Saying goodbye to friends is Omaha

Jeff and Laurie Anderson. You two ROCK! We miss you already.

The girls with Calista Gregory.

The Gregory family (Jason, Megan, Calista and Serena) who we thank for throwing this together on such short notice. LOVE YOU!

Megan...my main girl:-) I can't say enough....

We loved the missionaries and will miss having them in our home so often. Elder Hemmingway and Elder Trim.

Sweet Kimberly Huffner.

My party girl, Kimberly Patterson and Trinity Moore who has the most beautiful smile and never stops smiling.

HOLLI BESSE! Thanks for being the kind of friend I knew I could trust with everything.

Some of my girls; Kaylee and Brinley Bingham, Megan Wilson and Kate Huffner. You guys are awesome!

The three Dave's:-); Dave Patterson, my Dave and Dave Moore. Motorcycle buds.

Amazing Angie Blad.

Wendi Fenton. I looked up to you in many ways.

We missed some of our other favorites at the party. I'm too scared to start naming for fear of missing some of you. We love you and are blessed for having the short time we had to get to know you. Come visit us in Utah!

Our quick trip to Nauvoo, Illinois

Being only 6 hours away, a trip to Nauvoo was a MUST before leaving Omaha. With only 2 1/2 day to do it in, we met my parents who had served a mission there a little over a year before and toured our little hearts out. Thank goodness mom and dad were there to show us around so we could see the "best parts" in the little time we had. We had a lot of fun and learned some interesting history.
Here we are outside of Carthage Jail.

My mom, Jenna and I standing at the window Joseph Smith fell out of when shot.

The bullet hole that went through the door and struck Hyrum Smith.

The temple is HUGE and beautiful. We didn't get to do a session...next time:-(.

It was fun to watch the kids catch fire flies. They loved Chase. Here he is with one on his face and one on his shirt.

The kids loved learning about how the kids learned in school back in the 1800's.

We checked out a realative (Nicholas Welch) who was one of the body guards for Joseph Smith's body when they went to bring it back.

Nauvoo has a special spirit about it and we all felt it. It was very rewarding as a family to see.

Singing with Aunt Karen

One thing we REALLY miss about Omaha is going over to Uncle Paul and Aunt Karen's house and listening to her play the harp or the piano and singing. It was alot of fun! The kids really miss them. We also miss Karen's good cooking:-).

A new beginning...again

So, I thought I had better post something before I miss the entire month of August.
We are in our home. We are in South Jordan, Utah and are on day 4 of unpacking. It seems to be going really slow. I was 85% unpacked in Omaha in 3 days. Ugh!
The kids are all adjusting really well. They have all gotten to spend time with old friends and they all have already made new friends. This is the 3 week of school for Ryan, Chase, Meagan and Jenna and the first full week of school for Tyler.
Dave is loving his new job and I am still busy trying to unpack and find classes (gymnastic, guitar, Tae Kwon do, soccer, ect.) for the kids.
We have been able to visit lots of family and friends in the last month. Thank you to Mom and Dad Schell for taking a long side trip from their trip to Nauvoo last minute to watch the kids during our first house hinting trip. Thank you to Mike and Riss for taking care of our girls for nearly 3 weeks so we could house hunt. Thank you to Mom and Dad Boden for watching our boys for nearly 3 weeks and to Seantylle for helping clean up the mess Chase made in the car from car sickness. Thank you to Marge for letting Dave, Ty and me stay at her house for the grueling 1 1/2 weeks it took to find a house. Thank you to Brady and CeCe, Mom and Dad Boden, Holiday Inn, some place up in Park city (forgot the name), and Craig and Claudia for letting us stay with you until we could get into our house (on August 21st). Thank you for all your prayers and support and all your patience with us changing our address, phone numbers, and email lots over the last year. This one you can mark in permanent ink:-)!
Love to all. I'll post pictures once I find the camera:-).

In the mist of it all...

