Leaving Iowa

When we first moved to Iowa, I was nervous about being so far away from family and worried I wouldn't like the midwest with all it's humidity and tornado wonderfulness.  After four years living there, however, I can honestly say- we really loved it there!  Iowa is beautiful and green and even though the dead of summer gets really hot and humid and the dead of winter is pretty darn cold, most of the time it's pretty great!  I love Fall & Spring in Iowa- the weather is perfect!  Fall is my favorite because everything is still green but starting to change colors and the weather is nice and it's just awesome!  I also really liked the crazy thunder storms throughout the year and the big snow storms in the winter.  It's never fun to be out in them, but when you've got shelter they're pretty cool!  

Iowa is also where both of our kids have grown up so far.  We moved to Iowa when Colton was about 7 weeks old and now he is 4!  Katie was born there and she's 2 now!  Iowa is also where we bought our first home!  We got really lucky with our first home.  After some painstaking searching for a few months and not finding anything we both really liked, we finally found a house we both loved for a great price and we bought it the day after it popped up on the market!  It definitely wasn't perfect but it had lots of space and an amazing fence-in backyard with a playset!  I loved that backyard!  

It was also really hard to leave all of the great friends we've made in Iowa.  I'll miss the bookclubs, and girls nights, and playdates, and parties, and everything I've gotten used to the last few years.  The kids miss their friends and are always asking when Tate or Logan or Luke are coming over.  Hopefully we make lots of new friends soon for the kids to play with, because as much as I miss my friends, I feel even worse not having any friends for my kiddos!

We've now been in North Carolina for a couple weeks and it's a great place.  There are a million trees that are really pretty and cool, but it does make me feel a little closed in and claustrophobic at times since I can't see anything.  The neighborhood seems really nice, we have a pool in our community, the ward seems nice, and I really like the house.  I miss a lot of things about Iowa and our home there.  The yard at our NC home is pretty pidley compared to our yard in Iowa, but we are making the best of it!  We have a basketball hoop in NC and a nice screened in porch.  We gained an extra bedroom in our house, although the space is still smaller than Iowa since there is no basement.  We have a nice upstairs playroom that we like in NC and the kitchen is really nice!  And best of all, Jon's work is only 2 minutes away!  All in all, we know it's good to get out of our comfort zone and try new things.  We are excited for what the next couple years in Fuquay Varina will bring for our family!  

First Home: Davenport, Iowa

Second Home: Fuquay Varina, North Carolina

Iowa Yard/NC Yard
The pic only shows about half of our Iowa yard and the other pic sadly make our NC yard look bigger than it is!

Summer Vacation 2015 (Utah/Idaho)

Our summer vacation this year got tied in with our selling our home in Iowa and moving to NC.  Jon needed to get back to work some more in NC the beginning of June, we had a family reunion with my side of the family planned for mid-June, and we couldn't close on our home in NC until the end of June.  I wanted to spend some extra time seeing family in Utah anyway, so the first week of June we ended up packing up our house and sending everything to NC to put in storage for a month, and we all drove to Utah.  Jon only stayed a couple of days before he had to fly back to NC to work.  The kids and I spent about a week up in Idaho at my parents house before going back down to Utah to spend a few days at Becky's house, go to my family reunion in SLC, spend a view days with Jon's family in Herriman and get back on the road!

Idaho:

The kids loved spending time in Idaho at my parents house.  My parents have tons of animals and the kids love feeding them, petting them, and running back and forth to see all of them.  Katie's favorite was feeding the horses.  Colton was a little too nervous to feed them himself but he would pick grass and weeds to give to Katie to feed to them.  Colton's favorites was the baby chicks.  He could seriously spend hours out there- naming the chicks, talking to them, and giving them names like Simba, Mancha, and Pacha.  They also enjoyed all the time with Grandma and Grandpa and I got to spend time visiting and making lots of yummy raspberry fruit leather with my mom (which is sadly already almost gone)!  Jon flew back to Utah from NC while I was at my parents and my dad picked him up and brought him back to spend a couple of days with us before we headed down to Utah.

