Our first visitors

Well we havent yet been in our new place two months but we have been lucky enough to have lots of visitors already.  We love it.  Come one, come all.  Come to Texas!

First came the Fraleys (our Papillion neighbors)

 Then the Thomases- our best buddies...

 Then Grandma and Grandpa Matkin came for a good time...

 

Then Aunt Julie came for some girl time with mom.  This is the only picture I have from her visit which was taken by Emmitt with my iphone.  

The Big Move

So here it is October and I am way behind on blogging.  Moving and then trying to renovate a house has really put me behind (in so so many ways).  Luckily there are plenty of iphone photos to remind me of what we have been up to so I'll try to recap it all for your viewing pleasure.

 So Kevin was working in Dallas while I was living back in Omaha with the kids for about a month.  It was a lonely month.  Luckily my sweet mother in law stayed with us for a bit and I spent some of the time in Utah but overall it wasnt a fun time- living apart.  I made the very foolish mistake of thinking I would get Dallas' dew claws removed before I moved.  That was far more of an intense surgery and recovery than I expected which caused a lot of stress for me- but oh well- whats done is done.

 

This picture of Dallas in the cone reminds me of the good times I had sitting out on my driveway watching kids play and chatting with neighbors as they passed by.  We had a great neighborhood.  I miss it.  Im sure in time I will feel the same about our new neighborhood but it takes time...

Here we are at the airport- ready to embark on our new adventure.

 

And here the kids are enjoying the apartment pool.  We were only living in Kevins corporate housing for about 5 days or so.  It was enough.  Apartment living with four kids and a dog is not for me.  The pool though was quite nice.

And here is the pictures of our new house from the real estate listing.  Real estate pics tend to make everything look bigger than it actually is.  But here (for my own memories sake) are the listing pictures.

As far as packing and loading and moving and unpacking and unloading goes- well as expected it wasnt fun.  We were very blessed to have movers so the only real work was unpacking.

 Whats this a picture of you ask?  Well thats Dallas' tail under the bed.  The actual move was hardest on him than anybody else.  He developed a pretty bad case of stress colitis.  I'll spare you the details but that was awful.  He was pretty depressed for a couple days but then he came around and is now a happy Texan.

Here is Emmitt enjoying our pool.  As you can imagine, the pool was the highlight of the new house.  The kids love it and got constant use out of it before school started.

And here we are at our first Dallas Cowboys game (pre season).  Kevin got tickets at work so we took our new friends, the Schaaks who just live down the street for us and have been so good to us- feeding us many meals and welcoming our family to the neighborhood.  They are good people!

After we got (mostly) unpacked, the first thing on my list was painting.  I really couldnt bare the stark white with the dark purple accent walls.  So this sample painting was HOPEFULLY the only time Emmitt paints on the walls.  I went with the color that he is putting on the walls in this picture.  Its called smokey taupe and Im really happy with it- (though I did totally freak out part way through the painting job... but in the end its all good).

And then after the painting was done, I had the banister stained darker and then we tore out the tile and carpet and put in hardwood and next on the agenda is the kitchen.  Details to come...

Overall moving is TOUGH but its done and looking back it all went fairly smoothly.  Now we are settling into our new house and new life and all is well.  It will take time until life here feels normal but so far everything here is great and I look forward to my new normal life coming soon...

My Relatives!

I just had to include this picture on my blog because I love the family connection.  Erin (the one by me) moved into our ward in Omaha and one day we were chatting at the zoo and realized (from her mentioning a Peterson family reunion in Canada) that we are related!!!  Her Great grandma is my grandma Fay's sister.  In this picture is Erin, her mom and her grandma who was my grandmas neice.  Cool.  These were some neat ladies that I am proud to be related to.

So glad when Daddy comes home

Kevin's been living in Texas while we are here in Papillion and its been sad to be apart.  He flew home for the weekend and we went to the airport to pick him up.  On the car ride home Emmitt said:
"Dad, I thought you was at Texas but you were at the airport!"

We all had a good laugh at that and a great weekend with our beloved daddy.

Utah Family Reunion

So amidst the business of selling our house and moving, along came our family reunion in Utah.  I knew we could not miss it despite our move because its just so important for the kids to spend time with their cousins, so with Kevin off to start his new job in Texas, I loaded up the kids and drove to Utah.  The trip went really well.  My kids were great.  They are all at such a great stage now that things like this are possible.
We stayed at a lodge called the Cliff at Snowbird.  It was really nice.  The only sad part was that Scott and Jeff and Jenn and Co. were not able to make it.  But it was just a beautiful location and we had lots of rooms all next to each other so my kids just had a great time visiting with their cousins and I had a great time with the Grigors and my parents.

Heres some pictures of a hike we "attempted"  It was primarily unsuccessful because of Emmitt.  He wanted to throw rocks, not walk, so it was a very short hike.

We spent a fun day at Trafalga (or Seven Peaks Fun Center as they now call it)

For the July 4th weekend Kevin flew out.  We spent that special day at the resort enjoying the cool activities there.  We did the gondola, rode the mountain coaster, the alpine slide, the mountain flyer, the ropes course, the rockwall, and rode the chair lifts.  It was a fun day!

When we got to the top of the mountain on the chairlift, we found snow.  How often do you get to play in the snow on the fourth of July!  There was snowball fights and the older boys even slid down the hill on their stomachs.  The snow was a hit!

And we celebrated Kevins birthday with some cupcakes.  Emmitt and Sadie were loving putting the candles in.

We had the special opportunity to take Brayden to do baptisms at the temple for the first time.  It was great for him to be there with both his parents and his cousins.  We were at the Oquirrh Mountain temple which and it was lovely.

On Sunday, the crew went to Temple Square and took this beautiful picture that I love.  (I was sick so I didnt make it there) Notice how cute Emmitt and Sadie are looking at each other.  Those two had a good time together.

 

Sunday afternoon Grandpa organized a "Chopped" cooking competition for the grandkids.  They were divided into three teams -Makenna & Daniel, Brayden & Lucas, and Ben & Brielle.  They each had their own kitchens and were given the same mystery ingredients to concoct a special dish with.  Then the judges chose a winner.  The kids really got into it and we were so impressed with what cool kitchen creations they came up with.

And no trip to Utah would be complete without a trip to BYU.  The kids (and Kevin) raided the bookstore and then we went to eat at the creamery.  This was all after a day at seven peaks waterpark in Provo.  So we partied hard and lived it up.  We just love Utah/ Provo/ and BYU.

 On our very last day, we were visited by Ginger and Amy & co.  We had dinner and went for a swim.  Its always so fun to get together.  Im grateful for cousins!

After about 10 days of family togetherness, we had to make the drive back home.  We were having such a good time, the kids did not want to leave.  But luckily while we away, our house sold so the day after we got back, I left for house hunting in Texas.   And so our adventure continues...

Riding Bikes

The kids are having a lot of fun with their bikes this year.  Emmitt prefers to zoom around on his balance bike (with no wheels) but he also does pretty well on the bike with training wheels too.

Working away...

So Kevin started at Dr Pepper Snapple on June 30.  We thought it was pretty cool that they used this picture to introduce him.  Apparently its famous now around the office.