Civic Duty

Well, it took an hour and half, but Zac and I (with Abby, of course) early voted today. Even though she's only two, I think it's important for kids to see their parents vote. My parents always took us with them and would talk to us about how important voting is. My dad served four years in the Air Force, is a government employee and one of the most patriotic people I know. He's definitely made it a point to instill patriotic values in all four of us kids. I hope to do the same for mine.

So...I'm not watching the news anymore until November 5. I can't do any more about it - except pray that everyone else makes the right decision. :o)

the TRAIN!!!

Last Saturday night, we rode the Trax to Salt Lake. The Trax is basically an above ground subway - a train. Abby loooooved the train! She wants to take the train to Wal-Mart, to church, home and she wants to take everybody on the train - Hope, Nana and Megan should all make plans to ride the train. :o)

Our reason for going to SLC was to visit The Gateway. Here's the description from the website:

The Gateway is Salt Lake City's only open-air contemporary destination that delivers the ultimate in shopping, dining, and entertainment. Shop and dine at over 130 stores and restaurants.

Visit the beautifully restored 1908 Union Pacific Depot featuring early French Renaissance architecture and original artwork. Also, enjoy the Olympic Legacy Plaza featuring the "dancing waters" of the Olympic Snowflake Fountain that is overlooked by a classic clock tower.

It's pretty cool. Going on our neighbor's recommendation, we ate dinner at California Pizza Kitchen. It was yummy. Very fresh tasting. We had Avocado Club Egg Rolls and the Buffalo Chicken and California Club pizzas. Abby ate chicken and broccoli - two of her favorite things! It took us longer than we'd planned to get to the Trax depot, so we were late getting there. By the time we got there, a lot of the stores were closing. So we just walked around and looked. It's a reeeaaallly cool shopping center and it's so HUGE! We got cookies for dessert at Ben's Cookies. Abby thought it was pretty cool to have a big cookie all to herself.

That was pretty much our evening. Just hanging out and seeing some more of our surroundings. I figure we'll pretty much be tourists for the next year or so. But that's ok - we're having fun. :o)

Cooking...

Don't get me wrong, I REALLY love our apartment. It's very nice. But I have one complaint.


I HATE ELECTRIC STOVES!!!!!!


Especially the ones with the coil tops. GRRRRR. I miss my wonderful gas stove that was in my house. :o(

Weird...

I finished posting the Apartment Tour post. But (I guess) because I saved it and then went back to it, it posted in its original spot. So scroll down, please...

Upcoming plans

Ok, this weekend I got griped at more than a few times for not updating the blog. By e-mail, on Skype, on the phone.....so I figured I'd better get on it. I was waiting until I'd posted about our whole trip before I posted current stuff - but I'll just do regular updates and post the whole story once I get it written out. I'm working on typing it in my journal (ldsjournal.com - it's awesome!!) and then I can post it here with pictures. I typed up a Tour the Apartment post, but my computer is being retarded and won't upload pics. So I'll have to do that one later.

For now, I will tell you how EXCITED I am to be going home to visit next month. I'll be 'teenager sitting' for Zac's little sisters while his parents go to Baltimore. Not the whole time, just the last half of my visit. But so far, I've got a lot of plans coming up. I'll be gone Tues, Nov 11 - Sat Nov 22. Here's what I've got going so far:

Thurs, Nov 13
The kids are out of school - I think Kirsten and Michelle may have plans for me :o)
A baby shower for Natalie and baby Tyler!

Fri, Nov 14
Sherry is off work and Hope is taking off - spending the day with my sisters!
Scrapbook night at church (unless Christine comes in...)

Sat, Nov 15
Hopefully Christine can make it to Little Rock...

Tues, Nov 18
If I can make it, it's Relief Society Night at Church - also the day my in laws leave for Baltimore

Friday, Nov 21
TWILIGHT MOVIE!!!! I can't believe I forgot this one - thanks for the reminder, Jennifer!!

And of course there are all the visits to see the grandmas and all that good stuff. A busy trip! Abby and I will miss Daddy while we're gone, but we're excited to see all the family!

Apartment tour

The story of finding our apartment....this will jump you ahead of what I've posted so far, but that's ok...

We got into Draper on Friday, Oct 3. We spent that evening and Saturday looking at apartments. We looked at a basement apt on Friday, but decided against it. The older man who was renting it was super nice, but it was sooo small and didn't have a bathtub, just a shower.

Saturday morning we called TONS of places. Zac and I went to look at a few while Mom stayed with Abby in the hotel. We looked at the Adagio apartments first - it's right across the freeway from Zac's store. The price was higher than we wanted, but so was every other place!

