Moving to New Mexico

Before Andy's mom left Florida in the end of April, she took a photo of our family in front of our house, since Andy was also headed back to New Mexico and wouldn't be coming back. The kids and I had one more month left to pack, sell a bunch of stuff, and then leave!

The night before we left Kylee's friends from a couple of houses down brought her a little 'going away' bracelet and note. We're sure going to miss these girls! They were the best neighbors!

On the day the moving truck was arriving (May 29th), Kylee and Skyler still had school (school didn't actually end until the 31st), so we walked with them down to the bus stop for the last time. It was 5th grade swimming day/party day, so Kylee was super excited that we stayed for that.

The moving truck arrived and Ally, Colby and I got to watch them load up all our stuff and drive it away!

That night we all have a sleepover party in my room so that we wouldn't mess up any other rooms in the house.

At 7am on the morning of the 30th we loaded up the last of our stuff into the car and took off! I'm not at all good at selfies, so ignore the fact that I'm not even looking at the camera. Our new home was about 1700 miles away, and I planned to drive it in two days if possible because I didn't want to have to unload all the kids and their stuff into a hotel twice. That sounded like a nightmare to me.

Getting out of Florida was actually the worst part of the drive. For the first 400 miles or so we kept passing through monsoon rainstorms - the kind where you can't see the lines on the freeway or the cars in front of you, and you have to drive really slow. It was a little scary. But we stopped for lunch at Costa Vida in Gainesville (about 4.5 hours north of Naples), and that was so yummy. (Sad note: I got a text about a week later saying the Gainesville Costa Vida was closing on June 24. It lasted barely over a year. I'm not sure why the South fails to appreciate Cafe Rio and Costa Vida!)

After we left Florida we entered Alabama. We considered stopping in Mobile (it's where Andy stopped when he drove out to New Mexico a month ago), but the kids were actually doing okay, we were making good time, and I wasn't too tired yet, so we decided to push on. We ended up making it to Jackson, Mississippi, which was about 860 miles. I didn't get a picture of the Mississippi sign (I think Andy has one on his phone from when he drove through). We rolled in at around 8pm (we gained an hour from the time zone change). Amazingly, we only stopped twice the whole way. We had lunch and got gas in Gainesville, Florida, then got gas and used the restroom in Pensacola, Florida, and then made it to Jackson. It was a 14 hour day of pretty much non-stop driving, but the kids (even Colby) did great.

About 30 feet away from our hotel room door was Arby's, so I took the kids over there for some dinner before we went to bed. Colby LOVED the curly fries.

At the hotel I brought Colby's pack n' play in for him to sleep on, and then Skyler shared my bed and Kylee and Ally shared the other bed. I confess - they just wore the same clothes for two days. I didn't want to have to unbury their bag from the car and re-pack everything, so they slept in their clothes and wore them again. It was the easiest way for me to handle the trip.

The next morning we ate breakfast at the hotel and then headed out at around 7am again. We crossed over into Louisiana while we were crossing a big bridge, which the kids thought was super cool.

Then here's the "official" Louisiana sign that was after the bridge.

I missed the Texas sign, and I'm not sure there even WAS a New Mexico sign because we crossed into New Mexico in the middle of nowhere on a tiny little highway road, but we made it to Carlsbad at around 7:30 that night (gained another hour in the time change), after stopping once for gas/potty in middle-of-nowhere Texas (I really have no idea where we even were), and once for lunch/potty again in middle-of-nowhere Texas, and then once in Abilene, Texas to gas and a cashier's check for our closing costs from a credit union that is a partner with Mountain America. It was another 13.5 hour day of mostly non-stop driving, and Colby finally lost it when we were about 35 minutes out and just screamed the rest of the way, but it really wasn't as bad as a feared it could be driving all the way across the country by myself with four kids.

When we arrived we went to the rental house where Andy was living with his roommate, Max. Max's family was still in Wyoming while waiting to move to Carlsbad as well, so he was kind enough to let us come stay in his rental house while we waited to close on ours. We were originally supposed to close on Friday, June 1, but it got delayed to Tuesday the 5th because of someone in the title office "moving to a new office and having struggles with web-based software". Whatever that means - I was super bugged! BUT...we did close on the 5th and got our keys that afternoon. Yay!

Skyler Turns 6!

