Baby Thunder Update

Hi all,

Over the past weekend Joslyn has reached some major milestones. She is holding herself up for much longer periods when we have tummy time. Joslyn has also become self-aware. She notices her legs and arms, and reaches for her feet. This past Friday Joslyn noticed herself in the mirror and smiled and laughed at her reflection. It is really cute to see her smile at herself. What can I say, I'm a proud papa! Here are couple more photos of our gal Joslyn.

Thanks for reading

Georgia Aquarium

Yesterday Kate, Joslyn and I joined some good friends of ours from Salt Lake City at the Georgia Aquarium. The Georgia Aquarium is the world’s largest with over 8 million gallons of water and the largest collection of aquatic animals from all over the globe.We all had a wonderful time and I wanted to post some pictures of our trip to downtown Atlanta.

http://www.georgiaaquarium.org/

The Story of Our Move

I've added posts to outline the story of our move... So the best way to read them is to start about 8 posts back at the post titled "Prologue--Long time coming" and then work your way back to the top. Enjoy, and be sure to leave a comment or two!

Watch for another new post soon on our first week back at work! Love you all!

Kate

Chapter 7--Home Stretch

Monday morning was a leisurely morning as we just had a short drive to Chattanooga on the task list for the day. Which was good, given my exceedingly fragile GI state from my mysterious illness...

Arriving in Chattanooga, we had a great afternoon and evening with our friends Vicki and Crandall who had allowed us to crash at their place for our last night on the road. Amazingly, we were already planning to meet the movers at the house in Roswell early on Tuesday morning. We made it! 2200 miles under our belts in just under a week!

Which leads us to the second great thing about moving with our movers--the unpacking service. So when Rodney and the crew unloaded our stuff at the new house, they not only put the boxes in their proper rooms, but then unpack the boxes, unwrap the items from the gobs of brown packing paper, and cart away the whole mess. Sure it leaves you with piles of stuff everywhere, but at least you don't have to fight with all the boxes! Here's Pete in the kitchen prior to it being put away...


As Pete, Jos, Odessa and I said farewell to Rodney & Crew, we settled into the tasking of making our new house our home:)

Chapter 6--Timing could be better

The fun we had in Rogers was dampened by only one thing--the fact that Saturday night I become ill... It started with a serious session of vomiting, immediately followed by a hardcore body shaking, skin burning, fever. We ruled out food poisoning right away, as we'd all eaten the same stuff in pretty much that last 24 hours... So, it seems to have been just a really unfortunate bout of a quick GI bug.

Because of the fever on Saturday night, I didn't really log more than a couple hours of restless, uncomfortable sleep. As I crawled out of bed on Sunday morning, I seriously considered crawling back in. I could barely see straight, could hardly drink any fluids, and couldn't even stand the thought of eating anything--how was I going to drive the 10 hours to Chattanooga feeling like this?

The only saving grace was that Joslyn had been a great traveler so far. Into to and out of her car seat with minimal fussing, food and fresh diaper every couple hours--she was great! But, that day, neither of us could make the 10 hours, managing about 7 before we stopped at the Nashville La Quinta for the night.

Chapter 5--Another day, another gas station donut

So here we are on the road again... Oddly enough, Arkansas was nothing like I imagined it. I'm not sure what I expected, but I'd always thought AR to be the kind of place where I might slow down, but wouldn't ever want to stop... I was quite pleasantly surprised! The upper corner of Oklahoma and upper Arkansas (where Rogers is) are both very beautiful with steep undulating hills, that are lush and tree covered. And, to top it off, the cool weather that had come through just before us had started the leaves changing, so the hills were twinged with color.

We were excited to get to Rogers, because it meant a night at Mono's house instead of a hotel, and a rest day with no driving on Saturday--a well earned break! We had a great time with Mono: sampling some yummy local Mexican food, watching sports on a sweet TV, exploring the best back country roads I've seen in a long time for a road bike tour, enjoying the beautiful weather at a cool state park (Devil's Den), and last but not least, completely gorging ourselves on true southern BBQ at the Whole Hawg Cafe. Too much fun!

(Look, Jos is having tummy time and not crying hysterically! Wahoo!!!!)

Chapter 4--We're not in Kansas anymore!

Actually, we still are... For all of you out there with a furry canine traveling partner, La Quinta will be your friend on the road. Of our four hotel stays on the trip, three of them were at La Quintas. It's great because they realize that you love your dog, and most likely wouldn't be traveling with them if they were poorly behaved. So, the La Quinta company policy is that chain-wide, they allow dogs of all sizes for no extra cost. That's right! Not a single penny more!

