And so it begins.....

Steve just got to Bellevue, Washington. He will spend tomorrow going through several rental houses and then start work on Tuesday morning. A new chapter begins.....

He left Saturday, later than planned, but he finished the wood on the stairs down to the sunken living room before he left. He left about 4 hours before Elise arrived with Emily & Jacob. We had a lovely dinner and attended church today. We tried to keep the Sabbath Day holy, but we did break down and clean the kitchen tonight. (It was beyond bad). Tomorrow we'll start full bore packing/cleaning/painting, etc. I've got a friend from church coming over to help me paint at 10am. She and I are going to tackle the interior doors. I've got some white semi-gloss...I know it will make a HUGE difference. These doors are so cheap. Hopefully we can get that done in a couple of hours and I won't take up her entire day. Then Elise and I can resume packing. I have a MOUND of laundry to get done as well. And...before anything else happens I've got to trim the carpet downstairs into Grammie's room. 2 kids have cut their toes today on the carpet tack strip I laid down this morning, or last night. Maybe I'll go do that now.

Well, the plan is that as soon as I can get everything packed up and cleaned, we'll call the happy movers and ABF and get this show on the road. That means I'll be doing tax season in transit, but Angela will help me by checking my mail and forwarding everything important to me. Hopefully I'll be able to keep up on everything I need to get done. I anticipate getting released from my extensive church obligations before too long.

I guess I'll leave you with one cute story. The other morning I heard Caitlin downstairs saying "I'm Caitlin Joy Layton, YOU Tasha Joy Layton." :) (tasha is our dog)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hope you have a wonderful Valentine's Day showing everyone around you how much you care!

So much

Well, as you can imagine, there's no dull moments here right now. We're busilly trying to prepare for the move. We had the first garage sale of our marriage yesterday...and it went OK. We still have a couple of big items to sell before we leave, but we got rid of a bunch of little stuff. The Webbs sold some stuff, too, so overall it was successful.

We had a guy come lay tile in the lower bathroom/laundry room/walkway. So - that's been pretty torn up and I still need to replace the baseboards and get bigger bolts to put the toilet back. I jerked the toilet all by myself...are you impressed? (Aparently that's what you call it when you remove a toilet...who knew?) We had an issue with a leaky valve so we've had the water to our house shut off since Thursday. You don't realize how critical water is to everything you do until you have to live without it! Thanks to Darrel's brilliance, we've got it back on today...happy day!

Steve flew to Fresno right after the garage sale and spent yesterday afternoon-tonight (he's not back yet) with his mom and sister celebrating his new title "Master". They've had a wonderful time and I'm glad he got to go.

The kids & I went to Johnathan and Alex's basketball games yesterday. We had a great time! It was fun to see them play. Johnathan's team is comical to watch and Alex's team is quite good. Alex did a couple of really cool gymnastics rolls, too, right during the game. Daniel and Caitlin both fell asleep during Alex's game - Angela took pictures. Daniel fell asleep on the floor and Caitlin slept on my lap. We had a great afternoon. It was 68 degrees so between the games we grabbed some food and went to a park to play! Sometimes Vegas is GREAT!!!

The choir sang today in church, and since there was no Daddy to hold her, Caitlin came up with the choir. I tried to keep her still, but I'm afraid she was quite distracting (sorry, Ang). When we finished singing she said in no quiet voice, "That was COOL!". It was very funny.

Kenneth & Johnathan have been spending a lot of time singing/playing the piano together. It is really priceless to listen to them. Kenneth plays and Johnathan sings in his sweet voice. I love to listen to it. They wanted to sing in primary today, so I got the music for them. Angela and I and Caitlin went in to listen to them...they performed "I'll Follow Him in Faith". They did a great job and when they finished, Caitlin said, again NOT softly, "That was AWESOME!" Then, she kept saying "Awesome, awesome, awesome." It's funny to hear her use words like that.

Sometimes we are reminded just exactly where we live....like this morning....during our first church meeting (called Sacrament meeting), someone broke into at least 2 vehicles in our parking lot - braking the passenger window and stealing a purse/cell phone/wallet. How sad is that? When we first moved here, the men used to take turns patrolling the parking lot...I guess we'll have to go back to that. Bummer.

The past 48 hours we've spent entirely with the Webb family. Since our water was turned off I was worried about Sunday baths/showers and they invited us to sleep over last night. Then, after church, we just came back there and hung out/cleaned/rested there this afternoon/evening. I got the kids home about an hour ago and they were all entirely worn out. They are really really REALLY REALLY going to miss their cousins. And I'm REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY going to miss Angela and Darrel. I've enjoyed so immensely living so close. We get along so well, and it's so easy to be with them. Angela has forced me into more "girls nights out" than I've ever had in my life...and it's FUN! I think our talents compliment each other and we work well together in all aspects of our lives. It's a good thing we can talk for free on our cell phones!!!

Tonight before I put the kids to bed I briefed them on what's happening this next week. Steve will leave Saturday morning for Seattle. Our lives will change forever. We'll ache for him until we're reunited, I'm sure. My prayer is that the kids can feel our love through all the chaos and change.

Weekend update

Since I did a terrible job of taking ANY pictures this weekend...please see Angela's blog for an update. Click Here

Hinckley Challenge

I cannot phrase it as eloquently as the author...but it's really cool.

http://www.hinckleychallenge.com/

Check it out. It's a challenge to read the Book of Mormon in 97 days to honor President Hinckley and his 97 years. Last night when I looked nearly 3500 people had signed up. Tonight I was number 7886 or something close to that.

