Friday, June 5, 2015

6 weeks of crazy!

Time flies when you are busy.  April was a month of being in Limbo.  Not quite time to start packing, but plenty of time to worry about it.  We had a lot of rain in April which meant a lot of softball and baseball games cancelled.  We took advantage of a free Saturday and went to Chattanooga.  Visited a civil war site and Lookout Mountain followed by dinner at Cici's Pizza Buffet.







 At the beginning of May Joseph was able to attend his Niece Alsan's wedding in the Salt Lake Temple.  He stayed at Bruce's and enjoyed time with his family.

 As per tradition momma with the kids on Mother's day.
 This bird got stuck in the garage and made his way inside.  Kind of sureal seeing a bird walk around your house.

Kyler recievied the Principal Award at her 5th grade award ceremony. This award is the highest honor of the ceremony and is awarded to one girl and one boy in the 5th grade.  She also got an award in Art, the Presidential education award, All A's Honor role for 5th grade and an award for having all A's 2nd-5th grade.  She has worked very hard.  Her teachers had so many nice things to say about her during the Pricipal award presentation.

Gammon with his teacher Ms. Conoley.  She is such a sweet teacher.  She loved Gammon and Gammon loved her.

Last day of school.  Getting off the bus.

 The moving roadtrip begins.

2 Civil war sites in Mississippi and then again in Arkansas.

Beautiful New Mexico.

The kids just after entering into Arizona.

Hodson loves his siblings, but Kyler is always so patient with him.  This picture was taken while the two of them were having a cute conversation.

Daniel at his first dive meet.

3rd place.

We are settling nicely into our Desert life.  The heat isn't too bad yet.  We are now living in our rental house.  Most of our things are in storage.  It is actually refreshing not living with so much stuff.  I think we will purge a lot again when we move in.  Why do we think we need so many things?  

Thursday, April 16, 2015

January, February, March and April...

What a worldwind life has been lately.  A recap of the past 4 months.

January was a celebration of 2 brithdays.  Hodson turned 3 and Daniel turned 12.  Grandma and Grandpa Meibos came to visit and be here for Daniel's ordination.







Daniel wanted a 4 layer cake.


In Helen with Grandma and Grandpa

Kennesaw National Battlefield

Hodson is helping Grandma.

Games with Grandpa on the I-pad.

Amicalola Falls

Stone Mountain

  With the help of Kristen we were able to find out where Jessie would be on her last day of her mission.  Approved by her mission president we were able to surprise her at the transfer meeting.  She was so suprised and excited.  We spent the afternoon driving home and spending some time in South Carolina.
Hodson jumped in the mud then stripped from the waiste down.  He thought he was hilarious.

 Mom enjoyed some time with Gammon at his school valentine party.
Daniel was so excited to see the dusting of snow.  He made a snowman before school and stuck him in the freezer.  his name is Tall.


This furry guy, Rebel, joined the household in early February.  He was a Jail dog.  He was taken from the human sociaty and the inmates in jail worked on training him.  It is fun to have him around and the kids adore him.  Especially the 4 younger kids.  4 days after getting Rebel we found out we were moving.
It was a Thursday morning and Joseph went into his boss' office to tell him he wouldn't be applying for any more AZ jobs and that we were hear to stay.  At about 2 pm his boss called him back into his office to let him know that he had an offer.  We spent the next 24 hours deciding if we would actually accept the offer.  Knowing that we really wanted to be able to spend more time with family and also knowing that wth the way the company was changing as well as Brigham starting HS this was our LAST chance to get closer to home so we decided to go for it.  
Finding a home in AZ was a difficult task.  Their yards are SSOO small.  We also wanted to keep our pool table so that caused some problems.  After searching for 3 days we decided to go ahead with the new build.  It was the best option for the money.  We will be downsizing about 1,000 square ft, but I have said this house was too big from the moment we moved in.  The new home will have 6 bedrooms which the girls are thrilled about.  Here are a few photos of one that is like ours.

 Our lot.
Entry

Looking back to the front door.  The room you see will be Katya's room.  The the left you go into the kitchen.


Kitchen

The front will look like this.

Family rm

Bonus rm


The best part is we will still have a neighborhood pool and we will get to see Sunsets again.




  
Brigham's science fair project made it to district where he took second place.  I was very proud of all his hard work.  Good beginnings for my child that wants to be an aerospace engineer.


Hodson and I chaperoned Gammons fieldtrip to Interactive neighborhood.  He had a lot of fun.  Gammon and Hodson enjoyed eating lunch together.

Brigham's growth has slowed down a bit, but he has still managed to pass mom up.

