What I like about Arizona

Lately I have been like the children of Israel looking back at Egypt and murmuring about where the Lord has led me and wanting to go back. I know we were led to Arizona and even though it is hard it is where we are suppose to be and yet with all the home construction, lack of friends and other stresses that come along with moving I find myself looking back and feeling sorry for myself. So this post is about all the things I like so far about Arizona.

*I love that it is warm.

*I love my community. My kids can ride their bikes, scooters all around and there isn't any traffic. In fact we are at the end of a street and nobody drives by our home unless they are coming to my home.

*I love that it takes less than 5 minutes to get to church.

*My kids get to attend an "Excelling" level school which is highest in Arizona.

*I love that a half a mile from my home is a state park that I can run in any and everyday if I want.

*I love that the church is building a temple right next to our church building.

*I'm excited that Wet and Wild water park is three miles from our house and we bought season passes for the summer.

*Summer movie program where you get to go to 10 movies for $7 what a steal.

*I love that there are more than 40 Young women in our ward and they love to babysit.

*Travis loves that Elder's Quorum is having a "Burgers and Bullets" activity. You bring your own meat and guns and ammo and practice target shooting. "Salad and all that other stuff is not allowed because it just gets in the way of the real eating."

*I love that we are only 6 hours from San Diego and Disney.

*Location, location, location. I love that we are within 5 minutes from the mall, tons of restaurants, church, grocery stores, preschool, school, and everything else I do on a daily basis.

*The best part about Arizona is Travis is home a little bit more.

Hotel Survival tips 101

So how do you survive a hotel with four little ones by yourself after being emotionally and physically drained from moving?

About $80 worth of room service consisting of hamburgers, pizza, fries and lots of icecream.........and $20 worth of movies.

Our last night in Colorado

Aliens

I found this story Landon wrote for school in his backpack and wanted to record it because I think it's hilarious.

Aliens

By Landon Jensen

One day I woke up and found an alien. I told the alien to take me to his leader. The alien was 4 feet tall and had a head as round as a big bouncy ball. The alien took me into a flying saucer and pressed about 500 buttons in 1 second. When we got to his planet it was 20,000,000 AD. We had traveled through time! The alien said that his planet was planet 2,805,640. After that we went to this enormous castle. When we got in the leader (whose name was Zor) asked the alien if I was a prisoner. As soon as the alien said no Zor dived at me. Right when that happened the alien ran into the flying saucer and flew straight toward me. Luckily I ducked and it hit Zor. Then I ran into a different flying saucer and flew home. That is when I learned to never trust aliens.

What I'll miss about our Erie Home

Well, here it is in all it's glory! Our Erie home. One last picture as we drive off to our hotel and then head to DIA to fly away to

Arizona. I wanted to document some things I loved about our Erie home so I don't forget. First is the outside, I like the curb appeal of this house and in the spring the bushes will be golden and grass green for nice

curb appeal. Too bad about a year later the builder built a spec home in the vacant lot 2 HOUSES down from us that is the EXACT model chose the EXACT colors. I was 9 months pregnant at the time (with Sadie) and I let the builder know how annoyed I was with that. Who wants their neighbors house to look just like theirs? Duh. Oh well, I still liked my home.

The backyard was a little tricky but we had a plan. We built it in a tiered system and although we moved before finishing our deck with the stairs that led to the top tier I still thought we did a great job. Travis lifted and placed every single one of those blocks. He's amazing. Purple lilac buses in the back in front of the second wall and yellow forsythia in the front to provide a natural hedge border. I wish I had pictures with everything in bloom. Three yummy peach trees on one side with our garden spot on the top tier with sprinkler zoning for each individual box. I guess my canning carrot days are over :)

I loved this chandelier. Before we moved into our home I saw it in a home at the Parade of Homes and thought I would never be able to have it because I guessed it cost so much. Then another day I was in a lighting store and there it was. It was as expensive as I thought but Travis indulged me and we got it. It was perfect for our entryway and since we were going to live in this house for the rest of our lives we justified the expense. Two thousand dollars. Good bye my overpriced chandelier that I loved anyway :(

Dayton's room was a striped paint job with crown molding. It went well with his bedding.

Much like myself, Landon is a creature of habit. His Erie room was just like his Parker room with beadboard on the bottom and blue paint on the top. Whatever makes him feel comfortable is okay with me.

No I won't miss my formica countertops that I was planning on replacing with granite eventually but I will miss my 2 dishwashers....yes my 2 dishwashers were so awesome, I never had a dirty dish in the white sink that I was also planning on trading out for the stainless steel when I got the granite.

Along with 2 dishwashers I also had a second laundry closet upstairs (yes I'm spoiled) and when I was showing the new owner all the features and how to work everything he mentioned they might take out the stackable washer and dryer and just make it a linen closet. WHAT! ARE YOU CRAZY! Anyway, I almost died, what mother wouldn't love 2 laundry rooms. I told him not to do that, that would be stupid (we had already closed so whatever).