We drove to Riverton, the next town over, and looked at another apt that was about 10 miles from the store. It was a 3 bed/2 ba for what we're paying for a 2 bed/2 ba; we figured an extra room would be great for scrapbooking stuff and possibly a future Elliott addition. (NO I'm NOT pregnant - we're just planning ahead.) But, when we got there, we just weren't terribly impressed. We asked if there were any 2 bedrooms available and the lady said, "Actually, I just had one open up. The stove caught on fire, so the people are moving out and it'll be open after we do the repairs." Hmmm. At this point, my father-in-law (who works in fire/water restoration) probably would have had a small stroke. We managed to hide how appalled we were. But then, while we were standing in the 3 bedroom model she was showing us, her knee bumped the bar and the edging fell off!!! "Oh, I'll get that fixed," she said. Oh, we'll find another place, we thought.

We went back to the van, said a prayer and felt really good about living at the Adagio. We love it. The apartment is slightly bigger than our house was (1052 sq ft) and we are reeeaallly loving having a second bathroom!! So, please excuse the mess and allow me to show you around....


That's our front door on the right. It's a very open floor plan, which we love. I'm standing in the hallway taking this - the living room is to the right with the dining space there on the left.





Standing at the front door, taking a picture of the living room. We have Abby's slide on the porch and there's a storage closet out there. It's packed. :o)





Walk down the hall and look left. Abby's bathroom to the left, her bedroom straight ahead, the master suite (I love the sound of that!) to the right.





Abby's disaster, also known as her room. This child has too much stuff. I'm in the process of weeding through it.





Abby's bathroom. We are so excited about having two bathrooms! Mom and I picked out the bright shower curtain and got a matching purple bathmat and towels.





Part of our 'suite.' hehe I'm not going to show you our bedroom - it's a disaster. But our walk-in closet (!!) is to the left, the sink/mirror on the right, and the toilet and bathtub straight ahead. We're not used to all this room, but we LOVE IT!!





Down the hall, turn right and you'll find our (indoor!) laundry room. For those of you who didn't know, the laundry room at our house in Arkansas was an attachment that had been built off the back porch. So I had to go outside to get to it. Granted, I was grateful to have it....but I'm currently grateful for my indoor laundry room. :o)




I hope you enjoyed your stay! If you're ever near Salt Lake, we'd love to let you come in and visit. We really are excited about being here, although we do miss our families. Now that I've got the computer running, I should be updating more frequently. Love you all!!!

Videos

Here is a video of the girl. (My first video uploads - hope they work!) Don't worry, I'll finish posting about our trip - it just takes forever to write it all out!

This video is when Mom and I were going to Salt Lake City on Friday. They were predicting storms for Saturday and we wanted to make sure Mom saw some things. In this video, Abby will tell you where we're going and that she wants to talk to Hope and the Elliott family.






There are two others I want to post, but the computer is being retarded...be on the look out! :o)

Our move to Utah - Part One

In an effort to document our move to Draper, here is part one of the story. I will add pics soon and the remaining installments. :o) My apologies if it is kind of jumbled...I did my best! Love you all!!!

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It all started on Friday, September 26. Zac was off work and had spent some time with Abby, picked up Kendyl from a field trip and was at home (Meemaw's house) with Abby and Kendyl. Zac got an unrecognized phone call and answered it - Ray Marshman, new district manager, was calling to talk to him about the Furniture Row (Denver Mattress) opening in Draper, Utah. While he was on the phone, Sheila and Kirsten came by to pick up Kendyl. When I got home, he told me that he had interviewed for the asst mgr position in Draper and thought the interview went well. We were running late to meet the Calls and Tualas for dinner, so we headed out to meet them. We had dinner at Macaroni Grill (YUM) and filled them in on Zac's interview.

The next day, Ray called Zac at work to tell him that, while he couldn't officially say anything, he was sending Zac's name through the HR dept and would get back to him on Monday. We spent the weekend telling family and friends that we might possibly be moving to Utah. When I got to work Monday morning, I told my manager about the possibility. I told him that IF Zac got the promotion, it would be a quick move but that I would keep him updated as well as I could.

Monday afternoon, Zac went to Sonic to get drinks for him, Shawn and Carl. He was gone for awhile because the slush machine at the Sonic close to Denver Mattress wasn't working (as usual). When he got back, Shawn told him that Ray had called. Zac called him back and got the official job offer as the asst mgr in Draper.

Meantime, back at US Bank, I was out balancing the ATM with Tracy. When I got back in (around 4pm), Nic told me that Zac called and told me to call him at work asap. My heart started beating fast as I called up my hubby. When he answered and knew it was me, he said, "Hey. Quit your job." While this was, to some degree, music to my ears, I started to cry. I was supposed to have a farewell party, not just walk out! He said he would be stopping by later. I went in to Nic's office and told him. Then I told Willie, my mgr, and then made my rounds across the teller line (lots of shocked reactions - "You're *@#%*@# kidding me" courtesy of Bryant) and back to my desk to tell Will. I was crying, laughing and in a general state of shock the whole time. Will told me to stop crying, because this is what I wanted. (He's pretty good at just laying it out there). I was scheduled off at 4, but ended up being there till 6, trying to get all of my stuff together. Will earned a couple of loans and lots of maintenance! ;o) Zac made a brief stop in and I told him to go ahead and go, because I would be awhile. He said we were meeting family (both sides) at Casa Mexicana at 7.

