Road to Hanover: Day ONE

DAY ONE: Phoenix, AZ to Albuquerque, NM

The first day of our LONG road trip was quite eventful.  Some of the typical events you see in a long road trip: taking much longer to pack than originally anticipated, having more stuff to cram in then you thought, leaving much later than planned, blankets, pillows and assorted kids possessions in every nook and cranny.  Couple all of those with the fact that you are planning on being on the road for one whole week and it gets complicated.  We felt like we were being asked to put together a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle at the drop of the hat, as we crammed and stuffed items in every available compartment in the car.  Then we grabbed our bungee cords and pulled and strapped our extra items on top of the car and behind it.  Finally we left around mid-day.  

{Saddled up and ready for the road, our own personal Knight Rider as J would say}

 Eli was already exhausted by the time we left, and quickly settled down for a nap just as we left the Phoenix area. He slept really well until we stopped up on the Mogollan Rim.

Even though we had left quite a bit later than planned, we still stopped for a little while up at a scenic look out point on the Mogollan Rim. It was perfect to stop here on our final goodbye to our Home in Arizona.  

 "Is that New Hampshire Dad?"

 {Looking for Bears on the Rim Lookout}

In J's words: "One last look at the Mogollan Rim in the Arizona White Mountains. I've spent my entire life camping and exploring the forests in these mountains.  This is a place I will always cherish and remember."

As soon as we left the look out point we got HAMMERED with rain.  Probably the worst rainstorm that we have ever driven through.  It slowed our time down considerably but we managed to make it into Albuquerque that evening pretty late.  My brother, Ben, has been living there all summer for an internship and we were able to meet up with him that evening.  He bought pizza and met us at our hotel room that night.  We sat up and chatted while the kids were jumping wildly from one bed to the other.  Finally it was time to go to bed and we made plans to meet back up with Ben in the morning for a breakfast.

 New Mexico: the land of enchantment, full of freight trains pulling lots of oil cars

Mr E makes us laugh...he covers his ears like this whenever there is a loud noise :)

Random Pictures before we left AZ

In no particular order here are the last pics, things we did before we started our "Road to Hanover".

{Lori and Tyler's new house!! We are so excited for them to get a "grown-up" house all to themselves.  We were able to at least walk through their new home before moving and cannot wait to come back next summer to visit and see what they have done with the place}

 {Cute Eli with a paci}

 {Miss M on a post-dentist Jamba Juice date with Mom}

 {Robby hanging out at Grandma's house, we lived there for about 3-4 weeks between moving from our house and officially moving back East}

{Jen and I...the 1-1 queens at Baywood.  This was my last day of work there...crazy to experience after 7+ years of employment with Banner}

 {the Aunties and Nona came over to Grandma's house and swam/played with the kids a few days before we moved}

 {Eli with his Auntie Abby.  He loves to be held when he jumps on the tramp}

{Typical Robby glued to Esther's side}

 {we celebrated Papa's birthday a week early this year, since we knew we would be gone for the actual day}

{Top row: Adam, Tiffany, Abby, Jesse}
{Bottom Row: Nona and Papa T}

 {one of our last pics with the girls. The morning we left for NH we stopped by my in-laws house for a little while and had some breakfast and said our last goodbyes}

 {in order to talk Robby into getting another picture taken, I appeased him by taking some pictures of his "super cool monster trucks" that Esther bought him.  yes, a tad spoiled indeed}

 {Miss M had two of these little sticky girl figurines. She gave one to Aunt Abby so that "she won't forget me" and then Maddie kept the one with purple hair.  M told A that she wanted to bring this one because "it will remind me of you"; M thinks it looks like her Auntie :)

 --M will sure miss Maggie when we are gone

One great memory I will savor and keep with me, is the night my dad read stories to the children on his bed.  He had come home the weekend before we moved and was getting ready to leave for Texas the next morning.  He took Maddie and Robby up onto his bed and let them pick out a handful of stories.  While I was putting Eli to bed he sat and read them story after story.  They were in heaven and loved spending some quality time with Grandpa.  I could feel the love that my Dad has for his family and equally see how much my children basked in the attention.  They each scrunched their bodies up next to him and sat ever so quietly for the stories.  Near the end of their story time I grabbed my phone and snapped a couple of pictures.

I want my children to always remember how much their family loves them.  They truly have the greatest grandparents in the world.  They are attentive to their every need, patient, kind, loving, and wants what's best for the kids.  I am so grateful to have young, healthy parents and in laws that take the time to get to know their grandchildren.  I hope my two kids remember that night that Grandpa spent with them and hold it close to their hearts, because I sure do!

{Arizona clouds, oh how I will miss you}

One of Many Goodbyes

As I type, we are currently housed in a lovely little hotel room in Albuquerque NM.  I figured I might as well start the onslaught of posts regarding saying our goodbyes to home sweet home in Arizona and welcoming a new beginning in New Hampshire.  We officially left our family and friends and embarked on a new and exciting journey across the country to our new soon to be friends that will become our make shift family {hopefully}.

On Monday the kids and I were able to visit Costa Vida for the last time in awhile with one of my bestest oldest friends, Becky.  You know you are great friends when you can go months without seeing each other, but when you get together it is still like no time has gone by.  Within moments of arrival we were chatting away and laughing at silly memories from younger years, as well as swapping kid stories back and forth. It is crazy to think that we now have five kids between the two of us! 



