I'm a tall, tall Texan...

(this post is in honor of my dad. Who is far, far away in Norway right now)

We're all settled now. And time to update :) It was quite a challange trying to squeeze so much crap into a 2 bedroom apartment. I think my mom wanted to cry when she saw how much stuff we had to find places for. And I think I actually did cry.

First things first, If we were to get anywhere in the unpacking process, we had to trap

Tage. This make-shift trap worked great for about 30 seconds.

Then we moved on to bigger and better entertainment and put on a show. Ahh, brotherly love, Isn't it so sweet!

Luckily we moved fast with the help of some nice neighbors and my poor parents. So we were able to spend a little bit of time goofing off with Grandma and Grandpa before they flew back to Utah.

The journey begins

The 2 in a half day drive to Texas wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. We were very lucky to have my parents with us or we would never have made it.  Jared drove the enormous moving truck, my mom and I rolled in the sweet mini van, and my dad got my white Toyota all to himself. We were supposed to get a trailer to pull the Toyota but of coarse they didn't have one like they promised. So we had to drive 3 vehicles. It worked out though. And I was quite a bit jealous of the alone time and silence my dad and Jared experienced. It was also weird to think that everything we owned was either in front of me in the truck, or behind me in the Toyota on it's way to Texas.

Luckily there wasn't too much of this...

but lot's of this...

We stopped in Moab on our way down to visit my Aunt and uncle. It's always an adventure when we visit Bonnie and Larry :) The boys went on a little walk to stretch their legs.

Then we stopped for a special surprise to see my mom's old "Dairy Freeze"!  This is the business my grandpa Nordfelt built when my mom was a kid. Her and her siblings grew up working there. Of coarse it was in MUCH better shape back then (my grandpa was a carpenter and everything he ever built was beautiful). We have heard stories about it our entire childhood. No fast food restaurants around will ever compare to "the milk shakes and french fries made out of REAL potatoes" that my mom used to make at the dairy freeze :)

We absolutely COULD NOT continue on our travels until we celebrated Parker's half birthday. He had been reminding me about it for weeks. But how much can you celebrate when your in the middle of nowhere? Really. Good thing there are more McDonalds than anything else. Even in the middle of nowhere.

I wish you could have seen what this looked like in real life because I'm telling you, I have never seen anything quite like it. That's what 2 days in the car and a couple of nasty hotel rooms will do for ya I guess! 

We finally made it into Texas on the 16th. And it wouldn't be Texas without a Texas shaped waffle. It just wouldn't. I expected nothing less from these proud folks.

Next post: Our new lives as true TEXANS!!! Stay tuned ya'll.

What a disaster

Moving seriously sucks!!! I'll never do it again (until I have to move out of our apartment in a year). It was an absolute mad-house trying to get out of our house in time.

We went from this...

                                                                          To this

To this... in 8 days!.

With a little of this in between :)

I hated every minute of it. But in the end it actually turned into a great blessing. My brother Ben described it like ripping a bandaid off. It stings really bad at first but when it's done, it's done. No reason to prolong the pain. We had no time to really think about what was going on because we had to be out so fast. Then we were able to spend the 3 weeks or so before we left for Texas saying goodbye to our friends and family. So although it was a huge pain to get out of our house so fast, it would have been worse trying to pack and say goodbye at the same time.

Here is a little picture log of what went on while living with Jared's parents, T.J, Dusty, Breck, Tanyon, and baby Porter for 3 weeks:

Tage wrestling loving Porter, (this happened every 2 minutes)

building forts/destroying Nana's house,

playing at the park,

Riding scooters in style

Lot's of Wii time,

Attempted to get a cute Easter picture of my boys in their matching ties. Not so successful.

Again destroying Nana's house. This time building "houses" in the pantry as Tanyon would say.

Celebrating my 8th wedding anniversary with my sweetie and some good friends (Val, I need a copy of that group picture!)

Playing going to Dallas with my good friend Marti to find an apartment. And to enjoy Blue Bell ice cream (yes that is all for just the two of us) and the American Girl store, (which is why I need a girl someday. Adorable!)

Enjoying Leatherby's one last time after the General Priesthood session with the Springers (some of them)

Playing "fire ball" with cousins and aunt Wendy

Flying kites on the golf coarse with Breck and Tanyon

Lunch with my oldest friends, Stacy and Emily (the other Emily couldn't make it. Because she's the lucky one who lives in Florida). But we sure missed her! We have been friends for over 23 years! That's crazy!

Stacy and I have actually been friends for longer than we can remember. When we were in like 3rd or 4th grade we had matching"bests friend" shirts made. Mine has her name and hers has mine. I found mine in my hope chest while i was packing and somehow stretched it out enough to fit me so i surprised her and showed up with it on. (I must note that these shirts were HUGE on us back in the day).

Watching uncle T.J. play baseball for Bingham high. (Don't worry fellow WJHS friends. I only cheered for T.J. not the miners)

Last play date with the Bowcutt cousins.

Here are all of the cousins except for the one in Ang's belly!

Cute Conner helping Parks fly a kite. We sure miss these kids.

Had a baby shower with my friend Brittani for this tiny princess

And her cute mom :)

Bought myself a mini van! finally! Jared swallowed his pride, but it was the best day of my life :) Our only requirement was that it wasn't blue. Ha ha. I guess price comes before beauty right?! I love it!

Dinner with our friends the Davis's, Springer's, and Behle's

Saying goodbye to Tracee, Brooks and Ellee  (Tracee is another friend I've had for 20 years! Seriously, I have the best friends) and as you can tell, Parker loves Brooks.

Jared saying goodbye to his other sweetheart, Gracie. We love this little girl. Her whole family actually.

Watched them open their mission call!

They are going to the Norway, Oslo mission!!!

And as you can see from the two awkward hugs pictured below, I am no good at saying goodbye. There were several times I forgot to take my camera out while we were saying goodbye to good friends and I'm so sad about that. But you weren't missing out too much because I'm a terrible hugger :) We miss you all!