1st week in OHIO!

 We arrived in Ohio on a Sunday and the house we purchased was not ready to move in, so we had to stay at the Holiday Inn Express for 5 days. On Sunday night, Regan says, "you will have to drive yourself to sign the closing papers because I will be busy in meetings." Ummmm...I get lost in Utah, let alone in a whole new state! He made me drive there on Sunday night and I made him write down the way. It was a miracle that I got to the closing with 4 kids nonetheless! I was actually really proud of myself!

:Living in a hotel for 5 days was kind of fun. The swimming pool was a great thing to keep the kids busy. It was a nice, family friendly hotel, the breakfast was great every morning, and who doesn't like someone to come in and clean the room and make the beds every day?

 Monday night we found our new school and went to the open house to meet the kids teachers! The school is 2 minutes from our house!

 We went to Costco after the open house for dinner since it was right by our hotel and a family came up to Riley and said, "are you a BYU fan?" since he was wearing his byu hat and we foud out that they are in our ward. Riley and their 4th grade son hit it off immediately! I had to document Riley's first Ohio friend!

I was talking to the mom and she asked how old Elle was and then asked when she was going to Kindergarten. Come to find out, the Kindergarten birth date is Ohio is later than Utah. So pretty much one day I thought I would be homeschooling Elle for Preschool, and the next day I decided to enroll her in Kindergarten! She had preschool last year, and she was already jealous that the kids got to go to school and she didn't. After a lot of thinking and phone calls we decided it was right so I got all of the papers that I had in the car from Utah and registered her for school!

 The kids all picked out their first day outfits and we put them out for the first day of school!!!

 Everyone in the hotel thought it was so cute that we were taking first day of school pics inside a hotel!

 Sunny is in 2nd grade, Elle is in Kindergarten, and Riley is in 4th grade! They are growing up SO fast! They looked adorable on their first day of school!

 On the 2nd day of school, I dropped the kids off at school and then went to our new house to get the keys from our Realtor!!! As I was waiting in the driveway for the Realtor, my next door neighbor who is probably 75 came over to introduce himself and said, "you don't have to wait for your Realtor to get inside the house, I know the garage code and can open it for you". So that was the first way I got inside the house! He is such a kind neighbor and comes over every day to see if I need any help!

 The first day I got the keys was CRAZY! The cable guy came, the invisible dog fence guy came, the tramp guy came, the painters came. I fed the kids juice boxes, apples and crackers and they were so good as I was helping all of these people!

 Emery and Elle played on the massive playset all day and were in pure heaven!

 When I picked up the older kids from school and brought them to the house, they were SO excited to see the house and yard! This is seriously what the girls did when they saw their pink room! That room could not be changed!!!

 The kids freaked out when they saw the tramp that Regan bought!!! Like I said, a pure kid heaven!

 Got to love new twinner school outfits! These girls are SOOO cute!!!

 Elle was SO excited for kindergarten! She goes Tuesday/Friday and every other Wednesday all day which means she rides the bus with the older kids and she eats school lunch! WHAT? She is too small to do all of those things, but this girl LOVES school and loves her teacher!

 We were in our house for 2 days without any of our stuff so when I saw this moving truck, I was SO excited! I worked alongside with the movers for 2 days and by Sunday night, we had all of our STUFF inside the house and I was exhausted.

Regan took the kids to the Columbus Zoo as I was with the movers and hadn't eaten all day and at 4:00 I was exhausted and hungry. The next thing I know, my kind 75 year old neighbor comes over and gives me kfc for dinner and told me he was worried about me. We have met a bunch of neighbors, the kids have met friends, it feels so good to be where we are living, the ward is so nice, and best of all, the house feels like it was meant for our family and it feels like our house!

I have figured out where the things are that I need {school, costco, walmart, target}, I think Ohio is beautiful {still trying to get used to the humidity!!!!!} but the crazy thing is that I feel so good about this move. I am surprised at myself in a way. A few years ago, I think I would have been crying and sad, but I think that I have matured a lot in the last few years and have realized that you can still have good connections with your family without having to live right by your family. I am actually excited to have experiences outside of Utah and to have our own little family become really close and to rely on each other more. A week and a half in Ohio and all I can see is a bright future ahead of us!