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!

We are not saying good-bye

John signed a contract and so we now have a real job. We are completely grown up (well, on the outside at least). I have been putting this post off until we had a more secure future and I was ready to say good-bye. Well, I am not ready to say good-bye, but I better get used to the idea since we only have about 3 weeks left, and one of those weeks we will be in WDW. Anyway, it has been very easy to complain while we have been here for school, but there are lots of things I am going to miss. Here are some of them, in no particular order:

1. The Green-ness. It is so beautiful right now. All of the trees have leaves and the flowers are blossoming. It really is gorgeous.

2. The Fall. It is very easy to complain about the weather here (especially when it is 30 below) but I love Autumn here. It seems to stay fairly warm for a while and the colors are wonderful! There is one tree in front of our apartment complex that gets a beautiful red-ish, orange that will really be missed.

3. My Chiropractor. I know this is silly, but he really helped. After Connor was born, my shoulder would get so tight that I could move my arm above my head, not to mention turn my head in any direction. I can actually sleep on my stomach again because I can turn my neck in a normal way (even though I know I am not supposed to). It is fabulous!

4. The Zoo. I love this zoo. If you go there, you will understand.

5. Book Club. Not only was this a great way for me to read some really good books, it was a great time to be with some great people. I love all the women in book club and will miss all the wonderful discussions we had (especially the ones that were not related to the books, which we had quite a few of). Oh, and the food was always great!

6. The YMCA. It is so nice to be able to drop my kids off and go to a fun exercise class. It has also been so nice for Sydney. She has taken a lot classes there and I know she is really going to miss her swimming and ballet classes. And I don't know how I am going to stay motivated to exercise without my fellow "steppers". It is so much easier to exercise when you have good friends keeping tabs on you.

7. Babysitting groups. It has been nice being so close to other young parents who are also in need of quality one-on-one time with their spouses. The kids love having their friends come over or going over to their house for a night and of course we loved the opportunity to talk over a nice dinner (which I didn't have to prepare) and actually hear one another.

8. Weekly Summer BBQ's. Okay, maybe it wasn't weekly, but it sure felt like it sometimes and it was great!

9. The Chocolate Nazi. Or the Northern Chocolate Company, as it is properly named. This is the best chocolate I have ever had. Come to think of it, I will miss all the wonderful goodies we have found here, like Amy's Candy Kitchen (best caramel apples ever!), ice cream at the Dairy Store in the zoo, and you can't forget the cream puffs at the state fair.

10. Great Friends! of course. I have met some wonderful people here and now that we are all blogging, I hope to keep in touch (still planning on the trip in 5 years!). I will really miss being able to run upstairs in my pj's to borrow the next episode of "24" at 11:00 at night, or drop the baby monitor off when I have to run to the grocery store real quick, or the desserts brought over because they "can't be at my house or I will eat them all". I will also miss the "is that a plus sign?", and the "guess who else is pregnant", and especially the "hey, my kids are driving me crazy, can I come up and let them play with your kids?" FUN TIMES! But luckily I don't really have to say good-bye because there will many opportunities to see each other, it will just take a little more planning for the next "girls only movie night" (it's going to be the "Twilight" movie right?) Again, I am not saying "good-bye", just "see ya later"!