Support

This will be a short post, but I just have to say how grateful I am for the church and the support it gives. Our new ward is wonderful and we have met some amazing people and I can't wait to get to know them better. What other organization is like the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints? We came here and were welcomed with open arms by all the members and instantly had friends. Because Texas Tech is here - our ward has a lot of students and it is nice to be in a ward where there are so many people that are in the same situation as you. There are several law students in the ward and most of them are either 2nd or 3rd year which is great for Dan because they are able to give him great advice on how to succeed during your first year, and it is great for me because I have friends who have had to go through the law school experience and they know what it is like and how hard it can be. My ward has a play date group that gets together every Tuesday and I am so excited to be a part of that. Without the church this move would have been so much harder! We are so lucky to have such an amazing support system no matter where we are in the WORLD! 

Time

I have had a full time job since... well since I was in high school - I have ALWAYS worked. Four weeks after I had Jaxon I started working again, luckily I was able to work from home so I could still be with him, but I was working none the less. I thought that it would be easier to work from home, but it was the opposite. I constantly felt guilty when I was working that I wasn't paying attention to my adorable son, and when I was playing with Jaxon, I continued to think about everything I wasn't getting done for work and I would stress and have to stay up late or get up really early to get it all done which was really hard. I felt like I wasn't able to give 100% to either thing.

Before we moved to Texas Dan and I decided that it would be best if I quit my job and focused on being a mom to Jaxon. I have loved being able to give him 100% of my attention, but I have to be honest, I don't know what to do now to fill up my extra time. I know it's hard to believe that I have extra time, but I guess because I have always worked and been able to juggle all of it, I feel like I am being lazy now. I get up, make a yummy breakfast, we eat, I clean up, we play play play, I feed Jax a snack, we play some more, Jaxon goes down for a 3 hour nap, Jaxon wakes up, we play, I start dinner, we eat dinner, I clean up dinner while Dan plays with Jax, we all play, we put Jaxon to bed, I clean up any other messes there are to clean up - Dan does any last studying or homework, then we spend some time together go to bed. Now reading that it doesn't sound like I have "extra" time, but while Jax and I are playing I can be doing things - a lot of times I clean while he is playing with his toys so I have the full 3 hours while he is napping to do something. Normally, I would get 3 hours of good working time in, now I'm not sure what to do. I don't have friends here yet and we just moved into the ward so I don't have a calling yet that I can do stuff with, we only have one car so Dan takes it to school unless I have something I need it for then I drop him off and pick him up, and we don't have extra money, so I am not sure what to do - and I feel guilty if I lay down or watch TV or something - I guess I could work out but usually when Jax goes down for his nap I am pretty worn out - I feel like a bad mom or that I'm really lazy for having free time and I don't know what to do - I need a hobby. I used to never have free time and now that I do - I'm not sure what to do with it.

Our House

Note - there are 2 more posts after this that are new and basically all pictures.

Post Note - We still need to do decorating in the house. These pictures are mostly so my fam can see where we live - and the master is no where to be seen because it is the last room to get put together and is not picture ready. Also - our main living area with the TV still needs to be done - we are getting our couches next week and we have a lot to do in that room still.

Welcome to our house

Front door and Living area

Office with Dan's shrine to the U

Jaxon's bedroom

Guest bathroom

Guest bathroom cont.

Master bathroom

Kitchen

Kitchen and you can see the Laundry area to the left

Kitchen pantry

Back door - living area continued

Random Pictures

Just random pictures. :)
Jaxon got a cute potty like a rockstar shirt from his uncle Ryan - I think he looks super cute in it. And he loves standing on my parents kitchen counter and putting their hanging light on his head... had to get a pic of it.

We went to the bees game with the Garners for the 24th of July - Dan took a ton of the game, but forgot to take any of us lol :(

Jaxons new favorite thing is to play the piano - I don't know what he will do now cause we don't have one

We took family pictures with the Garners - after we took Jax's clothes off and he played in the hose while grandpa watered... he loved running over to great grandma Lockhart on the swing too!

Stargazer lily's are my fav flower - I had them at my wedding. Dan sent me them while he was in Dallas and I was packing up the house a week before we moved. It was very sweet!!!

4th of July Pictures

So I never posted pictures of the 4th of July. We had a great 4th - we went and saw fireworks on Saturday the 3rd which Jax LOVED. On Sunday Dan's cousin was blessing their baby - so we went to that and it was a beautiful blessing and great to see Dan's cousins that we don't get to see very often. Then on Monday the 5th we went boating and Jaxon loved it!

