Update

Today was Richard's last day of work at Apex Restoration Inc. Kinda weird. We don't know when the next time he will be working again is, kinda weird! Although I will add - Richard and I are extremely thankful that today was his last day. This job has been a big part in our sanctification process and it didn't take a break from that in the last week he had to work there.

Tomorrow, my sis in law will take the boys for most of the day for us! And that, my friends,  I am extremely grateful for. Richard and i will work on tie-ing up all the lose ends in our apartment. Calling utilities, packing last minute stuff, cleaning, taking apart the furniture that needs to be disassembled, washing sheets and towels, packing all our stuff that we need the traveling week. you know, just little stuff here and there. :)
Saturday is the big day of packing the truck. We cannot say enough about our church family and friends and how they have helped us tremendously. A good friend of mine will watch the boys all morning so i can "oversee" the packing/cleaning process. (hahahaha).
Sunday -we plan to make it to church for our last time. that will be a very bitter/sweet day. And in the afternoon sometime head out to my twin sister's house about 3 hrs away.

Trip Plan
- Monday - Leave by 7AM (ish) and drive about 12 hours to my grandparents house in Western IL. Please pray for us on Monday if you think of it. 12 hrs is in a car with no truck and no small kids. I hope it doesn't take us much longer than that, but I'm expecting it to take a couple hours longer. I will be in the car with my 2 kiddos by myself (which makes "appeasing/entertaining" very hard) and Richard will be in the BIG truck with all our stuff. Pray the kids sleep an unusually long amount, pray for little-to-no construction and a smooth ride overall. This is the day I am most nervous about
-Tuesday- spend the day resting/visiting/relaxing with my grandparents and Cousins and Aunt and Uncle
-Wednesday- Do a 6 hr leg of the trip to Kansas city to stay with good friends from College
-Thursday- either a 10 hr trip to Fort Collins and arrive that night, or drive at least half way and stay in a hotel and finish the last leg on Friday. (this all depends on how our first day goes, and if we can make it to IL)
We hope to be in Fort Collins by Friday night! And then have a couple days of the weekend to unpack and get our barrings. Then Richard will hit it hard looking for a job on Monday. Pray for easy internet set up so that it makes it easier to search for things online. (even grocery store, bank and random info we may need)

Pray for a job for Richard - one that is conducive to him working at a church and helping and getting as involved as possible, but also provides benefits and sufficient pay to support our boys.

We are anxiously waiting for the day we arrive in Fort Collins and can start our life there!!! Carson says every day - "we going to Colorado?" it's so cute! but he did make sure that Landon, mommy and Daddy were going too. :)

I will try to post our progress in our trip as i can. I know my mom will be wanting to hear. :) We're very excited about our little adventure. I'm sure we will talk about it for years to come with our boys. Can't wait for it to be over though. :)

Gave up the Ghost

The truck that is - the truck gave up it's ghost. :( Sad day! it's been a good truck for Richard. He has enjoyed it. a ford 1991 Ranger 4X4.
Originally the plan was to try to sell it for about $1500 before we moved and try to get as much as we could out of it. We were praying for wisdom about what to do and when to try to sell it etc. We gave a huge long prayer request in Sunday school one Sunday. No lie - exactly 25 hrs later it completely died and will never be revived. It needs a new transmission and it costs too much money to be properly diagnosed and too much time to get it to a mechanic who can look at it. The engine is making a funny noise also, so that probably needs a lot of work done to it.

So hopefully today it will be taken to the Junk Yard. So sad to see a good truck die so suddenly. We will miss it. It was pretty much terrible timing b/c we don't have the time to put into trying to figure out how to revive it and we wanted to get rid of it anyways. God answered our prayers and sort of solved the problem for us. so we are down to one car. Which has worked out fine, b/c Richard can drive a company vehicle most days to and from work so I haven't had to take him or pick him up too much.

11 Months

I can't believe that Landon is one month away from being a year old! I can't believe that it has literally flew by. To think about everything we have done and decided and how our lives are going to change in this year. WOW!

