California -- here we are!

We made it! It was kind of a rough and tumble move we made from Texas to California... Nathan doing finals, Amy packing, Nathan driving 20 hours straight, Amy cleaning the house, girls wondering where are our clothes? our toys? everything kept disappearing into mom's boxes. But here we are! It feels like we just barely got our breath back! But we've been having some California fun with our girls...

A brand new car!

Well, not even close to brand new, but new for us. We purchased a '97 Subaru Legacy Outback this last week. I just grabbed this pic off of the internet, but this is how it looks. With our forthcoming new arrival we felt that we needed a little more cargo space; more passenger space is not yet necessary so we weren't in the market for a van or anything like that. And we found one that was affordable (amazingly). Anyway, so we've traded in the Bonneville. It was a somewhat painful procedure - "Bonnie" has been very good to us. It was quite an adventure to buy a car. Neither Dave nor I had actually done it before. I made Dave do all of the price haggling by himself. I didn't want to be there because the thought made me sick - I just feel like somebody must be getting cheated. :-) It's impossible to know if we really made a good deal until we see how "Ruby" handles long drives and how long she lasts. But we feel pretty good about it - everyone we talked to said Subaru's last forever!

Let's see how this works....

Hello all! Can't believe it's May already....

Ray got a new bike recently (since his was stolen years ago) and then
he gave me bike helmets for my birthday and took us on a family bike
ride. We realized there that Tia and Susan had outgrown their bikes
(they grow so fast!). We were excited the next weekend to find a bike
at a garage sale just Susan's size, which meant she could give hers to
Tia. So Tia started riding without training wheels--not easy when you
live on a rocky driveway and a dirt road. But she has picked it up
quickly and we had a great time riding around at the church parking
lot by the temple yesterday while Ray did a session (despite my church
shoe blisters). We are finding Tia to be a pretty determined little
thing when she has a goal she wants to accomplish. Her latest goal
was conquering the monkey bars at school, and after doing pull-ups "to
get more muscles" and practicing swinging her legs for the reach,
she's got them down.

Susan still loves her glasses! She and Tia are doing so well in
school. Susan's reading comprehension is off the charts. She is doing
a report right now on the giant panda for her culminating event about
Asia.

Raymond seems to have grown up a lot lately, and is as active as
ever. He is most frequently found running downhill at full speed with
a big grin. Since he gains momentum by throwing all his weight
forward, he is constantly taking nose dives when his legs don't keep
up. But he has such a strong arch he still has a record for never
splitting his chin! He's a blast. One of our favorite moments each
week is when we announce him at Family Home Evening, and he does his
little victory dance.

Boyd's favorite past time of late is throwing. Since we live on a
cement slab and things are breaking, we hope this phase passes soon.
We also hope he grows out of the biting phase before he goes to
nursery. His brother hopes he does even sooner. Despite his biting
in frustration, he is a softie and we all delight in his morning hugs.

This last month the girls had a day off school and we took a tour of
the Ford Rouge Factory. It was really interesting to visit an actual
factory and see how trucks are made. But we did have to snicker at
their attempts to pose themselves as ecoconscious--planting grass on
their roof while they produce gas-guzzling trucks underneath. I wish
Henry Ford was still alive--I get the sense he was an innovative and
dynamic leader who would swiftly make changes to his huge factory,
making cars and trucks that run on alternative forms of energy. With
the sun out and gas nearing $4/gallon, we are wishing for a solar-
powered car!

Ray's schedule has been packed lately with all those culminating end-
of-the-year events--concerts, faculty meetings, graduation. As his
things will now start to slow a little, ours at home will escalate.
The girls' Dream Girls show is coming up in a few weeks, and the ward
Relief Society retreat that I have been planning is the following
weekend. Hopefully the Lord will help see it all through.

I loved Elder Bednar's conference talk about praying in faith--with
the intent to act. It has come to mind so often as I have prayed for
certain blessings for our family or ward members, and it has inspired
me to pray and then get up and go to work. Elder Bednar specifically
talked about praying and acting in faith with regards to missionary
work. So we have been praying to that end and have felt to act
accordingly. Some of you have met Mike and Dawn Lewkowicz. They are
our good neighbors and we would love for them to experience the joy of
the gospel. We have had some good discussions and they came to
Susan's baptism, but we still had not invited them to visit with the
missionaries. Well, the missionaries asked to come to dinner
tomorrow, so we took the plunge and invited them too. We were so
excited when they said they would come. Keep them in your prayers
tonight. We are praying they will have a desire to learn more.

What a privilege it was to fast with you yesterday, Wilsons. Thank
you for asking. It helps shrink the miles and draw our hearts
together. We send our love and prayers your way.

We love you all and wish you a great month of May!
Love to all--
Julie

And thanks to Ray for the camera....

Food Storage?

We bought a few garbage cans to store our 200 lbs. of wheat that we bought recently. Dietrich thought the cans looked like a good place for him.

"Where's Dietrich?"

With a squeal and a laugh: "Pop goes the weasel!"

Isn't he too cute for his own good?

Teach a man to fish...

Well, after living among thousands of lakes, and lots of begging from various constituents, we finally got around to going fishing.  We thought we'd skewer a few worms and minnows, probably hook a child or two, not catch any fish, and soon be over the enthusiasm.

Wow.

Everyone caught a fish!  For an hour one family home evening, we fished with the Anderson family, and just reeled them in...my main job was taking the fish off the hooks and re-loading the bait.

A little help?

Just wondering if anyone had a solo photo of Charity. I had one of Andrew, and everyone else with their families but none of Charity. I think her pic ought to be on here, don't you? Any one of you could put it here, but if you'd rather just have me do it . . . email me and I'll think about how we ought to get it transferred. It really takes me a year to download attachments on my email so I'd like to avoid that route. I didn't have everyone's pictures in digital format, so I zoomed in and took pictures with my camera so I could get everyone on, so if you have one of Charity but not digital do what I did. Thanks for any help!

Well, I'll try this out!

Mike has been in New York all week which made for a lonely birthday, but I think the girls were more disappointed than I was. However, things improved in the late afternoon when someone brought me a birthday cake and we went to the post office to find Mike's present for me had arrived. That's all it took for the girls--cake and presents! The cards and phone calls I got were so fun that I resolved to do better remembering all of you and I apologize for my inconsistence in the past. I'll try to post a few pictures and see if this all works:) Mike is with the girls on this huge teflon slide that goes all the way down a hill at this fun obstacle course park. Emma and Jane are modeling the paper plate hats we learned how to make on Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. Well, it looks like this works, but obviously I haven't figured out how to change the layout yet. Oh, well!
Love you all!
April