Lubbock Temple Trip

Yesterday was our ward's temple trip to the Lubbock Temple. They announced that they were able to get permission to use the neighboring stake center for childcare (as long as there were two adults present watching the kids -- not just teenagers) so we could bring the kids along.

The Lubbock Temple is one of the smaller temples, so you have to make an appointment to do a session. (There also is no clothing service or cafeteria.) Our ward was scheduled to do the 9:00am session. It is about a 2 hour drive, so we left about 6:15am (in the rain) for the drive down.

We had to wait a few minutes for someone to come and unlock the building for us, but we got the kids settled (there were probably about 15 kids there in the end) and walked over to the temple. I always enjoy seeing the different temples and marvel at how beautiful they are!

After the session, our ward had also reserved the baptistry. Brian signed up to be one of the priesthood helpers (he ended up doing confirmations) and I went back over to help watch the kids so the couple who had been there could go do some temple work.

After Brian was done, we piled back in the car and came back home -- we made it at about 3:00pm. It was a lot of driving, but I'm glad we were able to go. We couldn't have done it without the childcare -- it would have been difficult (not to mention expensive) to find a babysitter for that long of a stretch.

I'm sure we'll be back!

Sunset Before the Storm

Last night was a really pretty sunset -- lots of pinks and purples in the sky. I only got to see the tail end of it (and almost missed it in the picture) but Brian said he saw it a little earlier and it was really neat. If only we had known what was coming...

A thunderstorm starting coming through later that night -- probably about 11:30pm or so. It died down a little and then came back with a vengeance about an hour or so later. It woke me up and I had a harder time than usual going back to sleep. I usually like lying in bed and listening to thunderstorms outside, but last night was the first time I think I started to get nervous about a storm (maybe it's partly all the tornado stuff recently too). The wind really blows the rain hard against the windows -- and we have a LOT of windows -- so I think that makes it sound more fierce than it actually is.

But last night there was also lightning going on like crazy -- just flash after flash --so bright it would just light up our room (like I said, we have a lot of windows!). There wasn't a whole lot of thunder compared to the amount of lightning, however. I started worrying about our little house turning into a lightning rod as it sits sort of up on a hill with no trees around.

I was finally able to get back to sleep (our kids are sound sleepers so none of them woke up during any of this) and when we got up extra early this morning to drive to Lubbock for our ward temple trip (I'll post more about that later), it was still raining, but more of a steady drizzle at that point.

Never a dull moment!

Cub Scout Camp and Tornado Sirens

McKay has been at Cub Scout Day Camp this past week. I was able to go up and be a parent volunteer yesterday. I took my camera (of course) and designated myself photographer so I took a whole bunch of pictures -- you'll see several of them below! The camp was at a really nice scout facility that both the Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts use -- it was down south of Amarillo towards Canyon.

I'll start with the last day of camp, however, since it proved to be a little exciting (depending on how you look at it). They had the regular camp for the boys Mon-Wed from 8:00-4:00, then today (Thursday) was "Family Day." The families were invited to come at 4:00pm and they would have the activities -- swimming pool, archery range, BB gun range -- open for a couple of hours, then everyone would eat a picnic dinner they brought and have some skits by the different scout groups. The girls have been so excited to "camp" -- they wanted roasted marshmallows and the whole thing (although there is a fire ban so we couldn't roast anything). They were especially excited about getting to go swimming.

So this afternoon, we loaded up all the swim stuff and our picnic dinner and set off for camp (later than we wanted to get away). As we were driving, we noticed a lot of black clouds in the sky over in eastern Amarillo. Brian got a call from our apartment manager and as he was talking to her she said that their tornado siren just went off. The kids kept looking out the back of the van as we headed south at all the dark clouds behind us.

When we got to camp, we saw a stream of people heading up out of the pool area. With the storm possibly headed that direction, they decided to get everyone out of the pool (of course our girls were extremely disappointed). They were having everyone gather for some camp songs as they analyzed the situation. We had only been there a few minutes, when the camp director got up front and asked everyone to go "calmly" down to the pool buildings. They had us all go into the concrete dressing rooms (there were 3 different areas) as a storm shelter. Our family went into one of the shower areas and our friends (in the next shower over) let us borrow a couple of towels to sit on. McKay & Brian hurried to take our food back to the van and told us when they came into the dressing room that they could hear tornado sirens in the distance.

The kids were a little scared at first (Hannah seems to especially get spooked easily at the talk of tornadoes). Brian and I were mostly just hot, cramped and sweaty. (Finally they opened a door to let a breeze come through.) One of the camp staff came in and we sang a bunch of camp songs (several were more Sunday School songs, like "This Little Light of Mine"). Brian stepped out briefly and one guy told him he had heard a tornado had been spotted at the airport (east of the city).

