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December 2005
January 2006
February 2006
March/April 2006
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June/July 2006
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November /December 2006
January 2007
February 2007
March/April 2007

May:

3	National Day of Prayer
5	National Scrapbook Day
11	Joel's birthday
13	Mother's Day
21	Levi's birthday
22	Gabrielle's birthday
28	Memorial Day
28	Papa's birthday
29	Jude's birthday
29	Marci's birthday
31	Elijah's birthday

June:

6	Joey's birthday
6	Braxton's birthday
8	Mom/Dad's 44th anniversary
9	Nicky's birthday
11	Cory's birthday
11	Isabella's birthday
14	Army's birthday
14	Flag Day
15	Joel/Krystyna's 7th anniversary
15	Taylor's birthday
15	Coby's birthday
17	Father's Day
18	Kendra's birthday
20	Canyon's birthday
20	Vicki's birthday
27	Chance's birthday
29	My birthday

Survey Says
www.scrapsupply.com
www.shudan.com
www.inspiritnews.com
Carden genealogy
www.kodakgallery.com
Blue Letter Bible
Ebay

This post is so long, you're going to have to comment twice...

We had a great weekend here in the Pacific Northwest. :) On Saturday morning, Brittany and I went to the film in Seattle.

The documentary, Sweet Crude, was very well done. No, I did not let the film makers know that I used to work for Chevron. (Chevron is one of the oil companies getting their resources from the Niger-Delta... what the film is about). Seriously though, it was very interesting, and I love how it showed the faultiness of media reporting. You just can't believe much of what you hear on the news. It's all so sensationalized.

Meanwhile, Andrew took the four youngest kids to the Whirly-Girls airshow (yeah, I thought that was a strange name as well, but apparently a Whirly-Girl is a female helicopter pilot, which is now Darby's chosen profession of her future). I sent them with my camera so he could get some good photos, but I failed to charge the battery, so he only got a few shots before the camera died. Ugh. He did get some photos, though, of the three middle kids getting to take a helicopter ride. None of our children have ever flown on any aircraft, so this was WAY exciting for them. Justice, Jarvis, and Darby got to ride while Andy waited on the ground with Jacob. They could not stop talking about it to me when they picked me and Brittany up from the theater. :)

From the airshow (all taken by Andrew)...

The kids walking out to take their first flight. :)

I wish I had been there to see them. They were SO excited when they were telling me about it. Darby got to ride up front, the boys in the back - and they got to wear headsets and talk to each other and the pilot. :)

Taking off.

There go my children - flying away with a stranger. LOL :)

Coming in for a landing after their flight over Seattle and the Puget Sound. I think Andy said the flight was about 7 or 8 minutes. Not too long, but long enough to enjoy the excitement. :)

Heading back to dad. Andy's been talking about taking them all on an airplane ride for a while, but we haven't found any flights that were cheap enough for everyone, so when Andy saw the helicopter rides, that weren't too much, he decided to let them do it. Jarvis told me he had seen the sign for it before Andy said anything, but didn't even ask because he figured there was no way he'd be able to. lol

Apparently we hadn't gotten the photos off of Andy's camera for a while. This is the Boise, Idaho capitol building. Photo by Andy.

Andy took some photos while driving on our trip. This was of Brittany sleeping. She kept puffing her cheeks up...

...and then she would push her cheeks in. She MUST have been dreaming about Jacob because she plays this game with him. She is the most hilarious person to watch sleeping. She's absolutely crazy when she sleeps. You can carry on conversations with her and she won't remember them when she wakes up. It's so funny. Me and Andy mess with her all the time. I know, we are so mean. But it's just so funny. :)

Sign says "A tribute to the Armed Forces that have defended the United States of America" - photo by Andy on our trip.

At the Oregon Welcome Center - another photo by Andy.

I took this photo as we passed by the Space Needle in the car on Saturday afternoon - my camera battery was dead and I have no idea how to work Andy's camera. We'll get better photos of the Space Needle when we go back to explore Seattle again. :)

After Andy and the kids picked me and Brittany up from the theater, we headed to the Seattle waterfront. Now, Andy's way of city exploration is to research the town and have times, parking places, maps, and directions all plotted out ahead of time. My way of city exploration is to find a place to park and get out see what you can find (especially when the city is right down the road - I make more detailed plans if we have to travel far). I knew basically where the Pike Place Market was and knew I wanted to go to it, but I didn't have the right directions and we forgot the WA map. I think Andy would have preferred to just go home and come back when we were more prepared, but he has been married to my spontaneous self long enough for it not to drive him totally crazy to just go with the flow on Saturday. :) So we parked at the end of the piers and started hiking down the sidewalk with my "I think it's this way somewhere" attitude. The photo above shows Jarvis in front of a big cruise ship. Speaking of which, I think I'd like to go on a cruise sometime. Just fyi.

p.s. When you explore my way, with no rhyme or reason, you end up finding things you'd never have found if you were just following a well-planned route. Things like this:

An orange safety cone that must have jumped to its early demise, gathering mold and salt along with the seaside rocks. So sad. So sad indeed. photo by me.

Turns out we weren't far from the market. We just had to walk about 8 blocks, which I enjoyed thoroughly, since we were right by the water. Darby and Jarvis were tired from being at the airshow all morning though, so they weren't thrilled about the walk.

I was missing my camera, because apparently I can't use the Kodak camera. But anyway, Pike Place Market was totally cool. There was so much to see and do - we are definitely going back when we have more time and money to spend. :)

They had tons of ENORMOUS and GORGEOUS bouquets of flowers for just 7 to 15 bucks apiece. Brittany and I each bought one and have been enjoying them since. I will add photos of our flowers later... well, more photos than the one below.

Me and Britt with our flowers in front of Seattle. We loved what we saw of the city and can't wait to go back! And yes, Brittany is now several inches taller than me. :-| photo by Andy.

They were having a Classic Yacht Show over Father's Day weekend and had some really cool looking ones. photo by Andy.

I bought an apple at the farmer's market and shared it with Jacob. He ended up bogarting the entire thing after I had only eaten a few bites, eating all but the core. And I think he even ate part of the core. He couldn't get enough. Apparently he's a fan of apples. :) photo by Andy.

Sunday...

First, Happy Father's Day to my wonderful husband. Thank you for being such a spectacular father to our children. :)

On Sunday morning, we tried out a church near our house. We really liked the pastor, and may end up going again. I think we are going to try out a few other churches, though, before we decide on one. Please pray God leads us where He wants us.

On Sunday afternoon, I wanted to hit the local farmer's market for some fresh fruit (I only bought flowers at the one in Seattle). It's only open on the weekends, so Andy and I headed to downtown Puyallup (pronounced pew-al-up). The farmer's market is at a pavilion in this really neat park right next to a huge library. This is looking like it may be a place to frequent. I got some awesome strawberries and lettuce, and found they also have huge bouquets of flowers for cheap... along with bonsai trees, herb plants and rose plants and other things. It's about 15 or 20 minutes to get there (mostly because traffic on the road that runs through our town is always backed up), but I think Saturday mornings will now be dedicated to the library/park/farmer's market. :)

We are so loving this place! :)

Videos...

Andy's camera takes video, and he took several videos on our trip. I am just now getting them put on youtube, so I figured now was a good time to share them with you guys. :)

They take a while to upload to youtube, so here is the first video of the bunch. I will link to the rest as they get uploaded. I also have some camcorder videos to upload at some point. One day. One day. Hold your breath. ;)

 

Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Annnnd doctor.

