Fun, fun, fun

I am sad... I did a blunder. We had a fabulous Mother's Day with both of my mom's here for dinner, AND my brother and his family, AND Kwint's family... and I forgot to take any pictures at all. I will just have to remember the fun without any visual aids.

We had a good second week. We tried to go to the zoo yesterday, but apparently EVERYONE else in Salt Lake City got there before we did, and there was not one place to park anywhere within a mile of the zoo, so we went to "This is the Place" monument five minutes before they closed.... So, we went to Gateway and played on the splash pad. We had the Jacobs with us, so it was fun anyway!!

We also went to Kris' birthday party and enjoyed some good food, family and friends. While we were in Heber we checked the progress on our house. We have trim, doors, and primer... it is starting to look like a home and we are excited!

I impinged my rotator cuff on Friday morning. I don't recommend it to anyone. I wish it was a cool story, but just like when I threw my back out, I was doing something completely ordinary. Sleeping. I woke up with my arm over my head and when I put it down, I could no longer move it. I have been gimpy lady all weekend and now that the inflammation is dying down I can move it 45 degrees. It will seriously cramp my style lifting weights for a couple months, but I have gained a new gratitude for my shoulders.

So, that is that, pics will edit in later....

This is the House....

This is our house (soon). We love it. We went to check out the progress on Friday. It is drywall and cement but they said this week will be a big one, so next week we should have a few finishing touches.
There will also be shutters on this middle window.

Check out the size of the yard! Compared to SG I feel like we have a whole park at our house!!


Nice big front porch... can't wait to get a swing...

and little back patio...

It is the perfect size and layout on the inside. Next week I will post inside shots. I am so nervous about my not-so-green thumb and this big plot of land.... and the cost of the fence to keep my kids contained... sigh.

So, we have had a fantastic week!

Kaeleb had an amazing first day of school, and in fact an incredible first week. I am so proud of him. If any of you remember how the first month of Kindergarten went, you will be proud of him too. He has afternoon kindergarten in Mrs. Moore's class. Kaeleb is going to the school where his Grandma teaches first grade and Mrs. Moore is one of her best friends. I took him early, during the teachers lunch break to meet her and see the classroom. He was SO nervous, but she is very kind and positive and he calmed right down.

When it was time for school, Kaeleb begged me not to take him. He wanted to know exactly why moms can't just teach kids everything at home. I said I could, but I wouldn't be very good at it and there wouldn't be any friends. SO, I was all geared up for a fight and a good cry, but once he saw his classroom he zoomed in without looking back or saying goodbye. PHEW! Was I ever amazed!

The kids in his class have welcomed him with open arms. He made friends the first day and they are so cute together. He gets to be the spotlight kid on Monday so I made a picture collage and get to go to his class and tell the kids all about him.

Kwint has had an equally impressive first week at Gale & Associates in Park City. (He's one of the associates.) He had a nearly full schedule (Already?! WOW!) and was so happy. The drive only takes him 45 minutes, so it is better than we were planning on and once our house is done, 20 minutes from Heber will feel like nothing.
I have never seen him so excited about his work and there are some really awesome irons in the fire. You might just hear about him on TV if you watch the Biggest Loser finale two weeks from Tuesday. :)

Brenny and I are having a harder time than those two guys. I am really surprised at how emotional I feel-- I wanted this after all, but I miss SG so much!! Even though I saw on the news that it was 90 degrees there and I am walking around in a jacket here. I miss my friends and Tam like crazy. I love it here and have had a great time being back with my friends here. I went to hang with Dee and her boys one morning. It was nice for all of us to have some familiar faces and friendships that have stayed so strong. We also went to see our good friends, the Chavez family, who had a very handsome baby boy two weeks ago, and it felt soooo good to be there! We are truly thankful to be back. So, I am sad and I am happy and it makes me feel all jumbled up inside.

Brennan has been saying "I liked St. George Mom." and "I don't want to sleep in this bed, I like MY bed." and "I'm NOT going to Heber." I took him to the library on Tuesday for Story Time. We went every week in St. George and he loves it. He was all excited for it, but when we pulled up to the Davis County Library he looked at it and said "This is not my library." and utterly refused to get out of the car. He curled up on the floor of the car and yelled "I want MY library!" His disdain is waning every day though, and I expect that he will be fine very soon.
I bought them both swords and guns since they had to leave their toys packed, we have been to the park with GnG, and we brought their scooters & have been out scootering the neighborhood, all of which helps him to realize he will be happy wherever we go. We all will. :)

Goodbye is never easy

Yesterday we drove out of this driveway for the last time...
I went for a walk early in the morning, listening to the birds, feeling the sunshine on my back and reflecting on our 7 years in St. George.

