Turkey Day and other adventures

Yay, it's Turkey month. I LOVE the fall. The fall is the best time of year. Light jacket weather, beautiful colors on the trees, lots of fun outdoor stuff still left to do.

First, my birthday was at the beginning of the month. My husband desperately wanted to get me a spa package for my growing pregnant body. It would have been wonderful, but I wanted to be together, not naked under some sheets with a stranger touching me ... eew. Maybe some other time. So, he decided we were going to go 4-wheeling, a past time I had not had much encounter with and was interested in. Him and my son piled as many of the millions of leaves around the house as high as they could, got me on the 4-wheeler and I got to BLAST right through them like a parade of leaves. It was so fun. Then with the kids' help, we did it again and again and again.

Bruce and Chris had so much fun with us playing in the leaves and riding the 4-wheelers. I learned how to drive it and took my husband around and my son around. Eventually, I caught the 4-wheeler on FIRE!! Oops. Luckily, Bruce and Chris have an amazing sense of humor. We all learned that leaves don't just fall out of the nooks and crannies of a 4-wheeler engine. After we played in the leaves some more, we dropped the kids off to my husband's cousin and we had a wonderful dinner date. His cousin, Karin invited the kids to spend the night so Darin and I had a quiet house all to ourselves with no obligations to wake up for in the morning. It was wonderful. We were still in bed by 9pm and we still watched our TV shows before falling asleep, but not having to do the bedtime routine, fight against stall tactics and waking up well before any one of us is ready was delightful!

Next, was the annual Westwood household leaf day. (In case I forgot to mention, we are living with Darin's Uncle and Aunt in Missouri while Darin finds work and we are able to get into a home. They are amazing people and have been AMAZING to us.) Apparently, every year Bruce lets his leaves fall until you can swim in them, no joke - there is a TON. Then a bunch of Elders come over (and they look forward to it every year) and help rake the leaves into the bed of a trailer, drive down their three acres and dump all the leaves into a fire pit, watch them burn and go back for more. It's fascinating to watch these boys have as much fun as they do. Darin loved it! The kids LOVED it. I haven't seen the kids play outside for as long as they did those days EVER. They were outside playing for the entire day, cold, it didn't matter.

Finally, the best part of the month when stores close, families spread out to their respective homes, get-togethers are planned, turkeys are cooked, corn and green beans are made into interesting plates and lots of downtime is found around the TV, the dinner table, the card table, wherever. For this Thanksgiving, we traveled South from Missouri to Dallas, TX to visit my brother. My brother has been living in Dallas for his whole adult life. He is 11 years older than me and he has NEVER had family come to him for a holiday. He hasn't always come to us, but he has never gotten to host HIS family. He was thrilled when we asked if we could join him. He worked so hard to get the dinner ready and perfect and his house ready for my poor asthmatic-and-severely-allergic-to-cats husband (my brother has five cats!!). We rented a hotel room, cheapest we could find (ended up being a pet friendly hotel, oops!). My husband was drugged on Benedryl and an inhaler all weekend with a Dr. Pepper in his hand to keep him from falling asleep - what a great guy, sacrificing so much so he can be with my family.

We arrived Wednesday night, met my brother at the hotel for a quick "hi." Got up on Thursday morning to head to his house and found our car DEAD. Oh, wow. What a weekend this will be. Turns out my six-month old battery was toast. We blamed it on Darin leaving the lights on, the drastic weather change to freezing, the no-name brand of the battery, who knows. Then we feared it would be something worse than the battery and started panicking (ok, I did the panicking) that it was the alternator or some other expensive part. My poor car has been an angel to all the abuse we've given to her for the last three years. I couldn't imagine she would give up now. So, on Thanksgiving Day, a couple nice boys tried to jump us. Sadly, their cables or ours wouldn't produce any juice. I called my brother to come rescue us, happily, laughing all the way, he did. We sauntered into his house since the car threatened to die on us the whole way to my brother's house, parked it and left it there until we left for the hotel 9 hrs later.


The 9 hrs at my brother's house was great! It was such a wonderful experience. We hung out, watched movies, played computer games, cooked, talked, hung out. It felt like such a great family time experience. I hope never to forget it. The kids enjoyed their time with Uncle David and Aunt Shannon, playing Wii, watching movies, playing with the cats and their cousins (all are God kids of my brother and his wife).


The next day (Friday) we avoided doing any shopping ... Black Friday and all. Instead, we spent the morning looking for a vendor who sells the type of battery in my car. We went to about a dozen places. ZERO luck, so we bought a new battery, had it installed and didn't have a problem again. We spent the afternoon at Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum.



