Easter Weekend

Aaron had his first official company-wide day off--Good Friday. We'd been invited several months ago to camp with Amanda and Brad. Our camping trip was perfect in every way except for Scotty's sleep-deprived behavior on the drive home.

We went to Huntsville State Park, home of 30 alligators. We only saw one swimming near a dock where people were fishing. It didn't seem very threatening. The park had a lake and beautiful trails. And surprisingly there were very few mosquitoes. Our campsite was also next to the nicest bathrooms. As I said, perfect.

 The adults also had some precious, kid-free chatting time around the fire. Bedtime is the best invention ever.

Only one person fell in the fire pit (Oliver) and luckily that was when it was only full of cool ashes.

We had an Easter egg hunt which all the kiddos really enjoyed. As we were walking through the woodland trail, some bikers left Easter eggs on the path. Then they sent their kids back to tell our kids that they'd just seen the Easter bunny and he'd left eggs for them. It was really cute the extent they went to to make it seem magical. I realize I am really, really lazy when it comes to getting my kids to believe in Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, etc. Hopefully their childhoods will be okay without it.

I love Easter! I hope to start some more traditions. We should really celebrate Easter just as much as we celebrate Christmas. Yet I don't want to make Easter more stressful like Christmas so often is. That's the dilemma--how to make something special without making it stressful.

Our camping trip wasn't stressful. It was perfect, as I said.

And on Sunday we started a new Dennis family tradition: Sunday cinnamon rolls. Our first attempt was quite good, but I think we can do better. You've got to have something to fill those loooooong Sunday mornings.

Touring Texas and New Friends

A week or two ago, the kids and I drove Aaron to work and then spent the day being tourists in Austin. It was exhausting, but I felt really happy that we'd explored a little. We first headed to the Austin Nature and Science Center. It was free, and they had some cool stuff there.

 There was a pit where you dig for dinosaur bones. I told the kids to start digging in the dirt, work hard, find some fake fossils. Then we saw the huge dinosaur a few feet away from where they were digging. Apparently, the dinosaur had already been uncovered. I wonder if they ever send anyone out to re-bury the dinos.

 They had live animals, too. This was the tank of the sad turtle. Two of the turtles were totally content, just hanging out in the tank. But this third turtle was doing everything it could to find a way out of that tank. At least, that's what it looked like to us. Very sad. But also kind of funny. I guess that's why Annie was smiling so much.

 Outside there were owls and vultures and a groundhog, a fox, a porcupine, a bobcat, and more. Most of these animals were injured and would never be able to live in the wild. We got to see a hawk eating a dead baby duckling.

We had to take a picture of this owl because it was a tyto alba owl which reminded us of all the fun we had listening to Guardians of Ga'hoole as an audiobook.

It was a totally cool place, especially considering that everything was FREE! Even the parking.

After this we went to Zilker Park and hung out at the playground next to the Zilker Zephyr, a little train that goes through the park. It was a lovely day, and on a Monday afternoon we found more free parking.

Next up was the state capitol building. It was quite busy, even on a Monday afternoon. But it was a beautiful building with beautiful grounds. We realized later that we missed a fun little museum thing that happened to be in the visitors' center building where we went to the bathroom. We'll have to go back some time.

After this, we hit up the Texas Thrift Store. I've been making a tour of all of the local thrift stores, and it has been interesting to see the differences between all of them.

The kids were great on our day as tourists. There is lots more to see in Austin, and we're excited to explore again.

Oh, and we also finally made it over to Round Rock Donuts...where we got cinnamon rolls.

Annie and Scotty have really started having fun with the neighborhood kids. Right next door are three boys with a pet duck and a trampoline. Kitty corner are two boys who homeschool. Down the alley is a family in our ward with four kids who also homeschool. They've all been having a blast this week. They tried a cookie sale in the alley, though, and it wasn't quite the big-time money-maker that Emma and Annie had going in Provo. I think moms and older brothers were the only customers. But they had fun anyway. And Annie made the cookies herself and learned the difference between tablespoons and teaspoons. Very important cooking skill, especially when dealing with salt.

Real Life

A lot has happened since I last posted on the blog. We accepted a job. We packed up all of our stuff and moved to Texas. It has been a big, interesting, fun, sad, hard, exciting, not-quite-what-I-expected adventure.

