Our New Home!

I was physically and emotionally exhausted by the time we boarded. Luckily, I had brought quite a few diversions for the boys and Barbara brought her computer that the boys were quite good on the flight. Alex was a bit restless, but come- on, He’s two! Thomas had been eagerly anticipating the “lady” that would come around and serve drinks (aka soda) and hand out snacks. Well, the lady/stewardess finally came and he was in heaven! So much that he fell asleep and slept the rest of the flight. Alex, was only restless due to the fact that something reminded him of his cars/ bestfriends. (Speed, King, and Chick) He had not missed them for the last two days, but all of sudden he NEEDED them and he was on a plane and they were in a moving truck! So I’d pull something out of my bag, it would appease him… I would start to fall asleep and then he would start to ask for them again. So I would pull something else out of my bag and the process would repeat itself for the next three hours :) But he did good :D No screaming!
My dad and Damond actually made it to Indy an hour ahead of us so they were able to check into the hotel and meet us at the airport. I was so relieved to know that they hadn’t come across any problems while driving. I am so thankful that my dad was willing to help us out with the drive. I know Damond really admires him and I love to see them grow closer. They said it was a VERY long trip, but uneventful. I think my dad kept Damond entertained with many of his stories :D He has a lot of them!
The next day we decided we all deserved to sleep in and then we went downtown to show Barbara and my dad IUPUI and a war monument.

Thomas with Grandper in front of War Monument
It was actually quite cool with the breeze. They say it's been a very cool summer. We then headed to our new place so Damond and I could sign the lease. Barbara and my dad took the boys back to the hotel to swim. Apparently they tried to drown Barbara, just kidding, but I don’t think she realized how much they love to swim and JUMP in :D Can I tell you how much of a blast the boys were having with my dad? They were in heaven to be in a hotel with Grandper. He plays with them and makes them laugh. I would have to say he's the best Grandper ever :)
After signing the lease, we went back to the hotel to eat and pick up the truck. It was around then that I started to realize that unpacking the truck was a going to take a LONG time with only my dad and Damond, since Barbara and I are not that strong. :) I kept debating calling the people we had met in April. I felt bad knowing it was so last minute and it was Mon evening, but I also knew help would be so nice. So I called them to find out they were still in Idaho, but they gave us the number of another family in the complex. It was very awkward calling up people I had never met to ask for their help, but I knew that if I was ever on the other end, I would want to be called. Thankfully, the Harker’s were so nice and quickly said they’d be there and he would gather up some other men. Sure enough, I think we had at least 6 men from our new ward come over and lend their muscles :) One of them was our next door neighbor! I was able to meet his nice wife and cute son. (Their daughter was already sleeping) What a blessing to move so far from home and have so many kind people to lend a helping hand! That’s how it’s been since our arrival. So many people are constantly looking out for us, helping, giving good advice or just befriending us! Mainly our neighbor, the Ereksons. They have been so welcoming and have shared their knowledge and many of their tools as well. :) Thomas loves their daughter. They are constantly playing together, it’s very cute! Alex also loves her. I think he hugged her the other night for two minutes straight! :D I think Alex will really like playing with their son, he’s a little younger, but quickly getting more active!
Here’s our new place… it’s definitely not a place we want to be forever, but it works for the next four years :D

This is looking out our front door (mirror image :)

This is the living room taken from the stairs

This is the kitchen/dining area? Can you tell what appliance is missing?

No dishwasher! I look forward to the day, I no longer have to wash dishes :D

but on the plus side, we no longer have to have the table pushed against the wall, there is room for all four chairs :D

This is our backyard, very green, but not much bigger than what you see :(

but the flip side is this is what's behind our backyard :D

Nice, huh? The boys love playing out there :D It's nice not having to drive to a park :D