Becky's House- Clinton, UT:

I think the kids favorite thing at Becky's house was playing with her little boy Rider and obsessing over her new "Baby Jake".  They were constantly asking to see and hold Baby Jake.  Katie and Rider also had a lot of fun playing silly little games together-like taking turns bonking their heads on the window and saying "Ow!" and laughing.  We had fun playing in the water at Becky's, going to the splash pad, going to the dinosaur park, going to the Hill Aerospace Museum, and having a girl's night out with Catherine when she drove down.  Jon and I also got to drive to Bountiful for dinner with our Iowa besties, Justin & Alissa Thompson.  We miss those guys!

Me & Alissa & her baby girl!

Sisters!!

Yummy snowcones :)

Rider Family Reunion:

For the Rider Family Reunion this year, we all stayed at a hotel in West Valley for the weekend.  Friday morning we went to Hogle Zoo together and then out to lunch at a burger place in Salt Lake.  After checking into the hotel we all got dressed and headed down to the pool, which had a water park aspect, and played in the water for awhile.  The kids had fun splashing around and playing on the kiddie slides.  This was the kids' first experience with life jackets and Colton came to love the new freedom it gave him to swim and jump in the deep water!  The next morning we all went to a park for a BBQ and more water fun!  The park had a splash pad attached so we visited and watched the kids play.  After eating lunch, we all headed our separate ways.  It was fun to see everyone and let our kids get to know each other a bit!

Cousins- the 2 year olds :)

Aralyn, Autumn, & Katie- Little Divas!

Katie & Rider- loving the splash pad.

Amberly's House- Herriman, UT:

After my family's reunion, we headed to Jon's sister's house in Herriman to spend a few days.  Again, kids had fun playing with cousins and we had fun chatting and hanging out with family.  We also got to do an adult hang out night- dinner at Texas Roadhouse and going to see Jurrassic World.  It was pretty fun!  I was able to see my friends Sharsti and Candice and have a short/sweet reunion with each while I was staying in Herriman.  After a few days in Herriman we packed up and headed out for our crazy long drive to NC!

Me & Sharsti- College Buds

Me & Candice- Childhood buddies 

Happy Fourth Birthday Colton!!

Four years ago today, a little red-headed baby boy came into the world and made Jon and I parents.  He has made our lives a lot of fun and is a great older brother to his little sister.  Colton is a very creative little boy.  He love coloring, dinosaurs, trains, building things, airplanes, and pretty much all boy stuff.  He LOVES babies and is always wanting to hold and take care of and little baby he sees.  He hates the vacuum and other super loud things like automatic hand dryers.  His favorite foods are popcorn, chips, taco salad, and watermelon.  He's got a fun little personality and we definitely love our goofy little dinosaur-obsessed boy!

A couple days before we left Iowa, I threw an early bday party for Colton.  I wasn't planning on doing that, since we were pretty busy with all of the packing, but when I realized we'd be getting to NC just a few days before his birthday I realized chances for a party on his actual birthday were pretty low.  So I kept it pretty low-key, but we had his friends over for a dinosaur scavenger hunt, dinosaur donuts (since Colton agrees that donuts are way better than cake), and a water party.  It was lots of fun and nice to get a chance to spend time with friends before we moved.  We had some awesome friends in Iowa and we will definitely miss them all lots!!

Today, on Colton's actual birthday, we kept things pretty simple.  I tried to make it a fun day- we got some balloons, played in the kiddie pool, and had a cake and some presents.  I also made Colton's favorite dinner- taco salad.  He has been so funny about it- almost every night he says to me, "Mom, I really hope we can have taco salad for dinner.  It's my favorite dinner!"  For Colton's cake, he really wanted a Paw Patrol cupcake cake he saw at the store.  The thing is, he never even eats the cake- he only ever licks off the frosting and then he's done, and Jon and I don't even like cake very much!  So, I gave him a choice of a couple different ice-cream cakes (Yum!) and I bought some Paw patrol treats to put on top.  He still loved his "Paw Patrol Cake" and I loved it too!  Win, win!  I don't know if this makes me selfish or super-mom...but I lean towards the latter :)

He had a little bit of a hard time getting happy again after his nap...