Good Friends

Moving has been good for our family. Since leaving everything behind, we have been forced to spend LOTS of time together. Our kids really enjoy each other and they play together like this almost all the time. We have a few sibling squabbles, but mostly, we have really GREAT kids! This experience is bonding them as friends, and that is priceless.

Still Swimming!

It's October 23rd, and we just got back from the pool. I think we might really like Texas!

We're Building a House!

This is Seth, standing in the back corner of our new lot. All of those live oak trees will stay when they build. Hannah wanted a house with "climbing trees" and she's going to get quite a few! While trees in the yard are not exactly rare in Texas, it is VERY desirable. When we were looking at homes, all the listings with old trees ALWAYS state them as a selling point.

Our Little Apartment

John and I have never lived in an apartment together, since we bought our first house the week before our wedding. This has been a new experience. With most of our stuff in storage and very difficult to retrieve, our life is much simpler. It's easier to clean, easier to find things, and we live with much less stuff than we thought we could. We do say, "That's in storage, we'll get it back in a few months." But really, you can live quite comfortably with less stuff. REALLY!

Our apartment is pretty nice--it's new and has about 1400 square feet. The kitchen is small, but the bathrooms, closets and laundry room are quite large. We have 3 bedrooms, which are also good-sized, and my parents even stayed here comfortably with us for a couple of days. Seth moved into our closet on an air mattress. Our closet is bigger than the one we had in Washington! We even have a little computer desk that is functioning as our "office". Because the kitchen is small, I had to improvise a pantry, using shelves from our house and the hall closet to store food. The real drawback to apartment living is that the kids don't have a yard to play in and I can't just let them outside by themselves. The pool makes up for some of that. But all in all, we are enjoying the simplicity of apartment living. I think it's easier knowing that we'll eventually have a home again.

Our front door and little dining room. I want a new dining set, but we didn't want to buy one just to move it, so we are using folding chairs until we get into our home.

Our living room--somehow it looks the same when you put all the same furniture into it!

Our TINY kitchen and little office area to the left.

Decorating for Halloween

The kids are so excited about Halloween this year! While it is NOT my favorite holiday, we decided to decorate a little to make the apartment more fun for them. I hung the spider webs, but they did the rest. Seth likes to wander around at 4:30 in the morning, for some reason, and now he always plugs in the pumpkin lights. Maybe he can't sleep because he's so excited.

My Roommate Kristen

I met Kristen at BYU my freshman year in Deseret Towers, and shared an apartment with her for 2 years. She was the girl with parents close enough that we could visit for the weekend occasionally. They always welcomed a large group of students with open arms, open house, open refrigerator! We had our moments, but I loved her dearly. She finally married last year, and they welcomed their first baby in May. My friend died unexpectedly this week. She touched my life for good, encouraged me to serve a mission, and was a really good girl. I am sad tonight, and I will miss her. My thoughts and prayers are with her family.

Her obituary can be found here:

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/deseretnews/obituary.aspx?n=kristen-reynolds&pid=134542520