As always, the pictures I post come in chronological order - though that's sometimes super unhelpful because I bounce around a lot. But when I have so much to catch up on, it's about all I can do.
First off - baby lady got some teeth!
One of the things I was super sad about with the timing of our move was losing out on most of our garden. Our tomato plants did incredible and I was so excited to eat them! But the vast majority of them were still green or just coming on as we were moving. We still had some time before we closed on the house, so I told some ward members go to pick what they wanted. I don't know if they did, but it's better than the darn squirrels running off with everything! (Like the one below that had an entire tomato in his mouth).
Here is a small sampling of some of our produce. We love having a garden. Wyoming's growing season isn't very long, so we were very grateful to be able to pull anything off.
Just a sweet picture of sleepy baby and daddy:
This was the last fishing trip that Ryan and Pierscen were able to go on together. Not having ample fishing spots to pick from in NM was going to be rough.
Right before moving day, we attended Ryan's work party. I hesitate to mention this because it was such a bitter thing, but it is what it is.
Ryan was in charge of planning the party. When we arrived there was great fun, games and prizes. Ryan competed in the bean bag toss game (corn hole?) and won second place. He also competed in a three legged race with Pierscen and won some money for that too. It was a lot of fun!
Then his boss made an announcement that due to everyone's hard work, they had actually come in under budget for the last fiscal year and that they were going to be giving out bonuses to those that were employed during that year... through the end of September. Did you catch that? Cause we sure did. And not just because she glanced our direction as she threw in that little detail. Yup. Ryan not only worked all of that fiscal year - but also the two previous. He earned that bonus. He did SO many good things for that department. He was loved and respected. But to save some money, they decided to tack on that little footnote to make it so that we would be excluded - by two weeks. Lest you think I'm crazy, they had actually told everyone they had a big announcement a couple weeks previous, but when they found out that Ryan was leaving, they postponed the announcement.
Well then. We were livid. And yes, Ryan talked to HR about it, and yes, they were expecting him to come, because yes, everyone noticed that not so sly move and many people told him what a nasty thing they thought it was. Obviously we will never know the whole reasoning behind things. The director of the health dept really liked Ryan and had been a big advocate for him moving up. At least up until he found something else. It may have just been about money, but it also felt like - what's that word - revenge? That's not it. But you know what I mean. It was like she was punishing him for leaving. Which is really sad. If there had been an opportunity for him to grow within the dept, we would have loved to have stayed. We loved it it Wyoming! (Still can't talk about this yet.) It was a surprising blow, but it only confirmed that we were making the right choice. Yes, we really REALLY could have used the money to help with the move, but you know what? It was time to move on. The job in Wyoming was exactly what we needed to start out Ryan's career, and it was a good experience. Toward the end things starting teetering the other direction and this was certainly the cherry on top. But in a way it was a blessing. It made our decision that much easier. We were making the right move.
So what I really wish I had a picture of was the army of friends that came to help me clean, clean, clean before moving day. That shows you who your true friends are. (I can't talk about this! It's been almost a year since we moved and I still can't even write about this without tearing up. I need a stupid sobbing emoji right now to sum up my emotions for me.) Anyway, thank you, thank you, thank you for my incredible friends and ward family for rallying around us and helping us through this.
Ryan's parents were there to help load everything up and they left before us to head to Colorado Springs - the half way point. Here are our farewell to Casper pictures (and yes, I had double cold sores - a testament to my level of stress.) But the good news is - We did it!
We made it down to Colorado Springs were I dropped Ryan and Pierscen off at Jodi's and I went to spend the night at Nicia's with Devry. I couldn't pass up the chance to spend time with my BFF. We stayed up late laughing and chatting like always.
And these two are destined to be BFFs! They were so excited to see each other! It was the cutest thing in the world!
Sadly the visit was short lived and it was time to press on into uncharted territory. Onto the Land of Enchantment!
Here I pause my narrative to add another tender mercy from our Heavenly Father. When we found out that we were moving to NM, word got around and my sister, Necia, talked to her mother-in-law who used to live in Albuquerque. When she moved to Utah, she sold her house to her best friend, who is a widower. She has a few spare bedrooms and she thought that her friend, Sharon, would be willing to let us live with her for a while. Sure enough, Sharon contacted me and offered to let us stay with her until we figured out where we were going. She lives in Placitas, which is just outside of Albuquerque, in a nice "all-natural" area where everything is left the way it's is. I can't imagine opening my home to perfect strangers, but this was a HUGE blessing for us. It wasn't like moving to Casper where we could rent blind and be okay. Sure, our apartment wasn't fantastic, but it's not like we were in the ghetto. Albuquerque is huge. There were well over half a million people in the 2013 census vs Casper which has about 60,000. So yes, it's a little different.
