Surprise Guest

We had a phone call from an unexpected person on Thursday evening. Dad Novikoff was visiting his parents up in Provo and wanted to come and visit us Friday.! Even though we now live in La Verkin and it is a 4 hour trip (instead of the 2 hours to Logan) he still came! I can't tell you how excited we were to see him again.

For those of you who are unlucky enough not to know him, Dad loves to work on projects. Friday we rented a rug doctor to see if we could get rid of the last stains in the living room and the awful smell in the spare room. We also went out to eat Mexican for lunch and for dinner Dad made us a 6 pound meat loaf that was absolutely delicious. The meat loaf was served with his wonderful mashed potatoes and steamed broccoli. Later that night we went to Dairy Queen for a late snack and then drove up towards Zion Canyon and star gazed from the Mustang convertible before calling it a night.

It was such a packed day full of fun, work, reminiscing and making new memories. He had to leave early Saturday morning, hence the hug while still in my pajamas. Such a great man - and we are so lucky to be able to call him Dad!

One More Room Down

I never thought that unpacking into a larger house would take so long. I seem to remember our last move taking me about one and a half weeks to get everything unpacked. We must have collected A LOT more stuff in the past 3 and a half years! Also this home has a more open floor plan and much less built in storage (except for the wonderful garage which I haven't even begun to organize). So, it is taking a bit longer to unpack because I have to be rather creative with each and every item in order to find a place for it. Last night I finally had the office ~95% complete. This morning it was all done, vacuumed and everything! That now makes a total of 4 rooms done, the office, kitchen, living room, and master bedroom. Now what to tackle? Dinning room, main bath, guest room, or the nightmare craft room? Dinning room wins - I think that I will mostly just have to move all the stuff off the table and into the garage (another nightmare project) and pick up all the tools and empty boxes lingering around. Good luck to me!

Adrienne's Big Day

My sister-in-law, Adrienne, graduated today - Yippee! She is truly amazing. This year she has been working full time, going to school, and is pregnant with their first child. Wow - I'm tired just thinking about it. She is so awesome and Jerry is one lucky fellow, as are the rest of us. Congratulations - We are so proud of you!

P.S. Don't you think she looks great in the nursing hat - I know that I couldn't pull it off so well, but she looks wonderful.

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Two Down and so Many More to go

I'm slowly making progress on unpacking the house. I have mostly finished the kitchen and today I finished the living room. Shiloa and mom got me started on it last night, but now it's done. It is so nice having a place to sit down and relax. I have missed having our "dinner and a movie" time. It is beginning to feel like our home more and more each day. I'm hoping the rest of the house unpacks a bit quicker.

Moving Day - Again

We officially moved into our new house today. We were up late shampooing the carpets last night but went to bed before we finished. I couldn't sleep, so I got up at 4am and went over to the house to finish up. Mom came around 5 and we had it done pretty quickly. I discovered that the guest room really smells (like wet dog and urine), I'm hoping that it goes away as it dries. It will be so very nice to unpack and actually feel like I live in my own home. Hopefully it won't take to long to get all settled in.

Welcome Home

After living with Raylene's cousins, Eldon and Bonnie Darrington, in Logan for a month and a half, and then living with Raylene's sister, Shiloa, for another month, I can again sleep in my own bed. This weekend we moved everything we had packed in our 20'x10'x10' (LxWxH) storage unit into our house, now we can change our mantra from "I believe I have one of those, but it is in storage" to "I believe I have one of those, but it is in a box somewhere".

Everything took about 3 hours to move into our new home with the help of Raylene's parents, her sister, and about fourteen members from our ward. We couldn't have done it without everyone's help.

Shiloa Graduates!!

Shiloa is now officially a school teacher! I know that she has worked so hard to get here and am so proud of her. Although I wouldn't say that I loved sitting through the graduation, it was worth it to watch her walk through the "D." Yippee for Shiloa!!!!! And a big Huzzah for the 4th grade students she will be teaching at Hurricane Elementary School this fall. They are so lucky and they don't even know it yet! My little sister is all grown up. Congratulations on being the first of us three kids to get a Bachelor Degree. You so totally rock!

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com