At the end of April we ventured on up to the Salt Lake area. We stayed pretty busy visiting friends and family, but the main reason for our trip was because Corky's best friend from college was getting himself hitched! Corky and Ammon were seriously partners in crime when they were in college. I remember thinking one time that I wasn't so much dating Corky as I was dating "Corky and Ammon!" We both love him and are so happy for him.

These pictures were at Temple Square when him and Allison were getting their bridal/wedding pictures taken. They both looked wonderful and it was a gorgeous (but cold) day. My girls sure had fun though smelling all the flowers and playing in the water.



While up there, Corky got to see his mission president and his wife for the first time since coming home from his mission. Corky and President Johns have kept in touch over the years but it was so great for them to catch up face to face. They made me feel so nice and comfortable and I was so happy to finally meet them. After visiting them for a few hours, Corky and I took the girls to a place in Lindon called "Jump On It!" Oh my gosh, it was so fun! It was a huge warehouse just full of trampolines. We could have stayed all day.

Then it was the big day for Ammon and Allison! Everyone and everything was gorgeous. The wedding was beautful, the luncheon at the JSM Building was wonderful, and the reception was gorgeous! It seemed the day was flawless until Gracey puked in the kitchen at the reception. Luckily, Ammon's older sister is an E.R. doctor so she was the first to help me out, since not much grosses her out anymore. 5 minutes later nobody would have guessed it, it was all back to perfect.

Fun in Snowflake

In April we also went to Grandma Jean's and Old Grandma Ruby's house in Snowflake. Gracey got her stitches taken out (finally calming down enough to allow Grandma Jean to do it), both girls rode on Old Grandma's buggy, and Emily helped me sew a quilt.




Then we went and looked at all the cute new baby animals that were just born. The big hit though was the horse. Emily liked riding old "Spook" around.

And here is a reason that I am SO HAPPY to not be a cow. This cow had given birth only a few hours before and was now chomping away at the after-birth. Deee-sgusting!

Remember me mentioning Gracey had to get stitches? I am finally posting the pictures from that. Slacker!

Let's see where this goes.

It has been nearly a month since I posted, and even those posts weren't real meaningful. To be quite honest, I have just been in some sort of funk. Not just with blogging, but with everything. This move was a little bit more difficult than I had anticipated, but I am happy to say that things are moving up and I am getting really excited about a lot of things coming up.

I suppose I will start with why things have been a bit more difficult for me than normal. I am a social person. I love being around people all the time and I love when my children have the chance to interact with other children. Often times that means for me interaction with other adults. Living on a military installations, basically since being married, you can get used to a few luxuries. (My blogging/army wife friends Holly, Amber, Jessica, Mindy, Ashley and Christy are probably laughing at my use of "luxury" especially coming from Ft. Irwin!) Really though, you live on a military base surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of young families with children about the same age as yours. More importantly than that, everybody has a lot of things in common, such as spouses in the army that are working around the clock, that are deployed, that are preparing for a deployment, or just finished one. Even more so than all of that is the fact that most everybody is far away from where they call "home." You are surrounded by an immediate group of friends that would do anything for you and are eager to help, knowing you would do the same for them.

With all that said, living now in the civilian life, still not living near family or friends, the adjustment just wasn't as easy. I actually didn't anticipate it being this difficult. We moved into a ward that is full of empty nesters. I didn't see anybody there that seemed to be about my age nor did I see any kids that were my own kids ages. The first few weeks were quite difficult for me and my girls. We didn't know anybody until I got word of another ward's weekly playgroup. I, being desperate and un-shy, took my girls to it. It has been a blessing to finally have met other mom's and children.

Since then, I am so happy to learn that there are in fact young people in our ward. They were just either gone the day we arrived or I didn't notice since they either work with the youth or in the Primary. Things are looking up and looking promising and I can feel myself getting out of this slump that I have been in.

With all the hard adjustments that have been made, life is still really good. We have travelled a lot, visited lots of people, and gone to a lot of fun events such as weddings and graduations. I have an excellent husband who loves me and treats me better than I have ever deserved. I have two gorgeous girls to always play and laugh with. And we are comfortable in our new home. With all that I have to be grateful for, I feel like I am being very ungrateful when I gripe about "social issues"! I am just learning that I am better wife and mother when I can have adult interaction everyday with other mom's. I am just going to now have to work harder to do that. That is one thing that I definitely took for granted.


