Back to Zion

We were able to experience how it may have felt to have a sacrament meeting back in pioneer days. Our church starts with RS and Priesthood and has sacrament last, and so while we were in RS the power went out. So, we skipped Sunday school and headed outside for Sacrament meeting. It was 93 degrees, but luckily there was a covered picnic area so the shade helped a little. We could barely hear the first counselor, but we proceeded through sacrament and after that, the bishopric realized the little kids were not going to make it through talks, so the bishop said a few words and we ended. Thankfully (since my kids were contributing to the volume) the bishop kept it brief and we didn't have to sit for hours. I don't know how the pioneers did it with all their kids. But I will have to say that the mountains in the background was very neat!

The Desert

Connor, who has spent his whole life in the midwest, has discovered a new way of life. Out here they have a new way of watering the grass, other than rain. Sprinklers. Some people, like my parents, have automatic sprinklers. Even though they caught us by surprise, Connor loved it!

A Few Random Thoughts

Okay, so as we were driving across the country, I realized a few things:

1) No one should drive across the country with 5 children under the age of 5, even with 2 minivans. Just fly! It was comical every time we stopped though, the looks we got were great. Our very first stop was dinner the first day and the thought occurred to me that we could totally be mistaken for a polygamist family. Too bad Pam and I forgot our polygamist dresses. Anyway, every stop lasted at least an hour, including bathroom breaks (3 diapers and 1 pull-up, that is a lot of man power). "Sydney, Noah, EAT!" and "Connor stop throwing _____" (insert everything from food to hotel phones) became our chant. But don't worry, we are all still friends (we are right?)

2) The farther west we got, the more children we saw. It was actually quite comforting. Our kids weren't the only ones getting evil looks from all the truckers.

They're wild

3) Also, the farther west we got, I noticed the "rif-raf" change a bit. The farther we got, the less scared I became of them pulling out a gun and shooting me and more afraid that they would run me over with their huge trucks or beat us to death with their huge belt buckels.

4) Twilight really is a girly book. These are some of the things I heard as I made him listen: "They just had a 45 minute conversation!", "Edward is really a metrosexual masquerading as a vampire", "Did he have to glitter like Brittney Spears in concert?", "That was the exciting part? She just fainted, no tearing of limbs, no knashing of teeth, does Edward ever do anything cool?", "Edward is a lover not a fighter (in a mocking tone)" (and I said, "yeah, what's wrong with that?"), "With that much 'smouldering' is he going to burst into flames?", but after all that, he did manage a "well, at least it kept my mind off driving." So I think he liked it.

5) The last thing was a question really. If anyone knows the answer, please let me know because it really is bothering me. So we passed a lot of flat farms with lots of cows (or "aminals" as Sydney said every time we passed them). My question is, how does the farmer milk these cows? There is so much land and no buildings. Do they ride on their horse and milk them all? That would take more than a day. Now, before you think I am completely stupid (although it did take me a few hours to realize this....) I realize that some were just male cows, or bulls, or whatever you call them, but I did see some with udders. Anyone??

Our Moving Company

We actually made it all fit in 9 ft, thanks to the missionaries and some wonderful friends. What a great packing job huh?

It was a little strange seeing our apartment so empty. It really is a little scary without all the furniture isn't it? I have a picture with furniture somewhere, I will add it to this post when we get our stuff all put together.

Here are a few of our wonderful helpers. I think I took about 15 pictures of these kids and this one is just going to have to do. We could see almost everyone except miss Nora, but I couldn't see her in any of them. Thanks to all the parents trying to get their attention.

Full Circle

So, almost 4 years ago we came to dental school knowing nothing about our future home. Well, it was a shock. Sydney was only 5 weeks old and we drove through a rain storm we never saw out west and the McDonald's didn't take a credit card when we finally made it here tired and hungry. Anyway, the night we got here, our stuff hadn't arrived, so we slept on our floor with a borrowed blow up mattress. Luckily we had wonderful neighbors that became instant friends. Within a short time, we had carpet, a place to sleep, soap and towels to clean up with, and someone even brought us milk and cinnamon bread for breakfast. Good ol' times.
Anyway, now we are all packed up ready to move back west and we are again sleeping on a blow up mattress, our 2 kids are on the floor in their cool sleeping bags. It was just funny to me that our last night here was the same as our first night. I am quite sad to say good bye to everyone tomorrow, but happy to say good bye to our pet mold (he has really grown over the years.)
(Sorry if there are typo's. It is late, and I am tired)

Do we have to come back?

Recently we took a trip to Disney World and I highly recommend it to everyone! We had so much fun! We flew in to Orlando on Thursday and took full advantage of the my mother-in-law's time share. We stayed at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. Every room had a view of African animals. A giraffe was waiting for us when we arrived. After dinner we took a swim in their pool and Sydney and John enjoyed the slide.
On Friday, we spent the day in Magic Kingdom. If you go, I recommend two days for this park. There was so much to do and luckily Sydney just barely hit the height requirement. She loved splash mountain and thunder mountain. She also loved the fact that every "cast member" called her "Princess."
On Saturday we decided to head to the Beach. We thought it would be nice and relaxing, but the sun had another idea. We all got burnt and Sydney got fried. What kind of parents are we? We only put sunscreen on her 4 times! But we enjoyed the time we had there with shovels, buckets, moon fish, and body boards.

On Sunday we went to Animal Kingdom,

Bug's Life 3-D show

Sydney and I got SOAKED on the river rapid ride

Monday we went to Epcot,

and Tuesday we went to Hollywood Studios. Well, Sydney went to Magic Kingdom with gma and gpa in the morning and met us later.

There was so much to do that we couldn't do everything we wanted to. There was lots of yummy food to eat,




A few naps

and wonderful firework shows


But I think the kids liked meeting the characters the best. Connor loved it! We actually couldn't let him see the character until it was our turn or else he threw a fit because we wouldn't let his see them NOW. It was cute though, he hugged everyone of them. (If you missed the slide show, just reload the page)

After we saw Aurora, Sydney informed me that that was the REAL princess. I think she caught on that the other characters where in costume, but not the princesses, they were the real thing!

If you ever decide to go, some websites that really helped us were Mousesavers and Undercovertourist. And I would recommend staying at least 10 days. We just didn't have time to see everything. But what we saw was great!