Labor day weekend/ first visitors

We had to buy a new car because of the accident (bless my old car's heart) and so who better to buy a car from than your in-laws? We know they take good care of cars and so we didn't hesitate to buy it from them. The only problem was that it was in Utah! My dad was awesome enough to drive it down to us. When I told Avery he was driving our new car to us, her eyes got really big and worried and she said, "well, how is he going to get home? Is he going to walk?" It was cute. 

My Dad brought Sadie for some company, and they were our very first visitors. Mostly my dad helped Travis with the sprinkling system and the yard for the first day. Then that night we took them to the drive in movie here in Globe. Can you tell we love this place?

My Dad happened to come during labor day weekend, and in the Jones family, there are two big birthdays during that time. Bella turned 6 and Tice turned... 29 is it now? Ha! The Jolley's ended up coming to our house on Sunday night where we celebrated birthdays. Then we took the big boys on a scorpion hunt with the black light at night. It was FREAKY! We found 5 or 6. This is what we do for entertainment in Globe.

The next day we went to the lake and beached it up. It was fantastic!

We brought Wilson, the floating turtle, and at one point Wilson blew away almost to the other side of the lake. We thought it was gone, but a boat saw it and saved Wilson. We were all in the water and we acted like they saved our dying Grandma, we were so excited! I think all our beach neighbors thought we were a little drunk. But we were just drunk with excitement. We love that little Wilson.

It was such a nice day. The water was almost too warm, and there was a little thunder storm. It was fun.

 And then we flew 75 cent kites for about an hour

Seriously the best 75 cents I ever spent!

What a fun weekend. Its so nice having family close by!

Last year of preschool

This is Avery's last year of preschool until she starts Kindergarten next year! 

She had braids the night before, so we went with the fro look!

Every year I do the same interview with her, and so here it is.

1. Name and Age? past 4 and three quarters

2. Grade Level? Mrs Sylvia's class

3. My school? Mrs. Sylvia's class

4. Teacher's name? Mrs. Sylvia

5. Best Friend? Elise

6. Favorite Color? Pink

7. When I grow up, I want to be? A Princess

8. Favorite snack? Oatmeal

9. Favorite cereal? Lucky Charms, Recess Puffs, Cinnamon toast crunch

10. Favorite book? Curious George

11. Favorite holiday? My Birthday

12. Favorite food? Mac n cheese

13. Least favorite food? Toast with only butter and blueberries

14. Favorite game? Candy land

15. Favorite Summer memory? Going to Utah

16. Three words that describe Avery? Happy, miss Adelyn

I love this girl and can't believe she is almost 5!

We made it through our first national disaster in Arizona

Haboob

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A haboob (Arabic: هَبوب‎ "blasting/drafting") is a type of intense dust storm
carried on an atmospheric gravity current. Haboobs occur regularly in arid
regions throughout the world.

We escaped out of tornado alley and thought that living in Arizona would be a breeze, but little did we know that the desert has its own enemies.

The Haboob

Its a wall of sand blowing straight towards you.

We were back in the valley going to IKEA and this is what we experienced.

Can you see the wall of sand? Scary!

We ran into IKEA and the Swedish store saved us.

OK, I don't know if you can tell, but I'm being a little sarcastic! The midwest is still way scarier, and I'm kind of mocking Tice because she literally was caught in one 2 years ago and hasn't stopped talking about her survival since!

I love Haboobs and can't wait till the next one!

Pee and Poo

This girl right here is potty trained!

It took about two solid weeks, lots of candy and stickers and a lot of patience.

One funny story

We drove down to the valley to JC Penney's to go and look for bedding. Brooklyn was being horrible in the store. Travis decided to take her out. Well, she is a mommy's girl and wasn't excited about that, so she peed on him.

That is Trav's crotch, but Brooklyn's pee.

He had to walk around the mall looking like that. It's funny now right Trav?

We love our girl!

Total Loss

I was two miles away from my house on my way home from St. George and BAM, I got rear ended at a stop light.

The insurance company declared it a total loss and gave us a check.

This was my first car.

My dad made a deal with me that he would buy me a car if I could get a scholarship.

I got this car the month after I graduated in 2001.

I went on many road trips with this car.

I went to college with this car.

I broke up with boyfriends in this car.

I got so many parking tickets at BYU in this car.

This car has been booted, towed and ticketed many times.

This car took me to Kansas City.

This car brought home my first baby from the hospital.

And after having another kid, this car became Travis's car, but every chance I could get, I would drive it.

This car was low maintenance. In 12 years, I probably spent less then 2 thousand bucks fixing it. 

I loved this car!

Bye buddy, hope your parts are used for good in this world, I will sure miss ya! Thanks for being so good to me. I didn't even get that bad of whiplash in the accident. The car guy said that's because Honda knows how to make a safe car! I believe that!

sigh.

A quick getaway

Two weeks after we arrived in Globe, I was off again on another adventure. My cousin was getting married in St. George. So I ditched the hubby and kids, picked up my sister and headed North to St. George. Can I just say how nice it was to actually attend a family event? I have missed so many weddings, baptisms, graduations, etc. Living closer is going to rock!

