Lake Isabella and a few extras

The day before Patrick started work we wanted to do something all together, something fun. Not really knowing the area at all we decided to drive up to Lake Isabella. The lake is huge !! Much bigger than the lake we go waverunning on at home. Here is a picture of the drive up the canyon. Much different landscape than at home.

It was colder up there in the mountains of course, and windy. Very windy. So it made it even colder. Not very conducive to swimming or even wading in the water. So we got out of the car and about three minutes later we all got back in the car. See photo below. The kids were really cold.

Oh well. The drive was very pretty and we got to eat at this very cute little diner up in the town near the lake. It was called the Cowgirl Cafe. Maddie was so excited to eat there because she is so into the whole cowgirl theme. She even had her cowgirl boots on !! She wears them all day every day. See photo.  And of course on the wrong feet.

After seeing the lake we drove back down the canyon and found a little hiking trail that went down to the river. Noah was so cute, we wanted to hold someone's hand the whole hike. Grandma was the first. See photo.

 

Here are a few photos from our hike. 

The next day Patrick went off to start his new job. Here are a few pictures from the official send off from the driveway. As you will see Noah was beyond upset. The second picture is so funny, look for him on the ground crying. After we came inside from saying goodbye to daddy Maddie just sat on the couch with her arms folded for a while. A little while later i hear this from her. "Mommy, I am not happy at all. " I asked her why. Cause daddy had to go to work. Katelyn quickly follows with her remarks about being unhappy as well. I tell the girls that I am not happy about it either and gave them a speech about how daddys have to go to work so that we can have a house to live in, food to eat. But they didn't want to hear it !! So funny. 

Well that is all I have to time to share right now. Until next time. Everyone Take care now.

Checking In

Hello everyone.

It has been quite the busiest last few weeks, with the house this and thats, moving, changing schools, changing states, but through it all it has been amazing. We are loving California, the weather is amazing. The bugs on the other hand are not !! They are everywhere, and big too !!

California lesson #1 - Do not leave any type of food out on the grass for any amount of time, not even for a second. I learned that ants do not make for tasty pizza toppings !! 

We had a HUGE spider living in the backyard under a crack in the house. Patrick caught him and threw him over the fence. We are hoping he does not come back. Oh yeah, did I mention the Fred the frog. Here is a picture.

It was the first morning that we were here I get abruptly woken up by Patrick. He drags me down the hall and points to something hiding in the corner by my mothers room. It was a frog !! He must have made his way in the day before while we had the door open all day. I named him Fred and he lived for a little while in our tub and then the kids put him in the kiddie pool. They loved it, kept begging me to keep him. But Patrick and the kids took him across the street to the field and let him loose.

Back to the pre move. Katelyn and Maddie were great helpers with packing and helping load the truck. At one point they wanted me to tape them up and put them in the truck !! I was very tempted to make their wishes come true. See below.

Noah is obsessed with cars, trucks, and trains. He was beyond excited when Patrick pulled up in the Uhaul truck. He spent all day out there the Thursday we were packing the truck. He was in heaven, with his daddy by his side.

 We said goodbye to my dad the day that we left and it brought tears to my eyes. We will miss grandpa tickles, hikes with grandpa, times at the lake, chases around the house, and trips to wheeler farm. My mom drove down with us and is still here right now.

 

On the way down Noah got a chance to ride in the Uhaul truck and boy was he ever happy. 

The kids love the tub in the master bath. It is huge and they can all fit in in. The first night we were here they all got in and took a bath together, splashing, and even sliding into the tub, using the tub itself as a slide. So much fun.

The weather when we got here was wonderful. It was warm enough that we put swim suits on and let the kids play in the water while we moved the rest of the boxes in.
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I just have to say that they weren't lying about it being SUNNY CALIFORNIA.  I had my camera set for cloudy Utah weather and took some pics of the kids that day without even checking them. They were all way overexposed and horrible. Lesson learned and adjusted now!! See below.

 We took my mom over to see the house, at least the outside of it and the yard. We got a picture of us all in the front, again hadn't figured out about the settings yet for the camera !! This picture is so funny, Maddie has her tongue sticking out, Katelyn is un happy about the fact that she has to stand out in the "SUN", and Noah is making a fish face !! How's that for a family photo. But i love it, all of us in front of our very first home. Can't wait to move in.

That is all i have time for right now. I have more to share. We took a family drive up to Lake Isabella the day before Patrick started work. So I will share that tomorrow. Also need to start working on my Project Life album as well, so behind. I am waiting for some ink for my printer. Might have to make a Costco order.

Until next time.

Our own little piece of California

Sometimes things have a way of working themselves out. That is exactly what happened to us with our house experience. In the end we got exactly what we wanted which is wonderful. Below is a picture of our very own little piece of California. Our very first home. I am so excited and can't wait to move in, to paint, to decorate. 30 - 45 days to close on the house. We are moving on Saturday into the rental until we can close on the house.

Sorry it's so dark. No time for photoshop. 

Here are a few snapshots from our trip down to California. 

This is our circle. 

Palm trees. Much different than here.

Noah very much enjoyed the huge backyard. It is on a quarter acre lot and the backyard is huge compared to all the other houses we saw. That was the selling point for this house. The house itself is on the smaller side but the backyard makes up for it. We plan to put a swing set in the backyard, a good sized garden, some citrus trees. The builders are putting in grass and sprinklers for us, part of the house incentives. Oh and the house is brand new !! I love it.

Another shot of the backyard. Noah was in heaven. It was a huge sandbox.

