Angry Birds

Hayden LOVES the game Angry Birds. When he isn't playing the game he likes to draw the birds and levels. Sometimes he makes up his own new levels. I have to say he is probably the most talented artist in the bunch. Here is one of his recent Angry Bird drawings:

I love how he curved the headphones and made the red bird thinking about the pigs. He didn't plan it out or draw it in pencil first. Pretty good, huh?

Official Residents (Again)

We are officially Arizona residents again. Today, we got our AZ licenses and plates. I have read several posts on Facebook about AZ friends waiting in long (like hours!) lines at the DMV in recent weeks and was really dreading going. Then I saw a friend of a friend's comment about going to the Coolidge DMV because it is much less busy. It was a bit farther than the others, but not too much considering we live way out in the boonies. Plus, we figured since we had to bring the whole gang along we would rather spend time in the car than the DMV waiting room.

So Jerry took off work early and we drove both cars down just in case they needed to see them for some reason (they didn't). It was a bit of a drive, but a pleasant one. It was amazing to see the development out where there was nothing before!

The Coolidge DMV is in a small trailer that has seen better days. There were only two workers at the three desks when we walked in and took our numbers. A small group of people waiting to be serviced sat in the waiting room chairs. For some reason the chairs faced towards the door and away from the desks, so when we walked in everyone was looking right at us. It was like walking onto a stage. 

We grabbed a few chairs right up front by the door and started our wait. The boys were a bit squirrelly, but not too bad. The baby napped the whole time so we kept her covered in her carseat. We smiled and nodded politely to people who were staring at us. The lady behind us smiled as she handed us the markers that rolled by her feet. 

Numbers were called and people were helped. As one man walked out after being helped, he stopped to ask if we had a girl in the carseat. When we said yes the whole waiting room cheered! It was hilarious and it truly made our day!

Shortly after that, our numbers were called. The gals working were the nicest DMV workers I've ever dealt with and, thankfully, Arizona keeps previous residents in their system so they basically just took our photos and printed us new licenses. We didn't even have to take a vision test. We got two licenses and two vehicles registered and were in and out in less then 40 minutes. In Arizona, licenses are good until you are sixty-five so we won't have to go back for a very long time, but when/if we have to go again you can be sure we'll be going to the DMV in Coolidge!

Blugolds

Roz bought Annabeth a baby Blugold shirt when she was born. It finally fits!

We had to get a photo of the two sisters together in their UWEC Blugold shirts.

Roz headed back home today. It was great having her here for a visit. We'll miss her and are already looking forward to her visit at Christmas!

Game On

Nothing says Thanksgiving like football and napping. Daddy shows Annabeth how it's done! What can I say... she's a fast learner!

Hayden Turns Six!

Hayden turned six today without much fanfare. We had cookie bars instead of cake. We'll save the cake for his party next week.

Since things are still a little crazy here I didn't even get any gift shopping done. So even his presents from Mom and Dad will have to wait. Thank goodness he is such an easy going little guy, he didn't seem to mind too much!

Happy Birthday Hayden!

The BIG Two O

Well, I started this post on 8/22 and it's been sitting in draft since then. I don't know why I never finished it, I haven't been busy or anything. :)

Roz turned the big 20 on August 19th! We had a nice dinner at home with Roz and her friend Trevor. Trevor was even nice enough to make the cake! It turned out really cute too. The boys loved the Gummy Savers that were used to hold the candles and make the number 20.

Now that Roz is away at college, it has worked out nicely to have a summer birthday. Since she hadn't left for the school year yet we were able to celebrate with her.

When I look at these pictures I'm almost surprised to see an adult in the picture. I guess when you see someone just about every day of their life you don't notice the changes until you take a step back and really think about it. I can't decide if the last twenty years went fast or not. I will say that having a 20 year old definitely makes me feel old. I will also say it has been a lot of fun to watch Roz grow from a tiny baby to a beautiful young adult!

Happy Birthday Roz! I'm looking forward to seeing the changes the next 20 years brings to your life!!

Little Cutie

Final State Tally

Here is the final tally of states from our move. We ended up with 34 of the 50 states. Not too bad. Obviously, we ended up with a lot of western states and were lacking a bit on the east coast. We decided to flip them over and keep the board in the van until we get all 50 states or our next big road trip... whichever comes first.