The kids started to get restless and complain that this was "boring" and what about our picnic dinner and going swimming, etc. We were in there maybe 20 minutes when they told us there was a break in the storm so they were letting everyone go home (more disappointment from the kids -- they didn't get to do anything but sit in the shower!). We drove through some rain on the way home and ate our sandwiches once we got back. I told Brian at least we didn't have to sit through all those Cub Scout skits!

So that was how the camp experience ended -- memorable if nothing else. I guess tornado sirens are something we will have to get used to living in this area.

Back to McKay's experience at camp and some pictures...

Here is McKay's "den" that he was grouped with for the camp -- I think this group was actually made up of about 3 different packs from the area.


And these are the boys from our ward that are actually in McKay's pack -- I haven't figured out yet how many of them are actually Bears like McKay (I know a couple are just barely 8 and a couple are 10 or 11).


McKay had a "buddy" to stick with all week -- his buddy was Ben, who just turned 8 last week and lives pretty close to us. Ben's mom has already been a great friend to me (they have 6 kids and Ben is their oldest) -- it's nice to have a family be so welcoming and helpful when you move into a new area.


They had several activities that the kids got to rotate through each day in a different order. The day I went, they started out with swimming (fortunately the pool was heated that early in the morning!). McKay was one of a couple of boys in his group who passed the swimming test and was allowed to swim in the deeper pool where the diving board was.


Next our group went to Crafts, where the boys got to build covered wagons from a little kit. The helped their buddy by holding pieces and tooks turns putting them together.


Here is the finished product:


Next we went to the archery range. They had placed balloons near the bullseye to see if the boys could pop them.


After a few tries, McKay popped his balloon (the first time that week). He was excited! It was great for him, especially since I imagine it was hard for him to aim well since he didn't have his glasses (so it might have been more luck than aim...)


After archery we ate lunch, then headed back up the hill to the BB Gun range. This was McKay's favorite activity (he is already begging me to buy him a BB gun for here at home).


This is what he was shooting at -- a target they pinned up and a small water balloon hanging beside it.


McKay did also manage to break his water balloon after several tries with the BB gun.

Next we went to Field Sports (all the way across the other side of camp -- and it was a hot day!) for "Defend the Fort." This was the fort:


The kids were divided up into two groups - Cowboys and Indians. The cowboys were "locked" inside the fort and the indians went outside. They had buckets of water around inside and out full of sponges and water "bombs". The boys had fun getting wet while they threw these through the windows of the fort.


(My vantage point was up on the second level of the fort which was off limits to the boys, although I did get hit by a muddy sponge that made its way up there.)

Our final activity of the day was Nature. That day they had a presentation on wild animals from a wild animal rescue center. They brought a few different owls and bats to show the kids. It was pretty interesting!


McKay and I came home hot and tired (but not too sunburned) and Brian and the girls were glad to see us! It was a fun day and I'm glad I got to spend it with my Cub Scout!

We Love Dad

I know it's a little late for Father's Day, but I wanted to put a little tribute here to my better half and the best dad around. I love to watch Brian with the kids -- he is so much better than me at really just playing and having fun with them. He is patient with them, teaches them things and the kids love him to pieces (as do I)!

Here are a few favorite pictures I pulled out of Brian with the kids over the years. We love you!

A Week and a Half Later...

I really should be unpacking, sorting, organizing and cleaning at the moment, but for some reason the thought makes me really tired this afternoon, so here I am posting to my blog instead. Not that I've been unpacking, sorting, organizing or cleaning at all today -- in fact I haven't unpacked anything for a couple of days now, even though there are many boxes to still be unpacked. There have just been things like lots of laundry, grocery shopping, fixing meals, etc. that seem to interfere with big chunks of unpacking time.

So we've been here about a week and a half now and I can't believe we're halfway through June already. I feel like the summer is going to be gone before I turn around. Of course, I had grand plans for setting up summer homework and chores for the kids -- maybe in July. :-) I do have the kitchen unpacked, although it needs to be cleaned now, and the bathrooms are mostly done (and they need cleaning too). Our bedroom and closet are still a giant mess, and the family room still has stuff everywhere.

The biggest problem with the family room is that we have some big furniture (our entertainment center and our old couch) that we don't have anywhere to put on the main floor (there is a whole wall of built-ins so we don't really need our entertainment center). We were hoping to put them down in the basement, but they might just be too big and too hard to get down there. So for now they sit smack in the middle of the front room. Hopefully we will figure out something soon -- I think I will feel better once you can at least walk through that room instead of having to walk around the perimeter.

McKay is at Cub Scout Day Camp this week. He had a fun day yesterday although he came home tired and hungry. I am going up as a parent volunteer tomorrow, so I'll be sure to take some pictures to share. Family day/afternoon is Thursday, so we will all go up for some activities, dinner and awards.

