fitting in?

I don't know when it happened, but I'm not a stranger here anymore. People in the neighborhood and ward are remembering my name, and young children are referring to me as Lyda's mom. I even had a calling extended to me last Sunday! Don't get me wrong, some days I'm still ready to head back to the South. Utah is such an interesting mix of people. lol

Yesterday was a nice day. I let the kids go out to play in the cul-de-sac and I didn't see them for almost 2 hours. Don't worry- I did hang out on the porch, so I could hear if someone needed me. I caught up on a book I'm reading The Girl Who Could Fly. I'm supposed to be reading The Princess Bride for our Ward book club, but I cant seem to get into it. I was hoping for more of the same today, but the weather was horrible! 75 mile wind gusts, and so much dirt and dust in the air, I could not see the mountains! If you have looked at my blog recently, you have seen some mountain pictures that were taken from my yard. I kid you not, I could not see them at all! Just a dull brown filled the sky, and I have no idea where the sun was.
It was a really weird feeling, and with all that dust in the air, my allergies were going haywire. Poor Kate she was having problems too, so she stayed home, and inside.
I thought Arkansas had weird weather!

cute boy and misc. thoughts...

My children are growing way too fast. Lydia is about to turn 12 an enter Young Women's this year, my baby Kate is in Kindergarten, and Jake just celebrated his 3rd birthday. Derek snapped this picture yesterday.Doesn't he look like a little man and when did I get an almost teen? It seems my children wake up in the morning, and they look like they have grown overnight! Is it this Utah air, or is just the realization that time marches on, whether you want it too or not?

Yesterday I got an opportunity to see some of my dear friends from Arkansas, the Moll Family and Rhea Smith. I cannot tell you how good I felt see my old friends. I still miss Arkansas terribly. I love the slower pace of life, the friendliness of the people, and the overall beauty of the landscape there. If I could I would go back in a heartbeat....but alas, we are committed here for another 10 months. Don't get me wrong Utah has beauty of it own. Consider this...

This was taken out our back door.

Guess I'm still adjusting to it all....

spring

I am seeing signs of life in Utah. So far it been a boring wasteland of brown scrubby bushes, and dead mums in my flower beds. Since we are in a rental, I'm not sure what the former tenants planted, but was pleasantly surprised to discovered these peeking out of the ground.

So glad things are starting to bloom here. Maybe Utah's not so bad after all....

birthday boy

We had a small party at the house with our family. The Whites, Thueson's, and Harrison's were able to make it. We had fun decorating the house earlier in the day, and even used window markers for a Happy Birthday wish.

After everyone one arrived, we opened presents and had some cake. Jacob got a couple of books(yea!) some mini Tonka trucks, bubbles, cars, and a radio flyer wagon.

the booty...

Here is my big boy blowing out his candles...

his cake(I was lazy this year, and got it from Macey's)



and finally the kids enjoying the wagon before it got too dark.

The adults and teens rounded out the night with Rockband, while the littles slept the party off.

I still don't know how they slept through all that noise.

I know you had a Happy Birthday Jake!

mini vacation

Gotta love Charter Schools. The girls had a whole week off (march break) so we headed down to visit some friends in Hurricane. Derek was off also, so it seemed like a perfect way to spend it!

Hurricane is down in Southern Utah, and is known for it's warm climate. Retired people usually have winter homes in this area, but this year its seems to be anything but warm. They have been slammed with so much snow this year!
Driving down, we were in a snow storm(around the Cedar City area), but we made it just fine. The people traveling on I-15 the next day weren't so lucky. A car got sandwiched between two semis, and one person was killed. The Interstate was shut down for 5 hours while they cleared the wreckage.
Anyhow, we were able to stay with the Cahoons in their new house. It is beautiful. We even had our own MIL suite to stay in(thanks Ciera for letting us use your space!) Christen and I had fun running around St George and making crafts. Believe it or not, we didn't even scrapbook! Here is a picture of us on the last day. Who would have known, that 10 years ago in Conway, we formed a friendship that we still enjoy today?

Lydia and Graden had fun getting to know each other again.

Kate stayed busy down in the game room, complete with a ping-pong table, pinball machine, the Wii, and a cute little room complete with dress up outfits.

It was a nice break form the norm...wonder what we will do for Spring Break next month?

Cup O' Grease

Please don't call scan on me. I'm a terrible mother. I suppose I could keep my house a little cleaner, make sure I throw stuff out when I need to.

Today Jacob was complaining of being thirsty. I was semi-ignoring him. I look up and find him taking a long swig of this...

immediately followed by these words" Yucky water Mommy!"

Valentines Day

It was a pretty quiet day here for V-day, since it was Sunday. I did make a nice valentine dinner of Gnocchi, with home made sauce, sauteed edamame, and bread sticks.

We also invited Curtis, my nephew, over for dinner and a movie.

Hope we didn't bore him to death. lol.. love you Curt.

