London ideas??

We booked flights to London at the end of October (for less then $200 for the whole family, roundtrip!!). I wanted to ask for recommendations for fun things to do/see from those who have been there (keeping in mind that young kids will be in tow). Thanks! :)

Hallelujah!!!

Well, after a near-breakdown, and a few other glitches, we finally have a kitchen!!! :) I couldn't be happier or more grateful to have counters, cabinets, and running water! I think I may just have to sleep on the countertops tonight.

We ordered our kitchen last Friday, after a week of frustrating planning. After pleading with the delivery and assembly man, he agreed to install it this Friday, which I was very happy about. We opted for the complete assembly, which was the best euros we've ever spent. We were thinking about trying to save some money and assemble part or all of it ourselves, but after watching these two men spend all day doing it, using their specialized tools and such, we thought it was a good decision not to do it ourselves.

The cabinets and assembly guys came at 8am and countertops were supposed to be delivered at 8:30. One great thing about Germans is that they're really on time. In the US, if you're supposed to get a delivery between 8-11am, you're lucky if you get it before dinner. Here, I have never gotten a delivery later than 30 min past the start time. So, everything arrived on time, but it was soon pointed out to me that the countertops were 60 cm too short, and there was a 50 cm gap between the wall and the cabinets. I tried to hold it together because we're trying to be good ambassadors for the US and I'm not sure what this German assembly man would have thought about an American lunatic woman. I just handed him the phone because he didn't speak great English, and asked him to call Bauhaus (home depot-type store) because they also don't speak english. He talked to them for a while and told me that I would just have to pay another 100 euros and he could pick up another counter for me at noon. Whew. He also said he could pick up another cabinet for me at Ikea to fill the space. Yeah. I took the boys to the doctor (Kevin needed his kindergarten check-up) and then to McDonalds for lunch. While we were eating, Devin called me to go to Ikea again to pick up another piece that I forgot (things are really jumbled when two people don't speak the same language). We picked up the piece without any problems, and the guys were finished around 6pm. We couldn't get the caulking around the cabinets wet for 12 hours, so we didn't cook tonight, but we're excited for our maiden voyage tomorrow.

They also delivered our couch, loveseat, kitchen table & chairs, and a closet for the boys. It's really nice to have a place to sit and eat! It doesn't feel like we're camping anymore. :)

Before

After!

Kevin, keeping himself entertained while the kitchen was being installed. :)

More Kindergarten News

Dallin is really enjoying Kindergarten. He loves going and seems to have a lot of fun. They usually cook on Thursdays, so it's always fun for me to see what they make. This past Thursday they made a sortof casserole with apples, milk, and dry bread slices. It was cooked and then they pour vanilla sauce on it. I know it sounds strange (probably because of the way I described it), but it was really good. They let me try some when I picked up Dallin. The teacher told me that Dallin wouldn't eat it (not surprising), but that he saved a piece of the dry bread slice for Kevin in his lunchbox. :) He's also made a new friend in his class named Jagen. He's Turkish (There's lots of people in Ulm from Turkey-- Devin told me 10% of Ulm is Turkish), and doesn't speak German very well, and obviously neither does Dallin, so when they're playing together, the teacher told me that they both speak in their native language, and can't understand the words, but understand what each other is meaning. I think it would be really interesting to watch! They're playing almost every time I pick him up.

They told me that they have a spot for Kevin! I'm so excited! I hope it will be good for Kevin to have a "big boy" activity. Hopefully it will also help him learn German. The other day, we were out playing in the common area behind our house, and another little boy was throwing sand at Kevin. I didn't notice it until I heard Kevin yelling, "Nien! Nien!" (no, no) Devin & I were surprised that he knew that and thought it was pretty funny. :) Anyway, Kevin & I went shopping the other day and got his supplies for Kindergarten. They need rain clothes, gym pants, and these gym shoes that are like ballet slippers with non-skid soles, and "house shoes." As soon as the children come to school, they take off their shoes and put their house shoes on. So now he's all set. He'll start on Monday. We'll see how it goes!


Daddy & Dallin walking together to work/kindergarten. Dallin's kindergarten is on Devin's way to work, and he walks, so I try to get Dallin ready in time so he can walk with Devin. Dallin really likes his special time with Daddy.

