One Year

Can you believe that it has been a year since we moved? I sure can't. So much has happend. I can't help but praise God for friends like you. The move would not have been possible without the help of all of you. We miss you so much and are praying for all of you. God has blessed us in so many ways. We know that we made the right choice in moving to Colorado (stress and all). We love it here and have been enjoying getting to know Colorado more and more. The boys love it here to and I think that we are finally getting over being sick. We love our new house and being able to go and see what Colorado has to offer. We love the park, hiking trails, and other places to walk around. I hope that you have enjoyed getting to see what our family is up to through this blog. I love taking pictures and putting these things on the blog. I love hearing from all of you. We miss you all. Thanks for being apart of our family. God bless each and everyone of you.

P.S. I have encluded some links of our journey here to Colorado for you to look at.

links of our journey:
my first post
loading up the trailers
day one of traveling
day two of traveling
day three of traveling
we made it
Ed Gordon's house

Day Three- of our move

I had forgotten to say that my sister is in Australia while all this way happening. She was visiting her fiancee, William. He is is Australia right now so that he can become a resident and then move out to the United States. We miss her very much and can't wait for her to come back home. She is a great help with the kids and we could have used her for the ride up to Colorado. Marlene will be coming back to Colorado on July 19. Now back to the trip. We were all very excited about having only 6 more hours of driving time. We all decided to wake up early in the morning and head out. Peter's last feeding was a 7:30 am (Colorado time) and we packed up and went our way. We did not eat breakfast until a little later and my mom and I slept in the car. We arrived in Colorado on July 15, 2008 at 9:00 am. We stopped at Burger King for breakfast and Paul had fun playing on the play ground. He was so excited that he could hardly sit down to eat. After a quick breakfast, we continued on our way. We stopping in Grand Junction, Colorado and the weather was in the 70's. We drove most of the way with the windows down. We also stopped in Rifle, Colorado and looked at their visitor center. My mom started to peel off the lettering of our Explorer because it said Riverside, California and the new name of the shop is going to be Blevins Violins and Sons (there is a picture of it on the slide show). Once more we were on the road and did not stop until lunch time. When we stopped at a gas station to buy food, then went to a park to eat lunch. The park was right next to the Colorado River. Paul loved looking at the river and probably would have went in the River. He also like to walk around the park. We looked in the gift shop before leaving. We drove until we were an half hour away, then we stopped by a grocery store to buy food before we reached Ed's house. Joshua and Paul played outside while Grandpa and Grandma Steed went in the buy the food. Peter and I joined Paul and Joshua as soon as I was done feeding him. We were soon on our way and when we arrived at Ed's house, we all were ready to leave the car. We visited with Ed and then unloaded the car. It was very nice to be able to be out of the car. We all slept very well. This is the end of our trip to Colorado.
These are pictures of Utah, Colorado, Rifle, Grand Junction, Joshua and the boys, the boys in the car, the Colorado River, our picnic, and of course us!

Day Two- of our move

I know that I was distracted from the story of our move, but I wanted to add those pictures and movies in so you could see what Colorado is about. I will start on the next part of our trip. Paul had been fussy that night because he was teething, so my parent took Paul in their room so that Joshua and I could sleep more. We left the hotel at 11:00 am. We were all tired still, but wanted to reach Colorado as soon as possible. We drove through Arizona without stopping. It was hot in Arizona as it was in Nevada and California. We drove until 12:30 pm where we stopped in St. George, Utah for lunch. Then we headed on the road because we wanted to arrive in Colorado as soon as possible. While we were driving it started to rain, which helped cool things down alot. It was raining huge drops, but it only lasted a short time. We passed through Zion National Park. That is one of our favorite spots and I wish we had time to stop and see it, but that was not to be during this trip. There was alot of farm land around and horse pastures. They were all so beautiful for they were surrounded by green. Our next stop was Beaver, Utah. It is such a quite little town and I loved stopping there. My dad thought that there was a campground there that we could stop at and rest, but we could not find it. So instead we stopped at a McDonald's that had a playground and let Paul play while we all rested. That was Paul's first time in a playground and boy did he having fun. It was so cute seeing him discover things for the first time. We ended up staying there longer than we had intented to, and it was quite late when we headed back on the road. We stopped in Richmond to fill up our gas tanks and that was the last stop before we found a hotel to spend the night. We were hoping to make it to Grand Junction, Colorado before stopping. Then we would have only 6 more hours to drive. We were all tired and ended up stopping in Green River, Utah. This is the end of the second day.
These pictures are of Arizona, Utah, Beaver, Richmond (don't worry I have them marked so you know which state and city is which), and of course us! The move is of Paul playing in the tunnel at the play ground in Beaver, Utah.

