New in Town I

Buffalo Park. It is gorgeous here!

We made it! We are in Flagstaff. We are not settled in yet or anything, but we are here!

This post is not going to be very long. No computer desk. No wireless internet. No fun to sit on a moving box typing this.

We managed the packing. We survived the cleaning. We almost enjoyed the driving.

The packing was not too bad. Especially once we moved into Karl's parents house and were able to make some real progress without the boys getting in the way!

We only survived the cleaning thanks to many helping hands. Huge thanks especially to Karl's mom for packing up and cleaning the entire kitchen. I think the only thing I touched in there were the cookbooks. I am spoiled. I know. But I am not taking it for granted! Both of my in-laws have been amazing in so many ways. Noah and Max love them very much. Which is a good thing because they spent a lot of time with them last week. We were not able to sell our white car before we left but Karl's dad found a buyer already and is also taking care of our renters/house while we are gone. We really could not ask for better parents.

The drive was very scenic and I could not believe the beauty we were driving through. My view almost always consisted of the back of our moving truck surrounded by amazing landscape. I loved it and could not get enough of it. The first day we were on the road for about 8 hours and Max slept a total of 15 minutes. Sweet! Not! I won't go off too much about the B&B we stayed at in Page because they overbooked our motel. Suffice it to say that I'd rather not have some random kid in his underwear run into/around our room at 6 am. Twice!

We arrived in Flagstaff about 10:30 am. We had some guys from our new ward come help unload the truck but not until at 4 pm. So we explored our apartment complex and the neighborhood. More on that later. Then we went on our first bike excursion to the grocery store. We live on a hill and the whole town is rather hilly. Unfortunately, Noah has had enough of biking hills already!

On Saturday I took the boys to Buffalo Park. This is not your average park with some grass and a playground. It is a large open meadow (215 acres) with fields, wild flowers, trails, and mountains in the background. It's amazing. Buffalo Park is about 1.5 miles from our house. The best part: we can bike from our house to the park on a trail!

It has a fitness trail which I figured Max and Noah would like. They did. It "only" took us a little more than an hour to cover 1 mile. Then they were worn out.

Here they are doing the various exercises - more or less accurate.

On the way back Noah got rather upset because there were so many rocks he liked. The trail was made of little rocks. He liked them all so much that he broke out in tears because he could not bring them all home. We did our best to fill up our pockets and bags. Our rock collection is growing daily here.

Wild sunflowers are my favorite flowers and they are everywhere here! Noah and Max keep picking flowers for me and we have some drying above our bed right now.

Max is not very happy because he managed to get off the trail and step into a cactus. In his flip flops. Poor little guy had so many cactus spines stuck in his foot, it was hard to get all those mean little buggers out. Somehow one must have ended up in his hand.

Due to a lack of friends, Noah and Max have been having quite a blast together since we got here. They sure still have their moments but they are best buddies. Tonight they were talking in bed with the lights turned off. This is what I heard:

Noah: "Max. What are you doing?"

Max: "Yoga."

That kid cracks me up.

Sunday night, I was telling Noah:

"Tomorrow is Papa's first day of school and your first day of preschool."

His reply:

"And your first day of cleaning."

Thanks for the reminder, Noah.

The unpacking is coming along slowly but nicely.

More adventures soon to come.