Dallin and his new friend, Jagen. I had my camera with me when I came to pick up Dallin on this day, and I just had to take a picture. It was actually a nice, warm day, but Dallin was very excited about his new rain bib, rain jacket, and rain boots. He insisted on wearing them, even though the teacher told him it wasn't raining and was nice outside. :) She finally convinced him to take off the jacket after he was sweating, but he absolutely wouldn't budge on the boots & bib. :)

Kindergarten, green beans, and a walking man

Well, Dallin's been to kindergarten twice now and really likes it! He has two teachers. One speaks very little English, but the other speaks very good English. She is very kind and very loving with the children. I am very impressed so far. His teacher told me yesterday that Dallin is very calm and will be "a gift" to the class. It was very sweet. :) Tomorrow he's staying a little longer than usual because they're going to be cooking homemade spaghetti sauce and noodles. There are 20 children in the class, but only 4 girls! I feel so bad for the teachers-- I'm sure it gets wild! Today we went downtown and bought rain jackets, pants, and boots for the boys. They're all excited about it.

Yesterday, we were really craving our Mexican food from Tucson, so we looked up on the GPS to see if there were any Mexican restaurants around. We found one, so we were so excited. We got there, and it looked pretty good, so Devin and I ordered. I ordered a chimichanga and Devin ordered a burrito. On the menu, it said they both come with veggies, rice, and beans. Well, we naively thought these were side items. Well, as we were eating, we were noticing weird things in our burritos. There were green beans, among other things, in our burritos. It was pretty nasty. We ordered tacos for the boys, which came with cole slaw on top. Hmmmm, maybe we'll just enjoy the German food here and wait until we get back to Tucson. :)

Ethan is walking all over now! It's so cute to watch. He loves to practice, so sometimes he'll just walk in circles around the room (it helps that we still don't have much furniture). He also just cut his third tooth, the top middle tooth. I think they start looking like little boys when they get teeth. :)

I spent about 3 hours at Ikea yesterday trying to plan and design our kitchen. Try to imagine trying to design a kitchen when all the information is in German. It was a very frustrating experience, but I think I will be able to finish it tomorrow so we can finally order it and get it installed soon!

Here are some pictures of a park we went to on Monday. The boys really liked it. We went with two ladies in our branch. The kids all had a great time, and the weather was absolutely beautiful.



The park had these fun forts that I thought looked really cool!


Dallin's first day of kindergarten. Please do not look at his feet. I only brought sandals for the kids, so now that it's cold, I put socks with sandals. We are supposedly getting our visas tomorrow, which means we can ship our stuff from Arizona, so the boys will have tennis shoes soon. :)

FYI

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American Airlines is having a sale on flights to Europe! Just thought some of you might like to know.... :)

Good News

Wahoo! Devin is the proud parent of a new baby kidney stone! I know you're all probably a little freaked out, feeling a little queasy, and wondering why I'm posting this on our blog. Well, this is a big thing for our family! We're all excited that Devin passed it without any problems and that we didn't have to find a urologist here in Ulm (for now.) Yeah! Now onto cleaner, less personal stuff:

Well, we spent our first night in our house last week which was interesting. We hadn't hooked up lights yet, so we bought three little lamps, which we carried around with us and plugged in whatever room we were in. It felt a little like camping, but it worked. We all had a place to sleep, which was mattresses on the floor, but it also worked. The kids are liking the space to run around (and not having to use their "quiet feet" like at the hotel).

The day after we moved into our house, some friends from our branch (a small ward/church) came over to try to help us put in some lights. Devin installed our ceiling fans at home, so we weren't too worried about him installing simple lights here. We didn't realize (we're learning that we should just expect things to be different, and to stop being surprised when they are) that houses here aren't made with wood frames like the US, but cement. So, when you put in a light, you have to drill into cement to screw it to the ceiling. Well, when these friends came over, we decided to walk to a nearby cafe to get pizza together for dinner, and then come home to drill into concrete. We were having such a great time together that we didn't realize what time it was until our doorbell rang. It was the neighbor next door (the doctor who looked at Dallin) coming over because it was 9:30pm and we woke up his child with our drilling. Oops.

The next day, Devin had meetings at a city about an hour away. He was planning on staying at a hotel, and I had thought about staying in Ulm to get things organized, but I decided the kids & I needed some fun time. So, we all packed up again and headed for another hotel. It was a really swanky hotel in a tiny town southeast of Ulm called Bad Worishofen. The kids and I had fun swimming in their cool pool, exploring the hotel grounds, and taking walks. It was such a cute town. I loved just walking around and looking at the shops and cafes.