My cold has found it's way back to me, unfortunately, along with a migraine. Which is why I'm sitting in bed updating my blog instead of unpacking. Our things all arrived yesterday (yay!), and I cannot wait to get the house all set up. Jacob is still sick too, and I think Andy is getting it. The bad thing about big families is that when one person gets sick, it usually spreads to everyone at least once. So the illness seems to last forever. I'm praying no one else gets it though. And I'm thankful that we weren't sick while we were traveling! The unpacking can wait a day or two, but if we had been traveling I would have been out of luck with no chance to rest. God is good. :)

p.s. I do realize that not many people get my vague movie references, but they amuse me so I will continue to use them. I know I am definitely amused when I read the vague movie and music references on Andrea's blog, and even find satisfaction in the fact that I'm probably one of the few that knows what she is talking about. So Andrea, that last title was for you. Even though Timberly is likely the only one that will get that one. And Andy. Because we just joked about that movie the other day.

This is the officially the end of the longest blog posting ever. Now go comment. Twice. :)

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June 14, 2007, 8:12 pm

Ten minutes ago...

This was taken around the corner from our house a few minutes ago. There's a house blocking the view from our front porch, but you can see Mt. Ranier from the boys room and Darby & Jacob's room. This photo isn't great, but it looks REALLY cool in person.

For Trish...

The Navajo pottery we bought in Arizona. Trish, the black topped one (on the right) is the one Andrew got for you. :)

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June 14, 2007, 8:53 am

I don't want to jinx it, but...

Jacob has slept through the night for four nights in a row! He must love his new house. He has slept through the night before, but never for more than two nights in a row. And only a handful of times ever. He hasn't been sleeping for more than 3 or 4 hours in a row since he started teething at age 7 months (he's 17 months now - and at 7 months, he had only been sleeping for about 7 or 8 hours for a couple of weeks when he went back to waking up every couple hours). But he has been sleeping for about 11 or 12 hours the last four nights. He has been going to bed between 8 and 9:30, depending on how long his nap was, and he doesn't wake me up until 8:30!! Which is perfect for me, because I have been going to bed when Andy does (he has to get up early for work) at 10:30. And ten hours is what I need. That's right, ten hours! I can get by on nine if I have to, but ten is better. :) Okay, so we will pray he keeps it up. He isn't in his room right now, because he doesn't sleep well when it's light. I need to find some thick, dark curtains for all the kids rooms. It gets light by 5:30 am here, and it stays light until 9:30 (I hear it is the reverse in the winter - very short days). Darby, at her 8:00 bedtime is like "it's still daytime!!" LOL Even though she is exhausted by then. Anyway, so Jacob's playpen is in our walk-in closet for now, that's right - the closet, because it's so dark in there and he obviously sleeps WELL in the dark. :) So that was my very long saga about Jacob sleeping all night, because, as you can imagine, I am very excited about not having to get up multiple times in the night. Now, if only Monday would hurry up and get here so I can get off the floor and into my bed! :)

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June 12, 2007, 11:39 am

Feeling a bit better...

It's a bright and sunny day today, which I'm realizing are few and far between around here. Andy is in his second full day of in-processing to Ft. Lewis, and let me tell you, he's enjoying it. They have him in-processing with brand new soldiers and everyone in between so he's having to hear all the stuff he's heard a million times before. Oh well. Once he is through with processing, he should get ten days permissive TDY (they give you ten days off that doesn't count against your leave time [a.k.a. vacation time for the clueless ;)] so you can get 'settled'. As of now, he'll still be processing when the movers are here on the 18th, but I'm hoping he's not. It'd be nice if he were here to help me direct the movers. Of course, the military has made sure that I know how to do pretty much everything on my own (which is a good thing), so it won't be the end of the world if he's working. :)

In the news...

Have you seen the recent story on the news about the checkpoint that was blown up by a suicide bomber in Iraq, killing three US soldiers and wounding six? Well, that was where Andy spent most of his time when he was there - checkpoint 20. The guys that were killed were the ones that took over Andy's job. A bit close to home, and yet another reason to stop and thank the Lord for Andy's safety while he was in Iraq! Even if you no longer personally know someone in Iraq, please remember to pray for our troops! The guys that were killed were someones's sons and possibly someone's husbands and fathers. Read the article here.

Nuttiness...

So every now and then (maybe once or twice a month - more if I have extra time on my hands, which is rare), I check to see who has been looking at my blog. I can only see details on the last 100 viewers so I don't see EVERYone that has looked (I'd have to look every other day to see all that). Anyway, I just looked and I was amused to see that someone from Lambeth, London had clicked on my blog today. Their search terms were "don't throw fruit-at-a computer", dashes and all. I was amused that someone would 1. type that into a search engine to begin with and 2. that MY blog would be one of the sites brought up for that search. Strange.

While I'm talking about visitors to my blog, I wanted to say hello to all of you who don't comment and invite you to join in the festivities on the comments page if you like. Don't be shy! Say hello. :) (p.s. I'm very interested to know who my viewer from Ireland is. Top o' the mornin' to ya! [Yeah - that wasn't meant to be offensive. I'm fascinated with your accent.]) :)

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June 11, 2007, 12:48 pm

Happy birthday to Nicky, Cory, and Isabella! :)

I was in denial...

But I have to admit it today. I'm sick. Ugh. For the past few days my throat was a bit swollen, I was kinda tired, etc., but I just kept on truckin'. By last night though, I was like "ugh!" So I slept LATE today (Justice was kind enough to get Jacob's breakfast this morning and play with him), and I plan on going nowhere. Jacob isn't feeling that great either, but he's still full of energy. He's been sleeping more though, and his Tylenol seems to help get him through. I wish I could take cold medicine. The only kind I've ever been able to take without feeling like I had just dropped acid, they discontinued. Not that I have ever dropped acid, but when I take Sudafed or anything of the sort, I imagine that's the type of groggy, disoriented, hallucinogenic type of feeling I'd get if I dropped acid. Oh, and add nausea to that - Nyquil totally makes me want to vomit. And I hate throwing up. I think most of you know that I'd rather give birth than throw up. Anyway, it's just a head cold, congestion in the nose, throat, chest kind of thing. But I feel crappy enough to put the kibosh (is that really a word?) on any outside activity today, and sit around drinking lots of hot tea and watching movies on the laptop. And it's sunny after three days of rain. Go figure. Well, the three middle kids are enjoying playing in the yard, so I'm glad they are enjoying the sun. :)

Seattle International Film Festival...

A friend of Andy's family (who has become a friend of mine as well), Mary Ella, lives in the area and has been working on a documentary for the last couple of years. It's a film called Sweet Crude, about the rich oil and the poor people of the Niger Delta. I have been following the film online for a while, and it is going to be premiering as a work in progress at the Seattle Film Festival this coming weekend. Andy and I wanted to go, but Brittany is so fascinated with all things Africa (she plans to go as soon as she is old enough to help whomever she can), that Andy said she could go in his place and he would watch the kids. So Brittany and I are going to head up to Seattle on Saturday to see the film and to possibly do a little Seattle-discovery since we haven't been to the city yet. It should be great fun, and it'll be great to see Mary Ella and to see the film.

I'll try to get more photos up later, but for now I'm going to go take a swim in my tub. :)

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June 10, 2007, 12:21 pm

Turn that frown upside down!

