I'm Exhausted

We've been back in SLC nearly two weeks now.  We have been so busy unpacking, fixing up annoying issues, cleaning, and taking care of the kids (not to mention, Scott works and I've been taking Pure Barre classes) we've barely had time to sit down.  I feel like it all caught up with me last night.  I was (and still am) so tired.  I went to bed early and slept in a bit today.  My muscles are sore and Scott's knee is still nowhere close to 100% so when we walk around Home Depot together we walk like 90 year old's and move slow. It just feels like we have no relaxation time!

  We did go out last week, so I can't complain too much.  Our realtor, Craig Hawker, got us VIP tickets to see Man of Steel which was so fun.  I'm not a superhero fan.  In fact, I think superhero's are lame and super unimaginative, but it was so fun to see the movie in huge, leather reclining seats and have our food brought right to us.  Our realtor is the best.   Also, my sister Max is the best for babysitting on such short notice!  Thanks Max!

For our next date I plan to bring a blanket and sleep in the car....it sounds heavenly!

Anyway, here are a few pictures from our first two weeks back in Utah.

When we turn our water hose on, it kinda leaks and turns into a big muddy mess, which Echo thinks is the greatest thing ever!

There's a LDS church owned park just a few blocks away.  A very disappointing park.  If you look closely you will see that the side with the stairs has no slide, the side with the two slides has no stairs!  Um...What the crap happened there?!

For some reason, lately Ivy has decided she needs to do "her excises" on the trampoline.  They consist of jumping twice, screaming and flying on her bottom.  She's such a weirdo.  Her hair is out of control in these pictures!

And Echo has discovered the awesomeness that is The Breakfast Club.  Seriously, we were just hooking the new cable to the tv and it was on, and she was very interested and actually cried when we turned it off.

Life in Utah

We are officially Utahn's again.  We had our big moving day on Saturday after a whole day of shoving stuff into a Uhaul, Tetris-style, not fitting everything, renting a second Uhaul trailer, still not fitting everything and leaving many of those things for a continued life in Idaho while we moved on.

We arrived at our new home greeted by a BUNCH of people from our new ward to help us unload the Uhauls.  How awesome is that?  What took us about 10 hours on Friday and 2 more hours on Saturday to load up, was unloaded in about 45 minutes.  It was so NICE after a very long drive to be so warmly welcomed to our new neighborhood.

We have since received much help unpacking, arranging furniture and tending children from family and friends.  The ward and neighborhood have also been great by bringing us food and stopping by to introduce themselves and make us feel welcome.

Our home is still pretty chaotic with many, many boxes that need to be unpacked.  Everything moves a little slower when you have 5 kids.  Also, we've had some plumbing issues.  A LOT of plumbing issues.  A rooter company came by on Monday because anytime we took a shower, flushed a toilet, or anything the basement bathroom flooded.  We thought were good until yesterday one of the upstairs toilets started leaking.  GRRR.  Old houses and old pipes have these issues I guess, but occasionally it feels a lot like my favorite movie, The Money Pit.  Its getting a little frustrating.  Scott and Ross have also been working on fixing the sprinkler system, hoping ALL the grass doesn't die in the meantime (which would be  A LOT of grass).

Scott is spending a lot of time working, fixing up his office to be just how he likes it, shopping at Lowes, and fixing various problems throughout the house.  He's also been a good sport about me going to a Pure Barre fitness class with my friend, Lisa.  I got up at 5:25 am today to go, which is so unlike me.  He takes care of the house and kids while I'm gone for that hour everyday.  He's so awesome.

The kids have been spending lots of time with Grandma Marde, she takes them to her house and they hang out and play games, and she even took them swimming already.  It gives me more time to clean and unpack, which is a big help.

Anyway, it is just so great to be close to family and friends again.  We are so happy to be back.

SERIOUSLY!! What's next?

Do you ever have times in your life when things are going so well that you are afraid that if you express it out loud the cosmos will hear you and bad stuff will start happening?  Well, we must've said something, and the cosmos definitely heard us! The last month and a half have been pretty challenging!

1) The loan on our new house was a total nightmare for everyone involved.  I'm not going to go into detail because its complicated and a very long story, but I will say the loan closed 11 days behind schedule, we nearly lost $5,000, and I kinda felt like hiring a hitman!  It was the financial equivalent of a colonoscopy!