We stayed there 3 days and then came home. We got lots of things done this weekend, so now we're living the high life: We added very simple lights! We went to a home depot-type store and got these hookups that attach to the wires and just has a light bulb that hangs down (imagine trying to describe something like this to a store employee who speaks very little english...). It's a temporary solution until we get the time to put in real lights. We also got two shelves to eventually put in the basement, but we're using them in the kitchen to put our stuff on, and we bought a desk! We also have internet (the reason I'm posting). Devin also put the kid's beds together, so it's starting to feel like a real house! We're pretty excited.

We enrolled Dallin in German Kindergarten and he'll start this Tuesday. I'm excited and nervous for him. I went with him to check it out, and it seems like a really great American preschool. There's lots of learning toys, wooden blocks, puzzles, tons of art supplies, etc. They also do lots of cooking and play outside a lot. I have to bring him rain overalls and rain jacket because they said they play outside in rain or shine. Hummm. They also have a garden and fruit trees they tend outside. There are two teachers. One speaks very good english, so that's good. Dallin had fun playing with the toys, but didn't interact with the children to much. The teacher said they've had lots of children come who don't speak German, but they learn quickly. Hopefully that will be the case with him, and he won't be too traumatized in the process. School will be from around 9-about 12. I'm going to order some homeschooling curriculum to home school him in English for an hour or two in the afternoons so he won't get behind his American school. Hopefully I'll have good things to report about school on the next post! I tried to also enroll Kevin, but there's a waiting list for 3-yr olds, so I'm hoping he gets in a few months.

Today we went to church again. They had a teacher for the younger kids today, which was separate from the older kids. This teacher spoke good english, and the kids had a lot of fun with her. She was trying to teach Dallin some words in German, and letting him teach the kids the same words in English. It was funny. Right before sacrament meeting started, one of the missionaries asked if I could play the closing hymn. I hadn't ever heard it before, but I agreed because noone else knows how to play the piano except the missionary (who told me later that he only knows two, which we sang for opening and the sacrament song). After church, we stayed for a potluck. I guess every third Sunday everyone brings something and they all eat together. We don't have a kitchen, so we just brought 4 boxes of ice cream bars. :) It was really fun to try to get to know people better and try German food. Everything was really good. Devin really liked this meatloaf thing, which I thought was ok, but a little weird. I didn't stress about eating it, though, because Ethan will eat anything. He's really a lifesaver here. I don't ever have to worry about offending anyone. If it freaks me out, I can just feed it to Ethan and he'll eat it. I've never met anything he won't eat! It's pretty funny.

I didn't post any pictures this time (sorry) because I'm posting a ton on our gallery. We miss you all!

Getting better.....

Allrightie, this may be a long post, so just as a fair warning, you may need to employ some scanning skills and skip to the pictures at the end.

Well, since the last post I had my first (of many, I'm sure) breakdown. I at least made it back to the hotel room before crying, so that's a good thing. It seems like everything always gets better after a good cry (for some reason a woman crying really gets people in gear), and things really are getting better.

We managed to buy beds at Ikea on Saturday and ordered a fridge, washer, and dryer that will be delivered on Monday. Thank heavens for store employees that speak english! When we first went to MediaMarkt (the store for the appliances, similar to Best Buy), we couldn't find anyone who spoke english. We were getting a little nervous until we found our friend. We wrote down her name and found out when she would be working the next day so we could come back and ask her more questions. :) We think we found a good fridge. They are lots smaller than ones in the US, so I guess I can't keep my leftovers for 3 months anymore. The washing machines are also lots smaller, but I think they'll be good. The dryers are a little different. We had to get a "condensing" dryer, which sucks out all the water from the clothes and puts it in this little container (in the dryer), which you have to pour out after each use. The lady was surprised that we always dry our clothes. I guess most people here hang their clothes to dry, at least in the summer.

So, now that we have the essentials, we are going to take the plunge and move into our apartment (well, we don't have much to move in yet as our shipment hasn't arrived. So, I guess we should really say 'checking out of the hotel') Monday will be our first day living there. We need to find a really good english speaker at Ikea and go down to order a kitchen, which hopefully will happen this week. Until then, we will have our fridge to store our milk in, and we'll have to go out to eat for most meals. We do have sinks in our bathrooms, and most people drink bottled water anyway, so I think we'll be ok for a few days (I may have to delete that line in a few days when I have another breakdown because I don't have a kitchen...)

