This is our new house for at least the next year, possibly for the next 3 years. And the yard looks great thanks to the help of our dads. I got here Monday, August 16th and this is how it looked then. They mowed the grass, trimmed the bushes and trees and had taken in all the boxes and furniture. (The tree in the front hung down over the mailbox when they started) Thank you dads! And yesterday I got to mow the lawn myself and I loved it! I love having a yard again even if it means we have to take care of it.
Hailey and Papa swimming. It was hot so we took advantage of our pool! Hailey loved it!
Cougar liked being outside and being held by Grandma.
Heidi and Grandpa swimming. Heidi was a little hesitant at first, but she is really starting to like swimming.
Cougar in a perfect place in the shade
Our family enjoying the pool. I must say that the pool was a major reason that I didn't want to rent this house because of safety concerns and we have to maintain it while we live here, but I now think it will be nice to have. Plus, we've already had lots of fun in it.
Back to work on Tuesday. We had lots of boxes to unpack. I really don't know how we fit all this stuff in our last rental.
Hailey learning how to splash with her feet
Heidi having fun getting her feet wet
We have been unpacking a lot and still have some to go through even today, but this is what I came across Wednesday. It made me sad. Partly because it's a BYU thing and mostly because Heather and her family gave it to us and I already miss them a lot. A few other casualties of the move include my glass punch bowl that was in like a million pieces and Justin's complimentary cereal bowl that said he was handsome and nice.
On Thursday it stopped raining so we put down everything and went to the park just a few blocks away. It was huge! We are very excited to be close to a park and especially such a nice one.
The other part of the park (there's more to the left, but it's so hard to get a picture of it all with all the trees)
Enjoying the park
Justin was pushing Cougar around but stopped to watch football practice. He is so excited to have Cougar play football someday.
Hailey driving the wooden car(I thought it was a boat but it had wheels)
I took some other pictures at the park but they disappeared off my camera. Hopefully I can find them and put them here.
We did quite a bit of shopping throughout the week trying to make this house into our home. We mostly had to find curtains because there was nothing covering any of the windows, but we also tried to find other things to make the house work better for us. On Friday we found this special find at the Salvation Army where we ran into the missionaries that helped Justin and our dads move in. They even helped us load it into our car. It is perfect because it's just like the one my mom has and now we're 2000 miles away. The girls love it! And it was only $10. A magic eraser did the trick and it looks like new except one missing nob. That night the Winnemin's invited us over for dinner and the missionaries were there too. They were so nice and made us feel very welcome. They also have great kids.
Saturday Justin's mom went home. This is at the Roanoke airport. The smallest airport I have ever been to with just 6 gates. She was such a help in getting us started here. She had great ideas in where to put things and helped me have some time to focus on unpacking. We miss her already!
Heidi and Hailey exploring the backyard
Swimming again and even blowing bubbles (this is the closest she gets to putting her face in the water)
Hailey splashing with her feet
The girls have learned that they can "walk" along the edge of the pool by themselves
Hailey doing tricks with her dad. She is very good at saying "BYU Cougars!"That night they even had fun in the bath and didn't cry once. They leaned all the way back with their heads on the bottom of the tub. It's amazing what a week with a pool has done for them.
These girls love being together and playing together. They have pretended a few times this week while playing that Heidi is going with Dad and Hailey is going with Mom and Cougar. They didn't like being apart very much.
More hugging. We loved our ward. They were very sweet about her allergies and giving Hailey only what she could have. And after Justin sat with Heidi for the first hour, he left her in the primary and she did just fine. It's a ward with quite a few younger families so we are very excited. One lady even said they were going to do a Joy School group out here so that helps a lot.
Last night the Freeman's invited us over for dinner and FHE. It was a lot of fun and their kids were wonderful too. The girls had a lot of fun over there. Then this morning I found this...
I was already frustrated because the girls were awake and playing before 5:00 this morning. By 5:30 I had to tell them they needed to play quietly. Then after I fed Cougar I found the hair. They had talked about cutting each others' hair and I thought it was just because they did that at my mom's house with fake scissors. Luckily it's not too much hair and I can't even see where it was cut from. Oh these little girls. Heidi said she cut some of Hailey's hair but it must have been a tiny bit because I couldn't see any and I can't see any missing from her head. It's a good thing too because she doesn't have any to lose. We sure love them! And they are so cute (most of the time)! Heidi asked if we could go to Papa's house this morning and I told her it was too far away. For the first time she told me, "I don't want to live in Virginia. I want to live in Utah." Hopefully she won't feel that way after we make some more friends out here. I think the girls really like it, but it is a huge adjustment from being within a 20 minute drive of both sets of grandparents to being this far away.
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