The new place....

Here are a couple of pictures of our new apartment! There are none of our bedroom or the kitchen because neither of them were clean yesterday! :) I'll add those later!

The entry way (nothing too exciting, lol)

The dining roomThe kids bathroom
The next three are Erka's room. All of the bedrooms are huge with huge closets!!!


This is Caleb's room

And here are the kids with their teddy bears....just because they are cute! :)

New living room furniture!!!

Thanks to a generous gift we received when we moved to Texas, David and I were able to purchase new couches for our living room! We LOVE them!!!!

Caleb & Erika love them too!

David's new-do!!!

David's been wanting to shave his head again for a long time and I finally caved and let him do it!!! Here's a pic:

My ring is fixed!!!

We went to the mall on Sunday and while we there we went to Helzberg to have our wedding rings cleaned. We asked the man there if he could fix it and about two minutes later it was a perfect circle and on my finger!!!! And the best part....he didn't charge us!!!! We had gone to a different place in the mall and they would have charged us $35 to do it! I didn't want to pay that much so I decided to just wait! Good thing I did! :)

Our Fourth of July

I know this update is pretty late, but it's comical enough to make it worth it! I had mentioned that we were going to take the kids to a carnival. Well the place that everyone told us to go to didn't exist....or we just got bad directions. After driving around we finally found a place that had fireworks. We sat in traffic FOREVER and ended up just getting re-routed back onto the highway because they had no more parking! It was insane! So as we are getting back onto the highway Caleb is in the backseat bawling his eyes out because he wants to see fireworks so bad! We drive just a little ways and see all kinds of people pulled over and setting up chairs on the side of the highway, in the ditch (which was more like a field)....so we followed suit! We got our chairs out and we were all sitting and ready for the fireworks. Well right at the time they were supposed to start the cops came and told everyone they had to leave. There were at least 50 people there and one cop....the outcome wasn't what the cop wanted. We weren't sure if he was going to sit and wait till everyone left or not so we got the kids back in the car....more tears from Caleb. We didn't leave though, we just waited.....finally the cop just left. Right after he left the fireworks started, so we got the kids out of the car and just sat them on the trunk to watch the fireworks. CRUMMY CRUMMY CRUMMY fireworks!!!! Both David and I said we'd rather have been in Coon Rapids!!! Their fireworks last year were great!!! The one nice thing was after they were done we loaded the kids in the car and got on the highway and didn't have to deal with all the traffic! Here's pics: (there's another story under the pics.....)




So we get home, get the kids in bed and head to bed ourselves. Just like every July 4th, there are people outside letting off fireworks, we expected it. David fell right asleep and was snoring as I layed in bed and couldn't fall asleep. Everytime I started to drift off another firework would go off. Right around midnight I'm hearing a noise and can't figure out what it is and then I realize it's someone pounding on our door. Yep at midnight. So I wake David up, it's our neighbor downstairs....."you might want to move your car, the dumpster is on fire" is what I heard. Like completely engulfed in flames. Someone thought it would be funny to put a firecracker in there. Our car was the closest one to the dumpster, but it was like five parking spaces away. It probably would have been fine, but David moved it just in case. The cops arrived as he was moving the car and put out the fire. I think the cops hung around for a while too because it was pretty quiet after that! So there you have it! Our exciting first holiday in Texas! :)

My ring....

Last week we went to the mall one day so the kids could play at the play area there. As I was getting the stroller out of the trunk my finger (right ring finger) somehow got stuck between two of the metal bars! Look what happened to my ring!! It was pretty scary! The part of the ring on the right bottom side that is sticking out just a bit was actually indented. I used a pliers to bend it out just enough to get my finger out! My poor finger was pretty sore the rest of the day.

Good-bye Minnesota!!

Here are a few pics from our going away party! I managed to make it through the night with no tears! I can't say that about the afternoon though. Saying good-bye to our neighbors and walking through the house a final time with the kids was really hard!

The purple people eaters....

Thanks to everyone who came! We left Minnesota feeling loved! Thanks to Jodi & Dawn for organizing it all!

A visit to the lake

A few days before we left for Texas I went up to the lake to visit my grandparents. My sister and cousin were there with their kids too. We had a good time! Erika was obsessed with Courtney's shoes, (see the second picture!) it was pretty cute!

Erika's 2nd Birthday!!!

Well I found the camera cord!!! Now you are going to get sick of seeing pics! Here are a few from Erika's 2nd Birthday! :)

She got excited about EVERY present! It was cute!

The princess dress is actually from Papa Ole and Grandma Deb! They gave her money for her birthday and I knew she would love this so I bought it and wrapped it up for her! She doesn't care about going shopping and picking out a present yet, but I knew she'd love to open it up! Little did I know she would want to strip and get it on two seconds after opening and then wear it all night long!!!

Still no cord....

I'm going crazy searching everywhere for my camera cord! I think I'll cave and just go buy a new one! I'm sure once I buy a new one and take it out of the package, I will find the old one! That's just how life works! It's been a while since I copied pictures to a CD and my memory card is almost full! (and it holds over 1000 pictures!!!) Nothing else is really new down here in our hot part of the country! We still haven't really connected with anyone and made friends. We know a few people from the church that we have been going to, but really haven't had the chance to connect with them again. I know it takes time, but man, it gets a little lonely! Today Caleb asked if we could go find some new friends in Texas. :( Makes me sad! Even he is noticing that we don't have anyone to hang out with! We've had some much needed familly time though! When David is home from work I am like chopped liver! They cling to Daddy like you would not believe! NEVER again will we be away from Daddy for four months!!! That was WAY too long!
Hope you are all staying cool! (David will be staying cool in his no a/c truck soon....I found a fan for him!!!)

