A Month of Mayhem

Greetings from the Tri-Cities in Washington! I can't believe a month has already gone by since I last posted and no one has any idea what's going on in our lives right now. We moved here to Pasco, Washington for Eric to work at PNNL in Richland for the summer doing research for his PhD. Since my recital last month, we attended the baptism of my niece, I got a crown put on a fractured tooth, packed up the apartment and put our stuff in storage, moved out and dropped our small car at my sister's in Cincinnati, drove for three days to get to Utah (visiting Eric's brother's family in Nebraska on the way and me suffering from a throbbing tooth the whole week), visited Eric's sister at her cabin in Heber, spent a week at my parents' house in Orem and had a blast playing outside, playing inside, visiting family, having birthday celebrations, watching movies, and not getting much sleep :), drove another whole day to Washington, and we are now settling in and trying to find our way around. Eric has spent two days at work so far, and although he has a lot to learn, he feels like his time here will be one of the best things he could be doing for our future. Things fell into place for us to be here now, and we know that this is where we're supposed to be.

So, in order not to overload everybody, that is what we've been up to in a nutshell, and here are some photos from the last month!

The night of my recital with Monica and Carrie


Packing up the girls with the rest of our stuff!


Urban camping




Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in the morning at a hotel in Iowa City


Finally at Grandma's house and ready to play! We were SO happy to play in the backyard on the swings and slide everyday and go on walks around the block.




Backyard BBQ for Uncle Andrew's birthday






A visit to the Tracy Aviary in Liberty Park







Lots of cousin time


Aunt Kristen starting Jolie on the violin :)


A picnic at Canyon Glen




Classic "Don't Eat Pete" for FHE our last Monday night before leaving Utah



SURPRISE! At our new place in Washington the girls went in the bathroom to wash their hands and we ended up with a scene from "Just My Luck."



Our first weekend in our new home visiting Smoovies in Richland. The girls loved playing at the park, seeing Tigger, jumping in the Moonbounce and dancing to the "Macarena."


We ended up leaving before the outdoor showing of "Kung Fu Panda," so the girls got popcorn and a movie at home.


We are loving having family out here--Eric has some uncles and cousins in the area. We are headed back to Utah in a couple of weeks for a Taylor reunion. We're excited to see more family and have even more cousin time. We just feel bad that we're putting the kids in the car for another two days round-trip. As Mierae put it when we left Heber for Orem on day four of our trip, "Here we go again!"