Thanksgiving

One more overnight flight and we were finally home in Boise. We spent the first several days with my family...well, the girls spent time with my family. Ed and I spent our time buying this:

and finalizing paperwork for our house.

But Ed did get a night to go to a BSU game with his dad and bros.

Then it was time to be with Ed's family. Well, again, the girls got to be with Ed's family. Still so much to do. One evening Ed and I came back to the house to find the girls all dressed up - we were having a fiesta!

Wednesday was our Thanksgiving day since we would be traveling the next day. The last time we had Thanksgiving with our families was in 2001 (when I was pregnant with Kimberlee), so our girls have never spent Thanksgiving with their extended family. As miserable as it was moving during the holidays, it was nice to have the timing work out for holidays at home! We spent that morning at Festival of Trees, and then had a beautiful dinner.

That night we took a little drive. Apparently Santa lives down the street from Grandma and Bonka!

It was bitterly cold, but Santa was kind enough to take us on a short sleigh ride and then pulled out his big bag and gave the girls lots of presents. Kimberlee just might be a believer again.

Thursday morning we began the drive to Arkansas. Our first stop was Salt Lake, and we made it just in time to have another Thanksgiving meal with some of Ed's extended family in Orem. Sneaky, I know.

Friday we got to meet this little sweetheart:

and spent the morning catching up with my sister Amy. Then that evening was more visiting with Ed's extended family at Uncle Steve's while watching BSU lose to Nevada. Not the happiest of occasions...but so wonderful to see so much family!!

Finally, Saturday morning it was time to get serious about getting to our new home so we took off for Denver. The girls were really not used to roadtripping so it took us extra long to get anywhere. We had made plans to visit several friends along the way, but after miserable days of driving we'd just fall into bed exhausted and continue on the next day. We did get to have one visit though - one of Ed's mission companions met us for breakfast at our hotel. They had lived in Japan as well and it was fun to reminisce about things we missed.

Sunday was Denver to Wichita, and finally on Monday we arrived at Little Rock AFB. 7 years ago, during our move from Texas to Ohio, we spent one night in a hotel on base here. The room was awful and I was really unimpressed with the tiny amount of the base I saw. During our long drive I kept preparing myself for the worst, while still hoping that I remembered it wrong. Imagine my surprise when we arrived at our TLF...and it was wonderful! 2 bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room with pull-out couch, 3 tvs, and best of all, a washer and dryer in our room!

The next day Ed inprocessed and we went to get the girls registered for school. Another shock - they asked if we wanted them to start the next day. Um, yes please! The school is amazing and the girls have loved it. Krista keeps wondering when she can go, it looked so fun. Soon baby, soon.