Utah week 1

I can't believe how fast this first week in Utah went. We got here Monday evening and have had fun swimming and visiting with family. One night Jared was saying his prayers and said "he was thankful for cousins, especially David." (he is 9 and Jared loves to play with him) And getting in some nice cuddles.

Note: We love basements! Our kids have been sleeping so well. Their naps are awesome and they fall asleep much quicker at night and sleep later in the morning. It's been great!

Every night before we put Jared and Lydia to bed we ask them what they want to do the next morning and each time they say go swimming.  So we have gone swimming 5 mornings in a row.  That is a new record for us. I get up and exercise, (I have gone running three times and its been great no early morning seminary for Mark!!) then we eat something small then head to the pool.  The pool is heated by hot springs and so relaxing.  Lydia and Jared both love it. Last year Jared was so timid and had to be right by Mark or I. Now he just "swims" all over the place with his floaties and noodle. Lydia has always loved the pool and this week decided she was ready for the diving board. Mark jumps in with her and each time she says "again! again!" It's been a great way to start our mornings.

We went and checked out the new children's museum at Thanksgiving Point. It's called "the Museum of Natural Curiosity. It opened about 2 weeks ago and it really fun.  They have an awesome water room and a cool climbing jungle gym that is huge! Jared and Lydia loved the large building blocks and this cute little garden area.  We will have to go back again.

 "The temple."  Super fun to climb up and slide down and there are these rope canopy things to walk/climb up.

 Water and Weather room. There were so many fun water stations. Jared and Lydia (especially Lydia) thought it was great.

 Jared in the "tornado"

Large Building Blocks. 

 Wind Tunnels.

The Garden: Jared loved this little play area. He said it was his favorite thing.  After he played awhile I noticed it was for kids 3 and under so we had to leave but he loved planting his garden. Lydia loved pushing the wheelbarrow around and "feeding" the bunnies.  Dropping the vegetables through a hole on the cut out rabbits.

 We didn't make it to the outside exhibits. But there is  little splash/mist place and a nice garden so we will check it our next time. We were talking about what they liked on the way home and there were lots but then both kids had to tell us about something that frustrated them.  When we are climbing the temple Lydia waited in line nicely to ride the airplane and right when it was her turn these 3 little girl rushed up and took the plane seat.  After that she kept saying "Plane, mean ladies!" it was funny (and sad) because it was little like 2 year olds not grown ups.  Jared was frustrated because he worked hard to plant his garden and a little girl came along and started pulling up his vegetables. Fortunately the good time outweighed those two annoying times.

We also got to visit with our good friend Hannah who is married to Mark's childhood best friend Justin (Blank) Justin has been in Afghanistan for the State Department this past year and Hannah has been here in Utah with their 3 kids.  Hannah came up and we went swimming and spent an afternoon together. We love Hannah and had so much fun catching up with her.  Justin is coming home for a visit in 2 weeks so we will meet up again. Perfect timing.

We also drove over to the Draper temple for a picnic. Neither Mark or I had been there so we decided to go check it out.  We walked around and ate lunch and read stories there.  Jared and Lydia loved having story time outside. And they loved rolling down this huge hill there. It was a nice outing. We will have to do story time outside more often when the weather is nice. I am thinking we will do it once a week since there are so many near here.  I wish the gates were open on Sundays because it seem sleek such a nice after church activity but they seem to always be closed if the temple is.  I think that is one of the things I would like the most if we ever lived in Utah. Easy temple access. Not just to attend but to go and enjoy the grounds with our kids.  

 Jared loved "hiding" in these bushes.

 He was also much more cooperative to have his picture taken. 

 Picnic and story time. 

The HILL.  This picture doesn't show how big/steep it is.  It was fun. 

Mark and I also went over to the Jordan River temple to do a session. Sue kindly watched Jared and Lydia for us. She is leaving on Monday for California so we are glad we could go before she left. When we lived here in 2005 - 2006 (West Jordan) we went to the Jordan River temple each week so it is a special one for us. We had not been back since then so that was nice.

We also did some work. Mark helped his Mom pull lots of weeds and sprayed the ground to get rid of others. Jared and Lydia helped by walking around the yard and pointing out dandelions for her to spray.  And we washed our car and did laundry. Jared and Lydia thought spraying the car and getting it all soapy was pretty great. Lydia liked it eve more that she got to do it in her "jammies!" Each morning when I go to get her dressed she always asks to stay in them longer. It's cute how she says it.