The Move: Getting Settled

November 3rd:
Our first night in the new house went surprisingly well. The boys slept on sleeping bags in one room, Annabeth in the pack'n'play in another, and us on air mattresses in the master. We must have been really tired because despite being on air mattresses we slept great. We've been cleaning and getting to know our new house. The internet is finally hooked up! Yay! Who needs furniture?! You're not really "home" until you can get on Facebook, right?

Since we don't have any pots or pans, or even plates, it was a little bit hard to make dinner. So we decided to take the boys to Peter Piper for dinner. We owed them one anyway since we were traveling on Oct. 31st when we normally go to Chuck E. Cheese. They had a great time and Jerry enjoyed his old favorite pizza.


November 4th:
We finally got our stuff! After a breakfast of cereal (in styrofoam bowls) eaten on the floor in the kitchen we anxiously awaited the arrival of the truck. Once it arrived we just had to keep everyone out of the way and the movers did the rest.

As they brought in boxes from the truck, I worked on unpacking the kitchen. So far I haven't found one broken item. Pretty good! I did find a bit of peppermint extract that had leaked, but it didn't do much damage except soak the paper it was wrapped in and make the kitchen smell like mint.

When they left we were surrounded by boxes and the beds were assembled. Having to not assemble beds might just be worth the cost of movers right there! That is always such a pain, especially when you have as many beds as we do!

Our friends the Scharpfs invited us over for dinner so we didn't have to worry about making anything and/or eating out again. Their neighbors, and our friends, the Barz family joined us for dessert along with the realtor (Jennifer) who helped Jerry find the rental and a few of her kids. It was nice to hang out with old friends and meet a new one too!

Then it was back to our house and lots of work. Speaking of work, Jerry starts the 7th so we are going to try and get as much unpacked as we can this weekend.

November 5th:
What can I say except we unpacked? Not much, since that's about all we did. Joe and Kim invited us and Jerry's parents over for dinner.

What do you know... there are enough babies for both Grandma and Grandpa to hold one! Knowing people who can feed you is definitely a benefit of moving to a place you've lived before! Thanks everyone!

The Move: First Day at the Rental House

Despite the bad hotel situation, we got a good night's rest and woke up thankful to be in our new home state knowing we didn't have a long day of travel ahead. There was no rush, but we still didn't really sleep in. I got to cuddle with this little cutie in bed.

We ate our continental breakfast and packed our stuff into the van for the short ride to our rental house. It was a bit farther out of town than I expected, but the area surrounding the rental is built up nicely so it's not like we'll have to drive far to find a store. We decided to rent so we could take our time finding a house. Jerry looked at several rental houses and then put down the deposit when he was here in October. It's the first time I have moved into a house sight unseen!

My first impression of the neighborhood was the houses were super close together and the road was narrow. The house itself though was great! Plenty big with lots of bedrooms. Not much storage and the van won't fit in the garage but it will do for a year. We emptied the trailer and Jerry took it back to U-Haul.

I got started cleaning. I was pleasantly surprised to find this the cleanest house we've ever moved into. I don't know who cleaned it but it was "Shelly Clean". I'm re-cleaning it anyway, but I didn't find any dirt in the kitchen cupboards at all! Hopefully, I'll get all the cleaning done before the truck gets here.

The boys enjoyed playing with the few toys they had and running around an empty house. Running around a house full of carpet in a dry climate did have one unintended consequence... we were building up a lot of static electricity and kept shocking each other. Every time someone touched a light switch we heard, "Ouch!" I'm not exaggerating, it was really bad! At first it was kind of funny, but after the 100th shock it got annoying. We're hoping it will get better once we have furniture!

Annabeth has been the BEST baby throughout all this craziness. I was so worried this trip would be hard on her, but she has been amazing. She slept when we needed her to and ate when we needed her to. She wasn't fussy at all. When I knew we were going to be moving I started putting her down for naps in her carseat. That really paid off. She associates the carseat with sleeping and goodness knows she was in her carseat a lot this past week! Most of the time I just fed her when we stopped for gas. Only once did we have to stop on her account.

Before we were even in the house and hour the next door neighbor (Linda) was knocking on the door. She was concerned because she saw the boys peeking over the fence into her yard. She wanted to make sure they didn't climb over because she had a pool. We thought that was a bit odd, but she seemed nice otherwise.

