{Tearful Good Byes}

There are so many wonderful things about living in California that I will miss terribly!  We have the best weather ever, which allows us to play outside all year long.  We are a quick drive to the ocean and to beautiful San Diego.  We live ten minutes from huge outlets with my beloved Kate Spade store.  The temple is a short 20 minutes from our home.  Seeing palm trees with a mountain landscape is breathtaking.  Kenny's work hours are unbelievable!   He is able to leave 5 minutes before work,  enjoy a 2 hr. lunch break, and then be home around 5.  I love our home and the wonderful culd-e-sac we live on with a park right behind us. 

 However, leaving all that behind doesn't come close to how hard it is saying good bye to our amazing friends!  I have never had as close of friends as the ones I made in California. The minute we moved here we were welcomed with open arms and were treated like family!  I have many wonderful memories and will forever cherish the friendships made in California.  They day we drove away was filled with tears.  Leaving my friends was so emotional for me and it hurt to say good-bye.  I plan on visiting them often and hope they will come to Colorado to see us.  However, it won't be the same as being able to just drive to meet up at the park or sit under my neighbors tree.  

Before I left I made a list of things I had to do with my friends!

Wilson Phillips Concert in the park!

Beach day!

All you can eat seafood!!!

A Frugo's Farewell!

Eating as many of Melina's Andes Mint Cupcakes as I could!  They are bit of heaven in my mouth!!!

Some of My favorite California Friends!!!!

~as I'm typing this the tears are rolling down my cheeks~

 I will always remember Crissa as my decorating go to person and my personal dresser!  

 I will always remember Melina for her amazing Cupcakes and the spiritual giant she is!  I loved our girl nights out with her!

 Oh How I love me some Ugapo's!!!!  Carrie is crazy (in a good way) and that is why I Love her!

 Tui's chopped suey and ribs were divine!  Nobody cooks like he does.   He told me that a talk I gave during sacrament meeting was what brought him back to church.

 Nia was like an Aunt to my kids.  She was always willing to take over as mom when she was around!  And baby Pua was my favorite!!!  I wanted to throw her in a suitcase and bring her with me to be Mya's sister!

 When I think of Jessica I think Chocolate!!!  She always surprised me with her yummy desserts and was always willing to take Ian off my hands!

 Yarnida, my wonderful neighbor!!!  Whenever I heard a knock at my door around dinner, I always prayed it was Yarnida with a plate of authentic Mexican food!  She taught me how to make ceviche and reminded me of a pioneer woman!

 I loved helping Amber organize and having her be my visiting teacher.  She and Ryan were great people to work for.

 I will always remember Anna's beautiful voice and sweet personality!

 Julia and I clicked from the day we met at the park and she asked my advice on potty training!  I loved watching Mya and her daughter Elliot develop a close friendship.  I will miss our dance parties and hours spent at the park.

 When I think of Christy I think of Makayla and Tristan.  They were the best neighbors and our kids played with each other every day!  I loved looking out my window and seeing our kids running together around the culde-e-sac.

Sunny Lynn has been my dear friend since college.  I totally get her personality and we always have some good laughs when we are together.  I've watched her babies develop into teenagers and love her kiddos like my own!  I will miss our talks and our nights out with the hubbies!  Whenever I need a good laugh, she is the first person I will call!

Darcy is my go-to girl!  She is full of spunk, creativity, energy, fun, and Love!  She is my party planner guru, my photographer, my spa partner, and my Sunday night walking partner.  We have been pregnant together and have raised our kids together.  Mya will forever be in love with "baby Wyatt!"  I will miss our Sunday night dinners and sitting around their fire pit talking into the evening.  Kenny will miss his bromance with Shawn!  They made us feel like apart of their family and we will forever be grateful to them for including us.

I will miss my hair dresser Terrie...not sure if I will ever find someone to replace her!

I have many other special friends from California, but did not get my picture with them.   Send me your pic and I will add an entry for you!!!

 Kenny didn't go around taking pictures of him and his friends like I did, but he did get a picture of his co-worker Kathy because I told him too!

