Month in Review

Well, it has been quite a month and there is too much to try to write in detail about it all so I figured a nice month in review overview would in order. We left Madison on July 20th-I guess I did update a little while we were in Denver but I didn't have pictures to post then. Now I do. We really had a lot of fun in Denver-swimming was the thing we did the most of. Although we seem to have lost Nathan and Jack whenever we were in the pool and ended up with these two strange masked men:

Nathan actually believed the goggles gave him super floating powers and refused to believe that his new found ability to "swim" actually came from him, but was determined that the goggles were making him float. (He really was "swimming"-putting his head in the water and doing a doggie paddle sort of swim which is huge for this kid who a year ago didn't want any part of his head going anywhere near water.)

And of course Jack wanted to swim in the pink boat. I asked him yesterday if he wants me to get him a pink polo shirt to wear to church and he got so excited!

Dallen loved playing with his cousin James who is just 9 months older than him. OK, well he was oblivious to James, but Jack loved playing with James, much to James' chagrin. Dallen did enjoy his Grandparents though. Nathan and Jack had a fun water fight with Grandpa-the wettest one wins!

After Denver we drove to Utah (that took 11 hours when it should have taken 8!) and spent a few days there. We stayed with Josh's grandparents there and had a lot of fun. We hiked the Y (bad idea-it was hot and really hard), went to the Brick Oven, toured the almost finished Draper temple (my brother is the project engineer on it), went to a fun park, ate at Smart Cookie, saw family, and tried Cafe Rio for the first time (and loved it!). It was a really fun trip. I think the highlight for the boys were the diggers that were working on the road right behind grandma and grandpa's house the whole time we were there.

Next it was on to Vegas for one night. We met up with my cousin and her family at a splash park and had pizza and played. That was really fun! It was fun to see them and the boys had fun playing! I couldn't take pictures of any of this because I left my camera in Denver-whoops!

Then we got to San Diego and moved in beginning August 8th. We fell in love with San Diego almost immediately. The area we are living in is absolutely beautiful. The whole city is so pretty and nice. The weather is blue sky everyday-although it has been a little humid and warm.

We spent the week dividing our time between getting moved in and settled and having fun as a family. We unloaded Friday and unpacked (like a mad woman I might add) on Saturday. We were probably 80% done with boxes being unpacked after Sat. Then we spent about 7 hours cumulative between me and Josh in the DMV this week getting cars registered, driver's licenses and registering to vote. We have also seen to everything we needed to before Josh starts work-insurance, groceries, registering Nathan for school, that sort of thing.

When we weren't busy with all of that we went to the beach (oh it was wonderful but again, I didn't have my camera!), checking out Point Loma and seeing the big military ships and planes come in and out, and visiting the Wild Animal Park (we got season passes to it and the zoo). We also went to a park nearby and went out for fat free frozen yogurt that was free because we had free coupons!!

So it has been a fun week. Josh starts work tomorrow, Nathan starts school Tuesday (full day kindergarten-the school district just switched to full day!), and me and Jack will start a little home preschool doing a letter of the week. I hope it will go well. Our ward has been great so far-very welcoming and friendly with tons of activities going on. We had a ward party last night which was really nice. But believe me we are missing our friends in Madison quite a bit. I kept thinking about all my friends at bookclub this past week and wishing I was there!

Here are some pictures of our house. There are some things that are great about it and some really not so great! It is old and dingy in some places which was disappointing. BUT, it is huge compared to what we were in-we actually have empty space leftover even with all the unpacking done (although I have declared that no one is ever to buy my children a new toy ever again because they have way too many) and very light with natural sunlight coming in and the backyard is great with a wonderful view and a nice dirt box for the boys to play in. Oh and Dallen started babbling this week which we all just love and he learned his first trick-if you as him to go crazy he will shake his head back and forth.

We have been enjoying the Olympics but that makes for some late nights staying up to watch it. Oh, and we have lost Nathan again but we have found this creature called Super Snood: