This past month has gone by so quickly yet so much has happened. Right after Thanksgiving we started packing our house and getting ready to move to California. Moving in the winter is terrible, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, especially right before Christmas. But, that is what we did and fortunately after many mishaps it all worked out.

The month was filled with packing and lots of late nights of game playing (trying to pack it all in before we left). We had a lot of fun and made some good memories that we will carry with us for a long time.




We got the moving truck on the 17th and started loading it up that night. We had some snowstorms a few days prior but fortunately everything was clear the day we loaded the truck. Glenn's brothers Roger and Andy came out to help with the loading and then to drive out with Glenn. But we we didn't luck out entirely. Our brother-in-law Jon was flying in on Thursday the 18th to help with the drive out which almost didn't happen.


There was suppose to be a winter storm warning for around 9 pm but kept getting pushed up until it was suppose to start at midnight. Jon's flight was scheduled to get in at 12. He got lucky and landed just as it started to snow. That night it snowed and snowed and snowed and when we woke up the next morning there was 16 to 18 inches of snow on the ground!




I'm pretty sure this was the biggest snowstorm we have had in the 7 and 1/2 years we lived there. It seemed like a terrible joke. They were still determined to leave, so we waited until early afternoon until the main roads were clear. The only problem was our road was not cleared at all. They started the truck and made it about 10 feet and the truck came to a stop. They ended up shoveling the truck out the entire length of our street and 2 hours later they were off. But the troubles didn't end there, an hour and 1/2 later I called Glenn to see how they were doing and he said they had to stop because the truck broke down. They had to have someone come and get them and they stayed at my parents house that night. The next morning they dove back out to the truck where Uhaul informed them that they would have to switch trucks. After transferring everything from a completely packed 26' truck they were on their way again. They decided to drive south to avoid the weather and drove straight through and made it to California mid day on Monday the 22nd. It took them 48 hours! Oh, and 2 and 1'2 before they got there the trailer malfunctioned and a wheel fell off. They called Uhaul and told the they were leaving it on the side of the road and left. Then to add to the problems, me and the kids were going to fly out on Christmas eve, but I got a phone call the night before from the airlines telling me that my flight was canceled and that they couldn't fly us out until Christmas night. Oddly enough my flight was the only one canceled. Glenn was able to find a flight on another airline and we made it there for Christmas. Minus all the mishaps, we made it there safe and are all together again.

We are now getting settled and loving the change of scenery and a little warmer weather (even though we are already missing friends and family).

This post is long overdue, so I will try to catch you up on what has been happening in the Harris household. Since I last blogged I think we were picking apples. Since that time we have had lots of family come and visit. It first started with Shelly and Billy, then Jana, Monica and the kids, Andy, and again Shelly and Billy. it has been a lot of fun having everyone come into town and sadly now the house is empty of visitors.

October was Bayley's birthday. She is now 6. Her birthday was pretty low key this year, but she was a pretty good sport about it. Lately she has been spending her time mostly reading and playing school with Isaac, right after she gets home from school (I guess she really likes school). She just discovered yesterday that her bottom tooth is loose. She was so excited she made a huge list of people that she need to call and tell.

November was Glenn's birthday and our Anniversary. We have now been married 9 years (where does all the time go). It has been nice to look back on the last 9 years and reflect on all the many memories we have made together and as a family. I am so grateful to have Glenn in my life. He his is a wonderful husband and father and I love him very much.

In the last couple months we have gone to the pumpkin patch,a WI football game, the Chicago Shed Aquarium, and the children's museum. Time seems to be going so fast, I can't believe Christmas will be here soon.

I'm posting a ton of pictures, but I think they ended up in random order.

This weekend was our annual apple picking excursion. The whole family looks forward to this ever year. It is the one tradition that we have made here that has stuck.

Andy and Tricia were able to take a pit stop in Wisconsin on their way too long road trip back west. It was so much fun being able to hang out with them this past week. Here are a few pics from the week.

Deep Thoughts

Here's a list of random thoughts by Bayley Isaac and Noah: Let me make a disclaimer before you read the following. At the time all of these quotes were pretty darn funny but I do realize that the majority of them should end with 'you had to be there'.

Bayley:
"Mom, you're beautiful, ON THE INSIDE."
(pretty soon she will be telling me I'm a sweet spirit!)

At the end of the first week of school I sat down with Bayley to talk about her day, which I had done the previous 4 days. I started to ask her what she did at school and how her day was when she stopped me abruptly and said, "I think we should make some rules, how about you can only ask me if anything new happened at school, because I think it's getting pretty boring telling you the same things over and over." I told her that was a good idea but I wanted to add that she could also tell me something good that happened and something bad. Then she said "Well there was something really bad that happened (of course as a mother my mind started going crazy anticipating what she was going to say), a boy in my class threw up."

"Mom, you're pretty, for a 29 year old."

"I wish our hands were glued together so we could go everywhere together."

"If you're good to me then I'll be good to you."



Isaac:

Bayley was excited for dinner so when she walked into the kitchen she said she thought this was the yummiest dinner ever. Isaac of course wanted to say the opposite so he said, "this is the YUCKEST dinner ever."

Isaac and Bayley took all the blankets and pillows from the entire house and put them in my closet. They then preceded to ask Glenn is they could have a sleepover in there. Glenn said yes, but only if the promised to go right to sleep. 45 minutes later I was about to fling open the closet doors and send them right to their rooms for not trying to go to sleep, but luckily I decided to stop and listen first. Isaac was sitting on his knees saying a prayer with Bayley. Isaac doesn't really like to pray out loud that much so I was shocked when he went on and on. He said a pretty lengthy prayer, but the best part was when he said, "Thank you so much for the privilege to be able to sleep in mommy's closet. Please help us to be able to go to sleep really fast." Needless to say I just walked away and gave them a second chance to fall asleep.

Isaac dancing around the house singing part of a Hannah Montana song over and over again, "Nobody's perfect, I gotta work it." Very funny.

Noah:

Noah walks around the house with the wii remotes yelling "Galaxy" (I think we play Mario Galaxy a little bit too much.

The many faces of Noah

Noah is quite a charactor. He takes after Glenn so much. He will be walking along and out of nowhere will look up at you with the silliest look. If only he could talk better, I'm sure there would be some witty one liner to follow the look.

Bayley started Kindergarten this week. She is such a funny little girl, she was so excited but tried to stay completely composed. I did pretty good and managed to hold back my tears as I said good bye to her. The first day went by slowly and by the time school was over we were all so excited to see her. When Isaac first saw her he ran up and buried his head in her chest and gave her a huge bear hug. I finally had to make him let go after a few minutes. Even though it will be an adjustment to have her gone all day I'm glad to see that she is really liking it.