A Back Post (with pictures!)

I found a CD of pictures my dad burned for me just before we moved from Alaska, so I thought I'd share! The pictures are a few months old but still fun. I guess this is catching up from being such a blog slacker while we were moving around.
Pretty Alaska! Makes me miss it.

Visiting the new board walk at Potters Marsh

It was a VERY windy day!
My dad took this picture, we watched this mama bird bring back food for her baby and feed it! It was really neat, click on it to see a bigger picture.

A common occurance, Ethan stealing Grandmas iPhone to play games
I made a birthday cake for my mom and dad!
Kristen Moss if you are reading this, great minds.... :)
Their birthday is on 4th of July

I tried doing a red white and blue interior, but they made fun of it for being pink, yellow, and turquoise.

Love you guys!

Chase hit his head on the corner of their counter and got a huge goose egg. I swear it looked bigger in person.

Ethan's quirky quotes

Ethan has been cracking me up lately with some of the things he comes up with.

1. "No, I'm just fine."
Examples: Me: Ethan it's time to eat lunch, come climb up in your chair. Ethan: No, I'm just fine.
Me: Stop hitting Chase with your cars. Ethan: No, I'm just fine.

2. "He's ok."
Me: (to Chase) Please don't touch the DVD player. Ethan: Oh, he's ok.
After pushing Chase down, Ethan turns to me guiltily and says, He's ok.

3. Whenever I threaten to put him in timeout, he now asks me, Where? As if he is calculating the punishment and determining if it's worth continuing on in his delinquencies.

BUGS

Confession: I'm an Alaskan girl, so I've never really had to deal with large bugs before. Now it is a daily experience when I am cleaning house. It's really gross, but every time I clean the house I find SO MANY BUGS. Little potato bugs, tiny white ant looking things, and the most common are these large spiders that look like daddy long legs, but with smaller bodies. They have little spider webs in every corner, even the ones I know I cleaned out the day before. I am the biggest wimp when it comes to squishing them, so sometimes Eric comes home to find cups and bowls on the floor with "presents" underneath. I've found a new way to cope, I get out the bottle of bleach and just spray the suckers and then go back a few minutes later and clean it up, that way i don't have to actually squish them with a paper towel. But then yesterday I was making dinner and I found something even more disgusting. There was a trail of tiny, microscopic white little creatures making a long trail from the bottom of my pantry to under my refrigerator. I have no idea what they were after, there isn't any food down there or under the fridge for all I know, but they were all in a line on the linoleum marching back and forth. I took out their little colony with the Clorox, but still- I wonder how long it had been there, and how long it's taken me to notice it. They were so tiny, and the same color as the floor. Now everywhere I go I am paranoid I will find more, and I usually do.

Not to mention the cicadas. They are a different story altogether. Out of the 30 buildings in our complex, 5 or 6 of them have their back deck areas facing the highway. Ours happens to be one of them. And along the fence between us and the highway is a row of trees. In these trees, are cicadas. Hundreds of them, and they are very loud. Honestly, the first time I went out there I swore there had to be an electric wire buzzing somewhere back there, because there was no way bugs could produce that much sound. Between that and the noise of the highway, oh and did I mention more bugs? our backyard is pretty much useless.

Luckily, I haven't found any in our house yet. I'm not sure I'd survive that encounter.

Sorry, I just killed 3 daddy long leg wannabes and swept 2 potato bugs out of the house. I just needed to get that off my chest.

The Journey

Our move to Iowa was...well, lets just say memorable. There were so many elements to our move its hard to document them all, but bare with me, I want to remember it. You can skip this post and wait for the next one, which should include pictures. I won't be offended. That being said, we were definitely watched out for on our move.

We left Alaska at the end of July and flew down to Utah, while our car was being shipped. There was no way I was doing that drive with two young kids, its 48 hours from Anchorage to Salt Lake. Our flight was at 7, but we got to the airport early that morning because we had nine boxes- yes I said nine- that we were taking with us. Luckily, the luggage guys were hard at work that early and brought all our stuff in and waited in line with us. Eric and I had spent the majority of that week packing/weighing/then repacking those boxes because we knew we had to fit as much stuff as we could in them, it was more cost effective than shipping our stuff, if we stayed under the 50 lb limit. We were nervous because the scale we were using to weigh them was pretty unreliable, but we said a prayer on the way there that they would all be ok. After a long wait in line and already having to bust out treats for the kids, the first box was set on the scale. 50.0 lbs. The second box, 50.0. Third one was 48.9, and it went like that through all 9. There was one that was 50.4 but the lady checking us in didn't even look twice at it. Wow.

After waiting a while for our flight, we boarded, only to be delayed and told our plane was having mechanical issues and we would have to switch planes. While waiting in the terminal for the other plane, they called us up to the podium, and told us they put us through on the Delta direct flight to Salt Lake! Before our itinerary had us stopping in Portland, and I was way excited because Chase wasn't so happy about being woken up that early anyway. We had been able to check in our luggage through a cheaper airline- Alaska- and fly on the only direct flight to Salt Lake- Delta.

The flight went great (Chase actually slept!), our car got to Utah on time, we were able to pack everything up and replace some of the furniture we sold before leaving, and then we got ready for the 16 hour road trip to Iowa. We made it in 2 days without much incident except for a grumpy 1 year old. The DVD player did stop working at one point, but after a quick prayer by my mom it started up again. Did I mention she flew out to help us with the drive? Thanks again Mom!!

We got to Iowa Saturday afternoon, and not 3 minutes after walking into our apartment for the first time, there were 2 guys from the Elders Quorum over here helping us move. Pretty soon the number was up to 10 and within 15 minutes our truck was unloaded and dinner for the next day was taken care of. Gotta love the Church.

Our apartment is great, its big and has 3 bedrooms and theres lots of storage. My 2 biggest complaints- no bathroom on the main floor, and no light fixtures in the living room or the bedrooms. NO Joke! I thought maybe the people before us had taken them out or something, but after talking to other residents I found out they all come like that. ???? We bought some lamps as a temporary solution, we'll see how they work out. We'll post pictures of the apartment soon.

I know we were watched over on our way here, which gives me confidence that this is where we are supposed to be. We love it so far, we are getting settled into our home, school (for Eric), and our student branch where we feel welcomed and supported already- and I just got called to serve in one of the 4 nurseries. Now we're just waiting for people to come visit! Iowa, anyone?