I've also decided this is my favorite age! Their personality starts showing so much, well scheduled, moving around so therefore more content, they love you and show their love by hugging or smiles, you see them discover new things daily, and still they are relatively innocent and not defiant therefore more enjoyable. :)
And Landon is truly all this!!!! I have always said he is the easiest baby - and I really think he is. he rarely cries and is always super happy! He climbs the stairs and LOVES it!!! He stands and slowly moves along the furniture. I think finally he has officially caught up to his age (being that he was a premie). My doctor said by 1 year i wouldn't notice anything and it is true. Finally he doesn't seem a few weeks behind the other babies. He is a goof ball and always making funny faces so we laugh. he squeals and laughs and tries to get our attention. But most of all, what I'm finding out that I love about him, he cuddles!!!! When you pick him up he will lay his head on your shoulder and wrap his arms around you and sit there for a while. It's the best thing in the whole world. It's his quiet way of telling me he loves me and is happy with me and comfortable in my arms. I LOVE IT!!!

I saw the sweetest thing happen today (and it doesn't happen like ever! so I thought I would document it). Landon was getting scolded about not touching the outlet, and Carson went and sat next to him and proceeded to explain that he could get hurt if he touched it. Then Carson handed him his milk cup and said "that's milk, drink it out of here". And kept trying to tell Landon how to sip it out! I thought it was so cute!!!!

Lasts

This is our last week here in Scranton. (I hope you don't feel like I'm beating this into the ground) but I'm sentimental about things. :)
I want to make it enjoyable and memorable. i want to enjoy this whole experience of moving and take it for the fun adventure with my family that it is.
This weekend was wonderful and I feel blessed.
Saturday was spent with family at Chuckee Cheese. Richard's brother and family that live about an hour and half south of here, came up for the afternoon. They have 3 boys and it was so much fun watching them interact together. Plus Richard's sister that lives here came with us, she also has 3 boys.  Carson loves his older cousins and had a lot of fun running around Chuckee Cheese bringing me tickets that his dad had won. :)
In the evening our wonderful Young Married's sunday school class had a dinner planned at a mexican restaurant. We got the best babysitters ever (our dear,dear friends Sandy and Gavin ps. they are getting married!!! wooohooo!) and our boys were well taken care of. We enjoyed ourselves with wonderful fellowship and were truly blessed by our dear friends.
Sunday our church gave us surprise flowers and a gift. We once again felt so blessed by our wonderful body of believers. We have made lasting friendships and we will cherish them forever. We will cherish the memories that we made here as we move on.
Looking forward to this week - it will be busy with last minute stuff, canceling things, setting things up at new place, packing, trying to sell more items on craigslist,  last time visits with our good friends. trying to fit in our lasts with everyone and for everything. Richard has only 4 days of work left (and we don't even know for how long, btw pray it's not too long :) ). This is our last Sunday night here in Scranton. WEIRD!

My heart is filled with Joy, and Sadness, Excitement  and Anxiousness. But mostly tonight I feel BLESSED. 

10 random Friday List

I think every day I have random stuff going through my head that I want to blog about. so today I just wrote down everything i could think of in a list. So here you go! (ps does anyone else think about blog posts all day long? it's as bad as Facebook Status updates)
1. peaches are NOT GOOD when they are not ripe enough, found that out the hard way today
2. 3 weeks is way too long to have to pack, at least for me, I have everything in boxes and still have a week to go, and am just thinking about everything and can't do much else. I prefer one week, not prolonging it so much. :)
3. my boys are super cute
4. I think I will take a nap this afternoon - and we have a date night tonight
5. my husband is AWESOME. doing so much for our family. working long hours and figuring out our move and our new life
6. I feel like I need a nap every single day (and also so thankful to a friend for watching the boys this morning)
7. Landon is climbing up our stairs regularly, hopefully no falls before we move out
8. I ate a fluffer-nutter for the first time in YEARS and it was so good.
9. I'm so excited to live in Colorado again and start everything over again and get a new routine, a new grocery store, new church, new people to meet, a new-not-as-hilly running route. this is exciting to me.
10. I'M VERY SAD TO SAY GOOD BYE TO MY LIFE HERE!!! I've done this a lot in my life, but this time it seems the hardest. And maybe b/c I''m the one in charge and the responsible one not just the child following the comfort of my parents, maybe b/c Richard and I have been shaped as a couple b/c of where we have lived this whole time. Maybe b/c my 2 sons were born here. Maybe b/c Carson has no idea that in a week he won't be able to see his friends here that he asks about daily. maybe b/c I have no idea when we will be back. maybe b/c this is the longest I've lived in one city or one house. And maybe it just seems hard b/c with time the sadness always goes away so i can't remember what it was like.

