It's been awhile, but here I am writing a huge post to catch up on all the events of the past little while. We made the move to Philadelphia about a month ago, and it all went pretty well. Casey drove the big moving truck with his Dad and towed the car while I drove our SUV with Jack, my Mom, and McCall. We were a little nervous for jack to sit in a car for 35 hours driving across the country; however, he handled it better than anyone could have expected. I believe it was almost completely due to my mom's excellent entertaining in the back seat. Thank you so much for making the drive with us Mom, because I'm not sure I could have done it without you. Oh, and I guess McCall kept me entertained while driving, so thanks for coming too McCall! We were able to stop in Missouri and stay with Kyle and his family. They took us to Nauvoo the next day and we took a tour around the historic sites, and it was a pretty neat experience. Casey and Val made it on Thursday and by the time we got there on Friday everything was moved into the apartment. Thank you to all of Casey's family that helped move everything in (Val, Kathy, Amy, Kace, Kassidy, Dave, Tracie, Taylor, Drew, and Lana).
The apartment isn't bad. We were a little worried because we did everything online and didn't fly out to see the apartment before we moved in, but luckily it is a decent apartment. I don't have pictures of the apartment to post yet, but I will post some eventually.
We really like the area where we live. It is about 5-10 miles from the school, which is downtown. We live in the Roxborough area, which is a little more suburban. We live right next to an 8000 acre park that has a river, hiking and biking trails, ducks to feed, etc. We love it. We have been mountain biking a couple times, and it is so much fun. The biking trail is right off our parking lot, so we don't have to load the bikes in the car.
There are several other young families that live in our complex and nearby complexes, and we have been overwhelmed by friendly and welcoming people. It is crazy how many instant friends we now have. We are so grateful for the church and the support system that is available no matter where you live. Speaking of church, we really love our ward. They didn't waste any time giving Casey and I callings. Casey is the 1st counselor in the young men's presidency and I am the 2nd counselor in the primary presidency. Our callings have already presented some challenges, but it is awesome to be so needed and involved in the ward.
We all have been adjusting pretty well. Casey likes most of his classes; he is trying to get used to sitting in class for most of the day and then coming home to study for a lot of the night. He really likes the Pre-Clinic where they actually get to practice waxing teeth (whatever that means?...) Below is Casey's first day of school. They all wear light blue scrubs every day to school for the four years, so that makes it really easy for Casey to decide what to wear everyday.
I am trying to adjust to living in Philly and being a stay-at-home mom. It has been pretty good so far. Jack and I have a pretty good schedule going right now, but I'm a little nervous about what we are going to do when winter comes. We get up in the morning and go walking with some others girls that live nearby. Then we come home, get ready for the day, and go to the park, target, or somewhere else. It seems like the mom's here are always doing something. We come home and Jack eats lunch and goes down for a nap around 12:30 or 1:00 and sleeps for 3 or 4 hours. This is the time that I get to work on my projects, clean the house, or pretty much whatever I want. By the time Jack wakes up, it is time to start working on dinner and Casey gets home. I'm working on getting a job that I can do from home, so that will be good. But for now, I'm enjoying spending more time with this little monkey!
So, the first time we turned on our oven in the apartment we had an oven fire! It was so terrible. It was 9:00 at night, and we were finally making dinner after a long day. I was getting Jack ready for bed and my mom noticed a bunch of black smoke coming from the oven. We opened the oven door and there were huge flames. McCall ran out into the hall with naked little Jack in her arms. Casey got the fire extinguisher from the hall (after McCall pointing out the extinguisher) and put the fire out. After we got most of the smoke out of the apartment, we put Jack to bed and spent the next 3 hours wiping black soot off every surface in the apartment. The fire department and the police showed up about 2 hours later and asked if everything was ok. It is so comforting to know they are on top of things around here :) Here is a photo of the oven after spraying it out with the fire extinguisher. What a mess!
I've added some pictures of some fun things that we have done since we have been here. We visited some of the historic sites downtown with Casey's family while we were here, but we didn't get any pictures. However, I'm sure we will have plenty of opportunities for pictures. We have a pool at our apartment complex and spent time there before it closed for the fall. There is a playground and a nice grassy area where the kids can play.
Some families in the ward were going camping one weekend, so we showed up for dinner and the campfire. Jack love sitting next to Brooklyn because she kept feeding him M&M's. I think he would have sat there all night if I didn't interject.
We take a lot of walks and bike rides in Fairmount Park, which is the park I discussed above with the river, trails, and ducks. It's almost like a little get away in our backyard.
One of the first weekends here, we went to a Temple football game. It was fun and helped us to feel a little school spirit. The game was at the Eagles stadium, so that was pretty cool. Speaking of the Eagles, Casey also got to go to an Eagles game with some of the guys in the ward and had a lot of fun (even though it was just a pre-season game and the starters hardly played). Here are some pictures from the Temple game.
