Pictures and Videos

I have some pictures and videos to share! First, some pictures from our last few days in California.

Visiting Pismo Beach:

Visiting Santa Barbara:

Our final visitor in California: Holly! She came out to help us with our trip across the country. While she was there, we ran into some snakes in Santa Barbara. So Holly held one. :)

Now for some Ohio pictures:

Here is Sarah with her daddy, taking in the fall colors.

And touching the fall colors:

Hanging out with a few of her cousins, Hailey and Tori:

And making a new friend, Gabriel:

I also have a few videos I wanted to share. First, Sarah has learned a new game. I was attempting to entertain her on a road trip last weekend, and she caught on to this and loved it. :)

The second: My dad loves popcorn. He has perfected the art of airpopped-popcorn. Here is a little clip of Popcorn How-To. (No, he did not know I was filming him.)

I am being told I have spent too much time on the computer. That's all for now!

Ohio!

We made it in Thursday evening, safe and sound. Sarah was wonderful on the trip. She did not enjoy travelling once it got dark outside, but we found that turning a light on in the car and reading the same book over and over again kept her entertained! I think Holly memorized Brown Bear, Brown Bear and The Very Hungry Caterpillar on this trip. :)

Thursday was a very long day. We woke at 3:00 am and were on the road by 4. This got us to Tim's parents' by 6:00pm. We were all exhausted and are still recovering.

It is great to be in Ohio again. Driving here was amazing. We all really enjoyed watching the landscape changes over the 4-day trip. I was amazed at how quickly I forgot what Ohio looks like in the fall! I am enjoying the changing leaves, the open fields of green grass, and the lack of fences around all the homes! California is beautiful, but now I am able to appreciate that Ohio is too. However...it has been raining since we got here!

Heading East!

I just thought I would give an update about our travelling. We left Monday around 8:30, which was about an hour and a half later than we were wanting to leave. This was after much unavoidable last-minute packing and cleaning. Sarah did not enjoy the car ride Monday, and we just barely made it into Arizona. We stayed at a 40-dollar motel in Kingman, AZ and realized that you get what you pay for! It had a bed and a lock on the door, so it sufficed for the night. :)

Last night we stopped in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. We were able to put in 560 miles yesterday, and Sarah did much better in the car once we realized that she had no problem taking a bottle while sitting in her carseat. I don't know if that's a no-no, but it made the day a lot easier. We had less stops and a happier baby.

We are hoping to make it somewhere between Tulsa, Oklahoma and Springfield, Missouri today. We are taking Route 40 for quite a ways, and it is quite scenic. We are happy to have Holly along as one of our drivers/nanny. :) It is fun to watch her excitement as we drive. This is her first trip West, so everything is new.

I have many photos I could post but no time. I will update again when able!

Loaded up, almost ready to move!

Our "moving van" is loaded! Yay!!! The trailer was dropped off in our driveway on Tuesday. Tim and 2 guys from the church began loading it Wednesday afternoon, and by the time I picked Sarah up from the babysitter's house on Thursday, we were finished! Thank you to everyone who helped out. Many hands make light work! We have some cleaning to do in the house over the next few days, and then we will load the rest of our belongings into our vehicles and begin the drive across the country on Monday or Tuesday.

Due to unforseen circumstances, we may only have one person helping us on our drive. We are very happy to have this one, because we will still have someone to entertain Sarah while

the other two adults are driving! Our fourth driver may or may not be able to join us, but we will just have to wait and see.

Yesterday we saw a rocket launch! It was really cool. We were encouraged to actually go to the launch, but we were afraid that we would not have time to load the trailer if we did that. So we watched from our front drive instead. Here are a few pictures that I snapped with my phone. It was amazing to see the smoke from the rocket and not hear any noise from it for quite a few seconds.

I wanted to post pictures of a few of the influential people in Sarah's life. These ladies deserve recognition for all they have done to help out with our little one. They have each been very committed to helping out in the church nursery and/or watching Sarah when we needed someone. Quite honestly, I do not know how we would have survived without them.

This is Mrs. M. Every Sunday morning, she would watch Sarah in the church nursery during the Sunday school hour. This allowed Tim to teach the junior high/high school class and me to sit in with him. We appreciate Mrs. M's sacrifice of time. I am sure there were weeks she would have liked to be in Sunday school herself!

This is Mrs. L. She volunteered in the nursery every Sunday evening during the AWANA year, and this allowed Tim and me to be involved with the junior high. We love our junior highers, and we appreciate Mrs. L.'s faithfulness in watching Sarah during that time! There were also several occasions when we needed a sitter for youth events or date nights, and Mrs. L. was always more than willing to help us out.

This is Mrs. S. She is probably the one Sarah is closest with, because she has been Sarah's babysitter since she was 3 months old. Every Thursday, Mrs. S. watched Sarah all day so that Tim and I could both work. Sarah recognizes Mrs. S. when we are at church and gets excited when she is around. We really appreciate Mrs. S.'s willingness to commit to watching Sarah week after week.

These are just a few of the people here who have impacted our lives. As you can probably sense, it is going to be difficult to leave them. We love our families and look forward to being close to them again, but at the same time, we are leaving some very precious people behind. We love them and hope to be able to visit!

Just some cuteness

So we were at WalMart the other day. I turned my back on Tim and Sarah for 2 minutes, and the next thing I know, these 2 little guys were in the cart, planning to come home with us. They're really soft and cuddly. I think Tim and I may like them more than Sarah does. :)


I have really enjoyed having the last week and a half off work. Our situation these last few months has not been ideal: I work on Tim's days off so that he can watch Sarah while I work. That's great as far as Sarah having a parent home most days of the week, but I have missed being able to spend the entire day with my husband and our little girl. This past week has been a lot of fun.


Sarah has been cutting a lot of teeth lately. Here is a picture that shows the top row:

We took Sarah for her flu shot today. I was very proud of that little girl. Tim was getting the flu mist for himself, so he took Sarah back while I was in the lobby writing a check. They came out before I was done, and I hadn't heard Sarah cry at all - so I assumed they had not done the shot yet. Tim told me that Sarah watched the tech inject the needle and didn't even flinch! I was amazed. So proud.

Our lives these days

Sleep.
Play with Sarah.
Eat.
Play with Sarah.
Pack while Sarah naps.
Eat.
Play with Sarah.
Pack while Sarah naps.
Eat.
Play with Sarah.
Pack while Sarah sleeps.
Sleep.

This is what our lives consist of right now. :)

We are looking forward to our move - to our friends coming to visit and drive with us - to being near family again. But it is sad to pack up and know that our time here is coming to an end. There is much we are going to miss!

Please continue to pray for us as we both search for jobs.

Milk is now 3.29 a gallon. A 10 cent increase in one week? That's worse that gas price fluctuations!