a trip to te-kas

in getting ready for the big move, we spent a week in texas.  our first plan was to spend the week house hunting (to buy), but getting a loan to close by june 1st (when we want to move in without having to move several times) proved a little tricky without ryan's job starting until the middle of june.  so instead we did a little house hunting (to rent) and spent a little more time hanging out with family while we were there.

marianne and landon were nice enough to host us for the first part of our trip in their new house (they moved to houston just a couple of months ago).  cody and capri had a great time playing together...most of the time.  

we got to their house saturday evening and went to one of the wards we could end up living in for church on sunday.  david and julie brought their girls over for dinner.  

all the kids spent a good 20 minutes or so racing around and around through the kitchen, den, living room, and hall.  

isaac got a great nap cuddling with his soon-to-be-cousin.

we had way more dessert at landon and marianne's than we probably should have, but it was just too delicious to pass up pazookie with blue bell every night.  ryan and i decided we should try a few new flavors, so we created our own little blue bell sampler.  all flavors were fantastic!

we even ventured to make our own ice cream.  we tried out a recipe for peanut butter chocolate ice cream.  can't go wrong there.  it will definitely go into our recipe file to make again and again.

marianne had a little rocker bed for isaac to sleep in.  he just looked so cozy every night when we put him down.  he slept better and longer than cody (who has been working on his two-year-old molars) most nights.

we spent about a half day on monday looking at houses and a couple of hours on tuesday and wednesday looking at a few more places.  we had quite a bit of extra time, so marianne and i went to 'sam moon' to shop, ryan and i helped with a few projects around the house, and we all took a trip to the local children's museum.

it had lots of fun things to do.  like drive a truck.

(we could hardly pull cody away from this one.) 

dig for dinosaurs and fill trucks with 'rocks' 

they were doing a special 'day without shoes' and let kids step in a bunch of different textures and make shirts. 

we had a tough time deciding between two houses for where we would rent.  we even pulled julie into the decision-making process after both places accepted our applications to have a 3rd party listener.  we ended up choosing a place that was a little smaller but in a safer area.  we love the layout and yard and can't wait to have more room!

we spent thursday and friday at david and julie's house.  we loaded everyone (except david) up in the van and went grocery shopping.  they have awesome carts that cody will love to drive when we shop.  we just need isaac to get good enough at sitting to be able to sit up next to him and we'll be set.

 

they have this machine set up where kids can put in some paper money the clerks give them and get point stickers to win cool prizes.  cody got 70 points in two spins.  not bad...considering maddie got 2! :) 

david and julie invited jon and amelia over for dinner on friday night.  it was fun to finally meet amelia after reading their blog for a few years now.  we had a great time playing games after the kids went to bed.  

we're getting excited to head down to texas.  we've been working on a new song with cody to help him know where we're going.

it seems a little surreal that we'll be heading out in about a month, but it will be so fun to live so close to one of my siblings and two of my cousins!  we'll only be about 30 minutes from marianne, so i'm sure the boys and i will get together with her and capri often.  we haven't lived so close to family since we lived near sean in flagstaff.