A quick update....

It's late and I'm headed to bed soon, but i just realized that I haven't updated for over a week now!
We are doing pretty good down here in this blasted heat! It's HOT right now! The kids and I are surviving by staying inside as much as we can. We have ventured out to the mall play area and the McDonalds playland a few times so they can run off some of their energy. :) David is outside much more than we are and he somehow is surviving without a/c in his truck! We need to find him a fan that he can plug into his truck.
Tomorrow is Erika's 2nd birthday!!!! I can't believe my baby is two already! We celebrated tonight since David will be at work tomorrow. She loved opening presents, it was so cute. She got excited about every little thing. I have a bunch of cute pictures to show you from tonight, but first I have to find the cord to plug my camera into the computer......it's in a box somewhere!

We made it!!!

Here we are in Texas, starting to get settled into our new life! The boxes are starting to disappear and our apartment is starting to look like home, although it doesn't feel like home yet. The drive down went good. We decided to drive straight through so the last couple of hours were hard. We pulled in around 3:30 AM on Saturday morning. After the moving truck was unloaded (which I wasn't much help with because I needed to keep the kids out of the way) this is what our apartment looked like:

After a couple of hours and with lots of help from Jodi this is what it looked like:

We still have a lot of work to do, but we are making progress!!

This is our first holiday without friends and family close by! David is working right now, but tonight we are planning to take the kids to a carnival and stay for fireworks. We saw some random fireworks last night as we were driving home from church, so Caleb is very excited for tonight! Last year he was scared, so hopefully this year he won't be! :)

I'll update again soon!

Success!!!!

Well David was surprised! We ended up telling him while we were on the road on Friday. I couldn't stand it anymore that he didn't know! It worked out nice though, he was able to switch around his work for Saturday so he could be home in the evening with us. We had a great time!!! I think it was the best Fathers Day present ever! We went to church and then to Olive Garden for lunch. yummmyyy!!! We just relaxed at the apartment the rest of the time! And we even got to go on a couple dates.....one was to walmart and the other to the laundry mat! Exciting times, let me tell you! My sister was with so she stayed with the kids for us. :)

I have a busy week ahead of me! David flies home on Wednesday morning. We'll spend the day finishing up all the packing. Thursday we pick up the moving truck and then our going away party is on Thursday night. Come if you can! We'd love to see you! Friday morning we pull out of town! We are splitting up the drive for the sake of the kids and our sanity! So we will get to Texas on Saturday afternoon/early evening.

Pray for us during the next couple of weeks as we go through all this transition! As much as we will miss our family and friends in MN, David and I are looking forward to being in the same state again for more than just a long weekend!

SHHHHHH

Tomorrow morning we are heading to Texas for a quick surprise Fathers Day visit! As far as I know, David still does not know that we are coming! I'm so excited to surprise him! We are borrowing a van from a friend so I am also bringing a load of stuff down for him as well. Tomorrow night we are spending the night with friends in Kansas City and then Saturday we'll get to the apartment probably around 5 or so. YAY!!!! We'll spend the evening and all day Sunday with David and then we'll head back home on Monday morning, spend the night again in KC and then get to our MN home on Tuesday evening. :) My little sister is coming with me so I will at least have help with the kids. I feel a little bad for taking away from the little time we have left with everyone here, but I know this will mean the WORLD to David and that is what's most important!

Three weeks....

That's it! Only three weeks till we leave for Texas!!!! WOW! I have a lot to get done in the next three weeks! Not just with packing but also spending time with those who I will miss dearly once we move! It's definitely a bitter sweet time. I am VERY anxious to be in the same state as my husband again but it's going to be hard to leave MN!

As promised

Here are bunch of new pictures of the kids!










Just minutes after daddy got off the plane! (it had been a month since we'd seen him!!)



After breakfast with Daddy we headed to Build a Bear






Caleb has been wanting Daddy to take his training wheels off! He gave it a shot, but he's not quite ready to be without the extra help.


Grandma & Erika relaxing






Caleb & Grandpa hanging out


Emptly laundry basket = all kinds of entertainment!


This was just tonight, I put braids in Erika's hair for the first time!





Now my next job is to figure out how to get videos on here! I have a couple of cute ones of the kids that I want to share! :)

Blog....

I set this blog up over a year ago and never really got into using it all that much as you can see by the previous posts...there are only two! I have decided I am now going to keep this up to date! This will be a great way for us to share about our new adventures in Texas!! :) We are leaving for Texas on June 27th! David will be moving into the apartment that we are renting on June 10th. When I say moving, that really doesn't involve much for David. He has clothes and an air mattress to move! I'm sure he will be very happy when our bed is down there and he no longer is sleeping on an air mattress!!! Check back soon for some new pictures of the kids! I will hopefully soon be a pro at this blogging thing! :)

Another Caleb story.....

Tonight we ran to Target to get some diapers and banana's. lol. nice combination, huh. well anywho, so it's freezing cold out and as we are walking into Target (which has a starbucks right inside the entrance) Caleb says to me "Mom, I'm freezing, maybe we should get a coffee"......this lady was walking next to me and she busted out laughing! It was HILARIOUS!!!! And really after being that cute how could I turn the kid down. When he says coffee he gets hot chocolate, but they put it in the same (only smaller) cups as our, so he totally thinks he's all grown up and cool.