House for Sale, Moving to Utah

Welcome to Utah!

So you all know that we're moving to Utah ... These past two weeks have been crazy to say the least. The house is officially on the market. If you want details, check out Dain's blog. He's written down everything. We packed up a few things into a rental truck, attached a trailer with our jeep, and hit the road to Utah. We drove there is about 3 days ... It took FOREVER. The truck doesn't go as fast and we had to stop every two hours to gas up the truck. I have to admit Dain and I loved the trip. It was nice to see a new route (thanks to Carolyn Fjord), and we just had a nice time on the road. The truck, however, was a different story. They're noisy! And difficult to sit in. I loved being above the crowds but that's about it! The ride through Northern Texas into New Mexico and then Utah was really nice. I had only been on the northern route and it's ZZZZZZZ. Kansas is really, really flat.

We were there for a week as we moved a few things into the condo and then took Christian to the MTC. I blogged about the MTC drop off at his blog. Then Dain had to go to training at Brighton Ski Resort where he will be teaching this winter. I think that's the highlight of his winter. He's very excited to spend time in the mountains with friends. We flew back last Sunday.

We will be here through next Monday (Nov 15) and then we move to Utah permanently. We have professional movers do the big stuff. Most of it will end up in storage anyway.

I've been very nostalgic thinking about our years here in Texas. I love it here. I love Sugar Land. It's bittersweet. I did pick up a couple of new clients so hey, I will be back. :-)

New Mission Blog for Christian and Dain's New Blog

I started a new blog for Christian's mission. Oh, it's so empty ... but I fully intend to write in it. It's been such a crazy few months with everything coming together at once. Dain's job loss, Christian's mission, moving back to Utah, and losing our doggy. Really, too much going on. This is Christian's mission blog:

http://eldercraig.blogspot.com/

Dain started blogging after losing his job and he has a TON of people reading it. Hundreds every day. It's pretty interesting to see it develop and become popular. He's had people writing to him for help, people thanking him for his honesty, people who have lost their jobs, who have lost kids to cancer. It's amazing what a blog can do .... You can read it here:

http://daincraig.wordpress.com/

RIP Dax

This is Dax taking a nap. We're not sure when he was born. I adopted Dax in early 1999, maybe January or so, and I got him for Christian. This was right after my first husband died and I felt like having a dog would be a good thing for him. Even though I grew up with dogs, I didn't really know how to take care of them other than feed them. Dax was a good dog right from the start. He really didn't do much damage (except for Barbie's hand which he happily chewed off). Even though he wasn't big, his bark was scary, and he kept people away, which was good for us. He could jump higher than any dog I'd ever seen. I later found out he's a catahoula, a Southern dog bred to hunt coons. When we moved to Texas, he came to life. He loved it here. Makes sense.

When I met Dain and we started dating, he started taking proper care of Dax. He would take him on walks and play with him. Dax was kid #4. It never ocurred to me to walk Dax. lol Really.

The earliest records on Dax are from 1994, so we've always used that year as his birth year, but in reality, we don't know. Our vet thought he was much older based on his teeth. So we know he was 17 years old, at least.

We'll miss him. He was a nice, quiet dog (unless someone came to the door). He was loving, didn't bother anyone and aged gracefully. He's now with our other dog, Sassy, who died a couple of years ago from cancer. We're leaving Texas and leaving parts of our hearts here with our doggy friends.

We're Moving

I haven't posted here in a long time because life has been crazy. We're officially moving back to Utah and I'm SO SAD. I love Texas. I love the people here. It's such an open minded part of Texas. I can't say it would be the same everywhere, but in our little corner of Texas, I have come to love the diversity. Our kids' high school has the following ethnic distribution: White 41.9%, Asian 42.5%, Hispanic 9.0%, African-American 6.6%. The Asian group includes Indians. My kids have great friends and may I add, this is a darn smart group of kids. I've been pleased with the schools and how they have challenged our kids. No more smarty pants here. They had to work to keep up with the higher level of teaching (compared to their schools in Utah). I also love that our kids have been exposed to a variety of backgrounds and religions. I wish I could drag this diversity and the schools back with us.

Our house is now officially on the market. It went online yesterday. Our house is also now full of boxes and we have thrown away so much, I'm afraid I may have thrown away some good things too. I hope not. It always worries me.

