Montana Trip

Ever since we moved back to Utah, we have been planning a trip up to Kalispell, Montana to visit Mark's sister Rachelle and her husband Ben. We finally made it up there this past week, and the whole family came for a little reunion. Eventually I'll post some family pictures when we have access to them, but for now, here are some of the fun things we did.

Luke adored the chickens, and chased them around a lot. He also fed them lots of cookies, so they tolerated him pretty well. He would try to dump sand or water on them and laugh hysterically, but they would always come right back for more. I'm not sure if they are just dumb birds, or if they knew it was worth staying close to the kid who always had food nearby.

Much to my complete shock, Millie started grazing on fresh green beans from the garden. Apparently we're going to need to plant some when we finally get ours started. (Next year??) She also was completely in heaven when she got to have a campout complete with s'mores, a hike, and two nights sleeping in the tent with Grandma and Grandpa.

We got to visit Glacier National Park, which was a first for me. I took a lot of pictures, and I kind of randomly selected some without getting a good look at them. So hopefully you can get a feel for the grandeur of this place. Montana is beautiful, and Northwest Montana is especially so. It's just nature at its best, and I'm glad I didn't miss out on seeing this place even if it was packed with tourists.

We stopped at a lake to let the kids stretch and run around. They all ended up climbing in the cold water and having a lot of fun splashing around. Easily this was their favorite part of the day, since they spent most of the drive watching shows on their TV's. 

What we've been doing

The semester will end in a few days for Mark, and then the real process of moving will begin. The kids and I take a load of stuff to the new house most days and play in all of the open space. In the meantime, spring has arrived! We love the warmer weather so much. Here are a few very random things we have been up to lately:

Duck feeding: these ducks have a nest in our backyard. We hope the eggs hatch before we move.

Missing the snow a tiny bit

Millie loves to draw lately. Here she is drawing her Nonie (the blanket animal next to her).

Other favorite subjects: Minnie & Mickey

The kids and I took a very quick trip the Oregon coast. My cousin Cassidy came with us to help with the 16 hour drive (both ways). My grandma is very old and sick, and she had never met my kids. We got to see a lot of family, including Meemaw and Poppie who came over in their trailer.

Millie was excited to see the beach, but a few minutes in the wind was enough to convince her we would not be building a sand castle.

Luke almost lost his new ball to the Oregon coast wind.

The kids eagerly picked flowers for Granddad's grave.

A lot of us wish we could have met him.

Millie got her own special trip to Kangaroo Zoo (Luke was sick)

We love to take walks to this swing on the Provo River Trail

Luke likes to swing, then get in the river (*sigh*)

Houston to Provo (in very few pictures)

July was a L-O-N-G month. I packed as much as I reasonably could over the past few months, and we left our Houston home at the end of June to drive to Utah. I have a slew of photos trying to get our whole family together in front of the house, and this is the best one we got. It'll have to do:

We arrived in Utah and spent some time enjoying time with Mark's family. We bought fireworks and enjoyed the 4th of July with the kiddos. Two whole pictures to prove it:

There is no photo documentation on my camera of the following weeks. We went house-hunting in the Provo area, and fell in love with a house right on the Provo River Trail. We're just renting for now, but I think we'll really love this home and may never want to leave. The location can hardly be beat. Pictures to follow.

Mark flew back to Houston to finish packing and to finish his job. The kids and I drove up to Oregon to hang out with my family for a couple of weeks. I'll need to steal pictures from other people, because we managed to have all of the cousins together for the first time ever. My kids had never met two of Joel's kids. They enjoyed having lots of playmates, but as you can imagine, it was rough not having Daddy around.

We headed back to Utah to start getting things settled to move in. We were happy when the moving truck arrived a few days earlier than expected (and it was amazing to finally not have to pack/unpack a moving truck all by ourselves!) Mark pulled into town the next evening, and the kids we were ALL thrilled to have him back in our lives! 

Almost a week later, we're still busy upacking and trying to get settled. We're tired, but really enjoying life right now. We look forward to many great experiences here and hope that moving back to Provo will be an overall positive new chapter in our lives. It is definitely a little surreal to be back here in many ways.

Without further ado, our home:  

Living Room

Kitchen

Kitchen/Dining Area

Family Room

Master Bedroom

Master Bath

Master Bath

Master Closet/Luke's current bedroom (it's huge, the picture doesn't do it justice)

Backyard

More Backyard

More Backyard (we have so much to explore!)

 

The view from our bedroom window--Mt. Timpanogos on the left, Y Mountain on the right

Road Trip

We had our final sibling wedding to attend this spring. Mark's youngest sister, Ashley, got married in March, and we knew we needed to make sure to be there. After much consideration, we decided to risk driving from Houston to Utah so we could spend as much time with family as possible and save money by not buying three plane tickets. The tragedy of the situation is that I have no photos on my camera of any wedding festivities. No documentation of the hours we spent shopping for decorations and setting them up, nothing of the temple grounds, no evidence of the reception. Fortunately I can get them from other people, but this trip seriously was so exhausting that pulling out the camera just never came to my mind. The kids were both absolutely wonderful on the drive up. One of the highlights of the trip was after driving all night long, then all day long and finally stopping for the night in Fort Collins, CO. Luke got into the hotel room and was immediately in heaven having the freedom to move about. We didn't have to entertain him for a full half hour while he explored while grinning and giggling the whole time. It was precious. Not so precious was the fact that Luke did not sleep well a single night once we made it to Utah. I was so exhausted.

Here are a few pictures I stole from my sister-in-law's blog (thanks, Jessica!) to document Ashley and Hutch's wedding:

I did capture a few shots of a few things that made the trip special:

It snowed when we were in Utah. Not Millie's first snow, but the first she'll remember!

She named their snowman "Nini" - he melted by the end of the day

Setting up for the reception--I guess I did get one shot, but nobody else is in it!!

After the wedding, we drove up to Oregon. Millie and Kailey got to spend some quality cousin time together.

We had an early birthday party for Millie.

Most important to Millie: birthday hats

Easter Sunday after church

Hunting Eggs

3/4 of the siblings and their spouses
Mike & Janelle, Mark & Jenny, Jeff & Jessica

Poppie, Kailey, Meemaw, and Millie

Luke & Millie

The Transtrum Family