The big move

We are starting our families blog page and this is a recap of the last 7 months of our lives!

We moved to Washington to housesit for Carson's mom who is serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints in New Jersey. Carson was in heaven to go home and back to country livin'. I was a little skeptical, but excited for a new adventure. It turns out I love it!!



The land is 80 acres with a pond and a creek and the house is surrounded by trees.

It's just beautiful. We see deer on all sides of the house literally every day. We have seen a raccoon, cranes, peacocks, hawks, donkeys, goats, sheep, quail, skunks and a moose. We have had 2 families of wild turkeys living on the property. We see them daily. The one family has a mom and dad and 11 baby turkeys, and the other family has 14 babies. It's so fun to see both parents with their babies at all times. It's so rare to see that in the world these days!! Ha Ha!!









We hear frogs at the pond, and cows and horses from neighbors. We planted a gorgeous garden that's as big as a house, but failed miserably in this attempt. A couple months into the growing season our spinach began to disappear, then our lettuce, then our broccoli etc. The garden is completely surrounded by a 6 foot fence. But apparently deer can jump over 6 feet! Much to our dismay we are down to the carrots, only because they're under ground! Next year we'll try 8 foot fences. :)
Every day off that Carson has we all go and cut down trees for firewood for the winter. We just go on their property and chop down dead trees, cut them up, haul and stack them in the barn. It is so much fun.





I got to cut some down too from standing to stacked! But Maddi & I are much better gatherers and stackers.



Carson was offered a great job at Jewelry Design Center. He chose this time not to work as a goldsmith manufacturing the jewelry, but on the sales floor. The customers and his associates love him. He's such a people person. He always finishes towards the top on the sales numbers and in September he was #1. There are 13 Sales associates. He said he liked selling as much as manufacturing. The only big change is that he now has a boss instead of being the boss. But he is very humble and his manager and the owners love and respect him. The other associates at the store call him the "golden boy" because he seems to be the favorite among the manager and owners. :)

Madison is loving the open space and all the animals. She has ridden horses twice. She loves horses. One was a mini horse.




One thing she loves to do is play with the kittens. Over the summer we have had 3 different litters of kittens born, between our cat that we brought from Utah, and my mother-in-law's wild orange barn cats. Cute huh?


Susan also has a dog named Pike. He's so sweet and Madison loves to play with him too.

People that we haven't seen for a while say that she has grown so much. She is tall, and is excited to turn 5 on October 18th. She is also excited for Halloween. We'll post pictures.

Maddi is doing preschool with mom. She has her own backpack and notebook and everything. One of the subjects is Spanish. She knows so many words and is so excited that she is now able to "roll her r's". I keep telling her to stop growing up and she says "mom, I have to. I have to go to school, but I will always come home." I'll hold her to that!

I started taking piano lessons a couple months ago. It's so fun. I love it. The humbling part is that I am taking lessons from our 16 year old niece. What's even more humbling is that we are going to have a recital in December and I am the only adult! Picture, if you will, 7 to 15 year olds playing their masterpieces and I get up and play "Hot cross buns" for everyone. Okay, so I can play more than that, but you get the drift? No one will know that I will have only taken for 6 months. Like I said, humbling. But it's a skill I want and slowly but surely I'll get there.

There is a mountain that some of the women in the ward walk/run every morning. The trail is 5 miles long. We go at 5:30 am. I started going in May and love it. The views are absolutely breathtaking. I've had peaceful run ins with a skunk, several deer, a moose and a herd(11) of elk. Two summers ago they saw a bear and a cougar. So the rule is no one goes alone! The exercise is great and I've actually lost 20 lbs. Yea me! :)

I am the Chorister for the primary children and I love it. We are getting ready for the big Primary program on October 28th. Wish us luck. Madison is singing a duet with a little boy named Max. They are singing the 1st verse of "This is my Beloved Son, hear Him." It should be fun. The next entry will be about Madison and I going on a trip to Virginia, Philadelphia, New Jersey and Ellis Island! We love you all.