On the Saturday before Skyler's birtday, he decided he wanted to go to the kid museum. It was perfect timing, but our pass was expiring the following week anyway, and I wasn't going to renew it before we moved. Ironically, the theme in the art room for the week was "Desert Life". Since we were getting ready to move to the desert, I thought it was quite appropriate! Kylee, Skyler, and Colby made deserts out of play dough. I hope Skyler didn't think there would actually BE this many animals in New Mexico...

Here's Colby's finished product:

Earlier in the week I got a text from the mom of one of Skyler's pre-K friends. She told me that her son was having his birthday party at Bounce (the trampoline jumping place), and when she said he could invite some friends he picked his friends Jorge and Skyler (both from the pre-K class), even though he hadn't seen any of them for a full year. She apologized for the short notice and asked if we could make it. I got a babysitter for Kylee and Ally and took Skyler (since it could double as his birthday, too!) and also Colby since he is a TERROR for babysitters because he does nothing but cry.

Colby occupied himself with the foam blocks...

...while Skyler and his pre-K friends had a blast running all over with each other. It was like they'd just seen each other yesterday. The three amigos, at it again!

For his actual birthday, Skyler wanted "a jellyfish cake". I'm not sure where he comes up with these random ideas. I had already packed away 99% of our belongings, so I was actually hoping he would be content with cupcakes or something from the store! I made him this sign to look like jellyfish legs (which he actually understood - the first thing he said was "Whoa! How did you make my sign look like a jellyfish?").

His cake left a LOT to the imagination (I can't figure out how to rotate the photo), but he loved it. The frosting was weird, and the colors even weirder. Luckily Skyler is a kid who thinks I can do anything, and is overly impressed even when it's nothing to be impressed with. What a sweetheart!

For his birthday he got some National Geographic books from grandma (which he has read at least 30 times each in the last month, and has imparted his new knowledge to anyone who will listen); a Solar System kit from us, which we packed away to build once we arrive in New Mexico; and a couple of little wooden kits that you build and paint.

For dinner we went to Red Robin because Skyler had a free birthday meal and I had a gift card still. Taking four kids to Red Robin by myself was a little iffy, but it turned out okay. The waitress was even kind enough to bring each of the kids their own tiny cup of ice cream when she brought Skyler's free birthday sundae, so they didn't feel left out.

Since Andy was in New Mexico we did out candle-blowing via Google Hangouts. Notice that Skyler could not even put down his new books long enough to blow out candles. That kid LOVES to read, mostly educational books about planets, animals, volcanoes, the weather...whatever.

We're so glad this crazy kid is in our family! He's got the sweetest little heart ever. He struggles with things out of his routine, and melts down if he gets too tired or frustrated, but he's also the kid that will snuggle and tell me "I love you a million zillion times infinity, mom!" for no reason at all, and I love it!

Women's Temple Trip

Towards the end of May our ward did a women's temple trip on a Friday evening. I hadn't been to the temple for a couple of years because it's pretty far away and Andy was always busy with school, so I really wanted to go to this one. However, when I asked if any young women were available to babysit, I was told No. Since Andy was already gone to New Mexico, I figured I couldn't do it. But then my friend Shay offered to watch my kiddos because she wasn't planning to go and she wanted me to have the opportunity. I carpooled with some of my other friends, and we went to dinner first and then the temple.

When we got there the storm clouds behind the temple looked so pretty.

Then when we got out the lights were really pretty also.

Our trip home was quite the adventure. First we missed our freeway exit so we ended up going 40 miles out of our way on a toll road. Then our low fuel light came on while we were driving across Alligator Alley (a place where there is NOWHERE to stop for about 70 miles and it is pitch black dark), and we calculated how many miles we had left...and realized we most likely weren't going to make it. By then it was almost midnight, so one of the ladies texted her husband to let him know that we might need rescuing, and we just drove slow and turned off the AC. Luckily we rolled off our exit and into the gas station without running out. I think we must have been blessed for attending the temple, because we really should have run out of gas before we got there.

Bahamas Cruise & Lion Country Safari

Who knew that when I packed away my computer in preparation to move to New Mexico, it would take a month to get it back? Yikes! But...it's finally here and set up! Yay! First, here's the Bahama's post that I started over a month ago and never finished:

Andy's mom volunteered to come watch our kids so that we could go do something fun before we leave Florida, and we decided that we should go on a cruise. We couldn't go on a super fancy/long one because Andy just graduated and we have to save up for a down payment on our new house, but we found a short one to the Bahamas that some of our friends have done and said it was fun. It left out of West Palm Beach, which is only about 2.5 hours away from our house, and it was decently cheap. We've never been on a cruise, so we were excited to give it a try and see if we liked it.

