It has been a really long time...

I got on our old laptop for the first time in a while and saw the home page...this blog came up and I saw a picture of Garrett's birthday...and I realized, wow...it's been too long.  I cannot recap a year...especially with what a year it has been.  But I really should document the miracle of moving.  Usually I use the words horror of moving...but this move has a LOT of small and big miracles that happened.  We had been praying to know what the best thing was for our family...and started to move in the direction we felt was right...and THEN the miracles poured out.  We were able to sell our house quickly and miraculously for an actual profit. And then able to find a wonderful spot here in CA for our family.  This was due to the hand of God...and the hand of a very capable sister who did EVERYTHING to make it possible.  There are people who are good at their job...and then there's my sister.  Our new neighborhood is incredible, with kids out in the cul de sac non stop.  Our ward has been welcoming and is huge.  We of course miss the people that we became close to in our last neighborhood and ward...but we don't miss the winter and the inversion. :-) It was terribly hard to say goodbye to family, but the more steps we took forward on this path the more we knew it was where we were supposed to be.  We feel extremely blessed.  I am living the dream.  My husband has a great job and sacrifices his own hobbies to be a dad(or figures out how a 4 year old can golf and fish). It is better than we even predicted. My children are all healthy.  Crazy and difficult and impossible sometimes, but healthy.  Pictures from top to bottom: Molly and I on a trip to Utah for General Conference and giving a shout out to Chanell...Hansen eating ice cream after we returned the moving truck(fun for him to sit in the big truck...but I was so stressed I barely remember it), Livi Rue and I at the beach for our family vacation, Garrett on a date with his mama.  Four kids has been hard on me.  In the past few years there have been times, when frankly, things were dark.  I am not a good writer and can't make some deep analysis as to why and how things got better...I just know they are better.  And there were times when I said "How did I get into this?" and I wanted to cry.  Now there are times when I say the same thing. "How did I get into this? I am the luckiest girl ever." Some days...most days :-)