Things I miss about Utah...

Other than the obvious family and friends and coworkers that we miss, here are a couple of random things I miss:

-Flaming Hot Cheetos with Lime (I can't find them anywhere out here)
-Stephen's Gourmet Hot Chocolate (Irish Creme, Hazelnut, Raspberry, Mint Chocolate, the list goes on).  I have looked at a few stores and apparently it should be sold around here, so I will keep hunting for it
-Our house
-the Utah Clean Air Act which forbids smoking within 25 feet from buildings
-KSL classifieds.  They just don't have a good equivalent here and Craigslist is not nearly as nice
-Cheaper rent

I will probably remember more later, but these are a few things that I could think of.

What's up...

Life is crazy busy. Joseph is in 1st grade so every morning we rush around to get ready and then we run out the door to catch the bus. Samuel enjoys the chance to be outside and Joseph loves school so it is a win/win situation. I just wanted to document some things before I forget them.

Joseph wants to do chores so he can save money for legos. We talked to him about earning a nickel for every time he made his bed, if he cleans his room he gets a quarter, setting the table is a nickel, and so forth. He wants a chore that will earn him a dollar, but we haven't thought of any yet. The other day he was talking about what he needed to get paid and the following conversation ensued:

Mommy:"Wait, I don't get paid for cleaning or washing the dishes. That is not fair."
Joseph: "Mommy you do get paid."
Mommy: "I get paid huh?"
Joseph: "Yes, you get paid in love."

I smiled when he said it. He is a funny boy. Last week he was upset because he missed Utah and his friends. He wanted to see his kindergarten teacher again too. It was a rough Friday for all of us. Samuel likes to talk as well. When we say something that he doesn't like he will tell us that he doesn't love us anymore. We tell him that we love him no matter what. When he is happy with what we say he says that he loves us again. The most common thing he says in his prayers is "bless me that I won't have any dreams." I think he has bad dreams sometimes because he will wake up shaking and crying, so we would pray that he will have good dreams, but he prefers not dreams at all. When he wakes up in the morning he will tell us with a big smile that he had no dreams. Here are a few pictures of our Thanksgiving at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

I didn't realize Joseph had taken this picture. I thought it was super cute. Those are my boys. Sometimes they are the best of friends and sometimes they fight like nothing else. Mostly they are friends.

We made a gingerbread house from scratch while we were there. Grandma made the gingerbread and Joseph and Samuel chose the house they wanted. We went and bought candy, but I forgot my camera, so when Joseph's camera died, we could not take any pictures of the finished product.

Samuel rolling his dough. He enjoyed being so hands on.

Joseph rolling his dough. He and Samuel both kept taking small pieces just to taste.

While we were there, we were able to go to a train show. The boys loved it and got to see Santa. I have come to the realization that I should never buy gifts before Thanksgiving for the boys because they change their minds constantly about what they like best. What we have already is yesterdays news. Oh well, here's hoping they won't be too disappointed with Christmas. :)

Toilet Fairy

The toilet fairy came last night and took Samuel's froggy potty for good. He left $1 which Samuel wanted to put in his piggy bank (aka Gringott's bank). I was tired of cleaning it, especially because he would dump it in the big toilet and stuff lots of toilet paper in the big toilet to boot. Well, tonight he was using the bathroom and I came in to check on him. Next to him, there was a huge wad of toilet paper that had unraveled. When I saw it, he said that Joseph had done it. I called Joe in to look because Samuel had a straight face as he told us what happened. We then called Joseph in to see if he had been the one to unravel the toilet paper. He said he hadn't. We asked Samuel who did it, and he looked at me and said, "Did you do it Mommy?" I said no. So Samuel asked Joe, "Did you do it Daddy?" Joe said no and we had already established that Joseph hadn't done it. We asked Samuel again to tell the truth and tell us who did it. He said he didn't know. Joe explained that Heavenly Father and Santa knows who did and that person wouldn't get Santa presents. I then said that if he had done it, he should say "sorry" and we wouldn't get mad at him, as long as he didn't do it again. He promptly said "Sorry" and rolled it back up. Now we will see if he does it again and tries to blame someone.

