The Thoughts
and Happenings of a Moving
Family
As
I try to catch up on the last couple of months of our lives, I realize how much
was crammed into them. So much happened
all at once. Whew! Can we all just take a deep breath now? The telling of everything that happened would
just take forever, lets be honest, so I am going to attempt to keep it short
and do bullet points. Sounds less
daunting to me.
· We were packed and moved
in less than a day. Wow.
· Traveling to
Chicago. Ummm…that was super fun.
· Extended stay hotel, or a
kinder way of saying hostel or dump?
Hmmm. Perhaps I am not being too
kind in this, but after seeing it the first time and having to stay in our one
room “home” for an entire week, I am a little biased. Our hotel was located about a mile or so from
the Midway International airport, and was not in the best part of town. Lots of businesses, but no parks, no pool, no
white people. We arrived late at night,
and were so tired. I went to go use the
bathroom only to discover our toilet had been taken over by bacteria that
resembled black moss. Yummy. The next day we went to the store, all of us.
(Lets just say that shopping with Ryan and the boys is super fun. I mean who doesn’t like crying and tantrums
and a husband who hates shopping and is rushing you?) I come back and clean and
disinfect the entire place.
We also came to the conclusion that having only one bathroom
can be a bit challenging at times.
Having to urgently go to the bathroom all at the same time, can truly
try you, and patience is definitely a virtue that sometimes just doesn’t quite
work.
The rest of the week we stayed in the room all day while Ryan
started work. I will be honest when I
say we were on the bored side, but we made it through. Grandma’s backpack of goodies and fun things
was a lifesaver in regards to Nik.
Sometimes we passed the time by playing hot potato with Ian’s dirty
diapers. (I know I get the parent of the
year award for that one.)
· Preparing myself for what
I will say for the inevitable moment my sheltered 4 year old opens his cute
little mouth and utters a remark about someone’s skin color. The fact that it hasn’t happened so far is
amazing. Unfortunately overly large
people, beware, my son will call you out.
· I have discovered what
used to be my straight and calm hair is now what appears to be a kinky lions
mane. Who knew?!
· We are getting to know
our GPS apps on our phones really well.
We only got lost every time we ventured out in our cars, for hours at a
time. Sound fun? Well you can imagine. One time we spent almost 5 hours lost getting
home from church one Sunday. That was a doozie.
· We absolutely love our
new ward. I was really praying for a
good ward for us. We needed a good ward
and some good friends, and Heavenly Father totally delivered. We made some awesome friends the first week
we were there, and were overwhelmed by how friendly, kind and helpful everyone
is. Not to mention how seriously
everyone takes their callings and how enthusiastic they are about missionary
work. It’s pretty great. Nik is also really loving it. I have never seen him love primary more. His teachers are fabulous and each week Nik
comes home from church knowing a lot more about the gospel. Can we say awesome? Apparently he also likes to talk to everyone,
and the ladies in Primary have been quoting him for weeks now. Apparently Nik is a pretty funny kid. The ladies also love Ian. He bats his incredibly long eye lashes at
them and gives them a grin and they all melt.
When we first came to the ward, quite a few mistook him for a girl. Oops. I guess we can blame it on those long
eyelashes.
· We went to go eat at a
famous pizza place called Giordanos. I’m not exactly sure why it’s famous,
because the food really isn’t something to rave about, but our experience was
pretty funny. We were eating, and Ian
was fussing because he was hungry. I decided since I was basically done, that I
would just go out to the car and feed him.
When I went out to the car, I noticed that a rather large and shiny new hummer
decided to park right next to us. And
wouldn’t you know, he parked about 8 inches from our car. Wow, thanks for your consideration
buddy. I carefully navigated my way into
the car with Ian without starting the alarm.
Ryan and Nik came out 10 minutes later and were trying to get in the car,
when Ryan sets off the alarm on the Hummer.