This is how the kids spent thier evening..watching the Olympics in thier favorite spot- Mom and Dad's bed.

The adults watched "Couples Retreat", it was pretty funny. I even made a red-velvet cake, my first gluten-free attempt with this type of cake. I always shied away from it because, you add a bottle of red food coloring to it! I didn't have the food coloring, but I did have some red paste left from my cake decorating days. It worked just fine.

Just wanted to tell everyone how grateful I am to have you in my life, even if we are miles apart this Valentines Day.

a me day, well sorta...

This week is Derek's week off, and I have really needed some time away from the house, so I went up to Salt Lake. I met up with Julie Nooner (most of you know her family from Morrilton)
It was so nice to see a familiar face. She gave me a tour of the Skin Institute were she completed her degree in Aesthetics. It was a really cool place, and I cannot wait to go back and get some procedures done. Since the students do the work, the cost is about half of what it would be in a regular spa.
After my tour we went to Pei Wei, and had some lunch. It was so nice just to sit and talk and be like a normal person for a while(well, as normal as I can be!) Thanks Julie for a great day!

After our visit, I went into Taylorsville to check out a Gluten Free store called Against the Grain. I have never seen so many gluten-free products in one place! They had just a a delivery of gluten free decorated sugar-cookies from a nearby bakery. I just couldn't resist taking some home. They even sold whole pies. Only in a place like Utah, could a store like this thrive.
I think they should name it Gluten Free Heaven. Oh, by the way the cookie was heavenly :)

little things mean alot

Okay, moving half way across the country is tough!
I'm having such a hard time adjusting. I find myself going to Walmart just for the Southern vibe, and believe me, there are rednecks in Utah too! Ive decided I've got to pick myself up and go on.
We are not going back, even though yesterday while heading south on I-15, I thought to myself
"I can keep on this Freeway and in 2 days I will be back in AR!"
How pathetic am I!
So, Ive got to start being more positive about this experience. So I'm going to share a few "likes"

Okay the first. I love this thing! It has THE best water pressure. It's great for waking you up in the morning!


2nd, we have grass in our yard, not a tree in sight!(no leaves to rake this fall- yahoo!)


3rd we have a garage. If any of you have lived here, you know scraping windows every morning can be a chore!



4th our church is literally one house down. I was standing in our front yard. You can see the steeple-only one house stands between us.



5th-okay I know your saying, "she loves a door?" Our last house did not have a door on the Master bath, so you always had someone walking in on you. I was even more excited when I found out the door even locks! Heaven!



ust random thoughts, from my random mind...

where are my pants?

I was sitting in my room on the computer, when Jacob came running in and shouting something (At 2.5 years sometimes he's really hard to understand.)
Anyhow, he runs in the room and says"where my pants?" about 3 times.
I finally looked up at him and found this.
Apparently the girls had gone to play outside, and he knew he needed pants on to join them..lol

Our rental

A few of you have asked about our rental here in SF. It was quite the transition from a 3100 sf feet house to a 1200 sf house, let me tell you!
I like the house and am grateful to have a roof over my head, and our rent is actually not that bad for this area. My only beef with this house, is the kitchen. It is a galley kitchen. You walk through it (let me rephrase that) you step through it. It only take about 3 of my steps and you are out the kitchen, into the garage!
there is one area of counterspace that is about 2.5 feet long. I'll share some pictures with you. Dont you love the mini pantry and the counterspace between the fridge and stove? lol...

luncheon with the ladies.

Today was a nice day. Two ladies that live in the cul-de-sac behind us, had 40th birthdays in December, so they all got together and had a luncheon for them. It was quite fun to sit around and listen to the ladies talk, and get to know them better.
Two of the ladies are in the Primary Presidency, and I could clearly see why. They are both very fun, and outgoing. It was nice to take a break from un-packing and cleaning.
The satellite guy and the garage door guy came today to replace the non-working units, so now I have my fav shows back, and I can drive into my garage!
Yea- because the wind is blowing and it's cold today. Tomorrow we are expecting snow. My kids are still amazed that the snow from 2 weeks ago is still on the ground. I keep telling them it's hard and crusty by now, but they just can't wait to get out in it. I'm sure my neighbors think we are strange. Yesterday about half of the Achievement Day girls came over to pick up Lydia for AD. It was quite the group-like 20 girls total! It's nice that the church is only 1 house down from us.

Tonight the Elders Quorum Presidency is coming over to meet us...uh-oh! No, people seem really nice here, sometimes I wonder if its fake...lol..
I still miss Arkansas and my friends, but we are slowly acclimating here.
More later...

first day of school

Well, we made it through the first day. After a confusing drop-off this morning, I think I finally understand the procedure..lol. Lots of rude Utah drivers though, wont go there for now.