Oh, and now I have to keep this house clean at all times .... :-)

Pickett House Restaurant

 I was so excited to go to this restaurant! It's East of Houston and it took us about an hour to get there. Pickett is my maiden name, so I HAD to go eat there.

All the food is all you can eat, family style

We went on a hike after eating ... we were STUFFED.

Alyssa Was Here!

 So I am WAAAAY behind on posting. We were SO lucky to have Alyssa come home for a few days! We miss her a ton. She's graduating from Utah State at the end of this school year .... Yikes, where has time gone? Of course, besides swimming and eating out, we had the requisite family (minus me) basketball game. I'm the official photographer and cheerleader. I cheer for whoever makes a point. And we did hit a concert too. It was fun!

Push Ups Part 2

Alyssa reminded me that when she came home, she also beat Christian ....  I just have to brag (sorry Christian). :-)

Push up competition

Christian and Emi have to compete in push ups every now and then ... Yeah, Emi beat him. :-)

Butterflies

Butterflies! We went to see the stinky flower and actually enjoyed the butterflies more. So many beautiful ones!

And some cool lizards ...

Nacogdoches

Dain and I needed to get away so we spent a weekend in Nacogdoches. We took the steam train and it was SO much fun! We drove up on Friday, then on Saturday morning, we jumped on the train which chugged along the forest for 1.5 hrs. At one point, the trained slowed down because we were held up!

They started firing at the train then managed to get on board. It was really cute. They ended up going up and down the train cars asking for donations for a charity. But they did it by offering to "throw that good for nothing man in your life off the train". ha ha

At the other station, when we arrived, there was a big party waiting with signs. We had pre-ordered lunch, so we had a picnic while we waited for the trip back. We took the chance to walk around the area and take pictures. The area is so pretty. It's in the middle of a forest of pine trees.

It was such a nice getaway and so close to home!

Dain Bakes and Stuff Like That

Dain was the MC for the Oyter Creek Park 4th of July. Here he is with Michelle Fisher, who works for him. He's a great MC!!!!

I had been ranting about craving cinnamon rolls. Well, I think he got tired of me talking about them non stop so he made some. Here they are right before he baked them .... He put in raisins (which I don't like) but he compensated by adding chocolate chips. YUM

And round things off, he made this delicious bread. :-) Yeah, I love bread!

Idaho/Utah Trip

We went to Idaho and then Utah. We landed in SLC then rented a car and drove up to Idaho. We hadn't seen my parents in a while plus my younger brother opened his third restaurant and we wanted to see that too. I LOVED the cooler weather. Dain went out for a walk early in the morning and he couldn't get enough of the cooler mornings. We take stuff like that for granted when we're kids!

On the way back from Idaho, we stopped in Ogden, at the Solomon Center and went skydiving ... indoor. Dain and I have both done real skydiving but we thought it would be fun to do as a family. It was a blast! The kids did very well!

We also hiked in the canyons. We love Big Cottonwood Canyon and we were lucky to be able to do a couple of our favorite hikes. This picture was taken on the same rock where we had our very first family picture taken. Cool memories.

There was plenty of snow up on top!!! We had a great snowball fight. Well, they all did. I hid behind the camera. I love this shot of everyone running down the mail slope at Brighton.

After SLC, we went to Central Utah, the town of Joseph to be exact, where we met with Dain's mom, hubby and all his siblings for a quick get together. Dain's mom rented an old church turned vacation rental. It was very cool!!! Dain's family is really into sports so the kids spent the time playing baseball, basketball, riding bikes, etc. I love the colors and the beautiful red rock.

The worst part was saying goodbye to Alyssa and coming back to Texas. It's so far away ....

Christian's Mission Call!

Christian received his call yesterday. He is called to serve in the Cochabamba Bolivia Mission. He enters the MTC on November 3rd, 2010. We're very excited and very proud of him!

In one of his missionary suits ... the packing list calls for just one suit, so we need to decide which one he will take!

