Last Moments

Today was such a wonderful, bittersweet day. I had my last class at It's Yoga early this morning. I'm going to miss Brittany pushing me so hard 2 mornings a week. I have grown so much practicing there. Next Amanda babysit (again) while Stan and I went to our last temple session at the Provo Temple. Having a temple in walking distance has been so wonderful- for us and the kids. I kept tearing up once we were inside. They asked us to be the witness couple. Next we grilled yummy malibu pork (on the things we've found in our freezer) followed by our last trip to The Quarry. I seriously love that place. I've taught yoga for 3 years in that building and been climbing for just as long. Israel, Eliza scaled the wall, and Julia enjoyed swinging. Stan and I put in our last climbs on the lead wall. I know we'll be living close to Joshua Tree, but the conveniences of a indoor climbing gym just 5 minutes away will be missed. Next I finished setting up all our utilities, signed the rental agreement for our house (we're renting the 1 month and closing after Stan's first pay check.), and worked on packing the kitchen. This evening Trina watched the kids while I played on our ward's co-ed softball team. We won both games- our first time of the season- I was really happy with our playing together as a team. It helped that we had more than 7 people. My team will keep playing, but I'll be gone. It was so nice to end on a win with some nice plays and some good hits. Israel had so much fun playing with Travis. They are such good buddies, but one or both families has been gone for much of the summer.

Leaving is so hard. I've been laughing at all the things I'm sad to be missing.
*having to tape the freezer door shut*
*not having to move the table out each time we eat*
*parking the RAV in that spot that gets a little bit of shade*
*teaching my tiny yoga class*
*using my over the sink Ikea kitchen storage rack*
*hearing our neighbors*

Life is changing
I know a lot will be wonderful but now is wonderful too.
These last 3 years have been better than I ever imagined.
I'm sure the next 3 will be too

Belated Happy 4th of July

In the basement of Mom and Dad's house. While the women wired and the men fixed doors, Israel got creative with the plumbing pipes.

Eliza loving cold cold Bear Lake. We all had a blast playing in that water. I have to admit that sometimes I was jealous of Stan's wet suit.

Julia in her own little lake boogie boarding. She wanted to be in the water constantly.

All the kids love riding in the Ranger. Julia is the only one who was confident she could drive it:) We also did a lot of tire swinging, croquet, riding the miniture horse/pony Squirt, playing games, and eating yummy food.

Eliza and my Dad- I just L-O-V-E this picture. They're faces are similar, don't you think? and look at those matching smiles.

We had a great trip!

Hello Denver

Stan and I had a little getaway this past week. We went to Denver for the All-Star Lacrosse Game at Investco Field Mile High Stadium. We used priceline and got a really nice hotel (Courtyard by Marriot) right on the down town strip (the 16th Street Mall). We loved that Denver has this street closed to cars. They have free electric buses that stop at all the intersections if you want a ride. It was so nice and pedestrian friendly. Maybe Provo could do this one day.

On the steps of the capital building. I'm standing exactly 1 mile above sea level.

Check out these incredible seats we had for the game. We laughed that we'd brought a pair of binoculars. We really had a fun time watching these guys play. It's only my 3rd game to ever watch, so I learned a lot during the process.

Me, about toe get on one of the many buses. See the sign to my right- very pedestrian friendly, maps, guides, lots of arrows to help us out on every corner. They even have 2 visitor booths for people with questions and workers in yellow tops answering any questions. We were both impressed with how clean Denver was. Nice city to visit if you don't mind paying for all that parking but then I guess that's in every city.

Stan had fun with interesting hairstyles all trip long. Here he's showing his yummy parfait breakfast before we went to 6 Flags.

Driving home on I-70 "Colorado Rocky Mountain High . . ."
We also found out they had a 6 Flags and we hadn't ridden roller coasters since our Honeymoon so we couldn't resist (plus I found 2 for 1 tickets). We had a blast and scared ourselves half to death in the process:) Here's a brief video of the halfpipe ride. We rode all the coasters that were open and they had some really fun ones. We were suprised how much we liked this particular ride.

It's been quite a week

It's been quite the week for us. Stan put in his notices at work. We had our home inspected, filled out a ton more loan papers, officially started packing, played a softball game, went to a birthday party, booked our moving truck, I got asked to speak in church (on Wed) and was the concluding speaker (thankfully I only had about 5 min. instead of the 15 they asked me to speak). Mom Hall flew out to Utah and came with us to church, I was released as primary pianist, I said goodbye to my best Wymount friend, and I partially flooded our house (I started the tub because Julia needed a bath and then got distracted making dinner and then I layed down on the couch next to Stan because I was sad about good friend Katie moving-Eliza slipped on the water coming out from underneath the bathroom door. The only casualty besides a lot of wet towels is a library book we'll now be buying).
Oh, and during my talk I looked up and saw this family I thought moved 2 weeks ago and I said (right in the middle of my talk) "Oh, I can see the Fordhams, I thought you guys moved, it's throwing me off" yeah, I'm a bright one. At least I can safely say I'll never have to speak in this ward again:)

By the way, my topic was Elder Quinten L. Cook's talk "Our Father's Plan: Big Enough for All His Children" from April Conf. pg. 34 of May Ensign. It's a good one to really delve into.

My House

The kitchen. What you see bottom right is our bar. You can't see the fridge, but it's pretty nice!
I have an attic!

Mystery tree in my front yard (some type of willow?)
The living room- all the flooring is either this or tile.
Somehow I didn't take very good pictures of the house, so I won't torture you with more (at least not until we've decorated it:)

We got the HOUSE

It's only 1178 sq ft. with 3 beds and 2 baths, but it's huge compared to Wymount. It also has mature trees and grass. Yes, grass. The owners did a lot of updating and we're going to be doing some more as well. It has rose bushes. Michele- you might have to help me out with this one.

We're excited to have a place of our own. Stan's company still won't give us an official start date, but we're shooting for the 30th of July.

I'll attach some pictures of my own later.

My fav. features are the kitchen (with new stainless steal appliances, lots of counter and cupboard space and tile flooring- and a window above the sink!) and the Master bedroom. It has it's own bathroom and sliding glass doors out to our patio. Anyone with ideas for coving the sliding glass doors, we have 2- 1 from kitchen and 1 from our room. I don't like the vertical blinds. My kids don't know how to leave them alone-plus they stick and make all that noise.

Okay, I'll stop talking about the house, but if you call me be warned:)