Abi's first day of school

I let Abi have a week off of school when we first arrived in Utah. So, February 18th was the big day for her second first day of school this year.

She was excited but also very nervous. 

I found this cute dress at Target for her and got it to match an outfit Maddy has for the tea party. But when we didn't need these outfits for the tea party (because of the color scheme) I was going to return it. Abi asked me not to because she loved it and wanted to wear it on her first day of school.

I thought it was so cute when she came down wearing it that morning. She added the yellow headband to make it more colorful and was even wearing her little strand of faux pearls.

One of the best things about her new school is that her cousin Courtney attends the same school for the rest of this year (she is in 6th grade). My sister also knows everybody so she told them which class they should put Abi in and they did it. 

She has a really nice teacher. At the school they have a thing called Early birds and Later Gators. The class size is already smaller than we are used to but with this program, the early birds start school at 8am and the class is only half sized for almost an hour and a half before the later gators show up. Then they get out at 2:15 and the later gators stay for their smaller class size time. 

Abi is an early bird. She loves it. She has so much more time to play after school now. I love it too!

My sister picks her up every morning and drops her off every day but once it warms up we are close enough to the school to walk every day. That is going to be so much fun!

There are a few things we miss about Pleasant Prairie but for the most part we are enjoying this new school.

They have a HUGE library. I can help out with Maddy there if I need to.

The funniest thing for me to get used to is that kids just stop by to play. Abi loves it. That has NEVER happened to us before. We always had to set up play groups or play dates. 

Also, there were no registration fees at her school and they supply all the school supplies.

Young Women Board Family Tea Party

Saturday the Young Women's General Board of our church had a really fun activity for the members of the board, their daughters, and granddaughters. Doug's mom had us all decked out in pink, gray, and cream and we met at the Relief Society/Young Women/ Primary building downtown.

We spent the first little while in the President's room having some classes. Then we were split up into groups for the rest of the classes. 

It was one of those things where I was really stressed about going because I had so much to do but then it was so good that we went. We had a great time and it was such a good experience. 

Abi on her way up the stairs to our next "class"...

Maddy on the stairs... that morning as we got her dressed we found out that her dress shoes didn't fit her anymore. All of her other shoes and the next size up were packed and I didn't have the time or desire to go searching for the box. So, we put her in her sneakers and called it good.

In one of the classes we got to follow the "iron rod". These little cuties are the Van Wagenen girl cousins Kassandra and Elizabeth....

Abi...

Maddy..

After the classes we met back in the Primary room for a few moments. The little girls went up to sing I love to see the Temple with Sister Dalton. You can see Abi right there in front of her with the big pink puffy headband.

Then it was time for the tea party portion of the day. This is what the girls were really excited about. Maddy kept saying " I want to go to the tea party!" during every class. 

They did not disappoint. The room was beautiful. It was pretty much every girly girl's dream come true. Abi was in heaven and said, "This is the best tea party ever because almost everything is pink!"

As we walked in they had this cute display of dolls and teddy bears...

the food stations...

We each had our little spots..

The food was amazing...

There was a little candy bar for the kids to fill up baggies too.

There were a few more activities afterward but since we had already been there for over four hours and some other family members said they were leaving, I decided to head out as well. 

The girls were pretty tired.

We got these last shots on the stairs with Kassandra.

And a few shots out by the temple in a spot that Doug and I did some of our wedding photos...

It really was so much fun and the girls felt really special being able to be invited to something like this!

Valentines

Monday Doug had to be back at work and I took the girls down to my parents house. I did laundry and then left them there overnight. That was hard for me! It was the first time I have ever been away from Maddy overnight. Doug and I went to Les Mis at the movie theater and to dinner. It was very nice.

Tuesday I spent the day deep cleaning our new house and my sister brought over lunch so we could chat for awhile. It was so nice. That afternoon our truck showed up.

With the help of a lot of my family and a few neighbors we got the truck unloaded into our new home.

I didn't make Abi go to school until this week so the rest of last week was spent unpacking, organizing, registering her for school, and being stressed out. Yeah, I admit it, I about hit my breaking point at the end of the week. I have always liked unpacking but this time it has been really hard. The house is a little smaller than our old house and it just seemed like there were things everywhere... not to mention the fact that our entire truck had shifted forward and a lot of our things got broken. I do not do well in chaos so it was hard on me.

But, I did try to make Valentines a little fun for the girls by leaving them little gifts outside their door in the morning.

Abi got a little marshmallow elephant, a Lego girls set, and some cozy Valentines socks.

As soon as she saw that I had unpacked our tanagram shapes, she disappeared upstairs and came back down with this for my Valentines gift! Isn't it cute?