Anyway, just writing this makes me feel better. It feels good to explain why I have been absent from posting. I know that it might be good for others to be reminded how much women need each other. I don't consider myself needy or clingy....I just love to be surrounded by people.

Marjorie Pay Hinckley once said, "We are all in this together. We need each other. Oh, how we need each other. Those of us who are old need you who are young. And, hopefully, you who are young need some of us who are old. It is a sociological fact that women need women. We need deep and satisfying and loyal friendships with each other. These friendships are a necessary source of sustenance. We need to renew our faith every day. We need to lock arms and help build the kingdom so that it will roll forth and fill the whole earth."

Isn't that the truth?

This makes me giddy.

I must admit, I WAS NOT happy when "Cedric" was chosen as Edward. Watching that trailer though I am finally seeing it. Corky just rolls his eyes at me. He refuses to even watch the trailer but he promises he'll go to the movie with me. Now if only I could trick him into reading the book.

You know it.

We got carpet installed on Thursday. I love it, it turned out better than I had hoped. Wouldn't you know it though, not 2 hours after having the carpet guys leave, (1 hour and 37 minutes to be exact) Emily throws up on it. Am I bad mom for not even feeling sorry for her at the time. I mean, she wasn't dying. She just up-chucked some apple chunks from lunch time. I admit that my first words were "ARE YOU KIDDING ME? On my new carpet?" They probably should have been "Sweetie, are you okay? She forgives me though.

The past few days I have been fighting off the flu. Luckily the only symptoms have been nausea, achiness, and sleepiness. None of the yucky bathroom symptoms showed up (I kept my bowl near me at all times just in case...Heaven knows I wasn't going to puke on my brand new carpets like somebody else did!) Anyone Else's skin hurt when they have the flu? Even the affectionate rubbing on my arm from my husband was painful and I had to tell him to stop.

Lastly, our mail has been being forwarded to our new house for the last month. We have received all of our bills, bank statements, and medical statements (thank you Gracey and your stitches!) You know, all the things that you try to pretend don't exist so long as you don't see them. Well, a few days ago as I was checking our bank account online, I noticed that our credit card was charged for my next Proactiv kit. However, I forgot to change my account information to my new address. I have been anxiously awaiting its arrival, hoping the forwarding works with large packages as well as letters. I haven't received it and can't help but wonder if the new people in our old house our getting a free trial of Proactiv, courtesy of me! If I were them, I suppose I would forward on the bills too but conveniently forget to forward the good stuff. Don't they know that I know where they live? Okay, so I don't think my proactiv was stolen but I do want it soon. Those tiny little bottles of miracle are pricey.

Even though this might seem like a grump post, I am actually in a happy mood. My house is coming together, I got a chance to work on the beginnings of my garden, and I had a really enjoyable evening with the hubby and the kiddos. Just wanted to sit and ramble I guess.

Finally our house.

I have been really excited to post pictures of our new house, even though it is far from being all put together. New carpeting will be installed in a few weeks, we have yet to build the pantry, no painting has been done, and there are still lots of boxes to be unpacked. Despite all of that, we are really excited to be living here.

Where to start? Here is the front of the house.

As you walk into the front entry, this is the view of the living room.

This is the opposite side of the living room. Originally we thought we would put carpeting down in this room, but once we got here we realized it will be nice. Especially with it being a heavy traffic area.

Going back to where you first walk in, to your left is a small hallway where you will see the guest bedroom, the girls bedroom, the bathroom, and the coat/game and toy closet. This is what our soon to be guest room looks like now. At the moment it is our "catch all" room. Please excuse the disaster.

Right next to that room is the girl's bedroom. The bedrooms in this house are quite a bit smaller than our last house, so I am feeling this room is kind of crowded. We might be getting bunk beds, but that is a ways down the road. I am still undecided on how I want to decorate their room. I have never painted or done anything fun, so we will see how it turns out eventually.

Here is one angle of the room....

then the other.