We are very much enjoying our house. We were able to get in touch with the transportation department on Friday before they closed and they'll be delivering our things on Monday, the 18th. Over a week might seem like a long time to wait, but when we moved into our house in Texas on December 30th, our things did not arrive until January 27th. So 9 days is a-ok with us! :) It poured rain most of the day yesterday, so we didn't go to the Meeker Days Festival in our town, but I think we're going to go this afternoon. There's a classic car show and a Farmer's Market (which I've been dying to go to a Farmer's Market since we got here! I'm so excited about having FRESH produce [something that was VERY hard to come by in dry, brown Texas]). Andy is checking into Fort Lewis as we speak. He hasn't yet because he wasn't required to until the 10th (today), and we wanted as much of his time as possible before he headed back to work. If he doesn't get back soon, we may head to the festival without him. ;)

More photos for your viewing pleasure...

There are so many scenes like this in the area. I LOVE Washington scenery!!! :)

At a park in Steilacoom, a cute little neighboring town

Photos of the house...

Andy trying out my bathtub :)

Left photo: At the bottom of the stairs - the kids love how they have two landings in the middle of the stairs.
Right photo: From the master bedroom doorway, looking out onto the upstairs landing and kids rooms. Going counter-clockwise, first door on the right is Brittany's room, the next door is Justice and Jarvis' room, the next room is Darby and Jacob's room, and the next is the kids' bathroom - the stairs are next to the bathroom.

The kitchen. That door leads to the laundry room, which leads to the garage.

Left photo: Other side of the island in the kitchen - plenty of counter and cabinet space. That door leads to the pantry (the stove is just to the right of that door).
Right photo: Inside of the spacious pantry

The kids showing me how they feel about their new home. Jacob was like "um excuse me... I was busy running around?" When we got here, he was running around like a maniac, enjoying the fool out of the new house. He thinks all the big rooms with no furniture are a blast! :)

My Andy Pandy :D

View from the living room into the kitchen/dining area. I love how it's open so I can be involved with whatever is going on in the living room while I'm cooking dinner. :) (I didn't want to be photographed so that's why I'm covering my face?)

Big window in the living room looking into the backyard (which needs some TLC)

From the living room - that door is the coat closet. Directly across from it is a little hallway with another storage closet and a half bathroom. That room you see in the back, is the 'entryway'. Instead of there being a little space when you come in the front door, there is a whole room. Not sure what we're going to do with that area, but we have brought up several things. I'm sure it will be awesome, whatever we decide. :)

Left photo: From our bedroom into our double-doored bathroom. The master bath is an entire room in and of itself. It's enormous. I love the double sinks and the huge mirror. I always say things like "yeah right" when I see magazine photos of people putting chairs and other furniture in their bathroom. Well, now I can actually do that. Pretty cool.
Right photo: Can't have too many photos of my bathtub. :D

Andy got a photo of his shower in the mirror reflection. That door is one of the double doors leading to the bedroom. There is also a door leading to the toilet (which you can close off and be private), and a door leading to our big walk-in closet.

We are so loving it. This is the nicest house we've lived in. I can't wait until next week when we get all our things and I can start making it 'ours' with furniture and photos on the walls.

Off to the Farmer's Market before it closes (Andy isn't home yet so he'll have to catch up with us there). I'll give more updates later, including a good photo of the outside of the house. I haven't gotten our internet connection up and running yet and figured I'd not be able to get online, but I was able to pick up on someone else's wireless connection for now. Hopefully we'll have our own connection this week. :)

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June 8, 2007, 2:19 pm

Praise the Lord!

Our application was approved for the house (the one in the photos from two posts ago). Thank you to everyone for their prayers. We were not approved for the other house (because of our credit), but I knew God would provide for us, and He did. This agency didn't even say anthing about our credit report. Andy is at the bank getting money for our deposit and first months rent (another obstacle - we had run out of checks RIGHT before the move and I didn't buy more because we pay our bills online and I figured we'd just get new checks at the new bank... I was not thinking about needing a check for getting into a house... Andy is having to open a new account to retrieve the money from our TX bank, but it's all seemingly working out). I am getting ready to check out of the hotel but wanted to update you guys on what was going on. Obviously, we do not have internet access at our new home yet, but as soon as we do, I will provide you guys with another update.

Have a good weekend. We will be having a wonderful weekend in our new home. If you want to say another prayer (other than to thank God for his provision for us, of course), please pray the movers can deliver our household goods promptly. It took more than three weeks in Texas, but it was Christmas time so many of the movers were on vacation. Hopefully it won't take that long this time. But even if it does? At least we are not in a hotel anymore!!! :D

p.s. I will send an email out to friends and relatives with our new address as soon as I get the chance. :)

Updated to add...

We will be at the hotel one more night. Just heard from Andy and we didn't get the bank thing taken care of in time, so they won't be able to do it until 10:00 in the morning. Which is fine with us - just knowing we're going to get it is totally awesome! :)

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June 7, 2007 7:09 pm

Ode to my sweet broccoli cheddar...

I ate at Panera today. Oh how I have missed my wonderful broccoli cheddar soup and my rockin' frontega chicken paninis. It was delicious. I love Panera. I can't wait to go one morning and get my favorite cinnamon crunch bagels.

The wait continues...

We have heard from both houses today, but we know nothing yet. Andy is on the phone now with the house by the woods people discussing credit report issues. The other house people called to say they are waiting on responses from our previous landlords. I'm hoping for the newer house. I think Andy wants the house by the woods because of the deck, but he'd be happy with either. I just pray we get the one God wants us to have. And I pray it will be soon. :)

 

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June 6, 2007, 4:57 pm

Pray, pray, pray...

Well, sorry Daniel and Ali - the 2nd house from yesterday's post was too small. (it was absolutely gorgeous inside though - if only we had a couple fewer children - lol).

We put an application in on this one today (the realtor photo I stole from the web isn't great):

It's kinda boring from the outside, but we loved the inside. It's brand new. The neighborhood is brand new, and it's right on a golf course (not that I play golf, but Andy has started playing). I LOVE the kitchen, and the master 'suite' is awesome! The kids bedrooms are a bit small, but I figure that's the price they have to pay for me having a magnificent bathtub. :D Actually, Justice went in with us and he loved it too. We haven't heard back from the one we put an application on yesterday, but I like this one better. It's not right by the woods and doesn't have the secluded deck, but the inside is much nicer. I should have taken photos myself, but didn't think to while we were there. Please pray the application and credit check goes through okay. We should hear back within two days, assuming our previous rentors answer their phones. We're so ready to get out of this hotel, as would be expected, but we also want to wait on God and get into the home He wants us in. This is the first house we've had to shell out the $40 application fee on too.

Here are the online photos of the inside. They aren't from our house, I guess they're from the model home, but it's this layout only flip-flopped:

The left photo (or top if you have an extremely narrow screen) is the master bath. Ours is a different angle, but I love the big tub with the tiled surround. The master bath also has two sinks (something we've wanted for a while!) and a big shower (Andy pretty much lives in the shower). The right photo is the upstairs landing.

The left photo here is the living room fireplace (again - it's flip-flopped); the right photo is the kitchen (duh), but the one we want has white appliances.

