The Big Move!

Moving out ↑

Packing up was about as easy as it could've been since other people were doing it for us, but it was still two very long, hot days.  The kids played at friends' houses and Aunt Cambrie came down and entertained monkeys in an almost empty house the last day while Collin and I cleaned rooms as fast as they were emptied.  Poor Clara got a migraine, probably because she was dehydrated, and spent the last hour in our old house waiting to throw up and then passed out in the bathroom.  Because of all of that confusion we left the kids' scooters and helmets behind in the garage when we locked up and drove to Great G & G Roueche's house for the night.  Luckily we knew other people moving to Seattle and we arranged to have them throw the scooters on their moving truck.

We decided to drive to Washington instead of flying.  The highlight of the trip was the awesome hotel in Oregon which had a pool, a separate bedroom for the girls, and a delicious breakfast. Everybody was really excited when we finally made it to the new place. 

Moving in ↓

It was a delightful move for the girls, they got shifted around the house watching movies while Collin and I directed the movers.  The movers were the ones who really had the hard work.  They had to haul stuff up to the second and third floors! Luckily for them, we left the piano by the front door.  They sounded like they were having a baby trying to get the big dresser up to the master bedroom. "PUSH! (followed by inhuman grunt) PUSH!" It was crazy.  The Queen box spring had to come over the balcony since it couldn't fit in the stairway.  Overall for us a very smooth move and an exciting beginning to our new life in Seattle.

Leona's First Haircut

On June 2nd Leona had her first haircut, trim really.  It was hard to trim off those baby curls at the end but her hair was getting a bit snaggly.  Don't be fooled by the weird grimaces in the photos, they are just because I made her take her eyes off of the computer screen and she wanted to be watching the show.  Even after her cut she still has perfect curls on the ends of her hair and has natural volume and highlights throughout her lovely, golden locks.

Last Days in Provo

Our last few days in Provo we lived it up.  We had a water balloon and popsicle party on (almost) the last day of school.  It would've been on the last day of school except it was only 60 degrees so we celebrated early with friends from the ward.  We also got snow cones, went to a Utah Lake festival, the creamery, and went to the Bounce House one last time (while the movers were packing up our stuff). Basically we partied up until the last minute.

Zion

Thanks to the generosity of our moving package we did not have to pack up our own stuff for the big move, which left us with some time to kill.  Since we'd already done Moab we decided to take a quick trip down to Zion National Park.  It was really beautiful in the park, and super busy- like the Disneyland of outdoors.  We drove down on Tuesday May 30th and did one hike, the Emerald Pools hike.  Clara and Leona were tired after the first pool so we had to turn around while Dad and Eliza did the other two pools.  We hung out by the river and back on the enormous grassy field by the hotels and restaurants. It was amazing that there was so much grass and no ants.  Utah really has the lawn thing figured out- except obviously that you have to water like crazy, but I digress. The kids loved riding the buses that went around the park. They liked the nature a little bit. 

They really loved staying in a hotel.  There was a pool that everybody, except mom, went swimming in. In the middle of the night dad and I were woken up by maniac giggling.  Eliza had woken up, assumed it was morning (it was 4 am), and woke Clara up to tell jokes.  I was momma bear and shut it down , luckily before they woke Leona up. The next morning was quite possibly the girls' favorite part of the whole trip, breakfast at a restaurant.  It was seriously all of the girls' most talked about part of the trip. 

We then went back into Zion for one more hike before heading home.  We did the Riverside Walk, which is paved all the way.  Really the whole thing was incredibly beautiful, a lot more colorful than I was expecting.  We had a picnic along the water and later got in the water, at least the Clara and Eliza did.  The water was super cold and didn't lend itself to swimming but the big girls got in anyway because they had new water shoes to try out.  It was a wonderful vacation and I'm so glad that we made it happen before leaving Utah.