It was a blast seeing all the freaking things. It was Dylan's only request and so we made it happen. The best was the mirror maze. The six of us going around in circles, returning to the entrance when we thought we were making headway out of there. Finally, we made it. It was hilarious, Abigail walked into mirrors, not understanding, David disappeared and played with the mirrors to direct us all over, Darin and Dylan wondered off and were lost together while Shannon and I stayed together confused. It was so fun. Afterward, back to Uncle David's house for left overs and more hanging out. That night the cousins babysat for us so we could go on a double date with David and Shannon. We went and saw Harry Potter 7. It was pretty good. Then Uncle David invited the kids to stay over night so Darin and I could go to the Dallas Temple.

The temple was awesome. It was the first time in a loooong time we had been able to get to the temple. Rather sad when we lived within 15 miles of 4 different temples in Salt Lake City. But we went, we were there, we served. It was a wonderful time. We both cried and felt the Spirit and enjoyed the companionship. When we got back to Uncle David's we enjoyed participating in their Christmas tradition of putting up the tree and decorating the day after Thanksgiving. It wasn't the day after, but it was a lot of fun. Abigail kept saying "Look Mom, we found CHRISTMAS!!" Dylan enjoyed fighting with Abigail about what ornament to put where. I love having siblings for my children.



Sunday we went out for breakfast at IHOP, my favorite and said our Goodbyes. We had such a blast and didn't want to leave, but the weekend was over. It was awesome to get back together with my brother and celebrate the greatest holiday of the year with him and his family. Next year, we plan on doing it again for Christmas! Should be fun!!

October

Falling behind ... again ...

October was a GREAT month. Darin started school again at WGU earning his IT-Security B.S. and we got to begin the holiday season beginning with Halloween!!

We really love Halloween. It is the month you can dress up as anyone you want and have FUN. We don't have a lot of social parties we get to attend as adults anymore, being single was much easier for that, so now we maximize our kids' venues. It is fun for us and fun for the kids and they really LOVE playing dress up with Mom and Dad.

This year we were a family of Pirates. My son has humored me for the last 6 years of Halloweens and has allowed me to dress him up as part of our "theme" each year. Some years he demands a costume of his own and we compromise. I hope he still enjoys being a family of ... something ... for the next 6 years. Otherwise, this could get expensive.

My first couple Halloweens with kids I made the costumes. They were easy; Hercules one year (Mom and Dad were Zeus and Harah), Bam-Bam another year, simple! We try to keep cost down so we costume shop most of the month. We settled this year with matching Pirate costumes which is great!! Last year we were a family of Incredibles and had our annual family photos shot in our costumes (see the link, http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=417950&id=845670461 to view). Loved it! This year, we won't do that, but we did have fun being Pirates together.

The kids wore their costumes the entire month and well into November. That's when I know it is a good buy. My son's is already worn out! Thin material, ah well.

First, we went to the town square. Where we moved has a "downtown" that is just a square. It is way cute. The surrounding shops handed out candy. We rushed down when I got off work (right before it ended) and were lucky to get what we got. We were the only parents that dressed up, too. So sad, but maybe those parents that dressed up had already left? Next, we had the Ward Halloween party that was complete with a fashion show/contest, yummy treats and a Trunk-or-Treat. Again, we were the only parents that dressed up. Last, we went to the library Trick-or-Treat. There wasn't much Trick-or-Treating, but we got to read books with the library dogs (pet adoption organization) that are popular visitors for the library and enjoy color pages and books. Can't hate that. And the kids still loved it.

By the end of the month, we had had our fill of Halloween and were VERY much looking forward to the next round of holiday cheer - THANKSGIVING, my favorite! YUM.

Ok ... where was I?

Ah, yes, I have caught you up through August. Now we are in September. The month of packing, chaos and moving.

We said our goodbyes to as many folks as we could. Our first plan was to move to St. Louis, MO. I had no interest in living in KS City, MO and Springfield, MO didn't have any jobs for the husband. So, no other larger towns existed that we could think of ... so, we were headed to St. Louis. The closer our moving-day came, the more we realized we were not meant to be in St. Louis ... for now. We secured living arrangements with Darin's Uncle and Aunt in the SW corner of Missouri, not near St. Louis at all! However, we had a plan and we made our escape. Leaving behind 30 years for my husband, 8.5 years for me, 6.5 yrs for my son, 2.5 yrs for my daughter ...

A NEW ADVENTURE.

We hit the road.

