North Carolina

We've been in North Carolina now for a couple months now and things are pretty good.  We're still settling in but I feel like we'll probably still be working on that until we move!  Do you ever get to the point where you feel totally settled?  It's pretty in North Carolina.  There are lots of trees, and now that we are approaching fall, the weather is a lot more nice and tolerable.  The kids and I try to stay busy with walks, going to the park, playing with friends, story times at the library, etc.  In the summer we had fun going to our neighborhood pool and playing at the splash pad in town.

When we moved out here, Jon and I mad a goal that we were going to go out and do more things together as a family.  I feel like we've done a pretty good job so far!  We've taken the kids to the movies for the first time, been to the beach, gone hiking together as a family, and we have a few more things planned we are hoping to do before the baby comes!  It's been tricky finding time to do things because Jon is so busy with work and his calling as Young Men's President but we're making it work!

Change is hard, but we still feel like this was a good move for our family!  One day we hope to be able to live a lot closer to family and some of the great friends we've made over the years, but we'll just keep following where we feel prompted to go!  I know the Lord is looking out for us!

Walking trail near our house the kids love looking for animals and dinosaurs in the trees!

There's no dinosaurs on our walk but there are lots of these lizards!

The walking trail near our house has a lake it goes by that is home to these two ducks.
The kids always make us stop to say hi!

Story time!

Wrightsville Beach, NC

Family Hike at Ravenrock State Park, NC

Homemade Icecream at Sunnyside after our hike!  Katie's face cracks me up!

Minnesota Vacation

Just under 2 weeks after we arrived in North Carolina we packed our bags again and headed to MN for Jon's biannual family reunion.  Thankfully I had convinced Jon that taking on another 18 hour (1 way) drive 2 weeks after our 36 hour drive to NC was craz,y and we got to fly to MN.  It was the first time Katie had been on a plane and Colton's only time since he was 6 months old.  We were a little nervous but they did pretty well and were excited about the whole thing!

It was really hard getting any decent pictures on the plane but I needed to keep at least one to document their first flight- so here it is! 

We were in MN for about 10 days, most of which was at Flandrau State Park in New Ulm where Jon's family had rented out a Scout camp with little cabins for the week.  It's nothing fancy and it was super hot but we all had pretty fun!  We got to go swimming at the park's swimming hole, where the kids enjoyed paddling around and digging in the sand, spend lots of time playing with cousins, go on a short hike to a pretty waterfall, tube down the river, and the adults even got to go out one night to a restaurant while the older cousins babysat!  The tubing was an interesting experience.  We were nervous about bringing our kids but decided we might as well try and see what happened.  I think it may have gone a little smoother had it not happened over nap time, but all in all they did alright.  After Katie cried the first 15 minutes straight because she wanted her own tube and didn't want me to share it with her, she calmed down and both kids seemed to enjoy it for about the next hour.  It was just the last half hour or so when they got sick of it and started whining again (and we just had to deal with it since there was nowhere else to go) that it got a little obnoxious!  All in all, more positives than negatives and I'm glad we did it!  Jon's sister was the star of the reunion since she bought her own snow cone maker and brought it to the park!  It was definitely a high point of each day and I think I'm convinced I need to buy one now...

It's always lots of fun spending time with Jon's family!  There are nine kids in Jon's family- all married- and 33 grand-kids, with 3 more on the way, and they are all loud and crazy in their own ways!   They are always good for some good games and conversation and fun debates!  It's gonna be a hard couple years living so far away from any of mine or Jon's family, but it'll give us time to make new friends and enjoy time with our own little growing family :)

Grandkids!  I think you can tell how good the parents are by how happy the children look...

Day Family 2015

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!