This is your birthday song, it isn't very long

Yesterday was Kimballs birthday and since I never was able to post about Addies birthday, this is a double birthday post. Double the flavor, double the FUN!
My little Addie Mae turned 5 on July 28th. I can't believe I have a 5 year old. My camera was being cranky for her birthday and I was only able to get 1 picture. For her friend party, she wanted a tea party so we dressed up and made crowns and played kiss the frog (like pin-the-tail, only you have to kiss the frog on the lips) with all her friends. I think it was a lot of fun. I had found a little jeep at a yard sale for $2. The lady didn't know if it worked so that is why it was so cheep. I was pretty excited since it was MY dream come true from when I was a little girl. Addie was excited for the first 5 min. but then she really didn't care. She much preferred her bike. Short story long, it didn't end up coming with us when we moved.

Happy Birthday Addie. You are a joy to have in our family.

Kimball is now a big 3 year old now.

We went to the zoo on Saturday for his birthday and it was AWESOME! We bought a season pass so now we can go whenever we want. I think the kids would be happy to go everyday if we could.

We love the orangutans the most I think. They are just so funny to watch. They were chewing gum, or something that looked like gum and they reminded me of Addie and Kimball when they chew gum

Addie was really excited about all the animals. When we were watching the sea lions, they started barking and she said "oh listen to them cry to the heavens" That girl makes me laugh

On Sunday, (Kimballs actual birthday) we had a family party and enjoyed opening presents and having cake and ice cream. Funny story about kimballs cake. I started making a crocodile cake

It was supposed to look like this.....It didn't look like that....nope not one bit, so instead I just mashed the cake all up, frosting and all, like I was going to make cake balls and I formed it into a volcano. Addie and Kimball are always pretending everything is hot-lava so I figured this would work just as well. I sprinkled it with coca and sugar so it wasn't a green volcano and drizzled some frosting down the side and stuck a few dinosaurs in for fun. The real fun part was having flames coming out the top. Kimball thought that was pretty fun too.

It's usually hard to see a birthday cake that I've worked so hard on,be cut right up but this was fine since I had already destroyed it once myself. It was really yummy too.

Happy Birthday Kimball. You can melt my heart

Hello Daddy, goodbye Utah, Hello Iowa

Where do I even begin? I will try to re-cap what has been going on the last few weeks so this could be a long post.

Well after Ammon left and thankfully made it to Omaha safely, I started to pack like a madwoman. I could not have got through these last few weeks without the help of so many wonderful people. My mother-in-law came and picked up Addie and Kimball and took them for the week so they would not un-pack every box that I tried to pack. My parents came over and helped me almost every day. My mom tackled packing up my kitchen which overwhelmed me even thinking about it. My dad packed my garage. For a while, everywhere I went I started thinking in terms of "I wonder how many boxes it would take to pack this." So many of my friends took Avonlea so that I could pack with 2 hands instead of 1. It was overwhelming but it was okay. I only had a small breakdown after we totally packed the moving truck and then the next morning I read that propane tanks WERE NOT ALLOWED under ANY circumstances and I had already packed our tanks. I thought we were going to have to unpack the whole moving truck and un-do all the work that the Elders Quorum and my dad had done. Luckily, our neighbor who had packed the truck remembered where they had been packed and I only had to climb on some stuff and take out a few chairs to reach them. That was the BIGGEST relief.
I used U-PACK moving company where you pack the truck and they drive it to where it needs to go...another big relief. After I sent the moving truck out to Ammon, who was living in our apartment with a few pans, a camp chair and sleeping on a foam mattress out in the living room because none of the bedrooms had lights. As you can imagine, he was very glad to get the moving truck...well glad in the sense that he had furniture but bummed that he had to carry it all up 3 flights of stairs. Luckily, the missionaries just happen to show up because they had been teaching the people who use to live in our apartment. They helped Ammon that night and the next night brought 2 other sets of missionaries to help unload. Ammon also has some fellow SUU friends who are also starting at Creighton and they helped as well. Talk about blessings.
Anyway, after I sent the moving truck out I cleaned our house for 4 days (blahhh) while I stayed in Parowan and started to face the fact that I would be moving away from everyone and everything. I was excited but very sad to say goodbye. It did help that I had been in limbo for such a long time and I was ready to see my husband again and not be a single mom. It had been almost 3 weeks since Ammon left. We decided that Ammon would fly out Labor day weekend and drive back with us. We were really hoping that my sister Valerie would also go into labor but no suck luck. I missed my beautiful new niece Eliza's birth by 3 days.
We were all very excited to see each other again and be together as a family. Ammon and I had totally different stresses those few weeks apart. I had to pack everything up and get all of that stuff situated and he had to start school in a totally new area without his family there. He missed us quite a lot. When the moving truck got there, he was un-packing Avonleas drawer and took some of her clothes out to smell and just started crying....I'm sure he is so glad I'm putting this on the blog for all to read but I thought it was touching. He sure does love his family.
We had been saying goodbye to our friends and family in Cedar area and all of our favorite places and now it was time to say goodbye to the rest of my siblings and some friends up North. We have such wonderful friends and family and I'm so thankful for technology like blogs and facebook that make it easier to stay in contact. It makes it feel like we are not that far away after all.