To date

Joseph started 1st grade this year. This is a picture of him on his first day of school. We walked about 10 minutes to his bus stop. The realization hit that he was not going to be with his Utah friends anymore, so he was sad when he got back. Of course, his best friends moved too. One moved to Vegas with his family and the other moved to Lehi. We have their addresses so Joseph can write them. On Friday, Joseph said that 1st grade "was an interview of kindergarten and preschool." He meant review, but so far, that is all it is. He did see 4 butterflies hatch from caterpillars in his classroom. We also signed him up for soccer and one of the boys from his team is in his class. He is starting to make friends, but he misses his BFF's from Mrs. Ferrin's class.

One day after church, Joseph came downstairs with socks on his hands and feet and socks for weapons. He was a sock monster and was throwing the socks at everyone. We laughed when we saw him. He is wearing his Phineas and Ferb socks which he stated that, "Dr. Doofenshmirtz must have built a sockinator."

Samuel has a new habit of collecting plants. It started in Utah. He wanted to carry the tomatoes or squash from the garden in the house. He also collected sticks and branches and had his "garden" in the sandbox. One day he said to me, "Heavenly Father makes me pick plants." He LOVES plants and everywhere we go, he collects them. He and I went for a walk this week. He had his cuties, a puppy and an alligator toy, and started to collect any branches he could on our walk. I convinced him to only bring home one in the end.

On a walk on a different day, he saw these flowers and wanted a picture with them. His backpack has his cuties inside so his hands could be free during our walk. My mistake. Once his hands were free, he started to gather.

No, we did not send our son to gather fire wood. This is his collection that he walked home with and which is now sitting on our porch. I tried to get him fake flowers because they don't die and leave messes in every room, but he likes the real thing. Of course, he enjoys the fake ones too. He has a vase and lots of fake flowers that he plays with. We hope he grows out of it, but our son may end up being a botanist (that isn't a bad thing). He is our little boy that eats raw onions, loves broccoli and pea popsicles (frozen veggies), and salsa. Samuel is also reallly big into volcanoes, tornadoes, and hurricanes. He likes to look through the books from the library for pictures. When in doubt with a way to distract him, show him a volcano video. We also have noticed that he is definately a lefty. He throws and writes with his left hand. At times, he does things with his right, but by and far, we have a left-handed child living in a right-handed family. He is lefty like his grandparents Rankin (I am actually not sure about Grandpa Rankin), Grandpa Nunez, his uncle Jeff, and Aunt Alison and Chrissy.

This is Joseph, daddy and Grandpa at a train show. Joseph was excited to walk around and see all the cool stuff. AS a bonus, Grandpa got him a Pokemon toy that he saw. Joseph is big into Pokemon. He has changed his career choice from video game designer to vet. He also told us we can never go on a cruise because big cruise ships leak oil into the water and kill sea turtles. That is another new love. He wants a pet turtle. _______________________________________________________________________________________ We had the elders over for dinner tonight. They asked if we read scriptures as a family. To be honest, we are not good about it, but no need to fear. Joseph was perfectly clear about our familial scripture habits. He told the elders, "we aren't the type of family that reads scriptures." Embarrassing, yes. Funny, yes. We do have FHE most weeks, but yeah, we know what we need to work on. Now we will be the example that the elders use in the future when they talk about the importance of family scripture study and how kids notice what happens in their home. "one time we met with a family on my mission..." The elders are nice. We have had them over a few different times. Tonight I made impromptu enchiladas. I had planned on making a roast for dinner, but the marinade I used was strong on the cumin. I luckily had stuff to make a Mexican dinner. It turned out better than expected. The boys and I also baked my Grandma Nunez's butter cookies yesterday. When I bit into one, it took me way back to the days of eating them at her dining room table. She always had them when we would come and visit. We also made crazy crayons out of broken crayons. _______________________________________________________________________________________ All in all, PA is a beautiful place to live. It is humid, but the scenery takes my breath away. I see it and it fills my heart with joy and gratitude. There is a cripness in the air as fall is approaching. I love it.