Some observations from the last week:

* My kids have surprisingly not complained much about having no TV or kid's computer. Our TV still sits in the box in the middle of the floor where it was brought in off the truck (as do many other things -- goes along with entertainment center dilemma). I'll admit there have been a few times when I have wished we had TV -- sometimes when the kids just get a little too wild and crazy, it's nice to be able to sit them down and turn on a program for some "chill-out" time (is that a bad thing to admit as a mother?).

* I am still trying to figure out how to load this dishwasher most efficiently -- it's funny how you get used to loading a dishwasher a certain way.

* It's going to take me awhile to get the Wal-Mart layout down. Most Wal-Marts are similar, but this one is "flipped" from our old one and it's just throwing me off a little. I've already been there more times than I care to admit, so I'm sure I'll get it soon.

* I wish I knew more about gardening and plants. There are some nice native plants and landscaping around the front of the house and the back patio that seems to be suffering a little (probably because no one has lived here since December). I wish I knew more about how to prune out the dead stuff without hurting what's left of the living stuff. We also have a very large wild plant over by the shop that Brian said appears to be growing some type of small melons -- he thought they were maybe watermelons, although the plant doesn't really look like pictures of watermelon plans that I've seen. There is also a smaller patch growing by the end of our driveway -- anybody have a clue what this is?

* If we want to go for a little hike and get some exercise, all we need to do is go get the mail! Our mailbox is probably a half mile away down the dirt roads. We tried to take a family walk down there a few days ago, but the two little girls got tired so I turned back with them.

* We are still trying to get used to all the wind around here. Poor Hayley can't even open some of the outside doors by herself (and we have several outside doors!) when it is windy (plus it doesn't help that some of the doors stick a little). And it seems to be windy most of the time!

Okay, I should quit and try to get something productive done today. I'll end with a picture of one of our favorite treats this summer - snow cones!


Our awesome realtor, Dianne, gave the kids this snow cone machine as a reward for being members of her "Clean Kid's Club" while we were showing our house. It has been an easy, cool summer treat!

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.

The Final Stretch

I'm not sure how much longer we're going to have computers and Internet access, so I wanted to post once more before we leave. Yikes! I can't believe we only have a couple of days left. I thought we were making pretty good progress on the packing, but now that we're down to the wire it seems like there's still so much left to do. (And poor Brian has been so tied up with other things the last couple of days he hasn't got as much of the office or garage packed yet as he wanted to.)

Our plans are to load up the truck and trailer tomorrow evening, clean Friday morning, close on the house early Friday afternoon and then head out of town! We'll be spending Friday night in Ft. Worth and traveling the rest of the way to Amarillo on Saturday. My dad arrives tomorrow afternoon to help us drive the truck (thanks, Dad!). We're not sure yet if we'll have room to fit the kids in or not. :-) Just kidding -- we're just not sure which vehicles they all will be riding in. We might try to take the seats out of the van and load it up with stuff and have the girls ride in the back seat of the Xterra and McKay in the truck with Grandpa. We'll see!

Here are a few final pictures...

Box central in the dining room (I think we will have lots of leftover boxes):

(Almost) empty pantry:

And the garage getting filled up!

I'd better get back to work. See you next time from the Texas panhandle!

Jump!

Last week at Cub Scout Pack Meeting, Courtney took along her jump rope because it was at a local park. My friend Susan was there and told the girls that she teaches a kid's jump rope class at the YMCA. She invited them to come once before we left -- of course they were so excited!

The class was yesterday evening. McKay was at a friend's house and we took Hayley to the kid's gym to play while the girls did the class. They had a great time (although I realized they haven't had much practice with jumping rope -- they need to work on the both feet together thing).

Here's one of them playing a "Snake" game where Susan swung the rope around in a circle and the kids tried to jump over it when it came to them.

Another thing I learned -- Courtney can jump! At the end they played another gamed called "Jump the River" where two ropes were laid parallel on the floor (making a "river" in between them) and the kids would jump over the ropes. Then the ropes would be made a little wider apart, and so on, until there was a good distance between them that the kids had to jump across (I didn't get any pictures of this because I was helping hold the ropes). Courtney did so awesome at this -- she has got some strong legs and can really jump! It must be all that frog-hopping she does everywhere!

Sprinkler Fun

The kids got to break out their new swimming suits yesterday and play in the back yard sprinkler a little (good thing I hadn't packed them yet!). When Brian turned on the sprinkler and told them they could play in it, they were all SO excited! Of course I grabbed the camera and had fun using the telephoto lens we have to get some close-up shots without getting wet. I have to share -- I really like how some of them turned out! (I think the one above is my very favorite.)

Four wet kids!

Sprinklers make you giggle!

Gotta try sticking your bum in!

McKay showed Hannah how to make a "shield" (I thought they looked like two little Indians).

It's hard to resist getting wet on a hot Texas day!