Maddy got a marshmallow monkey, a monkey stuffed animal, and some socks.

Making our way to Utah

Saturday we drove into and to the end of Nebraska. We stayed at the AmericInn that we usually stay at in Sidney but now it is a Best Western. The weather was great all day. That night we started hearing rumors of snow storms but weren't sure how bad it would be.

Making our way through Nebraska...

We bought Peter Pan so the girls could watch it.

Sunday morning we woke up to a blustery snowy day. We thought about staying for a minute but since we didn't know how bad it would be we decided to keep going.

At first it wasn't too bad... a little snow blowing across the road and then it gradually got worse.

Visibility got worse.

But then it started clearing up again. There was snow on the road but as long as we drove safely it was okay so we kept going.

Then we went through that pass in Wyoming that has the big statue of Abraham Lincoln. I was so scared going through there that I was almost in tears. The stupid semi trucks were not slowing down and every time one of them went past us they would shower us with more snow and make it so we couldn't even see past the windshield... visibility at this point was only to a few feet ahead of the car to begin with. We contemplated pulling over at the rest stop but looking at the exit we knew we would just end up getting stuck. 

After we got down we thought we would stop at the next town but by then the roads and weather were much better. 

And that was the theme of the day. Every time we had a chance to stop there wasn't really a reason to. So we kept going and in between each town had crazy snow or icy roads.

And every time a semi breezed past us we would end up going around another bend and seeing another one in a wreck. It was close to a dozen or more by the time we were through seeing them wrecked. Doug finally told me to start taking pictures of them so here are a few of them..

This one was involving the truck across the street and the semi in the middle.

As you can see most of the cab of the red semi is under the blue semi's trailer...

a turned over truck...

It was so crazy and I don't think we have ever been happier to leave Wyoming. 

Once you hit the Utah portion of I-80 it seemed like the roads were magically taken care of and plowed. We stopped at Doug's parents to get the key to our new house. His mom had kept it for us so she could make us some copies. Then we stopped for a minute at our new house to change Maddy's clothes and unload the van before going to my sisters house for dinner with her family and my parents. The girls were so excited when they saw just how close we are living to Courtney and McKenna!

Leaving Kenosha

 We had some great friends and ward members come over to help us in loading our truck. The girls ended up staying a few hours at my friend Kelley's house. As it got later everyone needed to leave so I went and got the girls and we only had a few more things left in the garage to load up the next morning.That night we slept on the sleeper sofa and the queen mattresses because we were not loading them in the truck.

I think this picture is hilarious. Doug was asleep, Maddy was barely dressed and watching Netflix because we waited to take the tv down until the next morning, and Abi is playing on Daddy's phone.

Thursday we got a huge storm. The snow was crazy. We had a lot to do that day and it made it much harder... but we still got it done. 

When Abi got home from school she built a snowman (and a bunch of huge snowballs) in our yard for the last time.

The next morning we sent Abi off to her last day of school. We packed up the van to overflowing, cleaned every inch of the house one more time, and set out for our closing appointment.

The last picture of our house.

We picked Abi up from school and were able to get a few pictures...

Abi and her friend Emma. Emma was in Abi's primary class as well and out here that was a huge deal.

We stopped by another class to get a picture of Abi with some more of her friends. Olivia (the cute little blonde on the left) was Abi's best friend. Maddy is on the right.

Abi with her teacher Mrs. Jensen

As we went into the school Emma's mom Holly met us with a huge gift bag from a few friends. It was full of fun treats and activities. She also had one from Emma to Abi and Maddy. 

They got to work with their new pens and notebooks right away.

This is looking into the bag after I went through it. You can't even see half of it. It was so generous and thoughtful. There were gift cards to Subway, McDonalds, and Burger King along with the soda, treats, toys, lotion, and a book.

We also got a gift card to Culvers from some other friends and then when we went back over to the closing office to get our paperwork, our realtor Jennifer Heiring gave us another huge gift bag full of treats.

I packed the van so full it was crazy. There was even the toy box back there full of some of my favorite breakable things and I also packed our huge Declaration, our entry way mirror, the girls names in cross stitch, and my Monet painting in the van.... Doug thought I was a little crazy but now we are both glad I did it since we had a lot of things break that were in the truck.

From the closing office, we headed out of Kenosha and on our way to Utah.

Maddy trying to enjoy a movie...

That night we stopped for dinner in Iowa and then went down the street to the AmericInn to spend the night. We could have gone further but we felt like we should just stop and let the girls have some rest time. It was a pretty cool McDonalds...

The girls enjoyed getting to spend some time watching cartoons and swimming in the hotel pool!