Our time in Green River

My sister, Laurie and her son, Rowdy, as well as my brother Lynn's family, were at my parents' house for part of the time with us. The kids were so excited to spend time with their cousins!

At the splash park

This is when we went to the Sweetwater County fair. Good times. This last picture is of a watusi. I want to giggle every time I see this picture or even say the name. Can you believe those horns??



Annie, my mom, Hannah, and Lexi made a fruit pizza. Y.U.M.



Kayla read a lot of books to Hudson



Annie was in heaven with all of her girl cousins! We made fabric-wrapped initials one afternoon.



Water fight!



Pinata!! If you look closely at Hudson, you'll see his red mouth. This was a pretty typical look for the kids during the week thanks to my mom's famous homemade popsicles.



Hudson, my dad, Kayla, my mom, Hannah, Aubrie, Lexi, Noah, Annie, and Brigham



We stayed a couple of days with my parents after everyone else left. These pics are when Chris took the boys hiking in the mountains around Green River.







Noah was really hoping to see a rattlesnake on their hike, and look - he got his wish!

Trek out West - getting there

So we were just getting settled into our new life in Rochester, when it was time to pick up and leave again. We decided to drive out west to see our families. On July 31st we woke everyone up before 5:00 a.m. and headed out to Mt. Rushmore. Chris and I were surprised with how well all the kids did on the road that day! We made several stops before we got to Mt. Rushmore, including a rest stop somewhere in SD for lunch. Within a few minutes monster mosquitoes were eating us alive, so we sped things up and jumped back in the van.

Another stop we made was at Wall Drug. What a memorable place!

Wall Drug started out years ago as a simple drug store that offered free ice water to hot, weary travelers (we were definitely some of them - it was sooo hot that day!). It has grown a ton and now it's famous all over the world. All these life-size animal statues were in a courtyard in the middle of all the buildings.





We couldn't get a very good picture, but this is a T-rex that comes to "life" every twenty minutes or so. It was a little freaky, especially for Brigham who sped out of there as soon as the dinosaur started roaring.





We finally made to Mt. Rushmore in the late afternoon. There were columns of all the 50 states, so we got pictures of all the ones we've lived in as a family.



None of us have ever been, and it is hard to describe how impressive it is!



It rained off and on while we were at Mt. Rushmore, and on our way back to the van we saw this rainbow. Chris and I are pretty positive that our kids have never seen one before because in Ohio the sun never came out after it rained. The kids were entranced!





The next day we stopped at Devil's Tower before driving the rest of the way to my parents' house. A fever had been rotating through the kids since the day before we left, and Brigham had it that morning, so I stayed back with him while Chris hiked with the other kids up to the base of Devil's Tower. We saw a 10 year old boy climbing up the tower with his parents, then rappelling back down, and Noah decided that he wanted to do that someday as well.

So we had to drive from the top right corner of Wyoming to the bottom left corner, and holy cow, that was the longest drive EVER. We made it to my parents' house by about 9:00 p.m.

What we miss/what we don't miss

I've thought about doing this post for awhile, so here goes: I'll start with what we don't miss about our time in Ohio, because it's much shorter than what we do miss.

What we won't miss:
-The Jay-walkers.
If you've ever been there, you know what I'm talking about - those people who don't even look for cars and then they saunter across the street like they have all the time in the world. There have been so many times where I've seen drivers slam on their brakes so they don't run over any of them. I've even been given dirty looks from these people while I'm sitting in my car waiting for them to stroll by.
-The driving.
The traffic lights have the worst timing I've ever seen! And, the signs that say "No right turn on red light." I can understand if there are a bunch of streets that intersect, but at a four-way stop?? Really? And, I don't know who designed the street layout, but I'd like to meet them and ask what they were smoking when they did it. After years of being in Cleveland, I'd still get turned around if I wasn't careful, and I'd end up going in the complete opposite direction than I thought. And the road conditions were terrible after every winter. I thought I was going to lose our van in some of those potholes.
- The grayness.
Being so near Lake Erie, we'd have a lot of gray skies, especially in the winter. I've never appreciated the sun so much as during our time there!
- The bugs.
Good riddance to slugs, grubs, and silverfish. Okay, not so much the silverfish - I've seen a couple here in Rochester, but not nearly as many. Never seen one? Lucky you. Here's a picture.

-The customer service.

Do they do employee training on being neglectful, or just plain rude?? If you haven't already seen it, look up "Bon Qui Qui at King Burger" on You Tube. With a very small number of exceptions, it pretty much sums up our 6 years there in Cleveland. It's hilarious.

What we will miss:
- Our insurance.

No monthly premiums, low co-pays. And, do you want to know how much it cost to have Brigham and Hudson? $50.00 each time. Maybe you didn't want to know; it might be depressing for you. I know it is for me now that we're having another baby with different insurance!