Kenny's coworker Kathy has a special place in our hearts!  She is mentally handicapped and works at the vet clinic tearing newspapers.  We took her out for lunch every Christmas and drove her to the work parties.    She is a pleasure to be around and always makes us laugh.  She always said, "Kenny is my favorite Dr.!"  

He told her to make a funny face and she said she didn't know how!  He helped her :)

The day before we took off, we were "heart attacked!"

Cute hearts were placed allover our front porch.  

 We felt very loved!  

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 It was hard for me to say good-bye to friends, but it was heartbreaking to see my kids say their good-byes.  I will never have my kids move again!!!  I don't think I could emotionally handle it!

Drew's favorite friend Robbie!

Ian's favorite classmate Max!

Owen and a few of his favorite buddies Mason, Orin, Landon, and Anderson!

Mya's first love and neighbor Luke!

I love my friends like family and am grateful for their friendships!  What a blessing to have these people in our lives for 9 years!  

{Life Changes}

When we moved to California from Manhattan, Kansas with our then 9 month old baby Drew, we thought of it as our "adventure in life!"  We told ourselves we would be there only 2 years tops.  Little did we know that we would fall in love with our little town of Beaumont, Kenny's job at Banning Veterinary Hospital, and more than anything, the wonderful friends we made!  We have been in California now going on 9 years and have loved every minute of it!

Kenny's career goals have always been to own his own Veterinary Practice.  He felt like that where he was in his career, that he was now ready to take that next step.  We prayed very hard about this big decision and always asked that we would be led in the right direction.

Kenny grew up in Grand Junction, Colorado and has a great love for it.  He had a very good childhood.  He grew up having amazing church friends, being able to hike on the Colorado National Monument, and to raft in the Colorado river.  Every time we came back to visit his parents he would be giddy like a kid in a candy shop!  He has always dreamed about moving back and raising our kids there too.  Plus, Grand Junction is much closer to all of our family.  We can now jump in our car and go for long weekend trips, which was the hardest part about living in California.

He always kept his ears open about Veterinary practices for sale in Grand Junction.   We decided to really start looking there seriously.  The journey we went on to purchase a practice was a whirl wind of emotions and stress!  When we were visiting family last summer, we went and looked at All Pets Center.  We went to dessert with the owners the Heidemans and were impressed with their business, but weren't sure at that point if we were ready to leave California.  Then last Christmas Kenny started corresponding with an older Dr. who was ready and willing to sell his practice in Grand Junction.  We had a lawyer drawing up papers and had talked with banks about a loan, and then his wife talked him out of it and we were left thinking maybe this wasn't meant to be.  Kenny was frustrated with how things worked out, so he started thinking of just starting his own practice.  We knew this was a riskier business venture, but a location was decided on, and we were again able to get a loan.  However,  the  landlord who we were working with didn't respond for several months to the terms we had requested.  Kenny however kept thinking this is going to happen, so I had already found a great family, the Griffin's, to rent our house!  We were just waiting to sign the papers and to start construction.  We prayed and prayed and felt comfort from going to the Temple and we both felt like we were supposed to move our family to Grand Junction.  We relied on faith as we started packing up our house, not knowing if Kenny was going to be able to start his own practice.   One morning he felt inspired to call the Heidemans and see if they had sold All Pets Center yet.  As we waited to hear from the landlord, he contacted them and we were surprised to hear that they had yet not sold it.  My "perfect" and supportive accountant father and our trusting lawyer spent hours going over paper work about All Pets Center and they both agreed that this was a successful practice, but that they were asking too much $ for it.    We decided to make an offer that we believed was fair based on their numbers.  At this point our stuff was being moved to a storage unit for the Griffins to move in!!!  We negotiated with them back and forth for weeks.  We moved out of our house and prepared for my family reunion, and then made plans for me and the kids to go to Grand Junction to live with his parents so the kids could start school.  We didn't even know if this was going to happen, but we felt like this was the practice we were meant to buy, and we felt so good about it.  We left our house, put all of our belongings in a storage unit, and went to Branson, Missouri to vacation with my family.  I will not forget being in the amusement park, Silver Dollar City, playing in the Tom Sawyers river when we received an email saying the Heidemans accepted our offer!!!  My fathers advice was right on the money and he helped us out so tremendously in being able to purchase this practice for a fair amount.  We will forever be grateful for his love, support, and time he spent on this.  The same day we knew we were able to purchase All Pets, the landlord contacted us and said they agreed to all our requests for starting our own practice.  He had left us hanging for so many months, so by this time we heard from him, we felt much better about All Pets Center option.  Our prayers had been answered on the Lord's timetable not ours!  We feel like this practice made the most sense.

