Howdy from the Texas Panhandle!

Well, we made it! We've been here in our new home for almost a week now and just got our Internet access up and running this afternoon (yeah!). It's been a busy week and we still have boxes and furniture everywhere you turn, but I think we are making slow progress in getting settled here.

Here's a brief recap of the move and some pictures of the past week -- I'll try to keep it from getting too long!

We loaded up our truck last Thursday evening. My dad flew in to be our truck driver and we had lots of help from the good members of our ward. They worked really hard to fit all of our stuff! Fortunately, Brian has a talent for packing things very efficiently and in the end, it all barely fit (I was getting worried at one point!).

Besides the big truck, we also rented a U-Haul trailer to pull behind the Xterra.

And Brian loaded the van up to the max with stuff too.

We slept on the floor Thursday night, cleaned Friday morning and closed on the sale of our home. Then we hit the road! The girls rode in the back seat of the Xterra (yes, they were crowded and we heard about it) and McKay got to ride in the truck with Grandpa.

We stayed Friday night with Brian's sister in Arlington and then were on the road again Saturday morning. All was well until we got about 3 miles from our destination and the big truck decided to quit working on us. It just kept stalling and wouldn't go more than a few feet (if that much). We think it had something to do with the fuel filter. We had a good-sized group from the new ward waiting for us at the house to help unload, but we just couldn't get the truck there. So they quickly unloaded the trailer and we told those that could make it to come back later that evening. Finally, about 10 minutes before we had told people to come back, the truck made it up the dirt road to our house. Whew! Several ward members returned and got everything unloaded for us. What a happy sight to see that truck come up the driveway!

The first thing we noticed when we got here on Saturday was that it was extremely WINDY! Wow -- Brian really needs to get to work at putting in the windmill he wants to experiment with.

Here are a few pictures of our new house (there is also a big shop/barn) and some of the surrounding area. We are out in the "country" but only 10 minutes from church and shopping.

This is what the entrance to our driveway looks like (from a bumpy dirt road) in case any of you ever come to visit (and we hope you do)!

As I said, we are in a mess of boxes and furniture everywhere.

And for the first day or so, we only had boxes to eat from (until we bought a small, temporary folding table to use until we have time to go shopping since we didn't bring our old table and chairs with us...).

But the great thing about boxes (especially big boxes) is they make the best houses!

And McKay couldn't wait to get out and try flying his new kite that he got at his end-of-school auction (although it was almost TOO windy to fly).

Here are the girls helping with the kite (and you can see downtown Amarillo in the background).

And there are lots of critters here! Check out this fat toad the kids worked really hard to catch:

And we have seen lots and lots of little rabbits running all around outside the house.

The kids have had a great time exploring and spending time outside. They covered the driveway in sidewalk chalk. It might be hard to see, but here is McKay's rendition of the Xterra pulling the U-haul trailer:

And we even made it to the library yesterday and got signed up for the summer reading program (we love the library!).

The other big news of the week was that Courtney lost her very first tooth! She was so excited to get a visit from the Tooth Fairy.

One of the biggest challenges this summer (for me, at least) is going to be bedtime. We have all four kids in one bedroom (two sets of bunk beds) for a while until we can get the addition built to the house (we are planning to add some bedrooms over the garage area).

Add all kids in one room to the fact that it doesn't get dark until 9:30pm and our 8:00pm bedtime is toast! I can tell they are tired (especially poor little Hayley) even though they won't admit it. Hopefully we can all get used to things!

Thanks to everyone who helped with our move! We miss our friends, but think we are going to really enjoy this area.