Traveling and Spokane

After 6 hours of driving we would either sleep in a hotel or at families house. Everyone was so kind and helpful especially when we were pulling into hotels at 11 PM at night with two sleeping children. We tried to make this as much of a vacation as we could so the girls didn't go crazy and they were so good. One hotel in Montana had a playground that we played at, we stopped at fun places to eat, and had endless supply of movies in the car.

 

Nothing like burgers at 10 in the morning. Yuck! but the girls were pretty happy with this decision

At long last we made it to Spokane. The plan was to get to Spokane, spend a few days with my parents before they left for MI, and then wait until our stuff got to Seattle. In total we ended up staying there about 4 days. It was tight with everyone there, but it was sunny, a place to wait for our stuff, and filled with cousins. So many great things.

We got there on my mom's birthday

Kelsey and Ainsley played non stop when Ainsley wasn't at school. I used to think Ainsley was so much older than Kelsey because she is a year older, but once kids stop being babies, time melts away a little bit. They played so well together. Plus Ainsley is hilarious so I'm hoping Kelsey picks up a few jokes to add to her bag.

  

And yes. My dad DOES have the pretties yard in the world. No offense world. Facts are facts

We took many trips to Subway and even went downtown. There was a few girls night in there with Tori, trips to Costco, conference, and football games. The Petersens know how to have a good time.

I didn't break my toe, but bruised the heck out of it on my dad's stupid ab machine.

I also went through some old boxes and got rid of some junk but not before we got some creepy pictures first. Sweet dreams...

Someone dug through the junk pile and made a new friend. I couldn't resist and took him home with us.

Sunday after conference we made the final push to Seattle where the Salmons were awaiting us. We stayed one more night in a hotel, slept on air mattress a few nights, and our stuff arrived on Wednesday.

I've been to Seattle maybe 4 times in my life so I just don't have a lot of memories of it. It is so amazing how completely different it is. You literally crest the mountain and it is a whole new place. once we got to the top I heard Kelsey say, "Is this Washington?! Do we get to live here? Its gorgeous!!" And it is gorgeous. There was green EVERYWHERE!! I mean EVERYWHERE!! Issaquah is literally in the woods. It was a fun drive to make for us first timers.

Yellowstone

I've always wanted to go to Yellowstone but never really looked at a map to see where it is. Its like crazy close to BYU-I (a place I also have yet to visit).
As we were driving out of town, Monday morning, Ethan was like "Wanna go to Yellowstone?" and I was like "Yes. Yes I do." So for the first time we went somewhere fun without any planning. Zero planning on this one and it worked really well. It was about a 2 hour detour which got long in the end, but Yellowstone was beautiful.
We got to Yellowstone around 3 pm and were there until sun down. We knew that we wouldn't be able to see everything so we basically just drove around to the main spots on the Idaho side of the park.

We were driving down the road thinking that it looked beautiful when Ethan hit the brakes HARD! On the side of the road was a big ol bison. We parked, got out of the car and tried to get close without getting too close. It was so exciting, but little did we know how common it was soon going to be.

On our way to one of the geysers, there was a herd of about 50 bison. After that, there were maybe 10 more herds of that size. Maybe they were all one herd and just really spread out, I don't know. Point is, they were EVERYWHERE!! The girls had so much fun especially since we could get pretty close to them. Some people were idiots and like petting them and Kelsey was mad that we wouldn't let her do that but I thought it was risky enough getting within 20 feet of a live, wild animals who could trample us to death in a matter of seconds.

After the bison tour, we stopped at the Rainbow Hot Springs. I don't know what it is really called, but its the one that you see on all of the billboards in Utah promoting Wyoming. Its beautiful. From eye levle its hard to really see all the colors, but the hot springs were just fun anyway.

Obviously we had to stop at Old Faithful and we planned it perfectly. We had to wait about 6 minutes and then it started going. My favorite thing about it, that I didn't know before, was that the ground rumbles as the water is shooting up and out. You can literally hear the water bubbling. Its a little spooky.

 By this point, the sun was going down and we had to get going on our drive home. We were going to drive out of the park north pass "The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone" and I was DYING to see it but the road was closed. Luckily I have seen the Grand Canyon of Grand Canyons so I should get over it, but this one has a waterfall!! There is so much to see in this world. I go crazy trying to plan it all!!

