On the Road Again....

So we have been married close to 7 years and have moved from CA to AZ to MD to FL and now back to AZ! Kevin is officially stationed in Yuma, AZ. We applied to be on the wait list for housing on base and we have a 6-12 month waiting period. On top of the waiting period, there is a possibility of Kevin being deployed. Because of those factors, we decided that it would be best for the children to have stability and for us to stay with Kevin's parents in Queen Creek, AZ (3 hours north of Yuma) until housing becomes available. But if it becomes available and Kevin gets deployed, than we will just stay here until he returns. Oh the joys of the military! We prayed about it a lot because we are not excited about the separation, but he will come up on the weekends, and I will go down there whenever there are any functions that require me to support Kevin. We feel our marriage is strong enough to survive the separation and have committed to stay close to the Spirit to give us the strength that we need.

We left Milton, FL on Friday the 29th. We stopped in New Orleans, LA for lunch. It was raining so that was the most we could do. It is a beautiful city with a lot of potential. You can still see a lot of the devastation from Katrina, but the people there still had smiles on their faces and you could feel the hope.

The best picture we could take because of the rain of Bourbon Street.

Ok... its not my biased opinion- I promise. But the kids did so good during this 3 day trip. We drove about 8 hours a day and stopped for potty and food breaks. They watched A LOT of movies, slept, played, colored, or just sat in silence. They had their moments, of course, but nothing that wasn't resolved immediately.

Jean has a brother in Pasadena, TX. We stopped to have dinner with him and visited with his daughter, Kim, and her family. It was nice to see them and capture the moment.

We got very familiar with the hotel carts. Joey loved being the passenger.

On the grounds of the Houston, TX temple.

Houston, Texas Temple

I have this goal that I would love to be on the grounds of all the temples in the world. There are many that we have been fortunate enough to have time to enter but otherwise we just make sure to stop and walk around the grounds and take pictures. So far we have visited and or entered 21. I know we have many more to goal, but we are willing to keep it up.

We became official Mormons and purchased a minivan last summer. Its awesome! We are not ashamed! We lowered the back seat and made a little bed in the back. When the kids got anxious, it became their playground. When we were tired of driving, it became our bed.

This is the San Antonio, Texas Temple

This is Neil and Jean at the Alamo

Lidia and I grew up together in NYC. We were in young women together, went to girls camp, mutual, dances, etc together. She is older and was always a good example to me. We went our separate ways, she went on a mission and got married. I went to BYU and got married. Well, she married a Dominican who served his mission in the Dominican Republic. I married a white boy who served his mission in the same Dominican mission and they knew each other! It is such a small world! She lives in El Paso, TX while her husband, Francisco, is a Military Police at an Army base. She made yummy Dominican food and an excellent coconut flan! See you in September for the 1/2 Marathon, Lidia! No backing down!

I love this face! Don't you?

So 7 state lines and 3 days later we made it to Queen Creek. The Frias family came over to visit and we were so happy to see them. It is great to finally be around family. We love our friends, but family is so important and its great to watch little cousins play together. If only there would be a way to combine the East and West Coast than the world be a better place.

This is the moving truck arriving with all of our stuff. Don't be too astounded. There are 3 family loads in there. Ours only takes a 1/3 of the truck. But it was still over 10,000 lbs of stuff. Ohh goodness!