The next day, we woke up to RAIN! The storm even made it onto CNN. It just poured all morning long. You got soaked even with an umbrella. (I think I need to look into an anorak, it rains a lot) :D We decided that since my dad and Barbara were going to be here till Thurs, we would all work hard Tues unpacking and then we’d spend Wed having fun. Thanks to them we were able to accomplish so much on Tues. Thanks to Barbara, I got most of my kitchen unpacked and cleaned that first day. My dad worked on all the jobs that involved tools :) It was very cute to see Alex be his shadow and imitate him with his plastic tools. So on Wed, we traveled up to the Amish country about two hours away. It was a fun day, but I think we were a little disappointed. Barbara and I really wanted to see their quilts and maybe find some Amish toys, but they we were unable to find either :( but we did find AMAZING Fudge! :) but mostly it was just fun to spend one more day with Barbara and my dad without having to be distracted by work.
On the way home we stopped at this Old Jet and Aircraft Museum. It was closed, but you could still get a good view of some of the airplanes. Thomas LOVED IT!
The next day we took them to the airport and it was awful. The time had finally come for me to let go and do it on my own. I was sad for myself, but I was so sad for the boys who wouldn’t understand how far away we were, and especially for my family, as they love the boy’s soooo much! Barbara has been such a help with the boys these years and the boys love her soooo much! Needless to say, I need my sister as well :( As for Grandper, it was awful. My dad has always been the first person I call in a crisis. (even when I got married :) so I know that this will be good for Damond and I to learn to stand on our own). I love seeing how much the boys adore Grandper as I never really had a grandpa relationship. I will miss having my dad call us to go to lunch or have him take one of the boys to "work" with him. It broke my heart to see how much pain my parents were in over this move! It's still mending and might not heal completely till we are back in phx :)

At the time, I thought it was possible that we wouldn’t see them until at least next summer. What a long time! When we got back to our new house it felt so lonely. Part of me just wanted to go to bed and cry, but the other part knew there was still so much work to be done before Damond started school. Press forward… keep moving, keep working.
I am not a fan of moving! There is so much you can’t plan for and it’s hard when you need to buy furniture, but don’t have a truck! We spent the first week touring all of the Goodwill stores and let me tell you, there are A LOT!
Some of them are expensive ($150 for a used desk that’s not very fancy?!) crazy Goodwill! and then we went to a Goodwill Outlet and there they have desks for $2 J unfortunately, nothing we really felt would serve our needs.
They also have some Goodwill’s that receive clearance items from nearby Targets. So they have brand-new Target items at Goodwill prices. We were able to buy two Target bookcases at a Goodwill. So of course I have been all over the city trying to find more deals like that, but have still not found a desk!...

Thanks for the birthday wishes! :) Damond and I missed family and friends, but we were able to eat with our new friends, the Ereksons. With four children under four, it was crazy, mostly or entirely due to ours :D but the food was yummy and it's nice celebrating with others :D

The Stress continued...

So after getting the tenants checked in, I was finally able to take a shower. :DI was more than gross and smelly :D I desperately wanted to spend as much time as I could with my family before I left, but my good friend Josie had been trying to set up a farewell for about a month and I thought I’d have everything under control by Fri evening, but obviously that didn’t happen. Anyways, I knew I had to see her, even if it was only a ten-twenty min goodbye. It was fun, but I am anxious to get back to Phoenix to see (well, my family), but also the many friends that I wasn’t able to say good-bye to before I left.
I raced back home, but the boys had already fallen asleep and my poor mother was also exhausted. So I hung out with Barbara for awhile when we remembered that we needed to check in for our flight. I logged in and a screen came up that said I couldn’t check in 24hrs before or after the flight. Huh? And it was like a light bulb went off in both of our heads. For some reason we had been talking about dates and she was convinced that it was a day later than it actually was… well, we both looked at each other realizing that there was a BIG mistake with our tickets. I quickly looked at our reservations again and sure enough, the boys and I were scheduled to fly out on Mon Aug 3rd at 6:10 and not Sun Aug 2nd at 6:10. We then looked at her ticket reservation and she was scheduled to fly out on the Sun Aug 2nd 6:10 flight. She had helped me get the tickets while we were in Idaho and apparently she had gone of the flight number not realizing ( I didn’t know this either), but they have the same flight number for flights going to the same destination and time. Complete honest mistake! But she was feeling awful and I felt bad that she was feeling bad. So, of course, we were both starting to freak out, because I needed to be there by Mon afternoon to sign the lease. We called Southwest and they said they would have to charge us over $700 to change our tickets to Sunday. What?!?! Major stressing out now… so Barbara continued to try to work with their representative while I started asking Diego’s girlfriend Britt if she knew of anything that could be done (her dad is a pilot for Southwest) My first thought had been that we would just campout at the airport all day trying to get on stand-by, but they told us that the on-line tickets we had didn’t make us eligible for standby. Again…?!? So Barbara is trying to explain to them that I am a mom, traveling with two small children… and in the meantime, Britt called her mom ( and woke up the very nice woman). Her mom had to Buddy passes, but that would only help me with one boy and they are only stand-by so it wasn’t guaranteed that we would get on the flight. So the Southwest Rep was telling Barbara to cancel the three tickets and use that credit to buy the one ticket for Thomas. But luckily Britt’s mom heard that and said, “don’t cancel your tickets. If anything happens, at least you know you’ll have a flight no matter what!” So she started to fill out the paperwork for our Buddy passes, mind you by now it’s 12:30 at night, when a Southwest Manager came on, and said they we’re going to waive the 14 day prior period and get the boys and I on the Sunday flight for only $200. Pheww! Still not great, but WAY better than $700! And no stand-by J
Let me tell you that Heavenly Father has been there for us throughout this whole process! I am grateful for the many blessings we have received!!!!!
Luckily, the next day was without stress, but it was quite bittersweet.
I was wanting to get on with life, but I also knew that it would come with a price… family, friends, phoenix, the west, the desert... I had been working so hard that I had been able to put off thinking about the changes and all that I would miss. But as the time grew nearer, I was overcome with sadness knowing how much I would miss it all, but especially my mom, for we had grown so close and she has been such great help these past years. I know I am not the first to have to leave behind her mother, but the pain is the same. I knew I would miss Diego, but he is at such an fun time in his life that I know he won’t miss us that much. As for my dad and Barbara, well I didn’t have to think about that yet J