How!!!!???

How does a room look like this so fast???

I thought we were packing or something???? Maybe I should start packing up the toys, that might help. :) All I did was take a shower. Beware when coming to my house in the next week and half - you never know what you might find.

What a nice weekend

In the midst of chaos and moving we decided to make one last trip to Boston. I have family there and sorta grew up there while my parents were in the states. So I have many friends there, and Boston will always hold a special place in my heart b/c of the family/friends that I have and the fact that we got married there. We decided to move far away to Colorado - then realized there was only a few weekends left and we had to fit "going to Boston" in one of those weekends. So, in the midst of "lots to do" we took a break and a last minute trip to "vacation" while trying to move cross country- you know b/c that's how we role. :)

We left on Friday afternoon and got to my Aunt's house around 9ish. We love catching up and chatting with her, but got to bed before midnight because we had an early morning. We left about 8AM on Saturday to drive up to NH to see "the trailer". :) I had been up there many times, but Richard had never been there. I have many fond memories of playing in the lake, and going to get ice cream in the town of Meredith, and was so happy he got to experience it.  we also decided very last minute to stay the night up there and had another relaxing morning waking up to the bright morning sun, getting an iced coffee and sitting by the lake swimming. We could not have asked for more perfect weather for our time in NH. It was wonderful to spend the time with my Cousin (who is my age) and his wonderful wife (who is my friend) and watch our kids interact and meet their new baby! Auntie Terre is a wonderful host and had plenty of food for us and we were very well take care of.

Sunday afternoon we drove back down to Boston to visit another of my lifelong friends, Lydia. We stayed with her overnight, and attended the church service at the church we were married in, and got to see many old friends. It was bittersweet knowing that we don't know if/when we will come back to this place. But we do know that we will always keep a spot in our hearts for good ol' Boston.

Monday - Richard, being the wonderful husband and father that he is, willingly watched our two boys and Lydia's boy so we could go on a 5 mile run in the beautiful sunny morning. Then we went and spent time with my Grandfather. What a joy to talk with him and spend time with him. I'm kicking myself for not taking a picture of him with our family. :( I will regret that. As he gets older we cherish the little bit of time that we get to see him. And we are also so grateful for the wonderful meal at the Cheesecake Factory that he took us to. :) I think he was appalled as he watched Carson put the salt/pepper shakers up to his mouth to "drink" them. (no thanks to Carson's cousin on the other side of the family that taught him that. :) hahahaha) Both boys were very tired and hungry and any parent knows that's the perfect meal to eat out at a restaurant. :) but overall they did good. And we enjoyed ourselves in the company of Grampie.

WE left in the afternoon and got home around 7:30ish.

It was a wonderful weekend away. We were relaxed and really enjoyed our time. We were able to forget about what lies ahead and fully enjoy our time - BUT we were also able to nail down an apartment!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! this is the biggest answer to prayer - b/c anyone who has done a move like this knows, it is way better to actually move into a place, and not try to stay with someone and dump your stuff off somewhere then move it again. now we have a place to tell people our new address, I can do a "change of address" and we are much more relaxed about getting there. I wish i could explain to you how much of an answer to prayer it was - but I'm afraid I would not be able to convey it acurrately - so just know that we were hoping for a miracle and God provided just what we needed and wanted and asked for!!!! He is so good, and confirmed to us in that way that we are doing the right thing!!