FINALLY!! ....Thanksgiving....

Okay, since I have some people worried that I have fallen off the face of the earth (I love you, Lina!).... I better get these positngs updated. Sorry, there won't be the usual slew of photos, but I just don't have enough time in the day to get it all the way I want it. I've had the posts written for awhile now, but no time to find the pictures to put with them, so there will be some random pictures that don't really go with the stories, but you know me.....

So I will cover Thanksgiving, our move, and Christmas in the next 3 posts, so settle in and enjoy the ride!

We made our traditional trek to Wyoming for Thanksgiving. Since I hadn't seen handsome hubby for over a month, I took the whole week off of work and flew to meet him and go to his parents' house for the festivities.

(don't be frightened, it's only Kolby)

This year we missed the Stucki fam as it was their year with Karlo's family. But we DID have our 3 favorite Wyoming grands with us for the week! It was so much fun to get to spend time with them! Oh and to spend time with Travis and Robin too... :-)

We got to Riverton on Saturday morning and spent the day visiting with the in-laws. Sunday we took hubby's mom to church and saw a lot of old friends there and had a good time catching up with them.

The rest of the week was spent working on house stuff, baking goodies, cleaning and preparing for Turkey Day.

Thanksgiving dinner was held at the church and was smaller this year than it has been for quite a long time! A lot of grandkids and great grandkids were missing and were very much missed. The food was great, the conversations were good and it was a lot of fun to spend time just playing with grands and hanging out.

Friday, we made the traditional trip to my mother's house for another dinner. Two of my brothers were able to make it there and it was great to get to see them and catch up. Jack is healing very well from his heart bypass and seemed happy with the 12 loaves of banana bread I took to him.

Since we aren't able to attend my mom's Christmas party, we got to open our presents over Thanksgiving. So after dinner, we got to do presents. The grands loved their gifts and the adults had a good time watching them and opening their own. We are all very greatful for the time and effort and love mom puts into finding just the right thing each year.

Handsome hubby had a job interview just before he came to meet me for Thanksgiving and they called him during the weekend to offer him the job. The only problem was that I had already purchased my return ticket back to Arizona from Billings Montana because he was going to go do some work on his sister's house about 90 miles away from Billings. So, since the plans changed, we drove to Billings on Friday night and spent the day together Saturday before he had to leave and head for Boise to start his new job on Monday. I stayed at the hotel and took the shuttle to the airport for my flight back to Arizona.

While we were very busy and spent a ton of time on the road, we had a wonderful visit and a great Thanksgiving!!

Moving over Christmas....

Poor Gypsy in her new SNOWY yard! She had to get a coat to wear!

As soon as we found out handome hubby got a good job in Boise, we had to decide if we wanted to live together, when we wanted to make it happen and how we would accomplish such an undertaking with one of us in Idaho and one of us over a thousand miles away in Arizona!


Hubby set to work looking for a place to move to while I set to work packing and tying things up in Arizona (with Amber's help!) I also had to quit my job which was torture! I loved my job and love the people I worked with! I miss them dearly, but remember the advice of my good friend, that "you will make new friends, but you will always have the love and friendship of the old ones too".

We packed and packed and packed some more. We held a yard sale and gave away the fish from the fish tank. We rented the largest moving truck you can get and made arrangements for Travis to fly to Arizona to drive it to Utah for us, then made arrangements for Karlo to take it from there! I am so thankful for my boys!

Once moving day arrived, it was raining of course....Travis and I went and picked up the truck and got ready to load it. Several friends showed up from our Ward to help load the truck and, after a 'practice load' they unloaded it all in the yard and loaded it again to fit more furniture. But, we soon realized we had way more 'stuff' than truck! I was beginning to panic and stress and almost cry. My son assured me we would make it all work, we would just get another truck the next day and make the move. Then....our wonderful friend came to the rescue!! He assessed the situation and said he would be back in about 45 minutes. He called hubby and told him the situation and what he could do to get us on the way. They worked out the details and he showed up with his pickup and his father-in-law's enclosed trailer that would hold all the rest of our stuff! I was very humbled by his generosity. I don't know anyone that would ever turn their truck over to a crazy lady, fill a trailer full of furniture and let her drive the whole thing over 1,000 miles! All the while taking her little 1/2 ton "Grandma" truck in exchange! He is an amazing guy and I am crazy about his whole family!

After everything was loaded, Amber, Travis and I had a 'camp out' in the bedroom. We had set out sleeping bags and cots to sleep on the last night, but with so much help there, they got packed up on one of the trucks! There was so much help there that Travis had to rescue his suitcase 3 times from the moving truck! Every time he unloaded it and hid it in a closet somewhere, the next thing he knew it was back on the truck!

We got up the next morning, Amber and Travis headed out with the moving truck and her car on back while I went to work to do my exit interview and say my final good-byes. I finally caught up to them somewhere in Utah. The trip itself was pretty uneventful until we ran into snow in Utah, but that wasn't too bad. We just kept pushing and made it to where Karlo was waiting for us.

Travis had an early flight out the next morning and we were on the road again. This time we all traveled together and made it to Idaho without any problems. We got to our new home and Karlo and Blaine couldn't wait to unload everything! Here it was, Christmas Eve and they were moving us into our new home! We made it in time to get a visit from Santa!! It was a long trip, and we were glad to finally be together again!

Christmas Celebrations

We woke up Christmas morning to find that despite all the moving boxes and chaos, Santa found his way to our house! We went to Tama and Karlo's house for breakfast and to watch them open presents and open the ones they had for us.

Later in the day, they came to our house to see what Santa left at our house for them! We enjoyed a very nice laid back Christmas.

We spent the week unpacking and trying to settle in a bit. On Friday we had to go to Utah to meet our friend and return his truck and trailer and get mine back from him. Travis and Robin decided to meet us to exchange Christmas presents with them and we were able to call the Stuckis (who were in Pocatello with Karlo's family) and they decided to meet us as well so we could all spend a couple days together for the holiday.

I can't begin to thank Ben enough for the bail out with our move and his wife, Erin is a rock star!! Because of her husband's generousity, SHE had to drive their van all the way to Utah behind him as he drove my truck. She is not a fan of driving and I'm sure she was cussing at me in her mind all the way from Arizona to Utah! :-) But it's okay, I love her and know she loves me! She even had to handle the trauma of slaying a jack rabbit with her van! Thank you so much, Erin!! Every good man, has a great woman behind him!! :-)

We had a great time with the grands and all our kids. We took all the grandkids to the Children's Museum, sledding in the canyon, and swimming at the hotel. We celebrated Christmas in the hotel and the grands all had a wonderful time playing together and having fun together. As with all fun things, it ended too soon and we all had to return to our homes.

We all made it home safe and sound and have been trying to settle back into the routine of school and work.

I have a ton more I could write about but this will be enough for this time....I won't let so much time go by before the next post!

Where to begin.....

I am so far behind on my blogging!! I haven't told about Thanksgiving, Christmas, our move, our new grandSON that is coming in early June! That's right...Karlo and Tama are having a BOY!! Here's his little profile! He's so cute already!

Robin said that Kolby was so excited he screamed when he found out he was getting a boy cousin! He said, "Finally, I won't be the only stinkin' boy with all these girls!...but it's okay, I'll still play with Abbie." What a silly boy!





Abbie and Kallie are very excited that they are getting a baby brother and I think Papa is pretty pleased too.... as much as we love our girls, we are happy to finally have another boy to help Kolby out as well!





So, go get something to drink, settle in, and enjoy the ride! It's gonna be a LONG one! I'll divide it up so keep reading.....