The move - before & after.

So I've been putting this off for a while now.  It's hard to catch the blogging fever once you've fallen so far behind. 2 months ago we moved.  But before that move we hit up the drive in movie in downtown Glendale with Wells/Emily & fam.  It was fun.  The kids loved Kung Fu Panda II.  Zina giggled and giggled and giggled.  I enjoyed the movie too, but spent a large portion of it keeping Sam out of other's vehicles.

The girls: Zina & Ellie

The boys: Kurty, Wilson, & Bo

we miss our arizona cousins!

Zina and Wilson also managed to have such an intense wrestling match that Wilson ended up here.

And they really were playing, not fighting!

The here happens to be Julio's dermatology practice.  Mark really wanted to do the stitches and we really didn't want to spend 3 hours in the ER.  Julio was Mark's home teaching companion and we were super grateful that he loaned us some lidocaine and suturing stuff, oh and, and his clinic!

Wilson's first stitches!

Because of this day Wilson was a champ and didn't cry, or even move a muscle during the whole thing.  I told him to go to sleep like he did when they played surgery and I seriously had to double check at times to see if he really was sleeping.  He is one amazing 3yr old!

And back to that whole moving thing. seriously. so. much. work.

DURING the move.  Sam got into all kids of trouble.  He was busy doing 

this

and this

and this

(I could not keep up with him.  He was and is constantly climbing up on everything)

while I was doing this

and this

mostly by myself because Mark had to take an exam in Philly.

So he was busy doing this

and this.

oh ya and a really really long exam.  Still don't know if he passed it. 

Mark, did you pass?  Yes I passed!!

Anyways,

we packed up the moving van Thursday night, had a great group of guys come out to help and they had almost everything loaded in almost an hour.  Until we ran out of room that is.  Then they started taking things apart and stuffing them in as tight as they could.  I may have been freaking out.  How did we fill a 24ft moving van AND sell a whole load of furniture before we even started moving?  I am going to force myself to NOT buy anything more at yard sales or anywhere else.  The move (AGAIN) in one year is already looming....

Huge thanks to all our friends who helped us move and clean and sent us down the road with goodies, and music, and stickers, and toys etc!  Seriously we left some of the best people I have ever met back in AZ! I feel so blessed to have rubbed shoulders with them. (and that is seriously a weird saying because we didn't really 'rub shoulders'??)

Anyways we spent the night at Wells & Emily's (Emily watched the kids all day and made us a delicious dinner! - owe her big time!) and woke up early to head on down the road.

The kids once again rocked the road trip'n and Brooke's traveling tunes kept me awake and happy. :) Thanks Brooke. We stopped at the St. George temple for stretches and a picnic.  Zina was super excited to see Palm trees because she had already said goodbye to them all when we left Arizona. :)

So we pulled into our new little house right on time.  Unfortunately our landlord didn't and after driving 12hrs we had to sit and wait for her to drive 20 minutes to us.  I tried not to be annoyed. but really. I was.  a lot. it was RED flag #1.

and I really don't want to rehash the horrible weekend that it was.  

So let's just say that the house was absolutely disgusting.  We had Judy (Mark's mom) look at places for us and on first glance the place really did seem fine.  She also saw it with the previous tenants in it and thought that it would be cute once cleaned and fixed up.  There was no way we or she could have known that the landlord wasn't going to clean it up - especially when they said they would!

and Mark and I aren't real aggressive people so we just thought we would make it work and moved all our stuff in.  Then I started cleaning and cleaning and cleaning.  Gross stained carpets, boogers off the walls, thick layers of dust and holes in the walls -yuck.  Good thing Angel, Luis, & Liz were there to talk me through it all. I ended up NOT cleaning and doing free labor for something that our landlord got a $600 security deposit to take care of it herself and long story short Liz helped me be assertive (in a professional sort of way) and our landlord gave us our rent and deposit back and we started looking for somewhere else to live.

It was all super stressful and we were so grateful for Grandma Judy who let us bunk out at her place for a few days.  This all means that we moved into that house Sat. morning, moved out Sunday night and into a storage unit looked at 5 or so places and then left for a much needed 2 week vacation in Canada!!

Craziness.

We finalized with a different house while we were in Canada. 

While we were looking at houses and before we left for Canada we did make it up to one of our favorite Payson places.  The Grotto!

and then there was

CANADA!

The first thing we did was head off to the Raymond 4th ward campout.  I think this is our 3rd year making it to this so it just seems so normal for us to be there.

Wilson LOVES his marshmallows!

One of my favorite parts of the trip was going to Good Sam's to see Grandma & Grandpa Williams.  Grandpa is 100 yrs old (or maybe 101 I can't remember)!  We all sat around and sang hymns.  I love it when my family sings together.  I think it is the most beautiful thing I have ever heard sung by some of the most beautiful people I know.

And this is how we kept Sam happy....

Love this boy!

We were so excited to get to Alberta in time for Attena's graduation. Seriously I had more fun at hers then I did at mine!  We were able to go shopping together and find just the right accessories for her dress and practice makeup and hair and get her all fixed up and it was seriously so much fun to just be together doing girl stuff. 

Zina getting her nails done by Aunt Colleen.  Zina was SO into the whole get fixed up like a princess thing and was super excited to have nails just like Attena's.

The Graduate! Congrats Attena. :)

That was the other fun part.  Wearing all of Tena's clothes.  I think she has approximately 100x more and cuter clothes than me.  But that's what sisters are for right? :)

Love these People!

After we sent Attena off for the second night of graduation we ran over to Coaldale to see the Birds of Prey.  They. were. AWESOME!  So glad we went.  Who knew that such a cool little place existed.  Zina and Mark have been reading the "Owls of Ga'hoole" and so Zina was especially excited to see all the owls.  It was super cool to be able to hold and touch the birds.  We went right before they closed too so we pretty much had the whole place to ourselves.  I highly recommend this to everyone who is in the area!

This was Spirit a Golden Eagle who was blinded by a pellet gun.  Because he can't see you he isn't aggressive and we were able to pet him.  It was really amazing.  Especially when we walked past the other eagles and saw them trying to attack the workers.  They were super aggressive!

I can't remember this owls name but it was super grouchy and pecked the trainer really hard right when she picked him up so I was a little nervous holding him.  He was a lot heavier than the other owls too. 

After the Birds of Prey center we rushed back for the presentation of the Grads.

and that's my little sister!  She is smok'n!  I tried stealing a picture off facebook that shows off her sweet dress. Why didn't it work?

That night Mark and I went and supervised the all night grad party.  We had to give my mom and dad a break because they are getting old and all... :)

And that brings us up to about June 28th.  Ha ha.

Hopefully more posts to come soon!