2) Buying a fridge has been a disaster!  Who knew buying a fridge could be so darn complicated!  We got $800 back at closing on our house to put towards a fridge.  They gave it to us in the form of a gift card to the store of our choosing.  We found a fridge that matched our other appliances at Lowes for the cheapest price but it couldn't be delivered til late June, so we went to Best Buy, found the same fridge could be delivered in early June and they would do a price match to Lowes.  So we went with Best Buy...BIG mistake.  They set delivery up with us for Saturday the 1st at 8 am.  We got my sister to go over to our house (since we are still in Idaho) and let the delivery people in.  Then at 8:45 the delivery dudes called and said they didn't have the fridge, didn't know where it was, and didn't know when it'd be available.  Scott spent the next two hours on and off hold with customer service, got hung up on twice and was on and off the phone with the Sandy store manager several times throughout the day....All for naught since the problem remains unresolved.

3)Everybody is sick.  The last week or so most of our kids have had cold and sore throats.  I'm so sick of wiping running noses, and listening the coughing all night long.  Corbin also got lucky enough to catch a very nasty stomach bug with some awesome diarrhea and vomiting for two days now.  It's bad.  He sat on the toilet last night doing both at the same time for nearly an half hour.  I feel so bad for him!  Also, I woke up this morning with the sore throat and running nose.  Awesome.

4)  Scott nearly blew out his knee.  Last night after the kids were in bed, Scott and I were hard at work getting ready for our big move on Friday and Saturday.  We had pulled the fridge and oven out from the wall and I was scrubbing the floor beneath them while Scott was dismantling our entertainment center.  Suddenly I heard Scott screaming.  I ran for the living room imaging blood and carnage from Scott hurting himself with the drill or something, but found him curled up on the floor in the fetal position.  He had kneeled funny, lost his balance, popped his knee out of place (like he did once in wrestling years ago), put all his body weight on the popped out knee, felt it grinding, fell to the ground and popped it back in somehow.  It was horrible, he was drenched in sweat and couldn't move his leg.  Eventually we determined it had just popped out and nothing was broken, I helped him to the couch and then went on a search for crutches.  He had a seminar to attend and record today and he couldn't even walk.  We have a pair of crutches from when I tore a ligament in my ankle 2 1/2 years ago, but of course we took them to SLC two months ago and put them in storage.  I rushed to Walgreens before they closed, and they only carry them online.  So inconvenient! Eventually, I called a friend of mine from church after remembering her telling me a story of her breaking her leg.  Luckily she had some to let us borrow and Scott was able to make it the seminar today.  (I finished taking apart the entertainment center and packing up the car with all Scott's recording gear since he still can't walk).  I don't know how we are going to load up the Uhaul on Friday if he still can't walk.  We are just praying he is better by then.  We've got 4 days.  

Please keep your fingers crossed, say prayers and do your voodoo magic to help us get through all this and whatever comes next!  We appreciate it!

The Old Idaho State Penitentiary

We are down to like 11 or 12 days left in Boise.  So for Memorial day we wanted to do something fun that we can only do in Boise for our last hoorah.  We had been wanting to see the old penitentiary for years now, but never got around to it.  We decided it was the perfect activity so we went.  It was the Idaho penitentiary for 101 years from 1872 to 1973.  It is now a museum and haunted attraction.  We spent about two hours there (with 5 kids, that's pretty good).  We LOVED it.  It was so cool and interesting.  Supposedly its haunted, but we didn't run across any ghosts!  I really enjoy museums and stuff so I thought it was awesome. We saw the women's section, Death row, the Gallows, solitary confinement, and a bunch of cell blocks.  There were even some buildings that were basically burned down during riots and only the walls remained.  So much awesomeness.  Corbin and I both like Death row the best.  I would have loved to go without kids so I could have spent more time reading the interesting facts, but alas....it was still fun.

Two weeks left

Hey Y'all!  Did you know we're moving?  I might have mentioned it previously.  I'm SUPER excited!  We are leaving in just two short weeks.  I have been crazy busy packing and cleaning and painting to get ready for the big event.  I seriously can't wait to get to spend more time with my family, Scott's parents and extended family, and all our friends that live close by our new house.  It feels like Christmas to me.

But....There are a few things I'm going to miss in Idaho.

1)  All our doctors.  We have a great eye doc for the kids, an amazing cardiologist for Ivy, and the best pediatrician.  It's hard to switch doctors.  I trust these doctors with the health of my children and its hard and time consuming to build up the amount of trust that we have.  I'm dreading the switch.  Especially with the pediatrician.  I'm so afraid we wont find another doctor that cares for the kids the way that Dr. Kiehl does. I'm a little sad about it.

2)  Our house.  I wish we could just pick up our house and take it with us.  It's got such a great layout and is so spacious...its hard to leave a house that we love so much.

3) The elementary school.  Desert Sage is really a good school, and its literally a three minute walk from our house.  I have always felt confident that the kids were getting a good education and they've had great teachers.  I know Utah schools don't get as much financing as schools here, I just hope that it doesn't effect the quality of the education they receive.

