Moving...

I have to say that I absolutely hate moving. I was excited to be moving, but the actual process of moving is not my favorite. Todd has gotten out of the last couple of moves because of surgery and this time he wasn't even here for the actual move because he was on a plane to Oregon. (He tells me that he really feels bad that he missed everything. I just tell him the next time we move, he gets to do.) That being said I was really blessed to have tremendous help throughout the whole process. (There is no way I could have done it alone.) My parents, my two younger sisters, Todd's siblings (DJ is going to be so glad to come over to my house and not have lists of things for him to do), good friends, and an excellent group from the ward that came Saturday morning to help us move. It was wonderful. Everything went really smoothly.

My dad was great at getting everything to fit into the storage cubes. As a side note, anyone moving out of town ABF storage containers are wonderful. They brought us three, but since we fit everything into 2, they only charged us for 2 of them. It was cheaper than renting a truck and paying for gas, and a whole lot nicer not to have to worry about driving a moving truck.

We had lots of good helpers the day of the move. It went so fast.

Kristen and Emily entertaining the children while the rest of us were cleaning and packing.

Packing up the car Monday morning just before leaving. Hailee had a great time in the trunk. My dad drove with us so I didn't have to drive alone with a four-year-old and a dog. I think Roslynn did the best of all on the 12 hour car ride.

As we were packing the cubes I noticed that they had a 2,500 pound weight limit. Of course that night I had nightmares that they were going to be too heavy and my dad and I would be having to repack them by ourselves Monday morning. When they came to pick them up Hailee and I crossed our fingers that they wouldn't be too heavy. Thankfully they weren't and everything worked out great. They were just delivered here this morning and everything looks great. We have helpers coming today, so we should at least get to start the unpacking tonight and tomorrow.

Things are going well here. Todd seems to be enjoying his job, he is going to be busy, but he will be learning a lot. Hailee and I have just been recovering from moving so we haven't done a lot. In the next few days we'll be busy unpacking and getting settled. I did drive my dad to the airport all by myself and I didn't even get lost. Hailee was happy to discover that Portland has an IKEA and the zoo, two signs she read on the way home from the airport. Now she just wants to know when we are going to IKEA and the zoo.

In the last five days....

We....

• Listed our condo, showed it three times, and sold it.
  
• Watched a great BYU game, in which I had to eat several words about the defense. In my defense, the defense didn't play great in the first two games, but they really came to play against UCLA. 59-0 isn't bad at all.
• Had Intel move up Todd's start date by a week. (He now starts 9/22)
• Visit Todd's doctor and hear that everything looks great and that we probably wouldn't need to see him ever again. He also gave the okay for Todd going up earlier than planned. Dr. Shelton has been so fabulous.
  
• Rearrange moving plans so Todd is flying up earlier and Hailee and I are driving.
  

It has been a crazy couple of days and there are still lots of things to do, but I think we can get it all done. I probably won't have time to blog again until we get to Portland and get our internet set up. We are looking forward to starting this new start in our lives, but we are going to miss all our friends here.

My Girl

It seems the last couple of weeks has been busy with Todd's surgery/recovery, packing, and getting things ready for our move. Sometimes I feel that Hailee hasn't gotten the attention she really deserves, but she has been the best girl. She has been so helpful and so sweet throughout this somewhat stressful and busy time. The other day I asked her to take Todd a water bottle from the fridge so he could take his medicine. I overheard her say. "Here you go dad, if you need anything else just let me know and I will get it for you." Such a sweet girl.

On the 31st of August Hailee was assigned to give her first talk in Primary. And since we are so on the ball lately we were planning it on the 30th. I was a little worried that we wouldn't have time to practice it enough, but she did a fabulous job. She even helped write it. If anyone knows Hailee, they know that she is quite an independent little thing and she likes to do things on her own (hmmm I wonder where she gets that from...Todd). So she decided she wanted to talk about when Jesus was baptized (the topic was baptism) and we wrote it together from there. Here is a video of her doing it at home the next day for Uncle DJ.



She also has LOVED her pink shower cap lately. Her cousin Cambria gave it to her for her birthday and she has been putting it on and then pretending to take a shower in our closet. Complete with telling Todd not to look because she is a "naked girl," even though she has all of her clothes on. She wasn't to impressed with having to shower at Aspen Grove, so I'm surprised that she likes to pretend shower. In fact when we got back from Aspen Grove she exclaimed, "Now I don't have to be a shower girl anymore mom, I can be a bath girl again." Maybe I should have taken her shower cap to Aspen Grove with us. She did inform me as we were getting into the bath yesterday that it was okay to wear her shower cap in the bath too.


After her bath I was brushing her hair and was surprised with how much it's grown in the last year. It's probably grown 8 inches. Hailee loves her long hair and gets terribly offended if we even mention trimming it. She also likes it to be left down, in the summer I usually tried to keep it in braids to keep it out of her way, but she likes it to be a little wild. I'm not sure when I'm going to convince her to cut it, but for now she doesn't complain to much when I have to brush it and that is saying a lot because when it's down and wild it get really tangled since it's curly as well. So for now we'll just let her keep growing it. I have to say it has taken 4 years to really get much hair, so I am really enjoying it as well.

A Perfect Day for Picnic

We woke up this morning to torrential rain, so we were really surprised by this afternoon when it turned out to be a beautiful day. Because of the rain the weather cooled down, the sun was out and there was a light breeze to keep things nice and cool. When Hailee went outside she declared "It is a perfect day for a picnic." Hailee picked out all the food. There were apples, yogurt drinks and her new favorite addiction....Macaroni and Cheese Crackers. What a perfect picnic.

Hailee packed the picnic bag all on her own and picked out the best spot. She is getting too big.
The lovely assortment of snacks for out picnic.

Hailee and DJ enjoying yogurt drinks.
After the picnic Hailee decided it was time for a race. So DJ and Hailee raced back and forth.
At the end of this race Uncle DJ picked Hailee up and he got in trouble.
Hailee spend the next 20-30 minutes wrestling with him. Hailee has quite a bit of Todd in her so when she gets going, she goes to win. It's really funny to see her transform. She is all girl and princesses until it comes to wrestling with her dad or DJ (or really anyone that will wrestle with her).

No rest for Uncle DJ, it takes a lot to wear Hailee out.