It Must Be the Southern Air

Maybe we're entranced by this warm southern weather, or maybe we're closer to ocean level, but it seems like we're out and about quite a bit. Between going to the playground and building blocks, we've been looking all over for ways to have fun as a family in our new home!

Let's just say, we go to the park a LOT! McKenzie LoVeS the sand!








We got new blocks! to bury Kenzie with and so Josh can practice his mad balancing skills.




We went to the Mall of Georgia and dressed Josh up like Mr. Darci, played in the playground, and tried to get Kenzie on the merry-go-round but to no avail.



My husband is a stud!









Kenzie has really grown up since we've been here. She can unwrap a banana and eat the whole thing, she can open doors (yike!) and climb the stairs to our house by herself.
But the neatest trick is naming letters in the alphabet and animals. I amazingly caught this video of her getting excited about the new letters I had just put up. (She didn't know I was videoing)

New life in Atlanta!

We did it! We moved 1,888 miles across the country!
Josh and I still look at each other, "Can you believe we're in GA?", "No, can you?"
It's been quite the change but so far great! Our apartment is in a great part of Sandy Springs. I feel like we live in a tree house because we're on the 3rd floor and we can't see anything but trees out our windows.
It's starting to feel like home and it's good.

When we first moved in it was hot and humid, yet comfortable compared to the Midwest heat wave. We went swimming a lot and waited for my generous Father to bring our stuff over from Utah. My sister Stephanie created a layover here on her way home from Study Abroad in Australia and the surrounding islands. So between Stephanie, my parents, Josh, and some friends from Utah who happened to be in our ward, we moved all the many, many boxes up to the tree house. Man was it hot!







My parents never had a chance to knight Josh as a BYU Graduate. My mom had found this hat and she wanted him to be declared a Chemistry wizard as he began his PhD.
...Oh my goofy, wonderful family!





We will be forever grateful to my parents for moving our stuff out here! And for everyone who helped us unload and to my Mom and Stephanie for getting me (mainly my food storage) unloaded and settled before they had to go.

Amazingly, all of our stuff fit into our apartment, even all the food storage! It's been fun to unpack and decorate and especially to ORGANIZE!! Yay!


My Mom is the bomb!!

The Foster Adventures

It was so good to be with the Foster family in Missouri again. Needless to say Kenzie was fawned over all the time and always had someone to play with her. Everyone got a turn making her laugh. We even saw Chelsea come into the room, look around, then wisk Kenzie off to her room to have her all to herself! They got to be very good friends. Jacob remained the favorite for the first couple weeks, then Kenzie would go to everyone and really loved it.

Kenzie learned to cook from Grandma!






In case you're wondering, we're at a Truck Pull...Big beefed up trucks pull a loaded down trailer as far as they can :)





The only real adjustment was the heat, it was blazing hot and the AC was out! But we downed popsicles and stayed in the bedrooms where we had a small AC unit in the windows. We were only without AC for about 10 days total since Roark, Kevin, and Josh were able to 'hot wire' the AC to work while we waited for the AC guys to come a couple weeks later to fix it for good.






Kenzie did really well with the heat, she drank lots of water and her word for popsicle is 'Jacob-dada'. And it remains the same today!
She loved finding pair of shoes around the house to try out, not to mention sunglasses...she's definitely my daughter!



She's getting into Emily's hand-me-downs a little early :)



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We celebrated Grandpa's Birthday at Kenton and Julie's house. It was neat since He had all his children there! He was so nice to share his blue frosting - Kenzie got a kiss from Grandpa! She wanted to bad to eat a blue flower off the cake!
I was very impressed with Uncle Kenton's ice cream, it was amazing!
We enjoyed talking and laughing together, it was good fun.

Grandpa gave all the younger grandkids a blue kiss on the cheek!

And Kenzie too!


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Josh and I went on a Kenzie-less vacation for the first time. Josh has always wanted to take me to Silver Dollar City in Branson, MO. It's like Lagoon but for Red Necks! It was super fun, I'm so glad we went!
Yes, that's a sock filtering the water :) Tasty!



They had a whole room full of purses! It was awesome!





It was weird to not have Kenzie with us, we missed her but we had so much more time to talk about things other than Kenzie (even though we still talked about her quite a bit).

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Terrifying memories from my childhood came back to me when we took an afternoon to visit the creek and go fishing. It was a lot of fun to sit in the cold water and watch everyone swim. However, no one bothered to tell me the creek had crawdads in it! I'm sitting in the water on the shore taking pictures when suddenly a huge crawdad comes to sit by me! I screamed! and Josh came to shoo it away (I talked him out of catching it and eating it). Kenzie sat on my lap after that.





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It was so awesome Josh got to spend his birthday with his family! It was really great, especially to get in cahoots with Jamie and plan a surprise cake for him. Luckily Sara was there to help with the hard mixing part, my hips thanked her. When it was done baking, I thought I had ruined it or done something wrong because it didn't look right. So I bring out the Chocolate Cheesecake to Josh, hoping it at least tastes good and he said it was the best cheesecake he'd ever had! Woot!
Doesn't he look so serene!


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The Sunday before we left, we celebrated Sara's birthday (July is a birthday month for the Fosters). I couldn't believe it, 17! She had a good birthday and I was glad we could celebrate it with her.

On to Missouri!

After spending the holiday all together, my family had to go their separate ways. Josh, Jacob, Kenzie, and I drove towards Bear Lake to see a mission couple from Josh's mission. We call them Grandma and Grandpa Sorenson. They are wonderful people and let us stay at their ranch for the night.




We got to jump on the trampoline, swing, and Jacob had his first four wheeler drive.






Grandpa Sorenson taught Jacob how to drive it, then Jacob taught Josh how to drive it.



And of course, Josh taught Kenzie (driving toddlers run in my family...yikes!).




It was wonderful to spend one more night in cool Idaho.


Our next stop was Colorado where we stayed with Chrissy and Nick. It was SO good to see them and I was so glad we finally met Brinton! What a sweet boy! I loved seeing Kenzie and Brinton play together, it seemed like pre-cousins camp. Chrissy let us have the cute pink cup Kenzie's holding, she still loves it.







We happened to pull onto this road for a quick car seat break. I firmly believe that the state of Nebraska supports the Cougars, 'Y' else would there be a sign like this?



After two long days of driving, we finally pulled into the Foster's home. We were so done being in the car!

McKenzie walking on the past

My Grandmother's ranch is a special place to me. It has mounds of family history and memories everywhere.




This walkway, for example, was laid by my great-great grandfather, Daniel Balls. His initials are still at the first square of the walkway. I remember walking up and down it in the sprinklers too when I was young.



McKenzie didn't know it, but she was enjoying the labors of her great-great-great grandfather. I like to think that he was enjoying watching her too.