Here is the girl's bathroom. The night we walked into our house for the first time, I immediately told Corky that I wanted to have the sliding shower doors taken off. It makes it a little difficult to bathe little kids with it, and more importantly the cute shower curtain that we have used for a couple of years would go to waste. We couldn't let that happen. Without having to ask him, that was the first "honey-do" that Corky did the next morning. Here is before.

then after!

Now here we have the office/craft room. It didn't look too bad at one point but then we had to shuffle a bunch of stuff around and now this is how it currently sits as we wait for a few more things to get done.

On to the dining room. I love how open it is right now, but it will be changing soon. On that bare wall in the back, that is where we will have the pantry built. You can see in the following picture that on top of the wall is potting shelf. We will build the pantry to be symmetrical to that, molding and all. We think it will look nice. Besides, I don't know how much longer I can go without having a pantry. You can only cram so much into a cupboard.
another angle.

As much as I am over my apple-themed kitchen that I have had for almost 5 years, I don't know what else I would do and I don't want a completely bare kitchen....so the apples stay for now. I don't mind them as much anymore, or maybe it is just that I am excited for my new kitchen.


Here is our master bedroom. What I love most is that I don't have to zigzag between my bed and furniture to get to the bathroom.

And finally, the master bathroom. Why is that the bathrooms always get finished off before anything else? In my case, because they are the smallest and less work. You spend hardly any time in them but walk away feeling like you have accomplished at least something.



And I think that is about it. Our carpet has been ordered and will go into each of the bedrooms. The backyard isn't anything to die for but it isn't nearly as small as I thought it was. It has no grass or landscape of any kind. other than weeds, random rose bushes, and what we think is an apricot tree. (our neighbor Bob at least thinks that is what it is)

Sorry for all the pictures but thanks for looking. We are excited and feel very fortunate to live here. Things worked out for us perfectly and we look forward to being here for a long time.

Goodbye "stuff"! See you soon!

This was April 1st. Gracey insisted on eating her lunch on the front porch so that she could maintain her front row seat to the moving truck and the movers!




Here she is saying goodbye to our stuff, trusting us when we tell her that she will see her princess dress-up treasure chest at the new house! (which I still haven't found in all my unpacking...no worries though. Still have about 25 more boxes to go through!)

There we were....

An almost empty house only filled with boxes and moving supplies. This was Monday, March 31st. The movers had packed up all the things for the day, waiting for the following day to load the truck. Not much else to do since we didn't have computer, tv, toys, or books....so its only natural to make use with what you have.

Corky and Emily found the dolly quite amusing! Also, doing acrobatics off of the empty entertainment center!

Sundays at Ft. Irwin.

All the things I wanted to do and talk about at Ft. Irwin, I saved until the very end. Very typical of me. The most rewarding and by far my favorite thing about living there was our branch. It was small, but not really small. I am pretty sure it qualifies to be an actual ward but we don't have a church building to call our own. The church owns some property just outside the military property, about 20 minutes away, but apparently, and it hasn't been comfirmed or denied, but tortoises have more rights than people and so there has been lots of problems getting it finally built. Anyway, so the branch has made do with what is provided by the military installation. While it has its trials, it is one of the many things that made the branch so unique.

Come along with me as I guide you through an LDS Sunday service.

We first start out at the Blackhorse chapel. It is a non denominational chapel that has about 20 rows. This is where we hold our sacrament meeting services. The children in this room outnumber the adults by a lot. Just when I felt my children were by far the worst behaving children in the room, I would look around and think to myself "Its like WWF in here!" All the parents seemed to be wrestling their little ones! It was so much fun and I will always miss the buzz that could be heard in the middle of the meeting of so many children.

After sacrament meeting, everyone gets into their cars and drives to the Catholic chapel where primary is held. We do our best to make this large activity room look like an LDS primary room!

After sharing/music time, the children then walk next door to this building. It is called the Family Ministry building. It is designated for the teaching of children of any faith. The walls are always scattered with pictures from children who are there in the middle of the week that are learning bible stories and coloring pictures about Jesus, Noah's Ark, Moses, Easter, etc. This building is also where we would have enrichment meetings most of the time.


