These are the days of our lives

We have been spending most of our days waiting for Ginny's job to start.  We have been trying to keep busy.  We try to get out of the apartment at least once a day so we don't go stir crazy.  Today, I even hit the pavement to find a job for myself.  I've already applied with several companies and have only heard from a few of them.  Today was no exception; minimal success.  I had one interview at Texas Roadhouse and I should hear something by next week.  

I have been documenting our little girl through pictures.  We are trying our hardest to keep up with her.  She is very mobile and we are learning what baby proofing is.  She is fascinated with the door stop on the front door.  It's an older one; just one spring.  She will sit in front of it for a good bit and just play with it until it comes off the wall; then she eats it.

She is climbing up on everything.  We have our bed in our living room (we have two queen beds and a two bedroom apartment and virtually no living room furniture) and she climbs up on the side of the bed if we are on it and tries to get up on the bed.  Hilarious!  Here's a picture of her climbing on the entertainment center; she sees her reflection in the glass (actually the baby that is on the other side of the glass ;-)) and wants to get in there. 

As I was folding clothes on the floor, she decided to come help me.  I decided to put a reusable swim diaper on her.  

We got this beanie/hat from a friend of Ginny's, Brianne, and it never really fit Kaylor very well.  But now, it does.

And, apparently, she loves to read the newspaper in her new hat.  (Yes, we are still in boxes.  As mentioned earlier, we are only in this apartment for a few more weeks so we kept most of our stuff packed out of convenience.)

A friend of ours, Pauli, and her friend Breanne, came down for a week for a little vay-cay.  We all went to our first Diamondback's game.  The stadium is amazing---it's a dome!!!  We carried little K in our harness.

This is what I came home to today.  Apparently Ginny is trying out for extreme couponing or at least loves to bathe in them on the bed.  HA.  Just kidding.  Ginny is very conscious of our finances and always tries to find the best deals.  We definitely did today.  Our new favorite store...Fresh and Easy!!!!

 We are having fun, camping out!  We definitely are ready for things to get rolling with this job so we can get some more normalcy back to our mundane lives.  But, it's an adventure to find things to do.  We found a $2 movie theater; we are so excited about it!  It takes me back to when Auntie Bea and I use to get dropped off there with our homemade popped popcorn and see our show!  


We definitely miss family but skype and texting correspondence helps!  Auntie Bea comes in a few days=amazing!! 

Half-di-birthday.

Yes, she's made it to 6 mos.  She's still adorable and everyone loves her.  She's also crawling a ton and we can't keep our hands on her.  She even pulls her self up to standing position.  Yes, she's only 6 mos.  Ha.  She's very good at finding electrical cords and shoving them in her mouth.  She still loves food and gets overly offended if we are eating and she is not. But we love her just the same.

Two weeks strong and sweating

Actually, the weather isn't that bad.  Yes, it is 100+ degrees for most of the day.  But yesterday, we sat by the pool after about 7 and there was a nice breeze and it was comfortable, much better than tolerable.  

We have finally found a place to live and moved all of our stuff in yesterday, thanks to the amazing help of our friends, the George Family, and our new ward family.  Wards here are definitely different than Louisiana; something we knew coming into this adventure.  But several people introduced themselves to us at church and offered to help in our move.

We are subleasing an apartment from a member of this ward.  She needed to move out and we needed to move in.  The Lord definitely put us in the same path; tender mercies.  The lease will expire July 21 so we will find some place different before then.  In the meantime, we will be camping out, as Ginny's aunt Jeanette so eloquently described it.  We will go through a few boxes and keep the rest packed.  

Ginny had a second interview with an outreach company today and has a third one tomorrow with the athletic director of a local high school.  We feel really good about this one and hope she gets it.

Bonnie George, of the aforementioned family, and I went to high school together for a year and were best friends.  We have kept in moderate contact with one another over the 13 years since then and she even came to our sealing and reception!!  Now, little Bonnie is a grown adult and has her own family.  They live in the valley and we have become good friends with them.  They were gracious enough to let us stay in their beautiful home for a few days.  We felt like family there.  

Ginny's mom came to help us watch Kaylor as we ran the roads getting different things done.  She was such a big help!  It is nice to have them closer!  My parents are seriously contemplating moving closer as well; that will be a blessing.

Other than that, we are plugging along.  We have several friends/family members coming to visit us in the next month or so and we are anticipating their arrival.

5 months

Our little girl is growing and changing before our very eyes.  We have been amazed this past few weeks.  We feel she's made a lot of good improvements.

• She loves to hear her voice.
• She is much more attentive.
• She loves sucking on our knees and pretty much anything else.  
• She is starting to crawl.  She scoots for sure and is doing this lunging technique.
• She can sit up by herself for a short time.
• She loves anything electronic, the iPad, iPhone, Macbook, and remote control.
• She's much better at getting in her car seat.

