Livin' Large in the Big Rig!

           So here we are, back in the desert. And, it is very hot here. Conveniently, it was quite hot in Pasadena right before we moved and there were fires surrounding the area and layering it in smoke. So, that helped me to only get a little teary as we drove out of town. It was very sad for us to leave California as it had really felt like our home now. It feels like it was just yesterday that we were moving to Pasadena with a 9 month old embarking on what we called "The California Experiment," and here we are moving back to AZ with two 2 1/2  year olds two years later. It definitely feels like an end of an era. We made some spectacular friends (resulting in teary goodbyes last week!), went to nearly every kid-friendly L.A. attraction, spent countless days at the beach, and grew tremendously as a family. Now, we are ready to open a new chapter - and it was fun to start it by seeing some good friends and spending some wonderful time with family this weekend here in AZ.

Here are some notables from our arrival:

- The kids are in grandparent-attention heaven. Enough said.

- I didn't realize that since we had been living in apartments for most of their lives my kids didn't know what a garage door looked or sounded like. Thus, the first time we put it down they adorably ran in fear. B is still not too sure about it.

- T kept saying "I wanna go back to my house, Pasadena!" for the first couple of days but that seems to have subsided. B more understands that this is our new place and appreciates her room :)

- They also hadn't experienced a monsoon, so last night when the thunder and lightening started T was pretty terrified (and subsequently snuggly!)

- T has slept two nights in his big boy bed! The first night he was up once and last night not at all! Miracle? It just may be. We were excited for the kids to have their own rooms to hopefully promote better sleep. What has been exciting though is that J and I have our own room together again without a little boy between us. Here's hoping it keeps on like this.

- We are happy to be in AZ since it means that J can more effectively do his job at LIA. There is some very exciting stuff going on with their organization, and I am so proud of his hard work!

In fact, they were just featured in Relevant magazine! Click here to check it out and go to page 26!