Part of the master bedroom. It has double doors leading to the bedroom and double doors to the bathroom. In case you wondered. :)

We looked at another home this morning that we drove past and it was really nice and roomy. It needs painting though and doesn't have blinds in the windows (hey - when you're tired these things go on the 'con' list). I asked the realtor if they were going to fill in the nail holes and paint, and she said no she didn't think they were going to paint and then she said (and I quote), "We figure people hang photos in basically the same places so we encourage people to utilize the holes that are already there". What?! The more I thought about it the more this statement bothered me. I mean, why didn't she say "we're too cheap to use that $350 non-refundable part of your deposit to grab a thing of wall putty and a couple gallons of paint."?

Anyway, so now we wait to hear something back from the house we liked the woods and/or the house we loved the inside of (above). Hopefully we'll hear back from them tomorrow and can move in inmmediately! :)

Photos from the past few days...

Derek & Leah's sweet little baby :)

At their house. I'm not sure what the little princess is doing here. LOL

The fam (except the baby was sleeping) - I'm pretty sure their little one is planning on becoming a nudist, just like Darby. :)

The princesses (Darby on the right) playing a violent Xbox game. Actually, the boys were playing; they were pretending to play on the extra controllers. It was funny. :)

Two peas in a pod!

Had to get another photo from Titus' dealership. :)

We found a really cute park with a lake in Tacoma today. It was chilly and the kids were wearing t-shirts so we didn't stay long, but Andy got a couple photos (I was resting in the van - I'm so worn out).

It had ducks too (obviously) :)

The boys

That's it for now. Has anyone been paying attention to the presidential debates this week? Should be an interesting race, to say the least.

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June 5, 2007, 8:50 pm

Hey laundry, you're so fine, you're so fine you blow my mind, hey laundry!

Yeah, I've been getting caught up on the blogs while I do some laundry, and obviously (well, obviously for those who have read her blog recently) I just got caught up on Andrea's blog. I tend to do that with songs... I have a tune running through my head and I just insert random words from whatever I'm doing. Yes, I'm insane. And musical.

Day trips and house hunts...

I haven't gotten the photos off my camera yet (sorry), so you'll have to wait for visual updates, but I wanted to let you know we were still here. Sunday we had a wonderful visit in Seattle with my Aunt Cherry and cousin Derek and his family. They have a beautiful home and made an awesome dinner for us - and Darby had GREAT fun playing with their daughter who is almost exactly one year younger than her.

Then on Monday, we spent most of the day house hunting and visiting with some friends from Fort Hood. They moved up here a few months ago. We were in the same Sunday School class in Texas, and it was great to see them (and she also made us an awesome dinner - it was SO nice not having to eat fast food for the 4 millionth time in a row). :)

We found a house we liked in a GREAT neighborhood (that ended up being the SAME neighborhood as above mentioned friends - what are the odds?), and we looked inside and it had tons of room for us, but someone had put an application on it that morning. Go figure. So we put in a backup application just in case. Then today, we found a home that we fell in LOVE with from the outside (it was right next to some woods and had a secluded porch and deck - a rarity around here - at least in our price range - all the other homes have virtually no yard and are right next to each other). We saw the inside this evening and we think it'll work. It didn't have a tub in the master bedroom - which was a negative for me b/c I love baths - it had a big shower, and it'll be tricky with the way all the living space is laid out. There's plenty of living space, it's just a different layout. Anyway, we put an application in on it, so we'll see what happens. We have 4 more homes to see tomorrow. They are all the more cookie cutter homes (which are still very nice, just not on the corner lot by the woods like the one from today - and I think all of them have a separate tub and shower in the master suite which is a huge bonus for me). So we'll look at those tomorrow and put applications in on the ones we think will work and go from there.

In case you wondered, most of the places around bases will waive the application fee for military, so we aren't throwing money down the toilet by applying for more than one place. :) We had some credit issues in the past (when we were between jobs, separated, etc.) and that's all still on our credit reports so we are praying at least one of these homes will be willing to overlook all that. :)

Andy talked to the base housing office today and there really will not be any homes available for a while. They said a year, so renting is next on the list. We want to wait until our credit is better before we buy a home.

Anyway, so that's the update. I leave you with a couple of photos of the homes we've been looking at. Please continue to pray that we get into the house God wants us in - something that is big enough in the right area that fits our budget. We certainly do appreciate all the prayers and comments! You guys are the best!!! :)

The one we looked at today with the woods next to it (where Andy and I fell in love with the back deck):

The one we are going to look at in our friend's neighborhood in the morning:

The three in a really cute neighborhood close to the east side of the base that we're looking at tomorrow afternoon - these each have a small fenced in yard with actual grass so that's a plus:

(the above two are obviously the same house just flip-flopped from each other)

(the above one is our favorite of the last four. The one we saw today is the best because of the woods - did I mention that?) :)

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June 3, 2007, 12:14 am

On the hunt...

We spent today hunting for houses. The street names here are insanely crazy. For instance, we were looking for a house that was on 201st St Ct E. Only there were three roads with that exact name, plus there was 201st St St E, 201st St Ave E, and I think three or four others. Needless to say, I didn't realize I needed to write zip codes down with the addresses and look at the maps online with the houses - we only found 2 or 3 of the long list of homes we were looking for and after 6 or 7 hours of driving around, we were done. It wasn't a total loss though. We were able to figure out which communities we liked more than others, and we drove through some of the housing on base. I'll be more prepared next trip out. :)

Continued June 3, 2007, 11:01 am

Doing laundry in the million degree laundry room is fun. But hopefully we'll be done soon. Then we're going to head up to Seattle to see Aunt Cherry, Derek, Leah, and their kids. That should be fun. We're looking forward to seeing them. Here's a few photos from the last few days...

The landscape through Washington was amazing. Photos through the van window while driving just don't capture it. Go figure. :)

I loved seeing mountains, snow, forests, and water all at once!!

It was so pretty.

:)

Jarvis was the first one to spot Mount Ranier. You can see it from so many places here and it's absolutely gorgeous. The scenery here is breathtaking. Really. And I'm not one to use the term 'breathtaking'. :)

Downtown Tacoma. We drove around a lot yesterday (as noted before). We really like the Lacey area, but it's a little commute for Andy. We'll find out more about base housing tomorrow.

Titus - I didn't know you had a Ford dealership in Tacoma?!

The main Fort Lewis gate

The boys' hair was all out of control so Andy broke out the clippers for Justice and Jarvis last night. We decided to go ahead and cut Jacob's hair too. His first haircut. He squirmed a LOT, but I think Andy did a great job of cutting it. Now maybe people will stop calling him a girl. LOL I did like his curls though. :)

Getting his bangs cut :)

The only photo I got of Jarvis' hair, but it looks SO much better cut!

Justice LOVES this photo, but he won't look at the camera and smile, so I just have to take what I can get.

Andy decided to cut his hair too, and he let the kids each take a turn with the clippers. LOL

It looks nice, don't you think? I didn't actually get a photo of it when it was done, but trust me, it turned out much better than this. :)

Jacob with his new 'do. :)

Well, laundry is almost done. I will update more later. :)

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June 1, 2007, 8:39 pm

Tacoma, Washington...

