Week 2 in Michigan

On Sunday, a week after arriving in Michigan, the movers arrived! It was SO like Christmas (especially since the kids hadn't seen their actual Christmas gifts since Christmas). As soon as the stuff started coming in I got in my crazy, must finish EVERYTHING NOW mode! I know I drove Tyler crazy and I am pretty positive I drove my mom crazy too. By the end of Monday, we had literally unpacked everything but 2 boxes. If you had seen how many boxes came into this house, I guarantee you would've been impressed.

During my unpacking frenzy the weather turned cRaZy cold, temperatures dropped into the negatives with wind chill dropping it even further into the negatives. This meant that school did not start for Steven on Monday (or Tuesday, or Wednesday). It also meant that when we got cabin fever Monday night we had to endure freezing temperatures to get out of the house. And oh. my. goodness. was it it cold. I about died when we got out of the car to go eat at Guernsey's Dairy. Yet, for some reason we still all enjoyed a bowl of ice cream there. We are crazy, no lie. 

And here's a picture of a giant icicle that formed on our house during the crazy cold:

Tuesday I spent cleaning the house (lots of snow tracks all over our wood floors), and Wednesday & Thursday I spent attempting to decorate. It was one of the worst decorating experiences of my life. I'm not going to lie, a lot of potty words escaped my mouth as I attempted to hammer nails into what felt like brick walls (but are actually just super hard plaster walls). Here are a few pictures of our house. Still not perfect but getting there:

My favorite room is Lucy's though. Check out little Lucy in her reading nook/closet. She absolutely loves going in there and playing with her dolls and pretending to read books...

Thursday & Friday were not awesome days for me. Thursday the oldness of our house came through big time as about half of our electrical plugs stopped working. And of course it was all the important ones, the one that our kitchen appliances were connected too, the ones that were connected to our computers and the ones connected to our TV. It made for a yucky day for me.

Also Thursday, I attempted to make chicken alfredo using one of my cans of chicken. Unfortunately it must of got unsealed in the move. When I removed the ring, the lid popped open and rotten chicken juices spewed EVERYWHERE! It was the worst smell in the world.

And on top of that, my mom went back to AZ. Need I say more!?

Friday, Steven was finally able to start school. I was super excited about only having 2 crazy kids to deal with during the day again but then I backed out of the driveway. And I made it all the way down our long driveway without hitting anything, only to turn my tires right into a snow drift. It was awful! I had no idea how to get unstuck! But the lady across the street took pity on me and got her husband (who had a broken ankle!) to try and help me. Unfortunately he was new to Michigan too and wasn't quite sure how to get me out. He tried super hard though!

After about 15 minutes Tyler arrived (they let him leave work to save me) and he decided he needed to take Steven to school first (so he wouldn't be too late) and then he was going to come back and save my van (which was still sticking most of the way out into the street). Right when he left these 2 guys pulled up and in less than 5 minutes they had my van out. It was miraculous! 

But I was still traumatized, and am now terrified of our driveway. Ridiculous I know. On a brighter note, it was about 30 degrees out and it felt wonderful, I wasn't cold at all. And on another bright note, here is my studly boy all ready for his first day of school in Michigan:   

So as I sit here and try to think positively about these rough, last few days...here are my thoughts. When the electrical thing happened I kept praying, please let me be able to fix it by resetting the circuit breaker. And my prayer wasn't answered and I was frustrated and downtrodden...BUT when the electrical guy came he pointed out that this house is not wired properly to handle all our gizmos. And he contacted our landlord who is now working on fixing that problem, so in the bigger picture, it really needed to happen. We needed the electrician to come see that.

And in the bigger picture with the stuck van. It gave me a reason to meet my neighbors and now we've been properly introduced. And maybe these kind people who also have little ones, might become our friends, thanks to me getting our van stuck. Who knows?

And as far as the rotten chicken goes...well that was just gross. But I know that our life here in Michigan is not going to be easy. The path will be bumpy but I know God has a plan for us and I will try my best to find the positive in all the frustrations that come our way. 

Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum

After being stuck in our fairly empty home for 2 days with no mode of transportation, I was eager to get out Saturday. Our original plan was to go to this ginormous Christmas store in Frankenmuth which I thought was only 40 minutes away. Turns out it was a little over an hour away, which was just a bit too far, so that'll have to wait for another weekend. 

Instead, I got on the internet and did some searching and discovered Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum! Ok, so it wasn't that marvelous. It was very crowded and loud but it did have some marvelously unique, antique coin operated machines & games. Here are some of the interesting ones I took pictures of. However, we didn't put our monies into any of these ones (especially not the peep show one, what do you take us for!?) 

We actually only spent $6 in change but the kids still had a good time and had enough tickets to get a lollipop at the prize counter. Some of the highlights: All the kids loved the mini carousel, Ben & Lucy loved this super mini Ferris wheel like ride (Lucy would point to it and say "weee!"), Ben & Steven both put their money in a machine that was supposed to guarantee you a lollipop but somehow it failed Steven, and watching Ben trying to chuck a ball in for skee ball. Overall, a good time but I think going there once was quite enough :)  

8th Anniversary

On our 8th Anniversary Tyler had his second day of work. So this is the occasion I referred to previously where I took the boys to Main Street. Yes, I braved the cold (18 degrees) to find Tyler an Anniversary gift. Unfortunately Main Street is full of very girl oriented shops. Shops with cute knick knacks, cute things to decorate the house with, girl clothes & accessories, etc. So in the end, I got him chocolate, even though he is not much of a chocolate eater. But it's the thought that counts right!?

When he got home from work, my mom watched the kids while we went out to dinner. We first attempted to go to PF Changs but apparently everyone else was going there too. There was literally no parking spots there, lame! So we saw a Bahama Breeze nearby and decided to try that out instead. It was a good choice, lots of parking spots, sat down right away and the food was delish. 

Afterwards we strolled the aisles of Target, super romantic I know ;) And we bought a bunch of Christmas Candy on clearance- that was his gift to me. We are ridiculously lame, I know, but I love just spending kid free time with him.

I am so blessed to be married to this man who keeps me laughing and helps me to be a better person. I have a feeling, being far away from all our family this year, we are going to grow even closer together and learn to rely on each other more. I am excited for our future of eternity together.

First Week in Michigan

The Sunday after we arrived we were able to go to our new Ward for Sacrament (we had to leave after Sacrament to do a walk through of our rental house). It is a bigger ward than I expected, but definitely not as big as the one we left. It seems like a good mix of age groups. 

We met a nice couple behind us, the husband also works at the GM Proving Grounds. He informed us that most of the ward works at Ford and they are not in Engineer positions but management positions. He was excited to have a fellow GM employee and engineer in the ward. They also have a little girl Benny's age and one close to Lucy's age. 

We also met the Bishop, very friendly guy and he informed us that we were the answer to his prayers. My mom thinks that means he has high callings in mind for us, ha! I hope not!

On another note, we spent our first few days in a hotel. Wednesday morning we were supposed to check out of that hotel and then go check into another hotel but we decided it would be better to camp out in our house. Lucy was refusing to sleep unless she was in our bed (which is TERRIBLE) and the kids just couldn't handle being quiet in the rooms. It was just not going well.

So we did a huge Walmart run, got pillows, blankets, air mattresses (my mom got an amazing deluxe one),etc and set up camp in our home. Life was much better there. The kids had room to run and yell. We were able to store and cook our own food and there was even a yard to play in. 

While things were better in our house, it did get old after awhile. The temp's slowly dropped and a lot of snow was falling making playtime outside pretty unbearable and we had very little toys inside, just what fit in a small suitcase. I was so glad my mom was there to help keep me from going crazy, being confined in a pretty empty house with three kids, I much needed her. We spent a lot of time on her deluxe mattress, chatting and reading and surfing our phones. 

Here are some fun cold weather pic's (Yes, I did go out in the cold! Be impressed! I even walked to Main Street and visited the shops with the boys!)

