Our first month in Kingman

We've moved.

Day 1 of living in Kingman / June 1st - Saturday: With the rental truck leading the way, a caravan of 5 vehicles made it’s way from St. George Utah to Kingman Arizona. My parents and my brother and sister-in-law were all drivers and helpers – a huge shout-out to them – “Thank you! We could not have done it without you!”

We unpacked the truck, set up beds and tables, ate some pizza, then said good-bye to our helpers who headed home. We went appliance shopping – found some but unfortunately they have to be delivered. Went shopping for some ice and a few groceries. We then unpacked a few boxes, set up the tv, found the movies, and settled down to unwind from a long day.

*Quality of Living Update- We have electricity and cold water, but no gas. We have no fridge, microwave, washer or dryer. This is going to be the week of bare necessities only!

Day 2 - Sunday: Did some more unpacking and hanging of pictures. Went on a walk exploring the neighborhood. Feeling a little discouraged about being here – tried to find some silver lining to the move… One silver lining – No daylight saving time!

Day 3 – Monday: Our first trip to the library! We arrived at 5:45 and apparently it closes at 6:00. I filled out the application to get a library card and then went to the desk and the security guard gave me a hard time about having to get a card at closing time… even though it only took 2 minutes for the librarian to enter the information and hand me the card. And yes, the library has a security guard. Should I be scared to go to the library if they have to have a security guard?

Gas was turned on – turned on the super ancient oven to bake some potatoes and within 5 minutes the whole house smelled horrible. So we turned off the oven and I called the gas company. They came back and said it seemed fine but there was a slight fluctuation in the co2 (or something – nothing real dangerous) but we had him turn off the gas to the oven and we called the rental agency. They will send someone to see about fixing the stove.

*Quality of Living Update: We have electricity and hot water. No oven, no fridge, microwave, washer or dryer.

Day 4 – Tuesday: Returned to the library since we didn’t have a chance to check-out any items yesterday. Found a few movies and books. Overall there is not much selection :( and I am disappointed. We finally have time to read more Atlas Shrugged again and today I unpacked it – we are very behind in our reading if we are to finish by summer’s end.

Day 5 – Wednesday: Delivery day!!! Our new Samson washer, dryer and fridge arrived. Hurray – no more eating out of an ice chest and we can have clean clothes! Maintenance people came to fix the oven – but “no can do”. Looks like they’ll be getting us a new oven.

*Quality of Living Update: We have electricity, hot water, a washer, dryer and fridge! No oven or microwave. Looks like a few more days of sandwiches and cereal.

Day 6 – Thursday:  With no way to cook and nothing to do, we decided to take a quick trip to St. George. Rose had fun with Grandma while Bryce and I ran errands. We stopped at our house (our former place of living but now our awesome cash cow!) to drop off a few boxes to store in our shed. Met the renters. Made a stop at Costco – we miss you Costco! Bought a microwave! Then we picked up my used but new-to-me iphone – so excited!

~ Rose and Grandma ~

~ I leave Rose alone with my Dad and brother for just a minute and look what happens - her first taste of Dew - although they assured me the can was empty, hmmm... ~

Day 7 – Friday: Hung out with brother Michael and my Mom, watched The Hobbit (finally!), then hit the road for home around 5:30.  Huge line of traffic due to, what looked like, a truck fire – stop and go for awhile there – put us back an hour. Counted 10 cars on the side of the road overheated.

~ Line of traffic stopped on highway ~

Day 8 – Saturday: Spent all day and 75% of my prorated data playing with my new iphone. *Quality of living: We have electricity, hot water, a washer, dryer, fridge and microwave! No oven.

Day 9 – Sunday:  Went to our new ward.

Day 10 – Monday: The bug man came. Went to the library and Walmart where we were approached by 3 people - one to use our phone, one for directions (and when we said we were new to town and didn't know where anything was he stormed off saying "no one will help me") and then by this man who asked us if we knew about some organization and then kept trying to tell us about it as we kept saying no and walking away. We're going to try to avoid leaving the house for awhile - or at least avoid Walmart - it is scary.

Day 11 – Tuesday: Bryce bought some wood and a saw to build some shelves for our garage. Rose and I found a park with lots of grass and shade.

Day 12 – Wednesday: Bryce built the shelves for our garage. He is so talented and amazing! Before he bought the wood we were trying to figure out how to get the wood from the store to our house with his Honda Element, and then Bryce realized he could just take the saw and cut them to size in the store parking lot. Who says you need a truck?

