At the grocery store

I often let Lou pick between two items.  Today I asked her if she wanted the sausage ravioli or the spinach.  Before deciding she wanted to know all the ingredients in each.  After reading them, she scrunched her lips in thought and said, 'spinach.'

That's my girl.

I finally saw the beauty of the desert

I think I deserved it.  I paid my dues, I tried really hard, and I did see how the desert could be beautiful.  

In Spanish Las Vegas means, The Meadows.

(I wish I could say I lived in The Meadows, it sounds more like a place for me.)

We went about 30 min outside of Las Vegas to Calico Basin.

The plants are fighters, so we help them out by not treading on them.

There are natural springs there, and the plants are soooo happy.

So are the bees.  Can you see the bees on the white fluff?  They are having Thanksgiving.  I was so happy to see them.

Axel is personifying what was going on in my heart.

Seeing the plants in their natural habitat, instead of highly manicured in yards, helped me see how they are meant to look.  

I couldn't help but think that these plants are more thankful than plants in Nashville.

I was certainly appreciative of their hard work.

We are meant to be outside.

Then we went climbing around the Red Rock.

And by we, I mean Paul and the olders.  That's a super zoomed in picture.

Boone and I were slow.

It was really just Boone, but I don't want to point fingers.

There are endless rocks in the desert, which is a little boys favorite toy.

He also discovered a slide.

And the camera pointed the other direction?  Homes.  Yes, people live here, right next to where the desert is beautiful.  Made me want to live here too.

  

Bye.

Update

I made this excellent dress for Maggie.  That's my new backyard.  Booyah.

We had a tea party with cousins.  

This weekend we took a trip which I was super excited about.

In St. George we saw our excellent Nashville friends, Nick and Farrah, who are having twins, and I gave her...

these two little dresses, for their two little darling girls.

Then drove all the way up to Pocatello Idaho, to stay with the Wutrain family.  Husband and Paul  were roommates in college.  They took us to an excellent playground, and 

the fun McKee's petting zoo, that just so happens to be run by the brother of our mission president in Nashville.  Small world.

Paul was handsome all day.

Then we drove up to Idaho Falls for the main event: the sealing of Leighton and Melissa.  Yes, he should be that excited.

We LOVE them.  And have for a long, long, time.

My cousin, also named Melissa, saved the day, and watched my kids so we could go to the sealing.  And if that wasn't enough to win her the favorite cousin award, she also grilled chicken and grilled bruschetta, and watermelon, and from their garden carrots.  I must've been too busy eating to take a picture.

Then we brought the kids to the reception.  They've seen my kids grow up.  And we spotted them, the kids ran and gave them both hugs.

Boone should've been more eager to kiss the beautiful bride!

There were more Nashville people to chat up.  Also, notice the bride's dress, I altered it from a completely strapless dress.  I finished it about a week before our move.

And here is Axel's primary teacher when he was 4.  She's still a favorite.

The only thing that could pull our attention away from the happy couple, was the pie.

Luckily, there's always room for pie, even after grilled bruschetta.   Mmmm.

The lovely mustache picture was taken at our house in Nashville.  Paul and Leighton grew mustaches and we had manly steaks to celebrate them before the shaving.

Then we drove up to my Grandma's house, to spend the night.  She lives in the most beautiful place besides Switzerland: the foot of the Teton Mountains.

My grandfather built that house with his own two hands when my dad was a little boy.  Every time I see geraniums, I think of my grandma.  My grandma is the coolest.  She's served 8 missions, is in her late 80's and was laying sod before we got there.  She makes the most beautiful paintings, grows a beautiful garden, had nine kids, was a nurse forever, and makes mouth watering and healthy food, and crochets blankets for just about every baby born in Idaho.  And she's wise.  So I had to really listen up when she said, "If I had a man like that, I'd live with him anywhere!"  Paul smiled. Point for Vegas.

After church and beef stroganoff we made the long drive back to Vegas.  But we got to stop in Utah to see my sister and her family and my parents and eat marinated grilled chicken and cheesecake.

And now, I'll be getting a gym membership.

We've got cousins

staying with us this week.  I've thoroughly enjoyed them.  Our house is really fun right now.  We all went to a park together, and I was holding hands with their youngest and he said, "This should be called stinky feet hot."  And that made me smile so big it made my whole face smile.  And for that beautiful gift, he got a kiss.

Our move

This is the short version... though it's still long.

Our movers, Nationwide Relocation is the worst moving company ever.  Please don't ever use them.  They never showed up for our move.  We called them and they said, "Oops, we never assigned you a driver, we might be able to get someone out there next week?"  Wow.  So we rented a Penske, our amazing friends last minute loaded us on the hottest day in Nashville since 1950 something.  109 degrees.  You Vegasans are scoffing at those balmy temperatures.

