and i thought april was crazy...

Loren and I were skyping last night and both going down memory lane through our blog and he pointed out that we haven't had any updates for awhile...it's been pretty busy around here!

It has been exactly one month that we packed the big yellow penske with all of our belongings and we kissed Loren goodbye as we headed out west to start our new adventure in California. Thanks to Sam and Cecily, the trip was fun and successful - we made it here in one piece! It has been a whirlwind and there are moments still in the day that I have to pause and remember this little sign that Cecily put on my fridge during the crazy move that says, "Have you tried prayer?" (Yes, I still have the sign up and is my daily sanity reminder!) Moving with a 2 year old, an 8 month old and two dogs without Loren is not something I want to do again! I am so grateful for Loren's family for stepping in and taking on so much! We had a small army of people waiting for us up the mountain at our new home when we pulled up the big penske and the whole truck was unloaded in about an hour! Cecily diligent unpacked almost every box we had within the next three days! (Thank you! I couldn't have made it without you!!) And now a month later, I have the house almost 90% settled and have been having so much fun decorating, painting and making this our home.

Along, with all of this craziness, I have been adjusting to living at 6000ft. Running Springs really is beautiful and makes you appreciate Heavenly Father's creations. I am getting used to the small town living s l o w l y ...it is strange not having mail delivered to our house and I really have to plan my grocery trips! We had some strange June weather last week and I have already experienced driving in the fog...but we moved from Texas just in time as a tornado touched down 2 blocks from our old house just this last week! The new owners sent us crazy pictures of the damage in our neighborhood. Give me fog any day!

Noah is loving playing outside and likes helping me with the yardwork. I think that he is kinda starting to catch on that this is our new house...in the beginning he kept saying, "this is grandma's house." and lyla, well, she's just happy anywhere she can crawl and explore. It is really fun being next to Tad and Tracy and I love being only 3 hours away from family in Vegas (already made one trip and planning the next in a couple of weeks!)

And I miss Loren so much...I thought that I could make it the whole 3 months without him, but I bought his plane ticket this week and he's coming home on the 11th for two weeks! YEAH! I am so excited that he will be able to come see our new home and just be here with the family. Noah misses him like crazy and asks about him all the time. It will feel more like home with him around. There is definitely a huge void in our lives right now and can't wait for it to be filled!

I haven't pulled the camera out a ton since being here, but here are a few pictures I have captured...

This is the BEAUTIFUL view from our bedroom and bath


I painted the dining room - this was the first room to be 100% complete.
More pictures of the house to come...


lyla showing off her standin' skillz in the play area


funny pictures from our vegas trip!

I will definitely post more pictures soon!