Six Months

We've been in Hurricane, Utah for six months now.

I posted Thanksgiving pictures from 2014 in my last post.
And now I need to do Thanksgiving from this year.

Clearly blogging hasn't been a priority in my life.

But I keep thinking about how important it is to write.

"Write your story."

So here I am.

At least for today.

Our summer was busy and fun.
After moving, we went to Huntsville, Utah to spend a week with the Holmes family.
They are a fun crew.
It was a weekend full of games, playing sports, talking, and playing on the lake.
We are a big crew!








 

One of our first weekends in Hurricane was spent doing a family hike.

#1: It's awesome that we can have family outings on the weekend!

#2: We can do something fun and different outside!

We made about a one mile trip due to the littleness of our kids, but it was fun to get out and do something together.

Our second outing was an off-road path in Brendon's Jeep to Toquerville Falls.

THAT was amazing!

We drove up to the waterfall and played for over an hour with the kids in the water.
Everyone had a blast.
The older kids were in the back of the car on the ride up yelling, "Aaaaaaawwwwww" while bumping up and down in their car seats while driving on the bumpy dirt road.
Hazel quickly joined the "Aaaaaaaaawwwwww" choir and had everyone of us laughing at her cuteness.

School started for Henry.

Mr. Kindergartner.
We celebrated his first day with a Swig trip.
He opted for the root beer (silly boy) while the girls got a cookie.

Henry loves school and I'm enjoying watching him learn to read and do math.

He's doing well in school and is making a lot of friends.

I didn't put Maggie in preschool.

Best decision of my life. (Maybe that's an exaggeration.)

We are forced to be home during Henry's half day of school due to Hazel's nap schedule so Maggie and I get a lot of one-on-one time together. 

She hasn't gotten much of that since Hazel was born. Maybe even ever.

We dance, play Barbies, play Spot It!, do nails, or whatever she wants to do.

Occasionally she'll watch TV, but most of the time we hang out.
It's been a special time for me for connect with her.

With some encouragement from Dad, I signed Henry up to play flag football this fall.

Dad helped coach.

No practice, Only one game a week.

Simple. I like that.

It was chaos.
At least that's what it looked like the few times I got to peek in on the game.

Utter chaos. 

Henry loved pulling faces with his teammates and ran around wrestling and playing karate.

But he loved going each week.

In October we went to a local farm with a petting zoo, games, rides, and a (very small) pumpkin patch.

We had a blast petting the animals and the kids loved the giant slide.

For Halloween, we had some friends over for dinner
and went trick-or-treating with them at the neighborhood in Hurricane.

It's a little neighborhood that blocks off their street from cars, goes all-out with decorations,
and even has a few haunted houses.

A lot of people go there.

It was a fun experience, but once was good for me (because it is so crowded) . 

Maggie got scared and sat in our friend's stroller
 and the kids were ready to go home before we finished all the houses.

Little kids are so great!

Since moving, we've discovered the children's museum (in St. George), the splash pads, Swig, and Maverick frozen yogurt (to relive my high school days).
We enjoy our backyard, our playroom, the perfect circle to run around in our home, and our loop.
Or the "hoop," as the kids call it.
Our little neighborhood loop is really convenient--even better than a cul-de-sac with lots of fun kids to play with.

Brendon has had an exciting six months.

He participated in the Hurricane parade (we missed seeing him by three floats cars) and a dunking booth.
He passed his board exam. Can I get a Hallelujah?!
But the coolest part of "real life" is that Brendon is home. A lot.
For lunch, daily family events, bed time for the kids, and he's even around enough to help with the daily cleaning.
 It feels like a dream come true.
His dream come true is that he got a new mountain bike and has so many trails to try.
Don't get me wrong, he likes to be home, but he loves his nature time.

These six months have been challenging with a lot of new adjustments.

Challenging for me.
Everyone else in the family has been completely fine.
(Although Maggie periodically asks when we're going back to our house in Texas.)
But I'm warming up to our little town.
My favorite thing is how close we are to family and how often we have visitors.
I also like that all of our needs are within a 10-minute drive.
And there are good people here.
I still have a few things to work out (like working out...I've never lacked motivation like I have these past six months), but we'll figure out this new life in this new place.