Once I finally left the bank, I called my friend Leigh to ask if I could drop the Church nursery keys off to her. I stopped by and talked to her for about 30 minutes. She helped me be excited about the move and was a great help to me, as she always is! Then I headed off to meet the family at Casa. On my way I called Sherry ( who didn't know yet!) and she called Mom & Dad so she could ride with them to Casa. Hope wouldn't come because she didn't want to cry at the restaurant!

Here's who came to dinner: Meemaw, Pa, Rick, Sheila, Kirsten, Kendyl, Mom, Dad, Sherry, and of course, Zac, Abby and me. Kendyl had two friends with her. I had my favorite dish as Casa, the Grande Chicken Quesadilla. We also got queso and sodas - no low cal dieting that night! Kendyl bought us some candy and bubbles and a ball for Abby. (Those came in handy for our stops!) After dinner, Zac went to Meemaw's to start packing and Abby and I went to my parents house to get some pics of Abby and Megan (Jeff brought her over). Then we went home, too. I wasn't much help in packing - I told Zac that my brain was exhausted and I went to bed pretty early.

The next morning (Tuesday), Mom and Dad were our saving graces as they helped us pack and run errands. I HAD to get to the doctor to get some refills on my meds. Mom packed a little and watched Abby while Zac and Dad picked up the U-Haul (thanks to Steve G. for getting us the hook up!) and loaded our storage unit into it. After my dr appt, Juanita stopped by to say hi. Mom and I got locked out of Meemaw's because I'd given her my key the night before. So we waited on Dad and Zac. Then we spent the afternoon packing up Meemaw's house. (It kind of made me sick to see how much ridiculous crap we have. Insane. We're working on a huge donation to Deseret Industries out here.) I found out that U-Haul wouldn't let Zac pull his truck on the trailer and that we would pull the van and drive the truck. So I told Zac we had to get the brakes fixed and Dad and I took care of that at Sears.

That evening, I went with Mom to pick up Mamaw and take her to Mom & Dad's for dinner and a final hangout with my siblings. When Zac got there, we ran over to Annie's to say bye to her. Zac had a hard time telling her bye - she is so special to him and I know he feels bad that we didn't spend enough time with our grandmas.

When we got back to my parents' house, Hope had cooked some of the casseroles I'd made for our freezer. We had lasagna and my famous green chile chicken enchiladas. YUM. The whole crew was there, except Jeff, Matthew and Jennifer's family. I cried, talked to everybody about how excited/scared I was and just hung out. We took lots of fun pictures. Matt and Natalie B. stopped by, too, to bring us some yummy homemade cookies and a bag of our favorite trail mix, the Sam's Choice Indulgent Trail Mix. Yummy. I cried when Todd and his crew left. Zac and I walked Sherry and Megan to their car, on our way across the street to see the Elliotts. I bawled while I hugged/kissed Megan and Sherry. Abby and Megan hugged (too cute!) and Megan gave Uncle Zac hugs and kisses. Sherry said, "Is this payback for when I left for California?" I told her it was and that it sucked. I hate crying - my faces swells and I look like such a freak.

And so we headed to the Elliott house. It was probably one the best nights Abby has had over there. She was quite a ham while she played with Kendyl. Kendyl taught her to say, "Heeey!" and "What?!?" It was hilarious because she would say them together and get really loud..."Heeey. what?? What?? WHAT? WHAT?? WHAT???" We were laughing our butts off. She loved on everybody, which was great. Lots of tears and hugs when we left there. More swollen face and freakness for me.

By the time we got back to my parents' most everyone was asleep. We laid Abby down and Zac and I tried to get a few last things together before we snoozed in their living room. Wednesday morning came waaaaaay too soon.

We're heeeeere!

We arrived yesterday around 3:30pm in "Papers, Oootah." (That's how Abby says it - too cute!) We are staying at the Ramada Inn and Zac and I are getting ready to go look at a few apts this morning. Yesterday we looked at a basement-type apt that I think used to be this older couple's garage....the price is right, but it is SO small and they don't have a bathtub, just a standup shower...not good for a toddler that is scared to death of a shower spray. Mom picked out our dinner location, Noodles & Company. It was YUMMY!

Well, I better get back to the room. I'm using the hotel's Business Room computer - thank goodness for those! Hope to hear from you all soon!

Love,
Sarah, Zac & Abby (and Sandra, temporarily!)