A new found favorite park. There is a flowing stream right through the park that the kids can play in. I can see us spending alot of time there.

A swim in the cold hotel pool. Daddy is acting as the whale again. 

A shot from the front door of the house we really wanted. Since the loan process took a little longer than expected( didn't know there were different rules in California- loan guy did not tell us this) we didn't get our offer in in time. The bank took another offer the day before we could get ours in. This was a great home. The room to the right was to be a great scrapbook room. Oh well. 

Our view driving home was gorgeous. Right outside the city are these beautiful, green, rolling hills. It was amazing. There freeway was lined with citrus trees, nut trees, ect. There was even some farms that we can visit and go pick our own oranges, and other things. I am looking forward to that. Well that is it for now. I must go pack some more boxes. I will probably do an update next week when we are down in California.

House Drama

Well I just wanted to check in with everyone and let you all know that I am still here. The weekend went well, found a house, came home, had MAJOR loan drama, got that sorted out, then after all that found out that the house that we wanted is no longer available. Since we had the loan drama and delay they took someone elses offer, we could have paid more for the house, had no backyard landscaping, or had them build us on in 60 days. So now we are at a horrible point of not knowing where we are going to live, not being able to find a rental for just a few months, and possibly not having a U HAUL truck available from the company that he is going to be working for. So I will not be scrapbooking any time soon. We have to figure out a whole lot of stuff, pack up the house, and a whole bunch of other stuff.

I promise to be back sometime with lots of project life posts. I don't know when. Take care everyone.

A project life week preview

I was working on week 11 here and there but just ran out of time to completely finish it before leaving this weekend. But I just wanted to give you a little sneak peak, actually a big sneak peak. There are pictures(although not cropped and straight out of the camera to save time), bad lighting and all, and no description. I will go into detail next week and also will finish the week off. I have a few extras that I need to do.

So have a wonderful weekend everyone. We leave tomorrow morning for California to go and buy us a house !! Wish us luck and I will share pictures of our weekends adventure next week.

Week 11 Side 1

Week 11 Side 2

P.S. Katelyn and Maddie are on this cowgirl kick. They wear their cowgirl hats, cowgirl shirts, and their boots around all day. Riding their stick horses, lasso's in hand(a robe tie), most of the time rounding up the cattle and wild horses. It is has been so fun to watch them this past week. Here is a picture of Katelyn in her hat and wearing her cowgirl shirt. I still need to get one of her and Maddie on their horses.

Scrapbook Expo Weekend

This weekend was the semi-annual Scrapbook Expo. This is one of those events that you look forward to all year. Two days of all day scrapbooking, shopping for scrapbook supplies at amazing prices, a girls weekend, and two days of no kids. So basically it is heaven. I had a wonderful time, even brought the girls over for a few hours and they loved it !! I did lots of shopping. Lots of scrapbooking. Lots of girl chatting.

Here is a few layouts that I did over the weekend. This is an Ali Edwards scraplift that I just loved and wanted to do  myself. I did put my little twist on it and might add something in the bottom right corner but just haven't found the right thing now. And I now realize I have to add the date on there.

Here is the other layout I did over the weekend. It is one of Noah's pictures from a photo shoot we did a while ago.

I also got a lot of work done on my project life book, will be working on that this week. We will see how that goes.

P.S. Does anyone know an easy way of straitening out a photo in photoshop. I guess I will have to do some googleing later  !! Thanks for looking.

Project Life Week 10

Since I am now doing a weekly layout I had to re-number the weeks. So we are now on Week 10. This week I really had fun, looked through my supplies, and stamped on the journaling cards. It was so fun and I really enjoyed it, although it took more time.

Here is Side 1

It has a picture of Noah eating his cereal at the "BIG" table. He kept wanting to sit at the table with the girls so I finally put away the highchair. He has also discovered cereal with milk in a bowl and loves it. If I ever forget to get him some milk he will let me know !

The next picture is of some new pillows I bought for the couch. I also included a picture of the bathroom, which I bought all new items for.

Maddie loves her Toy Story toys and wanted a picture with them all. So I told her that she had to write on the journaling card for the scrapbook. She was more than happy to help me out. So I got a journaling card out for her and she wrote on it by herself. I wrote down what she wanted to say and then she copied it on the card, she is a great copier !

Here is some pictures that I wanted to include of Maddie and Noah playing with his new train set. I went to target the day before and got him his first Geo Track set. He loves it, of course. He is such a train kid.

Here is Side 2 of this week. Not much extra happened this week. I was really busy with trying to keep Noah happy, he is getting some new teeth.

The first picture is of me and Noah outside that I took with my phone. The color was horrible so I turned it black and white. I created a white box, turned down the opacity in Photoshop on the box layer, so that is was kind of see through. Then I wrote my text on top of the box. I need to try to remember to get me in the box more often. Mental note !! 

The next picture is of Katelyn all decked out in pirate gear for a friends birthday party. The invitation warned that if you don't come dressed in pirate attire you had to walk the plank. Katelyn took it very literally so we had to go to the party store and get her a hat, and eye patch. She sure had fun at the party. 

We got girl scout cookies that week. 

The next picture is of the two girls on their bikes. The weather is starting to turn a little warmer so they were begging me to let them out on their bikes around the circle.

The next picture is of Noah on his car outside in the backyard. He loves cars and was so excited when he found this hidden underneath the deck. He sat on it for quite a while and tried to go around the patio. 

That is it for Week 10. I really need to go call the Realtor now about finding us a house, we are going House Hunting next weekend !!