The Big Move

It has been quite a full month.  At the beginning of September, Mom and Jim came to visit us in Eastern Idaho.  We took them to Yellowstone. It was a beautiful drive going through Jackson hole and West Yellowstone. We only saw a few animals and went ice cream shop hopping in West Yellowstone seeing which one was the best.



painted pot

Old Faithful













Curtis and his friend saying goodbye

After we had our goodbyes with them, it was time for us to look forward to the next few days.  The movers came and boxed up our stuff. We started our four day trip to Oklahoma.





We stopped in Utah and got to say our goodbyes to friends and family there. Then made our way to Denver, which was a beautiful drive! We were also able to see some friends there. Next was to Kansas--BORING (I hate driving through that state, there is absolutely nothing). Finally we arrived in Oklahoma!!!! We were ready to be out of the car and get settled. For right now we only have a two bedroom apartment that is about 1000 sq. ft.  It has been a decrease in size from our 2200 sq. ft. house in Idaho, but honestly I love it.  It has lots of closet space and 2 bathrooms vs. our 1 in Idaho. We will only be in it for a year and then we will be forced to upgrade to something with at least 3 bedrooms.  The family is happy in Oklahoma. The weather is warmer, we get to spend more time with Curtis, gas is cheaper, and there is access to more things to do. The kids are in Awanas, so they are going to church every Wednesday and learning lots of bible verses.

After being in Oklahoma for a month, my aunt passed away.  The family loaded up in the car, and we made a 24 hour drive back to Idaho for the funeral. Luckily our kids are good travelers. We had a good visit  with some of our Idaho family and stayed for the week to make it worth our drive. I'm just hoping it will be our last trip to or from Idaho in the car, for awhile.


Aunt Joyce and I

Anyway, we are still just being ourselves taking one day at a time

In The Meantime

While we have been in limbo with our move, we have stayed busy. The kids and I went to Boise for about a week to spend time with family. We had fun eating dinners with uncle Willi every night, watching a scary movie with a longtime friend, having sleepovers with cousins, and playing at the splash park. Curtis flew in and we ran The Dirty Dash with a friend from Idaho Falls. It was very dirty and lots of fun. We plan to do it again. We capped off our time there with a family pool party at our Aunts'. There we got to meet our one of or new nieces.  After getting back I helped throw a baby shower for a friend who is having their first baby in October. Just this past week, we had an unexpected death in the family. One of our grandma's passed away from an atv accident.  She lived life to the fullest til it was her time to go.  She was 84, and will be very missed. Because of that, we did get to see a lot more family before we journey out to Oklahoma. One of those being another new niece, who was just adopted from Taiwan! We hadn't met her yet. Our moving truck comes in a couple of days and will haul our stuff away. I have my mom and stepdad coming for the weekend, to say one last goodbye. Then we will start our 3-4 day trip and begin the next chapter of our lives.

After The Dirty Dash

Fruit salad stroller I made for the baby shower

I let my daughter paint my toes

My daughters picture of our wedding

Taking a bath in grandma's BIG bathtub

Me, my baby boy, and his cousin

One of my new nieces

Grandpa Bolander and Grandma Bolander

The First Steps

We finally have the ball rolling on our move to Oklahoma. In the middle of June we started the remodel on our house for it to be ready for rental. This forced us to move out of it and in with Curtis's parents. It also forced us to pack up most of our stuff. We listed our house for rent at the end of June onto Craigslist and 24 hours later we had renters. I know God's hand was in that wholly. Our new renters seem really great. We worked tirelessly, and with lots of help from family, to complete the remodel by August 1. That day we handed over the keys to our house. We leave for Oklahoma at the beginning of September. I have so many different emotions right now. I couldn't really pinpoint exactly how I'm feeling, except for exhausted. I'm posting pictures of our house because it has been a huge project for us, and looks so much better than it had before.  I'm proud of how it looks now given the fact that we were working with a small budget to update it.

 Our biggest projects were the bathroom and the kitchen

my favorite bedroom: the bead board room