And We're Off!

So Rob left Friday to drive across the country to our new home. He's driving with my brother, Brian, my cousin, Adam, and Adam's friend, Tim. The 4 guys are driving our 2 cars and having lots of fun man-adventures or, man-ventures if you will. Brian is updating his blog daily with their adventures. It's pretty entertaining - he's a great writer. If you want to see how the trek is going check out Brian's blog here.

Grace and I are hanging out at Grandma and Grandpa's until our flight leaves tomorrow (Sunday) night. I can't believe how fast that time just marches on. If you see me tomorrow, don't be scared when I don't have any makeup on...I'd just cry it off anyway and then be even scarier. I'm so grateful to have such amazing family and friends (and family that are friends) here in Utah. I guess it's nice to be so sad to leave so many people you love, it proves what a great and full time we've had while living here in Utah. It would be even worse if we weren't sad to leave at all!

Enjoy Brian's updates for now, and I'll try to post sometime next week from Tennessee!

Snowbird Getaway

I have such an amazingly sweet and thoughtful husband. Before the craziness of the past few weeks started, Rob planned a surprise overnight trip for just the two of us to get away for a night to enjoy each others company (and let's be honest...once we move and have two kids we may never have time alone again!) :) He must have been inspired, because I don't know if I would have made it through the past few weeks without that relaxing little breather from "real life." On Thursday morning I got a knock at the door and found Rob's sister, Katie, at the door with a note saying that she was taking Grace and a bag was all packed and ready for Grace hiding in the closet so all she needed was the car seat. When we got Grace all loaded to go with Katie, she handed me another note that said that I had a lunch appointment with my sweetie at the Garden Restaurant at the top of the JSMB at 1 pm, then I had free time until 3 pm when we were going to head up the canyon.

We had a wonderful lunch - don't I look happy? Rob said he knew that in order for me to have the best day possible, he knew he needed to be sure I was well fed to start the day off right. What a wise man he is!

Then we headed up to Snowbird and hung out, talked about moving to Nashville, ate tasty food and relaxed and tried not to think about everything that needed to be done. We had a beautiful view out our sliding windows on the top floor.Thank you, Rob! I love you so much!

Be Prepared

The other day Grace was getting into stuff in the kitchen...apparently she was just working on her preparedness.

Girlfriend knows what's important!

Zion Camp-Melt

July 8-10 we headed down to Zion National Park to camp with Rob's family. I knew it would be hot, but seriously, it was melt-your-face-and-everything-else-off hot. Most of the pictures I took were of playing in the river because that was the only time I had the energy to do anything besides exist and make sure Grace wasn't killing herself.

I married a stud, eh? I sure think so!

On this trip, Scott was Grace's favorite person. She followed him around and talked about him the whole time. She got better at his name throughout the trip. We went from "Shock" to "Sott" to "Scott" or close enough.

Despite the heat and sleeplessness, we were happy to spend time with family. Zion is incredibly beautiful - I am always amazed at this spectacularly beautiful world that Heavenly Father made for us to enjoy!

Happy 2nd Birthday Grace!!!

It's hard to believe that two years ago today we met our sweet little girl who has changed our lives so much for the better.

Birth Day

First Birthday

These days Grace loves to sing. We sing Itsy Bitsy Spider and Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree more times than we can count every day, so today instead of the other songs we usually sang, we sang Happy Birthday all day. I loved hearing Grace sing it to herself every once in a while throughout the day. I think she was just really excited to have another song in her repertoire.

I love Grace's face, it looked like this for every present she opened.

She got some awesome presents...a cash register, shopping cart, purse, plates and dishes, farm, blocks, Wee Sing songs and more!

And of course some dress up clothes. When she opened the bag the skirt was in she exclaimed "princess!!!" Grandma's sure do know what little girls like!

She also got her first bike. She's actually pretty good at riding it too! She loves bicycles and points out every person riding one that we pass in the car. She's so excited to have her very own!