When we bought the beds at Ikea, we could only take half of them at a time. Devin didn't want to take the rails with the children in the car (something about getting in a wreck and them getting impaled) so we took half to the house and then the kids and I stayed there with some new toys we had just bought (there's a ToysRUs here!) while Devin picked up the other load. We were all on the main level and I had pushed some boxes up to the stairs so Ethan couldn't hurt himself. I had some towels that I wanted to take upstairs, so I asked Kevin if he would like to help. I literally picked up Dallin and put him on a mattress right next to me and told him I was going upstairs and got the towels. As I went to take them upstairs with Kevin, he was gone. Vanished. I can't describe how literally he was there one second and gone the next. The boxes were still up against the stairs, so I didn't think he went up there.

I immediately looked outside because there is water right in front of our house. I looked out there and didn't see him. I didn't hear him open the door, so I didn't think he was outside (and I didn't think he would go outside by himself), so I went upstairs (there are two levels above the main floor). By the time I looked in all the rooms and got back to the main floor, I was panicked. I ran down to the basement, but it was all dark so I really didn't think he would be down there. He wasn't. I ran back upstairs and was on the verge of hysteria. I grabbed Ethan and Dallin and we ran outside (I didn't have a phone, so I was going to ask the neighbors help or call 112/911) and I saw Kevin outside, at the end of our driveway, by the street, holding onto the fence by the water. I wasn't sure if I was about to start bawling or hyperventilating, but that's the most scared I've felt in a LONG time! I asked him what he was doing and he just said he wanted to look at the water. Geeze! We had a really long talk about how dangerous that was. I guess I was talking a lot about it because later that night when we were putting the kids to bed and I was talking to Kevin again about it, Dallin said that he didn't want to live in that house anymore because it's by water and it's too dangerous. Hum, maybe it's getting through.

Anyway, after that happened, Devin got home and brought the rest of the beds in. We had also bought 4 folding chairs. As we were getting everything together to leave, Dallin stood on one of the folding chairs to close a kitchen window. Devin and I were both in there, but didn't see it happen, but all of a sudden, we heard him crash and start screaming. Dallin is a pretty tough boy and doesn't cry very often, so when I heard him scream like that, I got really freaked out. Of course we don't have lights in our kitchen (see previous post), and it was getting dark outside, so Devin grabbed Dallin and we all ran downstairs to the laundry room. Don't ask me why, but we have a light and a sink in our laundry room. Personally, I would have rathered a light and sink in the kitchen, but hey, I guess I'm in the minority here. So, we get there and I was totally thinking we bought ourselves a ticket to the hospital. He was bleeding from his mouth and I thought he had bit through his lip. I grabbed one of the new towels that was still on the main floor (never made it upstairs) and we rushed to put all the kids in the car to go to the hospital, praying that someone there speaks english.

We realized that we had no idea where the hospital was, and our GPS was acting a little funny, so Devin knocked on our neighbors door for directions. It was at this point that I was grateful that I hadn't knocked on their door earlier with Kevin's incident. I can only imagine what they would have thought of us. Anyway, it turns out that our neighbor is a doctor, so he came out and looked at Dallin. He was calmer than I was (I know, it's surprising), and was able to get a better look. Dallin didn't bite through his lip. He actually didn't bite it at all on the bottom inside, just a big bruise and bleeding under the skin on the bottom, but he cut the inside of his top lip. The neighbor didn't think he needed stitches or that the hospital would do anything, so we decided to save ourselves the experience of an ER trip until later (I'm sure we'll make it there before we leave) and go back to the hotel and put ice on his face. We gave him tylenol and ice, and he seemed to be doing much better. We felt so bad for the poor little guy!

OK, almost done, really. Today we had church. It was very different than our ward back at home, but I think we'll like it. There was a baby blessing today, so I guess there was alot of visitors. In primary, there is just one class for all the children. There were about 7 kids there, including Dallin. It was all in German, but they had a sheep picture for the kids to color, so Dallin sat there very quietly and colored. He didn't seem to mind too much that he didn't understand. I sat in there with Dallin and Kevin sat on the floor playing with his toys, completely oblivious to all except his transformers. In the chapel, there was about 30 people, including the visitors. A lady in the branch who speaks great english translated for me and Devin. She would whisper into a microphone and we could listen to it on headsets that we were wearing. I didn't realize until almost the end that I couldn't hear my children very well when I was wearing the headphones, so I had a very quiet church, but I can't guarantee what my neighbors were able to hear.

I always talk about the stressful things, but there are also lots of things about Germany that we really like so far. I love the cobblestone streets. Not all of them are cobblestones, but some are, and they have a cool pattern that they always use (at least in Ulm) that I really like. I also love the breads and pastries here. You can buy a pastry as big as your face for like 1 euro! There are also lots of ice cream shops with cones for only 70 cents.