Well, since last I posted we have been to Nauvoo and back, been out to Utah to look for a house and back and we are 80% packed and ready to leave for Utah in 6 days. Uh? Where you ask? Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot to tell you. I HAVE NO IDEA! LOL! I am only laughing at this point because I don't know what else to do. We did not find a house when we were there and are not sure where we are going. As of now our plans are for Dave to leave with the kids to meet his parents at Lake Powell and I (and maybe one other child) and Bella (our dog) leave for Utah and stay with Aunt Marge and look for a home. We will be looking in to an Extended Stay Hotel and hopefully that is all we will be looking in to. We could be looking into leasing a furnished apartment month to month until we find a home. I am only nervous about this because I don't want the kids to have to change schools. SO, now our prayers turn to finding a house before school starts.
Things are so crazy but I stop every once-in-a-while in the mist of all the craziness and think of how blessed we are. There are friends and family members who are going through harder times than us right now and our thoughts and prayers have gone to them many times. I feel selfish for all my complaining about the stressful situation we have been in. Maybe that's why I can laugh....because I know that we will be okay and that is nothing compared to what others are having to endure right now.
I am not sure I will be posting for a while so...adios. Until we...have a house again:-).

WHAT A BLESSING!

5 days on the market and the first person through made an offer. If everything goes will we will be out the week of July 20th. We are on our way to Nauvoo to meet my parents this weekend and then Dave and I fly out to look at houses July 6th, 7th and 8th. CRAZY! We are so grateful that we sold the house so quick and realize the huge blessing in a market so bad. Our prayers now turn to finding the right house and the right place for our kids in Utah. Thank you for all the prayers on our behalf. We are sad to leave friends behind and are excited to see old ones. LOVE TO YOU ALL!

3rd time is a charm?

After fasting and prayer we have decided to move back to Utah. We will be moving (for the 3rd time in a year) as soon as our house sells. Dave will start mid to late July. We have made some good friends here that won't be forgotten (who BETTER come see us in Utah) and are excited to get to see some of our dear friends in Utah again. Keep us in your prayers to sell the house quickly. As Chase would say, "Peace out".

It's all downhill from here...

We celebrated (for 3 days in a row) Dave's 40th b-day. We started off by having a family party with his favorite, traditional b-day cake; chocolate cake with pink, peppermint frosting. We spent the evening with good friends, the Anderson's, at "Outback Steakhouse" (thanks again for treating us Jeff and Laurie). On Saturday night we went over to the Gregory's house and they treated us to fillet minon on the barbeque....cooked to perfection, if I might add. Thanks for the yummy meal Jason and Megan. Then, on Sunday evening we had a suprise party for Dave and he was surprised:-). It was fun to see his reaction. Here are some pictures to document the weekend event.

Dave's suprise b-day cake with him on his motorcycle.

The missionaries took him out to visit a new member that just happen to not be home (hee, hee) so that we could set up and suprise him. This is him not knowing what to say as several friends from church were there to suprise him.

This is the family gathering. I love the "action" in this photo. Too many candles to put on a cake so we had 5 to represent his most prized possesions:-).

The girls and I made signs and put them up at the entrance onto the main street from our neighborhood so Dave could see it on the way to work. If it wouldn't have been for one of the girls calling him and distracting him while he was passing it he might have seen it:-). He saw it when he came back home though. I should have taken the picture before the rain but they said, "20....30...Happy 40th birthday, Dave Boden....It's all downhill from here" ( the 30 sign is on the ground).

We also stuck this on the back of his car before he left for work (hee, hee).

Dave got a combined Father's day gift/birthday present this year. A new barbeque. One side is propane and the other is charcoal. He loves it! Happy 40th b-day, honey. Hope it was a good one.

Wicked...Cool!

We had alot of fun going to "Wicked" with our friends, the Andersons and the Pattersons. The Musical was AMAZING! I am going to take the kids next time. I know they would LOVE it.

Our good friends Dave and Kimberly Patterson. They are fun to hang with. They are hilarious!

I love Jeff and Laurie (pronouned Lori-that was for you cutie...LOL) Anderson. They are awesome!

Our illegally taken picture. Oops. I am so evil. Glad we took it though since we had to rush out of the restuarant without eating anything but our appetizers to get to the musical on time. I wanted to take it in front of this trailer we saw on the way that had a huge picture of "wicked" poster on the side.

Happy 8th b-day to Chase. Meagan and Jenna!

Look how cute they were at 6 months...

and now time has flown and they are 8 years old!

We celebrated at a place called "Skate Daze" by roller skating, riding in the bumper cars, riding the indoor roller coaster....,

playing laser tag, eating cupcakes...

all with good friends they have met at school. Chase, however, invited 4 of his friends who ended up not being able to come because they are all on the same baseball team and their game changed 2 days before the party. SO..., Chase will be having another b-day party just for him after school gets out.

Boy, time has flown! They are just as cute to watch together as they were when they were babies and toddlers. Happy b-day you three!