first day of school in utah

he was excited as we waited for the bus!

his new school kind of "requires" children to be bussed. apparently there's some lesson in separation to learn. but ya, i had a hard time signing on for this! he however LOVES it!

his first day of school tired him out! he came home, went potty, climbed in our bed and was out within 5 minutes.

utah birthday

the day finally came to celebrate nathan's real birthday. we had chinese food for dinner. another one of his favs.

his fortune in his cookie definitely matches his personality!

morning wake up call...

birthday lunch at chili's. salad and quesadilla. another fav.

 then we took nathan to the museum of ancient life down in lehi at thanksgiving point.

that place was so much fun! nathan has a HUGE obsession with dinosaurs!

it did not take long after our museum trip for him to pass out!

downtown salt lake on our drive home

this sign says that tooele is the sister city of kambarka russia. meaning if you dig thru the earth, that's where you'd end up.

since we were still living in boxes, his cake was kind of a thrown together thing (sorry buddy!)

gifts...

moving day!

the day finally came to load the truck and embark on this new adventure.

december of 2008,  i was super duper pregnant with nathan. while at church (in the restroom, lol), a young mother with a 6 month old baby introduced herself to me. i think we spent the rest of the hour talking about the fears of giving birth. ROFL! and that was the start of our friendship. she has been there for me 24/7 since that day! i consider her son to be nathan's first friend ;) they've spent a lot of time together these past 3 years. (especially since i babysat boston for a year). anyway, she offered to bring us dinner (jake's tex mex... mmmmm!) our last night in bakersfield. can't wait to see how much these two have grown next time they see each other. (which won't be too long since she has family and in-laws in the salt lake area)

 saturday, january 20th, 7am, we hit the road...

well kind of. we stopped at our friends house who made us a HUGE spread of donuts, eggs, sausage, bacon, tortillas, fruit and juices. it was delicious! so thank you handy's (and moore's) for waking up that early to feed us!

 back on the road, all shoved in a penske truck, with a dog on my lap...

i was nervous with the weather. and we definitely hit our fair share!

after some bad rain in tehachapi, there was a rainbow.

then in mojave we hit wind!

and it followed us clear til st. george!

random...

coming down the hill into primm we noticed there were no cars on the 15 south. here would be why...

i just LOVE zappos!

still happy campers :)

til we hit this in vegas...

then again, more rain then rainbow...

we stayed the night in st. george at our friends house. had pizza and laughed at nathan dressing up in their dogs clothes. the next morning we were on the road again. here was our first sight of snow!

which soon became a constant scene.

thank heavens for portable dvd players! it's the best way to travel!

jaren likes to take the back way through delta to get to tooele.and when i say back, i mean literally 2 lanes, and very little traffic!

finally we made it!

"downtown" tooele

nathan instantly fell in the love with the snow!

bugsys not a big fan of it!

our first official day in utah, it snowed.