June Wrap Up

June.  Our last month in Charlotte.  Not a lot of pictures because we were so crazy, busy.  But here are a few. 

It rained one day and Isak kept saying "umbrella."  But it took me about ten minutes to understand what he was saying.  I found the umbrella and he happily stood outside for a few minutes.  

Kira hopped out too.  Might as well take a picture of her dancing in the rain before I grabbed her inside.

Doesn't he look so sweet and innocent?

The tower building.  Nels taught Isak, "It's all about the bass.  No treble."  And Isak is so adorable when he says/sings it.  :)

Ta Da!

So Tall!  Obviously, Nels helped with the tallest part.

Lots of popsicle eating happened in June.

I love how they just sit in their chairs and enjoy the moment.

Isak built this little ice block tower by himself.  He was pretty proud.

The local McDonald's kept having this box dinner deal that included two big macs, 4 fries, 2 burgers, and 20 nuggets.  Needless to say, we frequently went on their on our crazies days.

So here are a few things about our move...

June 1st Nels officially accepted a new job offer to work in Orem, Utah.
June 2nd I started contacting people...realtors, movers, etc.
We interviewed two realtors and went with a realtor from Allen Tate.
Our house was on the market June 5th.
After 5 showings we received two offers.  After lots of negotiation and back and forth we finally finalized a contract on June 19th while we were in the midst of packing boxes.  This was the first house we finally made a little money on instead of losing money.  Yay!

For the actual move part, we went with PODS because we did not know where we would be living once we arrived in Utah.  So we ordered 2, 16-foot long by 8 feet wide and 8 feet tall PODS.  We barely fit all of our stuff in them.

For movers, we definitely...(I feel) experienced a miracle.  On June 5th we were riding our bikes around the neighborhood in the evening.  When we went past a house with the garage door open, I saw moving blankets stacked up.  We needed blankets to pad our stuff and they are expensive...I had priced them earlier at U-Haul.  So we stopped at the house to ask them about the blankets.  The guy who lives there was just about to leave.  So I rushed over and asked him about the blankets.  It turns out he was a professional mover!  He came over to our house and gave us a quote for our move.  I was so happy.  They did a great job.  The day of the move they packed our house up in about 5 hours.  The next day they loaded it in about 5 or 6 hours.

Thanks to our friends for watching the kids for a couple of hours and bringing us dinner, the move went smoothly.  When the kids weren't at someone else's house they ran around our house, colored with sidewalk chalk on moving boxes, played with golf balls and found other sources of entertainment.  They were actually really good!

June 16th was Nels's last day of work with International Paper.
June 18th the mover's came to pack us up.
June 19th the mover's loaded us.  We packed our minivan with the essentials, our 2.5 year old twins and left Charlotte at 3:45 p.m.

Our last selfies in the bright North Carolina sun.

Yes, we are already exhausted...

Bye house.  And there are the PODS in our driveway.

A few minutes into the drive both kids were out.

It took us about 32 hours to get to Utah.  Overall, we had a good time traveling together.  I had purchased about $100 worth of toys and food to keep the twins happy, busy and entertained.  They loved all of the toys.  I brought them out strategically throughout the trip.  The kids usually slept 2-3 hours of the 9-10 hours that we were in the car.  Nights were a little rough, sleeping in a new place every night.  But we got the hang of it.

I didn't take many pics of our travels.  We did stop in St. Louis Missouri.  I wanted to see the Arch.  But sadly there was construction surrounding the area and we couldn't get there.  So instead we ate dinner at Hendrick's BBQ.  We went all out and got the full on platter.  We figured it would be our last chance for some good BBQ for a while.

We ate and ate.

We celebrated our 12 year anniversary June 21st by driving all day and eating at Pizza Hut and grabbing shakes at McDonald's later that day.  We drove from Columbia, MO, through Kansas and made it to Denver late at night.  It was also Father's Day...we gave Nels a card and promised we would celebrate another day.

My favorite parts:  As we drove through Kansas, Isak and I pointed out silos, farmhouses and water towers and tractors for at least an hour or two.  He loves those things.  ~At one hotel, one of the workers gave Isak and Kira little stuffed puppies.  They love them and carried them around the whole trip.  They still sleep with them at night too.  ~One night in the hotel room, the kids were hungry.  I didn't have any knives or spoons so the kids got to use their fingers to eat peanut butter out of the jar.  ~No cribs, and the kids were not wanting to sleep in the pack and plays.  So I laid with both kids on the sofa bed until they fell asleep.  It was the first time Isak and Kira shared a bed since they were 3 months old.  :)
~And I loved driving through Colorado.  Gorgeous state.  Denver is a cool city, I would love to go exploring there someday.  We drove through Vail, Colorado and we drove right along the Colorado river for a while too.

We were pretty excited when we saw this sign June 22nd!  We stayed with Nels's parents until we found a town home in Provo to rent.  Yes, we decided to rent since we don't know how long we will actually be staying here.  July 1st our PODS arrived.  July 2nd we hired movers to unload us.  And then the unpacking began.  Wow...I am exhausted after just writing all of this.   I don't know how we did it!  But here we are and we are making the best of it.  :)

Ready for another adventure?  

Daniel Stowe Botanical Gardens

For our last playgroup, my friend Tiersha arranged for us to go to the Botanical Gardens.  I had wanted to see them since we first moved to Charlotte.  So I was pretty excited to go.  It was a fun day, the only thing was we went during the hottest and most humid part of the day.  So it sort of zapped our energy.  But we still had a good time.  

Here's pictures of our adventure:

They had this cool merry go round in the kids garden. 

Kira refused to get on and watched carefully from the sidelines.

There was a sweet cave in the garden too.

My handsome boy enjoying the view from his big rock.

There were not a lot of different flowers in bloom in June.  I was a little disappointed about that.  I suppose the fun blossoms are in the spring with tulips and daffodils, etc.

I gave the kids a little freedom to walk ahead of me.  :)

I loved all of the different statues on display.  The kids found this elephant and we took a picture with it.

Love the hot pink.

Kira with all the pink and purple flowers.  She fits right in.

Love Kira's grin in this one too.

And I love how they both have a carefree run. :)

I thought this statue and water fountain were beautiful.

This part helped cool us down  There's the rest of the playgroup walking through the water tunnel.

My bus, twins and me.

I miss our playgroup friends!  And now that I am typing this in November in Utah and it is 30 degrees, I miss that hot, humid day!

May Wrap Up

Finally!  The odds and ends of May!  

I think this picture is from Red Robin.

Isak looking pretty "Hollywood" with his sunglasses.  haha.

Kira loves her books.

She also loves these Minnie Mouse pj's, pink shoes and pink bow.

Isak found this box and promptly placed it on his head and proceeded to be a fire truck.  So funny.

We got free ice cream at the Farmer's Market in Charlotte.  Fun playgroup.

Taped a road or two for Isak to play with.  It was pretty fun, but I think he enjoyed the big wad of tape after we picked it all up even more.

Another box (fire truck) picture.

Enjoying lunch outside.

Isak built this tall tower all by himself.  He was pretty proud of himself.

The twins enjoyed their friend Evan's birthday party.  Playing in the sand and then getting cupcakes is a pretty fantastic day for them!

This picture makes me laugh.  Everyone is eating their cupcake and Kira is just staring at hers.

But then she decided to try it and she liked it.  :)  Well, at least the frosting.

Driveway fun with their bikes.  Bumper cars...just kidding...they were pretty careful.  

That's all!  On to June!