Oops. So Ryan decides to hurry
and move the car to a different parking space just in the off chance the guy
who owns the shinny hummer decided to come out and investigate.
· We were so excited for
Ryan starting a new job out here in Chicago.
We arrived just in time. We flew
in Friday night and he started on Monday.
We said our goodbyes that morning and a couple hours passed. I was surprised to get a call from Ryan. I pick up and he tells me how he is stuck in
the elevator and that his new boss has called the fire department to come get
him out. Is that the best first day or
what?!
· So in moving out here, we
knew that they got storms, and were a lot more wet than what we were used to,
but I don’t think we fully understood.
Their rain seems to come down hard and in great amounts. We are talking torrential rain here. The first time we experienced it, Nik went
out in it and was so shocked by it he was stunned. He froze and just stared as puddles became
lakes all around us. I don’t think I
have been in scarier storms than out here.
When they say severe thunderstorms, it’s a complete understatement. We also experienced our first tornado
scare. That was not fun in the least.
· We finally moved into our
new place. We were so excited. We were a
bit late because traffic is crazy, and because we aren’t used to tolls. Ryan jumped out at one of the stoplights and
gave us some change for them. In the end
we needed more than we thought and just drove on through. Little did we realize it was okay to do that
because you can go on line and pay the tolls later. Hello.
We are total out of staters.
Our house is cute, but the layout is a bit strange. And the
owner didn’t clean or clean the carpets.
We have white carpet, oh wait, I guess you can’t really call it white
for all the dirt and stains that are in it.
Oh well I am going to try and wash them myself when we get a little more
settled.
As for getting moved in, its taken me what seems like an
entire month to get settled. Moving from
a 5-bedroom home with a 2-car garage, to a 2-bedroom 1-car garage (if you can
even call it that), is a bit challenging.
The area that we are in is great. There are a million parks everywhere. The area is also very family oriented and
makes it easy for us to go out and do fun things with the kids.
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| Sometimes slushies and popcorn for dinner are totally acceptable. |
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| I love the brotherly love going on here. |
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| They sure love each other. |
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| Free rides at the grocery store make a little boy so happy. |
· Nik has a new BFF. We met some awesome new friends in the ward,
the Nemelkas. They have a little boy who
is almost 3 named Oliver. We met at the
park and played. Nik ran up to us and
said that Oliver is his new best friend forever, and since then they have been
good buddies. They play so great
together and ask to play with each other all the time. Meanwhile Ryan and I love hanging out with
Katie and Bo. We are so glad to have
found good friends here.
· For the 4thof July this
year, we took the boys to downtown Aurora for the parade. It was fun, but not too impressive. There was no candy, not a lot of music or
enthusiasm. I think the West knows how
to do them a lot better from what we experienced. We were hungry afterwards and decided to stop
at a little Mexican restaurant on the way home.
It smelled good, but after eating there we all got sick for a couple
days. I don’t think we will be going back
there ever.
We wanted to take the kids to the fireworks later in the
evening, but Nik was so tired, he fell asleep way before we needed to leave, so
we decided not to do them this year.
Kind of a slow and lazy 4th, but it was still fun.
· Here is what Nik is into
lately:
He loves legos,,watching
Scooby do, team hot wheels cars, reading fun books, going to the park,
playing with Ian, planning for when he gets to go to Lego Land, making
“potions” out of whatever he can get his hands on, singing(awhile ago he was
singing the tune Joy to the World with the phrase: “fa lalalalla lets do what’s
right” as well as singing I am a child of Gods tune with the phrase “and the crowd
goes wild!”. I’m not sure where he comes
up with it all, but its pretty funny listening to it all.), and, wait for it,
wait for it…watching My Little Pony. Oh
yeah, whoever said that show was only for girls, was wrong. It’s a way cute show, and Nik and I have
enjoyed watching it.
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| Helping me make cinnamon rolls |
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| Daddy Time |
Here are some fun little video clips of us passing time at our hotel:
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