We will see what next week has in store! 

Goodbye Colorado!

What a busy last (we hope) week in Colorado it was! I watched Tanner on Tuesday and Thursday like normal, took Jared to preschool, had a farewell lunch with the Relief Society Presidency members (Diane Harvey, Brandi Bell, Lynn Marie Olsen) I served with, went to our pre-closing signing and packed up and cleaned our house.  I am sure there were other things too but just those things were enough.

Preschool Goodbyes

Jared and Miss Amy (Pollary)

The last two days of preschool for Jared were really fun.  They had an ABC day and played all kinds of ABC games and then spent part of the last day playing at the park and letting the caterpillars that turned into butterflies go.  Jared really loved preschool and handled saying good bye really well. I am so glad he could have such a positive preschool year.  We made a cute card for Miss Amy with this picture and a cute questionnaire that Jared answered about her attached.  I read that one of the gifts teachers really like were handmade cards so that is what we went with.  We did some fun teacher appreciation gifts for her (flowers, hurts beeswax (thanks for beeing a great teacher) and a gift card to Papa Murphy's that came in a pizza box and said "You are a SUPREME teacher) ) so I thought a card would be a nice way to end it all.  She was such a great teacher!

I really enjoyed serving with these ladies.  They were such great examples.  So generous and encouraging. They were always so willing to help me out and had such nice things to say about me.  They really made me feel good about myself and were great examples of serving in the Gospel. In church on Sunday our Bishop asked Mark and I to bear our testimonies.  We had been in the 18th ward for 4 years which is a pretty long time for that ward as it was very transient so we had gotten to know a good amount of people.  I am glad we could say good bye to all the people we got to. They said such nice things about us.  I am so glad we could help people and serve in many challenging positions.  We learned a lot and met some great people.

Diane, Lynn Marie, Aprillee and Brandi

Tanner Elliot.  Back in 2011 I filled out a profile on care.com.  Shortly after that (February) Kaylene contacted me to see if I would be willing to watch her then 7 month old little boy, Tanner.  We met and I aged to start watching Tanner.  Little did we know that 3 + years later we would be saying goodbye to him.  For the first year I watched Tanner two days a week which was perfect.  Than Kaylene got a new job and her husband Wes deployed so I watched him 5 days a week for the second year.  We finished the third year with me watching him 2 days a week again. I never thought I would watch him for so long when we started.  It was fun to get to see him turn into a little baby to a tricky (at times) toddler than a sweet polite little 3 year old. Kaylene and Wes were such great people to work with. Generous and helpful always concerned that I was happy with watching him. They always gave me a Christmas bonus and 2 weeks paid vacation a year.  They were the most amazing people to work for. I was so lucky to find them and so glad they picked me. It was a great experience. We will miss all the Elliott's. Jared and Tanner became good little buddies and Tanner was always very nice to Lydia. Kaylene brought cupcakes for them all to share on the last day. which they loved. 

When Mark and I moved to Colorado Springs without kids back in 2009 we used a 16 foot truck to move all our possessions from our 2 bedroom apartment.  It fit nicely with room to spare. Mark decided that all our stuff would again fit in a 16 foot ruck and he was right!  This made me very happy. Believe me I know how to throw things away and give them away.  Our town home was 1500 square feet (after packing is up and cleaning it I am almost positive I do not ever want a house bigger than 1800 square feet.) and we have had added 2 kids to our family since we moved in so I was impressed we could fit it all in there. It was a little tighter than in 2009 but still fit just fine.  I was surprised at how stressful this move was.  There were times when I felt completely overwhelmed and didn't know how I was going to get it all done in time. The Tuesday before we left I ran out of boxes and had to wait for some more from the grocery store so I essentially lost a whole day of packing. Living i a house with piles of stuff in the hallways and closets half empty and spread out was pretty tortuous for me. It felt so chaotic. I was so grateful when I got those last boxes and could finish up the job. I had everything I could boxed, labeled and taped about an hour before people showed up to help us load the truck. The people who helped us load the truck all commented on how great a packing job I did and how small the amount of stuff we had.  It helps when you don't have a garage and only have 2 kids.  Mark drove the van over to the storage unit and they had it all unpacked in 25 minutes!! Crazy.