The first afternoon while we were waiting for the ship to depart, we lounged on the desk watching the port next door load cargo ships. It was so cool to see all the huge cranes and machines they use to move those containers around! Then later in the afternoon it started raining, and it rained, and rained, and rained for the rest of the evening. We were worried that it might be a rainy day in the Bahamas, which would mess up our shore excursion! I had picked one that involved snorkeling and kayaking.

Our room had an ocean view, and the windowsill was big enough to sit on, so when we woke up in the morning and were pulling into harbor I sat there and watched out the window. It was so fun to see all the other ships out in the harbor. There was another huge cruise ship that was there for maintenance, and it had waterslides and stuff on top. It looked super fancy! We wanted to find out what ship it was so we could maybe go on it someday.

I don't have any pictures of our shore excursion. Since we were going to two different snorkel places and a kayak tour, we weren't sure if we'd have a place to put our phones/camera and keep them dry, so we didn't bring them. If we had thought about it ahead of time we could have gotten those waterproof pouches for our phones...but I'm not going to lie, it was kind of nice to just be totally unplugged for the whole day. The day did start out kind of cloudy, and when we got to our first snorkel place the water felt cold and we were worried we were going to freeze. But there were 11 people in our group, and we all decided to be brave together and try it. The first place we went was this little tiny cove that looked super shallow, but around the edges it was deeper. The guide told us not to get too close to the opening of the cove because you could get sucked out into the ocean and then you'd have to make your way to shore on the sharp rocks. I'm not a great swimmer, so I planned to steer WAY clear of the opening. Andy got a lot closer than I did. I was kind of cool, though, because the current swirled in a circle all the way around the cove. You could start on the one side opposite the opening into the ocean, and it would just drag you around. You didn't have to move your arms or legs at all. You just floated there and let the current take you in a circle around the cove. I saw a crab grab a little fish, and I saw a really awesome white frilly fish that I have no idea what the name is.

The second snorkel place we went to was at the beach, and we were supposed to swim out beyond the reef. It was pretty far out, and the guide had snorkeling vests we could wear, but most of us opted not to. I'm not a great swimmer, but I can float forever, and since that's what snorkeling entails mostly, I figured it would be fine. We got way out beyond the reef and the water was super deep (I think they said 40-50 feet), and the waves were huge. Something went wrong with my snorkel and I kept getting water in it, so I kept having to tread water while I tried to get the water our and fix it. While I was doing that, waves kept crashing over my head. I kept telling myself not to panic, but I could see Andy getting further and further away and he didn't notice that I wasn't following, so I was freaking out a little. After swallowing a TON of salt water, I decided it might be easier to just swim back in without the snorkel, so I started doing that. Then my leg started to get a cramp from the cold water and the weight of the fins, so finally I just started treading water, and when I saw Andy pop his head up I yelled for him to come help me fix my snorkel. Our guide heard me yell, and he swam back to help me instead, but ultimately he decided that something was actually WRONG with my snorkel, so he got it kind of fixed, but then he stayed by me the whole way back in so he could fix it when it died again (which it did two more times), and make sure I wasn't drowing. It was a little bit scary, but the good news is that I found a sea biscuit (similar to a sand dollar, but puffy), and our guide had told us we could take those home if we found dead ones, so I got to bring it home.

After the second snorkeling place we went kayaking at a little ocean/lake/cove thing where they were a million jellyfish all over. We could scoop them up with our paddles even. There were big ones, baby ones, medium-sized ones...it was really cool!

The above picture is our selfie after we returned to the ship and got our camera. The below picture is the pilot boat guiding our ship out of the harbor.

Shortly after we moved to Florida I saw some Groupons for a place called Lion Country Safari that sounded fun and got decent reviews. I'd been wanting to go, but it's 2.5 hours away from our house and we just never made it. After our cruise Andy and I had planned to visit the Ft. Lauderdale Temple before going home, but when we disembarked we realized that the temple doesn't open until 6pm on Thursdays, so that wasn't going to happen. Instead, I asked Andy if we could do the Lion Country Safari since it was on our way home. I had thought the kids would like it, but this was our chance to go, so I decided we would just do it without them. It was super cool! First you drive through the 'safari' and see all sorts of cool animals that are right next to your car:

Then there's a little zoo that you can walk through and see some additional animals. They also had mini-golf, which we did, and paddle boats, which I could not convince Andy to try. They also had a couple of water slides and a potato-sack slide. We did the potato-sack slide a few times, and it was more scary than I thought it would be!