Our trip to Texas

When Mike found out he got the job in Texas, I started my obsessive research for the best places to live, best schools, best ways to get to his work, etc. Then at the end of May, we left the girls with Rachel for a girls weekend and headed to Texas to do some last minute rental house hunting. It was a good trip and we were able to get a rental house in a good area.

 



 

He actually slept a little bit on the way home.

 

When we got home, Mike and I sat down to relax for a bit (the girls weren't home yet) and Ben found his way to this position. 

Besties

We had to make sure that before we moved, we spent a whole day with our dear friends, the Harps.

We went to Irvine Regional Park/OC Zoo with both the families and then met up later for dinner and miniature golf with our pals, Katie and Seth! We are so sad to leave them. We've been friends since we were young newlyweds (even newer for Seth and Katie) and kidless. Now we both have two girls and a baby boy and have been a part of very special events in our own and our kids lives. We love you guys, Harp Family!!

 

 

 

 

Can't believe I won't be living close to my dear friend, Katie. 

Pictures

I have so many pictures of my cute kids with no real story so here they are.

 

Ben and Emily watching some Baby Einstein. She loves it when he wants to sit with her.

 

Playing Princess

 

Just relaxing in the backyard with some Fresca.

 

The kids LOVE going to the 99 cent store with me so they can ride this olde time horse. Coincidentally, they are very well behaved in the store.

 

We found some real fat smoothie straws!

Barefoot as always

 

For a couple months before we moved, the kids would go outside and make rainbow looms with their friends everyday. Ben always wanted to join in too.

 

Ben being his crazy self. He is not a clingy child.

 

Riding scooters to Emily's school.

 

He looks like he's got his hand on a pretend gun in the holster.

 

Arizona Trip

Over Mother's Day we made a trip out to Arizona to spend time with my sister, Kelsey and her family. We were all excited to see the Hartmans.

 

On our way

 

 

We went to the Prescott Zoo

 

 All the girls wanted their hair braided the same.

 This bear was the funniest bear I've ever seen. He looked like he belonged in the circus.

 

Ally and Mike in Old Town Prescott.

 Kelsey kept saying she was worried that they didn't have much to do but the kids were so excited to get to just play in the dirt.

Cousins!

Mom and Emily Date

We decided that we would do an individual date with the girls. Mike took Allyson to Disneyland, which I felt bad about because SO many rides were closed. They found some fun rides to do though and had a great time. A few days later, I went with Emily and we had a blast. We got In-N-Out for dinner and sat at the bar. (A big deal when you don't have a high chair to worry about) Then Emily decided she wanted to be brave and she did a bunch of rides she had been afraid to do for a while. Pirates of the Carribbean, Haunted Mansion and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. I was so proud of her for how brave and optimistic she was. She didn't have any little siblings there holding her back. It actually started when we were walking around and I asked if she wanted to try Splash Mountain, she said yes so we got in line but I had no idea how long the wait was. Randomly an older couple from England had fast passes for 6 and asked if we wanted to join them. We said sure and raced through the line in 20 minutes. (The stand by line ended up being 90 minutes)

We had such a great time and I really think those little things help the girls a lot because the tend to get clumped together a lot.

We're back!!!

 

So I figured since we've moved so far away from family and friends, I would go back to updating our blog. Plus, I am so overwhelmed by the amount of pictures that I have that I thought maybe it would help me organize them so I can eventually transfer them into a book. I only have 2 done. Only 6 more to go to get caught up. It's daunting.

 

So anyway. I am just going to start back up with what has been on my phone for the last 4 or so months.

 

Life has gone crazy recently. Mike and I started talking about moving out of state last year. We knew that in order to have a good quality of life, we just couldn't afford to stay in Southern California. Mike tried looking for new jobs where we were because we really loved where we lived but there just was nothing. So we started looking out of state...particularly Texas. We had heard so many good things about Texas. The economy, the community, the housing and cost of living prices. So we decided to go for it. We enlisted his older sister to help out with the resume and application process as she had moved across the country to find a new job so we felt like she could be a good help.

 

In March, Mike got an interview in Texas. They flew him out for the interview and then a whole month later, we got the word that he was offered the job with the North Central Texas Council of Governments. We were ecstatic but a little freaked out that it happened so quickly. We started the process of getting some things fixed up in our home and then put it on the market and within a week we got a full price offer.

Rachel watched the girls for a weekend while Mike and I took Ben to Texas to look for a place to live, which we found while we were there.

Luckily the company that hired Mike was very flexible and let him start after Emily finished school so I (stupidly--but it was worth it) threw the girls a birthday party the week before we moved and we packed up our stuff and two days after Emily's last day of school, we moved our stuff out of our condo that we loved and neighborhood that we were going to miss dearly. We had been in our ward since we got married so we were sad to leave but had a great turn out of guys come help us fit all of our stuff into our ABF trailer. It was all very surreal.

Then we stayed at Mike's parents house for about 5 days while we got some last minute things taken care of and took one last trip to Disneyland! Then we headed out for the 2 day drive to Texas!

Now we're here, we're adjusting and looking forward to our future as Texans!

I will update a bunch of pictures soon and keep everyone in the loop!

 

(Which means we need more blog posts from Rachel and Michelle!)