We picked up our boxes from King Soopers but they had not broken them down so Jared and Lydia helped hold them for me. Note to self: do not pick up boxes when your trunk is full of stuff to donate to Goodwill.  They were good sports about it even though they were completely buried.

Plus about 10 more boxes and bags of our bedding. 

Wednesday and Thursday night I stayed up late cleaning and got it all done Friday morning, 35 minutes before the buyers came for the final walk through.  Thursday we had gone over to the Title company to sign all the papers. I really wanted to sign them without the buyers present. When we bought the house in 2010 it was a short sale and we signed everything with the sellers there. It was so awkward. I felt like we were stealing their house.  This was much nicer and faster.  I was so stressed that I wouldn't get it all done in time.  I had to take a car load of stuff over to the storage unit and when I got there I could not get the door open for the life of me. It was so very frustrating. The place wasn't open yet so I went back home to finish cleaning the upstairs then went back over at 9:00 and a very nice man helped me open the door. It took me at least 5 tries to get it! So embarrassing.  I quickly through it all in the storage shed (it looks terribly unorganized in the front now) then rushed home to load the car with all of our stuff for the summer and finished cleaning the downstairs.  The last 20 minutes when I had to sweep and mop I had Jared and Lydia sit in the car and read books and play with toys so I could clean without them running around. They did very well. I would have loved to let them just play out front but the sprinklers came on and Lydia thought it would be awesome to run through them I was not amused. But I got it done! Next time we have to do this I am closing on like a Monday where Mark can help me over the weekend. It was nuts doing all that by myself and it didn't have to be that way. I think I felt like I had to do whatever the buyers wanted but really as the seller I have "rights" too. (They were not demanding or anything I just made everything harder on myself.)  That last week was really hard for Jared and Lydia as we were so busy packing and cleaning we really didn't get to interact with them as much as we would have liked. And it was Jared; last week of preschool too so that was a change for him as well. We are all just so glad to be done.  It's amazing tom e just how expensive it is to sell your house! We paid so much money in commissions and closing costs.  We are lucky we bought the house for such a good deal that we were able to cover all the costs and make some money on it. That is a hug blessing. And now we are done, and completely debt free as we no longer have a house payment. That is pretty fun!

 Since we closed on Friday yet had family pictures planned for Monday we needed somewhere to stay those last few nights.  Our good friends the Pitcher's (Nate and Melissa) let us stay with them.  They are super nice, fun generous people and made us feel very welcome.  Jared and Lydia had fun playing with their youngest kids Talia and Tyson who are close in age to them. Mark and I did not have fun sleeping in the same room as them. Jared and Lydia have only slept in the same room a handful of times so they had a hard time settling down but we all managed to get some sleep those few nights and are so grateful to the Pitcher's.  Melissa is super sweet and crafty so she helped me make some cute bows for Lydia.  I had showed her our outfits for our pictures and mentioned that I wished I had something to tie in my shirt with the rest of our family and she came up with the perfect solution.  Cute bows for Lydia. It was fun to spend the day working with her.  I like her so much and we really miss her if we do end up moving to Virginia. (Yep still waiting on job postings.)

Friday night we went out to eat to celebrate being done and to check out the Airplane restaurant. It is one of the last things we wanted to do in Colorado Springs in case we moved away.  They literally took an old Air Force plane and made it into a restaurant. Kids could go up and sit in the pilot seat and play with all the controls. It was loud and the food was not that great but we can check it off our list.  Jared loves the movie "Planes" and was so happy to fly the plane. One of Mark's seminary student is a hostess there and was working when we went to eat.  She told Mark the following Sunday that we left at the best time.  There was a big rainstorm that night and one of the windows broke and flooded the part of the plane where we were eating!  Crazy! 

We really had a nice life in Colorado Springs.  We were very blessed and looked after while we lived there. We met great people but are just really excited to move on.  We so hope that Mark gets a new job. He really doesn't want to teach at his school anymore. We are just ready for a change and really hope it comes. 

