Where to Begin . . . . . . . .

Seriously, have we been away from our blog for that long! I'm ashamed of myself. This is unacceptable!!! LOL. Well, I do have a good excuse, I think? It all started on June 1st as we packed up our family and got into our lovely minivan and started heading away from (one second, let me wipe a tear) Manhattan! A very sad day for us as we left everything we had known and which had become common place for us for the last four years. On a positive note Chad was finally finished school and he was no longer a student!

To make a long story short, for the next month we drove from one end of the country to the other and absolutely loved it! We visited a few church sites, got caught in the worst rain storm in Kansas where we actually had to pull off to the side of the road, a two week stay with my sister in Utah (thank you for being so kind to us, love you!), a first trip to Lake Powell, for me and the kids anyway, with the Hafen family (Ethan loved trying to catch the lizards and sleeping under the stars), stayed at "The Nugget" in Reno where Chad came in second in a poker tournament which paid for our very expensive seafood buffet--YUMM!, drove through the Redwoods in Northern California which was one of the highlights of our trip and then drove up the Oregon Coast which was soooo breathtaking! To conclude our expedition we spent the 4th of July in Seattle. When we had all the fun that we could possibly take we headed home to Canada.

Ethan and Edyn were in love! They had so much fun spending time with their cousins and having a backyard to play in that Chad and I realized we definately had to settle down closer to home. So, after interviews in Colorado, Oregon, Washington and Arizona we actually have ended up in Star, Idaho (Boise area). Which is kinda funny as Idaho wasn't even on our list of places we wanted to end up living. Chad just got a great opportunity and after checking it out as well as the area and seeing how close to home it was, we were sold. We've been here almost a month now and loving it! We live in a home all to ourselves and pay almost half the rent we paid in Jersey to share a house. We now have a backyard and our next door neighbors have a boy Ethan's age who play non-stop. When his friend is away he goes into major depression. LOL. It's also just so nice to have Chad come home at a decent time everyday and for the kids to be able to spend time with him now.

I guess what I'm trying to say is we are really happy and excited to start our new life. We still really miss Manhattan and I think we will always. How could you not?! But going from the craziness of the city to living in a small town of less than 2000 people has actually been really nice. Well, so much for keeping it short. We have soooooo many photos so I'll have to break them up into smaller posts and stretch it out so I don't overwhelm everybody, especially myself! LOL. Anyhoo, it's good to be back on our blog and hopefully I can keep it up. A shout out to all our friends in Jersey - WE MISS YOU!!!!