Day 1 of our drive, we left Spanish Fork and stopped to see some wonderful friends in Coalville and stopped in Evanston WY for church and made it to Cheyenne that night....long drive. The kids really enjoyed getting to move and release some energy in the swimming pool and staying in a hotel is such a fun treat for them. The next day we drove across Nebraska and made it to our new home in Council Bluffs Iowa that evening. Ammon is actually going to Creighton in Omaha Nebraska but I found an apartment in Council Bluffs that is right across the river that we could rent month-to-month until we find a place where we really want to be...which we have found but are just trying to figure out how to get in. They are town homes that are a co-op so you buy a share in it but you own it. hard to explain but a wonderful place to be. They call it little Provo because it is filled with so many LDS young families. We found out that our old neighbors from Cedar who lived right across from us in our Cedar Park Apt (the Kirkhams) live there as well as some people from our old ward (Nate and Misty Call). Ammon has some friends from SUU who live there and it is such a wonderful place. We have heard nothing but good about it. It is around $35,000 to buy but the problem is you have to have that money NOW to buy it and we can't get a loan because we are living off student loans. It is so frustrating knowing we would be paying around $300 to own a home but instead we are paying $800 to rent a smoke filled apartment and we are running into dead-ends trying to find a way to finance this. So if any of you are private investors.... I have a deal for you :)

So obviously Ammon has started school and yesterday was his white coat ceremony and I was so proud to see him and realize what an amazing man I have married who is such a hard worker and wonderful husband and father. He has worked so hard to get here and I know he will continue to work hard and another reason I hope to get into Village Green is so I can be around other study widows.
For Ammons white coat ceremony, Addie was throwing up the night before and that morning....I knew nothing would say "I'm proud of you daddy" more than the echos of your child throwing up in the cathedral at this solemn occasion luckily my friend Heather was willing to watch Addie and Kimball for which I was so thankful.

The kids seem to really enjoy this area and how green it is and all the new animals. We went for a walk just across our parking-lot the other day (picture above) and saw 3 bucks just calmly walking along. It was great. There are squirrels everywhere and a lot of new things to see. So, a little update with Addie, she was supposed to start school the day we left Cedar but I went to the new school she is supposed to be in and they have already been going for a month. Where we don't know how long we will be in this apartment and I don't want to have to put her in late and pull her out after a month, I have decided to home school her until we get into a more permanent position. I'm not to worried about her academically since she is already reading and writing at least at a 1st grade level, but I need to find some other kids or some programs for her since she is such a little social butterfly.

Well tomorrow is Kimballs birthday and I need to figure out what I'm going to do for a cake for that little boy. I will do much better about updating this blog a lot more now that we are so far away from all our family and hopefully my camera will cooperate. Congratulations for making it through this post....it's a doosy of ramblings

Goodbye Daddy

Well those who read the previous post, I guess I should have waited one more day to blog. Monday after we found out we were staying in Cedar we started getting ready to stay. We moved Avonlea's crib into Addies room, we planned to go camping the next night. Life was good because we knew where we were going to be. Well the next day, Ammon left the cell phone home and the lady from Creighton admissions called and said there was a 50/50 chance that someone was dropping out (on the 2nd day of Welcome Week), and they wanted to know if Ammon still wanted the seat. WHAT??? Holy cow!
I tried calling Ammon at work but he had left 10 minutes earlier and I HAD THE CELL PHONE. I thought he would be getting home right away but he decided to stop at the store and shop for our camping trip we were going on that night. It took him another 40 minutes to get home. Meanwhile, I'm trying not to hyperventilate and such. Ironically, we had bought a GPS unit the week before because it was on a major sale and it happened to come in that day. Ammon FINALLY got home and told me the GPS had come. I told him maybe he could use it to drive to Nebraska that night. I wish I had a camera to take a picture of his face at that moment. I told him the story and he called admissions back and found out he was IN! We both were pretty much in shock! The next hour or so, we packed like crazy-in between tears, and got him ready to drive out there that night. Talk about tough on the emotions. It was such a roller-coaster of emotions that I almost start crying just thinking about it. Ammon had to say goodbye and move to a totally unfamiliar area without us and I have to deal with packing and moving without Ammon.

Saying goodbye was pretty hard! I had a headache the rest of the night from crying. Ammon had a headache because our muffler is so loud and he had to listen to it for the next 18 hours....poor guy.

So what now? Who knows. I am packing up the house and sending a moving truck out to him this Wed/Thurs and then I will clean and I'm not sure when we will be heading out. My sister Valerie is due to have her baby on the 8th of September. I really want to see the baby before next Summer so I want to stay but Ammons White Coat ceremony is on the 10th and I really want to be there for that.
AHHHH!!!
Little baby in Valerie's belly, could you come a little early for my sake? I'm sure your mommy won't mind.
Ammon had training last Thursday and Friday and started school today. He has had to do in a few days what everyone else had the whole summer to do. For example, he had to do a background check and list all of his addresses for the last 20 years. That is just one example. He is pretty lonely and I'm pretty lonely with out him. Ammons mom has Addie and Kimball so I can pack. My family is so spread out and I just want to be back together as a family. I'm going to miss Cedar so much. There are so many friends here and being able to go home to my parents in 20 min is something that has been so wonderful. To me, Parowan is heaven on earth. This morning I was sitting on my front porch (because there is no where to sit in my disaster of a house) and I got really teary thinking about how much I'm going to miss my beautiful mountains. Then I had to just stop thinking about it because if I think about any of this stuff too much, I cry and if I cry I get a headache, and if I get a headache, I can't pack and I NEED TO PACK!
Speaking of other needs, I need to sleep. It has been a long day and it will be another long day tomorrow. Goodnight