Real Life

The Carters left and we had to jump right into real life. It felt like we had been on holiday for so long that it was weird to think about starting school and all our other responsibilities, but exciting at the same time!

 Sunday night Rob gave the girls back to school blessings.

And Monday morning we were off!

 First day pictures. Grace looks so grown up!

 We walked her to school on the first day. She was a little nervous, but really excited to start. At the end of the day she declared that she LOVED it! And that her teacher was so nice.

That first day wasn't so great for the rest of us stuck at home without our Gracers. All day long Ruby followed me around talking non-stop and asking repeatedly if it was time to pick up Grace? Yet? Now is it time to go get Grace? Why can't we just go get her now?! Poor girl really missed her sister. I had told her that she was my big girl helper now that Grace was in school and she looked at me and told me that she is NOT the big girl! Grace is the big girl!

In the past few weeks we've all adjusted to missing Grace and these two hooligans have become best buddies and partners in crime. 

Ruby started Joy School soon after and loves it! I had to take a picture of her and loved all the shots I got...here are the many faces of Ruby:

Just a girl getting her stuff done :)

The House/Getting to Texas

We were finally on our way to Texas to our new house! Mikey and Annette braved the drive with us. The kids were great and it was a pretty uneventful trip, thankfully!

 We only had to do this a couple of times :)

We got in to Frisco on Wednesday and the original plan was to move in Thursday, but we had had a few bumps along the way getting everything set up with the house purchase. The appraisal came back less than we offered on the house, which threw a few bumps into our mortgage road. So we were all living in a hotel together until we could get into the house. Every day we were hoping that the paperwork would be complete so we could move in sooner, and every day we were left waiting. So we tried to go out and do some fun stuff to keep us occupied. One day we visited the Fort Worth Stockyards.

 

 

And we did a little shopping and hand-holding. These sweet kids melt my heart! We also swam at the hotel every day. The kids loved that part!

 Finally, late Monday evening we got the call that the paperwork was done and was being sent over to the Title Company for doc prep. We were kind of bummed at this point because the movers were set to arrive Wednesday morning and if we weren't in the house by then, we would have to wait until the next week to get our stuff. But, after many prayers of pleading that it would work out for us to move in before school started the next Monday, Heavenly Father answered our prayers. The doc prep was done and we were signing the paperwork at 3 pm on Tuesday! What a wonderful day!

 We were pretty thrilled to finally have this little key be ours! We were supposed to wait until after all the funding had gone through to be able to get in the house, so we went out to eat at Chuy's to celebrate. All the while keeping our fingers crossed that the funding would happen fast and we'd be able to start taking our stuff over that night.

 Mikey and Grace love Chuys!

While we were at dinner this wonderful text came through from our realtor!

So we headed straight over to the house to check it out. It was my first time seeing the house in person and it was so fun!

 

Rob carried me over the threshold of our first purchased home. He's so sweet like that. Can you tell we were just a little bit excited!?

Wednesday morning the movers came with all our stuff packed tightly in their truck. It was nice to not have to do all the grunt work and just let the guys bring it all in.

I got the moving bingo job where I checked off each box that came in the house.

 The girls were pretty happy to have all their stuffed animals to sleep with and their quilts back

 Our dining room looked like this for a few days

 Mikey helped me to go buy a BBQ grill from Craigslist while Rob was at work one day. It was his nasty job to hold the grease pan so it wouldn't spill on the way home.

We were so grateful for all of Annette and Mike's help the whole week that they were with us. Thursday night Dave got in. We got to spend Friday with him, then they drove back home Saturday. It was so nice to have all of their love and support and help through that crazy time. Benji was sad when they left. He would walk into the play room (where they had slept) and say "Ahby gone? Ahby night-night?" in his sweet little voice. (For some reason Benji took to calling Dave and Annette Ahby.)

Utah

All too soon, it was time to leave California and head to Utah. The plan was for Rob to be in Utah for about a week and then drive to Texas to start work again while we stayed in Utah and waited until our house was ready for us to move in.

 We happened to stop at Costco on our way and found Anna and Elsa dresses in the right sizes for the girls. I snatched them up thinking they'd be good back ups in case I didn't get dresses made. Turns out it's a really good thing because my sewing machine came back from storage not working, so who knows if I'll even have it back in time for Halloween?

 My Dad designed and Auntie Mur decorated a box for Bella's travel cup to fit into so she wouldn't cook in the car when we went in for food. That poor fish probably has a much shorter life span than she once did - I'm sure it's so stressful for that poor fish!

 We celebrated Grace's birthday a second time our first day in.

 Rob gave Grandma and his mom and Aunt Michelle iPhone lessons

We had a really fun time bowling with the Carter family

 Saying goodbye to Dad. We sure did miss him the 2 weeks he was gone!

We took a couple trips to DI to find treasures and found quite a few. Here's Ruby with her pony playing at DQ afterwards.

 We went swimming a couple times. Grace is a fish - that girl absolutely loves the water!

 She was so brave and begged and begged me to jump off the high dive. I finally allowed her to and she loved it. She is so brave!

 

 

 One night we had dinner at a corn dog food truck and dessert at an amazing Hawaiian shave ice place

We got to meet up with my Graff nieces and nephews and enjoyed a fun day at the zoo. I love all those guys, and it was so much fun to be with them and let the kids play. They made me really, really miss living in Utah!

 

 The van hit 100,000 miles. I was so stressed out that I would miss this picture for Dave and Rob.

 We got to meet Luke, our new nephew/cousin who was born while we were away. He is so sweet and of course, Grace loved holding him!

 Poor Grandpa wasn't feeling too well and had to be admitted to the hospital for a few days, but it was fun to visit with him and nice of the nurses to let us up even though kids technically aren't supposed to be on the cancer floors.

We had a fun time in Utah!!