Life in Connecticut

Hello from Connecticut!  What a crazy 3 weeks this has been!  We have finally gotten settled in our new house and it’s starting to feel like home   I’m not going to lie, it’s been a rough couple of weeks.  I have greatly missed all our family and friends in Utah.  But I am back to my old self and really starting to enjoy Simsbury.  We have a wonderful ward and a great neighborhood (in fact 2 weeks ago, some of the neighbor kids came over and raked all the leaves in our front yard).  It’s been kind of an adjustment to this slower paced lifestyle.  For the most part, everything is either 20 to 30 minutes away going on 2 lane roads.  I have been so used to Utah driving, that I practically beat my head against the steering wheel when someone goes the speed limit (heaven forbid).  There are a lot of things that I will just have to get used to.  I’m still in mourning over all the awesome home décor stores that were in Utah.  I am excited for this new adventure and look forward to all the fun trips that we will go on.  We are planning  a New York trip soon to see the huge Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center.  Yay!  Kylie starts preschool next month and is excited about that.  Sierra has been sick for a week and a half now with 2 ear infections and a horrible cold.  We haven’t had any snow yet which surprises me.  Not really looking forward to CT winters It will be beautiful, but I really hate driving in the snow. 

Well, many of you have asked to see pics of the house.  Here are some videos of it so that you go see the layout a little bit better.  Hope you all have a great week!

Video 1 of the downstairs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCKiEmg9j5I&context=C2b71aADOEgsToPDskJkeGxzrOxGSv-viLrM2HAN

Video 2 of the upstairs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlG5PeoG2IY&feature=context&context=C2b71aADOEgsToPDskJkeGxzrOxGSv-viLrM2HAN

Roomates

Do any of you have old roommates from college that you just love to death? Well I do and I was able to visit 2 of them last week My first stop was to Cathedral City to visit my friend Janie from BYU. She was kind enough to spend all day with me and my girls 2 days before she had her sweet little baby. It was so fun to catch up with her and to just enjoy having girl time. Funny how after 4 years of not seeing each other, we picked up right where we left off. Thanks again Janie for a great day with you and your kids!

Kylie hanging out with Janie’s kids Ayson and Macey

Janie why are you so white???

A few days later I went to see my old roommate Camie from BYU-Idaho who lives in Oceanside. 10 minutes before arriving at her house, Kylie decided to throw up her entire bowl of Trix all over herself…. Luckily Camie is such an awesome friend who helped clean Kylie off and gave me the materials I needed to clean up the vom. Camie, you are such a layed back person, thanks so much for all your help! We had a fun time at her house and then at Ruby’s at the Oceanside Pier. Oceanside is so beautiful! Thanks for a great day!

(PS Heather I wished you didnt live 7 hours from Anaheim. I would have loved to see you too :))

The kids having fun on the pier

So get this. This pelican comes to this spot so regularly that they gave him a name and his perch to sit and scare passerby's that don’t know he’s real. He keeps pretty still. It’s amazing how many women I heard scream when they realized he was real and that they were very close to him…

This fisherman got this starfish. Wish I had taken a pic with Kylie next to it because it was HUGE!

Newport Beach Temple

So apparently there is a temple 20 minutes from our apartment.  The bishop mentioned it in sacrament on Sunday and I told Austin I wanted to check it out later on that day.  It was so nice to walk around the temple grounds.  It is a beautiful temple and it just makes me realize again how grateful I am to be a part of this gospel and that I know I will be with my family forever

Visitors!!!

On October 27th, Austin’s mom and dad came out to visit us for Sierra’s birthday.  I had been looking forward to that day for quite some time   It was sooo nice to have them here for 5 days and I didn’t want them to leave.  Wendy and Howard, I hope you know how much your visit meant to us.  It has been so incredibly hard to leave all our friends and family and it meant so much to us to have you here for Sierra’s birthday  

The day after they arrived, it was Sierra’s birthday.  So in celebration of her special day, we went to Six Flags Magic Mountain.  What?  Sierra wanted to go! Oh my gosh, can we say a FANTASTIC day!  Seriously, we hardly had to wait in any lines and the roller coasters are out of this world.  My favorite ride was the X2.  Amazing.  We had such a fun day together.  Kylie and Sierra were so good.  They had a fairly big kid area that had rides that Kylie could go on.  The place was dead, so she got to go right on all the rides.  Thanks again you guys for watching the girls for some of the rides   And Wendy, you are such a fearless mother in law!  I would so love to go on the Superman again with you!

On Saturday we headed to Balboa Beach to spend a few hours in the sun.  It was a gorgeous day that day.  I am so going to miss the ocean…

Sierra found herself a beach hunk

LOVE this picture

You can’t go to the beach without burying your daddy

By far, the best 2 photos from their trip…Miss you guys!

That night was our ward’s trunk or treat.  It was…different.  I’m used to our old ward’s trunk or treat where you go around to each car and they give you candy and then you eat yummy food and then go to their carnival inside.  Man, they did such a great job.  At the one we went to this year we ate chili and hotdogs inside and they had like 3 games you could do, and then you stood in a line and they gave you candy.  I shouldn’t be complaining, it was fine and Kylie had a good time.  I guess it just made me miss our old ward…again.  Kylie decided she wanted to be a witch this year, so I did her face all up and she looked pretty frightening if I do say so myself   She won a DQ gift certificate for having the scariest costume.  I was so proud of her!  Lol. 

Sunday we celebrated Sierra’s birthday.  I cannot believe a whole year has gone by!  And boy what a year it has been!  We stuffed ourselves silly with food and cake.  I felt kind of bad about the cake I made her.  I really couldn’t go all out because all of my cake pans, rolling pin, icing tips, etc are in CT.  So I did  an easy sheet cake.  We did a beach theme for her and all in all, it was a great little party   Sierra didn’t know what to do with her cake.  She kept reaching for it halfway, then pulling her hand back.  It was so funny.  I decided just to start feeding it to her, and she eventually got the hang of it.

The goods

On Monday we just hung out at the apt most of the day and then swung by the Anaheim Marketplace.   Wendy got some Mexican Vanilla and a few necklaces, so that was good   Afterwards we got ready to go trick or treating.  Ok, just so you know, I LOVED trick or treating when I was a kid.  Loved it.  We would go for hours getting so much candy we could barely carry it.  I’m still pretty intense when it comes to getting candy with my kids.  I love just going door to door with them.  Well, since we are in an apt complex, we couldn’t go door to door, and I sure as heck was not going to some random neighborhood.  So I guess the malls pass out candy.  Lame-o, I know.  The closest mall to us was going to give out candy from 4 to 7.  We got there at like 5:30, and 90% of the stores had run out of candy.  It was pathetic.  I mean first of all, Im taking my kid trick or treating at a mall.  No offense to those of who do that, it was just so weird to me and it didn’t feel like Halloween at all.  But Kylie didn’t mind, and its not like she needs all that candy anyway, because I would have more than likely eaten most of it.  Anyway, the night got better after we went back to the apt, had home made chili and apple pie floats (amazing by the way, look it up at www.ourbestbites.com) and then watched Psycho. 

Here are a few pics from that night.

Our little kitty cat.  She kept on that make-up the whole time we were at the mall, but 30 seconds before I took the camera out to snap a pic, she had smeared it all over her face.  Little booger…

The next day, Howard and Wendy had an early flight back to Utah.  It was so hard to say goodbye.  I miss you guys so much and thanks again for making Sierra’s birthday so special for us!