Whoa!

I know I SHOULD be blogging about all the visits we did this summer but it's just been so crazy moving into this house. We've been in it for a week and a half now and every day is filled with box opening, organizing, installing, shopping, craigslist-ing, more organizing, installing and box opening! I've gone to bed exhausted every night.

BUT, I will say that living in our very first home is amazing. Every where we've lived as a family and married couple has been small, especially in Korea. We were just always on top of each other and every noise was heard. But, for example, yesterday when Cade got home from school he disappeared to the basement for a half an hour while Alex did something in his room while I accomplished something of my own. We had a snack and then returned to our separate activities. There is still fighting but it is not as much and not so in my face. This is going to be a great place for us, I can feel it.

Dan is finally inprocessing after 40 days of leave and reports to the band tomorrow for the real fun to begin. We have Colorado plates, Colorado licenses and a Colorado address. I think this is home :)

1st day of 1st grade!

I'm going to interrupt the blogging of our road trip to post pictures of Cade's first day of school! It's been a whirlwind of a summer, and it felt weird getting him ready in our hotel and driving him 25 minutes to school, but that will change soon!

I would normally have printed out a cute sign for him, but no printer required a little handy work on mom's part.
































And then I wrote the wrong date... I could've have sworn today was the 17th, but the iPhone never lies.

 

Good luck Cade!! I know it's going to be a great year :)

Petrified Forest

Once we had exhausted our days in hotels that the military would pay for we decided to take a road trip. I really didn't want to stay in an extended stay hotel for 3 weeks before closing on our house. After much debate we voted to head to Arizona. Day one of driving took us to Albuquerque, NM, where Dan's sister Kristina met us for the night. She took some more pictures so I'll have to get them from her. It was nice to get our kids together with her kids, even if it was for one night.
 

Day two of driving led us right by the Petrified Forest. Since it wasn't far off the highway and military gets into national parks for free, we took full advantage!

The forest wasn't anything I expected. I guess I had always pictured it to be big tall trees that had died away so you would be surrounded by dead trees. But instead it is chunks of tree that have gone through this crazy process that turns them into rock. It was crazy to look at!

It was amazing how tree-like they still looked, but felt as hard as rock.

This is Dan in front of the agate bridge, a natural formation that has had supports added to it. No one is allowed to go on the bridge.

Other than the petrified wood, there were lots of peculiar sites to see, like this area where the rocks where white, purple, blue, and red layered, and in teepee shapes.

Then there was an area you could hike to and see petroglyphs on the rocks!

And lastly a 'scenic outlook' with deep red canyons and beautiful views.

It was a fun stop, though I was a little anxious to make it the rest of the way to Phoenix.

Take me out to the ball game!

Before heading on our road trip, we made a stop in Denver to enjoy some time with Grandma Kathy and Uncle Kevin at a Rockies/Reds game. The weather was perfect for a fun night!

Say 'Rockies!'

 

Dan is of course a Reds fan, and the Rockies put up a good fight all the way to the last pitch, but the Reds came out on top.

What a fun night!

Fly me home

So, I have a LOT of posts to do because we've done and seen a lot of cool things over the past 3-4 weeks, but we'll see how much I can get done. On Monday we move into our house and we'll not only be without internet for a little bit, but we'll be unpacking and getting our house set up! So exciting!!

First post is dedicated to some travel pictures. You will see the main guest is our two iPads that have made this transition bearable. The boys can play for hours and that came in handy for long plane rides, long house hunting trips and long car rides!

Here's the boys on the plane from Seoul to San Francisco.

Cade is watching the Hulk movie.

Alex playing temple run, one of the boys' favorite games.

Dan likes taking self shots :)

I just love this picture of the boys sleeping. After a long flight and a long day at the San Francisco airport, we got bumped from our flight (grrrr) and they put us up in a hotel. It wasn't long before these boys were out!

Yoshi is all buckled up for the shuttle back to the airport!

And for a few pictures from our flight into Colorado. I was sitting somewhere else with Cade and didn't think to snap any pictures, but Dan got some cute ones of Alex.

After this traveling adventure we didn't realize how much more of an adventure we were in for before starting school and getting into our house!!