We were really sad to leave Utah. So many people helped us in the process of moving. We can still hardly believe how nice everyone was. People watched our kids, made us dinner, helped us clean, gave us money, wrote us nice notes, moved boxes, found us a realtor, gave us couches, and the list goes on. We felt loved.

 Oh, Felicia! It's a hard thing to leave a sister behind. She threw me a cousin/auntie party on my birthday (I turned 30!) the week before we left. It was wonderful. I have the coolest extended family. Living in Utah and getting to know them was a huge blessing in my life. I really appreciated the effort everyone made to come. The great thing is we actually enjoy being together.

Heather took these cute pictures while she watched our kids for about four days straight. So sweet!

 Moving is hard! Even when you live in a 700 sqft apartment and think you don't have that much stuff. I'm glad I took this picture to preserve the memory of the absolute chaos that takes hold when you're moving.

 Aaron made a really delicious pumpkin cake for my birthday. Wish I had some right now.

Book club with my old roomies was a highlight of our Utah years. I will miss these two ladies a lot.

So glad we squeezed in a Chinese New Year party with the K. family. They have been such good friends to us. Not exactly sure how we'll survive without them.

For so long I was always praying and hoping that Aaron would graduate sooner rather than later. But I really don't regret any of the years we spent in Utah. It would have been nice to have the PhD be an easier process, but we really loved where we lived, our ward, our friends, and our amazing family. I look back now, after moving, and am so grateful for every minute we had there.

Just want to say that Aunt Charlotte busted out a Thanksgiving lunch for us the day before we moved. It tasted SOOO GOOD to me. What sweet, sweet women Charlotte and Kathleen are. They're our heroes.

Moving day actually came. We actually got all of our stuff out of the house (minus the kiddie pool and an old bike which Felicia took care of--thanks.) Felicia came to wave us off. It was sad and hard. Still hard to believe that we actually left.

In Moab, we found out our application for a house had been accepted. So we weren't going to be homeless. That was a huge blessing. There have been several adventures with the house--more on that later. Here's Aaron on his first day of work.

It's just been really interesting being in a new town. I haven't moved around a lot in my life, so I sort of forgot that it takes time to make a really good friend. It takes time to be able to find your way around. It takes time to get used to a new grocery store. I'm feeling physically and mentally lost so much of the time here in Texas. And it's hard to be around a bunch of (really nice and friendly) strangers all the time instead of people that you already have a history with. So being in a new place has been harder than I imagined, not a magical dream of excitement and wonder at all moments. The other day at the park, some women in my ward were talking about streets in Provo. I almost felt like crying. In my mind I was like, "I know those streets! I know where that is! That sounds familiar!" But we're still really grateful to be here. Things will get better. We will start to feel normal again. The ward has been awesome. Aaron really likes his job which makes the whole family super happy and grateful. We made it--out of school and on to a real job. But it's been very clear that graduating from school doesn't make you a real person with a real life. We definitely have had that all along. But it is still most excellent to be done with his PhD. You won't ever hear me say I would want to have Aaron back in school.

Ohio--Part III

As mentioned previously, in the wee hours of Christmas morning, Scotty had several barfing episodes. It was cute/sad to watch him open his presents Christmas morning, smile weakly, and then curl up into a little ball again on the couch. Luckily, no one else got the barfies.

Here's a picture from Christmas morning. The only one I took. I was busy holding the barf bowl.

Santa brought everyone lots of games. One was Pie Face. Lots of fun.

The other fun gift enjoyed by everyone was an Amazon Echo. The kids loved asking Alexa questions. The adults loved finding the limits to Alexa's intelligence and evil intent. "Alexa, what is my social security number?"

The day after Christmas, we went to a lookout point by a church. There were LOTS of churches all across our drive. Ohio was no exception. And all of the churches had graveyards. That made me realize that Mormons aren't in the cemetery business--I'm not used to seeing churches and cemeteries together.

We also went to see Moana in West Virginia. On the way there, we stopped at Hillbilly Hotdogs. The pictures will give you a good idea of what an awesome restaurant it was.

Aaron got the Pineappalachian Hotdog. I got the Mothman Hotdog. It was tasty!

And Moana was a great movie! A pleaser for the whole family. And I just want to say that I did see some oddly matched couples in the mall in West Virginia.

On our last night, Scotty was finally feeling better and got to play dress-up with Cousin Jack. 

Our Ohio trip was great! We're so glad we went. We're so glad we were safe and that our car made it. We love Phil and Kelsey and their family.