Sushi

Samuel has been begging to try sushi.  Ben finally brought some home from work the other day.  I don't think it was a hit.

Boxes

Ours are mostly gone, but the kids had fun while it lasted.

Someone had a Birthday, shout Hooray!

Sadie turned 5!!!


She wanted a green circle cake with lemon and limes.  Not sure why, but whatever!  I also added key lime flavor to the cake, and lemon flavor to the frosting.  It may not be pretty...but according to Sadie, it was PERFECT.

A lamp, princess jewelry, a pillow pet, and forgive me Grandma Gillis for not remembering what you got her.  If it wasn't 10pm I'd ask her.

On a side note, this is how I found her the other day.

This can't be good!

This is probably not what you want to see coming out of the dishwasher of your new house.  The weird part was, we had run the dishwasher for a week or so with no problem.  


What happened??  Oh, I know.  We have a little dust broom that came with a dust pan.  I threw it in the dishwasher because it had something greasy on it.  Clearly, it was something soapy.  We ran that thing 4-5 times, before I realized what the cause of the bubbles was.  Of course,  by that time, the broom was clean.

Georgia

On the way home from Tennessee, we couldn't help but stop in good ole' Snellville, GA.  Samuel so wanted to see his first house, and we all wanted to see the laser show at Stone Mountain.  Of course, first we stopped at the Varsity again.  Then, we drove by the house, (which looked better than we lived there,) and went to the laser show.  Oh, and of course a stop for doughnuts.

Tennessee

For some crazy reason 1 week after to getting Florida I turned around and drove 11 hours up to Tennessee with the kids.  My brother lives there and he was getting sealed to his wife Sunni.  The kids had never met their new cousins, so off we went. 

The first words out of my mouth when we got there were, "I need a shovel and a shop vac."  It was a crazy summer that mostly played out in my van.

My parents came in from Scotland.  The kids loved having new cousins and played on the trampoline non-stop.  They also got to meet my cousin's kids, which they also loved.  They are already talking about when we are going to go back. 

The big breakthrough of the trip was when Sadie came up to me and said: "I petted Oliver."  Sadie has been afraid of cats until now...this was huge.

I only took one picture:

I stole this picture of Oliver off of their blog...hope they don't mind.

Downtown Disney

The kids haven't gotten any alone time with a parent lately.  Samuel chose Downtown Disney.

This picture is for his cousin.

"Come to the dark side...we have cookies."  Samuel loves this shirt

FLORIDA

We made it!  We got here Sunday July 11th.  We stayed at one of the Marriott Vacation Club properties.  It was so nice.  Since Marriott was picking up the tab we ate at a few new restuarants that would typically be out of our price range.  We tried Rainforest Cafe and Cafe TuTuTango.  Rainforest Cafe was ok, but we really liked Cafe TuTuTango.  It was tapas style.  We tried so many different things (which was great for Samuel because he loves to try new things.)  Even Henry tried some new things.  His favorite was the Gator Bites...somehow I don't think I will be making those at home.  Frankly, I'm not even sure where one buys gator (maybe catch it in your backyard?)

We closed on the new house on July 12th, but our truck didn't get here until the 14th.  Instead of cleaning the house in those 2 days, we played at the hotel pool.

Here are some pictures of William's first Florida pool experience.

Moving to Florida

Thankfully we had movers.  Thankfully we had packers.  Thankfully we had a friend take Samuel for the day.  Thankfully it was good weather.  Thankfully we sold the house.  Thankfully Ben was able to come home to drive us to Florida.  So many things to be thankful for.  In this economy we are especially grateful for selling the house quickly (and not loosing $$), finding a house, and for the fact that Ben has a job, a good job.

We took 3 days to drive down.  Of course, by the time we had the closing and ran a bunch of last minute errands, we didn't leave Pittsburgh until afternoon.  We took our sweet time.  It was great not squishing everyone into one hotel room.  It was great having Marriott pay way more for food than we ever would have. 

I didn't take many pictures on the way down.  Actually I only took some at The Varsity in Atlanta...YUM!  Samuel and Sadie loved the slawdogs.

Goodbye Pittsburgh Neighbors!

We MISS our Pittsburgh neighbors!  They were right next door, had wonderful kids and were so nice.  It was great that the kids would just run back and forth between houses and I didn't have to worry about them.  The funniest though was when Sadie would go over and hang out.  I guess she would just go and watch TV. 

