Blog-a-log

Okay, so I'm not keeping up my end of the 'prepare to be amazed' deal. Sorry. I thought about y'all several times in the last couple of weeks, but it just hasn't made it onto the world wide web. What's been going on in our life, you may wonder? Well, Mary and Russ finally made the leap and loaded up all of their earthly possessions (and a few of ours) into a 26 foot Penske rental truck and drove themselves to Ohio last week. They left here at the crack of dawn (possibly even before the crack, I'm not sure because I was sleeping) and drove the 26 hours to Ohio in about three days. I'm told they now have the truck unloaded, and although I haven't spoken to them, I assume the remodel officially gets underway today. I hope all things go well there, because my family will be arriving to stay at their house in approximately 2 months and 4 days. Yup, that's right. 2 months and 4 days. When I bought those airline tickets, not all that long ago, I thought "Three months?! That's forever! I have TONS of time to get the 200 things that I want to do before I leave Utah done." After 1 month passing? Yeah, not feeling so confident. I have done almost nothing on that list of 200 things. I think the list is down to 183. It's quite paralyzing to realize that I am leaving the only home that I have ever known for a place that I have never even been. However, we have planned one last, massive 'bring down the house' barbecue at our place on July 4th. We figure most everybody has that day off work, and since most everyone here will probably never see us again, we thought they'd be willing to take the afternoon off from other festivities and come spend it with us. Guess that's one way of finding out how many friends you have, right? Like, if you REALLY loved us, you'd come to our house and have lunch the day before we fly out.
Anyway, that's what we've been up to. That, and I have a huge cold. The kind of cold that makes your head feel like it's going to explode into tiny pieces and scatter brain-goo all over the room. It comes with the added bonus of extra juicy, super green phlegm. Phlegm, coughing and morning sickness all put together in one pitiful soul? Not a pretty picture, I tell you. Yesterday, Jeremy's Sunbeam teacher informed me that he announced in church today that Mommy has been throwing up a lot. How do I respond to that? Yes, Mommy has been throwing up a lot. Luckily, I have announced in our ward that I am pregnant, so hopefully people will assume that it's related to the parasite growing in my uterus, and not some over developed, completely obvious case of bulimia.

Well, at least it WAS here.

Spring WAS here. Seriously, it was down right warm and cheerful for several days. Unfortunately, spring has found other locales to frequent for the rest of the week. Last night I left my bedroom window open in order to enjoy the cool breezes while I slept, but sometime during the night the wind, rain, and thunder, coupled with freezing temperatures, forced me to close my bedroom window. I woke up this morning to soggy ground, dark skies, and intermittent rain showers for the rest of the day. At this particular moment, it's actually snowing. Yes, on April 18th, it's actually SNOWING!! I doubt that any of it will stick, it's more the 'melt instantly when it hits the ground' variety, but that fact that there is a white substance falling from the sky when yesterday my children and I spent the better part of the day enjoying the sunshine. Yesterday we walked to the park in the morning, came home long enough to nap, back outside until it was time to eat dinner, and then outside again until bedtime. It was lovely, but apparently not to last. I love Cache Valley, and I'm going to miss it, but the fickle weather? I hope it stays behind.

Spring is here!

Well, it appears as though spring has finally reached northern Utah. This picture of Kadon is a pretty good representation of what we have been doing every afternoon for the last several weeks. After a long winter of being stuck inside with an asthmatic child, it feels wonderful! Normally we putter around the house in the morning, or run errands if we need to. We'll be home in time for lunch, then after Kadon takes a nap we head outside to play with all the other kids in the complex. Oftentimes when Ammon gets home from work at 5:30 he will find us outside on the playground still. Needless to say, on those nights we have a VERY quick dinner. It's so great for me to see my kids interacting with the neighbor children and learning to share and play nicely with other children. It's been great for them in many aspects. Ammon and I have also started being more active now that it's warmer outside. Many evenings we play basketball together, or just sit outside and play with the kids. Kadon is a big basketball fan and we recently purchased him his own pint-sized ball to play with. The theory was that if he had his own ball he would leave ours alone, and so far it seems to be working reasonably well. Anyway, I hope everyone else is enjoying this lovely spring as much as we are!

Baby Animal Days

Every year in our town there is a huge festival called Baby Animal Days, and I love to take my kids to it whenever I can. They always have lots of animal for the children to pet and hold, and there are usually several puppies for sale. This year, to our delight, there was an 'Instrument petting Zoo' that one of the music stores in town set up. They had every percussion instrument imaginable, and there was a gentleman there encouraging the children to play with everything and make as much noise as possible. The three little boys we had with us were hard to capture in picture because they were running so rapidly from instrument to instrument, but I snapped this picture of Kadon at exactly the right time, and I think it turned out adorable. All morning as we wandered around petting the animals, and then later as we sat on the grass to eat our lunch, we could hear the sounds of drums, tambourines, and maracas being played, and it was music to my ears. It's things like this festival that I'm going to miss when we leave Utah this summer, but I'm glad we got to enjoy it one last time.

More Random Pictures

This picture was taken at the local Baby Animal Days festival, which is held every spring the Thursday-Saturday before Easter. My friend Laura and I took our kids on Friday morning, and Jeremy and Kadon got to dress up in the skins of dead creatures, which was quite the sight to see.
This picture was taken about two weeks ago when Kadon was sick with a very strange fever/cold combination. At the end of the day, all he wanted to do was snuggle and watch TV, so this is a picture of Ammon snuggling with both the boys after a tough day at work. Kadon looks so miserable in this picture it just makes my heart melt, poor kid.
This is my friend Laura's little boy who is Jeremy's age. They stood in line in order to be able to hold the baby chicks, and then very carefully passed the tiny creature between them so they could both have a turn. I managed to capture this photo mid-pass, and I think it's just precious.

Ohio

Well, it's official. We have been making plans for about 6 months in the general direction of ending up in Ohio sometime this year, but today the plans went from semi-soft to as firm as can be. I went ahead and bought non-refundable one-way tickets for the kids and I to fly to Columbus, Ohio on July 5th. We have a family reunion in Ohio the second week of July, so Ammon will fly with us and be there for the reunion, and on the 17th of July will fly back to Utah, stay here long enough to empty our apartment into a moving van, at which point Russ and Ammon will drive from Utah to Ohio. It's a little frightening to be planning this move and have almost nothing going for us in Ohio. As of right now, we have no job prospects, no place of our own, and no doctor for myself, who will be about 6 months pregnant when we make the move. Although this move is scary, nerve-wracking, and unfamilair, we are excited for this next chapter in our family life. We have prayed about it many times, and feel like this move is the right thing for our family to do, so we are taking a great leap of faith and are sincerely hoping that there will be somewhere to land.