Snow, Fire Truck, Costume...

Two weeks ago we had our first snow fall of the year. It was not very much and melted pretty quick, but it was still snow! (Don't mind Damon in his pj's, it was a Saturday morning).

On my days off it has been fun to take Damon to the little groups they have going on here. Tuesdays is Music Makers, a group of moms and little kids that get together at the church. We sing, play instruments, learn songs, and read books. Wednesdays/Thursdays are reading times for Damon's age group at the local libraries. Then there are the separate ward play groups that meet every week. We have had such a great time meeting new people and having some place to go to get out of the house and socialize.
This week after Music Makers, Damon and I went with Suzanne and Lincoln (our friends who watch Damon while I am working) to the library. They were having the firemen come and talk to the kids. They put on their gear, and taught us about what they do as firemen. Then we went out to the truck.

They brought the ladder down so the kids could touch it

I think the firemen made Da a litle nervous, but he did love the truck! He just would not turn around so I could get a picture of his face.

My sweet wonderful friend Audrey sent us a fun fall package! Damon's cute orange pj's and his new Halloween Backyardigans show with snacks and the cutest card ever! It was the best, we love you Aud!

And here is a little sneak peek at Damon's Halloween costume this year.

Kyle is doing well in school. Busy as can be, but enjoying what he is studying. We are so grateful for his hard work and diligence in doing his best, even when we miss seeing him. Work is going well so far. I think in the next few weeks they will be flipping me between days and nights which will be an interesting adventure. We feel extremely blessed to be in the position we are, in the place that we are. I think everyone knows that I would have much rather stayed closer to complete our schooling. But I do not know of anything that could take the place of what we are experiencing here. We both received new callings in our ward. Kyle is teaching in the Primary, and I am an Activity Day leader. And, I get to see my doctor this week!

Residency

It is crazy to think that a month of school has already past. I am so proud of Kyle and how hard he is working. We got some good news last week,...they granted us residency!!! I know this may not seem like much at first, but it is a huge thing for our family. To get residency here you or your spouse have to be working full time. Then you submit an application with lots of extra paperwork to the admissions office. Then it is a waiting game to see if they will grant it to you. If you do get residency then you only have to pay in-state tuition for the duration of your schooling. So now our tuition and fees are less than half the amount that we originally started out paying for the year! Until now Kyle and I have not had to take out any student loans for our schooling which has been such a blessing. Even though we have to now, we are grateful that we will not need to take out the maximum amount in order to pay everything for school and for our family to survive. I hate debt. It is so stressful to worry about always owing something. But I know that schooling is very important and that it is worth going in to debt for. It makes me happy that even though we have to do it, we are at least a little better off than before. It is such a blessing in our lives. So,...in order to get residency I had to get a job working full time (they do not allow the Law students to have jobs, and even if they did I doubt anyone could pass if they were working at all their first year). Last week we had orientation for the hospital I will be working at. It was Monday-Friday, 8:00-4:30. Even though orientation days are not as stressful as days on the floor, it was so hard to be away from my Damon! I had gotten used to the three 12 hour days away (which is still so hard) but everyday was killer. We were so blessed to have a few wonderful friends willing to watch Damon while I was at work and Kyle was at school. I am so grateful for everyone that have taken us under their wings and helped us when we had no family or friends to turn to. Our group of friends here feel like family away from home. I do not think I could survive here without them.

It is amazing how fast little ones grow, I feel like Damon has grown so much even in the few months that we have been away! Kyle and I love him more than we could ever express. We are so grateful for our little growing family!

Sweetest boy in the world!

Starting Young

We finally live in a place where we can have Kyle's drums! (Even though we are in a town house complex, we have a basement and the walls hold in most of our noise.) Kyle has always wanted to start teaching Damon the drums when he was young, and I do not think he will have much of an issue with that. Da has always loved making noise, and since he discovered the drums in the basement it has been hard to keep him away.

When he would get going, you could hear him scream above the drums, "LOUD, LOUD!" And then smile and giggle to himself.

Winding up

Two Weeks Down...

We have survived the first two weeks of Law School, Wahoo! I am so proud of Kyle and how hard he has been working to do well and make sure that he is prepared. He says he is really enjoying it so far! I did get a job at a hospital here called Bryan LGH. I will be working on the Orthopedic floor. I start next Monday. We have been so blessed to already have such good friends here. One of them has offered to help us take care of Damon while I am at work, and I cannot tell you what a relief that brings to my heart! She has a little boy around Damon's age, and they get along so well together!