We ate at the Ol' Faithful lodge which was really fun and then we made the drive out. As the sun was setting the scenery got even more gorgeous because the temperature dropped creating very cool steam around the hot springs. 

About a mile into the drive, we came to a halt and were there for like 20 minutes. We were afraid it was just really bad traffic and then we saw a giant herd of bison coming towards us. The reason the traffic was so bad was because no one could drive :) It made for a fun exit as bison walked pass our car. Madison got a little freaked but the rest of us sort of loved it.

Another herd of bison we were trying to avoid

Moving Day

Moving Day was very different for us. We have never had movers or packers before and it was wonderful and weird all at the same time.
Wednesday night was the last "normal" day for us. Lots of people stopped by that night to say goodbye and I'm so glad. We visited with Roy and Phyllis and made sure everything was in order to get packed. There were things that we couldn't take so we had people stop by and pick things up. We also had to make sure everything was grouped together so that when we unpacked, we could find things  little easier.
Thursday, the packers came. They came and went in just under 2 hours. They actually laughed when they saw the amount of stuff we had. " This is it!"  The girls were at Joy's house and Ethan was wrapping up some work stuff. They packed 72 boxes. The packers weren't coming until the next day so as soon as we were ready, we drove up to Kay's to be with her for the evening. We took the girls to Churn and left them with Kay so that we could do the packing without them around. That night we stayed in the hotel across the street since our bed was in a box and saw the movie Magnificent 7 (not great but it was a fun date!)

In the morning we said a few more goodbyes and the movers were here bright and early. The truck sounded like a tank coming down the street. It was HUGE!!! It was so nice having packers and movers but it was so weird. I felt so lazy just sitting there while they worked their butt off. They were all super nice about it, but it was a weird feeling. What I loved though, was as they loaded things we were able to follow them around and clean. when they finished with the boxes, the house was cleaned and ready to hand off the keys. We were the first house on the truck so it was empty when it pulled up. It looked so funny seeing our boxes and all that truck space. It took them until about 3 and then it was time to lock the door and say goodbye. I love Avondale and still miss it a ton. It was hard to drive away.
We drove to Kay's house, grabbed the girls, said another hard goodbye, and headed to Utah. Kay was so sweet and put together care packages for both girls. There was a new gift for every leg of our trip. We sure are going to miss her.
Amazon paid for hotels and food along the way so we really took our time. Our goal was St. George. We drove until Vegas (with a failed stop at the Hoover Dam), ate at Olive Garden, put the girls in their jammies and drove the final 2 hours to St. George.

St. George was very uneventful but my favorite memory was when Kelsey stepped out in the morning, she gave her self a big hug and went. "AH! Its so burr here!!"
We looked VERY out of place the further north we drove. We had shorts and flip flops almost the whole way



















After a delicious meal at Cracker Barrel, we started out leg up to Bountiful. We had Blue skies most of the way, but once we hit Utah County we ran into cold rain and gray.

We hadn't seen the Provo City Temple yet, so while the girls were asleep we made  a quick stop. Due to conference the temple was closed so we couldn't get in the gates but it was still beautiful. We feel such a connection to that temple. Thats where we decided to get married, where we had Stake Conference, and so many other great memories. Its crazy to think its now a temple, but the Lord works in mysterious way. Oh and yes, we were FREEZING!! Utah decided to get super cold the weekend we were in town. Obviously we showed up in shorts and flip flops and had to quickly run to the store to get other stuff. Its not that we don't own other stuff, its just that the day we left it was still close to 100.

We had a great weekend in Salt Lake. I went to Stake Conference with my sisters, Ethan saw some friends, and we had a big Wing dinner on Sunday. We weren't there very long because we were anxious to keep going, but the time we did spend was quality.

September

Once we knew we were leaving in 4 weeks there was so much to do. Mostly lots of people to see and soak up as much sun as we possibly could. We had movers and packers coming so we had to do very little in the way of preparation but things definitely started to change. This post is not necessarily about change, just our happens between hearing the official word and our move date.

