Fun with Dirt!

The builders made a big mound of dirt that they left on the lot behind us. This last week it has been relatively warm (40's and 50's) and the kids went out to play on it yesterday. They started with the push toys and worked their way up to their bikes. They had a lot of fun. By the afternoon though, the ground was pretty thawed and so they got pretty muddy. I think it was worth it though to let them have a chance to play outside. Our rental apartment did not have any kind of yard, so they really enjoyed the little bit of freedom.

The House

Here is the house. We need to put in the yard, but we will wait for spring before we do it.

This is the view from the corner. We have a corner house, and an oversize 3 car garage that we just barely fit all of our stuff in.

This is the view of the back. We have about 1/3 acre of property. Right now we don't have any neighbors adjacent to us and we have a really nice view of the acreage homes across the way.  When we first moved to Cheyenne, we decided we didn't want acreage and at this point we are glad we made that decision. There are homes close to town with acreage, but they generally aren't for sale and when they go up they are quite pricey.  We are happy with our house and I really like Cheyenne. I have made more friends here than Rock Springs and Rawlins combined. The kid's school is fabulous. We really enjoy our ward, though part of me wishes Dan hadn't been called to the bishopric. We are doing good, and as soon as our carpet is installed in our basement family room, we will be a lot closer to being totally "moved in".

Christmas Morning

Santa found us even though we were at Grandma's house. The kids are wearing the soccer ball pajama bottoms I made them that they opened up Christmas Eve. Santa brought the kids a wii, which they were very excited about. Our big present to them was Disneyland, so we didn't get them much else.  The older kids had a secret santa shop at school and bought presents for us and for each other from that, so we still had a lot to open and had fun on Christmas morning.

Christmas with Cousins

On Christmas Eve Day we drove up to Grandma Pam's. After dinner, my brother and his family and his wife's family all came over for dessert and the kids acted out the Nativity story. It was very cute.

We spent Christmas Day with my mom, but one morning we went over to my brother's house and leet the kids play. Here are Gabby and summer playing with summer's new dollhouse. The cousins had a lot of fun playing together. It would be nice if we lived closer so they could get together more often.

Disneyland

Here are some photos from Disneyland.  We didn't take a lot. I go a little crazy and get too busy to remember to take pictures. We all really had a good time. We were able to go on most of the rides we really wanted to and enjoyed the magic.  Gideon got to see Pooh, Eeyore, and Tigger while The older kids and I went on Splash Mountain.

This was my favorite picture of the trip. We took it at the Pirate's Lair, or what used to be Tom Sawyer's island. Eliza is climbing on the other side. We had so much fun and hopefully I didn't freak out too much.

The Escalator

On Tuesday afternoon we checked into the hotel and went to Disneyland to buy our tickets for the next day. We also went over to the parking garage so the kids could ride the escalator. THe last time we went to Disneyland, Ben was 3 and this was his favorite ride so we decided we better get it in. It is a very big escalator, but he favored other rides this time.

California Beach

I can finally upload pictures. Woohoo! We left on our trip the Monday before Christmas. Since our house wasn't ready yet, we moved all of our stuff into our garage the saturday before. Sunday we stayed in our empty rental apartment and then we took off early Monday morning. We drove to Las Vegas and found a really nice hotel room for $35. We looked it up on the way home and it was going for $120 a night, but that was between Christmas and New Years. On Tuesday we drove down to Seal Beach and enjoyed walking along the beach and getting our feet wet.  Gideon and Gabby didn't like the waves too much, but the older kids liked them almost too much.

Biggest Idiot in the World

I feel like such an idiot. I have not been able to post pictures and I have been sooooooo frustrated. I finally read somewhere that I was in the "edit HTML" mode instead of the "compose" mode and now I think everything is good. Now I can really blog with pictures and everything.

Our House

Okay I am having issues with posting pictures on my blog and I don't have the patience to figure it out right now. We had a great time in California and are now in the middle of the chaos of unpacking 7 people. It isn't pretty. I'll post about the trip and maybe even post some pictures later. Meanwhile, I was at least able to post a picture of the house on the header.