Oh yeah, and we hung out with this guy. We are totally tight with Jimmer now. And if you are wondering why someone took a picture during a prayer, direct all of your questions to one Letice Jolley. She went a little crazy this weekend! She stalked Jimmer. The funny thing about it is that she doesn't know a thing about Jimmer. She has never seen him play. She had to keep asking who he was. But every chance she got, she took a picture of him. It was awesome, he probably totally enjoyed himself and felt comfortable the whole time.

Our family went a little star crazy. This picture was supposed to only have Tice and I in it, but all of a sudden my aunt, and her kids jumped in, and then of course my Grandma had to be in a picture with Jimmer. Again, he probably felt so freaked out happy to know that he has stalkers fans.

Oh yeah, maybe I should talk a little about the wedding.

It was beautiful.

And it was so much fun to be around my big family

 Congrats Jake and Shayli, you are a gorgeous couple!

 And if you are feeling sorry for Travis because I left him alone all weekend, don't.

They had a blast with their cousins

Globites

We finally made it to our new home in Globe. 

We drove from California and arrived at midnight. We were greeted by a garage full of unpacked boxes and lots of little friends.

We love our house! It is nice having so much extra space, a really nice backyard and real furniture!

Globe is.... well... it is... different.

I knew living in the Riverside Town homes wasn't real life. It was just too easy and convenient. Whenever you were feeling lonely or bored, you would just walk outside and you were instantly greeted by a neighbor. I knew this so I mentally prepared myself. I've been fine in this regard, but the hard thing that I'm trying to adjust to is just the small town. 

I'm a go getter. I'm not a home body. I like taking my kids to the zoo, or going to the farm, or going to the duck pond. They don't really have those options here, unless I want to make a day trip out of it and drive an hour and 15 minutes to Mesa. And sometimes I do that when I just need to. So I would say that during the day is the hardest time for me. 

Other than that, Travis is really liking his new job. It feels so much more cushy than stinky residency. He never works weekends, and only works four days a week. 

The girls are adjusting pretty well. It was a shocker for Avery to not have little playmates all of the time. She started preschool, and that has been good for her. Brooklyn is pretty easy going and just wanders the house all day long making huge messes, so she is pretty happy. 

There are scorpions, triantulas, cockroaches, and the biggest bees I have ever seen! It really is a different world here. The thing that is great here is the outdoor recreation.

We went on a Sunday drive to explore the surrounding lakes.

We let our kids "dip their feet in" and the next thing we knew, we had skinny dippers. It was as warm as a bath tub.

It seems like there is always a rainbow in the sky

We have also become really close friends with our neighbors across the street; the Bruce's.

They have four kids and have saved our lives with helping Travis move heavy things, to letting us borrow everything under the sun! What a blessing!

We were able to go to the local drive in movie with them one night.

We also love how close the Jolley's and the Taylor's are

It has its ups and downs, but any kind of change is going to be this way and we are making our home here in Globe.

Come visit... awesome, I mean awesome Mexican food awaits you!

SLO

San Luis Obispo, California

Everyone needs to go here. We went there because Kevin, Travis's brother moved there last year and it was the annual Charles reunion. We drove from Utah straight to SLO, through the night and this is what we drove up to at 5 in the morning.

A cloud

We did so much this trip, I'm mostly going to show through pictures. There are a ton.

Here were the people involved...

This is where we stayed...

My monkey's were in Heaven

We...

Ate lots of food

We Chilaxed...

We sight-saw...

Montana De Oro

Some Pier

We beached it up...

We hiked...

We caught a drive in movie...

We went to an orchard

...and ate lots of corn there

 

 ...and lots of peaches

I would like to report that we were very 'regular' this trip

We beached it up more...

 This boy is 9 and showed me up

Maybe they weren't quite ready to catch a wave

 beach bum

 

We went to the California missions (which I didn't even know about, where was I that day in history class?) and we went to the best farmer's market I have ever seen...

 

 Avery loved the gum wall and Brooklyn tried to eat some

 We ate our dinner on the curb of the street from the best burrito truck

 What are they looking at?

 Just the knife juggling stilt walking acrobats

We were obsessed with...

The Habit in downtown SLO

We went there twice

We displayed our amazing athleticism...

the warm up

the events

Is this considered an athletic event?

 If so, I think our family would be a good option to represent the US in the next Olympics

We displayed good hygiene...

It happens every so often

We went to the most amazing sand dune hill next to the beach...

You had to hike to get there

And then hike a steep vertical sand hill

And then sprint down without dying

This was at the top of the sand dunes. Trails that went forever.

I think this was my favorite place we went.

This was a fantastic trip due to all the planning (Tracie), good food (Kimberly) and great location (SLO).

A couple of things I learned about Californians:

1. Nobody ever leaves the house without reusable bags

2. They don't believe in Drive-through at fast food places

3. They love their land, don't ever not recycle!

Oh how California tempts me. Maybe one day I will be a California girl? 

Thanks Charles family, it was great!

This is how we all felt when we had to leave

(especially when we were stuck in Santa Monica traffic for two hours. Boo.)