Last Post from Silver City

Well, we leave for Memphis tomorrow! We had actually planned on leaving Monday morning, but... plans change!

So this will be my last post from here in Silver City. I will miss this place and the friends I have met here so incredibly much! My ward has been excellent and I LOVE these people!

So I decided just to include a few of my favorite photos from Silver City over the last 1 year and 10 months!

Some may not know, but the first 2 months we lived in Silver City we lived in an old single-wide trailer outside of town. It was kind of in the middle of nowhere and well, it was a very difficult two months. But I love this picture. Dave calls it our "white trash" phase picture!

Penny Park: one of our favorite attractions!

Caroline and Hannah : the early years!

Big Ditch Park. Caroline is about 10 months old in this picture.

Last night, our we had a barbecue with some friends and they got us this cake! I almost cried - They are so sweet!

Amy, Serena, Me, Courtney, and Lori

Every day this summer we've gone to the park for free kid's lunches! It has been so great to meet up with friends (for both me and Caroline) every single day. the kids have a blast and the moms don't have to worry about lunch!

I have a ton more but I'll spare you! Silver City we will miss you. I wasn't able to see everyone before we leave to say goodbye because it's been pretty rushed this week since we moved up our moving day. But I love you all! Thank you so much to all of our Silver City friends. You have helped and influenced us for good more than you will ever know. Thank you. God Bless you.

yard sales and farewells

Well, last week was quite a week. We spent most of it organizing and preparing for our yard sale on Saturday. Since U-Hauls are expensive and gas to fuel them are even more expensive we're renting a large trailer that David's sister-in-law will pull behind their SUV to Memphis. So we have very little room for our stuff. We needed to sell most of our furniture and tons of other junk so all last week we were sorting through our things getting ready for our yard sale. I was shocked by how many people came and the junk that people wanted! Anyway, I was very pleased with the outcome, but we were so exhausted afterward! Now, we are busy packing and cleaning, getting ready to move in one week! Crazy! I'm excited, scared, nervous, anxious and tired!

(Our disaster of a house all last week!)

Also last week we said goodbye to our very good friends The Evans. We met the Evans back in Thatcher at EA. We got married within a few months of each other and were in the same ward as newlyweds. There daughter, Hannah, was born about 4 months before Caroline.

Then we met back up a year later and we've lived in the same apartment complex for the last year and a half and have gotten to be great friends! It's been so great to have another family that we shared so much in common with! We traded babysitting nights, had dinners together, and lots of play-dates! Hannah was Caroline's first real friend! Driving home from church yesterday Caroline said, "Hannah no in nursery. Hannah sick? Hannah no at church!" :(

We will miss them sooooo much! Good Luck in Indiana, Evans! We miss you already!

(The Evans and the Martins. Notice Dave and my conflicting hats!)

Arizona Part 3: Thatcher

I must say, I love visiting Thatcher. I love sitting in Dave's parents' backyard and watching Caroline play with the dogs in the grass while the wind chimes play in the breeze. It always feels like I'm in a Norman Rockwell painting! And I'm sad we won't be back there for a while. Caroline LOVES going to Nana's house!

Caroline LOVES to play with Nana and Grandpa's dog, Kuli (who really just licks her constantly - still, she loves it!)

We were so glad to be able to hang out with our friends, Amanda and Garet, who recently moved back to Thatcher. They got married just a couple of months after we did and we lived next door to each other for a while. Some of my favorite Thatcher memories were with them! They have a super cute little girl now named Paige!

Caroline loved playing with Paige and making her smile. She's going to be a great big sister some day!

Here's a video of Caroline and Kuli. Seriously, they were like this ALL week long!

My brother, the rockstar!

As long as I can remember, my brother, Jeff, drummed his fingers on everything! The seat in front of him in our van, the bench in front of us in sacrament meeting, the kitchen table, you know, stuff that drives mothers crazy! But I always thought it was cool to have a brother that had a real drumset in his room and played in a real rock band!
Well, now my brother's married and has 4 cute little girls, but he's still drummin'! His band "Citizen Saint" just recorded an album and I think it sounds awesome!

