One day in the beginning of January, Pierscen asked Ryan to play play-doh with him to try out his new tools. I humbly bow out of all furture play-doh activities. I mean look at this!
There is a Dodger, begging for food from Devry. The family is eating pizza, salad, and root beer. I contributed the pizza and root beer cans. That's all. Ryan is quite creative.
One thing that I think is magic about living here is the constant hot balloon sightings. I can't tell you how many times I've told myself that I hope it never gets old. I love walking outside and seeing a dozen of them scattered across the sky. They fly right over our house and close to a daily basis. We have been woken up on more than one occasion to the blasting of hot air as a balloon passes over our house. It is sheer awesomeness.
Here is a picture of our dining room with the gorgeous table Fred made. I don't think I've mentioned this before, so forgive me if I have. When Fred found out he was moving to South Korea, they opted not to take their table and chairs. Instead he offered them to me while we were still living in Casper. I said yes. The only challenge was how to get them from Vegas to Casper. My parents went down to Vegas for his graduation and brought the table and chairs back to Orem where it stayed in their garage while we tried to figure out how to get them. Then came the great exodus to NM. Ryan's parents brought it with them when they returned to help us move into our house. It was like Fred made this set just for us. Isn't it gorgeous?! I love it so much! Jari made a few cushion covers for the seats. Not enough for all of them, but most of them anyway. And I love the fabric. I'm sure I could figure something out for the others if we need it. In the mean time, THANK YOU FRED AND JARI!
The people that bought our Casper home said they didn't need the washer and drier that came with the house. We intended to bring them with us, and Ryan and his dad even had them loaded into the trailer at one point, but they were way to heavy and took up too much room. So we sold them. We decided to look on Craigslist for a set down here. We found a mismatched set for around $300. I really really excited about the washer. It was a high capacity top loader without an agitator. I wanted something that I could wash my queen size comforter in without having to go to the laundromat. We ended up getting them both for $250 I believe.
The washer worked awesome the first wash or so. Then it started flashing and error code and wouldn't proceed. The previous owner said that sometimes it got of balance and you would either need to wiggle it a bit or move the clothes around and it would be fine. Well, we never had that issue with it. The code it was flashing was for something in the computer board itself. If it didn't freeze in the middle of the cycle, it would get to the spin cycle, then fill up again. It would never drain. I would have to stay right next to it waiting for it to finish spinning, then quickly hit the cancel button. Even then, it was never actually spun out, so load after load I would have to take a piece out at a time and wring it out by hand before hanging it out to drip dry before daring to put it in the dryer. Thankfully the dryer worked great.
We ended up going to Lowe's and bought a top loader WITH an agitator and went with the "dumbest" one we could find - meaning with less computer sensor junk in it. The old machines may not be water efficient, but they are the best machines! They hauled away the broken one and everything has been dandy since. I have a strong feeling that the guy that sold it to us knew there was something wrong with it, but you know, most dryers would have cost us $400 plus, so it's okay.
Hurray for washing machines and clean clothes!
Next up, Pierscen had his 4-year check up. He did a fantastic job. I don't have percentages for him either, which is driving me crazy that I don't have these things, but he was 32.2 lbs and 38 inches. Small, but incredible.
Afterward we met up with some of our new friends in the ward to go check out the Natural History Museum. It was pretty neat! It's a little bit pricey, and I'm not sure my kids would want to go back often enough to justify a year pass, but it was cool.
Devry was pretty alarmed by the giant t-rex about to eat us.
Digging for fossils:
Thanks, Nikki, for a fun outing!
Another awesome thing we discovered is that the Balloon Museum has a story time followed by a craft each Wednesday. Then the kids are free to explore the museum for free. The first week or two that we went there were no actual stories being read, but fun performers. It was really awesome!
The best part, of course, is exploring afterwards. They have some great hands on science things for the kids to teach them about ballooning. It is really cool.
I love the piggy tails! And the post piggies! Hehehe
More fun at the library. By the way, there are SO many libraries around here. This one isn't actually the closest to us, but we really like it. There are two others that are near by that I've heard are pretty neat - though they are smaller. We need to go check them out. We adored the tiny one in Bernalillo.
This is kind of a silly picture, but one of the first things Ryan fixed was the gate on the south side of the house. It had some planks, or parts of planks missing. Opa had gotten creative with filling the holes so Dodger wouldn't escape, but since Ryan had experience building a new gate at our Casper house, this was pretty easy for him. It looks so nice! The home on the other side of that scary looking fence is also a foreclosure. (It was so sad! When we first started visiting the house there was a young couple living next door that we were excited to get to know, but when we came by for Halloween there was a notice in the window that it was foreclosed. That sucks.) We have debated whether or not to just replace the fence ourselves because it would certainly look nicer, but it would obviously come at our own expense instead of possibly splitting the cost.
Here are some pictures from the Balloon museum again. This was probably the second time we went. What you are looking at is a circus performing climbing inside that balloon. It was crazy, but entertaining.
Fred and Jari sent us a really fun package from Korea. They had us for Christmas, but both Fred and I agreed that they shouldn't send us anything because he has already given us the table. But they sent us stuff anyway. All of the treats they sent were really good. Similar to what we have here, but much less sugary. Refreshingly so. They sent P a fun magnet board and practice chop sticks and Devry a neat cup. Thank you guys! You really didn't need to send us anything! But it was all delicious. :)
I can't get over that we were able to go to the park all the time in January. Yes, it was in the 30s, but it didn't feel like it! It was wonderful weather!
We went to the zoo with our friend Nikki. I think my favorite thing about this visit was the leaves. Remember, this is January. Not October or November. Tons of amazing leaves and the most wonderful fall weather. The kids had a blast!
I received a calling to be a Relief Society instructor. Woah. Relief Society?! I haven't been out of Primary since I was 18! I was super surprised by the calling, but excited too. I actually purchase this crown for my first lesson. Ryan has a calling to teach Priesthood too and we taught the same lesson. When he saw the stuff I had for it he was pretty confused. Wondered if I had a different topic. Nope. Women just do things differently. :) The lesson was good, by the way. It was on peace. I only got to teach one other time before I received another calling. Any guesses? Second counselor in the Primary. Yup! I was kind of blindsided by that one. Primary, sure. But counselor? When they read our names in Sacrament meeting I realized that I had never even spoken to the new president. What on earth was I doing as her counselor? When I went to primary she sat next to me and told me that she had been in my RS lessons and had seen me sub for music in primary and decided that I was someone she wanted to be on her team. :) So there you have it! Pink crowns get you attention! Haha.
To end with, here is another trip to the park. This is one of my favorites. It was SO warm and lovely. (Okay it was probably 40 but I promise it felt so much nicer! Even I wished I was in shorts and I'm a jeans kind of girl.) The boys decided to take a little nap - Ryan on the bridge and Pierscen in a pit under the play structure. Hahaha. It was amazing.
We live in a pretty amazing place.
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