Catching Our Breath in Colorado

While we were moving out to the East Coast, we decided to stop and stay a few days in Denver with my family. It was a MUCH needed rest after the stress of packing up we absolutely loved being with family for four days. 

Xander & Spencer sure love goofing around Uncle Brandon

Little Miss Sadie is as cute as ever!

And Mr. Carson is looking quite dapper!

Sunday afternoon Ashton & Xander performed an entertaining "Hawaii Dance" for us. haha we loved the costumes.

Man I love those Colorado sunsets!

We also went to the Streets of Southglenn for some Water Fountain Fun & Shopping. Doesn't Sadie look so cute in her new hat?

After Family Home Evening, Brandon favored us all with some banjo playing! Seriously such a man of many talents.

While we were home, Mom asked that I go through some of my old boxes in the basement. Look what treasures I found! I used to love Mary Kate & Ashley books! 

Another day we went to a splash pad/park. I loved holding sweet little Carson while he slept. 

And Sadie was a rock star in her cute little bathing suit! 

Mom is always so good with these two cute babies!

We watched Carson while Alison & Ashton went to the dentist and Uncle Brandon got such HUGE smiles from this little guy.

We also were so lucky to go to a temple session at the Denver Temple with my parents! We loved seeing the new endowment session and spending time in the temple we were married in. Afterwards, we had to stop by Freddy's for some frozen custard with my darling parents. :)

I got the strawberry fudge concrete- holy hannah: SO YUMMY!

For our last night in Littleton we got to go to Western Welcome Week's outdoor concert! I wish we could have gone to all the Western Welcome Week events, I would have loved to show them to Brandon, but we had a great time paddle-boating on the tiny lake and eating $1 hot dogs!

3 cute little boys ready to paddle-boat!

The Andersons, minus Sadie

The Steadmans, minus Eric & Carson

And Brandon & Me (Mom was kind enough to watch the two babies while we paddle-boated)

I love how Spencer can barely lift his head and arm out of the life jacket. :)

We had a great time with Alison & Ashton on our boat. :) 

After paddle-boating we enjoyed our cheap hot dogs!

I gave little Sadie in this outfit and bow. Doesn't she look so cute?

I love this sweet little boy! 

After we got back to our home, we enjoyed some smores around the fire pit as a last hurrah before we left the next day. 

The fire was mostly smoke for a while there...

Mom had bought those GIANT marshmallows the size of Texas so our smores were huge and oh so tasty!

Ashton enjoyed his smore too! :D 

 I love this pic of Spencer & me. :) 

The Andersons & Steadmans had never seen Brandon's ventriloquist dummy or heard him play the banjo so we showed off some of his favorite toys around the campfire.

hahaha I think everyone was half amused/ half confused by the puppet, Earl.

Even Carson met Earl!

And Dad made it home from his meetings to enjoy a smore with us! 

We had such a wonderful night with everybody!

The next morning we packed up and said goodbye. So hard to leave this wonderful home and dear mother! We can't wait to come back and visit all the people we love back home!

THE MOVE

For our first year of married life we have lived in this cute little home in South Provo.

Last Saturday we packed up our entire home into our two large uboxes (portable storage units essentially) and said goodbye to this darling little home! It's been such a blessing to have this house. My old young women's president owns this home and offered it to us when we got married. It worked out great for us and we're going to miss it!! 

We had so much help packing up! (THANK YOU!) And two of Brandon's friends, Ryan & Matt, came down from Salt Lake to say goodbye and ended up loading pretty much all of our stuff. SO awesome! They've been Brandon's friends for so many years- we're going to miss being close by!

And the entire Chlarson family came to help with ALL the packing, cleaning, and loading. Truly couldn't have done it without them. :) #1 reason why Brandon & I hated moving: leaving all our dear family and friends in Utah & Colorado. The Chlarsons have done SO much for us and we loved living less than an hour away from them this past year. Thank you Patti, Kerry, Cory, & Darci!! (And thank you for such an awesome road trip tote! Road trip bingo, snacks galore, and invisible ink gamebook: what more could you ask for?!) 

