What you've all been waiting for!!!

An emotional scene by Jake Rand titled "Farewell, My Beloved Man Cave".

It was emotional for me as well, to drive away knowing that I may never see the house again or the neighborhood. I got over it very quickly though when we were almost to the Guide-Meridian and realized we had to go back because we forgot something we had left in the freezer :) It felt silly instead of sad :)

Click to enlarge

The beginning of the longest drive we had ever taken. Nearly 3200 miles! Actually the kids handled the drive very well considering the fact that Aspen and Dante got sick and Azayda hates being in her carseat. I got sick too towards the end. That was fun :)

The car was totally trashed inside by the end of the trip, but we all made it in one piece. All I can say, is we better not ever have to go on a drive that far ever again. Unless. . . . . .

We get to stop and look at things and take our time and have some fun.

Here are the only pictures I took of the hotel experience. This was the second to the worst hotel we stayed in. The very worst was one that smelled like smoke really bad in a "non-smoking" room and at 6:30AM some people decided to stop right in front of our door to have a domestic dispute with some very colorful language flying in every direction. And of course, they were smoking. I went to the window which looked out into the hallway where they were standing and pounded as hard as I could without breaking the glass and informed the disturbers that there were some people and small children trying to sleep. I noticed that they also had a small child with them that was priveleged enough to hear what they were saying loud and clear. The man then took off running in one direction at a very fast pace.

Good times, good times :)

Here are some wonderful scenes from the drive. The only reason we stopped at the dinosaur was because it was directly on the side of the road. If our driver had his way, we wouldn't have stopped at all! Jake drove the entire way. We never even discussed taking turns because he probably knew that if I drove it would have taken a couple of days longer to get there :)

We finally arrived in Manchester, Connecticut at 9pm EST on Sunday night March 29, 2009. It took us about 4 1/2 days to get there!

Here the kids are lounging on Grandma and Grandpa's couches trying to recover from their illnesses. Azayda didn't get sick oddly enough. She is still having a hard time adjusting. She is very clingy. Hopefully she will get over that soon and be back to her normal self!

We had wonderful weather the entire trip! We kept hearing about all this snow that was supposed to be in all the places we drove, but I guess we just missed it. There was a little rain towards the end of the journey, nothing we were not already used to though.

Jake's first day of work! I get to drive him and pick him up every day because we only have one car now. He will start riding the motorcycle as soon as it gets warmer. The doors behind him are to the back of the little row of stores where his work is. He likes his job and has lots of stories to tell when he gets home each night. Many different types of people that want to sell their gold apparently.

Here are some pictures of the house, inside and out. We like the house a lot, but are very glad that we don't own it. There are quite a few things that need to be updated! The neighborhood is great! So many cool houses with character. I love it!

We got this table and chairs from the wife of the "Boss". She was doing a favor for the guy that lives next to them by buying this table and then she was doing us a "favor" by giving it to us! It is very. . . . . . nice. Actually, it is a very nice table that is very ugly. Hardly any scratches or anything on it. I guess the owner of it never really used it because it was too new and nice (about 30 years ago or so). Well of course we have children and it already has some rough spots. It also has 2 leaves and 2 more chairs! 8 chairs total! We really need to get a table cloth for it to try and keep it. . . . . . .nice.

Easter 2009

Grandpa Rand being silly!

We have a lot of wildlife around here! The big thing is. . . . . . . something furry and then of course a bunny rabbit. I guess the big thing lives under our deck ;0