Well, this post is long enough. We may not be able to post for about a week, unless we go to an internet cafe. We will be out of the hotel and our home phone will be hooked up Monday, but the internet won't be hooked up until a little later this week or next week. Enjoy the pictures!


The three boys in front of our hotel

Today we took a walk along the river, Danube. It was really pretty and nice weather.

Dallin took this picture of us. :)

Here are my manly men in front of our beds that we just purchased at Ikea. I'm not sure if it's an Ikea thing or Germany thing, but we bought a queen/king size bed (180 cm), but it comes in two smaller (twin size) mattresses that you put in this mattress bag thing to put them together. Hummmmm. Hopefully this works out and we don't roll over and fall into some big chasm in the middle of our bed.

Poor little Dallin. This is a picture of him the night of the "incident"

I put Kevin to sleep in jammies, in his bed. For some strange reason, this is how I found him the next morning.

Kevin & Dallin enjoying their chocolate eggs with a toy in the middle

Ahhhh, this is the good life. Clean boys, right out of the bath, enjoying some good cartoons. :)

Yummy ice cream!

German bums and yucky sprite

Today has been a little stressful, but I'm trying to tell myself that it's going to get better. We were trying to do some errands today (getting kitchen cabinets, registering in Ulm, setting up bank account, getting internet, home phone, and cell phones), but we only were successful in one of those errands. Well, actually almost two. We didn't get much sleep last night because the kids are still a little confused about sleep. As in not sleeping at all. They went to bed last night around 9, and were up from midnight to about 4:30. Then we woke up at 8:00 and the older ones haven't had a nap yet as of this writing (about 7:30pm). Hopefully this will be good for them and that they will sleep good tonight and be mostly turned around. Because they're so tired, they've been really cranky. Kevin spends about 90% if his day crying, whining, or yelling at us. I'm pretty sure we're going to be put on some FAA terror list so we will be prohibited from traveling after this. :)

This morning we went to the town hall to register. Every foreigner (and I think even when the Germans move) has to register in the town when they move in. We had a little "mishap" on the way to the town hall. Right now, we're driving a freakishly big (for european standards) van. It's really long-- it sticks out 1 - 2 feet from the parking lot spaces. Anyway, it's a beast to drive. It doesn't turn very well, so a regular 3-point turn usually turns into a 57-point turn. It's also a stick shift which doesn't make things better. Well, today I was driving when we were going to the town hall (Devin's a better navigator, and I thought I was a better driver). I was trying to turn into this parking garage, but I got stuck trying to turn in . I couldn't get in or out, and I thought I was going to bash the side of the rental van. Devin had to slide out of the van and help navigate me out (think of the guys at the airport with those long orange sticks) with like 10 cars waiting behind me to get into the garage. I'm pretty sure we're not making too many friends here. :) Anyway, at the town hall, we met with an attorney who helped us. Devin's work permit still isn't in. We were told this practically never happens, (when is this black cloud above us going to move on??) so they gave us some kind of interim permit thing so Devin could start working. We don't have our official "visa" in our passports, but at least we're registered and can start other errands like opening bank accounts. After the town hall, we went to Deutsche Bank. In the US, if you want to open a bank account, you just walk in the bank and of course they would love to open an account with you. In Germany, you want to open a bank account? Of course, you need an appointment and the first available is sometime next week. What?? So we can't get furniture (because of course the stores do not accept credit cards, just "EC" cards from the german banks) until "sometime next week" when we open our acct. Allright. So, after that, we walked over to the cell phone place. I stayed outside with the kids, who had a great time chasing the "chickens" in the plaza. (Pigeons, really). Devin came out empty-handed and dejected. We can't get cell phones until we get our visa in our passports, and we better hope that we have a 2-year visa or else we can't get cell phones. Lovely. Onto T-Punkt (T-Mobile in the US) for our home phone and internet. We had success there. They will be out on Monday morning to set up our phone. Oh, but if you try to call us sometime, don't leave a message because the voice mail menu is all in German so we won't be checking it for about 7 months. :) After all this fun, we decided to call it a day. On the way home, we stopped at a store and got the kids some fun little treats. They're called "Kinder Uberachnung" I really really misspelled that, but anyway, they're little chocolate eggs that the kids can eat and then there's a little toy in the middle. Our kids love them. Devin & I got some chocolate (stress reliever) and some banana nectar to try.

