Christmas at Sea World

Since we were in So Cal already we decided to make the most of our visit and take the kids over to Sea World. They like it a lot and there's lot's of educational opportunities so we gave it a go. Of course the kids had to drag me on to the Atlantis roller coaster ride. They keep hoping that I'm going to scream like a little girl. Anyway, there was lot's to see and everyone had a great time. Here are some of the pictures from that day.

Kristmas Visit with Kunzes!

Finally! We're actually close enough to visit California more than once a year! We took the opportunity to visit So Cal. for the dual purpose of seeing our Kunz family and also to celebrate Leslie's mom's 85th birthday. We had a great time and I'll let the pictures say the 1,000 words.

1st Christmas Back in AZ

I'm jumping from "moving in" to Christmas because the time just blew by! We've been frantically unpacking boxes as quickly as we can and of course we're still not done! And what do we do about it? That's right... we go out and get more stuff to put in our house! Oh, well! I can't fight it, but I look forward to finding discarded toys in the months ahead! Bwa ha ha haaa!!!

I see you looking at my toys!
"Ain't I cute!"
Just what I need in AZ, snow boots!
I hope no one notices my red eyes!

Back to Arizona (Aug & Sep)

The family spent all of July in California while our new house in AZ was being built. I flew down from Seattle and drove them all to Mesa to get them ready to start school. As part of our relocation package, my company included up to 60 days of temporary housing. We spent the first two weeks in a Hampton Inn Hotel until there was an opening at a Corporate Housing condo in Mesa.

I had to go back and forth from Arizona to Washington because I was moving my company's Data Center down to Scottsdale and I was managing it from the Washington end. I also had to handle the sale of our house up there. After I got it all moved I was finally able to get back to Mesa for good.

We were able to watch our house being finished and that was fun. I have included some pictures for you to see. I'll write more later.

Moving (How to get your house clean!)

Here's the latest in my installments to move this blog forward in time instead of simply "jumping" to the present!

Leslie and I packed everyone up in the van and headed off to California. We worked our tails off and got the house ready to be sold. We were exhausted! For those of you that actually visited, the place was probably cleaner than you remember. We decided to get everyone out and stay out so that we could keep the place clean and ready to be shown. For those of you that didn't know, we sold the house after it being on the market for 18 days! We also, thank you Lord!, got our full asking price. The house is just a memory now, but we enjoyed it while we were there. For those of you who never saw it, here's what it looked like!

Here's our bedroom.

Here's our kitchen/dining room.

Here's our family room.

Here's the music room.

Mikey's 1st Album

Mikey has grown so much during our years in Washington. He's become quite the musician and he really wanted to record some songs with his friends from the Life Teen Band, Truthful Reign. Mikey got together with them all on a Saturday in the church and recorded a number of his favorite Christian songs as well as some of his own original material. He had a great time doing it and is looking forward to the next time he gets the chance to record some music! If you want to here some of his work, send me an email and I'll work out how to get the music to you.

Pomp and Circumstance

It's hard to imagine, but Rebekah's preschool time is over and she is graduating on to Kindergarten! She went to a great little school called Sunshine Mountain and she had a great time there. She learned a lot of neat things there and made a lot of friends. She will miss them when we move to Arizona over the summer.