The drive was actually pretty good. We left Saturday morning. I was lucky and woke up Saturday morning with an incredibly bad cold. I can't remember when I had such a bad cold. So exciting for a 3 day trip ahead of us. Darin in the truck, me in the car with two kids. We made it to St. George. Our plans were to hang out with Darin's parents for the weekend, maybe make it to Hoover Dam as one last "Hooray" for the West Coast sites to see. With my bad cold and the route we decided to take, it was not possible. We canceled our plans to visit Las Vegas and the Hoover Dam and I stayed in sick all Saturday and all Sunday. Monday morning, I was well enough to make it with tissues in tow, Halls cough drops and lots of water. To tell the truth, it was way nice to be sick in St. George and have parents who wanted to take care of me. That was a way cool experience - being doted upon. But, good things must come to an end, we must move on and I NEED to be healthy!

Monday morning ... we were off ... again. We drove the route to the Grand Canyon and suffered through Arizona. There is just NOT much to see. It is not as flat as I had thought. There are red cliffs everywhere and we took a lot of canyon roads, so it was still pretty fun. Below is an overlook right at the bottom of the Canyons as you go to the Grand Canyon, smack in the middle of Arizona.



Finally, after about 8 hours we made it to the first town in New Mexico, Gallup. We planned on stopping in Albuquerque, but that wasn't realistic for two young kids STUCK to their car seats for so long and after we discovered that we stop every 2-3 hours - makes for a VERY LOOONG trip!! In Gallup, we got a hotel, crashed - slept great and were off again the next morning!!!

We drove through the rest of New Mexico and were planning on stopping in Amarillo, TX for lunch and try to make it to Oklahoma City, OK for the night ... nope ... not the way it worked out.

RIGHT outside of TX, by one mile!! My car DIED. Darin was way ahead of me in the truck and my cell phone was about to die. There was construction through most of the state of NM and so I had no shoulder to pull over into as I coasted to a stop. There was a huge semi-truck behind me and I didn't know what to do. I put the hazards on, pulled over into the brush and hoped the cars weren't wide enough to slam into me. I called Darin with the few minutes I had to get him to pull over and wait. I called my mother-in-law to help me find a service station!! In the meantime, I tried turning the car on and it would struggle to idle and die. There didn't seem to be a problem with the engine, transmission, starter because it would START, it just would not idle before it died.

Mom found a little town 7 miles into TX. After a few minutes, the car started. I drifted into the traffic and within 1 mile I died again. Wow, this was going to be a LONG 7 miles. Finally, the car had rested enough after a few more minutes that we were able to drive into the first town into Texas. There a mechanic met us at a gas station right off the freeway - THANK YOU MOM! I met back up with Darin and the mechanic had nothing to say other than, "hmmm, it might be your fuel filter." Yikes. He directed us to ... Amarillo - still about 45 miles away. As we were talking to the mechanic and the awesome towns folk that were ready and willing to offer as much information to us about who they know that tows, fixes cars and the like along the way to Amarillo, the soft warm rain fell - just like the Texas I remember from my youth!!

Apparently, that 30 or so minutes of rest and rain cooled whatever was wrong and we were able to make it to Amarillo with NO problems. Along the way, Darin was able to get in touch with his Uncle who simply suggested it was a concentration of gas vapors in the gas tank. Hmm, interesting, makes a bit of sense, I guess. My car has never driven such long distances, with so much weight and packaging and through such changes of weather. So we pulled over in Amarillo, took everything out of the trunk, ate some dinner and did not had a problem for the rest of the trip. So glad it wasn't the fuel pump. That night we made it to Shamrock, Texas.

New Mexico was about as boring as Arizona. At least there was interesting red rock formations in AZ. NM there was a lot of white cliff, but mostly flat.

The whole time, the kids were ... well, kids! Dylan read the whole time, played with his toys and asked a lot of questions. Once in a while, the kids would play together. When the car broke down, Dylan asked, "what are we going to do?" I said, well, we might just have to walk. In reply, Dylan said, "what about all our stuff?" "Well, we will have to leave it and come back."



Abigail, though, was freaking out. She is not a good hostage, let alone for hours. So by the time we got back in the car and headed out from Gallup, NM, she knew we weren't going back to the home she knew. She asked a lot about where is Gma and Gpa, where is Dad, where are we going, then she started to get emotional. There is nothing to stop that. When we were headed to Oklahoma City and ended up stopping in Shamrock, NM, she lost it. My heart broke. She said, "I don't want to go, I'll be happy, I'll be good!" Oh, my. The understanding of a two-year old. It seemed like she thought she was in trouble! So, we pulled over to let the kids have a break, have a good night and enjoy our family. She was MUCH happier after that.