Note to self: Don't drive on I-5 during rush hour. We arrived in the Tacoma area before 5:00 and it took us almost two hours to get to Ft. Lewis (it should have taken about 30 minutes). Anyway, the base seems nice - much smaller than Ft. Hood. We're in a hotel in Tacoma and will start our house hunt in the morning after we've had some sleep. Admittedly, I'm going a bit nuts after being in the van with a 1 year old, a 5 year old and an 8 year old for 7 days. And cramped in a small hotel room with all the kids for 7 days. And spending a couple hours in horrific traffic tonight. I'm pretty sure I'm going to need to go for a lone walk in a little while just to breathe a bit. Don't get me wrong - I love being around my kids, but a girl needs a litle space now and again, ya know? I tell you all that so you know that I'm just like any other mom and I go insane here and there just like the rest of you. :)

Anyway, driving through Washington was amazing! I can't tell you how many times I said "wow!" The massive forests and rivers and snow capped mountains and waterfalls all in view at the same time had me in complete awe. I haven't gotten the photos Brittany took from the van off the camera yet, but I'm sure she got some good ones that I'll upload later.

Please pray we find the house God has in mind for us. We have a list of them to drive by tomorrow to see if we want to call and see the insides of them. I think I've found more rentals off craigslist than any of the realty sites. We'll keep you posted, and I'll add more photos later. :)

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May 31, 2007, 11:32 pm

Kennewick, Washington...

We made it to Washington, but not to the side we're going to be living on. It should be about a four hour drive tomorrow. Not too bad. We can't wait to get to our new town! I decided today that I'm pretty much through with driving [but that could have something to do with the fact that Jacob was up pretty much all night last night... Andy and I finally brought him into our bed and gave him crackers. Sleeping on crackers with a baby smooshing our faces and putting his finger up our noses was better than listening to him scream in his playpen at the foot of the bed... Thankfully tonight's hotel has a big enough bathroom that we could put the playpen in there and he is sleeping peacefully so far {he has a hard time sleeping with others in the room}]. :)

Some photos from today...

The capitol building in Boise, Idaho. The people in Idaho actually seemed pretty normal. As opposed to the people we came across in Utah and Oregon.

Another view of the capitol. My goal (that I made a couple years ago when visiting Austin, TX) is to get photos of each of the capitol buildings in the United States. I only have a few so far, and ironically, I do not have photos of the TN, GA, or KY capitol buildings even though I have been to them all and lived near them all. Huh. So far I've got photos of TX, UT, ID, the White House in D.C.... and that may be it. Yeah, this is a fairly new project. :D

One of Darby's 432,561 stops to go to the bathroom. I swear that girl has bladder issues. I don't think I could even begin to count the amount of times I have heard "I'm going to pee in my pants if we don't stop" during the last week. One more day. One more day. I just keep repeating that. :) Anyway, I thought this was a really odd name/theme for a convenience store/gas station.

Apparently Brittany was sleepy. Heh heh. She's going to LOVE that I put this photo on the blog. ;)

Entering Oregon. Oregon was a BEAUTIFUL state to drive through.

The Oregon welcome center had a multi-colored rose garden, along with a perfectly manicured lawn. It was really pretty (and smelled good).

Scenes from Oregon (most of them taken by Justice while I drove)...

Oregon has everything (the corner that we drove through)... mountains, huge forests, lakes... so pretty. :)

Oregon also seemed to have lots of abandoned farms, houses, and (as seen above) plants/mines. And this was train number 345,654,768,456 that we have seen this trip.

We stopped for lunch in Baker City, Oregon. It was such a cool little town with seemingly lots of history. But the people were a bit freaky. And they were all white - all of them. Absolutely no minorities were to be seen (just a little factoid there - for those who care). And the Pizza Hut waitress might be stalking us now - I'm not sure. She scared us a bit.

Much to Andy's chagrin, you are not allowed to pump your own gas in Oregon (and apparently New Jersey). It's all full service. Andy was very upset because he loves to pump his own gas. I'm not making this up. I guess the 17 year old gas station attendant is more qualified to pump gas than us. He said it was an Oregon law that people are not allowed to put their own gas in their cars - so he kept running between about five different cars trying to get everyone filled up quickly.

More Oregon beauty :)

At last, we are home. It doesn't quite seem like home yet, but I'm sure it won't be long. We can't wait to start our house hunt tomorrow, when we arrive at Fort Lewis (assuming they were correct when they told us there was no available base housing). We can't wait to see the new home that God provides for us. I'm very excited about living in a new place. :)

Thanks to all my readers for the comments. :)

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May 31, 2007, 10:21 am

Boise, Idaho...

Apparently there are cities in Idaho. But there is also a whole lot of nothing. The scenery is gorgeous though (even though we had to hold our noses for quite a stretch because of the cow stench). :) We're about an eight hour drive from Fort Lewis, so we'll see if we make it today. It depends on how eventful the drive is (with two vehicles and five kids, you never know how far we'll make it - lol). We spent a while in Salt Lake City yesterday. It's a beautiful city, and extremely clean. Although there were a lot of very odd people there (including a man in Arby's that caused us to leave immediately- he was dressed in all Army attire, except for tennis shoes and sat down without ordering any food. Then he started going through some military bags and reading papers and looking at his compass. I thought he was going to blow the place up any minute; Andy thought he was about to pull out a handgun and start shooting people). Hopefully he just went through his gear and left without killing anyone. :)

Finally, some controversy on my blog to capture people's attention...

I was going to give a big response to the items on the comments page, but I don't have time for much of that this morning. I'll just say that I completely disagree with the Mormon religion. I believe it is a false religion leading people away from God (not closer to Him). According to my Bible, "doing good things" doesn't get you to Heaven (Romans 6:23) . Perhaps my comments were a bit sarcastic and/or harsh, but I don't think that calling [what I believe to be] a false religion crazy makes me less of a person. I do say what I think - that's part of who I am (and believe I should be) - I don't try to offend people on purpose, and honestly didn't know any Mormons read my blog - but that doesn't change my opinion of the religion (or my openness about what I believe). I have no doubt that most Mormons truly believe they are 'doing good', but I see it as brainwashing people into a cult. Anyway, I try to keep my blog light hearted, but felt the need to add a sentence or two in defense of my "ignorant, arrogant, & uncompassionate" comments. :)

Suzie, thanks for commenting and I hope you will continue to enjoy my blog. And thank you for the compliments - the fact that a stranger found it evident via my blog that I try to live a Christ-centered life is awesome. :)

And now, back to our regularly schedule programming. On with the trip; here are some photos...

Photos from Andy's camera from Lake Powell and Utah...

At Lake Powell, across from the Dam

I'm such a rebel! :D

And I'm such a nut! :D

The Lake Powell Dam

Is Justice knee-deep in sand? :) Andy bottled up some of the pretty coral pink sand. :)

Andy got a better photo of the scene I was trying to get (see yesterday's post)

Inside the North Visitor's Center at the Mormon Temple... They did have a cool display of Jerusalem in A.D. 33. But we were sorry we asked a couple of questions (because then it was difficult to get out of there without long speeches and lots of propoganda).

The Mormon Temple is beautiful! And very impressive. Andy was saying the Mormon church is one of the richest churches in the world (behind the Catholic church).

The Utah capitol (there was lots of construction going on

We were going to go see the Golden Spike, but it was going to be 45 minutes out of our way and we just wanted to hit the road.

Photos from my camera (taken by me, duh) from yesterday...

Mount Nebo - the landscape has been awesome!!!

Brittany was sitting by Jacob in the car yesterday and took lots of photos. :)

Out walking in Salt Lake City

Darby strolling in Salt Lake

The fam in front of the temple

Darby

Purty flowers :D

Fountain in Temple Square (Andy and the boys did't get the memo ahead of time that if you are a male in Salt Lake City you must wear a collared shirt tucked into dress pants... preferably with a tie) :)

The capitol building

Sitting on the very green lawn by the capitol (I haven't seen this much green grass in years!!!)

