snow

The day of our move Houston had a record snow storm. We had heard warnings about the storm but didn't think any of the snow would really stick. The snow started in the morning and by noon started sticking to the grass and trees. All over the neighborhood kids were building snowmen and throwing snowballs.

Our good friends Sam, Heather and Anna came over to help us finish off the last details of the move and bid us farewell. We were grateful for the help and the empanadas. Heather and I became first time mothers within two weeks of each other. We have enjoyed watching our babies turn into toddlers.

moving

In the last few weeks our house has gone from this to almost empty. We've sold most of our furniture, gotten rid of a lot of "stuff" and packed up the things we have decided we want to keep in storage.

The babies weren't too sure about having to eat breakfast on the floor.


All of our worldly possessions now fit into our truck and a U-haul trailer. We are off on our next adventures.

nursery

Sunday was the babies first official day in nursery. They have been a bit clingy lately, maybe it is the chaos of getting ready to move, or maybe it is the 18-month-old separation anxiety. But thankfully they did great. They lasted the whole two hours. I didn't quite know what to do with myself without having to hold on to my two little wiggly monkeys.

One of the women in nursery said that at one point Max and Maya were taken into different rooms. Maya looked a little lost but quickly found another child to cling onto and was happy from then on.

When I went to pick them up Maya said "Mom!" as soon as she saw me and wouldn't let me put her down.

Getting ready to walk out the door and go to church.

Playing nicely in nursery. Don't let the almost empty room fool you. There are almost 30 babies in our primary nursery class. We just got there at the beginning before the start of all the chaos.

presidente

The kids, Lonnie and I were lucky enough to have dinner with my mission president and his wife last week. It was great to be able to catch up and reminisce about our time in the Dominican Republic. I am so grateful for their influence in my life. I loved being a missionary.

mi tocalla

I have a really cool friend named Alisa.

Not only do we share the same name but we both served missions in the Dominican Republic (I was even lucky enough to be her teacher in the MTC Welfare program). Both of our parents moved to Danville, CA while we were in our college years. We also both have two children, a boy and a girl. Oddly enough we are both Democrats who support Obama, while our religious culture is primarily Republican.

While we were together this past weekend we also realized that for similar reasons we both refused to have diamond wedding or engagmement rings. Somehow we also ended up both living in Texas for a few overlapping months.

Having so many things in common with someone like her makes me feel validated.

Thanks for being my friend Alisa.


Max and Maya loved the attention they got from David and Mary. The also loved their dog and cat. Every time Maya would see the dog she would start barking like she was trying to carry on a conversation with him.

top ten reasons you should visit new zealand

And in case you needed another reason....



or another.....

things I will miss about texas

1. Our wonderful friends
2. Having a house big enough for lots of house guests
3. Bluebell Ice cream
4. Availability and quality of tortillas.
5. Having everyone at the grocery store recognize the babies
6. Alligators at Brazos Bend
7. Warm weather (but not the excessive heat and humidity)
8. Awesome thunder storms
9. Crape Myrtle flowers
10. Magnolia trees

update

Things are going smoothly with selling our house. We worked hard to get everything perfectly ready and on Oct 11 we had five showings lined up for the first day. We received an offer that night. After some short negotiations we came to an agreement and everything was set. We are closing on December 4th.

We will spend December in Utah visiting family and friends and then fly down to New Zealand in early January. We have been busy working on our visa applications which have required extensive medical paperwork, fingerprinting and FBI clearance. Hopefully everything will be pulled together in time. The process has been more complicated than we expected.

Halloween

The babies have been sick this week. We missed the library party but decided that they babies were well enough to stop by the ward trunk-or-treat and then a couple of neighbor's houses. They looked so cute in their costumes that I had to show them off.
The kids were pretty overwhelmed at the ward party. They just kept staring at everyone. Max wanted to be held the whole time and Maya just kept staring at people.
We went trick-or-treating to a couple neighbor's houses. The kids got the hang of it pretty quickly, although they didn't want to stop at the door, the made it all the way into 3 of the 4 houses that we went to visit.

you got caught

I left the room for just a few mins and came back to this mess. They just too cute for me to get mad at, so I just took photos instead. Thankfully it all came up from the carpet. The funniest part is that the kids have been sick this week and haven't really wanted to eat much, I guess I just wasn't offering them the right thing.