Family pictures at Garden of the Gods

We had our family pictures taken a few weeks ago at Garden of the Gods.  The other 6th grade SS teacher at Mark's school is married to a really nice guy who used to be a full time photographer.  I am not sure what he does now, something with the Air Force.  Anyway he was willing to take our pictures so we spent some time with them (Dennis and Linda Rogers) and got some fun pictures.  Jared was the winner that day.  We got so many cute pictures of him. He was such a good sport. Not very many family ones which was what I was going for but oh well. Typically taking pictures is not very fun from me being super critical of myself to Jared and Lydia being super uninterested so it was great that Jared was so wiling.  We did tell him we would go get frozen yogurt after if he did a really good job.  He did so great and it was totally worth it. While we were there we saw a couple of Prom groups getting their pictures done too.  It was fun to see them all dressed up. There was also a couple getting pictures taken with their 2 pet pigs!  So random but to each their own. Jared and Lydia loved the pigs. One was dressed in a pink tutu which they thought was amazing. They had fun climbing and jumping on the rocks and admiring the pigs.  We had lots of pep talks before we took the pictures.  I had to reassure Jared that he could jump on and off the rocks as soon as we finished the pictures. 

 Mark told me this looks like a "teacher" photo.

 I haven't had pictures taken of myself, alone by a real photographer since we got married so that was fun and a little strange. Surprisingly I really like this picture which is a really nice feeling. It's like this is what I think I look like then I see pictures of me and wonder what happened.

He really liked this sign. 

After we set up this photo shoot I found out that a friend of ours from our Greeley days, who is an awesome photographer was going to be in Colorado and was willing to do pictures if people wanted them.  They recently moved to AZ and we sadly never had the chance to get pictures done by her.  I was super excited when I found out we would still be here when she was in town.  I am happy with the pictures above but am really excited to have them done by Chelsea too.  She does such a great job. I think they will be more creative and relaxed.  I also think these pictures were a little too matchy matchy for me.  I think just 2 colors wasn't enough variety. I was so proud of Jared and Lydia though especially Jared.   We have talked about the pictures we are taking next week and he is actually excited about it.  I can't wait. 

Preschool Fun

We went to the zoo on Wednesday with Jared's preschool.  Sadly it was like 48 degrees (May has been very un-Spring like around here) so not amazing zoo weather but we had a nice time. We go to the zoo a lot since we are members but Jared was really happy to be there with his "students".  He always calls his classmates "his students" and we think it is quite hilarious. We wonder if it is because Mark talks about his students at school. We did make the trip little more fun by riding the carousel.  It drives me crazy that riding it is not included in our membership so we don't ride it that often so Jared and Lydia loved it.  Note: It is very difficult to take pictures of children riding the carousel while trying to make sure a child does not fall off and you are moving in a circle.

Friday, the 16th was Jared's preschool graduation. We went over to Miss Amy's for a little ceremony and ice cream party.  She had each child come up and she talked about what she loved about them and what they learned throughout the year. It was sweet. She talked about Jared's love of garbage trucks and how he smiled all the time and was so excited to be at preschool each day.  They sang a few songs and were each given a gift from her, a book and a framed picture of the class together. He surprised me by really participating during the songs.  Whenever he sings in church for Primary he barely even says a word even though he knows the songs.  It was fun to see him be excited and participate. We have loved Miss Amy and are so sad she is not teaching next year!!  It was also a little frustrating for Mark and I. Jared is still a huge follower. We have had so many conversation with him about how he needs to make his own choices and when a kid is making a bad choice or off task he needs to not follow them but do what he knows is right. Again and again he would be sitting nicely than notice someone doing something they shouldn't and start doing it too. It's really hard for me. I really struggle with it. Yes, he is 4 years old but I want him to be able to control his actions.  Just because someone else is off task does not mean he should join in. We have talked again and again about how he needs to be a good leader/example and I am not sure how we can explain it any better.  I sincerely hope as he gets older he will stop being such a follower and that I can find an effective way to teach him. Again.

 Jared, Cecily, Colton. 

Jared likes all the kids in his class but Cecily and Colton were his "best friends."  One day he came home and told me since he couldn't marry me he was going to marry Cecily.

Performing their songs. 

It was fun to go to his ceremony and celebrate Jared.  It's strange too though because he still has a whole year before he goes to Kindergarten.  I personally am glad. I hope I can find another preschool for him that he will enjoy as much as he did Miss Amy's.  I have him signed up for one here in the Springs in case we don't move (yes we are still waiting for jobs to be posted.  There has still only been the one in Charlottesville and yes I am so over it. Where the heck we going to be in 2 months???) but can't do anything on the Virginia end till we know which city we will be in.  He has 2 more days this week and then he is done.  The year sure went by fast!!  He really did learn a lot, especially socially which is what I was hoping for and loved going to school.