Alex was so excited to have a backpack :)

Saying bye to Mimi :( Trying hard not to cry!

Alex did not want to let go of Uncle Diego, it was very cute, but sad :(

All I know is that time does fly! (and I hope it continues to)

Our Agui!

Time continues to fly, so I am going to proceed in past/present segments and hopefully catch up soon.

Happy Birthday to Damond :)

I love you, Damond!

I just wanted to wish you a Happy Birthday from me and the boys!

We're grateful for all that you do for us and how hard you work at all that you do! :D

Thanks for always making us laugh and smile with your goofiness :)

Left AZ and have arrived in Indiana...

ok, so it's been two weeks now since we left Phoenix. It was crazy at the end... as much as I thought I had prepared and gotten so much work done, I still worked 16-18 hour days at the end. (I kept telling Damond there would be alot of work to do at the end, but he didn't believe me and worked up and until the day we moved!) But I am so grateful for all the help we got from family and friends. Thankfully Damond's brothers helped us paint one night. The next day, Damond and my dad were supposed to leave after he got off work, but when they went to go pick up the trailer for the car, they found out we were overweight! So Barbara, Julio and I met them down there and thankfully we were able to get ahold of Dennis and he brought Cade and Ethan. So there in the hot parking lot, we had to switch all our belongings from one truck to another!
My mom watched the boys for three days straight it seemed and my sister was either helping with the boys or helping me. My dad, brother (and his girlfriend) also helped paint into the late hours of the night and then my dad helped Damond drive the truck to Indiana! Thankfully, their trip was uneventful, as it was not so on my end. What was supposed to be just a quick touch-up by the painter ended up taking him nine hours... all the while I had to finish prepping for the renters, clean up from the paint, and continue to prepare for my flight.I had been working at the house since five am, so when the painter showed upat eight I told him what my dad wanted him to do and that it was just a quick job. I left to go to ACE, pick up my brother and eat breakfast, but by the time we got back it was close to noon. I thought for sure the painter is done and has probably left... NOPE! We walk in and he's still painting and he tells us, so I should be done in a couple of hours and then tomorrow I'll come back and hang the doors... umm no, the renters are moving in this afternoon! (He's a very good painter, and so he's very meticulous!) (not sure why my dad thought it would be a quick job) so he said he would hurry and hopefully be done by then. So Diego and I finished up the bathroom, cleaned it and he managed to break the bathtub curtain rod. :D Trip to target! So while I waited for the painter to finish I went to pick up my ring in East Mesa only to be told it wasn't ready... ( I had left it over a week before for a three hour cleaning/polishing) but they told me if I waited (something I didn't really have time to do) they'd have it ready or they could drop it off on Tues :) I laughed, "um, I am moving to Indiana, TOMORROW!) oh, well then I just had to wait. They were very nice and did it for free. :) By the time we got back to the house it was four and I was just waiting for the renters to call and say they were here :( Fortunately, the painter was finished and we finished cleaning up.. and half an hour later the renters called! :D So I met them back at the house to do the walk through. I hope they enjoy it as much as we did! They seem nice. You would think that would be the end... but no, the stress and excitement were not over! :D
TBC...