Lydia has joined the Drama club. She is really excited, and made a new friend today at school. Also a neighbor girl invited her to a birthday party on Thursday. Tomorrow night is Achievment day from 4:30 to 5:30pm. The AD leader is very nice and there are actually 2 leaders. It cracks me up that there are 2 people for every calling!

Kate enjoyed her first day and is anxious to go back tomorrow. Lydia said one boy kept saying to her" hey Arkansas!" she didnt like it of course. I kept telling her that if he really didint care, he wouldnt say anything.

It hit me today, I now know we are in Utah. Derek was outside shoveling the sidewalk and 3 kids stopped to help him break up the ice/snow combo and shovel it off to the side. They worked for like 30 minutes and got the job done.

we made it

Wow, what an adventure.
We started out Sunday morning about 7am and drove straight through to Santa Rosa, NM. Even with the time change we still didn't arrive until about 8pm, which meant 14 hours on the road. I have to tell you, it about killed me driving that long and not having anyone to switch out on the driving. The caravan pretty much went like this, Derk in the front with the uhaul and trailer, me with the kids in the van, and Damon behind us in Derek's car. We all three had our own vehcile to drive because of a mix up on the moving van..oh well. We made it with absolutely no weather problems, or vehcile problems, except for Derek locking the u-haul keys in it, at Weatherford Oklahoma. He was pretty upset, but since our moving van was new, it was under warranty, and Ford came out and unlocked it for us. It was only about an hour delay, so I was grateful for that. Our second day we drove form Santa Rosa to Moab Utah. I was sick that day with a killer headache, and intestinal problems. In Farmington NM, we stopped for lunch, and I was so sick I just went an laid down in the van. I really felt I couldn't go on, but we did persevere, and made it to Moab. I was so happy to stop, you just don't know! The next day was relatively easy drive of 4 hours, to Spanish Fork. Let me tell you though I-70 is desolate!
So, now we are here in Spanish, day 2 of being in rental house. It's not bad, typical rental, white walls, fairly ugly carpeting, but it could be way worse. It's a very quiet neighborhood, as a matter of fact 7 men showed up form Cambridge Ward to help usmove in. I met my neighbor Sister Evans(cant remember her first name) that's what Ward list are for...lol...everyone was very friendly and helpful. I even found a lady in my Ward who teaches Cello! She plays with the Utah Valley Symphony.
Today we are off to get a fridge( found one for 50$ online,perfect!) and groceries and to take the girls down to the school to have a look around. Then off to take the Uhaul back and get some lunch and check out the local Library.

Will share more later.

going away party..

Had a little shin-dig here at the house last night. My friend Michelle organized the whole thing. We had a lot of good food, and I enjoyed visitng with all our friends. I was bit sad thinking I wont be as close to our friends. Morrilton was such a good move for our family. We became closer to each other, and learned to enoy a slower pace of life here. Dont get me wrong, we love all our friends, but Morrilton will always hold a special place in our hearts.
Here's a few pics. from last night...

Christmas Day

Woke up to a nice dusting of snow on the ground. The girls were hoping for so much more. Unfortunately it didn't allow my sisters to make it for Christmas. Apparently Fort Smith got hit with ice and snow. We are disappointed, were hoping to see them before we leave AR next week.
As usual the kids made out like bandits: Lydia got a robe, a mood changing jelly watch, a locket, and a glow board and a gift certificate.
Kate got a Elefun game, a Melissa and David play Doh set(she loves these toys!) a
Ni-ho Kilan doll, and a Baby Alive.
Jacob got a Disney Cars play rug with cars, and a Tonka garage set. He is in heaven!
Derek was very good this year, and got a Wii, an extra controller, and for everyone the Batman Lego game. He was really shocked...I'm getting sneakier every year.
I got 2 shirts, a pair of jeans, and a set of Rachel Ray Bubbles and Browns set. If your a big Rachel fan, you know what I'm talking about!

We are about to have lunch/dinner in a bit. Made Petite Jean ham, scalloped potatoes, salad, and rolls, with apple pie and tropical cake for dessert. Hopefully I wont stuff myself silly! Dad and Derek have been playing on the Wii most of the morning. My Dad is just a big ole' kid!
Merry Christmas!

Christmas eve.

My parents got here a couple of hours ago, and after Chinese buffet for Dinner( in fine Christmas Story fashion)we decided to make Santa cookies. Jacob was really into using the cookie cutters, grunting and groaning with each cut. Such hard work!
Kate poured about a half of bottle of pink sugar crystals on one of her candy cane cookies. It actually turned out very pretty.
Jacob kept calling the deco sugar, sparkles. I wont sparkles on it!!!! Lydia was a bit frustrated, trying to do fancy deco job on her cookies just wasnt working out the way she wanted.. Imagine! wonder where she gets that perfectionist attitude from hmmmmmm.....
Here is some of the finished product. Hope Santa likes them.....

Jacob- yummy.

Here are a few pics taken after making a big batch of brownies. Jacob loves eat, but he especially loves to lick the bowl or spatula....