Playing Catch Up

I have a few minutes and I thought I would spend some time updating my blog. To say that lots has happened since my last post would be an understatement and I'm not sure I could do justice to all of our adventures. I have pictures scattered around my computer, phone, and camera and I'm not sure I could organize them into a timeline with out considerable time. So I'll do the best I can with the limited time that I have.

February: We started the month with Jason's birthday. We didn't do much but we did have a few friends over for cake and ice cream.
February was a big month for us in deciding where to go for residency. I spent the first half of the month stressing over the order for our list and the second half stressing over when we would end up. We submitted our list around the middle of the month (it's been so long I don't remember specifics) and then we had to wait until the middle of March to find out. We had our list all figured out but at the last minute made some changes and I was really nervous to see how that would affect where we would go.
I also started to pack and de-junk in preparation for our move. We weren't sure where we were moving to but we knew in just a few months we would no longer be living in NJ ( such a relief. I'm not a big fan of the Garden State)

March: March came and with it came nicer weather which was awesome. I am used to having snow and cold weather until the April and even May so to have no more snow in March was perfect.
March brought lots of activity in our house. Jason and I had our 9th Anniversary on the 14th and we went out for a nice dinner without kids (always nice.) We had a visitor, Nick, come stay with us until we left. It was nice to have some extra muscle to help load the truck (thanks Nick), I spent the whole month packing and we found out where we would be going.
Jason and I sat waiting patiently (ok, really I was waiting impatiently. I know I wasn't fooling anybody. haha) clicking "refresh" over and over again on his email until it came in. We opened the email and it said University of Texas Southwestern in Dallas TX!! We were kind of surprised since we thought we had a good chance of going to Arizona or California. We also changed TX to our #3 choice at the last minute. A life changing decision I am sure. We were so excited and happy to have a destination to plan for.
A couple days before we moved Jason's mom came to stay and help pack up. We were able to get all the  boxes packed and loaded into the truck the day before members of the ward came to help load all the big stuff.
It was not hard to say goodbye to NJ but it was really sad to say goodbye to all the friends we'd made while we were there. I had a wonderful goodbye/birthday dinner with friends from the ward where I had my first taste of Indian food. Yum.
But it was probably hardest to say goodbye to Jacqueline. We'd become fast friends and it was great to have her close. I miss being near her and was super excited to have her visit, more on that later.

April: So we packed up our truck and mini van and headed out. We drove to Pittsburgh PA where we stayed with a high school friend of mine. It happened to be conference weekend so we missed seeing her husband but it was fun to see her and catch up. We were so grateful to them for opening their home to us. The next day we made our way to Indiana where we me up with family. We enjoyed conference and a yummy dinner with extended family that we don't get to see very often. It was wonderful. The kids had a fun time playing with cousins and being out of the car. We all got showered and went to bed exhausted. The next day Jason and I took the truck full of stuff and headed to TX where we would stay with his aunt for a few days while we moved our stuff from truck to storage unit and then look for houses, and Jason's mom picked up his dad from the airport and took the kids back to UT in the mini van. It was a crazy trip and I was glad to have it over with when we finally flew to UT to be with the kids.