The New House

Since I have received requests for more pictures of the house...here they are. These were taken before the house was completely done. As the rooms come together I hope to amaze you with the changes we will make with some great before and after snapshots...but you'll have to wait for that. We haven't done anything impressive yet. One big difference is the paint. We had the whole house repainted so these pictures are inaccurate.

The kitchen

The mudroom/laundry room--entry from the garage

The living room w/ side nook area (I think our kitchen table will eventually go here) I don't know it is a weird size in a weird location plus I have no decorating skills

The front entry into the living room

Front bedroom--currently a play room/guest room (we want to put a murphy bed in here someday) It is no longer purple

The master bedroom ceiling--again our walls are not this dark. Jason and I prefer a much lighter tone throughout the house.

We are lucky to have something so clean and new. The granite counters are amazing and I have a pantry. I haven't had one before in any of the places we have lived. Slowly but surely I may be brave enough to share what the house actually looks like with our stuff in it.

Meet Me in St. Louis

We spent last weekend in St. Louis. It is amazing that we can leave our house after-school on Friday and get to Mom and Dad's house in time for a late dinner the same day!! We met Carolyn and Parker up there for the weekend. Wes was across the world in India. We of course played Just Dance and took our little animals to the zoo.

With two only children in tow, the stroller was at times an object of contention but they did manage to ride in it together for about 3 minutes on the way to the car. We also went out to eat and tried to stop in at the mall (for my benefit) of course. Not much shopping in D-burg. It was a delightful weekend. After a delicious Sunday dinner, we all came down to our house. I guess the weekend was good because Navie slept for pretty much 3 hours on the way home.

I neglected to take any pictures while we were here in Tn but some of the highlights included: the whole group picking up Navie from school in the new van, playing at the park, having a picnic with the flies, squeezing the 7 of us around the table for dinners, and practicing cartwheels on the mat. It is great to be so close! I can't wait to see what other adventures await us.

First Day of 1st Grade

When July 31 rolled around, we found ourselves at the good old Sleep Inn in Dyersburg, Tennessee. This also happened to be the morning that Navie began 1st grade. I was quite taken aback by the early start date but Navie seems to be adapting to ALL the change in her life well. She is at another school that requires "uniforms." Is this becoming more common? Or are we just lucky? I kinda like it though. And luckily for Navie, she looks adorable no matter what she wears.

This is how she was really acting about starting school.

Of course we needed a picture of the new backpack.

And can't forget about Day 2. You can really see the hotel room in all it's glory. I was so glad that her first day was on a Thursday. A 2 day week of school to kick things off is just right in my book.

Nauvoo

I wanted to make the final weekend before school was supposed to start worthwhile. I saw on the church website that the Nauvoo pageant and thought perfect, we'll check out the pageant and explore Nauvoo. As the weekend drew closer, we decided the late night of the pageant was out for this year but we still wanted to go explore. This was Navie's first time and she was such a good listener to all the presentations. We met up with Aunt Carolyn, Uncle Wes, and Parker. The girls had a great time dressing up and playing pioneer games. The grown ups had a good time as well, of course. Parker did not so much enjoy sitting and listening to the missionaries talk about life in Nauvoo. She did some exploring on her own and found a much more exciting mud puddle. And what trip to Nauvoo would be complete without going up to see the temple. (I should not be in charge of pictures but I am the best we have). We were all hungry by this point so there was not much desire to pose for gorgeous pictures in front of the temple. But we had a great time. Now that we live in the mid-south we can go back again and again.

Easter "Egg"stravaganza

Pretty clever, eh? Anywho, this was a different Easter for us. Jason is on his last 4 week rotation away from home and of course he was on-call the weekend of Easter so this translates to Angela and Navie going to stay with him in his hotel. But before he left we dyed Easter eggs. This was the first year I suppose that we used the term, "dye" and Navie was a bit confused about what we were doing. It was a great time. These 2 don't always work together for ideal pictures. Before Navie and I headed to spend the weekend with Dad we had a quaint little egg hunt with our good friends here. The kids were excellent finders and the candy was enjoyed by all. We also decorated some delicious Easter egg sugar cookies. Then we loaded up the car and began the 2-hour trek. And it was an Easter miracle, there was no traffic in Tampa on the way there. It was the most wonderful drive out to Spring Hill EVER!! Saturday we went to see the real mermaids at Weeki Wachee Spring. It was awesome!! Unfortunately I didn't capture the best moments but you get the gist. After the breaktaking underwater show, we also enjoyed a walk down the path of tranquility (something like that) and went on a cruise down the beautiful water. And we saw a handful of peacocks.

Then we needed a litttle Texas Roadhouse to get us through the rest of the day. It was delish and festively decorated.

Next we hit Target and found a lovely spring dress for Navie. It was so great just to walk around Target (polk county life is tough). Sunday I apparently forgot we had a camera because I took no pictures whatsoever. But Navie had a great time finding eggs in the hotel room (over and over again). It was a relaxing day and we watched videos about the Savior's atonement. But it ended all too quickly and it was time to part ways. But it was a lovely Easter in it's own way.

Spring Break

Jason has been working round the clock since last February. Navie had a week off of school so Jason took a week off and we packed up the Altima and headed to Texas. We saw so many cousins and I finally did some sight-seeing in Jason's hometown. We stayed with Jacqui and Rob and saw their new house. Woot! Navie was thrilled to be reunited with Ella-Bella. On Monday we went to the Japanese Gardens. The kids ran from one thing to the next. Luckily we had the place pretty much to ourselves. The kids had a blast feeding the coy fish.

We also had a great time walking on the stones in the water. (But I didn't take any pictures). Then we had lunch at the park.

Leaving Florida for Spring Break means a drop in temperature and trees without leaves. That was quite the reality check for me. So we bundled up in long pants and hoodies.

And our last stop Monday was at the Water Gardens. It was a jam-packed day and it was so fun!

Check out that action shot!

On Tuesday, Kari joined us and we went to see the Longhorns in Fort Worth. While there we fed some ponies, tried on hats, and saw the rodeo center.

We had a delightful lunch at Torchy's Tacos. There was a foul smell outside though because they were cleaning the oil trap or something. Then we set off to see how they print money.

We spent the evening with Jason's sister's family eating pizza, catching up, and watching the beloved Frozen. Navie had a blast playing with Lennon. Wednesday was our date day. Navie stayed with the cousins and Jason and I went out to explore Dallas. We started off the day just right, a trip to the American Girl Store. It was a little weird to be there without Navie but we all know I love it more than her. Then we did a little shopping. We had lunch at Pei Wei and stopped over to the Dallas temple to walk around. It was like 50 degrees so it was a quick walk. Then we went to the art museum and JFK Museum. I learned a lot about his death and it was pretty trippy to be in the same place where it happened. Then we went up to the top of Reunion Tower. Jason has driven by it so many times, he really wanted to go to the top. We saw a lot of the city (duh) and learned about many of the buildings.

Our last day was spend with more family. We headed out to Nemo to see Jason's abuela for lunch. Luckily the sun came out while we were there and we walked the property a little.

After lunch we drove back to Arlington to see Jeremiah and his family. We met Sophia and Navie had a blast camping and dressing up with the girls. I had my first taste of Chicken Express too. Then it was back to say goodbye to kids before bed. We had a wonderful time. And we look forward to many more happy memories with our Texas family.