Big week

We finally moved into our new house and it's like a dream!

Coop: Not a bird... Do you know what other kind of animal it could be G? It looks like it has fins. 

G: I know! A waffle!

Coop: uh, what?

G: you know, that swims like this.

Coop: walrus?

G: oh yeah. That's what I meant.

I come in the kitchen and G is pretending to mop. She says, "I'm trying to clean so you can be happy." Aw sweet.

M's undefeated basketball season came to an end. They celebrated with some of the players from the pac-12 women's champion OSU players!

And of course she earned the defensive player award. This girl is a beast. Her shyness is just a ruse. If you have the ball... She. Will. Find. You.

L decided to help out at the last game by distracting the opponents with her pants-down act. I don't know what to do with this girl but I can tell you were never wearing those loose, elastic-waist pants in public again!

G: ok I'll put my coat on but not my lid.

I think she meant hood.

Bopa left early and didn't finish his ice cream. Guess who was only too happy to oblige? And of course if you have two bowls you need to eat with two spoons, right?

I asked L if she loves me. She's now repeating, "I love me," again and again.

We took a picture here on the day we moved into our rental in Corvallis and now on the day we moved out!

G: "how bout I call them honey butts cereal?"

She's a little confused about how to wear sunglasses:

I was getting out a turkey to roast when dude walked up, looked at it and went, "eeeeew that looks like a dead pig!" He was fascinated/horrified and informed G that food had blood in it. G walked up and said, "yuuuuum. That's gonna be good but I'm not going to eat it yet." She was especially excited to help stuff some celery down its neck hole. As I tried to dry it off its wings kept plopping out and I asked dude why. He didn't know except to point out that it was dead. I asked if he thought maybe he didn't think he was dead and was trying to fly away. He replied that he couldn't think because he was dead but he also couldn't try or fly for the same reason. Always logic with that one.

Sounds like my house

(Click on it if you can't see the whole thing)
This is my life right now - except the boxes are all coming out of the attic and stacking up in the garage and living room.
My favorite quotes from Jell about moving:
A dad of one of Jell's friends in the ward asked if she would still come back sometime and play on their trampoline. Jell responded slowly as if considering it and said, "Welllll, we will be coming back a lot ... BUT we do have a lot of people to see." I don't think that made him feel like much of a priority :)

"Mom, today at preschool we had a PARTY! For me! Because we're moving and I won't be at preschool anymore and my friends are going to miss ME SOOOOOO much! They are SO sad!"

"Mom, I told my friends about the big yellow truck we're getting that will be big enough to hold ALL OUR CLOTHES and they could NOT believe it!" When I told her it would actually be big enough for all our beds and other furniture, she could not believe it - "NO WAY!"

"MOM!!! (Jell comes running in holding a box of band-aids) What if we get an owie when we're in The Dalles?!?"
Me: "I suppose we'll put a band-aid on it"
Jell: "You CANNOT forget to pack this mom! What if we get an owie? DO NOT forget to pack the band-aids!"

And then there was the discussion about our strawberry plants in our backyard that I have so lovingly cared for and molded into a lovely patch. I pointed out how many strawberries we were going to have very soon and then said, "Well, actually they won't be our strawberries anymore by the time they're ripe. Sad."
Jell: "Mom, they will always be OUR strawberries."
Me: "Not really. We won't be living here anymore."
Jell: "Yes but we planted them and we growed them. They are OUR strawberries."
Me: "Except for another family will live there and water them and keep them growing so really they will be their strawberries then."
Jell: "No mom. They're OUR strawberries. We growed them and it's only for four months."
Me: "Oh honey, we probably won't be coming back to our same house because somebody else will be living there then."
Jell: "They will still be OUR strawberries."
The sad part of this conversation is I realized she doesn't really get the whole moving thing. The funny part of her being so insistent is she doesn't even like strawberries and never would have eaten a single one of them. I, on the other hand, have been looking forward to them pretty much since the season was over and they stopped producing last summer. Not even to mention the raspberries that are looking oh so promising already. Sigh. Fortunately I can take some solace in the fact that one of the blueberry bushes that I so excitedly planted just last fall is looking quite dead.

The Move

So I've been putting off writing about the move because, I don't know, once it's written it's final and really happening and there for posterity to read about. Something like that. Oh and I've been packing frantically every minute and haven't had the energy to spare. So Coop is graduating with his masters next month and he's been applying to jobs all over and we've been praying some of the most sincere prayers of our lives. Everything has been going very discouragingly slow up until a couple of weeks ago.
On April 19th I was searching for jobs for Cooper and did a specific search in Central Oregon because Cooper was going to be headed out to Redmond the next day to do a presentation to the city out there. I found an internship with the city of The Dalles, he called to see if it had already been taken, filled out an application and snail mailed it before 5 that day. However, snail mail needs a new name because before 24 hours had passed he got a call from The Dalles assistant city manager to set up an interview for the next week, April 27th. So he drove out that day, apparently did well in the interview, and received a phone call the afternoon of the 29th offering him the position and asking him to start on May 10th. You might not have a calendar in front of you but that happened fast! And for those of you not familiar with Oregon geography, The Dalles is located in the Gorge exactly an hour and a half from home.
We very quickly weighed all our options - did he just rent a room there and come back to us on the weekends? could we swing a place there and here? did he commute daily? should we just stay in our ward and come back every weekend? None of those turned out to be feasible or very realistic so we are packing up and moving our little herd to The Dalles. That means our lovely house will get rented out to somebody else so we're saying our goodbyes to all the walls and ceilings and such. That meant we were sadly released from our callings on Sunday and are leaving behind the ward we both grew up in and have now lived and served in for 4 years, and will be deeply missing the most amazing friends. Seriously they're amazing - I've hardly seen my kids for the past week as we and now I (Coop started work today) have been trying to pack and clean everything out in less than 2 weeks time. Where have they been? My friends are amazing. They've taken them and kept them in their homes until I know they must've worn out their welcome and then kept them for a few hours more. THANK YOU!!!!! And we will be moving away from nearly all the family we have. I know it's only an hour and a half, and we will be back tons (I'm not even switching doctors for my pregnancy) but we've been very spoiled here and have loved having such close relationships with aunts, uncles, grandmas, grandpas, great-grandmas, great-grandpas, cousins, etc.
And yet, we know that this was an answer to prayers and are very grateful for the opportunity - it's exactly what Cooper would like to be doing and will give him great experience to add to the resume at the very least. It is a reminder that we don't always get to pick how our prayers are answered but we know the Lord knows best. So we are off on our new adventure. The official move date is this Saturday although nearly everything is packed up already, with just some serious cleaning left to do. And so we take this leap of faith, not quite knowing what will happen for the long term (will we have a job by the end of this one? where will we be when this baby comes in September? if we'll be moving back here where will we live? if we're not coming back here than to where and how when I'm 9 months pregnant? where will Jenelle start kindergarten in the fall? etc, etc), and keep praying and trusting that the next step will be revealed in good time and everything will work out for the best. So, The Dalles, here we come!
Oh, and the girls amazingly still find some joy in the chaos of packing: