sadly, the Jake and Cam were kind of left out of the circle most of the time. Sorry boys!

Our favorite girl (in my favorite outfit)....

played glow-in-the-dark ultimate frisbee

played cards

and beach volleyball (as you can see, we really like that game. it's quite fun with such a big ball-- we get pretty competitive)

Sal was also shunned during part of our activities (tied up on the tree)

p.s. most of these pictures are courtesy of my mom. I'm just slacking lately

We had such a fun time and I'm so grateful the Bundy's and Densly's could come and share our last weekend in Logan with us!

TO BE CONTINUED (again)......

August, pt. 1

So the month of August has been crazy and I really am going to do better at updating you people on our lives through this wonderful blog, so I guess I'll go back to right after Bear Lake and see how far I can get for now....

***p.s. Yes, we made it to Arizona and yes, we are dying of heat!!! But more about that later.

After Bear Lake we got settled in for our few weeks' stay at my parents and the fun began! Our most common activities while we were there included: card games with everyone, rook with just my parents, beach volleyball, badmitton and croquet in the back yard, walks around the neighborhood with Sal and anyone that wanted to go, watching the early episodes of LOST with my mom at night, and much more!

In addition to all of that, we also...

Went swimming with the Bundy's at the Layton Surf 'N Swim

Went rock climbing with mom and the boys

And did a bike ride up Green Canyon with, again, mom and the boys.

We had a blast staying at my parent's and surprisingly and amazingly enough, my mom actually developed a liking for Sal, and I might even dare to say a love for him! Don't get me wrong, she is still not a dog lover, just a Salomon lover. If you can believe it, she let him INSIDE the house on multiple occasions and even threw his slobbery ball for him. I never thought I'd ever live to see something like this in my life, but we're so grateful that it worked out so wonderfully to stay there! The boys had a lot of fun with him too and they even gave him 2 baths during our stay.

Also, before we left, we sold our nice, lovely, beautiful truck.

We will miss that truck.......... But seriously, we kind of will. So it's a good thing we sold it to one of Brody's friends! Maybe we'll still get to see it around.

TO BE CONTINUED........