Our first visitor

My dad came to visit us this past Tuesday-Saturday.  It was a wonderful visit! We had such a great time with Papaw! The kids were so glad to see him and play with him and so were Kevin and I! Its always nice to have a familiar face to see right after you move!  My dad teaches college math and so his classes didn't start until today...however, my mom teaches middle school English and she started school at the beginning of August.  So, it was a special trip with Papaw.  We visited with my mom at the beginning of the summer, but only got to see Papaw for one day then!

So, what did we do with Papaw while he was here? We picked him up from the airport on Tuesday morning, stopped at McDonalds for a snack then came home and played.  Caleb taught Papaw a new game called Rummikub cards.  Its pretty much rummy with a certain deck of cards.  It has become Caleb's new favorite game.

It amazingly rained all day on Wednesday.  Apparently, when my dad visits a place he brings the opposite weather with him.  Las Vegas usually only gets about 4 inches of rain in a year and it got an inch of rain on Wed.  So, we scrapped our idea of going to the zoo and went to the mall to let the kids run at the play area and Papaw bought them each a toy at Toys R Us.  TJ got a spiderman mask and a water bottle that squirts water...which he has been playing with since then.  Caleb got a baseball game which he enjoys.  And Abigail got a Toy Story camera and 2 tshirts.

Thursday, we went to Kevin's work.  He showed us around the squadron and we got to see a demo of what the airplanes do to practice.  They also had a hail and farewell...so we were welcomed in to the squadron with a pizza party.  It was nice!  Then, we went to the Thunderbirds museum and saw the old Soviet tanks, airplanes, and helicopters.  That was pretty cool!

On Friday, we went to the zoo...it was quite a small zoo, so then we went to Sonic for lunch (yummy, slushies), and went mini golfing.  The boys loved the mini golfing and are wondering when we are going to go back...sometime I'm sure. :  )

Dad babysat the kids for us on Friday night and Kevin and I went out to dinner then did some shopping at Wal-mart.  It was sooo nice to go out to dinner! Thanks Dad! And the kids of course had fun too!

Enjoy the pics of our fun time!

Our house in Vegas and a cool video

I took some more pics of our house in Vegas so I thought I'd post them.  I also took a video of us driving in this mountainous ravine/valley.  Kevin drove that part of it....and I closed my eyes for some of it.  Good thing I wasn't driving.  We drove through a little of Arizona on the way from Utah to Vegas and it was quite the drive for this one part.

 This is our guest room...it was already painted like that. We call it the tree of life room.  :  )

 This is Abigail's room...again already painted like that!  So, she gets a pink room!

 Here is part of our kitchen...yes, a double oven! I'm quite blessed! Now, I'll have to do lots of baking. :  )

 This is our playroom upstairs...its a big landing off of the stairs.

 This is a formal dining room which will be our homeschool classroom...so that's a really nice room to do school! It is downstairs and the first room from the front door and next to kitchen and family room.

 This is our master bedroom. Its quite big and we have a large master bathroom as well!

 This is our family room...our monstrous entertainment center did not all fit...the left side had to be put in the other room where my treadmill and exercise bike are. 

 Extra room downstairs where the exercise equipment is...yay for my treadmill!

 Outside covered porch...that's nice since its hot here.

 Part of our yard...we plan to put a swingset up. 

Our trip to Vegas-Days 7-9

Then, we headed to Salt Lake City, Utah to visit our friends we had met in Germany.  Their oldest is a few weeks older than Caleb.  He was Caleb's first friend when they were both 1.  It was a huge blessing to get to see them as well!  Its so hard to visit friends who live far away when you have small children so this gave us a chance to visit a few!!!  We stayed 2 nights with them and played and played.  The boys really enjoyed using their friends' battery powered vehicles...we don't have those and our boys love to play on them.  Their house is on a cul de sac so that provided a nice safe road for them to drive on.  We also went swimming! We really like to swim in the summer.  The boys did not want to leave such a fun house! They just did not have enough time to play with new friends!! Abigail of course just loves to be a part of the gang and play with everyone...she did very much love their sweet baby.  She is such a beautiful sweet little baby.  And Caleb enjoyed helping out their oldest girl and being a big brother to her as well.   Kevin and I also had a great time talking with our friends...we were so blessed being friends with them in Germany and it was great to catch up a little...amongst 6 small children running around and playing! 

Our last day on the road...yay!! We arrived in Vegas at 4:30pm.  Kevin dropped me at the base and I drove his car to get groceries while he went to our new house and got the keys.  At 7:30am the next day, movers arrived and our house was full of boxes.  We have made some good progress, but still have quite a bit more work to do.