Kelsey played and swam a lot with her friends in our final weeks in Avondale. While she was gone, Madison started getting really good at playing quietly. One day I was able to capture this moment. She had gotten the game out by herself, set it up and was "playing." I tried to play with her but she wanted to do it all by her self. It was adorable.

that precious moment was then followed by this moment when I said it was time to read stories. Hands down my favorite picture of Madison.

One weekend I drove Kelsey up to Sun City to say goodbye to the girls. We were going to do this anyway, but a few nights before it was planned Kelsey just broke into tears about having to say goodbye to the girls. I have never seen her cry so sincerely over such a "grown up" heartache. It was heart breaking. "why do we have to go. I love them so much.I'm so happy here. Why do we have to go?" We both cried as I explained that we will make new friends and now have friends in two places, but she just needed to be sad. The day that we went to say goodbye, Kelsey packed up a tea party to share with them. She brought the food, the dress up, the table and chairs, and accessories. She wanted it to be just like when they lived next door.We spent from breakfast to lunch with the Randells. It was really hard to say goodbye to such amazing friends and neighbors.

The weather had only cooled a tad but we made one last trip to the zoo with our pass. It was cool enough in the mornings that we were able to make a fun trip out of it.

Obviously we spent every free second with Aunt Kay. We went to ice cream, visited the office, made a few Blue Aprons, built pillow forts, played with Reo, looked for pomegranates,  and pretty much talked about anything but moving. Saying bye to Kay was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. She meant everything to our Phoenix experience. She was a friend, aunt, mother, and grandma depending on the need. She just knew what shoes to wear depending on the circumstances. We are so lucky to have been close to her for such a short time. We will always cross paths because we love Aunt Kay but hopefully we can live close again some day.

One night while we were all making our Blue Apron meals, we realized we hadn't heard from Kelsey in a while. From the bathroom, we hear Kay shout, "I found her, and you will need her camera." I walked in and found Kelsey applying every last ounce of bronzer that Kay owns. Come to think of it, I probably should pay Kay back for all the bronzer Kelsey used. But boy did Kelsey have a fun time. She was loving the big mirrors and make up. Look out future. We have a girly girl. (and I am so glad)

One of my favorite pictures of all time

In the stress of moving, I got really agitated with the girls and quiet often. I am not pleased with how I treat my girls when I am stressed. They do not deserve that. One day, Madison was going crazy for whatever reason and instead of holding her, I just lost it which obviously made her cry and the embarrassing part was I didn't even respond to her tears. I just walked out. I don't think that I need to respond to every tear my toddler sheds, but this was one I could have had sympathy over.
Anyway, not 10 minutes later, I heard singing from the room. Kelsey had scooped up Madison best she could, got her milk from the fridge and was singing her songs in her, Kelsey's, bed to calm down Madison. Kelsey has such a tender and kind heart. I could really learn a lot from both of them.

In the last weeks we were in AZ I was really getting sad of all the wonderful things a warm climate bring you namely
Beautiful sunsets and rises

Some of the best tropical fruit selection (and displays) I have ever seen
      I'm still super bummed about missing pomegranate, grapefruit, artichoke season

 And warm weather

Not related to anything, but this is probably the most beautiful bouquet I have ever seen. I couldn't buy it because we were leaving so soon, but boy did I want to

Ethan got a cute send off at work complete with cookies and this awesome poster!!

And for the sake of time and my fingers, we wrapped up September with a weekend trip to Seattle to find housing. It was the most stressful 36 hours of my life. Diana was able to come up to be with Kay and the girls and was so willing. I am grateful for a wonderful mother in law who treats me as one of her own.
We looked and looked and looked but just couldn't find anything. The only fun part about the trip was that Amazon paid for everything so we were able to buy and eat anywhere we wanted. We left Saturday evening feeling very discouraged and hopeless. Little did we know that 3 days later we would get our "tied for first" house. We were very blessed in our housing en devour. Blessed to ask the right question, look on line at the right time, contact the right people and so on. I know that the blessings don't always look the way we think they should, but they are there.


When in Seattle (don't worry everyone! Its a chocochip milkshake and hot coco)

We found this CRAZY place called XXX, but it was super fun

This is me losing all hope with wet feet, cold hands, and pouring rain, while Ethan is checking scores to games. He literally can find sunshine in a rain storm. Literally

Here's our cuties not missing us even kind of