While the children are in primary, the adults go to this building where Sunday school is held. There are some small classrooms that are in the back of a small bank. Sunday school is usually crowded when the men and women are combined (like I really know, I have been in Primary for how long?) But then they split for priesthood and relief society lessons, those classrooms are just the right size.


And here are a couple of pictures of just a few of the people that we love and will miss so much there.

This is Corky and the rest of the branch presidency. I had to literally track down a couple of them before they went home so I could get this picture! They are all good sports! Left to right Ben C. (ward clerk), Mark A. (branch president), Corky (2nd counselor), Eric S. (1st counselor)

This is me with a couple of my friends that worked in the primary with me. From left to right. Alisa Y., Me, Lori C., Mindy L., Kelly S., Carey A.

This branch will forever hold a special place in my heart.

Hello from Kingman.

So we are here. Our internet isn't set up in our house yet so I am at the library right now and time is limited. But a couple of quick things.

The library here is AWESOME! We have been here at least 4 times this week, looking at books and playing with puzzles. The story time is so much fun for thekids. Maybe because I am only used to Ft. Irwin's tiny library, but this one is great!

We were in our house for 4 days maybe when Gracey was playing around and sliced her forehead, right above her left eyebrow. Yep, it required stitches. Can someone please tell me this accident prone phases of hers will be over soon.

We love our house. We were both nervous since we only saw it once and didn't pay much attention to it. Now being in it, Corky and I both wonder why it didn't strike us as being "the house" in the first place.

We have eaten out more this week than we had in the past 12 months!! Gross.

And that is about all I have time for now! I can't wait to have internet at my house so that I can post pictures!! I have some from Ft. Irwin that I want to post and some new ones. So stay tuned my peeps!

Conversations worth noting.

Today, like everyday, I asked Gracey how her day was at school. Today she told me this story, I thought it was worth recording!

"Mom, today Ms. Tina said 'Come here, Grace.' and I said, 'Ms. Tina, it's not Gwace, it's Gwacey." and then I thought 'whateber!'"

When did my 3 year old become such a big girl?

Another story from tonight as we drove home from the bowling alley, Corky was telling Gracey that tomorrow a really big truck was going to come and load our things. He described the truck as being bigger than her head. She said "no, my head is small!" After a few seconds of Corky trying to explain that that is what he meant, I jumped in and told them both to "drop it." Gracey started crying and when we asked her what the matter was she replied "I don't want to drop my head!"

We can't help but smile.

So after getting a picture taken in your Easter dresses.....

Then looking at what the Easter bunny brought you.....

It's only natural to be found digging in the dirt in your pretty Easter dress.

Right?

recent loveys

Moonlight path shampoo, from Bath and Body works. I got this as a party favor from a baby shower and LOVE IT! It makes my hair feel really clean and I can smell it on my head for 2 days. I don't use the conditioner either, all the smell comes straight from the shampoo. Since getting this, I have used the other flavor of Coconut Lime Verbena but it doesn't linger nearly as nice as this scent does.Egg salad sandwiches. They are one of the best parts about having lots of hard boiled easter eggs hanging around.

My new Checi foot file thingy. This thing is amazing! My heels have never, ever been so smooth and soft. My feet are softer now than they are when I walk out of a professional pedicure.

My target brand knock off of Jergen's Daily Glow self tanning lotion. This stuff brings my skin down a knotch, from flourescent to bright white. It doesn't stink and it dries really quickly.

Nerds, the candy. My girls scored big with them this year at the St. George City Easter Egg hunt....I am reaping the benefits.

My space bags. They are saving me tons of room as I am packing our house up. I can put all my sweaters, pillows, blankets, socks, and underwear in them. Then I just vacuum all the air out and voila! They are flat as a pancake!

The Name Game

Corky Travis-
Yes, his real name is Corky. The first time we met and he told me his name, I said "is that your real name, like on your birth certificate?" (I was so tactful, right?) The story goes that his dad came home from some army training, at Ft. Irwin of all places, and told his mom that their next son would be named Corky. Apparently Corky's mom and Grandma Ruby (Corky's grandmother) fought him on that name for a long time but to no avail. Apparently the compromise was Jean, his mom, could pick whatever she wanted for the middle name. Travis seemed normal enough to balance out the first name I guess.