We love our little girl!  Here is her 5 mos. picture and another picture from this past weekend.

We've made it

We are living in Apache Junction, east of Phoenix, with a friend of Ginny's.  We haven't found a place to live yet but are still looking.  My dad and I drove the 20ish hours while staying in San Antonio for a night.  We arrived in Mesa Saturday night around the same time as Ginny and Kaylor flew in.  Ginny had a good interview with her company and are told we will hear something by next Thursday.

We took a little vacay to Cali to visit Ginny's family.  We went to the LA temple today to do sealings.  It was really great to be in the celestial room and figure out some things.  We should be here through Tuesday.

Into the woods...or desert...?

Confession.  We are moving to the Phoenix area and still have a hard time remembering the spelling of the city, oe or eo or F?  Ha.  I think I have it now but I still have to think about it, kind of like when I spell words like  "beautiful" or "Tim".  


We have all the boxes packed, loaded on the trailer and it is on it's way to sunny Arizona.  It should be there in 5 business days.  We rented space on a commercial trailer to save some extra $ and to save us the headache of dragging a trailer across the country.  Ginny and Kaylor are flying in Saturday and my dad and I leave Friday afternoon in the car.  A special thanks to everyone who helped us move!  Members of the ward came and even a member who works across the street hopped over to help out, unexpectedly.  


There are definitely mixed feelings of leaving Louisiana.  I was born here 30 years ago and grew up with the culture in my family's home even though I grew up outside of Louisiana.  I still have family here who I love and will miss seeing as often.  I will definitely miss the food and the culture.  I was looking out the window yesterday at our neighbor's yard and the beautiful green grass and majestic trees and the mulberries growing from it.  I will always remember this place in my heart and will be back soon, I'm sure, to visit.  I will not, however, miss the mugginess or the bugs!  We know this move is for the best.  It will be nice to have a little more spoils like being able to buy garments from a store and shopping at a Costco!  The population of our church is larger there and that will also be a plus.  


Ginny has been speculating as to what's going on in Kaylor's mind.  We have noticed her staring at the boxes in our house and we feel she recognizes that something is a mis and change lingers in the air.  Children are quite perceptive and even though we know not what goes on in that ever intriguing mind, we can only guess she feels a little uneasy.  This past week has been hard on us because she is not sleeping as she use to.  We hope once things settle down, she will be able to get back into a better routine.  She's just very curious and we feel she is always wondering what's going on.  


We have started her on real food.  She has tried squash, sweet potatoes, carrots and even green peppers.  She seems to love them all.  Although, the green pepper wasn't cooked (she just sucked on it while we were eating), she did like the taste, after the initial "this is not something I'm use to eating" face.  She also has been eating oatmeal 1-2 times a day.  We have been cooking the vegetables ourselves which is so much cheaper than store bought baby food and we feel like she likes it!  


Kaylor has also been getting up on all fours.  No crawling yet but she no longer stays in one place.  She can roll and "scoot".  The other day, Ginny was pumping in the rocking chair and Kaylor was on the floor.  Ginny kept calling Kaylor's name and she went from the middle of the floor to Ginny in about 2 minutes.  I'm pretty sure Kaylor knew what she was doing.


We love our little girl.  I'm glad I was able to type this long of a post (because she is sleeping).  I've had the immense pleasure of taking care of K while Ginny has been working this last week.  It is getting me ready for the big time when Ginny gets her full-time, big girl job in AZ.  

We will miss our friends and family in LA but are looking towards the West for a better opportunity to grow.  This definitely is not goodbye to the bayou but just see ya' later, alligator.  

Easter/California

Finally.  So, Ginny, Kaylor and I took a week long trip to California.  We went to an Angel's game (Ginny's favorite team) and it was Kaylor's first professional BBall game.

The game was fun and Ginny was able to get a Weinersnitzel hotdog, one she loves!  We also went to DISNEYLAND for the first time!!  Well, it was my first time, Ginny's bizzilioneth time.  We left Kaylor with Ginny's parents so we could enjoy ourselves a bit more.  Plus, we are going back at Christmas and Kaylor will enjoy herself a lot more then.  Disneyland was awesome!  I think my favorite ride was Star Tours. We also went to California Adventure and saw World of Color!  That was amazing.  We ate at all of our favorite restaurants, The Hat, Vince's, In N Out (of course) and some legit mexican food!

We spent Easter with the whole fam in Cali and here are some pictures I took.  I've uploaded them on Picasa; just click here.

We also had Kaylor's blessing and my parents and Auntie Bea came for that as well.  We enjoyed a get together and Auntie Bea made about 70 cupcakes.  Crazy!  We also made some chocolate covered strawberries.

It was so much fun to be in California again.  We don't miss the traffic but we do miss the family and weather!  Although, our trip to the beach was freezing cold rain.  YUCK!  But, we jumped out of the car and got a few pictures anyway.