Hodson enjoyed several easter egg hunts with friends.  My favorite was one that was held at our friends, The McRae's.  They have a large property and made great hosts to the hunt and brunch.



While the older boys were with dad at priesthood we enjoyed an nice evening in the backyard.  We will miss this beautiful yard.

Spring break was kicked off at Zoo Atlanta.  We enjoyed the company of our cousin Emily her son Andrew and twin girls, Olivia and Kathryn.

Petting farm at the zoo was a hit with these animal lovers.





The babies are well loved by everyone.

Spring break continued with a last minute trip to Washington DC.  Right after learning we would be moving to Arizona we knew we wanted to go to DC.  Unfortunately it didn't look possible financially.  We decided to go ahead and go to North Carolina to some family graves for my Family History work.   We then wanted to head over to the beach somewhere.  I started calculating it all out and realized that DC was only 5 additional hours from NC.  After running some numbers and remembering setting aside some money from Grandma and Grandpa's Christmas gift (was saving for a trip to Disney) we decided to go ahead and go.  As you know I am a planner.  I plan for trips months if not years in advance.  So you can imagine our scramble when we pulled in all together and were out the door in less than 36 hours.  It was a little crazy since we used mom and dad's coast to coast membership for camping.  I am so glad to decided to take the trip.  Along the way we spent some time at Civil war historical Sites. 

Day 1:  Driving along the road I noticed that we were entering into the county of the cemetary I wanted to visit.  Shortly after that I saw a sign for the town it was in.  I quickly plugged the address into the GPS and found out that we were only 2.9 miles away.  So instead of going to the cemetary on our way home we stopped on the way there.  The kids counted 54 headstones with Tutterow on it.  I was in family histroy heaven.  
Joseph helped to trace the gravestones we could not read.  We found 3 children that were nowhere to be found on anything online.  2 died as infants and the other was 10, but she would have been only found on the 1890 census which burned in the fire.  
We continued the day with a stop Appomattox Court house.  Then it was on to our campsite. We stayed in Front Royal, Virginia.
Day 2:  We drove into DC and got parked in our parking spot.  We used spot hero to reserve a spot.  It worked great.  The first day inside we saw the US capital, the Supreme Court, the Library of Congress, Art Museum, The National Archives (which holds the original constitution, Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence..  Very Awesome.  From there we drove over to Arlington Cemetary and went to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  We witnessed the changing of the Guards.  Very neat.  We also saw where President Kennedy was burried.  On the way back to camp we visted Manassas national battlefield.



Moss covered headstone from the 1800's.


Katya, Gammon and Hodson on the steps of the courthouse where the confederates surrendered to the Union.
 Day 3:  Monuments day:  White House, Washington Monument, WWII memorial, Lincoln Memorial, Korean war memorial, Vietnam memorial, Fords Theater  as well as the Museum of Natural History and Smithsonian museum-Air and Space.  The museums were so crowded and not very enjoyable  while keeping track of us all.  We then drove to the Frederick Douglass house.
Washington Memorial-DC

This structure is right next to tomb of the unknown soldier.  This was an amazing experience.  I am so thankful to the men and women who sacrificed for my freedoms and continue to sacrifice to keep me free.

The White House-You always see pictures and videos of places like this, but being there was amazing.  I loved it.


WWII Memorial.

 Day 4:  Visted Historic Harpers Ferry in West Virginia then headed toward home stopping for the night in Statesville, North Carolina.  It was a whilwind trip, saw a lot in very little time, were exhausted when we got home, but loved every minute of it.
Gammon is becoming quite the frisbee player.  He catches and throws like a champ.

Gammon started t-ball this year.  He loves sports.



Kyler at her last concert with Gwinnett Young Singers




Daniel swimming

Katya at Wheeler Farm

Katya at Grandma's

Kyler At Park

Wheeler Farm

Katya At Park

Together at Last

Red Sqare-Moscow

Moscow-New Arbat Street

WWII Eternal Flame-Moscow

Walking in Petrozavodsk

Escalator to subway-Moscow

In Front of the Frozen Moscow River

In Front of Art Museum-Moscow

More Petro

Katya and the Laundry

Mom's little girl

Sitting in the suitcase/toy box

Daniel Vacuuming

Katya swinging in Petro

Park in Petro

Katya loves hats

Daniel on His bike

Jumping for the first time

Sunday Sweetie

First Day Home

First meal all together

Cuddling in Petrozavodsk

Katya

Katya
In Petrozavodsk apartment

Daniel

Daniel
Coloring Easter Eggs