Me and my little cutie (whose curls are straight in the dry air so he really needs a haircut) [by the way, my hair is doing GREAT in the dry air - it's not frizzy!! It's just straight and better than it's been in forever!!!] :)

Jacob giving his Brittany a hug

:)

Loading back up in the carrier (which is getting more use than it ever did)

Everyone wanted to be carried :)

A super cool house near the capitol

Entering Idaho

The kids drew tattoos on each other during the long drive, so I let them use one of my arms as a canvas as well. Yeah, we got a few looks. LOL :)

I will update you tonight or in the morning and let you know how far we made it. :D

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May 29, 2007, 11:05 pm

Fillmore, Utah...

Utah is gorgeous to drive through, but so far the people we have come across are... wow. Wow - that's all I can say. Between stopping at scenic views, stopping for kids who are car sick, and driving down (and up) windy, mountainous roads (thus the car sickness) - we didn't quite make it to Salt Lake City before we decided we were through for the day. We're about two hours south of Salt Lake, in a small town called Fillmore. I'll go ahead and put todays photos below, followed by Andy's photos from yesterday. In the morning, I'll try to get Andy's photos from today on here before we head on.

Flowers outside our hotel room in Lake Powell

Turns out Lake Powell was extremely scenic!

This lake seemed so out of place with the rest of the landscape. But it was really pretty - this isn't a great photo (I think Andy got some better photos of the lake).

Andy and some of the kids looking out onto the dam

We didn't go on the dam tour. We looked off the dam bridge though. And made lots of dam jokes. :)

Scenic view of the lake on our way out. It was SO windy.

I looked over and Andy was up on top of the picnic area taking photos. :D

A boy and his Jeep.

Andy and the girls; Britt's getting taller by the second!

Utah was gorgeous - Britt got some good photos from the van windows

from the windows by Britt - I still LOVE the striped mountains :)

more of Utah

And more of Utah

We stopped at this 'rock store'. Jarvis could have stayed there ALL day. I think he spent the rest of his trip money at this store. (for those who don't know - his dream is to be a geologist and he has an ever growing rock/fossil/gemstone collection)

I thought this was cool, but there is a glare from the van window

12,000 foot mountain that I can't remember the name of - I believe our elevation was between 5 and 6 thousand feet from this view

more scenic Utah

This is the 'B' mountain. :)

more Utah

We ate dinner here (down the street from our hotel). We got there and thought it was around 7:45, but found out later we were still on AZ time and it was actually 8:45. Apparently they close at 9:00 so they weren't thrilled to be seating a party of seven. At 8:53 they were locking the doors (while we waited for our food - we didn't realize they were about to close until we already had our salads). I think this entire town completely shuts down by 9:30. Oh, and the waitress seemed to have trouble understanding us. I was pretty sure we spoke the same language, but maybe our Southern accents were too thick for her. We got a LOT of blank stares, and she kept repeating things back to us to make sure it was what we actually said. I'll keep you posted on the rest of the people we run into in Utah. Oh - the gas station earlier in Utah... It was being run by two guys who were very well kempt for gas station attendants, and they were SO smiley and friendly. And the one guy was sweeping the floor even though there was not a DROP of dirt in sight. I think if I had dropped my gum on the bathroom floor, I could have just put it back in my mouth - that's how clean the place was. So bizarre. I think they were trying to bait Andy into a conversation to lure him into Mormonism, but I can't be sure. I don't mean to offend anyone who might be reading that is a Mormon (but your religion is crazy). :D

Photos Andy took at the Grand Canyon yesterday...

View from the Jeep on the way to the Grand Canyon

Justice at the 800 foot drop I spoke of in the last post

I'm falling in :) (Seriously - Andy worries greatly about my complete disregard for heights. I told him I'm careful, it just doesn't scare me - but he thinks I'm insane) :)

My cute boys :)

More pretty views

Britt Smitt

:)

Me with two of my cuties :)

cute, cute, cute :)

I love this shot! :)

The smirkster ;)

:)

Another awesome shot

and another great one!

I loved the colors at sunset! :)

So beautiful

purty :)

A Grand Canyon self portrait :)

I have more photos I haven't gotten off Andy's camera from today, and still have his videos to upload. But I'm going to bed now. If you are enjoying the virtual tour of our trip, be sure to say hi in the comments (not a requirement by any means, just my desperate plea for more comments - lol). :D

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May 29, 2007, 10:58 am

Happy birthday Papa and Marci!!!

Lake Powell, Arizona...

We had a blast at the Grand Canyon yesterday! It was absolutely gorgeous. Photos do NOT do it justice. If you haven't been... GO! At first, the lighting was horrible for photos, but by the last scenic view, the sun was setting and we got some awesome pictures. I can't wait to boost the color in photoshop, but for now, you guys just get the straight from the camera shots. :) We are staying at a hotel in Lake Powell (about an hour from Utah) and went swimming this morning. The kids are loving the hotels with pools! Actually, I said "we" but that's not really accurate - Everyone but me went swimming. The water was too cold for me, so I just sat in the sun for a little bit. I am SOOOOO white! I don't think I've ever been this white in the summer.

Anyway, photos from the Grand Canyon:

Scenic view on the way to the Grand Canyon where we stopped to look and to buy some jewelry from some Navajo Indians

Andy said this was gross, but I said that lizards need love too :)

On the hike to the scenic view

It was an 800 foot drop. Cool. (Andy got more photos on his camera)

(yeah, I'm really white) Entering the Grand Canyon :D

First view (the Desert View)

I wish the lighting had been better here, but it gets better later :)

A stranger took our photo (I don't think my arms really look this LARGE, but I could be wrong)

My cute family :)

Moi

Britt

Andy and Jacob taking photos

Cuteness :D

Darby in harsh lighting, but it's still a cute photo :D

At the top of the watch tower, this plaque had a Psalm on it. Too cool!

Inside the ceiling of the watch tower

Um... I have nothing to say about this :)

Inside the watch tower

The watch tower

View of the watch tower from the next scenic view

It was so pretty and soooo enormous. Like I said, the photos just don't capture it

Ruins from 1100 A.D.

Sign from the ruins

Lighting is starting to improve

Can you find Andy and Justice? :)

Britt wearing some of the Navajo jewelry she bought :)

Driving between scenic points was gorgeous with all the trees. I took this while driving into the sun, so yeah...

so pretty :)

:)

I could have stayed here for days

Trying to keep the kids on the trails was a bit nerve racking because they were so excited - Andy was bothered by the fact that I wasn't scared to climb out on the edges. What can I say? I'm not afraid of heights. :D

Justice

Jarvis

The silly-head

It was so pretty - did I mention that?

I wish those people hadn't gotten in my photo :)

Desert flowers in front of the canyon

Ooh - another thing I had never seen before. Monks. There was a van full of them seeing the sights. :D (p.s. Matt - remember when you were the "dog killer friar" for halloween?) LOL

Sunset

Jacob wearing Andy's hat after the sun went down (it got cold fast)

They are in front of the canyon here - you just can't see it :)

View from our hotel room door this morning. It was so dark last night that we didn't even know we had a scenic view. :)

Andy has more photos and even videos from his camera. I'll try to get those uploaded to the blog tonight, as he got some totally awesome pictures too. We're headed up to Salt Lake City today. Should be a really pretty drive. Now I must get ready to go. Sorry there's not more comments and wittiness from me today - I'm in more of a hurry to get on the road. :) Oh, and Ali - to answer your question about my choice of attire the other day ;) - it was actually chilly where we were, I wasn't just trying to cover up my pasty whiteness (which is usually the case); we even had sweatshirts with us just in case. But it was super hot (but it's a dry heat- lol) yesterday so we all wore shorts. :)

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May 28, 2007, 12:26 pm

Flagstaff, Arizona (still - but now with photos)...

