We're here!

Well we made it to Michigan. Yay!! Unfortunately our internet in our apartment isn't working so I'm in the computer lab at the community center. Nathan and I left early Friday morning and arrived in Big Rapids Friday afternoon. We had 4 men from our Branch come and help us move in. One of the men actually lives right next to us in the next building. His wife is very nice and they have a son going into Kindergarten also and a two year old girl. So hopefully our kids will get to play with each other a lot. We spent Friday and Saturday unpacking and putting things away. I was working Nathan like a dog but we needed to get done as much as possible before the kiddos arrived Saturday night with my parents and Lauren. Thanks so much to them!! We needed the extra time without the kids to get everything put away. Sunday we went to our Branch. Our very small Branch. Everyone was very friendly though. Glad to have us here. We talked to the Branch President and he already assigned us talks. Sunday evening we went for a drive with my parents to look around the town and found a cute little lake with a place for fishing and a picnic area. Apparently there are a town of lakes, walking trails, parks, etc. So it's a great place if you love the outdoors. We may take a quick road trip this weekend to Lake Michigan. It's only about 1 hour away. The rest of this week is just running errands and getting familiar with the town. I signed Brooke up for Kindergarten yesterday. She was excited about that. It's all day and she rides the bus with everybody!! Elementary, middle school, and high school. The school she will be going to is just a school for Kindergartners and preschoolers though. That's about all for now. When our Internet starts working I'll post some pictures of our new home!

The WII

I don't think I've posted any pics of the kids playing the new WII. The first pic is Kendall playing tennis and the other two are Brooke playing the Hannah Montana game we bought her. They get to sing, dance, shop, and more. Brooke is also really good at bowling (we're talking she beats Ashlynn almost every time and beat Kendall once) and tennis. It seems to be a pretty good workout because I did the fitness one the other day and I'm still sore. Or maybe I'm just out of shape.

Weekend in Bloomington

We started our weekend on Friday with a Game Night hosted by our good friends, Lance and Alesha Durtschi. They wanted to have one last game night before we moved. They are such great friends and we'll miss them when we move! There were several other couples there as well. Here is the only picture I took with my good friend Christine, who I will also miss very much! But she's moving to San Diego so we'll definitely have to visit her.

Saturday we went to Bloomington for a family reunion of sorts for the Cazee/Ison family. One of Nathan's cousins just got home from a mission and since we're going to move this week his grandma wanted to get everyone together. We had dinner at a park and Brooke and Charlotte got to meet new cousins (2nd cousins). They had a great time playing with Suzy, 8, and Carrie, 4. They also got to swim at the hotel with them and had a great time.









This is a picture of 9 out of 10 great grandkids with Great Grandma Ison. The 10th is in Reno, Nevada.










These are just a couple cute pics I took of the girls while we were visiting with Great Grandma Ison on Sunday afternoon.

Book Club

I just went to my last book club tonight. Boy will I miss these ladies and good conversation when I move to Michigan. I'm glad I started going. I really feel like I have expanded my mind and read books that I never would have read otherwise. I haven't always finished the books, or liked the books, but I have enjoyed the company. Some of the books that we have read that I have loved is Gone with the Wind, Twilight, These is my Words, My Sister's Keeper, The Memory Keepers Daughter, and The Chosen. Other books we read are The Little Prince, Thomas Jefferson Education, A Good Yarn, The Counte of Monte Cristo, The Kite Runner, All Creatures Great and Small, and many more. I love the group of people that attended. It was a mix of young moms with small children and more "mature" women old enough to be our moms. It was great!! Thanks to Andrea for putting it together over a year ago. It started out with just three of us and has grown to 15 on some nights. Hopefully I can find a book club in Michigan or I'll just have to start my own. Anybody have a good book to read?

Indiana State Fair

We went to the Indiana State Fair today. We had lots of fun. We saw some farm animals, saw a Tiger show, a Circus show, and worked on a farm.

Look how tall that tiger is!!

This is the "Little Hands on the Farm". The kids pretend they're working on a farm and collect eggs, plant seeds, ride tractors, and milk the cow. Then they get $1 to get a treat at the market.

riding the tractor

milking the cow

The kids get to keep the hats.

Now we're going swimming cause we're hot.

A visit from our cousins

We have had lots of fun with our cousins from Idaho this week. Kendall and Ashlynn flew out here all by themselves! Brooke and Ashlynn have been getting along great. We've been swimming (as you can tell from the pictures), went to the library, shopping, movies, park, played the WII and have had lots and lots of fun. Ashlynn is 10 but still loves playing with Brooke and Charlotte. And I love her for it. Some days I didn't know what to do with myself. I wish I had a 10 year old girl at my house all the time. Brooke also likes Kendall too. She gets on his nerves sometimes because she tries to kiss him! Here is a cute picture of them after we went swimming at Indy Island:
Here are more cute pics of Ashlynn and the girls:



Here's one of Kendall cutting the grass. He wasn't too excited about it, but hey, it's a riding lawn mower.
Kendall says Nathan is one of his favorite uncles. Maybe it's because he plays air hockey with him and lets him ride his go cart.
In other news, we got a Cazee family picture taken today with all of Nathan's siblings and his grandma. Hopefully they'll turn out good. Afterwards, Rachel and Jenny wanted to take the girls to a carnival that the hospital in Bloomington was having. So of course they wanted to go. And we had a kid free day!! We ran lots of errands, ate lunch, cut grass, did laundry, went to dinner, and went grocery shopping. It was so nice not to lug kids in and out of car seats all day. Thanks Rachel and Jenny!!

We have 2 weeks left before our move to Michigan. We still haven't sold our house but we're still going!! We know we need to go to school and this is the time. No more waiting. We know that everything will work out.