Although we never seem to get together as much as we should, I will definitely miss you Becky and cannot wait for lunch again when we come to visit! {it makes me bummed to see how our two boys are finally getting to the friend age of life and now we will be separated again}



I seriously don't know what we did without cartoons and games on our phones for the little ones before...it has been a total lifesaver!

Cousins swim time

I think one of things we are probably going to miss the most about Arizona is cousin time.  Although our kids don't have very many cousins, they sure love the ones they've got.  Kaylin and Zacky were some of their favorite people and they all loved to spend time with one another.  Kaylin idolizes Miss M, and thus Maddie loves to be around her.  Eli has a special smile that he reserves only for when he sees his buddy "Zacky" and would run right over to play with him.  The last few weeks before our move, we were able to get together a few extra times to sneak some playtime in.  Our highlight was probably the infamous cousin sleepover we hosted at Grandma's house.  Kaylin felt like such a big girl having a sleep over with her cousins and kept saying "it's time to go to bed ALLLL together for sleep over!"  We celebrated with popcorn and movie night watching "Princess and the Frog" and then promptly went to bed.  The next day the kids were all so excited to eat breakfast with Katers and Maddie had a ball dressing Kaylin in some of her clothes.  We cannot wait to see our Hamelwright family again!

 Maddie showing off her swim team suit from Perry Pool

 Kater bug hanging out in her favorite spot...the spa otherwise known as "the little pool"

Eli has LOVED these diving toys which are known in our family as the "swimmer buddies"

More Goodbyes

Before we left Arizona, we were able to stop by our old street one last time and have the kids say goodbye.  It was pretty sad to see Robby so upset as he said farewell to his two best buddies, Luke and Jack.  I am so grateful for our neighbor friends we have lived so close to the past three years {and the same neighborhood for the past seven years}. They have all been so wonderful to our family and had become such an integral part of our lives.  We will never forget them and hopefully we can visit them next summer!!

Robby with his buddy Luke {pronounced Luke-y by Robby}

Jack and Maddie {he has been our next door neighbor for 3+ years and the kids have had so much fun jumping the fence between our two houses for playtime. We had the perfect friendship between our two families and they will be sorely missed}

Jack and Robby

Maddie with her girl pals, Ellie and Abby

Gymnastics

I think that one of things Maddie misses the most about Arizona {besides family of course} is her gymnastics lessons.  She LOVED her coach, Jason, and has loved all the girls she has been in class with the past year.  Not only that but this summer was a great summer for her.  It seemed like she was constantly learning new tricks and just really became more focused and passionate about the sport.  The last day of her gymnastic class she came home crying because she was so sad that she would no longer be taking classes at her gym.  Because she was so sad, I decided to try to go in and do one last day of open gym if we could fit it into our schedule.  As luck would have it {or unlucky in other instances}, we ended up postponing our move by a whopping 7 days and so I was able to take her back to gymnastics one last time.  The kids all LOVED it.  They all were able to run around and play, release some of their pent up energy and Miss M was able to practice some more gymnastics one last time.  This time it was all smiles from my Maddie as we left.  One of our items on the to do list once we get settled in NH is to find her another gymnastics club to take classes at {I think this may be at the very top of M's list, along with picking berries}.

 Maddie and coach Jason

Goodbye, Olympic Gymnastics.

Hello, new unknown New Hampshire Gymnastics, I hope we like you.

Some of my besties

I don't know why it takes us moving across the country for certain events to take place, but this is another of those things.  My friend Carla and I have been friends since way too long to even really remember.  I have a vague memory of being in the same seminary class at some point my freshman year of high school, but before then she was my sister's friend from band.  They started out best buddies and I was kind of the tag along younger sister that would go places with them.  Such as to YSAP activities when I was really not even a senior in high school, or on combo date nights with the older super cool {or sometimes not so cool} boys, or just to hit up Jamba Juice/ Bahama Bucks and chat about life together.  Somewhere along the line we picked up our friendship and became besties as we worked through boy drama, wardrobe malfunctions, hair dye jobs gone bad {at least I had my fair share of these}, growing personal testimonies of our Lord Jesus Christ through life challenges/trials, dealing with college schoolwork, etc.  The amazing part about our friendship is that we grew the closest while Carla was at NAU and I was down in the valley attending ASU.  I can remember multiple phone conversations we had together about real and meaningful things.  I have frequently told my hubby that out of all my non-family friends, I am able to connect strongest spiritually with Carla.  She tends to bring out the best in me, the non-selfish side, and I frequently admire her willingness to not settle for anything but the best!  She held out and found a great man that was worthy of her. Another great part about Carla is that she introduced me to another great friend of ours, Janelle.  Although we didn't meet until college, we have also formed a great bond together.  It seems like we have done almost everything together the past ten years.  We both dated our husbands at the exact same time, ended up getting married six days apart, had our first child two days apart, had our second child three months apart, and had our third child within six months of each other.  We also each have two boys and one girl.  It has been so fun to share so much in common with each other and I can still remember all the phone calls back and forth when we were pregnant with our first. 

So, when we found out we were moving I knew that we needed to get together with each other.  Somehow we managed to plan a date night and after we got there, we realized that this is our first date night that all of us have gone out together.  The icing on the cake was that my sissy, Loriann, was also able to come with her hubby.  We went to dinner and laughed and talked as if we went out every week together, instead of once in a blue moon.  It was such a fun memory to spend some extra time with these ladies and I sure miss each of them :)

 Janelle, Tiffany, Loriann, and Carla!

 "Girls definitely take better pictures than boys, right Jesse?"