As we drove past Santa Fe and the outskirts of Albuquerque, my heart started hammering in my chest. I've never lived in the Southwest, obviously, but something about the adobe homes and the desert scenery made me feel remarkably at home. I love greenery. And someday I would love to live somewhere a lot more green, but I took these feelings of peace and excitement as an undeniable answer that we were in the right place.
And take a look at Sharon's home! It is so picturesque!
I took Dodger for a walk down the road and just soaked in the beauty. It is a different kind of beauty. One I didn't actually think I would find beautiful quite frankly because I like GREEN, but it was amazing. Peaceful. Refreshing. It felt like home.
The next morning, we were in Sharon's backyard and something caught my eye. So I went to investigate. This is what I found. Welcome to New Mexico!
Staying at Sharon's was wonderful. She had a great backyard with a kiddy pool for the kids. The weather was absolutely perfect.
(On another note, see that tree in the planter in the background? I'm not positive if it was that one, or one that was out of the picture - I'm fairly certain it was the one NOT pictured, but one day, the bush was found staked in the hole where the umbrella goes in a little side table around the corner. Had it been lying on the ground, we would have assumed that it was the wind that broke it. The stem wasn't super thick. But considering it's placement, we decided the most likely culprit was some stick wielding three year old. When we questioned him about it, without skipping a beat, he replied, "I know! There must have been a beaver that chopped it down." Um, no. We have since gotten some good laughs over that beaver and the fact that P had obviously thought about this answer. Getting him to admit to it and apologize was extremely painful because he was super embarrassed. But he did say sorry and it never happened again.)
Fun pictures with amazing baby mohawks and incredible desert sunsets:
We did our best to explore when Ryan had a minute to spare. We found this fun train engine at a park in Bernalillo, just down the hill from Placitas.
We also discovered Devry had a pretty spectacular allergy to bananas. Only if she touched them. This was from her rubbing her face after handling them. If we fed them to her without her touching them, she had no reaction. With a good washing, the swelling went down, no harm done. But it is a little frightening.
We started our house hunt right away. Though many people suggested finding a place on the NE side if possible, there was hardly anything in our price range. I did collect a handful, and after dropping Ryan off at work, decided to do a drive by of the houses I found to see if it was even worth doing a walk through. With the exception of one, they weren't. They were all small with no garages in old neighborhoods. However, while out on our goose chase, we found the temple and took a much needed break walking around.
Remember how I said the Whip Scorpion was just the first? Well, we were warned by Sharon that there was a family of bobcats that lived nearby, and that she had seen them walking along her wall in the past. One day when we turned onto the street, low and behold, there one was! It was just waltzing down the street. When we got closer it jumped off the road and blended in with the surrounding bushes. It was incredible to see! I would have been nervous for Dodger except that we kept him with us at all time. That's one great thing about the Placitas area. It's really meant for those who are retired or artsy (everything is super expensive.) But the great thing about leaving everything all natural is that you get to see some of these creatures and animals you wouldn't in typical suburbia.
Can you see how camouflaged it is?
Another fun creature: Lizards. And lots of them! (Sorry for all the back and forth. Just posting them in chronological order.)
Lizards are fun. This next one... no. A million times NO! I had a video that accompanied this and I can't find it now. One day I was sitting on the toilet, when something ran past me. It startled me, but I thought it was a lizard. When I finally saw what it was I tried really hard not to scream. In stead I calmly shrieked at Ryan to come help. It was a Giant Centipede. These guys grow to be as large as a cigar. No joke. This creepy critter was longer than my finger and would not die. We tried putting it out of its misery by smashing it's head, but it continued moving. It was still squirming around hours later. It gives me the heeby gebbies just thinking about it. We found one in the church that was even bigger, and another one in Sharon's backyard. Yuck!
Just a sweet picture of big brother being a big helper. He loves his little sister!
The funeral was wonderful and was a truly great celebration of Grandma's life.
After the funeral we all changed clothes so we could hike the red rocks and spend some time together before having to go our separate ways.
Making sand angels. Fun, but oh so dirty.
It was a really quick trip, but good.
As we came into Albuquerque, the moon was the biggest I have ever seen. I tried to take pictures, but it was basically worthless. However, once we made it back to Sharon's, we remembered that this was the night of the Blood Moon. It really did go red and it was quite fascinating to watch. Some had predicited the end of the world and a crash in the stock market, along iwith many other things, I'm sure. But none of it happened. It was just a cool eclipse that turned the moon red. :)
And with the mysterious Blood Moon, the month of September came to an end. We survived!
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