~ Up on all fours! ~

Day 13 – Thursday: After dropping off papers to the school district HR department we went to the elementary school to see Bryce’s classroom.

Day 14 – Friday: The new oven arrived!! First thing I cooked? Brownies of course! *Quality of Living: We have electricity, hot water, a washer, dryer, fridge, microwave and oven!

Day 15 – Saturday: We have Internet! Now I can update the blog, email, etc... Oh and we signed up for Netflix so that’s pretty much all we’ve been doing since.

~ Playing Call of Duty with Daddy ~

Day 16 – Sunday: Bryce’s 1^st Father’s Day! Another young couple with a 10 month old girl invited us to dinner. Their little girl was crawling all over the place – its crazy to think she’s only 4 months older than Rose. We had a lot of fun. Hopefully they weren’t scared off by how excited we were to be there. It was nice to meet and visit with another couple in a similar stage of life.

Day 17-20: Nothing of consequence happened. Netflix has ruined any attempt for us to be productive. We did find this street full of thrift, antique and pawn shops in the old-old part of town and took some time to explore and look for treasures. It was actually a pretty cool and fun way to spend an afternoon.

Day 21 – Friday: Rose is 6 months old!

Day 22 – Saturday: Went to the ward social hoping to meet more people and to get out of the house.

Day 23 – Sunday: The sister missionaries came over to visit with us for an hour.  Rose is getting so close to crawling – any day now!

Day 24 – Monday: Poor Rose has an upset stomach. Threw up all over Bryce – a lot! Poor Bryce!

Day 25 - Tuesday: Began cleaning and organizing Bryce's classroom.

Day 26-29: Nothing of consequence happened - just more Netflix. Bryce was supposed to go on exchanges with the missionaries but their appointments fell through so instead they came by the house to practice a lesson with us.

~ Rose climbed onto her little piano by herself - it was so cute, but I was too slow to get video of her amazing feat - so we only have a picture ~

Day 30 - Sunday: Today in Gospel Principles class the lesson was on the Gathering of Israel. Here were the highlights - making jokes about drinking alcohol in church ("makes sure its vodka not gin" said the teacher), and that apparently some people think aliens came down and took the ten lost tribes away and that's why they are lost... say what?  Unfortunately there were 3 investigators in the class. Hopefully the sister missionaries get to teach next week since this week's teacher was a little too "interesting." The missionaries actually dropped by this evening as they were doing street contacting to get some water and rest a bit.


Well, we've been here in Kingman for a month now - 30 days! We've met a few people, been to church, shopping, the library, one park, out to eat, and even took a little drive up to Hualapai Mt to see what all the fuss was about (the locals all rave that Haualapi Mt is the place to go in the summer - "to escape the heat").

Silver Linings to being in Kingman? We like the house and the neighborhood, the people are friendly and the missionaries like to drop in to visit us. Oh and I should mention again, no daylight savings time. Bryce has a job, we are making passive income on our house in Washington, and I am a stay-at-home mom. Oh, and we get to spend all day, every day, together until August when Bryce begins his job - a true summer vacation from school and work.

A Job! A Job!

Good news! Bryce has a job!

Here's the story - 

Bryce has been busy continuing to volunteer at Little Valley (where he did his student teaching), and he had been finishing up his 2 weeks at Mt America, so he didn't have a lot of time to fill out applications. So, since I am a SAHM, I decided that would be my project. 

I've been looking up job opportunities all over the place - Utah, Arizona, Nevada - and basically doing data entry on all the different applications. Then I'd have Bryce look over them, answer the essay questions, and then I'd send them off. 

Wednesday, Bryce got a phone call from a principal about setting up an interview. Bryce felt that he and the principal just clicked and felt good about this upcoming interview. 

Thursday, he had the interview - at our kitchen table over facetime. So I was able to listen in, and it went really well. Then, throughout the evening, we kept getting phone calls from Bryce's references saying they had just spoken to the principal. It was looking good for us and we were beginning to research and discuss all the decisions and things we would need to do if he got the job.

Friday, the principal called - my phone first lol - and told me he wanted us to come... Bryce was at Little Valley so I txt him "Good News!" and then said to call me. Then Bryce called the principal back and accepted the offer!

You may be wondering, where is this job at?!

