Home At Last!

              So we have been together, the three of us, in our home in Minot for one month now! We are loving our new home!! It seriously is like 3-4 times bigger than our apartment in Germany! We have room here to be ourselves and not worry about people who live below us. We are connected to our next door nieghbor by the garage and by a room which is our guest bedroom/computer room. Another exciting thing about our place is, we have a tree in our front yard!! A mature tree, one that has been there a while. (Which is pretty awesome b/c not many trees here except the tiny newly planted ones.) We have our own backyard! (Which will be fenced in this Spring/Summer) And right outside of our backyard we have the nieghborhood playground! So the playground is like 50 feet from our back door! Which will be super nice this summer!
             Andrew did amazingly on the trip up here! It took us 5 days to get here from North Carolina.We were able to see so much on the way up. The first day we drove almost the whole way through TN. We would have gone all the way through that night but we saw a nice place to stop, and we wanted to check the area out when the sun was up too. It was Jackson, TN. They had an area dedicated to Casey Jones with trains and stuff, almost like an old western type theme. We ate dinner at the restuarant and walked around the gift shop. I baught some home made Lavendar Soap. They had alot of old fashioned candies and jams there too.

From Jackson TN we were able to drive up to Lawton, OK to stay with Grandma and Grandpa Blake. This was our first time being able to go and visit and stay with them. Andrew had so much fun playing with a toy train set at thier house and before we left they ended up giving the train set to him.

The picture above is of Andrew playing with toys at his Aunt Maureen's house while we were watching the Super Bowl 2012. We had a GREAT time just relaxing and hanging out with everyone.

Grandma and Grandpa Blake

Andrew and Uncle Tom

Saying Good-Byes before we hit the road again.

Grandma and Grandpa Blake

We stayed two nights with Grandma and Grandpa Blake and we got to go to church with Grandma, Grandpa said he was not feeling well enough to go. And can you believe it?! Andrew stayed in nursery the whole time all by himself in thier ward!!! This is the first... and only time that he has done this! He hasn't done it since then. I guess he was just happy to get out of the car for a change.

The picture above was taken in Iowa, where we spent the night after leaving Oklahoma. This was our first time driving through snow during the whole trip. I remember the lady working behind the desk at the hotel was laughing at us like crazy because of our Southern accents. It was pretty funny.

And of corse we couldn't leave the hotel without letting Andrew throw a few snowballs first!

While traveling we saw informantion signs along the highway for the Mormon Trail Center. So we followed them and we stopped here to take the tour.

Lots of hands on stuff to see how big the carts were. I don't really know if Andrew really got anything out of going but he really did enjoy himself!

This is how big the beds were on the ship, not much room at all

We would have gone over to the cemetary which was just across the street but it was completely covered in snow and we would not have been able to tell where we were walking.

Winters Corner. The Temple is right by the Mormon Pioneer Cemetery.

This beautiful statue is in front of the Mormon Trail Center Building

Sleeping peacefully.

We saw an information sign from the highway about a Dino Story Land... Well this is the only Dino thing we found... So maybe this is it?? This is like right in front of a busy gas station too.

FINALLY!!! We made it!!! But I must say, our journey up to North Dakota went surprisely well! We all had good attitudes, especially Andrew, and I only had like one melt down where I broke out crying for like 30 minutes... But besides that it was PERFECT!! Glad to have us all together again. I know Andrew is so glad to be back with his Daddy!

I know this is a rough picture but it was taken like at 1 AM on the night/morning that we got in our new home!! Can you believe that we got here at 1 AM then our household goods from Germany were delivered to our home like 9 hrs later that morning!! We got there in perfect timing to get our stuff and not have to re-schedule.

Okay, I have finally done it! I have updated the blog about our move up here. WooHoo! Go Me! But now, well another day, I have to update about how Andrew's second birthday went. Can you believe it?!?! Andrew is TWO now??!! I sure can't. I have been having a really hard time lately like emotionally, no I am not crying all of the time or anything like that, I have just been in a funk... down in the dumps I guess you could say. I don't know how or why but I have told Drew and he is trying to help me out the best that he can. In the mean time, the number one thing that gets me through my days are the sweet little hugs and kisses Andrew surprises me with all throughout the day! Makes my heart melt!! I love that boy so much!!