It was also at this time, during our process of figuring out what business path we were going to take, that our boss in California's son was diagnosed with a brain tumor.  With Kenny not leaving California, when we had wanted to, he was able to stay and work for another month and be there at Banning Vet, while his boss was concentrating on his son.  The Lord has a plan for all of us.  We are reminded to be patient and to pray knowing that the Lord answers our prayers and feels the desires of our heart.

Its been amazing how quickly everything came together.  We were worried our family would be separated for several months, however they should be able to get the paperwork all done in 3 weeks!   The Heidemans have been a dream to work with and we are so grateful to them for allowing us to buy their Veterinary Practice.

So a lot of our summer we were busy PACKING!!!

 I put the boys hard at work moving our food storage out from under the stairs.  They worked great as a team encouraging each other as they lifted the heavy boxes.  It was cute to see them enjoying working so hard together.

 Drew and Ian did the lifting and Owen and Mya did the climbing!

 They quickly made a fort out of the new empty space.

 They spent hours under the stairs playing. We should have made that room accessible to them years ago!

 The never ending boxes....

Our house was filled to the ceiling with boxes!  I didn't realize how much stuff we accumulated over the last 9 years!

 It took several trips to haul all of our belongings to the storage unit!

 Grateful for strong boys!

The moving Crew!!!

 Our storage unit was packed to the brim!

We can't wait to have a moving company move our stuff to Colorado and not have to do it ourselves!

Colorado Here We Come!!!

{Summer Days}

Our summer has been extremely busy.  We have tried to cram as much fun as we can into a short couple of months.  

 Ian received an award from school and we had been saving it, so we went on a date to Denny's so he could cash in his reward.  Mya was excited to join our date and was grateful that Ian was sweet enough to share his shake.  I am so proud of Ian!!!  He is a very strong willed child, who know what he wants,  and is a leader in many ways.   He can also be such a sweet brother!

 We spent hours in the water going from coolers filled with water, to pools, to splash pads, to water  parks!

Ian and Drew had a great day at Knott's Soak City with Tristan.

Ian and his good friend Max were inseperable most of the summer!

Owen finally got up the courage to try the water slides!!!  It took some bribing, but he eventually went down the slide and he loved it!

Mya followed "Baby Wyatt" all over the pool.

After all the swimming you work up quite an appetite and what better way to cool off than with Kona Ice!  The minute the kids heard the music playing from the truck, they grabbed their wallets, and took off running!

This was one of my favorite moments of the summer!  I loved cuddling up with Drew outside to read!

Owen had his first slumber party with Anderson!!!  He stayed the whole night and asked to stay over every night for the rest of the summer!

Ian ate the largest donut I have ever seen at Max's house.  His mom is the coolest and feeds Ian anything he wants!

Drew was happiest when he was with his friend Robbie!  These two love to play video games together.

 He also constructed many cities.  He loves to build and then never plays with what he constructs.  Maybe he'll be a city planner!

We hauled the kids to the drive-in to watch Monsters University 2.

Daddy and Drew playing some football as they waited for the movie to begin.

When Mya wasn't busy swimming, she was busy playing with her neighborhood friends!  Her and Makayla were quite the artists!

We played until the point of exhaustion!

I'll be sad when the long summer days are over!  I love the fun time I have to spend with my kiddos at home and not having to stress about homework or packing lunches!  I sure do have the greatest kids in the world!