Pictures and updates

So I finally got around to plugging my camera in to my computer so I could get pictures off of it! It's about time! Some of them are from before my birthday in March! hah!

This is my best friend, Hillary. She and I ran a 5k that our stake put on. I suck at running, and didn't actually "run" the whole thing. Maybe next time?

David and I celebrated my birthday at Tucanos! Tasty!

We took our last trip to Roosevelt before leaving to TN for Easter weekend. It was a lot of fun and we had an Easter Egg Hunt for all the grand kids! They loved it!

Grandma & Grandpa wanted a picture with Ellie before we left!

Ellie decided to learn some calculus...

David graduated from BYU! WOOHOO! We celebrated California Pizza Kitchen style!

 This is Ellie and Lexi. Lexi is Ellie's best little friend ever! She's only 3 months younger, and they love to do everything together!

 

Playing around our apartment for the last time while the movers pack us up!

Ellie stole the neighbor kid's tricycle and she wouldn't get off of it! Luckily, the other kids were all at school!

Just before leaving to TN, we stayed with my brother, Boyd and his family. This is Ellie playing in the little playroom with her cousin Scarlett.

Checking out the airport and the airplanes!

Ellie's first flight!

Only one of the fun adventures we've had in TN so far. We went and visited David's sister Alayna and her family and David's parents for a day. We all went to these fun fountains and Ellie had a blast...until she got knocked over and hit her little head on the concrete. OUCH! She was OK though and still had a pretty good day after that!

Updates!

I feel like blogging has been the absolute LAST item on my list of things to do lately, because frankly, life has been crazy around here. With David finishing up projects, presentations, papers, tests and homework assignments, I haven't really wanted to blog and record what's going on these days.

It's official, though! We are moving to Tennessee on April 24th! We're excited, nervous, uneasy and even a bit scared! I'm mostly just scared, though! I don't know what to expect. I don't know how the neighborhoods will be, how grocery stores will be, how church will be, how ANYTHING will be, and I HATE that! It is a bit like when we moved to Albany, NY last summer because we're going to a place I've never been with a million things unknown, except this time, we're staying there for who knows how long!?

I'm not really ready to cut ties with life here in Provo, even though it hasn't been my favorite. I am, however, very excited for a new adventure in Tennessee. It's honestly the last place I thought we'd end up. Hopefully things with the move go well, and we find a place to live quickly! Right now I am just full of butterflies because of so many unknown things!

I'll try to have better updates once we're settled and have some things figured out! But for now, this is all I'm going to write!

Farewell and wish us luck!

Blessed

As we are getting ready to leave the beautiful state of New York, I'm feeling so overwhelmed and blessed for the opportunity to have been here. I have so many mixed feelings about leaving. I love it here, I really do...now.

At first I had a hard time here, and I didn't know that I would love it. I felt like I had to call family every day just to make it through a day because I felt lonely. I didn't want to let myself like it here. I tried to keep myself from liking it by finding things wrong with it like the fact that the roads are too skinny, that driving everywhere is a pain, that things cost a little more here and that people are not nice, it's too humid, it's too hot, I have no family here, I don't have lots of friends here like in Utah and so on.

But then one day, I decided that I would just let those negative feelings go and open my mind to New York. I let it into my heart and well, it grew on me, and now I don't want to leave. I love the green all around. I love the people in the ward here, I love being so close to so many historic cities and in a historic part of the United States. It's cool to be here. I like being in a place where I can have more missionary experiences than in UT.

I have made some awesome friends here, and even though I haven't been able to do a lot of things with those friends during our short stay here, I feel like I could ask them for anything, and that they would help me out no matter what. I don't want to leave those friends behind. I'm having a hard time knowing that I'll most likely never see any of them again, and that makes me very sad, because I really love them all.

Now, I don't know if we'll be back to NY or not. It's one of our "options" but there's no telling until we see what else is out there for us. I would love to come back to NY even though I'd have a really hard time being away from all my family almost all of the time. But, we will go where we're supposed to go, and I'm not sure where that is yet.

So, thank you New York & people of New York, for giving my little family a great opportunity to meet some amazing people, see amazing parts of the country & historic places and for a fun summer of entirely new things.

I'll remember it forever & NY will always have a special place in my heart.

Moving?

Well, on Monday, I had this random thought to look at KSL's classifieds and just browse available apartments in the area. We knew we wanted to move, but also knew that this time of year almost nothing is available as it's not a very transitory time.

Lo, and behold, I found the perfect place! They had just posted the listing the day before, and I asked if we could come and see it.

We fell in love the instant we walked in, and I knew that it would be our next apartment instantly (of course we had to work out the contract and what not with the landlord still).

Our contract is up on the 31st of this month so we knew that we had to make a decision quickly. I turned in an application for the apartment yesterday and the landlord said she'd be happy to rent to us. Today, David and I paid our security deposit and signed the contract! We will get the keys on October 29th and start moving in!

I certainly didn't have it in my mind to be moving at the end of the month, but things just kind of worked out! I'm way excited and I'll post pictures after we move.

Here are some upgrades of our soon-to-be apartment:

• washer/dryer hookups (SO happy about this)
• BIG open living room/kitchen area
• covered parking
• dark carpet
• nice layout

Now, the trick is to get packing! Had I known I would be moving in two weeks, I would have started packing some things ages ago. Oh well! That's what I get for making such a spontaneous decision!