Hope you enjoyed reading about our adventurous drive across the country.  I'm not sure I'll drive it again...we'll have to see...might just have to fly instead!  :  )  I am glad we did it...it was definitely an adventure and it is nice to know now that our family can do that and survive, but it was totally exhausting and I keep napping each afternoon to catch up.  :  ) 

Our trip to Vegas-Days 4-6

We headed from Naperville on Wednesday to Omaha, NE.  Two days of driving in a row was definitely enough for us...we needed a break every third day.  There is no way I could have driven 3 days in a row.  So, it was nice that Kevin had it planned that way.  And we were able to stay on quite a few different military bases throughout the country which helped with costs.  We stayed on base and swam in their pool after we ate dinner.  
Then, we left on Thursday and arrived in Cheyenne, WY.  We stayed in Cheyenne for 2 nights.  Kevin and I worked out a little...not that we needed to get out energy, but it was nice to stretch our legs and run a little.  If I would have had my camera with me while I ran outside, then I would have been able to take pictures of the wildlife on the Cheyenne base.  Oh my goodness, it was crazy.  I started running towards the gym and I thought I saw a statue of a deer.  Then, I realized the head moved and that there were 4 antelope just hanging out in the grass. So, I crossed the street and ran on the other side to the gym.  I did mean to take pics afterwards and forgot. It was like going to Disney's Animal Kingdom except I wasn't safe in a safari jeep.  I'm pretty sure my friends the Bissons would have loved it. Christina, I think maybe you should think about living in Wyoming not Montana.  We went to the Wild West Museum and played there in the morning, then the boys went to the pool while Abigail took a nap and I watched water polo.  Its very significant that I finally got to watch a water polo game. I was a bit bummed that we were moving during the Olympics. I mean I don't get to watch water polo on tv very often...like only every 4 years.  And I LOVE it.  I actually love watching all of the sports.  I did get to watch the women's gold medal game once we arrive in Vegas.  Good thing for sure...they won Gold in case you didn't know. :  )  And on more of a side note....Abigail is quite the Olympic cheerleader.  She was so cute watching with us...she would say, Go, Go, Go...just like her mama!! 

Our trip to Vegas--Days 1-3

We left Kevin's parents on Sunday, July 29th around 8:45 am....I can actually remember what time it was because we seemed to leave every morning at 8:45 am. It was so weird...there would be days that we were up early...and still couldn't get out till 8:45 am.  Then days, we were up at 8 am and got out at 8:45 am.  So, that was the magic time for us for whatever reason.  Our first day we packed a cooler of food for lunch and stopped at a playground on the way in West Virginia. It was a great place to stop...I had made cookies at the Beeker's house before we left so that is what the kids are enjoying in the picture! 
Our first day, we arrived in Dayton, OH around 6pm and visited with our friends the Bissons! They had a light meal for us (it was way more than a light meal), it was perfect.  We were all pretty hungry and we enjoyed all of it!!!  There was of course a variety of desserts to choose from as well! Yummy!! We had hoped to make it to their house at least an hour earlier to have more time to spend with them, but it just didn't happen.  So, we got a few hours of hanging out and then headed to our room on base!  We are so glad that we stopped for a visit...at first Kevin had wanted to go farther that first day, but then realized that Dayton would be a perfect stop and it was.  There is no way we could have driven any farther.  We were all done for that day.  It was so wonderful to stop and visit with our friends and let the kids play and get to chat! I wish we could have stayed quite a few more hours to visit, but we were also very tired and ready for bed! 

Our second day we arrived in Naperville, IL to visit my college roomie Kelly and her family!!!  That day wasn't as long which was so wonderful.  We were ready for a visit and not to be in the car.
Our visit with her family and kids on the third day was perfect! We got to play with her 3 boys and went to the pool/beach the next day! This beach was super awesome! Its a man made beach...with chlorine water.  It has sand like the beach so sand castles were built and lots of water to swim in.  They had diving boards and a slide.  Kel and Myles actually grew up with swim practices and water polo practices there.  I pretty much thought it was the coolest thing ever.  I mean able to go to the beach without the fish or sharks.  Awesome!!!  I think every city should have one! I was a big fan of Naperville, IL.  I'd love to move there except I don't think I could handle the winters...no, just too cold for me.  Thank you Kel and Myles for hosting us! Our kids had soo much! And I loved getting to see you!