-Nature.

Ohio doesn't have the mountains and the ruggedness of the west, but I fell in love with all the trees, the green, and the lakes. I know that means having to deal with humidity, but I thought it was worth it. Also, there are so many things to see and do outside: the Shaker Lakes, North and South Chagrin Reservations, Nelsons Ledges, and too many others to mention.
-The Amish communities . . .

especially if you like cheese. We do. There's the best cheese factory down south in Berlin where you can get samples of 30+ different kinds of cheeses (including cream cheese fudge!). They also have yummy restaurants, beautiful farms, and great handmade toys, plus so much more that we never saw.
-Shaker Hardware.

I never thought I could love a hardware store, but I do! It was close to our house, so we'd run there whenever we needed something small. It's been owned forever by two brothers. The same people worked there the whole time we lived in Shaker Heights, and they were so friendly. Maybe I had a lost look on my face every time I walked in, but within a few minutes I always had someone asking if I needed help. And they actually knew what they were talking about! It's small, so there isn't a big selection of things, and it's a bit more expensive than Home Depot or Lowes, but I thought it was worth it.
-Our mechanic.

Tom at Alternative Car Care Solutions. I don't know that we'll ever find a place as good. They were honest, cheap, they knew what they were doing, and they didn't try and get us to get 10 other things "fixed" whenever we brought our van in for something. So, when they would actually suggest something, I knew it really needed to be done. I called one time to ask a question, and I felt like I was on "Click and Clack," because Tom said what he thought the problem was, then suggested something over the phone. I tried it, and it worked! It's a bit of a drive, down on Mayfield Rd., but if you have a Japanese made car (that's all they work on), it's totally worth the drive.
-All the pick-your-own fruit farms.

Patterson's for strawberries in June, Voytko farms for blueberries in July, Rosby's for raspberries in August and September, and Patterson's and Edy's for apples in the fall. L.O.V.E. it!
-Halloween.

Shaker Heights is the epitome of what Halloween should be. Crunchy leaves all over the place, houses totally decked out with spooky decorations, and people milling all over the sidewalks, trick-or-treating. And, we were lucky enough that all 6 Halloweens we had in Shaker, it was perfect weather.

-The Library.

I just about cried and hugged all the librarians on our last trip to the Shaker Library. Shaker has outrageous taxes, but this was one of the things I was happy to pay for. Family (and preschool, toddler, and baby) storytelling, huge playground, movie section that was better than any video store, free programs going on all the time, knit nights, book groups, author lectures, perfect setup in the children's section (which included puzzles, legos, play kitchen, and other toys), and the best summer reading program ever.
-Kirtland
. . . and all the other church historical sites close by. There really isn't more to say about that. It was wonderful.

I could never understand it when people would talk about how much they hated Cleveland, and how they couldn’t wait to get out of there. Sure, there are bad things about it, like any other city. And we learned pretty quickly about the neighborhoods to stay away from, especially at night. But those of you who are still there in Cleveland, don't waste your time dwelling on the negative parts of it! Take advantage of all the wonderful things about living there. You'll miss them when you're gone.

Goodbye Ohio, Hello Minnesota

My mom came to help us pack for a week, then the day after she left, Chris' parents came to help us finish packing, clean, then move out to Rochester. We pulled out on Friday, June 25th. I wouldn't recommend moving while pregnant - it wasn't fun. Although I felt like we had been working hard for weeks to be ready to move, that last day was chaos. By the time we left, I was so tired and overwhelmed by everything that I couldn't really think about the fact that we were leaving our first house. This was a place that we had lived in for six years, which is the longest stretch since Chris and I have been married. We went from 2 to 4 kids while here. We bought our first minivan, acquired our first (and last, at least for quite awhile) pets. Annie and Noah started school a block away, and they, along with Brigham, learned to ride their 2-wheelers on our driveway. So many memories. I wish there had been more time to really think about it all before we left.

We broke up the driving into two days. Our destination was Chicago the first night. I drove the van with Chris' mom and Hudson. Chris drove the moving van with our car hooked up behind it. Chris' dad drove his car. Annie, Noah, and Brigham rotated between all of the different vehicles. The driving was going fine until we got into Chicago. The traffic was awful, it was dark and raining, and we were all trying not to lose each other. Chris' dad took a wrong exit and got lost. He finally showed up at the hotel about an hour after the rest of us. I've never been so frazzled in all my life!
The driving was much better the next day, and we made it to Rochester in the afternoon.

We were welcomed by a bunch of ward members who helped us unload the moving van. We spent the next week unpacking and organizing.

Our backyard, which is fenced and much bigger than our old backyard.

Welcome to Rochester!