No Place Like "Home"

It was such a sad and strange feeling to be headed "home" to our house in Oregon for the last time. The word "home" seemed abstract as we hovered between our two homes. Our Oregon house felt like our real home still. We had fun looking at houses and were excited for the adventure ahead in Utah, but as we headed "home" for the last time - the thought of leaving our home, friends and everything familiar for 10 years felt overwhelming and so so sad. It was a weird feeling to arrive "home" and know we would only be there for two more weeks. And finding our lawn mowed and the house well taken care of by our sweet neighbors across the street and every other kind thing our friends did for us in the next 14 days made my heart ache and also feel so much gratitude for the good people who were our surrogate family for a decade. We were so blessed with wonderful friends . . . so blessed.

So despite the huge list of things to get done in the next two weeks - we spent as much time as we could with friends. We had the girls attend to school during our last two weeks in Oregon - partly just to give them something to pass the time, to be around their friends a little longer and to allow us time to get the house and everything ready. It was not easy for the girls to go when it seemed kind of pointless. Sarah especially struggled on the days when things came up about projects, field trips and things the fourth graders would be learning after she would be gone. I think overall, it was the best to have them going and staying on a schedule to help them ease into school better in Utah.

From Blog Favorites Sept.Oct.

Lauren was such a cute friend of Sarah's - they were just starting to be really close when we decided to move. They have written a few times to each other. I was heart broken to pull Sarah from her wonderful friends in Oregon.

From Blog Favorites Sept.Oct.

From Blog Favorites Sept.Oct.

Lydia and Natalie have been the best of friends since we moved into our Zachary street house four years ago. They were so little when they started having their first playdates.

From Blog Favorites Sept.Oct.

A funny picture of Tina, me and Shannan. Sorry girls, I think I said I wouldn't put this on the blog - but it makes me smile so much and brings such good memories. This was a night of a secret mission that brought a lot of giggles - like we were in high school. I can't disclose the secret mission, but it was a lot of fun and a wonderful memory with two of the most thoughtful and giving friends I know.

From Blog Favorites Sept.Oct.

My future son-in-law! (o: Isn't he the cutest?? We'll see - Kim and I have plans . . .

From Blog Favorites Sept.Oct.

It has been almost 4 months since this night and it still makes me tear up. Kim and Mike and the kids were like family to us. Still are - just farther away family. We knew we would most likely not get to end up living close together - they came back to Oregon for two more years while Mike gets his PhD in Kids' Dentistry. It's not really called that, I don't think - but it sounds good. (o: We knew they'd probably head somewhere else when he graduated, but we had two years of good times before that fateful day. And here we were - our two years of fun cut short. )O: What a wonderful night and a fabulous dinner, of course. Kim's yummy homemade Jamba Juice and awesome sliders. Miss you Kim!!

From Blog Favorites Sept.Oct.

A photo for the future wedding slide show perhaps? I better tone it down before they get old enough to catch my hints and rebel. (o:

From Blog Favorites Sept.Oct.

Two peas in a pod - Allie and Sarah (who spoke on the phone yesterday for about 40 minutes non-stop - January 17th - cute girls)

From Blog Favorites Sept.Oct.

The big kids wanted to be outside alone - "no adults allowed" they told us. But I just had to sneak out for one picture.

From Blog Favorites Sept.Oct.

Aww Kim - we were finally in the same state again. Maybe someday . . . You are the BEST!

From Blog Favorites Sept.Oct.

From Blog Favorites Sept.Oct.

A few days before I left, I wanted to see some of my good friends from our "old" digs. It was so fun to hang out with Krista, Rose and Jessica one last time. I've known them for so long. Krista was Sarah's preschool teacher (along with Kim) what seems like eons ago and a dear friend from the Quatama ward. Rose served with me in primary and made that huge calling so much fun. And Jessica lived right across the street from us and had kids the same age. We had good times on 210th Place - the kids had so much fun playing on our little dead end street for hours and hours while we talked. Such wonderful people. I am a better person for each one of my sweet Oregon friends and pray that their lives will be happy and wonderful. And I hope that we will meet again!

From Blog Favorites Sept.Oct.

I was feeling so sentimental, I snapped a shot of Angela as we walked out of the library for the last time after closing my account. )o: I loved our beautiful library.

From Blog Favorites Sept.Oct.

Kind of a funny little still life. A gorgeous rose someone left on our porch with a sweet note - I'm pretty sure it was the Gerbers. Paper plates and cups to simplify things the last week. A grilled cheese sandwich in a ziploc - must've been leftovers from a tomato soup and grilled cheese night. And one last tomato from the garden.

From Blog Favorites Sept.Oct.

One of our last beautiful Bartlett pears from the pear tree out back. Man, can you tell that I am a VERY sentimental person? This move was killing me and all these little things still make my heart ache and feel "home" sick.

