There's No Place Like Home

I finally have pictures taken so I can give the grand tour. Cade will be your guide. (and yes he is playing with a rubber spatula. He is teething and likes to chew on the rubber end-hey whatever works)

Front Room:

Master Bedroom and kitchen and utility room

Cade's roomAnd here is the view from the front door-basically the whole house. I spy Cade!!!
We also have two full baths-one in the master and one in the hall- but I didn't feel a need to post pictures of them. We are really enjoying our place.

Extra fun perks include: air conditioning, big closets, good lighting, dishwasher in the cabinets (our old one was portable so we had to hook it up to the sink every time we used it) and ceiling fans in almost every room. Kansas is going well. Cole is adjusting to being in school again and I am adjusting to being a stay-at-home mommy. And is Cade is adjusting to teeth-pictures coming soon.

2 Years!!

Today we celebrate our two year anniversary! Woo Hoo! Cole and I are so grateful to be together-good thing he called out to me on the corner of 7th and 7th in Provo! We are loving our little family and look forward to the many years to come. We are not doing anything super elaborate because today is also Cole's first day of school. But we made sure to have lunch together and will go out for dessert tonight. Here are a few scenes from our wonderful wedding day 2 years ago.
I love you Cole!!

San Diego

After being in Kansas for about 2 days we turned around and left for a family reunion in San Diego. It was great to be able to relax after making the big move. It was so good to see all the family on my mom's side. Many of them had never met Cade and I had never met some of the newer additions. Grandma and Grandpa were the main planners of everything and they did a fabulous job. Here are some of our adventures.

This was Cade's first experience with the beach. He was ok with standing in the sand and watching the water but he was a little nervous about the water rushing up around this feet.

We went to the San Diego Zoo. What an amazing place! My favorite was the monkeys. We saw a mommy monkey cuddling with her baby. So precious!

We also went to LegoLand! What a fun idea for an amusement park. Of course it would have been so fun to have a Cade a few years older but we still had a blast. Miniland was awesome-they had several major cities (DC, Vegas, New York...) all made out of legos. It was amazing.
Cole loves baseball and we were able to go to a Padres game. Cole loved taking his son to a baseball. We just had to dress him up like a baseball player.
Other activities included a bike ride along the beach, playing games in the hotel lobby, Cole went deep sea fishing, and touring the USS Midway-a naval carrier. They had old veterans there giving presentations on what it was like to be on the carrier. It was pretty fascinating.

This was a great time for us to spend time with lots of family before moving. Now the nearest family is 8 hours away. So if you are ever passing through Kansas feel free to give us a visit!

There's No Place Like Home

I have Internet! It is amazing how lost we have felt with no Internet. I am writing from our hotel in San Diego (a later post will tell about our family reunion.) Anyways, we made the big move to Kansas. Although it was stressful and busy (not to mention a really long drive with a baby) everything went smoothly. Thank you so much to all the family and friends who helped with packing, cleaning, and watching Cade. A big thanks to Cole's brother Brandon for driving our moving truck for us and then helping to get all the big furniture set up. We were there for only 2 days before we had to leave for San Diego but already other church members there have been so welcoming. Within the course of two days we had several men help us move in, a dinner made for us, cookies dropped off, lemon bars dropped off and lots of warmth and welcomes. So although we are a little nervous to live somewhere and not know anyone, this was a big comfort to us and wenare excited to get to know this new area. Here, we captured our first moment in our new home state-notice the gorgeous scenery. To get into the spirit of being Kansas-ans here are a few interesting facts about Kansas I thought I would share.
-It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which was named after the Kansa tribe who lived there.
-Kansas is one of the most productive agricultural states. Most years Kansas leads with the most wheat and sunflower production in the nation.
- Population -2,775,997
-Overland Park, a city in Northeastern Kansas, was voted the 6th best place to live in America in 2006.
-Famous people from Kansas include Amelia Earhart, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Bob Dole.
-Accomplishments and attractions include a Wizard of Oz museum, the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center (a smithsonian instituion), the world's largest ball of twine, and Big Well which is the world's largest hand-dug well. Looks like we are in for a treat.

Just So You Know

Hi! This is Shanna, Jenna's sister. She just wanted to let you know that her computer broke and so she can't make any updates for awhile. Thank goodness for our good friends, the Matheneys, who are trying to fix it but had to take her computer to Texas to get it fixed! So there will not be any updates for a little bit. Here is Jenna's sad face for her broken computer! But she and Cole are busily packing and getting things ready for thier big move coming up very quickly. We wish them luck!

Thanks Emily!

Earlier this week we had the chance to spend the day at Snowbird ski resort. Emily's family has a time share there and go up every year. She invited my family and Shan and Matthew to spend the day with her family doing all sorts of fun activities. I met Emily through classes at BYU. We were both in the Elementary Education program. In the program you are divided into cohorts of about 20 other students. You go through all your classes for the 2 year program with the same cohort group. Needless to say we were able to get to know Emily pretty well. Currently she lives in St. George and, with us moving to Kansas, this was one of the last opportunities to see her and her adorable little family. Playing tennis with Emily's siblings. Isn't that background gorgeous!?Emily's little girl, Mylee, crawled into Cade's car seat and was so proud of herself. I thought it was adorable.Mylee and Cade playing.Cade swinging and playing in the park.Here is Emily and I coming down the Alpine slide.

We had so much fun!! Thanks so much to Emily and her family for letting us join them for the day! We will miss seeing you Emily!!

The 4th Weekend

For the 4th we went up to Cole's parents cabin again in Scofield. Most all of his family and extended family were able to come. We went up on Friday afternoon, slept over and left Saturday afternoon. It is in a really beautiful area and we really had a fun time. Friday afternoon a bunch of us got on the 4-wheelers and went up to Skyline Drive. Once you get to the top, it is miles and miles of trail atop the mountains with incredible views. It was a lot of fun.

Later that night we had a great dinner along with delicious homemade ice cream made by Cole's mom. After dinner Cole and I and Cole's brother and his wife went fishing. This was a first for me. I was a spaz at casting! I enjoyed the experience although it was very anti-climatic since we didn't have anything close to a nibble! I don't have any pictures-probably because we were so bummed with not catching anything. Cole and I got up early Saturday morning and took the same trail to Skyline drive to see the sun rise. The sky was amazing. It makes me miss the big Texas skies back home!