I am so grateful that the Lord brought us to Dixie. I realize now that His hand was in every step we have taken and I am amazed at our growth and our blessings. We have faced many challenges and learned lessons we could not have learned anywhere else from any other group of people than those we associated with in St. George.

Miracles of miracles that He knows us all, individually, well enough to give us what we need even if we don't know it is what we need.

As I walked, I thought to myself, "It feels so right to leave now. Why?" After suffering through 5 hot summers, last year I finally stopped complaining and decided to follow Elder Wirthlin's advice to "Come what may and love it." We struggled through the first stages of owning our own business and now it is thriving! We have the perfect home that is all we could ever need. We have family close and incredible friends. One of the owners at The Biggest Loser Resort asked Kwinten, "With all we have going on with NBC, WHY are you walking away now?"

We don't know. It sounds crazy and no one understands, least of all us, but we KNOW it is right. I am sad, very sad to say goodbye to what we have "grown" there-- deep roots-- but it feels so undeniably right, right enough that I am willing to leave not knowing why.

We didn't know why the Lord prepared the way for us to move to St. George in the first place, but now we do. So, we take the first step to Heber now, not knowing why, but knowing that we will.

A Better Offer

Well bless my soul... we actually got a better offer on the bigger home. We are totally excited! I don't have a picture of this one, but I will get one eventually. It is new (still not finished, in fact.) It has 4 bedrooms upstairs, a big kitchen and an unfinished basement. All for only 4,000 more than the little one. Sweet Dreams do come true! If you are really curious, you can go to richmondamerican.com and click on the "Aaron" to view our floor plan and see a picture. Ours is elevation B. We love it!

Kwint starts work in Park City on Monday, so we are setting sail on Friday afternoon. We are actually looking forward to spending some time at GnG's and we will get to help pick out carpet, paint and fixtures. It will be fun!

My first item of business though, will be going to the zoo. I have wanted to take the boys for sooooo long!

It has been a hard week saying goodbye to our family, friends and neighbors but we are really looking forward to a new adventure. 2 days and counting....

Joy in the Crazy Times

So.... Still don't know on the house. We got a REALLY sweet counter offer, which we are about to wholeheartedly accept... IF this one more house doesn't pan out. Kwint's parents went to Heber today and took pictures for us. It is bigger and costs more, so it would have to be just the right price to get us to walk away from the super cute smaller one. We will know for sure tomorrow night. We are sooooo excited! Either way we will be really happy.

The plan for now.... If we get the house pictured in the last blog it will close on May 31. If we get the other one, which is not yet complete, it will close on June 30. That means we get to camp out at GnG's BnB. (Grandpa and Grandma's Bed and Breakfast) We love it there! We are really excited. Kaeleb will finish kindergarten at the school Grandma teaches at and she has a favorite teacher all picked out for him.

We are going to leave all our stuff packed in our garage here. (We love our buyer. One of the benefits of selling a home to a friend... Actually, Shelley is more than a friend, she is also Kwint's office manager and our unofficial adopted big sister. She has a 17 yr old daughter, Sam, who is a big sis to our boys. This will be their vacation home and Shelley's niece will be renting it from her whenever they do not need it.) Once our house closes we will drive back down, visit friends and family, then load up our stuff and go home. Ah....

I am actually very glad to have a break in between packing and unpacking. I can do all the address changes and utility hook ups in a relaxed state of being, rather than while packing. I may also refinish a little furniture.

Whenever I get too busy I manage my stress by being creative, which makes me more busy. While I have been packing, I also bought couches, made pillows, hung new curtains in a couple rooms, and painted a desk and a bookcase. Oh yeah, and we put in the backyard. What is wrong with me? I get so manic. Even when I am not moving, if I feel stressed on a busy day I always make bread or cookies. It is an anomaly.

In the midst of the chaos, my short term memory is going, going, gone.... So, I thought that I had better take a moment to reflect on the little guys I have neglected to mention. I have to tell a couple cute stories before I forget them and then it is off to pack and clean and pack and clean and pack....

Brennan told a little girl at the park that his brother is five and he is "half of five". Brilliant! He really is! I think he actually meant 5 and 1/2, because he hears Kaeleb say it and it is how old he wishes he was... but he is still brilliant anyway.

I made a stroganoff of sorts for dinner on Thursday and he growled when he saw it. He yelled "Not THIS! I have eated this for two days! I don't not want it again!" (I have not made it in months.)

This one is my favorite: When the Jacobs were here, I heard Bren and Tate talking together, just chattering away. I thought, "I wonder what two two-year-olds are talking about?" So, I perked up my ears in time to hear Brennan say, "Tate! Heavenly Father built your head." Yes! He does listen in Nursery!