They also just entered a contest through fox news in Tucson. All the bands in the contest have a video on Fox's website. Listeners view the videos and vote on their favorite. Voting takes place on Mon. June 16th only. Then, the top five bands compete in a battle of the bands at the Rialto Theatre in Tucson!
SO, if you've got a free minute or two on Monday, check out http://www.fox11az.com/ Click on "Music Melees" and view the videos. If you like what you hear from "Citizen Saint" then
vote for my bro!

Like I said, I love their music and think they have a great sound! I'm proud of my brother for pursuing something he's passionate about, all the while being a responsible and hard working father, husband, brother, son, and member of the Church.

Good job and good luck Jeff!

http://www.fox11az.com/video/meleevideo-index.html?nvid=254093&shu=1
(this link should take you straight to a song by Citizen Saint. I'm trying to figure out how to put more of their songs from their album on my blog, but I'm not sure how. Any help you expert bloggers?)

Arizona Part 2

We spent Saturday and Sunday in Gilbert with Dave's brother, Tad and his family. It was so nice of them to let us crash there because they have a 4 year year old, twin 2 year olds, and Joy is expecting! They're remodeling their bathroom too, so they shared their one bathroom with us!

(Caroline, Derek and Paige - Kevin was a little hard to photograph!)

We were able to see Dave's brothers Brad and Greg too. Greg's family recently grew - they have twins that are 18 months and Carol just had baby Cooper six weeks ago! It's so fun that both Dave and My families are growing and Caroline seems to get a new cousin every couple of months! We're trying to do our part in adding to the cousin count, but we'll see! I actually had a dream last night that Dave's sister-in-law, Marianne, told me she was having twins! (I don't think this was one of those premonition dreams. I think it was more like an "i wish" dream!)


Anyway, it was a fun, noisy, too-fast weekend. Now we're in Thatcher and are looking forward to spending time with Nana and Grandpa and getting to see some of Dave's friends!


Silver City, I haven't forgotten you! I so miss my Silver City friends, but I must admit, I'm not looking forward to our return simpy because it means I have to unpack...and then pack and pack some more!

(Caroline is getting used to traveling and living out of a suitcase! I'm afraid it's not about to end anytime soon - three weeks until our trek to Tennessee!)

One Last Trip to Arizona

I can't believe that it's June and we're moving in a few weeks! Before we become Memphis-ites, we decided to make one more long trip to Arizona to bid farewell to some friends and family. We started our trip with a special visit in Sierra Vista for my niece, Brooke's, baptism! I love going to Sierra Vista - I keep hinting to Dave that we should settle down there some day!

(Brooke, Holly and Caroline, matching dress color - a coincidence!)

Next we went to Tucson to spend the rest of the week and what a week it's been! We've been swimming with Caroline's Uncle Joe and Aunt Brooke and cousin Brandon (whom she loves to play with!)

(Windy, but still a fun time! You can see that Caroline couldn't wait to get in the water! Not even to take a quick picture!)

We had an impromtu going away party at my br0ther, Jeff's, house.

(Andrew, Susan, Joe, Dave, and Jeff - me and my brothers minus Robert who lives in Germany)

Jeff and Lisa's house always seems to be the happenin' place! They're great hosts like that!

My favorite part of the evening was watching Dave hula hoop with my nieces! I couldn't believe how good these girls were at it!

(Jeff's daughters Kailee, Evyn, and Noelle always yell "Buddy!!!" whenever dave walks in the door!)

One very special part of this week was Caroline's hair cut! I've been wanting to do this for a while, and I think Dave finally got tired of having to wait 10 minutes every time we needed to go somewhere to fix Caroline's hair! We were both really nervous about it, but she did so good and was actually really excited about it!

(Before)

(During)

She kept swinging her hair around afterward and telling people, "Lookit my haircut!"

(After!)

I'm really happy with her haircut! I think it makes her look older too. We went to the bank afterwards and the teller thought she was 4!

Well, our adventures are half over. We are on our way to the Phoenix area tomorrow to visit Dave's brothers. It's been so nice to spend this time with my family. I'm going to miss them all so much. We live 3 hours away right now and that's already too far!