Blessings

With this move has come a lot of unexpected expenses that we were not planning for which has me feeling very uneasy and stressed out. I quit my job right before we moved and Dan cannot work his first year of law school so we do not have any money coming in. We have saved but needed to follow a very tight budget to make it work. We planned for unexpected expenses, but not as much as has happened. This morning we took our one and only car into the repair shop to get our air conditioner fixed. Normally, I would just deal with the heat, but since we have Jaxon with us and it is VERY hot here in Texas, we decided it was something we needed to fix. We were told the cost would be about $700.00 because it was some type of coil or something electrical that needed to be fixed. We have a Hyundai and when we bought the car it came with a 60,000 mile warranty – we are now at 69,000 miles so we no longer are covered by that. I spoke to Dave, the guy at the service center we took it to and just asked him if he would check and see if there was anyway Hyundai would cut the cost down or something. Well I just got a call from Dave saying our car is done and when I asked him how much it would cost – he said nothing. Hyundai decided to cover it 100%. Even typing this I am crying. I cannot even express the gratitude I am feeling right now. We have been so blessed and the Lord continues to bless us. I feel so unworthy of these blessings but am so grateful for them! I just hope that someday in some way I am able to help someone and bless their life like ours has been!

Texas

Well we are here!!! We left Sunday around 3:15pm and the drive went really well - the only thing was - the air conditioner in our car went out. Luckily it went out later in the day and it was cool enough that we were ok. We drove 7 hours on Sunday and arrived in Farmington New Mexico where we slept that night - in the morning we tried to get the AC fixed but none of the auto shops could get it fixed until later that night - so we decided to drive to Albuquerque (about 2 1/2 - 3 hours from Farmington) and have the car fixed there since it was still early and cool outside - we took our car in and waited 3 hours!!! Then they called us and told us they wouldn't be able to get the car fixed until that night at 6 or the next morning - they were not sure - so we decided that since it was later in the day again and cooler, we were just going to drive the rest of the way. So that got us into Lubbock at about 10:30pm. We had people lined up to help us at 5:30 (our original arrival time) but since we were in so late - we just unpacked 1/2 the truck that night by ourselves. It was such a neat/scary feeling when we pulled up to the house. We were so excited to finally be here and finally get to see the house in person, but scared at the same time. Luckily - we walked in and were very excited! The house is everything we had hoped it would be! Tuesday morning we woke up, finished unpacking the truck, and started to put the house together. Then Wednesday Dan and I went and bought a washer and dryer, couches, tv mount, vacuum, hose, just a bunch of things we needed. It was so hard for me because I am such a saver and don't like spending large amounts of money - lol - but we had saved for all of this is I am doing ok. Thursday, Friday, and today were spent putting the house together. We are finally basically done - there are just a few things we need to finish - but for the most part - we are good.

We have had some interesting experiences already and there are things that are very different here that will take some getting used to - first of all - on Tuesday when they turned our water on - the hose nozzle in the front was spewing out water and that was an interesting experience to try and fix. Then when we were trying to figure out why we didn't have garbages, we found out that we have a back alley way behind our house where there are dumpsters every couple hundred feet that everyone on the street use and we were already violating code because the weeds behind our house were out of control - so we spent part of the day clipping the weeds and taking them to the dumpsters (*side note - I have 8 itchy bug bits on my legs from that wonderful project). The street lights here are horizontal instead of vertical and the turning arrow is in the middle of it. It is SUPER flat and I have already gotten lost a few times. I never know which direction I am going and their road system makes sense in some ways - and in others it is just weird. Oh and that last fun thing that happened was that this morning when we went to take the moving truck back, we noticed our neighbors yard had a big puddle of water so when we got back we went over to tell them. Well they were not there but their mom was there watching their house while they were on a trip and the hose had been left on for who knows how long. Not only did it flood their yard - if flooded the side and a tiny bit of the back of our yard! LOL - so we have had a very eventful first week here. Oh and when the neighbors mom asked where we were from and we told her Salt Lake City she said, "oh your not Mormon are you?" LOL - we said yes and she hurried and said - "oh well I mean thats ok -there is nothing wrong with that" and found an excuse to run inside. HAHAHAHA!

So far we love Lubbock. We miss Sandy - but LOVE having our own home and Dan is so excited to start school next week. Jaxon had no problem adjusting and loves running around the house and yard. We ALL love that Jaxon has his own room!!! I will post pictures soon of the house once I get everything totally done!

I just want to say thank you to everyone that helped us with moving! It was so hard saying goodbye to everyone and we miss you all already! I also wanted to give a special thanks to my sister Whitney who drove down in the car with me and helped with Jaxon SOOOO much the first couple of days so Dan and I could get stuff done. It was really hard to say goodbye to her on Thursday - but we are excited to see her again soon hopefully.

We love you all but are very excited for our new exciting Texan adventure!!! YE-HAAAA!

Packing

So I know that I said I was going private... and I am, it will just happen in another weekish... I just need to get done with the move first.

So let me just say that I hate packing more than anything. When I was coming home from Ecuador and I didn't have my mom there to help me pack, I sat on the floor with my stuff all around me and cried. Luckily my friend Andrea helped me out. Well this time I don't just have 2 suitcases to pack, I have a homes worth of stuff to pack and my husband is gone all week in Texas for his law preview course. Now I find myself again sitting on the floor crying. How on earth am I going to do this? Why is this so hard for me?