Kaeleb is doing so well in school. He is reading like a champ! He got to skip a reading level, which apparently is very important to the kids because I heard all about the conversation he had with Avril, the smartest girl in his class in which she bragged that she was a level ahead of him... but not anymore! I love watching him learn.

He went on his first field trip a few weeks ago and has another one on Tuesday. I thought he would be so excited to ride on a school bus for the first time but when I asked about it exuberantly, he said "It's just a bus, Mom. It was just a field trip." Sheesh, what do I know anyway? I'm just a mom.

The boys have decided they will all learn to play the guitar. Kwint dusted off his old guitar and bought new strings. He plans to teach himself online (having learned a bit in HS and not played in 15 years...) and then teach the kids. I guess this means I better start re-teaching myself to play the piano.

This post is very long, for one reason alone... I am supposed to be mowing the lawn while Kwint finishes raking the last of the gravel in place.... guess I better get mowing...

We had a successful house hunting trip.... This is the house we are hoping to get.... We should know in a couple of days. We love it. I love it because it reminds me of Weiser architecture. Ha ha!!

We also found a buyer for our home here and set up a lease purchase which is going to be a really great deal for both us and our good buyer, so it has truly been a miraculous week. We have prayed for this miracle for 8 months and knew it would happen, it just didn't happen when we thought it would!

We got new couches this week to put in our new house. If I may toot my own horn, I made the pillows and am pretty proud. I love this picture-- Kwint and his mini-me. :)

Springtime Happenings

Lovely Spring... we have been blessed with mild weather two years in a row in our beloved scorching desert. I love Spring!! We spent Easter weekend in Layton and Heber. Our main purpose in going up was to find a home, which we did not accomplish, but we are going back up next weekend and won't come back until we have found our new home.

We have a very creative solution to the house situation in St. George, thanks to Kwint's brilliant and kind parents, which I will blog about once it is official, but blessings from Heaven have distilled upon us and there is a solution formulating. We are very thankful.

The boys were pretty lucky... the Easter Bunny managed to find them at Grandma's house!! They were quite excited by these new short swords, and amazed when Mom let them eat candy for breakfast. (and lunch.) (and cake for dinner.) Ugh.

We went to an Easter egg hunt at the Parker's (Aunt Barbi's Mom's house hosts the annual event)


I am an now an official Soccer Mom. Kaeleb loves playing and especially loves his cleats. He wants to wear them any time he thinks he may be running in grass, you know, just to make sure he doesn't slip. It is really cute to watch kids his age play. They mostly just run across the field and back in a big pack and every once in awhile someone gets a lucky kick in and they all turn around and run the other way. Those are pretty much the rules, right?


I love the tongue in this one. It was actually very cold (Ok, cold for St. George is 50.) so the kids were all wearing coats instead of their blue and yellow jerseys. The week before this it was 80, so you just never know what to expect down here. Kaeleb's team is called the Monkeys, and he is hoping he will get a trophy like the one he got in Basketball.

Business endeavors are looking better every day and we are so excited to be heading up and see where it all leads. We are truly sad to be leaving The Biggest Loser Resort, but have been connected with another fitness resort in Sandy, called Utah's Live in Fitness Camp, where Kwint is set to start lecturing and taking clients as soon as we are up there. It is a 45 min drive, so it may only be one or two days a week that he spends there. He will stay busy the other days with referrals from Max and doing phone therapy with the clients he keeps from St. George. He is so happy. I love watching him grow and creating a niche for himself.

I am excited too, because I am meeting this week with a personal trainer and am ready to learn how to do this. I have put my studies on hold until after the move but it will be so good to get some hands on learning in the meantime. Once I get my certification I am going to move on to another certification called "Lifestyle and Weight Management" which will enable me to write meal plans as well as fitness plans. It may be another full year before I actually start working, when Brennan goes to preschool, but at the rate I am going, it will take a year to finish my certs.

We had a wonderful weekend with the Jacob's Family who graciously came to visit us even though we will be up there in just a few short weeks! I neglected to get any good pictures, even though we had a sooooo much fun. It was a bit noisy and chaotic, as you might imagine with 5 boys, but they were in Heaven. Both boys were completely depressed when they left. Kaeleb wanted to know exactly how many days it would be until we see them again and Brenny whined for an hour "I just wanna go wif my friends! I just want my friends to tome to my house!" We are glad they love Tracen, Tyler, and Tate as much as we love Dan and Dee. It will be such a blessing to be close to our good friends up North again. We have pretty strong roots grown in both places now, and we are feeling very grateful that the Lord has blessed us so.