4) The weather.  For the most part Boise has pretty mild weather.  It doesn't get quite so cold, snowy and miserable in winter as the SL valley.  I'm definitely not looking forward to winter drivers in Utah, that's for sure.

5)Speaking of drivers...The traffic in the SL valley is pretty horrible.  In Boise its not bad at all.  Also, Utah drivers are less patient and sometimes terrifying.  I should know, I used to be one of them.  Luckily, Scott will be working from home, and hopefully I'll walk the kids to school so that will cut out two of the big reasons to drive.

6) Idaho cousins.  Both Scott's brother's live here in Boise, so that means we will be ditching the cousins that our kids have become such good friends with.  I think we are all a bit sad about it, but they have other cousins in Utah that we haven't been able to get to know very well and its a great chance to become friends with them.  Besides, I'm sure we will still get to see everyone enough that the friendships will survive.

7)  The friends we've made.  Believe it or not, even home-bodies like us can make friends.  I have a lot of friends in our ward and neighborhood that make it hard to leave and Scott has some friends at work that share his geekiness that he's sad to not see much of anymore. And of course Scott's brother's and their wives, who we'll miss too. Hopefully we'll be able to keep up with everyone somehow.

Writing down all the good things about Idaho makes me sad to leave, but being back to our "old stomping grounds" by more of the people that love us makes it worth it.

PS.  If anyone here in Boise would like to help us load up the Uhaul on Friday, June 7th, we'd love the help, or anyone in SLC who'd be willing to help us unload the next evening (Saturday the 8th) at our new home in Sandy, you are always welcome.......

Echo is Excellent

Echo turned two yesterday.  I seriously can't believe she's already two.  These last two years flew by!! 

Echo on May 18, 2011   

May 18, 2012

Here is just a little bit of Echo info for your enjoyment.

 Echo is such an awesome girl.  She LOVES being outside at all hours of the day.  She plays in the dirt, goes up and down the slide, and jumps on the trampoline all day long.

She also loves to sing, mostly "Twinkle twinkle little star", but a few others as well.

She talks a lot now too.  She can say all of our names except Corbin and Malcolm.  She calls Corbin "Dexy" (she calls Dexy "Dexy" too....she knows the difference between them and will point out Corbin when we say "Where's Corbin?". She just can't say it, its a hard word, so they are both Dexy.)  She calls Malcolm "Baby".

She adores Ivy and loves playing with her.  They are so cute together.  Whenever she and Ivy are in different area's of the house she can be heard yelling "IVY!!" in her loudest voice (which is pretty darn loud).

She is addicted to three things.  She has to have them for naps and bedtime, and when she's sad. 1) Her Paci...I planned on taking it at age two, but I'm not ready yet.  I've got to wean her down.  She wants it all day.  I'm going to start taking it during the day and only let her have it during naps and bedtime, but I'm waiting til after we move. 2) Her seahorse.  She loves her seahorse.  When she can't find it she will wander around the house looking for it saying, "Seahorsy, where are you?"  It melts my heart.  3) Her blanket.  She got it as a gift from Grandma Marde when she was born, but sometime in the last year or so she got super addicted to it and now can't sleep without it.  She often goes to get it from her room when she's feeling sad or cuddly.  She's so cute.

Anyway, Echo is excellent and we love having her in our family.  She is such a good sister and daughter.  Happy Birthday Echo!

Echo enjoying her favorite snack-olives!

Jumping on the trampoline with her seahorse, blanket and paci!

Sprinkler time!

Fell asleep on the couch

Enjoying Jungle Jims

Run Fat Girl Run

I started walking/jogging in the mornings.  Yep.  I know.  I'm as shocked as you.  I get up super early (6:45, which is really early for me), take Scott's iPod and try to get in a full hour to myself before I have to be back home to get Corbin ready for school.  It's so nice and cool in the morning (but not cold), and its quiet, and I can listen to whatever I want.  I'm really enjoying it.

Except for one thing.

I keep getting a blister.  In the same place.  On the bottom of my foot.  It's really starting to annoy me.

Have you ever seen Run, Fat boy, Run?  It's a Simon Pegg comedy.  I'm a big fan.  There are lots of potty jokes and shenanigans, and it's probably not too wholesome.  But I thought it was really funny.  Anyway, there is this scene with a blister.  Each day as my blister gets bigger and grosser I think of that scene.

Today, When I was walking Dexter to school with my flip flops on, the blister popped.  I felt like I'd stepped in a puddle.  My whole sandal was soaked.  So disgusting.

Will my feet eventually toughen up, or do I need new shoes?  I'm asking all you runners out there, I know at least a few of you read my blog.....

And for the other 2 people who read it, and are interested, here's the blister scene from Run, Fat boy, Run.

link to youtube or watch below.