Father's Day

I am lucky to be surrounded by incredible dads. The men in my life who are fathers have been such amazing examples of love, kindness, patience and caring. This is my dad, to the left, holding me (yes, even as a baby my hair was curly) and my brother Paul. I still have that dress in my baby box. I have admired my dad for as long as I can remember! My dad has the incredible talent for being quiet and a great listener, something I tried hard to develop. It's so nice to have someone who can lend a listening ear without offering unsolicited advice. He taught me to love spaghetti with ketchup. Yup, it's true. In Argentina, people assumed that's what American's ate and here in the US, people assume it's an Argentinian thing.It's neither, it's a Bob thing (my dad's name) and my siblings and I all love it. My dad is the best ever.

I love this picture of Dain. He might kill me for using it here. Dain has been such a great teacher for the kids. He has a talent for being organized and looking into the future and preparing for it. That is something that is hard to teach and he has been able to teach that to all of us. He loves hard work and being proud of what you do. In this day and age, when kids don't do nearly as many chores as we used to, it's refreshing to know our kids can do whatever is required of them. He's a great dad!

Memorial Day Fun

For Memorial Day, we got to go see The Bangles in concert (and meet them) plus spend time at the Aquarium at Moody Gardens. We also saw the Imax film about surfing ... oh, what's it called? lol Can't remember! But it was fun! Our pictures didn't turn out awesome as the lighting wasn't the best and you can't use a flash.

I love seahorses! They're so tiny and so cute.

And even though the kids have touched stars and such many times before, that's always their favorite!

And that's me with the Bangles. They look so good! These women are my age (well, maybe younger, lol). Still, I was impressed.

Shooting the Bad Guy

Shooting a Glock 40 ... it was a bit too much power for me. Last time I shot a Glock 19 and it was much better. But I still shot the bad guy. :-)

Dain Shooting the same gun ... He did awesome!

The Mission Wait is Now Extended

We found out yesterday that his student stake President lost part of Christian's mission papers and didn't say anything for 3 weeks ... yup, we've been waiting in vain. He asked Christian to redo the medical docs and resubmit. This is going to take FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Still Waiting ...

Yes, we are STILL waiting for Christian's mission call!!! It takes sooooooooooooooooo long, doesn't it??? Or am I just impatient? :-)

Happy Memorial Day weekend!

Christian's 19th Birthday, Spring Concert, Mission Papers

We went to Brenham on 5/1 for Christian's Spring Concert. This was the first of many trips to Brenham ... and keep in mind we've been there a few times the last month. ha ha

This is his band on stage.

And we went back again on 5/8 for his 19th birthday. Notice he's holding a Chuck Norris book .. yup, be prepared. If you keep in touch with him somehow, expect to hear Chuck Norris jokes.

He has also turned in his mission papers this past week .... So it's going to be a big year for him (and us).

Pineapples, Geckos and Tomatoes

Our pineapple plants are finally growing fruit!! We have two plants and we've been waiting for a few years ... yes, years. After the winter freeze, we had to trim some leaves as they were burnt and voila! the pineapples started growing. Our tomatoes should be ready soon. This picture was taken a couple of weeks ago. We have a lot of geckos this year. Plus our lime and orange trees are full of fruit.

I will next post pictures of our loquats and the jam we bottled. It's delicious!

Chappell Hill, Brenham and Blue Bonnets

We flew to Brenham to see Blue Bonnets and also made our way to Chappell Hill (sp?). So pretty!

I think the red Indian Paintbrush flowers are just as pretty ... I never got a picture of the yellow fields.

This was on a building in Chappell Hill .. .ha ha ha made me laugh!! Had to share it.

These square dancers caught my eye ... I think that's a funny dance with funny costumes.

Some diners at Must Be Heaven .. our required stop for lunch in Brenham. :-)

Happy Birthday Dain!

It was Dain's bday this week .... Here's a belated Happy Birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He turned 19 ... no 29 ... no 39 ... ??? I lost count. And yes, he's crossing his eyes ... He crossed them in every single picture! lol

Emi's Stress Fracture

Well, Emi has been complaining of pain right above her ankle in her left leg. I took her this week to get a bone scan and she has a stress fracture (doctor said it has been there a while) plus shin splints in both legs!!! Poor baby girl! So she starts physical therapy next week and will continue for 6 weeks. During that time, no running!!!! Her coach was upset that we didn't allow her to run district but now I'm glad we made that decision. She was already in enough pain.