Back Blogging - More from the House Hunting Trip

From Blog Favorites Sept.Oct.

After a roller coaster few months, I finally have my bearings again and feel like I can take on the task of blogging once more! I got a little overwhelmed thinking of how much catching up to do, so I did something I do best - I procrastinated! And now there are no more excuses - the longer I wait the harder it will be to catch up. Besides that - I have felt bad for not keeping my awesome Oregon friends updated as well as I intended to do. So please forgive my tardiness, but better late than never, right??? (o: My last posts were from the house hunting and included pictures of the house. But there were some other fun pictures from that trip and memories I don't want to forget - so we will start there.

First of all, this trip was a special one. It was strange driving to Utah for this trip knowing that the next time we did it - we would be staying. It was also strange bringing a cat along for a 12 hour drive - I covered that in an earlier post. Not something I would recommend, but we were so glad that we got transporting her over with on this trip so she wouldn't be in the way or running away during the packing up. Phil's parents deserve a big HIP HIP HOORAY from us for allowing Twilight to stay with them for several weeks until we got into the house.

From Blog Favorites Sept.Oct.

It was kind of surreal to think that these family get-togethers would be a common occurrence. We were excited for the girls to get to know their cousins better and have more time with grandparents, aunts and uncles! We enjoyed a fun dinner in mom and dad's backyard one of the nights we were in Utah and afterwards the girls got the treat of getting their faces painted by grandma and aunt Chrissy just for fun.

From Blog Favorites Sept.Oct.

From Blog Favorites Sept.Oct.

From Blog Favorites Sept.Oct.

From Blog Favorites Sept.Oct.

We stayed in the very nice Hyatt Summerfield Suites for our week long visit. The girls love staying in hotels and getting the "fancy" breakfasts and having maids clean up. Good thing, because we had a loooong hotel stay ahead of us. After finding our house, making the offer and working out the details - it turned out that we would not get the house as soon as we hoped. Phil* started work October 12th and the house wouldn't be ours until Halloween-time. We had a three week hotel stay ahead of us. But we didn't mind - it was all part of the adventure.

From Blog Favorites Sept.Oct.

The girls spent a lot of time with grandma and grandpa P. who were luckily available (or made themselves available) for a lot of the time we were house hunting. This was huge because we had a LOT of houses to look at in a short time and they would have gotten so tired of it after just a few. By the time we narrowed down our search to 3-4 houses, we had them come give their opinions and it worked out just great. Grandma kept the girls busy with fun activities including lunch with aunt Emily and her kids at McDonalds, movies, art projects (like Natalie's work of art above, which measures about 3 1/2 feet by 2 feet) and making paper dolls. The girls were in heaven and didn't seem to sad to miss a whole week of school. (o:

From Blog Favorites Sept.Oct.

Celebrating the signing on our new house at a pizza place just down the street in our new town.

The ONE!

From Blog Favorites August/September

So this is the one that we picked. (o: Home sweet home. It's funny, after all the agonizing and searching and weighing pros and cons - when I went back through my pictures that I was snapping as we walked through so many houses, I had about 5 pictures of this house. I only took a total of about 12 pictures through the whole process (shocking, I know, for a picture-holic like myself. It was just too distracting to worry about taking pictures.) So the house I took the most pictures of, by far, was the one we ended up picking. It was like I knew all along.

From Blog Favorites August/September

This was on our final run - we took the girls to see our top three houses. They were hugging the house before they even saw the inside. It felt like home.

From Blog Favorites August/September

The great room.

From Blog Favorites August/September

Kitchen

From Blog Favorites August/September

From Blog Favorites August/September

A basement! What a cool concept. (o:

From Blog Favorites August/September

Our backyard. I was very happy about the raised garden bed - in the far corner.

From Blog Favorites August/September

And my favorite rooms in the house....

From Blog Favorites August/September

Eeenie Meenie Miny Mo

After our very long drive to Utah the day before, we were ready on Tuesday to start what we came for. My aunt Leslie, an awesome realtor in Salt Lake, was ready for a house hunting marathon. Bob* and I were excited to see what was out there after all our hard work getting our own house ready to sell. We were also excited to ride in Leslie's gorgeous white Mercedes - house hunting in style! (O: I am so grateful we go to have John and Leslie help us find a house in Utah. It will always be one of my favorite memories of finding our house. We laughed a lot during the four days of driving all around the valley viewing around 50 homes. We got to try out some cool restaurants for lunch, reacquaint Leslie with our kids and make some fun new memories. It was gorgeous weather the whole week, except for one day that we got dumped on with rain for a little bit. During the 4 days Bob's* parents watched the girls quite a bit for us which was a huge help. In between all the house hunting we got to have tastes here and there of how nice it will be to live close to family again.