Morgan Velette (pronounced vull-(rhymes with full) et (rhymes with pet))
My first name is after the famous model from the 70's, Morgan Fairchild. My dad had a big crush on her and really like her name. Growing up, I wasn't a huge fan. Even though I always knew I was named after a woman, I still felt like Morgan was more of a boy name. I don't care too much anymore. My middle name is my mom's middle name and my great-grandma's middle name. At least I wasn't name after her full name, her full name was Bertha Velette Skilicorn. I definitely didn't like it growing up, but I liked that my middle initial was a V for some reason.

Gracey Mae
I have had this name picked out for my first-born daughter since I was about 12. Corky barely had a say in it. Luckily he liked it or else we would have had issues. For some reason, ending Gracey with an "ey" just seemed a little more girlie girl to me and something inside me knew that Gracey would be a tomboy, so that was intentional. Her middle name just seemed to flow with her first name. My grandmother's middle name is also Mae, so I figured I could spell it the same and to tie them together somehow.

Emily Velette (see pronunciation above)
This name is a little more random. All while I was pregnant with Emily, I thought we would name her Rachel. I LOVE the name Rachel but will admit now that something wasn't sitting well with me everytime I would tell people we were naming her Rachel. I hated that because I loved the name so much. One day when I was about 8 months pregnant with her, Corky came home and said "A name came to mind today that struck me. What do you think of Emily?" It was seriously like a weight was lifted of my chest. I responded, kind of sighing "Ohhh, I like it!" She was Emily Velette from there on out. What's kind of funny is the girl that I was a nanny for in Connecticut was named Emily, but I had never considered that name until that day Corky mentioned it. So its kind of fun to have that name tied to a special time in my life.

She just couldn't catch a break.

Gracey had quite the dramatic week last week. First, she and corky were wrestling in the front room one evening and somehow she had a run-in with the table. Here are pictures of the night of, and the next morning. You can see it wasn't a tiny little bump, but this is one tough girl. She makes her daddy proud.

As if the head bump wasn't bad enough, Gracey looses her footing at the playground. Gracey is the most coordinated 3 year old I have ever known, but she simply missed a step and ate a stair. Nearly knocking out her 2 front teeth and cutting her lip pretty badly. She freaked out from all the blood and I luckily before it started gushing out of her mouth too badly, I was able to put one of her front teeth back in its place. (gross, right?!) We ran across the street to my friends house where we were able to clean up a bit before heading our way to the E.R. There wasn't anything that could be done for her lip since it was all cut on the inside but they were concerned about her teeth. One of our closest friends and a member of our branch is a dentist so I told them that I would just take care of it, rather than waiting in the ER any longer. Our friend hooked us up with xrays and determined that she would be okay as soon as her loose teeth tightened back up.

The poor girl had a fat lip that pictures don't do justice for. The next morning she went to school like normal but I was scared that her teachers were going to think we were beating her. The bruise on the forehead and the fat lip are pretty suspicious looking. About 15 minutes after her school started, I got a phone call and was SURE that it was the school, or the police, or the social services, contacting us for questioning! Luckily it was our dentist friend, seeing how Gracey was doing.

Gracey is pretty much all healed up now. Her bruises are looking good. Her teeth are loose still and one of them is slightly darker, but we were told it would lighten up. They will probably remain slightly crooked but there isn't much we can do about that at this point and it really isn't too noticeable. We still think she is cute! :)

This deserves the happy dance.

Emily had her follow up last week at Loma Linda University Hospital. For the past month and half she has been taking an anti-siezure medicine that really seems to be doing the trick. This appointment was actually with the head of pediatric-neurology and she really knows her stuff. She was very happy to see Emily and to see her happy, unlike her personality when she stayed in the hospital. After her examination and questions she did decide to raise the dose of her medicine, but that is no big deal to us. It is a liquid and Emily has no problem taking it twice a day. Emily will be on this medicine, called Keppra, for at least 2 more years. After 2 years she will receive another EEG and then they will determine if she has outgrown her abnormality in her brain or if the medicine is just suppressing siezures. With all that said, Emily is as healthy as can be. She is happy, stubborn, sassy, and cute as ever.