Not wanting to deal with the gerbils in the hotel again we had left them at Jerry's parent's house. His brother Johnny drove them out to us and he was the first to tour the new house. The gerbils did well during this trip. When we moved from Arizona to Wisconsin in 2000, we moved two gerbils with us too! Unfortunately, during that trip they did not fare as well and one died shortly after we arrived. I'm happy to report these guys survived and are happy and healthy!

We brought air mattresses for Jerry and I, sleeping bags for the boys, and a pack n' play for the baby so our hotel sleeping days are over for now. I brought the cleaning supplies to get started with that while we wait for the truck to arrive. The actual date of the truck's arrival is unknown but we are hoping it will be here sooner rather than later.

We had Taco Bell for lunch and then Jerry ran to Wal-mart to get us some food and a toaster oven. In addition to cleaning, I was able to do a few loads of laundry since the house has a washer and dryer in the laundry room.

Our good friend Cindy was nice enough to invite us over for dinner so we didn't have to worry about cooking or eating out which was really nice. The boys enjoyed jumping on the Carlson's trampoline after being cooped up in the van for several days.

Then we headed "home" for our first sleep at our house in Arizona!

The Move: Arrived in Arizona!

Today is the day we'll arrive at our destination! JD started out the day with some coffee from the hotel's continental breakfast. My mom got him hooked. Don't worry it was decaf!

One bummer thing about large families staying in hotels is that we have to split up into to two rooms. We always try to get rooms with the door between, but it usually doesn't work out for one reason or another. So we split up... one grown up and three kids per room.

This morning we spent several minutes tearing apart Jerry's hotel room looking for Hayden's pajama pants. We could not find them anywhere and finally gave up so we could get going. We ended up finding them later... he was wearing them under his shorts!

Even after the fruitless pajama search we were still on the road by 8:30am. We knew we were getting closer as we passed the sign for the Continental Divide! Then at 9:44am we crossed the state line into Arizona!

Arizona is a very big state and even though we were in the state we still had a way to go. I really wasn't looking forward to the last leg of the journey down the steep mountains into the "Valley of the Sun". Driving in mountains is nerve wracking enough, but driving down mountains in a van full of your precious children pulling a heavy trailer full of your most beloved belongings makes it even worse.

I just remember the van shaking like crazy whenever we hit the brakes the last time we came down the mountains. And did you know that it's not recommended to ride your brakes the whole way down a mountain? And what is everyone's first instinct? Ride the brakes, of course. Jerry is much braver than I and wasn't bothered a bit by the upcoming mountain freefall.

We stopped at the top for lunch before our descent. The mountain air was refreshing and the tall pine trees so beautiful. Why they didn't make Payson the population center and capital of Arizona is beyond me! If I would have been an Arizona pioneer I would have turned around and headed right back up the mountains instead of carving a homestead out of the desert.

I don't know if it was because we had our brakes done before the trip or because Jerry is a good driver or because the pillow over my face comforted me, but it wasn't as bad as I had built it up to be! And just think of the money we saved on gas coasting down those mountains.

We were in familiar territory shortly after that. And it was hot! 90 degrees! On November 1st! What were we thinking? By 2pm we were pulling in at Jerry's parents house in Mesa. I did a quick load of laundry while Jerry went to the rental agency office and got the keys for our rental house.

Jerry's dad treated us to Chili's for dinner. The boys were great, very well behaved. We had a super nice waitress that was kind enough to compliment the boys on their good behavior. That was, as we would soon find out, the high spot of the night. The only hotel we made a reservation at was the one for this night's stay. And just like a sitcom episode, they "took" our reservation, but didn't hold our reservation.




I knew something was up when Jerry was in the office for far too long. I was waiting with all the kids in the van. We waited so long that somebody (not me or the baby) had a bathroom accident. Just as I was about to unload all six kids and march in there, Jerry came out. They did not have the adjoining room we had reserved so we would be in separate rooms again.

The hotel was being remodeled and was a complete mess. They should have just shut down for the renovations. We walked to our room down a hall with torn up wallpaper, no ceiling, and wires hanging out all over the place. Then, worst of all, they had advertised a heated pool when their pool was not heated! The boys (and therefore the parents) were NOT happy. We ended up letting them sit in the hot tub for a few minutes, but it was too hot for them so they didn't stay in long.

If it wasn't for the lovely evening weather and the other dollars from Grandma LaVerne that the boys used to buy another vending machine treat the night would have been a complete loss.