The Move: 3 kids, 3 days, and 5 states.

Okay, I'm still working a few weeks behind here.  The day after we got back from Canada, we unloaded the van, cleaned it, and re-loaded it to move.  When we moved to the Caribbean, we sold or gave away almost everything.  Whatever we had left, we fit in two van loads - one when Jaron went to KC to sign paperwork on the apartment (which we stored in a storage unit) and the second load that we took with us.  With one of us driving the van, that left one lucky winner to drive the tiny car with all 3 kiddos.  At first we decided to trade off driving to give the driver of the kids a break but our kids are just pretty fantastic travelers (if we stop every three hours or so) so I drove almost the whole way with them.

The drive from Idaho through the first half of Wyoming is amazingly beautiful.  I love that I've gotten to drive so much of this country.

The first time we stopped was at some touristy place in Wyoming.  One of the stores had this giant fish pole sign that Alden got a kick out of.

 Our next stop was at my old college roommate's house in Casper, where we spent the night.  Every time we go to visit them I remind myself the whole way there to get pictures of us with the Lynns but I never remember.  I guess it'll have to wait until the next move - it seems like the Lynns are always putting us up for a night during our moves. :-)  Kim pointed out to me that it'd been 10 years since we were college roommates.  It's so crazy that we're still so well in touch (all 6 of us in that apartment still keep in touch!) but we have a blast with Kim and Danen and their 3 (now 4 as of yesterday!) kids hit it off with our kids.  Thanks again to the Lynn family for a comfortable stay!

The next morning our driving goal was to make it to Sydney, NE without stopping.  We stopped at Cabela's, where I thought they took the real-tree camouflage thing a little too far:

 But the kids had a blast there.

 

At another stop on our second day of driving, we found a beautiful lake with a great park.  We went to feed the ducks some old bread we'd had since the Canada trip and it was so funny to see the fish fighting the swans and ducks for the bread!

 These fish were fiesty little fellas - I'm glad I don't have to fight them for my dinner!  Eli got a little shy of the swans after he witnessed one swan bite Gracen when she fed it straight from her hand.

 As I stood there snapping pictures of my family having fun, it totally struck me how awesome this was.  Here we were, having been stuffed into a tiny car together for two days straight, at some random park in some random town in the middle of Nebraska, and we were having so much fun together.  I love my family to bits and pieces.  I'm so grateful for these adventures that we get to experience as a family - it binds us together and makes us appreciate each other.

Nonetheless, by the time we got to the Missouri border on the third day, we all felt like this:

As we drove into the city, I was instantly reminded of how much I like driving in this city. Unlike Calgary, which doesn't really have any thoroughfares, Kansas City has freeways that loop the city and criss-cross through it.  It takes no time at all to drive from one side of a 4 million person metro to the other.  And for some reason, it is so fun to be driving in and out of four lanes of traffic. :-)

When we got to the apartment, we all helped unload the bags and boxes we'd stuffed into the van.

Because we didn't move here with any furniture other than our beds, it's actually been the most labor-intensive move ever.  It was frustrating to have a bunch of "stuff" but nowhere to put that stuff away into so for the last few weeks, I've been running around like crazy to garage sales and thrift stores in a mad search for inexpensive furniture. (Okay, okay, it is exhausting but it's soooo much fun too. :-D)

Our first night here, we were reminded of what it really means to have rain.  We had really windy thunderstorms every night for the first few nights.  Between the wind, the thunder, and the new house, the kids have NOT been sleeping well.  The first picture is of Jaron after he dashed out to the car to roll up the windows.  Can't you just hear what he's saying? "Wife, if you would just roll up the windows!"  And the second picture is what we saw just around the corner when we set out garage sale-ing the next morning - an entire tree blown down into the street!  Ahh, the wild weather of the midwest.

It is soooo fun to be back in our old stomping grounds.  Our ward at church hasn't changed much but a lot of the neighborhood has.  Lucky for me, my blessed friend Christal Forred is still here.  She's an AMAZING lady who inspires me to be better and we get along sooooo well.  Her and Joe have been amazingly helpful to us getting settled.

Jaron started his internal medicine rotation at the hospital this week and he loves it.  It's so fun to see him coming home every night (even after a 16 hour shift) excited from what he's seen and done that day. So far it looks like for this rotation he'll be at the hospital about 60 hours a week.  And so it begins!

Hooray for another grand adventure!