We kissed our favorite Nashvillians.  We tried to sleep.  A dear dear friend showed up at 4:45 am to help me get the remaining stuff in our car, and at 9:00am after our last family prayer in our house, we were on our way.

Up to this point I had been busy, and couldn't mourn completely because I was still experiencing the amazing ambiance of Music City, home of the Commodores, and birthplace of my children.

But then about an hour and a half into our drive, my Nashville radio station got static-y and I listened until I couldn't hear it at all.  The kids were asleep.  Everything was quiet.  The land was changing, the trees were getting more sparse and short.  The sky was getting bigger.  I looked in my rearview.  All my children were there.  I looked at the road in front of me.  All my stuff was in a truck with my husband.  And I was driving in the wrong direction.  Then I cried for 8 hours.

We got to Kansas, and met my brother's family at a spray park.  We all loved it.

Family and pizza.  It was very comforting.

We stayed the Sabbath at their house, where my sister-in-law made amazing lasagna and we all had comfortable sleeping.

We were out Monday at 7am for our 13 hour drive day.  The land continued to change from rolling farmland to empty desert.  Somewhere in New Mexico, my tire went flat.  We were in the middle of absolutley no where.

  

Also, because we were in absolutely no where, we had no cell phone coverage, so I couldn't call Paul, to tell him to stop.  I tried to pass him, but it was a rare downhill, and he was using it to it's full advantage for Penske speed.  By the time he saw I'd stopped, he was about 1/2 mile ahead of me.  So I started unloading the back of the van to get to the spare tire.  I couldn't figure out how to get it.  Meanwhile I was sure Paul would do SOMETHING to help me out.  He probably thought one of the kids were peeing.  So  after loud frustrated yelling and no response, I got the kids and we all started walking towards the truck.  When we got close enough that Paul could make out that we were walking towards him, and he got out to meet us in the middle.  When we got the spare off, we realized that it was flat too.  And I remembered when we did that.  Argh!  So Paul unhitched his completely fully packed car from the Penske,  drove until he had service and then asked his brother to figure out where the nearest car garage was, and he went there and they patched the tire.  He was gone about 1.5 hours.

It was a very hot day in the dessert of New Mexico.  This is what we looked like:

I knew that the passersby would be worried about a woman with 4 small children stranded far between towns under the scorching sun, and had my speech already prepared about how we were fine, and thank you for your concern.  After an hour, and NO ONE had stopped, I really knew we weren't in the South anymore.  And then someone did stop, to restore my faith in mankind.  They were two gentlemen from Texas.  After I told them we wouldn't be stranded forever, they made sure that I had enough water and sunscreen.  At least my faith in Southerners wasn't diminished.

The earth on the side of the desert road was prickly and the kids and I sat cautiously.

This was our time-out cactus.  

We ate PBJ sandwiches.

We played 'I spy', which was exhausted pretty quickly.

We reviewed rattlesnake safety, because I had no idea what lived in those holes.

We sang primary songs.

Then Paul came back!

He put on the good tire, 

and we were off!

We drove for about 3 hours when our second tragedy of the day occured.  While in a ghetto gas station, the truck and car tow hit a pothole, bounced and broke the car carrier.

I had NO idea how to get out of this one.

Paul got on the phone with Penske and they hooked us all up.  Thank goodness.  

A tow truck was coming to tow Paul's car and the broken car carrier to Albuquerque - where we were headed for the night anyway.  We thought about me going on ahead with the kids and Paul would bring the truck later, but decided against it when the gas station owner told us (before he closed the gas station at 6 pm) bwhere to park and don't leave our truck and stay together, because there were ruffians around.  GREAT!  It was 7 and there was no where to eat.  This wasn't even a town, and the smattering of buildings were all pretty gross anyway.  I think there was a dog kennel nearby because we heard constant barking.  The sunset was pretty.  We sang all 12 articles of Faith, got out the glow sticks my excellent Tara sent us.  We ate her delicious candied nuts and some gummy candy.  Dinner. 

We pulled in to my sister's house at 1:30 am, and I had bruises on my arms from all the pinching I had done. After some life bringing laughter from my sister, we went to sleep for 3 hours.  Armed with caffeine and music to sing loudly, we started our last day's journey. 

This was my view for 3 days.

I don't recall seeing rain like this in Nashville.  I think this happens only in the West and I appreciated it.  Observe.

Also observe the difference between this landscape and the first picture in this post.  Thank goodness the sky has something to look at.

When we drove into Las Vegas I hyperventilated.  But we didn't die.

Our new ward's Elder's Quorum showed up right on time and moved us in so fast.  That was very pleasing.  They were so very nice.  Our ward has been very nice the past three Sundays, and Paul already has a calling!  Not in the bishopric!  So things are going great.

Kisses for all the Nashvillians.