A Sadie story related to me by Lauren (the mom):
Once, she was watching TV on Mike's (the dad) chair.  It's a recliner and I guess she said, "You know, when the Dad sit's here his feet are up.  So they showed her how to work the recliner.

Then, I got this e-mail from Lauren:
"So about an hour ago, Maeve spilled a glass of milk on our couch. I put cleaner on it and I turned it on it's side so no one sat on it. Then Sadie came over about ten minutes ago and told me she knew what happened to our couch because she has super hearing and heard the splash at her house."


I guess she was telling Lauren about school because this was related: "And I'm getting all the good Jo-Jo Fignar (this kid must be a riot!) stories from school. She's so funny."  Let me just say that Jo-Jo is a highly functioning autistic, but some of the stories...

They were great when I called about Sadie's concussion, and other times I really needed help.

You will continue to be missed.

Last days in Pittsburgh

There were so many things that we wanted to do before leaving PA.  I tried my best to squeeze in as many as I could.

IDLEWILD: This is an amusement park about 1 1/2 hours from the house.  It was a little tricky with one parent and 4 kids, but it ended up being a great day.  All of my pictures are on my phone though, so I will have to post later.

KIRTLAND:

I drove 2 1/2 hours to take the kids to Kirtland.  We stopped at the Kirtland Temple first.  While we were there they showed a video, and then took us on a 45 minute tour of the Temple.  It was torture.  The kids were tired, and William was making a scene.  Sadie and Samuel kept asking when we could leave.

Kirtland has changed as much Nauvoo.  Last time I went there was a small Visitors Center and the Newell K Whitney store.  Now there's like 5 different sites.  It took 2 hours.  This time William was fine and the kids were engaged.   I was so excited when each of the kids at different times leaned over and whispered "we learned about that in Nauvoo."  I guess dragging the kids around the country by myself was paying off.

Don't worry...the car wasn't on, but he sure loved being a "big boy!"

We also went to the drive-in and saw Toy Story 3. Once again William was a pill, but the other kids loved it.

Nauvoo (catch up from the end of June)

We got home from Salt Lake super, super late Saturday night.  I just couldn't get up for church Sunday morning...I JUST COULDN'T DO IT!  I'M NOT SUPERWOMAN.

Anyway.  Sadie went to school on Monday, Henry had an orthodontist appointment and I did laundry, cleaned the van, re-packed and we left for Nauvoo Tuesday.  The kids and I drove 7 hours to Joliet, IL.  The next morning I spent a huge amount of time trying to get earnest money wired for the FL house.  Then, there was a huge traffic jam, so I was late picking up Ben from the airport in Moline.  We got to Nauvoo just in time for dinner.  We were actually in Nauvoo for a smallish family reunion.  It was supposed to be my father-in-law's side.  However, it somehow shrunk to some of Ben's family, and some of his Aunt Robin's family.  Frankly, I didn't care who was going to be there, I just wanted to give the kids a chance to see Nauvoo.

By the Nauvoo Temple (courtesy Samuel)

The first day we were there we went to quite a few of the homes and shops.  There is a new (at least since I was there) area that showcases the different handicrafts of the era.  There was bread baking, wool spinning, etc.  The kids loved it.  They got to make rope.  

Every time that I have been to Nauvoo it has just been for part of a day.  This time we were there for 3 days.  We saw all of the shows, went on the carriage rides, walked the trail of tears, went to Carthage, went to the temple, walked downtown, went to more sites than I have been to before.  It was so fun and I am glad we went.

The kids LOVED it.  They just kept asking to see more buildings.  I think their favorite spot was the rope making and the "pioneer pastimes."  This was an area where you got to try out different games and clothes of the pioneers.

Lots of ideas

oh, so many ideas for the new house.  First things first though, things like getting all the boxes unpacked, getting the walls clean, and the floor, and the trim...etc.  When a house hasn't been lived in for 2 years, it's a little on the nasty side.  So far I have been concentrating on just cleaning out the areas where I am actually putting things.  The kitchen cabinets...clean, carpets...vacuumed, pool deck...swept.  Now, I have friends coming this week and it's time to get serious about the cleaning part.  Ugh!  Then it's off to the garage to open the boxes out there.  Everything in the house has been opened and for the most part unpacked.


Anyway, this is what I was contemplating at church today:

This is an ice cream sandwich bench.  Samuel want's one...it's $950.  Hmmm...could I make one?