We expected a hard first month, so I know it will get better. Anyway, here is the story to go along with the title of the post. I was debating whether to write this on a public blog, but I thought it was pretty funny. The first night we were here, I was showing Dallin all the differences here in Germany. I was showing him the light switches and how to flush the toilet (a button). Well, after that, he needed to go to the bathroom. He's been able to wipe himself for a while now so I was surprised when he called me to come wipe. I told him he could do it, but he said, "I don't know how to wipe this kind of bum!" I guess he's already got a German bum. :) The other funny story was at Ikea. We went to look at furniture, and we decided to eat lunch there. We were a little confused about everything, but managed to order and pay for our food. I got a table while Devin got drinks (Sprite). He came back and we were all thirsty (there's no water fountains here) so I was glad to get a gulp of sprite. It tasted so nasty. I wanted to start crying, but I held it together, thinking I was just going to have to get used to yucky sprite for the next year. We all drank it. I went to get a refill and expected the same nasty sprite, but it tasted great this time! Then we figured out that the syrup was just out in the previous one. :) So I guess we don't have to have yucky sprite for a year. :)

Sorry for the long post. Next time you can just skip down to the pictures. :)

Ethan playing in the hotel room.
Kevin fell asleep on Devin's shoulder during dinner yesterday. These poor kids are just pooped!

Ready, Set, Go!

Well, we made it to Germany! It wasn't nearly as traumatic as I was thinking it could be. A few months of therapy, and we will all be able to repress the memories. :) No, really, the boys did very good. Ethan cried a little on the flight to Dallas, but then slept for about 4 hours of the 9 to Germany. The older boys did very good. We got them a few new "good guys" (action figures) that Grandma wrapped up for us. Every few hours, they got to open up a new present, which they really loved. The planes also had little TVs at each seat, so they watched cartoon network and watched DVDs on our portable DVD player for most of the time. Thank goodness for small miracles! :)

Devin was in the ER most of the night before we left with another kidney stone. We were worried that he wouldn't be able to fly, but he did, with the help of Percoset (I don't know how to spell that...), and his mom staying up all night with us to help us pack! Devin's parents and brother, Alex, came to visit us before we left. It was great to see them and a huge blessing to have them here to watch the kids so I could be with Devin at the hospital. We're really going to miss our family! The boys had a wonderful time hanging out with them before we left.

We got here Tuesday morning, checked into the hotel, took baths/showers, and then met our landlord's agents to get the keys to the new house. The boys were very excited to see it, and were happy with all the new buttons and things to explore. We're going to stay at the hotel for a few days while we get furniture in our new place. We also met one of our neighbors who has a 4-year old daughter. The mother spoke English and seemed very nice. I'm sure we'll have lots of questions for her.

We moved out of our house in Tucson last week. I was so sad to leave, but at least it's only for one year. We had so much help from friends and neighbors to help watch the kids and help me clean. It was a huge blessing to have the help during such a crazy week. Our renters moved in on Thursday and we went to visit them. They seem very nice.

Well, I don't have much time left, but here a few pictures:


The boys on the plane. They were very fascinated with the fact that they could turn on and off their light with the touch of a button. :)
We were a sad sight to see in the Frankfurt airport. We had 3 luggage carts, and they had a handle that you had to squeeze together to make the cart move, so it was almost impossible for us to drive more than one each. Well, Dallin really stepped up to the plate and "drove" one of them. He would squeeze the handle together and I would help him steer it by holding onto the bar in front while steering and squeezing mine with one hand in front of him. In front of me, Devin was squeezing his, steering, and holding Kevin. Ethan was on my back in the backpack. :) We should have gotten a picture, but I don't think I want to remember that. :)

Here's Kevin in the hotel room. We just got in, and I sat him on the windowsill to look out at the city. I was trying to explain to him that this was his house now, and he really didn't seem happy about it. It took him a little while, but I think he's feeling more comfortable with it now.

Here we are in the Tucson airport checking our bags. We had our pack-n-play, 3 carseats, 9 bags to check, and 10 smaller bags to carry on (1 bag & 1 "personal item" each). It was pretty crazy.

This is the line to check in after we left. When we got there, there was only like 2 people ahead of us, and then when we left there was a huge line. I just told myself that it was just the timing, and that we (and the amount of luggage we had) had nothing to do with it. :)

We're ready to go!

Dallin, Kevin, & Ethan at the hotel in Tucson after a bath.

Devin's parents came to see us right before we left and helped us drive to the airport. It was a huge help. Our luggage took up his whole bed of his truck. I don't think it would have all fit in our 4-door rental. :)