Okay, so last night's post was actually 11:20 pm on the 27th. Just fyi. I hadn't changed the clock on my laptop so I got confused. :) Anyway, I woke up with a KILLER migraine so we're getting another late start. We'll be checking out in about 30 minutes and heading up to the Grand Canyon for the rest of the day. My head is doing a bit better after a little extra sleep and some Excedrin. Jacob kept us up screaming half the night - one of the cons of 7 people sharing a tiny hotel room (Jacob has actually been GREAT the whole trip - last night was just a bit of a setback... he's wondering where his house is and why on earth he needs to be asleep when there are six other people in the room... he's used to sleeping alone). Jarvis and Darby slept through it, thankfully, so they at least got a good night's sleep. We're hoping he does better tonight. I have a ton of photos to share from yesterday, so hopefully I can get them up in the next few minutes.

Photos from May 27th...

Man, I am really missing Photoshop. I usually use it to lighten up dark photos or boost the color in the ones that need it. So you just get the photos straight from the camera until I get to Washington and install Photoshop on the laptop. Sorry. :)

Jacob snoozing away in the playpen in New Mexico. Wish he had slept like this last night! LOL

Scenes from New Mexico - all my car photos from yesterday are taken by Justice...

The Santa Fe railroad... we have seen a million and three trains!!!

Andy's Jeep entering the Arizona welcome center. Arizona is MUCH prettier than New Mexico!!

Both above photos are at the Arizona welcome center (rest of the photos taken by me unless otherwise noted... you know, in case you care)

That's a giant Jolly Rancher in Justice's mouth. Not sure WHAT Jarvis is looking at. :)

Brittany at the welcome center :)

At a tourist spot... they had an adult and baby miniature pony that came over and let the kids pet them. So cute. :)

Jacob thought it was the BEST THING EVER and kept trying to pet the baby pony's butt. So gross. But he was ecstatic! :)

Photos from the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest. It was absolutely gorgeous. Even if it did cost us ten bucks per vehicle to drive through it. And even if Ranger Ricky followed us through the park making sure we didn't speed or steal rocks.

I LOVED the 'painted' mountains. They were so pretty - the photos don't begin to capture it.

Miss. Priss loves having her photo taken.

Jarvis and Darby drew tattoos on each other in the van - thus the writing on Darby's wrist. :)

Cute boys! :)

We left Jacob's shoes in the van at this stop. He didn't care - he actually prefers to be barefoot and the rocks don't seem to bother him.

Desert flowers

The whole fam-damily. You can only see the back of Jacob's head, but whatever. :)

I sometmes can't believe how big the kids are getting. They're all so awesome! Andrew and I are extremely blessed with great kiddos!!! :)

Reading the signs...

More of the painted desert

Really cool - had to use the zoom lens to see the etchings on the rocks... or as Andy called it, 2,000 year old grafiti. :)

On Newspaper Rock... old grafiti.

I think I want to paint a wall in a room with stripes like this... Maybe my scrapbooking room when I get one. :)

I'm just absolutely amazed by these striped rocks... remember, I'm easily impressed. :)

At the petrified forest. The rocks were so cool. We had a blast looking through them.

More petrified wood

Darby actually tried building a sand castle in the dirt. :)

Jacob enjoying the ride. :)

more petrified wood

I like this one of Justice :)

Another one I like :)

Yeah - they really mean this. Trust me. They are VERY serious about anyone removing one of the KAZILLION rocks. I guess they think they're going to run out. It's bizarre. I don't get it at all.

petrified wood

Photos from Andy's camera (all taken by, you guessed it, Andy)...

Yesterday was Britt's turn to ride in the Jeep (away from all the madness in the van)

taken by Britt from the Jeep

At the gift shop with the ponies

I like this one :)

Self-portrait by Andy :)

Britt, Jarvis, and Justice

That's me and the kids in the bottom of the photo there

The historic "inn" that never was actually used as an inn

pretty :)

Britt holding her contraband sand

the petrified wood was really cool

Cuteness all around :D

Okay, we're off to the Grand Canyon. More updates and photos tonight! :D

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May 28, 2007, 12:20 am

Flagstaff, Arizona...

Wow. What a day! I don't even have the energy to give you much of an update. I have lots to say about today, but it will have to wait until morning. I hope to put some photos up before we take off for the Grand Canyon. This two hour time change is killing me. We ended up driving later today since we spent most of the day at the Painted Desert/Petrified Forest (which was beautiful, by the way), and now it's actually 2:22 am to my body, not 12:20 am like the clock says. I have 260 photos transferring from my camera card to my laptop as I type. I think we got some really good ones - can't wait to share them with you.

To answer a couple questions from the comments page:

1. After Trish reminded us of the Eagles song, I REALLY wanted to take a photo of Andy standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, but I got the exit number wrong (I mixed it up with the Meteorite Crater exit number - oops). Anyway, we didn't quite realize it until we'd passed and it was late and we were like "oh well - next time" (but secretly I'm pretty darn disappointed about missing it - lol).

2. Yes, we're driving through Utah. We'll spend the night on the other side of the Grand Canyon tomorrow night, then up through Salt Lake City, Utah, then through Boise, Idaho, on to Baker City, Oregon, then to our new home in Fort Lewis.

Well, I must sleep. More in a few hours (maybe I can talk Andy into repacking and cleaning out the van himself while I upload photos to the blog - heh heh [the middle seat where Darby, Jarvis, and Jacob sat is now a complete pig sty - lol].

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May 26, 2007, 9:51 pm

Grants, New Mexico...

We were going to be near the Grand Canyon by tomorrow, but I think that's going to be Monday now. We thought it might take three days to get there, but were sort of aiming for two on our original itinerary. So tomorrow, we're going to hit the Petrified Forest National Park. It's supposed to be very scenic. :) Today, we just drove through New Mexico, which was anything but exciting. The views were cool though. We saw some scenery that was new to us. This is my first time ever in NM. Here are some photos and comments from today:

Jacob's first time swimming (in the hotel pool this morning). He had lots of fun, or so I heard, I only saw him for a few minutes because I was doing laundry. He's so cute. :)

We passed several of these cow farms. This photo doesn't capture it (I took it while driving?), but there were TONS of cows all lined up in these stall things. Tons of them... like millions. Okay, maybe not millions - but there were a whole heck of a lot. So many that I woke up Brittany yelling "LOOK AT ALL THE COWS!!!" :)

We made it into New Mexico this morning. The towns were like something out of a movie (aside from Albequerque, which actually seemed like a cool city). The types of towns that the kids just try their best to get out so they won't be stuck for the rest of their lives working at the town factory like their dad. I'm sure no one chooses to live there - they were all born there.

Marker at the NM welcome center, and Jarvis :)

The NM welcome center

Darby in front of some local plantlife

Um, I got a banana at a gas station (to which Brittany responded "mom, why would you buy FRUIT at a gas station?!") and there was a sticker on the banana that I don't know if you can read, but it says "Place sticker on forehead. Smile." So I did.