Bryce is going to be the new 5th grade teacher at Hualapai Elementary School, in Kingman Arizona!

So we are moving to Kingman!

We both feel really good about this decision, and feel it will be a good opportunity for our family. We are so blessed the way things have worked out. I wrote before that my quitting my full time job was a leap of faith for us. Bryce had also just finished up his last two weeks of work at Mt America. And now, because we took those leaps, we don't have to worry about quitting or finishing up "two-weeks", we can start planning now and getting ready to move now. In fact, we are hoping to move at the beginning of June - just three weeks away! So we have a lot to do and accomplish!

This weekend we are going to go down to Kingman to scope it out - hopefully finding a place to live, visit the school and principal, find the library (very important), etc...

Bryce is still volunteering his time at Little Valley until school is out - and what a good thing because many of the teachers are cleaning out stuff they no longer need, and so Bryce has become the recipient for a lot of stuff he can use in his own classroom. I told him I will willingly take on the job of finding books for his classroom library :)

I'm sure at times it's going to be hard for me, being away from family, friends, and good ol' southern Utah. But, Kingman is only 3 hours from St. George, and a full time job for Bryce means a full time mommy for Rose. So, I think it's worth the sacrifice of leaving.

Maybe I'll actually update the blog more if I'm living away from everyone too? That will be my goal - we'll see if I actually follow through :)

Big News!

Wow, so much has happened this past month! Where to begin?...

Well, first off - I have now been an official Stay-At-Home-Mom for 3 weeks! After Rose was born, I had took some of my maternity time, but then went back to work and did part time work / part time maternity leave. It was so hard to leave Rose. Thankfully, I was able to leave her with my Mom, so I know she was in good hands, but.... 1) she was not eating from a bottle, 2) it was just too much of a strain/stress on me that by the time I got home each night I couldn't even enjoy her because I was so tired from work and coordinating dropping off and picking up, etc... and 3) I just plain missed being with my baby. I was dreading the month of May coming as that was when I was supposed to go back full time but deep down I knew I could not do it. I didn't know if Rose would ever take a bottle, and if working part time was taking such a toll then what would full time do? Bryce and I discussed the options, and in the end decided we needed to take a leap of faith on this one - so I gave my two weeks and now here I am, at home with my baby girl and I couldn't be happier. Hopefully Rose feels the same :) I think Grandma is pretty disappointed not to see her grand-baby everyday anymore though.

Bryce is now an official graduate of Dixie State University, with a bachelors in Elementary Education. I am so happy and proud of him! It was a long hard road of late nights, big projects and many hoops to jump through but we made it. We are now in the process of applying for teaching positions and are praying he is able to obtain one for this upcoming school year. We of course hope to stay here in good ol' southern Utah but we are willing to consider moving too.

Hmmm.... it seems like when I started this post there were a lot of other things I was going to mention... but now I can't think of them. I'll finish with an update on our sweet little Rose:

Rose is now a little over 4 months. She has discovered she can grab her foot and likes to try to eat her toes. She is rolling over pretty consistently, from her back to her tummy, but it's funny because once she gets to that position she'll let you know she does not enjoy it, however she won't roll over the other way. So we end up helping her roll to her back and she'll be all smiles again, until a few seconds later when she's on her tummy again. :) She just loves to be outside. If she is getting fussy all I have to do is go outside and she will be perfectly content to watch Tator and Kevin (our dog and cat). She likes it when her Daddy plays peek-a-boo with her or when Mommy pretends to eat her hands and feet.

At her last check-up the doctor said we could start her on solids, which surprised me as I thought you were supposed to wait until 6 months. So I decided to try a little bit of rice cereal just once a day, and just slowly build up to it. But I'm not going to be real serious about it right now or worry if I miss a day, since I read that 6 months is still the recommended age for solids. Gonna be honest - I'm not a big fan of our pediatrician, so I'm not sure I want to rely fully on his point of view on this. In fact, at the appointment Rose had the tiniest spot on her forehead that looked like cradle cap, so I asked about it, and he proceeded to give this  detailed description of using cortisone cream and then going and getting this special baby shampoo etc... I pretty much tuned it out. If it's going to be that serious shouldn't the dr write all this down for you? Who's going to remember all that? So I came home, googled it, talked to my mom, and decided to follow my mom's advice (baby oil on her head, brush her head everyday) and viola! Gone!

Anyways... that's all for today. Now for a video!