After a very tearful goodbye we hit the road to Denver. This sign always makes me so happy! 

We stopped in Fruita at our favorite Enstrom's Ice Cream shop for some fresh strawberry ice cream. (it's tradition!) We stayed 4 days in Colorado with my family which was the best, (more on that to come) and then continued on our road trip east! We counted that we went through 11 different states. First up: 

KANSAS

Gotta love all the cornfields in Kansas, because there's pretty much nothing else to look at! Except maybe the "world's largest prairie dog." haha We didn't stop to see it but it sure was tempting! 

So remember how the Wizard of Oz takes place in Kansas? Brandon and I joked that it would be awesome to see a tornado while we were driving! Well, we didn't have a twister, but we did see these crazy gray clouds and suddenly.....

This little rainstorm came along! haha Midwest thunder storms are CRAZY!

Brandon drove through the crazy thunder, wind, and lightening but eventually it got so bad we couldn't see anything and pulled over for a little while. It definitely added some excitement to our drive!  We stayed the night with Uncle Bruce & Aunt Diane in Kansas City, which was such a treat. We loved seeing them and they treated us royally!! I wish I would have remembered to take a picture with them! The next day we left for...

Missouri! (my birth state) 

Brandon and I sure got good at reading the U.S. Atlas! 

While driving along in Missouri, we saw some signs for the National Churchill Museum in Fulton, Missouri. So random right?? It reminded me immediately of one of my favorite museums in London: The Churchill War Rooms (see pic below). It made me LOVE Churchill: such a grumpy old man filled with brilliant wisdom. 

Anyway, we decided to stop and find the Museum. The signs weren't terribly clear and our GPS was freaking out and we struggled to find it! We had the neatest experience with a sweet stranger. While at a stoplight in the middle of nowhere Missouri, the car next to us honked and motioned to have us roll down the window, she quickly asked us if we were lost. We replied that we thought we were figuring it out. She responded that she saw was LDS too and happy to help if needed. (She must have seen our Utah license plates and BYU bumpersticker.) She drove away as we offered thanks but we were so touched! There are truly good people everywhere! 

Brandon and I eventually found the museum and loved it!! It was a great way to break up our longest day of driving. Apparently Churchill came and spoke at Westminster College in 1946 and gave his famous speech about "iron curtain" falling across the continent. The museum was half about Churchill and half about the Cold War. They even had a section of the Berlin Wall outside the museum to commemorate the speech. Pretty cool huh?

My favorite part of the museum was the room filled with quotes from Churchill:

"There is one cardinal rule: 'never despair.' That word is forbidden."

"The nation that forgets its past has no future."

Wise guy eh??

While passing through St. Louis (where my family lived for 10 years and where my two sisters & I were born), we decided that we just HAD to stop at the world's best ice cream spot! TED DREWES!

Brandon had never had the pleasure of eating a Ted Drewes' concrete and I was delighted to show him that the Midwest knows what's going on when it comes to their ice cream!

BEFORE

AFTER

Such a fast way to make me super duper HAPPY! Truly! If you are ever in the St. Louis area, you gotta go to Ted Drewes!!

Saying hello to the arch while we drove by! 

We also came across this GIANT cross randomly on the side of the road I think in Illinois. 

And enjoyed a STUNNING sunset while we sat through construction traffic in Indiana. That night after what felt like we were driving forever (something like 11-12 hours with the time change and going through 4 states), we stayed in a cheap and gross hotel in Columbus Ohio. We were happy to be on our way in the morning.

Our last day of driving we saw several different states: Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, and finally VIRGINIA! 

We found some barbecue pork rinds at our rest stop in West Virginia. YUM (no we did not buy them. blech!)

It is SO GREEN! Trees line the streets everywhere you go. While driving into Vriginia, Brandon and I were freaking out realizing that this is our new home!

And finally, after driving 2100 miles and going through 11 different states, we arrived at our new home in Arlington! Can't believe we're East Coasters now!