Four car garage with high ceilings. Self explanatory in the awesomeness of that. We didn't have a utility door because we were planning on putting a garage door on the back end of our 3rd bay garage so we could pull a trailer right through the garage and park our future "toys" on the back cement patio that we had poured last summer. It was a good plan.

Along with building 2 monster retaining walls Travis also built a bench and a firepit for our backyard. We plumbed it for gas but prefer wood so we never added the insert.

Notice three little hand prints..."Landon, Dayton and Reece were here!"

(okay, I'm almost crying now...this is why I haven't blogged much)

As much as I loved my house in Erie, I've moved enough to realize that I never miss the houses or the things in them but the things I really miss most are.......

The amazing people I can't take with me.

Everywhere I have lived, my house was never the cleanest,

my hair was never the cutest,

I'm far from the most stylish, but

I've always, ALWAYS had the BEST friends.

Miss you All!

BTW: Why do I not have any pictures of the Copes, Melvers, Maddox's, Shriners, Johns, Toys, etc. and more of my BFF's? Send some to me!

Mom Look at Me!

Why am I not surpised to find him here? Love you Reece.

"You would be a Mormon"

I was at lunch today with the kids and I couldn't help but overhear the conversation at the next table. There were three guys and as far as my eavesdropping could uncover they were pastors at one of the local churches here. I should say two were and the other guy was "applying" for the job. It was basically a job interview but it seemed so wrong. At one point one of the pastors asked the guy applying if he really enjoyed preaching and just for arguments sake "would he do it if he wasn't getting paid for it". At that point I felt like (but didn't) piping up and saying, if he wasn't getting paid for it "you would be a Mormon". I find it disconcerting that pastors and preachers from other churches just decide one day that they want to be the messenger of the Lord and then they go to "school" and suddenly they are. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure a lot of them are very good people and want to serve their fellow man and help people learn about the Savior and do a lot of good things. It just seems a bit odd how they are "self appointed" or "hired". The actual name of the "mormon" church is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, so it stands to reason that the head of the church is Jesus Christ and therefore he should be the one doing the "hiring" for positions. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has a lay clergy, meaning they are not paid for serving in the church. They don't sign up or request positions rather they are called by those in authority who have received the authority from those who have the priesthood power. The Church of Jesus Christ was established when Jesus Christ was on the earth. Before Christ died he gave the priesthood authority to Peter who was the prophet of the his Church after Christ died. Joseph Smith received the priesthood from Peter, James and John. God has always "called" prophets. They have never applied for the job. I don't remember Jonah saying "send me, send me--I want to go preach, and then getting swallowed by a whale for dramatic effect" or Moses saying "Hey can I go argue with the guy I grew up with and then destroy his life by allowing his 1st born kid to die" or how about Noah saying, "I have a great idea, how about my family and I be the only remaining people on earth and we will live in a boat with a bunch of animals". Why would God suddenly say, "Well, I use to call prophets to lead my church but man seems much smarter now so I'll just let them decide who and what to do" I don't think so. Maybe I should have said something, it wouldn't have been the first time.

Crack kills buddy, crack kills....

I have a feeling I'm going to be seeing a lot more of the sideways smile this summer than I'm use to, and yes Dayton is already sporting a tan line :)

Mind over Mileage

BTW I have another blog for a race I am participating in in June. It's www.mindovermileage.blogspot.com feel free to visit me there as I sometimes post things on there and not here. The race we are doing is 188 mile relay from Logan to Park City called the Wasatch Back, its part of the Ragnar Series. It should Rock. Here are some of the diehard chicks I roll with. Love them!

Landon heads into Double Digits! 10 Years old!

Before we left for Arizona Landon had an early Birthday party with just a few friends. We had pizza and cake and went to a movie. They had a great time. It was good to have one last Hoorah with such great kids.

Parker and Landon along with other friends Nathaniel had a duct business where they would make wallets and other various items out of duct tape and sell them. They were so funny about coming up with their business strategies. Mostly I think they saw lots of $$ signs.

This bottom picture is on Landon's Real Birthday March 26th about a month after the top pictures. We had been in Arizona for a week and some of our favorite friends John and Laura Cecil from Parker Colorado were in Arizona for their son AJ's (top left) baseball tournament so we were lucky enough to have them over for BBQ, Cake and the kids swam in the FREEZING pool. It was so fun to be with them I didn't want them to leave and when they did I felt homesick. Not sure if I was homesick for Erie, Parker or just my mommy but anyway. This picture is so funny because Laura is more like a sister than a friend and that means I can be real and we ate in our disastrous house and had fun and nobody cared. Plus Landon thought they came all the way to AZ for his Birthday! Not really but he thought it was cool anyway.

BTW this picture was taken about 10 ish at night and all children were on the verge of melting down after very long days for everyone.