Leaving Az

The movers came to box up our stuff the day after Christmas. It was pretty much insanity. I left the house each morning so the kids wouldn't get in the way and I came home each day to less stuff. The first day they unexpectedly packed our whole kitchen-- including all the dry and liquid goods which I had thought they had said they weren't allowed to pack. That meant a quick trip to Walmart so we could eat, only to realize when we got home that the canned food we had bought couldn't be opened. Thank you neighbors for lending us a can opener.

On Saturday our plane was scheduled to leave at 1pm. That meant we had some time in the morning before we needed to go to the airport. While the movers loaded up our stuff, I took the kids to Spinnaker Bay Park for one last hurrah. We love that park and have been there so often, sometimes just us and other times with all our church friends. So sad to say goodbye to it...

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When the kids were done at the park we went for a walk in the neighborhood, I had the kids take some pictures by our neighborhood entrance. I also attempted to get a picture of the moving van and our house. None of the pictures turned out so well...

Then Tyler's parents came to say goodbye to us... 

And then it was off to the airport. My dad and brother were kind enough to not only drive us there but to also help us with our stuff as we got checked in. My goodness was the airport busy but thankfully we got through each line smoothly and made it to our gate with some time to spare. We also got lucky and they were able to switch our seats so that we were all in a row together.

Once on the plane, the boys did such a good job sitting by their dad. They were entertained by all the toys, treats and activity books I had packed for them and, of course, they were entertained by the tablet.

Lucy sat by me and my mom. I am not going to lie, we gave her a little Benadryl to help encourage a nap. She didn't nap at first though, stayed awake and happy for about an hour, then she got fussy. After about 15 minutes of rocking and soothing she passed out and slept for a good hour. Then she was awake for the last hour of the flight and happy until the last few minutes when she was anxious to get out. All in all though, it went really well.

Once at the airport, we got luggage, caught the bus to the car rental place, got our extremely expensive rental SUV (which we ended up taking back because it was going to cost for 3 days what we could get another for 9 days), then we checked into our hotel and ended the night with some dinner at Wendy's.

Needless to say by the time we got back to the hotel we were pooped and ready for bed. Unfortunately we discovered Lucy does not sleep well in hotels (probably the whole sharing a room thing). It was not an awesome end to a long day....

Christmas Day

Christmas morning the boys came into our room around 6:30, though they evidently got up much earlier. Steven informed us that Santa did not put his gifts on the fireplace this time and after some coaxing I got him to admit that he already peeked at the loot.

Here are all the "kids" with their Santa gifts:

And here they are with more gifts. Spoiled as usual! In the bottom right they are holding the gifts they picked out for each other. Benny got Steven a small truck with a trailer and Steven got Benny a frog gumball machine:

Steven was more than happy to help Lucy open all her gifts. On the bottom left she is holding a yellow duck that Steven got for her and on the top right she is wearing a hat her Aunt Ragena made her:

And now our traditional picture of each kid and all their loot:

Then us grown ups with our loot. Don't I look like a big kid with my Minion Dave!?

After we did our Christmas thing we headed to his parent's house where we got to eat shrimp and crackers. We also got to Skype his sister Mariah. She got so emotional seeing her family, but she is still just as bubbly as she has always been. She has such a strong spirit and desire to share the gospel. I love that girl and am so proud of her.

Our last destination Christmas day was my parent' house. More spoiling occured, and we stuffed our faces with Christmas dinner. As usual it was a lovely, family filled Christmas day.

Christmas Eve Festivities

As tradition calls we spent Christmas Eve at Tyler's parent's house. There we enjoyed an amazing dinner, hang out with family, opened up our pajamas and went for a drive to see lights in a nearby neighborhood. Going to miss these traditions if we don't make it back to AZ next Christmas (honestly, who's going to make me such a delicious dinner!?). 

Steven with his adorable niece, Reese, and Lucy (who can't stay still)

It cracks me up how excited the boys get to open up their Pj's, honestly it's just PJ's ;) Steven's were like 5 sizes too big but he was nice to mommy and endured wearing them for the night. I love how Lucy wore hers around her neck like a scarf for awhile. She is always doing that, it's too funny!

Once in our PJ's I had to get a picture of me and the kids... 

...And then me & Ben got a little silly...

That night we got to bed super late so the kids easily fell fast asleep, Santa did not have to worry about them peeking at all ;)