From Blog Favorites August/September

I'm pretty disappointed in how few pictures I took during this process. Shocking, I know! I was so wrapped up in the whole thing, I guess I didn't think about it. I wish I had more pictures of the other houses we looked at just because it's fun to remember. Leslie had a really great idea to give each house we saw a name. That way, when we were comparing and referring to past houses, we would all be on the same page and know which one we were talking about. It turned out to be very helpful. The picture above was taken in the "Bear House", our very first house we saw. It was decorated so beautifully and had kind of a cabin feel (with lots of bears, thus the name). But alas, the kitchen was much smaller and not in a great room floor plan like I wanted. We looked at several more that first day in the Sandy area. One of our favorites we saw that day I don't have any pictures of (drat!). It stayed on the top of our list the whole week. It was dubbed the "Park House". The backyard of this house led right into a huge open park and a nearby playground. There was no fence and a big beautiful deck that looked over the gorgeous park. We worried about kids wandering off or people we didn't know approaching our kids while playing out there. We thought of ideas like maybe putting up an iron fence that was open (so as not to obstruct the view). But then, the actual yard was smaller than what we were hoping for if we fenced it off. It would have been so neat, but just didn't feel like the right fit in the end.

From Blog Favorites August/September

This house was called the "Theater House". This is not the greatest picture, but you can see the kind of work this family went to to make this room into the most awesome movie viewing room I've ever seen! And it wasn't just the theater room we loved. This floor plan was our favorite of all the houses we saw. It was so great. Huge and open, 4200 square feet - so plenty of room. Brand new and all updated. AND they had girls with rooms painted exactly how our girls would love their rooms painted. It was PERFECT! Except for one thing. The yard was tiny. )o: Oh how I wanted to just get over that and buy the house. But one of the things I was so excited about moving to Utah for was the bigger yards. This was truly a great house.

From Blog Favorites August/September

This was another house that came VERY close to being 'the one'. It was a very close second to the one we bought. We called it the "Fairy House". Sarah named this one for the room upstairs that had hand painted fairies and flowers on the wall. (The one she claimed would be hers.) This house was in an amazing neighborhood (some homes were $700,000 to a million) - obviously this one wasn't that much, but it was gorgeous. It had a nice layout, a huge floorplan and a backyard to die for. I only have these pictures of the backyard. I LOVED the backyard and still cry a little to think about almost having it. The waterfall, the in-ground trampoline, the park-like landscape, mature trees, the huge garden, the privacy, the mountain views from the deck. It was an amazing yard. The only problem was that it was at the top of our price range that we wanted to pay and it needed a lot of updates - carpet, lighting fixtures, bathrooms, the front door needed to be replaced, etc. With all those things factored in, it was just out of the price range that we had set for ourselves.

From Blog Favorites August/September

From Blog Favorites August/September

Leslie was so patient with us through this process. She weathered the four stressful and fun days with us. I love this picture - when we pulled up to one of the houses it was raining sooo hard. Torrential rain - even for us Oregonians - but Leslie hopped right out in it to grab her umbrella in the trunk, getting drenched. Then she escorted us up to the door, the girls squealing in the monsoon. We were so well taken care of in every way and are so grateful to Leslie for being a part of this huge turning point in our lives. I was also happy my girls got a chance to get to know aunt Leslie. They think she is so nice and just love her now! (o:

Road Trip!

From Blog Favorites August/September

After weeks of waiting and working out so many details - it was finally time to go on our house hunting trip. All the stars finally aligned, and after some debate the week before, we opted to do a road trip rather than flying to Utah. #1 so we could have flexibility on our leave and coming back times and #2 so Twilight wouldn't be damaged for life. This was our trip, we decided, that we would bring kitty to her new state. And because we had her, we decided it would just be easier to get the whole drive done in one day. Something we'd never done before.

From Blog Favorites August/September

We left Oregon at about 10:30 in the morning. We were in Nampa, ID (more than halfway) by dinnertime. The girls did so amazing. We didn't do very frequent or very long breaks. They were incredible and we actually quite enjoyed ourselves. We were very happy to get out and stretch our legs at the Nampa Walmart.

From Blog Favorites August/September

This little kitty did NOT enjoy the ride. This was on our break when we let her crawl around the car. She was in her crate for almost the whole drive. She complained a lot every so often, but considering how scared she must have been, she did pretty darn good. It wasn't more than mildly annoying at times, but the meowing always stopped after a few minutes.

From Blog Favorites August/September

Poor Twilight was so distressed from everything that she wouldn't eat, drink very much or go to the bathroom. I worried we permanently damaged her. Luckily, I am happy to report that she is thriving and loving Billy's* parents house and we are so grateful for their help with this HUGE favor! We are so glad that we got her safely there and ahead of us. Our next trip out will be our big move and that would have added so much more stress still having her.