Then I made Andy put it on his forehead and smile. Yes, I'm a dork. ;)

Brittany's creative photo of NM scenery.

Another photo by Britt.

Jacob extremely happy to be OUT of the car. :)

We went to Billy the Kid's gravesite. Pretty cool.

The family (sans me) in front of Billy the Kid's grave

Jarvis' name was on this sign. :)

Justice mocking wax Billy. :)

Scenes from New Mexico - photos taken by Brittany and Justice as we drove by:

we saw some parachuters; pretty cool. :)

That's all for today. Should have more people photos tomorrow from the Park, and of course - lots more scenery for all of you going along on the virtual tour of our trip. :)

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May 25, 2007, 10:39 pm

Lubbock, TX...

We left the Fort Hood area around 2:00 this afternoon after having lunch at our friends' from church's house (and seeing their absolutely adorable new little baby!). We had originally planned to cross the New Mexico border today, but we only made it to Lubbock. We're about an hour-ish from NM, so not too far off course. There were major storms in central Texas so that slowed us down a bit. And Darby throwing up all over herself and Jarvis... that was fun. She got a little carsick, and even warned me, but she had cried wolf so many times that I just ignored her the time she really meant it when she said she was going to vomit. Oh well. I figure it just isn't a Carden trip if someone doesn't throw up - and we managed to get that overwith on the first day. LOL She felt better after that though, and we drove another hour or so until we got here. The hotel we're in tonight is 25 dollars cheaper than last night, and a million times nicer. Go figure. It's recently been refurbished - and for a Comfort Inn, it's pretty sweet. I think Andy is going to take the kids swimming in the morning while I do laundry before we take off again. I don't know how many details you guys want of our trip, but I am going to try to update you each day. I just got the photos off the camera, and right now I'm thinking I forgot to put any photo editing software on this computer - we'll see in a minute. Oh, a major praise!!! - Jacob has been sleeping fairly well. We're all sharing a room, so I was worried since he usually does not sleep with activity in the room, but he's snoozing away in his playpen as I type. Yay.

Turns out I have MS Office Picture Manager, so I was able to resize some photos easily:

Jarvis was baptized on Sunday evening (May 20th). He was supposed to be baptized on Sunday morning, but he ended up in the emergency room with Andy while the rest of us went to church. Jarvis had somehow managed to get a dinosaur in his eye on Saturday and by Sunday morning it was bothering him so bad we had to take him to the ER. He had scratched his pupil (it's almost completely healed now after using the eye ointment). Anyway, he was very excited to be baptized. An awesome moment in our family. :)

Britt and two of her good friends at school (this was taken at her 8th grade awards ceremony - Britt got the highest grade in art). :)

The neighborhood crew (most of them, anyway). Had to get a group shot before the move. :)

Jacob and Andy... waiting on Justice's graduation to start.

Justice strutting and hamming it up as he walks across the stage to get his certificate at graduation. LOL (yeah, he's a bit of a mess - he is mine and Andy's son, after all - what does anyone expect???)

Scenes from our drive today (next five photos taken by Brittany in a moving vehicle):

Yeah, I'm looking spiffy after a week of non-stop moving preparations. :)

Andy and Justice in the Jeep in front of us. The older kids are taking turns riding with Andy so they'll get a bit of a break from the younger kids. My question is 'where's MY break?' - haha - just kidding - actually, I don't mind riding with the noise. :)

One of the small towns we drove through. Andy thought we might see Jesse James robbing a bank. Yeah, the towns were like something out of an old western.

I had never seen any of these in person before, but we passed fields and fields of them today. I love seeing new things. (yes, I'm easy to impress). :)

Lots of wide, open space in Texas.

Our home for tonight.

Goodnight all... I will do my best to update again tomorrow night. :)

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May 24, 2007, 7:17 pm

We are in a hotel in Copperas Cove (right next to Ft. Hood). Andrew and I worked non-stop (as in the only break I took was a standing 3 minute break to spread some peanut butter on some bread and shove it in my mouth) from 7:00 this morning until our inspection at 3:30 this afternoon (and my body is telling me about it as I type). We were really pushing it to get the house cleaned in time. The movers were at our house until after 5 pm yesterday, then we went straight to Justice's graduation (from elementary school). So we didn't have much time for cleaning between the movers leaving and our inspection. But because of the 4 day weekend coming up, we had to schedule everything right together. So Andy finished mopping the last room and Justice and I took the last bit of trash out just as the housing lady pulled up. We had so much more we wanted to do, but God really helped this lady turn a bind eye to lots of things and we passed our inspection, only being charged five dollars for a knick in the woodwork upstairs (I knocked a piece of furniture into it some time ago and forgot it was there or I'd have filled it in). How she didn't see that we didn't have time to scrub half the mini-blinds, that there were paint stains on the floor of Brittany's room, that I very sadly filled in and painted the woodwork the dog chewed up (when it really needed to be replaced), and a myriad of other damages, I'm not sure. But all was well, and I think having the carpet cleaners come this morning helped because it was still damp and I think that probably disguised it a bit. Ha. :) In case you wondered why we were so concerned (it's not like the place was a pig sty - we took good care of it) - it can be really difficult to clear military housing, and they can make it near impossible because they want you to hire their cleaners (for 500 bucks - no thank you). AND... Andy was able to clear housing, and supposedly the people he has to clear with tomorrow will be open as they said they were going to be. If all goes well in the morning, we'll be on our way.

Oh - upon cleaning the house today, I discovered the packers somehow missed the drawer on the stove, so they didn't pack several pans. Oh, and they left some plastic containers I use for cereal. I got those from the Dollar Tree though, so no harm done. I just gave them all to the neighbor (along with tons of cleaning supplies, our vacuum cleaner [it sucked anyway - I'm hoping Andy gets me a Dyson when we get to WA - heh heh], a stool, food, and who knows what else). The van and Jeep are packed to the hilt, and it's not organized. And it's raining cats and dogs outside. Seriously - the worst storm in a while, we didn't even want to bring all our suitcases into the hotel. So Darby is wearing Jarvis' clothes, and the little kids are playing with sleeping bags and an empty mint container in the corner. But there's toys just a shower, a few hail stones, and some lightning away. Andy's just glad there's a good basketball game on (thus the reason I'm on the computer now. I do not watch sports on TV). :)

I have more to say - as I haven't updated much lately - and I have photos to share. Hopefully soon. :)

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May 23, 2007, 9:52 am

Wow...

The movers are loading the truck today. They have been in our house for two days packing (and so far I've only thought of one thing I needed that got packed up... not too bad). Jacob is fascinated with the entire process. I'm actually taking a break right now trying to get online to deal with post office stuff (if you can call that a break). I sent in our application for a PO Box in WA last week and still have not heard back from them with our new address. Yesterday afternoon I called at 3:00 pm their time, and the guy that handles the post office boxes was gone for the day. They told me to call back in the morning. So I called just now (which was 7:45 am their time) and they told me "the guy that handles the post office boxes has already gone to lunch. Can you call back in about an hour?" Um... LUNCH!? Are you kidding me? Has anyone seen the Seinfeld episode where Kramer decides he doesn't want to receive mail anymore? And Newman tells the girl he's taking over for at the counter "go ahead and take your three hour break". I think that about sums it up.

Back to work. I'll keep everyone posted as often as I can. :)

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May 18, 2007, 11:54 pm

Yay. The new blog is up. Be sure to update your bookmarks. :D

Yeah, I stole this from Andrea and Matt. Fun stuff. :)