Join in ...... everybody's doin' it.

Closing a chapter

Well, the best thing about the end of a chapter is the next one, right? I guess so.

Yesterday morning Steve accepted a job with Emulex in Bothell, Washington. While our family is excited for the adventures ahead, we are so saddened to close this Las Vegas chapter of our lives.
This has been a special time in our lives as we've been so close to the Webb family. Angela and I have been virtually inseparable for the last year and a half. We both knew it wouldn't last forever, but we both hoped it would last longer....

So, as we prepare for this move ahead, I want Angela to know how much I will miss her every minute of every day! Thanks for all the good times.

Congratulations, babe.

Way to go, Steve. We're so proud of you.

Happy Birthday to ME

Thank you to everyone for the wonderful birthday wishes! I had a GREAT weekend. I left Friday afternoon and went to St. George, UT for a weekend of scrapbooking. I know, I know, I haven't scrapped anything for over 3 years, but I still have all the stuff and all the photos.....a girl in Las Vegas organized the whole thing. 80 ladies went. I met my jr. high/ high school best friend there (she came down from Sandy, UT) and we spent the weekend together. I got 33 pages done (16 1/2 12X12 spreads). I don't think I've scrapped that much in my entire life! Shari took me to dinner for my birthday and we had fun hanging out and talking and catching up. I got back in time to catch the last 1/2 hour of church and go to choir. Then, when I got home, Steve made me a DELICIOUS dinner of been strogenoff (of course) and grilled squash with warm bread. YUMMY!!! He went to Fried's (sp?) Bakery (WAY WAY WAY GOOD) and got the best chocolate cake ever! No diamonds this year, but I got a weekend away and 2 stock pots and 2 blouses and $100 to spend while I was gone. YEAH!!! I think my wish list is pretty much empty now. :) Thank you to everyone for thinking of me.

Caucus, Schmocus

Well, this morning was the Nevada Caucus. We had a LATE soccer game last night (we got killed-it wasn't pretty)...a BIG THANK YOU goes out to Erin & Kevin for watching our kids. We got home about 12:40am and to bed around 2 or so. Steve got up at 5 and went to work (crazy man). I got all the kids up and made pancakes and we were all ready and Steve came home and we went to the caucus. We got there at 9:15am. The parking lot wasn't nearly as full as I thought it would be. We parked and walked up to the building (it was at a local high school) and some lady asked us if we were there for the caucus. We said we were and she said, "You're too late. They closed the doors at 9. You can't go in now." We were so bummed. I was excited about doing my civic duty and going to a caucus! How disappointing. I had to WAKE UP ALL 3 of my kids! I thought 9:15am was pretty good considering our late night. Yeesh. Well, so our votes didn't go toward the primary election in Nevada. Shoot.

Shout out

This post is a shout out to Steve. He is the best person in the world for me. I've screwed a lot of things up lately, and I'm sorry. I appreciate him being so patient with me. I appreciate him supporting me with all my church work (even if he does LIE to Caitlin at 5:30am and tell her I'm at a "meeting" instead of telling her I'm out running), and letting me get away every so often. I've had a few girl's nights out in the last few months, and they've been so fun and he hasn't grumbled much at all. :) Tonight he and Darrel (Ang & the boys are in Idaho) are at a movie, and I'm so glad. It's good to get out every so often with a friend...to whom you are not married. Anyway - thanks for being so great! I love you, handsome.

We're still here

Busy season is quickly picking up for me...along with having to do 40 hours of CPE...ah the joys. Anyway, everyone is doing well and we are just plugging away at life. We had a great FHE with the Webbs tonight....trampoline jumping, soccer playing, basketball playing, laser pointer chasing, prime rib & baked potatoes (pizza for the kids)...does it get any better than that? We LOVE being OFF TRACK!!! We love having the Webbs so close. We're making so many wonderful memories this month...we'll miss the Webbs as they're leaving for Idaho tomorrow. I know they'll have a wonderful time seeing old friends. We'll be watching for their safe return next Monday.

One note for any of you who've been here and seen the house between the Webbs & Laytons has been vacant since last June. A couple with 4 BOYS (ages 10,6,5,3) closed today and will be moving in by the end of the month. YEAH!

Last one

 

I love that you can read her t-shirt in this shot.

 

I really like this photo of Steve & me.

More more more

 

 

 

 

More photos

 

 

 

 

We got our photos from our friend, Nancy, who is a fantastic photographer and was kind enough to take our picture while we were in Texas. Aren't they great?

More Christmas

 

 

 

We came home to lots of presents under the tree from Grandmas and Grandpas and Heidi. We had a great time opening our "2nd Christmas" gifts.

Photo Op

We had a photo shoot with Nancy. We got some great new family pictures, but I haven't been through those yet. These are some shots Steve took during the shoot.

Post - Christmas fun

The Buckleys came out to the ranch.
I met some of my E&Y friends for lunch and a play date.

We got TEXAS shirts!

 

We had a great Christmas!

Lights & Christmas

The lady in the top left with Daniel is Afton Cahill, Debbie's mom, or "Grandma Cahill". We went to the light display in town square in Taylor with Debbie's family.
This is Christmas morning - the kids coming out of "our" room (Debbie's room) and looking at what Santa left.