The third day ... the final stretch ... we wanted to be so much closer than we were to our destination. Once we FINALLY passed through the borders of Missouri, though, we felt AT HOME!! We MADE IT. It was a wonderful feeling. From a little ways out of NM, the sky scape changed a ton. Texas had it's rolling hills and more green that one would think. It was humid and sweet, which I love! From Texas on, the green got greener, the hills got more rolling and the treeline blended into the horizon further and further and further out.



WE ARRIVED!

Shortly after we arrived, my husband celebrated his 31st birthday!! Happy birthday, sweetheart. Welcome to a new year of adventure.

August ... our lives are now changing

August was a very long, hard month.

Out of nowhere, Darin decided HE WAS DONE!!! He quit school. He couldn't do it anymore at the U of U. He was burnt out and was dreading going back to school or to class. That was a blow. He has been struggling for a very long time with school. We have been through many different options to make school work because he felt it was important for him to finish and that it was something that he was prompted to do. He tried full time school with no work, with part time work. He tried part time school with full time work, with part time work. He tried full time school and full time work. By the end of it, he was done. He wanted a break. He needed a better option. Luckily, I work for a University. We happen to offer the program he wanted that the U of U didn't offer and it has a better curriculum than what the U of U offered. He began the process to slowly begin at WGU for his IT - Security B.S.

Then, I felt an urgent prompting that we needed to move. MOVE? What!!? We were in the process of buying a house and settling down! For the first time in my LIFE I felt like I had a HOME. We had made a family and established our lives, had great friends, routines, all of it. WHY in the world would we need to MOVE? Plus, what does THAT mean? Move down the street? Across town? To the next city over? Out of state? Abroad (I would totally be ok with that one)?

I said to my husband, "Darin, I think we need to move." I wanted to leave it open to him reassuring me I was just kidding or that it wasn't really that we needed to move, but something needed to change. I hadn't had the "bug" to move in about 2 years so for a bug of this size to creep into our home and disrupt MY life. I was very unsure. As a response, my husband said, "WHEW! I was wondering how to break it to you!!" WHAT? Another bombshell. Apparently, he had gotten the same prompting about 2 months or so before me (such is the way our spiritual lives work).

Now what ...

We began praying and fasting and pondering and making decisions. First, it was, "Yup, you need to move." Then it was ok ... where? Our answer, MISSOURI! What!! We had so many other options on the table, why MO? Ok ... when? ASAP. Surely, we could move in November ... Nope ... NOW. Oh, Ok ...

So, our decisions were made. We were officially moving. We had 5 weeks to the date we chose and that felt "acceptable." We started hunting for homes and jobs in the St. Louis, MO area because there is no way I will move to Kansas City and there is no other real cities with a demand for IT. Springfield is a good size city, but no jobs. We began the process of renting a truck, saying our goodbyes, packing and making the necessary arrangements. By the end of August, we were set. We had our plans, we had our living arrangements - Darin's Uncle lives in MO and will shack us up for a month or two until we can get on our feet, find a place, rent/buy, find a job, etc.

Now, all we had to do was wait ... Wait until our moving day - September 18. It felt like it was forever away.

Family Reunion for July 24

The Utah holiday, Pioneer Day on July 24 means it is FAMILY REUNION time. This year we made sure to go. We went to the little town of Marysvale, UT and camped, played with the 4-wheelers that were rented, went to the town's parade, enjoyed the town's rodeo and attended the childrens' FISH rodeo. Abigail was so tuckered out, she passed out where we were sitting and missed the fish rodeo.

July

July was a GREAT month! I will have to post twice because of all the pics we took. I don't take a lot of pics, but in July I didn't forget!

We had an amazing month! The best Independence Day I can remember. We had a lot of FUN family time and we enjoyed the perfectly, warm weather. This is the month we found out - WE'RE PREGNANT!!

First, we bought a Slip-n-Slide. Dad and Mom took turns showing the kids just how it's done! We had a blast. Dylan can go FAST. Dad turned on his back he went so fast and scraped up his back. OUCH.


Then, we had Fourth of July fun at Liberty Park. We chose the top Southeast hillside to watch the fireworks. It ended up being a PERFECT place to land. We got there early enough to get a great place to stretch out, set up camp and play at the park. When the fireworks started, the babies weren't having as much fun as the rest of us.



Next, we went to the Hill Airforce Base Museum and explored all the amazing planes and contraptions that the Airforce plays with to make our world a safer place. Of course, there were amazing exhibits, AND a child play area, complete with a dress-up stage so you can FLY the simulation machines. AWESOME!!!