So, after a long day of driving through the remnants of an early season snowstorm across Colorado and Kansas, we were happy to roll into the Witchita La Quinta. And, it was a recently renovated one, so it was very nice with a free hot breakfast. Love it! The bed was great--we would have loved to have had the luxury of sleeping in... but alas, the road beckoned.

Today's push would take us to Rogers, Arkansas. What's in Rogers? Well one, our friend Ryan (aka Mono). And two, you are a stone's throw from greatness--the WalMart Home Office in Bentonville, AR

Chapter 3--The journey is part of the destination

Before we could leave SLC on Wednesday, we had three very important action items we needed to tackle.
1) Meet with the notary to sign all the stacks of documents for the closing (we did it absentee via FedEx).
2) One last visit to Joslyn's doctor for her signature on some papers. It was sad to say goodbye.
3) To vote! We waited in line for just over an hour for the privilege of casting our votes in the presidential election. It was really powerful to see so many people there, so excited to vote! I think we all felt a sense of pride at being a part of this historic event.

With those things accomplished, we headed out--Pete and Odessa in Emzie (the Mazda) and Joslyn and I in the Honda Fit... The journey had begun! Our first destination was supposed to be Denver to spend time with our friends Bob and Sue. But, because of our late start, we just made it as far as Cheyenne for the night. Here's Jos looking happy because she doesn't know what she's in for:)


Arriving in Denver on Thursday morning, we had a great visit with Bob and Sue. But, I regret to say that in the excitement, I completely neglected my photographic responsibilities, so unfortunately, I have no photos to capture the event:(

Back on the road, we headed to Witchita, KS for the night... More to come, I'm off to bed for now:)

Chapter 2--Life is a series of boxes

Our next task was to get the house ready for the movers arriving on Monday, 10/20. In between sorting through closets for keep & move stuff vs donate stuff, we had a great time spending time with all of our friends in Salt Lake. We are going to miss everyone so much!!!!

The movers arrived on Monday. Rodney, the driver, and his two man crew Sandy and Geraldo. It was funny to see this huge truck roll up into our tiny little neighborhood!

We're going to miss the view of the mountains too!

I also included a photo of the SLC house after our yard renovation--we love it and are bummed that we didn't do it three years ago!

Moving through a full-service movers is quite an experience--first off, you can't pack anything because if you pack it, the movers' insurance will not insure it. So, we basically set aside the stuff we planned to carry in our cars and anything else not bolted down was packed up by Rodney and the crew. Our quaint little bungalow in SLC was apparently filled with stuff that had been cleverly hidden, and it turns out that we had more stuff than they thought that we did. It was a strange sense of deja vu to see our life carefully collapsed back into another series of boxes... it felt like just yesterday that we'd arrived here.

It took them just a day and a half to get everything boxed up, and then another day to load it on the truck. And so, Wednesday, 10/23, we hit the road...

Chapter 1--The Process of Buying

In the whirlwind of house hunting at the end of September, we did find a house in Roswell, just north of Atlanta. Not exactly what we'd expected (we'd hoped to be closer to ATL in-town), but we liked the house and the neighborhood was quite nice. So, we put in an offer, and it was accepted prior to us heading back to SLC. Then, however, begins the fun with inspections and other due diligence stuff leading up to our 10/21 closing date.

Joslyn and I headed back to Roswell for a combo home inspection/work transition trip in early October. I was glad that we'd gone back--the home inspection was good, though had one pretty major snag---the roof was aged and had hail damage. So, it failed inspection. Our realtor, Jerry, was great. As soon as he found out that news, he was on the phone getting roofing contractors out for bids. It was crazy--big house, big roof, big bill. There was no way Pete and I were going to go for that and decided to turn it back to the seller. Here's Jos with Realtor Jerry.


The seller decided to work with his insurance company to see if they would cover it because of the hail damage. The trouble was that they didn't send an adjuster out to review the claim until the end of the week prior to closing. Long story short, the insurance did cover it, the roof was replaced, but we ended up delaying closing by two days in order for it to all get done before we took ownership. But, all is well, as we now had a place we could call our own:)

Prologue--Long Time Coming...

Well, this post has been a long time in coming! Pete last updated everyone back on September 30th, and it is now just over a month later. First, a few updated pictures of Miss Joslyn. She is officially about 3.5 months!


Here's Jos hating "tummy time". Notice the big fat tears for effect:)


Big Sister Odessa says "what's all the fuss about?!"


But, this is one of my favorite things--Joslyn has started exploring her vocals. So, she will contentedly hang out making the sweetest cooing and shrieking noises. Pete and I tried to capture some on video, so enjoy!



There's been so much that has happened, so I am going to tackle it all in a series of several posts... So, ready, set, here we go!