From Blog Favorites August/September

We enjoyed a lovely sunset that night and by the time we rolled into Billy's* parents' driveway, it was midnight.

From Blog Favorites August/September

And this is exactly how we all felt!

Priceless Friendships

From Blog Favorites August/September

For someone as sentimental as I am under ordinary circumstances, this move has made every single moment with friends and in this beautiful state seem so priceless. I just can't believe how blessed we have been with joyful friendships here in Oregon. I ask myself every day how I am going to stand leaving these wonderful friends. It almost physically hurts to think about it, so I try not to . . .

Tina and I had lunch together recently and I brought Angela to play with Tori. We had lunch together and talked and talked (what Tina and I do best) and walked down to the playground. (Which by the way, was a playground put together in her community because of Tina and a LOT of hard work on her part - yes, those are the kinds of amazing friends I have. I felt so proud of her and wanted to tell all the people enjoying the wonderful area with their kids - "Hey! Did you know this awesome lady made this playground possible?" But I didn't. (o:) Anyhow, it was such a beautiful and fun afternoon. It brought back a lot of memories from the days when we had babies (we've known each other 9 years!!) and we could just hang out for hours. We called them playdates for the kids, but it was really more for us! (o: I had Angela take the picture of us above because I wasn't sure I had a picture of the two of us that I liked. I think it turned out pretty good.

From Blog Favorites August/September

The two mini me's love to play together. So cute....

From Blog Favorites August/September

Another night, we met up with Mark and Michelle at Out of This World. It was so fun to watch the girls take good care of Ruby on the slides. They had so much fun together and Ruby loved playing with the big girls, I think. (o: This allowed the big kids plenty of time to visit and laugh. We have known Mark and Michelle for the entire 10 1/2 years we've lived here. They were our very first friends and took such good care of us. I think they were able to visit us in the hospital for every one of our girls' births. We will definitely be lifelong friends, but we'll miss the more frequent interaction for sure. )o:

From Blog Favorites August/September

(Check out the "bling" of my Personal Progress necklace - KaaChow!)

Kim and Bishop M. had us over for dinner the Sunday before we headed out for our house hunting trip. It was so nice to not have to worry about dinner right before our big trip. I just love this family so much. We have so many connections to the "M" family and extended family. Kim's sister, Julie is a close friend, her sister in law Kim (Kim #2, those of us who know both have to number them since their first and last names are the same!) is one of my very best friends, and her other sister in law Julie is a long time friend as well. I know both her parents and her in-laws. I also stalked her teenage son, Josh for a while in August. (Long embarrassing story - I thought I was texting Kim #2 one night, but didn't realize she passed her phone on to Josh.) We just love these guys to pieces. I will always be sad that Lou* didn't get to serve longer with bishop Bob for longer. It was a wonderful blessing for our family. Seriously, this family is amazing and I feel so grateful to call them our friends. You might recognize the boys as the girls summer basketball camp coaches. (o:

From Blog Favorites August/September

From Blog Favorites August/September

We LOVE our neighbors across the street. Sweet Elizabeth has been a wonderful and fun friend for Natalie. They have really hit it off this past year and we will be so sad to say goodbye to her awesome family. They are the ones that always watch our house and kitty when we go out of town and the kids always go above and beyond. We often find our lawn mowed and things better than we left them. Caryn has taught her kids well and is one of the most Christ-like people I have ever met.

So again, I ask myself, how can we leave these dear people? It breaks my heart - as cliche as it sounds - that is the best way to describe the heaviness and emptiness I feel when I think of saying goodbye.

Mysterious . . .

From Blog Favorites August/September

We've had some mysterious things going on lately. A few nights before I took these pictures, Kyle* came back from some bishopric business with a couple in our neighborhood and found several of these red and blue army men all over his car in the driveway. We laughed about it and wondered what the reason for it was and who it could have been. Then the next Sunday, as we were leaving church Tony saw me with my camera (the bishop had asked me to take some pictures of the young men in the ward) and he asked me to come over and take some shots of his truck. And guess what was all over it?

From Blog Favorites August/September

Hmmm - it looked like the work of some of the young men and young women in the ward. (Tony is the young men's president.) The next day, we got a bigger army guy with a parachute and a message asking us to return his men. Apparently, this was the captain coming to rescue his battalion. (o: I have my suspicions, but none of the youth has fessed up.

From Blog Favorites August/September

It sure gave us some good laughs. Man, I'm going to miss these funny things...

From Blog Favorites August/September

From Blog Favorites August/September

Cute Phoenix getting a kick out of this prank. Sarah LOVED this too. I think she was filing the idea away in her brain for later!

From Blog Favorites August/September

Thanks mystery army pranksters for making us smile!