We have had lots of fun getting together with neighbors, ward friends, and students from the Law School the last few weeks. We have met so many wonderful people, it already seems like we have lived here for months.
Our next door neighbors are so wonderful (Griffin and Lara Osmond). Kyle and Griffin are together pretty much all day at school. It is funny, from the first day we met them they are just like old friends that we have had forever! Damon loves them both, and is always wanting to go hang out at their apartment. They just happened to be called as his nursery leaders which is so awesome! We feel so grateful to be surrounded by wonderful people like this who have made our experience here better.

For Labor Day we had a few of our good friends over for some food. The Osmonds, Andersons, Birds, and Chamberlins. I feel bad that I did not get a picture of all our new friends, but I am sure there will be more times for that. Here are a few pics of our sweet little ones-all around the same age! 18 months to 2 years. So fun when we all get together!

Damon thinks he has a new girlfriend :)

This is Damon's little buddy that he will be spending lots of time with. He is such a cute, sweet little guy! I love him so much already! I am sure they will be very good friends through these next few years.

Our little munchkins! Aren't they just so sweet!

Our New Place

We are so happy to have such a beautiful place to live. I was very apprehensive about student housing, but this little townhouse will be fantastic for us! We are in a very quiet neighborhood, there are magnificent trees and greenery all around, we have a little play area in the back for Damon, and we are on an end unit (so we only have to share one side of our house). It really is more than I had ever imagined. What a wonderful surprise!

Most of the other married student housing complexes on our street resemble ours. Colonial style, red brick townhouses.

The front room

Dining area

Kitchen

Basement/Storage

Bathroom

As you can probably guess, Damon's room

This picture is one that Kyle got on his mission in Hong Kong. It is such a beautiful water-color-type painting with very vibrant colors. After we had done Da's room, we were so excited to see that it matched those colors perfectly!

Our room

Reading space

Office space

And our not quite organized but super excited for walk in closet! Wahoo!!

Nebraska, Zoo, Temple,...

Well, we finally made it here. We started driving last Saturday morning at about 5 am, and made it to our new place around 11 pm. It was quite an experience with 5 little ones in the cars with us (Damon plus Mark and Julie's four kids), but we made it! We are so so grateful to Mark and Julie and their family for all they did to get us moved here and into our new place. What amazing family we have, thank you to everyone else who helped as well! The hardest thing about moving is being away from you all. Just remember if you are dying for a vacation we are only 12 hours away,...we have all the corn, beef, and antique stores you could dream of! :)

The trailer, all packed and ready to go. The boys (Burt, my Dad, Kyle, and Bruce) packed it once when we were moving out of the apartment, but Angela, Evonne, and Kyle helped re-pack everything so the weight was equally distributed and so nothing would get banged up.

I think this was in Wyoming. There were so many wind farms it was crazy!

We made it,...almost. Lincoln is at the far east side of the state so we still had quite a few hours to go.

Once we made it here, Mark and Julie decided to stay for a few days before going to South Dakota to see Mt Rushmore. Mark served his mission in Nebraska so it was fun to visit places he remembered. We went to the Omaha Zoo which is about an hour from Lincoln. It was amazing! The environments for the animals were beautiful.

Damon and Maddie in the wagon

Carson and Damon on the elephant

Hunter and the lizard

A fun monkey habitat in the middle of the water with fish

Johnson family with an elephant

They had a cool building where you could go in and see the butterflies flying around. This one was huge, and so beautiful!

This was definitely the coolest place for me in the whole zoo. You can't see what is behind us very well because it was so dark, but we were in a hallway where all around you is glass and you can see into the tank. It is on both sides and goes up above your head. Sharks, fish, and sting rays filled the tank and swam around, above,...everywhere! It was seriously crazy. Such a fun exhibit.

One of the tanks in another part of the building

The jellyfish tank

On another day that they were here, we went to Winter Quarters to see the church sites there and the temple. In the Trail Center they taught about the pioneers and temples. They even had you dress up in pioneer clothes and pull a handcart.

Across the street from the Visitor center there is a cemetery and next door is the temple.

It is so beautiful sitting on the hill

Those stained glass windows behind us were stunning!

We then drove to Kanesville and saw a few more sites there. It is always so fun for us to visit these places and remember what sacrifices our ancestors made.