Quick Samuel quotes

As daddy was playing with him. Samuel jumped on top of daddy and stopped for a second: Samuel: "You look like grandpa here (points to daddy's face)." I was in the bathroom and Samuel was on his little toilet. He is aware that he has a penis and that he is a boy, but girls baffle him because I told him girls don't have a penis. Samuel: "Are you peeing out your butt?" Mommy: "No." Samuel: "But you don't have a penis. I pee through my penis." He is a funny little boy. I need to record him saying hot dogs (hot gogs). He cracks me up because he tells all these made up stories of "when I was a little boy." Amazingly he has a lot of little boy stories for being 3.

Wherein we relocate to PA

It is official. We are living in PA. It is a small town near Clarion University where Joe will be attending the M.S.L.S. program. We are renting a place that is bigger than our last home. Yesterday we got Joseph registered for 1st grade. Crazy. The drive across country was fun. We started the trip on a rainy day and got super wet and we moved into our place on a rainy day. It was a blessing in disguise because it was cooler than it probably would have been otherwise. We left UT on July 5th and drove to Yellowstone and camped for the night. It was cool and nice the next day as we did some short walks with the boys. We camped a second night in Yellowstone and were up early to drive to our next destination. We made it to Devil's Tower in Wyoming towards the evening and decided that we would visit and drive on. We got to South Dakota that night and slept in a motel. The next day we went to Mt. Rushmore and drove to Wall Drug. It is a total tourist trap but has some fun stuff for the kids. They sluiced and found fossils and we went and explored a "mine" to find rocks and gemstones. The boys both loved the pyrite. They did not love the roaring dinosaur (random) that was next to the toy store. There are lots of old west themed things all over the place. From there we drove to the Badlands. Joseph said it should be renamed "Rainbow lands" because the rocks had lots of colors. It was also nice and cool, but we just drove through and took pictures. We stayed the night in Minnesota and drove the next day. That is all we did the next couple of days. We slept for a few hours in an Ohio rest stop and drove to Jersey. We arrived a Tuesday afternoon. It was good to get some rest for a few days. Last Monday we drove into PA and met with the relief society president who showed us places to live. We chose a place and moved our stuff in. The ward was super helpful. Some of our wedding gifts were shattered in the move. We had plastic bins and they must have gotten super hot in the moving freight, so some collapsed on other ones and that is that. All in all, it is nice to be here. It is a lot more humid, but I love, love, love, love the scenery here. I will post pics when I have more time. I have distracted myself enough for the moment and should get back to unpacking. At least we have a library card here. It is a nice library but not nearly as large as Provo City Library. Lots of little things are different here, but that is what change is about. :)

In other news....

We are moving! After years of wanting to move to the East, we are moving to PA. Joe is going to grad school there and we are closing on our house either this week or next week. Once we close we drive out there. I know...shocker. We have sold all of our big furniture other than a few pieces that we felt would be good to have. We are mostly packed. Mostly. On Wednesday the big moving freight arrives and we will pack it up. So much to do so little time. It is crazy over here. In other news news,Samuel has broken the potty training barrier. He no longer needs diapers or help going to the potty. He goes on his own. Of course he likes gumballs for going potty and he no longer naps, but not having to buy diapers is awesome. We promised the boys that we would take them to Goblin Valley, so the weekend before this past weekend we went. It was a fun and very spontaneous trip. We visited Goblin Valley State Park, camped in Hanksville (and gotten eaten alive by mosquitoes), visited Natural Bridges National Monument, visited Monument Valley, visited Four Corners (and had two tired sleepy boys that were cranky about being there and ate some Fry bread), went to Mesa Verde and camped there, hiked to Spruce Tree House at Mesa Verde and drove some of the loops, drove to Arches and did a couple of hikes there and then drove home. Pictures and more details will come later...