We Moved to Washington State

Well, it's been a hot minute since I posted. A LOT has happened since October. Do you like our professional family photos? This one all the kids are sort of looking toward the camera. 

Most turned out something like this. I think it's my favorite, to be honest. It captures my day to day life. Seriously! 

Anastasia-She is most likely screaming at the top of her lungs in this picture. For being born with lung disease she has a great set of pipes. Anastasia has been officially diagnosed with Moderate (Level 2) Autism. She has to have purple / pink or butterflies on. We got her a pink & purple cape for Christmas which works if those colors aren't on her. Here we see bright pink shoes and butterfly leggings.

Heidi Anne-For being the oldest, she winds up in the middle of these two the most. Often to help me out with them. Her face is the perfect, touch of humor with a tad of "Come on people!" 

Rowan-He is just doing his own thing, being his happy little self. He was wearing an airplane shirt, Rowan LOVES airplanes and will only keep shirts with airplanes on. (My Granddad would be so proud). He still likes anything construction related and dinosaurs. 

Back to the main story:

We made a big leap and moved from Utah out to Washington State. Char got a job offer out west that we just couldn't refuse. After much thought and deliberation, we accepted. 

In early December, Char's parents were kind enough to watch all 3 kids for roughly 3 days while we apartment/house rental hunted. (We're not buying a house yet, we want to get a lay of the land first.) We found one that fit all our needs and our family on the very last day.

We moved the day after Christmas, we had my father in law, and a brother in law come help us move. 

Another sister in law was brave and volunteered to watch 5 kiddos (our 3 plus my B-I-L's 2).  She made me think of Katniss Everdeen. She watched all 5 children at Grandma's house for hours. Then drove our 3 kids an hour up to our now empty house. 

Here is the last photo of the kids at our house in Utah.

We rolled out around 1:00 pm caravan style. Char drove the U-Haul, while the kids and Cass the dog rode with me. The littles screamed nearly the whole way. We broke the journey into 2 parts. We drove until 9:30 that night. 

Heidi took lots of pictures along the way. Photography is becoming one of her coping skills. For Christmas, one of her Aunts, (who also likes photography) gave her an Instapix camera and some film to go with it. 

 This is on the way out of Utah, just past Willard Bay area.

This is just outside Malta, Idaho. Heidi had noticed at that point there were just lots of hills and brush. With the silhouette of a mountain far in the distance.  

Funny story-we drove through a nasty snow storm on the Oregon / Idaho border. The snowflakes were big and falling fast. Visibility was maybe, 500 feet. Oh, accompanied by high wind speeds. You can't tell from this picture but we're in a very wooded area. However, you can only see about 3 trees deep. 

There were lines of Semi-Trucks with regular vehicles pulled to the shoulders on both directions of the interstate. Since there were other cars on the road I figured it must be due to the high winds and truckers didn't want to tip or jackknife their semi. We just kept plugging along, slowly and very cautiously. 

After we got through the snowstorm we stopped to get fuel and stretch out our legs a little. I mentioned to the cashier about the rough drive and she said "Didn't you listen to the radio? They closed that section down unless you have chains or 4x4." I explained we were from Utah and that was a regular snowy day comute. She looked at me like we were crazy. 

Once we hit the Oregon / Washington area Heidi exclaimed "It's soo green here it looks fake! Like in a movie!!" We found it amazing that at 8:00 am in the morning we were nearly snowbound but by 1:00 pm we were in "spring to us" weather.

We found lots of waterfalls on the drive, which everyone loved seeing. I thought of my friend Valerie and how much her kids would love these waterfalls, too. 

We headed out around 6:30 on the 27th and arrived at our new home around 3:00 pm. Internet was the first thing we hooked up and the kids played on their Kindles while we began unloading. We finished clearing the moving truck around 11:00pm that night.   

Char flew back out at 1:00 pm on the 28th. Mainly to wrap up cleaning and repairing the house to be sold. (Things we couldn't do very easily with little feet running around.) Also, to wrap up his shifts at the hospital. 

P.S-I've made a slight discovery, while we are a small to average size family in Utah we are HUGE here.