Help us choose

Our friend took our pictures this weekend and now we need help deciding which ones to purchase. Also, this way I don't have to post picture of myself with my new haircut. I know, I know....I have changed my hair style what seems like a million times in the last year. We thought they turned out pretty good, considering the girls were going C-R-A-Z-Y!! They still aren't the finished product, he will touch them up and stuff when we decide which to buy (which won't be many because they pricey!!!) Go to http://www.leavittphoto.com/
then click on VIP Client and are top secret password is "whipple"!

Big news that is long overdue

The week that Emily spent in the hospital was quite stressful to say the least, and not just because of obvious reasons. That was a week that Corky had received some job offers that we needed to decide on. Going from the army to civilian life is quite different already. In the army when you change jobs, the army tells you what you will be doing and where you will be going. You just deal with it. Not really any decisions on your part are required. Now that Corky has more freedom in what he will be doing, we found it to be quite stressful. We really wanted to get it right and go somewhere that we would be so excited about. We narrowed it down to 3 options: Phoenix, AZ, Fishkill, NY, or Kingman, AZ. In my head, Kingman could have been scratched completely off the list. I had only driven through Kingman a few times but it had nothing that I knew of to be desired. However, the job opportunity for Corky was really great. That is the ONLY reason it stayed on the list. It was our "backup" just in case the other places didn't work out.

I wrote this in a notebook a few weeks ago, try to follow.

"You know when something that you don't want to feel right, feels right? And the thing that you want to feel right actually doesn't feel right. So you pretend that the thing that doesn't feel right actually does feel right, in the hopes that it will eventually really feel right. That is where Corky and I are at right now. I really wanted Phoenix to work out, but I know that Kingman is where we are supposed to go right now."

We were both so ready to move to Phoenix that we went down house hunting one weekend while Corky had another interview. I looked at 11 houses that would be have been excellent and I was so excited about. As soon as I got back to my brother in law's house, I got this really stressed out feeling that I couldn't pin down. Audie and Candice probably remember me grilling them about Phoenix and that I was wearing my heart (and stress) on my sleeve. Anyway, Corky had many of those same stresses.

Then of course, the next day was when Emily had her seizure. That gave us a few more days to think more about where we should move to. After some long talks and prayer on both mine and Corky's parts, we had a very strong yet peaceful feeling about Kingman, AZ. The day after Emily was released from the hospital was the day that Corky accepted the job there. He will be a department manager for Southwire. It is a manufacturing company that produces copper and aluminum wiring for residential, commercial, and industrial buildings. He is really excited about the job and there is great potential for him to grow with it.

So after accepting the job we researched homes online in the Kingman area. We went down for a day and looked at about 12 houses. After spending the entire day looking at house after house, we decided on the very first home we looked at (isn't that how it always works?) It was a foreclosed home that was in great condition. We put an offer on the home and the bank accepted. We are really excited about it, I wish I had some pictures to post. It just had its inspection this week and everything looks great. Corky now just has a "honey-do" list with little things like a leaky faucet, slow drain, etc. We will immediately be putting carpeting in throughout the house and will build a new pantry, but other than that there isn't much else to do.

Re-reading my little note I wrote to myself a few weeks ago, I have to laugh. Wouldn't life just be so much easier if we all just went with our gut more often and followed our first instinct? I know I could have saved myself from all that stress if I wouldn't have tried so hard to make what didn't feel right, feel right. I suppose though I wouldn't have learned a lesson, nor would I have such a confusing paragraph written down in my journal that I will be able to always laugh at.

Since committing to Kingman we have been talking to residents and reading a lot on the city website. It actually sounds like it will be a really great place to live. It has a lot of tourist attractions nearby, some great schools, and men, women, and co-ed sports leagues, which will be SO FUN! It only has about 40,000 people (I think?) and so it isn't tiny like it used to be but still has that small-town feel. Not to mention, it is closer to both my family and Corky's family.

Kind of funny how the very thing that I dreaded a month ago, I have completely changed my tune about.

March resolution

I am making a goal of writing a new blog entry at least twice a week.....starting tomorrow. Hopefully. (such conviction and motivation, right?)

Just like my diet, it always starts tomorrow!

This was in Phoenix about a month again when we were down visiting.

We are teaching our girls right.