Day One- of our move

We were able to leave at 8:00 pm for Colorado. Our goal was to leave around the boys bedtime so that we could drive as long as we could. The Fox Family came over and helped us load up the rest of our things as well as clean the house. Then my mom, dad, and Joshua took naps so that they could stay awake and drive. Another reason why we drove at night was because we were going to be driving through Nevada and we wanted to get there when it was cooler. We drove through San Bernardino, Irvine, and Barstow before reaching Nevada. It was very emotional for all of us because we have lived in Riverside our whole lives and this was something totally new. As we left Riverside, I kept thinking about all the places that I was seeing for the last time (at least for right now). I was very excited about this new adventure that the Lord was taking us on. It was still very hot as we were driving, so we had the air conditioning on. We stopped to grab a bite to eat before reaching Nevada. The boys were good and slept the whole time we were driving. They would wake up when we stopped, but fell back to sleep when we started up again. When we reached Nevada it was hot (in the 90's). I was so glad that we were not going to stop in Nevada. My mom and I slept most of the time while my dad and Joshua were driving. We stopped driving for the night around 3:30 am. We all decided that we were tired and needed to sleep. We stopped in Mesquite, Nevada at a casino hotel called the Oasis. We all fell into bed exhausted and slept soundly. Pumpkin did well on traveling as well (he slept most of the way). This is the end of the first day of traveling.
These are pictures of the boys and cat ready for travel, My friend Mindy and I in front of the house, Paul in the hotel room, and views from our motel room!

Loading Up The Trailers

We wanted to thank everyone for all the help that was given in helping us move. We could not have done it without you. We were so overwhelmed, and it was a real blessing to have you all there. As most of you know, we had so much stuff from the violin shop, my parents house, and our apartment that we not only loaded one trailer full, but two!! Boy were we shocked! On Thursday, July 10, the trailer was dropped off at my parents house. We did not know when it was going to arrive, so we planned on starting to load the next day. The Frymire Family wanted to have lunch with us and we had a great time fellowshipping together. On Friday, July 11, we started at 8:00 am to load the truck. Many of our friends and family came at different times to help us with the packing as well as watching the kids (they were a handful). Paul loved going up the ramp into the trailer. He thought it was cool. Then he would take a ride down on one of the dollies. We did not have everything packed up, and were up early the next day to finish packing. Many of the same people came again to help us pack. We did not think that we would be able to pull out of the driveway on Sunday as planned, but we had some friends come over to help us with last minute packing and cleaning the house. Only by the mercies of God and our friends were we able to leave on Sunday at 8:00 pm. We want to thank all those who came to help us and to show us their love and support. Thank you Allan, Breck Roundtree, Harold and Joan Vargas, Rick and Susie Saunders, Mindy Paterson, David and Margot Frymire, MaryAnn Meyers, The Fox Family. We miss and love you all. This is the end of three busy days packing for our big move.

These pictures are of the friends and family that came to help, Paul having fun, friends and family that came to say goodbye, as well as pictures of us!

WE MADE IT!!!!!

We left for Colorado on Sunday, July 13 at 8:00 pm. We were trying to leave a little before the boys bedtime so we could drive without stopping. The total amount of miles that we drove was over 1,000. It took us 3 days to arrive in Colorado Springs. We arrived in Colorado on Tuesday, July 15 at 7:00 pm. We drove for what seems like many hours and saw alot of difference landscapes. I took many pictures, of which I will post later. We drove through Nevada, Arizona, and Utah before reaching Colorado. Thank you all for your prayers for our family during our travels. Please continue to pray for us as we look for a house, build a business, and reestablish.

Update on what's happening

This will be my last post until after we move. The semi-truck will be coming to my parents home on July 10th and we will be busy packing and finishing up last minute details. On the day or days to follow we will be packing up the truck and then leaving to drive to Colorado. Please pray that we would have safety on the road and that Paul and Peter would do good on the drive out there. As soon as we are settled I will post pictures of Colorado, our shop, the house we are staying at, and any pictures that I took on the road. I hope you enjoy this blog. God Bless you all.

Paul helps pack

Paul loves playing with the box of bubble wrap. He has been known to move it around and even stand upon the box itself. I had given my keys to Paul to play with and I could not find them. My mom found them inside the box! We have had alot of fun and memories with packing and moving. Sorry for those of you who become sick. He was moving around alot when I was taping him.