My Heaven

As many of you know we are getting ready to move to Washington state in a new and exciting adventure for our family. I grew up in rural eastern Washington and have always thought of it as the best place in the world. We started thinking about moving several years ago and have recently realized that the time is right. This was further confirmed in July when I got an offer for a job and an offer on our house (for sale since March) in the same week! So we decided to start packing.

I am looking forward to this move with excitement and preparation for lots of stress to come. Even good change is stressful. This is something we feel very strongly is the best thing for our family. I mean really, if you have the opportunity to raise your kids on a farm... I say you go for it! I love this area and for a simple girl like me, returning home is pure heaven. My kids will grow up surrounded by apple orchards and alfalfa fields, alongside grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. What more could you want?

I traveled to Washington (the last time before the move) this past week to celebrate my Grandmother's 80th birthday. I wish I would have taken more pictures but we were having too much fun. I traveled with my cousin Hauni and her 2 kids. The trip was blessedly uneventful. Here's Eva and Emma at Carl's Jr in Boise, a perfect place to stop and get our wiggles out. Max and Lucy enjoyed the playplace.



We enjoyed a beautiful few days playing outside, walking to our little town's only store for candy (and Diet Coke), and playing with Grandma and Grandpa. Eva loved making a mess of Grandma's kitchen.



We spend a beautiful evening in my Aunt and Uncle's backyard celebrating my Grandma Casper's 80th birthday. (My kids call her "GG", you know, short for "great-grandma")



So tired after all the festivities.




I think all of us have our own idea of what heaven looks like. Maybe some of you picture streets of gold in the clouds with flitting angels. In my Mundane world however, heaven is a summer evening in the Columbia Basin area of Washington, laughing and talking with dear family members, watching my kids run and laugh, and realizing that in this place and with these people is where I want to be always.

Our Blog: Resurrected

I think the reason I've been a terrible blogger is that I feel like I must have a perfect post complete with witty dialogue, pictures of perfectly groomed and smiling children, and preferably some kind of craft tutorial to go with it. This became so overwhelming that I just gave up altogether. My life is never exciting or perfect enough to blog about. I started rethinking this recently for a couple of reasons.

Number one we will be moving soon and starting a whole new life for ourselves. I will miss dearly all the friends and family I love here in Utah. I'd like to give them an opportunity to see our family grow from far away, however mundane it may seem. Secondly, I have several friends and family members who have recently been going through some difficult times. This has first of all made my prayers longer as the list of people I know who need the Lord's help has grown, and secondly has made me oh so grateful for the beautifully mundane life that I have.

To get up every day, feed my snotty nosed and bed-headed children breakfast, change poopy diapers, and go to a job that is difficult and stressful... this is what life truly is all about. How devastated would I be if any of these things were to change? There is so much comfort and joy in the daily and thankless tasks we perform. They can be heaven on earth. So I'd like to resurrect my little family blog with the monotony and imperfections of our life.

Here it goes... A perfectly uneventful trip to the park. We stopped at McDonald's on our way there and got a happy meal with chicken nuggets and a large Diet Coke (for mama). As expected Evalyn ate 3 chicken nuggets and 95% of the fries.


For those of you who haven't seen Eva (we say Eva with a short E sound, like Emma but with v's, short for Evalyn) lately, she is just the most amazing little girl. She is a bright shining light in our house. The only time she is upset is when she's hungry. Yes, she inherited my appetite and propensity for grouchiness when hungry. The eating pictures are classic.


Lucy has no time for trivial things like eating. There is to much of the world to explore. We set up shop at the park and she immediately headed for the playground. Just a little pause for a pic.


After lunch Lucy got ahold of the camera and snapped a few pictures of her own. There were a few good ones in the mix. They actually had a more artistic eye than many of mine... go figure.




I was unfortunately unable to photo document the most exciting part of the outing. I'll spare you the details but it involved an interruption in potty training, use of the sink, soap and blow drier in the park bathroom, and many Clorox wipes on the playground equipment. 6 months ago I would have moaned, maybe cursed and cut the trip short, but today I just kept thinking the true misery would be if this life of mine that involved cleaning up poop in a public place were to suddenly disappear.

I'm glad we stayed too because otherwise the world would have missed Lucy's reenactment of a scene from "Tangled".



I hope you enjoyed this little glimpse into our mundane life. And remember, if your life is too perfect, too organized, or too dramatic for your liking... please stop by our little blog and get a glimpse of our monotony.