The cake

Blowing out the candles. She actually got them both out.

Eating cake.
It just about killed her to not be able to eat the cupcakes Mommy was frosting this afternoon, but she sure enjoyed the icing when the time finally came to eat!

Rob and I feel so blessed to have such a sweet little spirit in our home. She adds so much joy and laughter to our life. She is such a nurturer and loves to take care of anyone that will let her. She gives really good "huggies" and kisses and has a beautiful singing voice and memory for lyrics. It's amazing to watch her take in everything she sees and hears. It is so fun to see her grow and learn. We love you Gracers!!

Some Fun, Blessings and Disasters

I have so much to catch up on, but here's the best I can do for now...you'll see why.

So we had a delightful, but exhausting 4th of July weekend. Rob's cousin, Matt, got married to the sweetest girl and we had a delightful time doing wedding stuff all weekend and then had a great time watching the fireworks in Kaysville Saturday night. We had such a fun time and Grace loved watching the fireworks and dancing to the music. It was probably the best thing we've done all summer, if you ask her!

Us at fireworks.
I forgot my camera so it's taken from Rob's phone.

So Saturday afternoon, we were trying to make a decision on a place to live. We were offered a 2 bedroom house, but weren't feeling completely sold on it, since we had originally wanted 3 bedrooms so Rob could (hopefully!) be home to study more often than on campus. This 2 bedroom was in a good location, but was a little expensive plus we would have to pay all the utilities including water, sewer, trash, electric, etc. which wasn't so appealing to our meager budget, but we were feeling like maybe this was as good as we could get so we could get this done and have some peace of mind. But Heavenly Father knew better and took care of us big time. That afternoon we got an email from someone in the ward out there who we'd asked to look at a 3 bedroom house for us and he loved it. He said it was everything that he and his wife were searching for when they bought a home last summer. We were really excited, but not sure if it would work out since we had until Monday morning to tell the 2 bedroom place yes or no and it was a holiday weekend, no less Saturday evening! So we called the landlord on the 3 bedroom and she took us right on the spot without knowing much about us besides the few emails that she and Rob had traded about the details of the house. It is really cute, within our original budget with water, sewer and trash included with a huge backyard, a garage and hardwood throughout. What a relief and blessing! Here are a couple photos our friend took:I guess since we were breathing a sigh of relief, something else needed to happen to enliven things a bit. We were looking forward to a nice holiday yesterday so we could re-group and start to figure out what needs to be done and start doing those things. The morning was great but in the afternoon as I walked through our bedroom, the carpet felt funny and when I looked down my footprints were full of water! The apartment building boiler which shares a wall with our bedroom had somehow malfunctioned and was streaming water through the wall into our apartment. I think we caught it pretty quickly and were able to move everything out with only damage to a picture frame and bookcase. But since the whole back part of our apartment had water damage, we had to move everything out of the bedrooms, closets, laundry room and mud room/entryway into the kitchen and living room of our apartment so they could rip out the carpets and pad to dry everything out. Seriously? I could do without moving all our stuff around so often! Since there's barely a walkway through the "liveable" house we are staying with Rob's parents for now. The apartment will take until Friday at the earliest to dry out, then we have to get the carpet guys to come in and put the carpet back down again, so we're looking at a good week homeless :) At least we'll be camping this weekend in Zions so that's at least a few days we don't have to worry about. The good part in all of this is that we're going to get moving ReloCubes (like pods) tomorrow so we can start packing into them over the next few weeks, so that should lessen the stress of packing at the very end. The best part of the flood was when Grace wanted to be part of the action, but didn't like wet feet she got her little bathroom stool and put it in the hallway so she could stand on it and see all the action, but with dry feet. Silly girl! I can't say I blame her though!

Thanks everyone for your support and prayers for us through all this craziness! We really appreciate it! I think that we're about through with the bad luck...I can feel good things coming!