Happy Halloween!

Reunion Triplet

It just so happened that the Loel Tonks family reunion (ie all of my grandpa Tonks's progeny) was the weekend after we moved out of Illinois.  I hadn't seen most of my Tonks cousins/aunts/uncles for years, and Kevin hadn't even met any of them ever, so we decided to go this year long before we had made concrete moving plans.  It worked out well, though, since our stuff was all in storage and our cars were sold, so we just flew to Utah.  I had convinced my little brother that he should come out to the reunion too, and that my other siblings who lived close and my parents and us should all rent a cabin together to stay at during the reunion, plus an extra day or two.  We had a couple of days before the reunion started, though, so we just drove up to Rexburg where my sister lives and hung out with her and her family, and my brother and his family (they live in Idaho Falls).    One of the days at Heidi's house, we decided to take a trip to take Matthew's girlfriend (Arianna) to see Yellowstone, since she's never been, and since it's not too far from Rexburg.  We knew it wouldn't work out well with Abby, though, and Heidi and her family had some plans (it was her son's birthday party, etc.), and my Dad didn't want to get up as early as we'd need to leave, so Kevin stayed behind to watch Abby and it was just my mom and my little brother and Arianna and me.  We had a *great* time!  I had so much fun talking and laughing with Matthew and Arianna, both on this trip and when they drove up to Idaho from SLC with us.

Old Faithful at Yellowstone

Arianna inside the Old Faithful Inn

The trip to Yellowstone was a blast, even after I lost my glasses (maybe they'll spout up from Old Faithful one day), and even when we took a wrong turn on the way home and ended up driving over an hour in the wrong direction!  We then had to drive back to Yellowstone, where we decided to eat dinner before trying a second time to drive back.  We didn't get home until late--Kevin was a trooper and took care of Abby all that time and put her to bed on his own and everything.  Yay Kevin!  I can't say I didn't enjoy a day of freedom to go and sightsee without worrying about nap schedules and eating times and babies who don't like being strapped in for long periods of time.

Our cabin at Bear Lake

Front of the cabin

(By the way, I should say that most of these pictures were taken by either my little brother or his girlfriend, which you can tell by the suspicious sudden increase in quality from what I usually take.)

my cute nephew

When it was time for the Tonks reunion to start, we all drove down to Bear Lake (which is between Utah and Idaho) and checked into our vacation rental cabin.  It was a nice cabin, although they did NOT have wifi, and I'm pretty sure they advertised that they did.  Not that I minded that much, but certain other parties amongst us have a hard time being unplugged.  Actually, the cell phone reception wasn't good there either, so it was a true get-away!  We had to drive like 45 minutes or something to get to the location of all the extended family events, which was a slight bummer, but not too bad.  We had a great time, especially back at our immediate family cabin.  It was just great to BE with everyone, and we really loved getting to know Arianna better.  She is great--good catch, Matthew!  Kevin and I never got to actually *swim* in Bear Lake, because the day we planned to go it was so crazy busy that by the time we got there, they were at capacity and turned us away.  (The rest of the family got there earlier, so they got in.)  Instead we went and had raspberry shakes.  We did take our turn in the hot tub at the cabin, though.

Bear Lake--the view from the cabin, I think.  (Isn't my brother a great photographer?)

After the Loel Tonks reunion was over, we stayed an extra couple of days for just a Davis Tonks reunion.  Sadly, I got pretty sick the day before we left and felt rather miserable.  Abby got sick too, and was especially bad the day we drove back to Utah.  She basically slept the whole day.  (Of course, that DOES make for a quieter drive...)  She was mostly better within a day or two, although she had a runny nose for weeks afterwards.

When we got to Utah, we stopped off at my Grandma and Grandpa Ellis's house to pick up the luggage we had left there.  They fed us, and we hung out for a short while (and took a 4 generation picture--glad we thought to do that!) and then we drove down to Provo to Kevin's sister's house.  

Four generations!  

There commenced our third family reunion--this one was a Hoffman reunion (just Kevin's parents and siblings).  We had a fun time there, too.  One day we went up to Park City and did the apline slide and ziplines. We also went swimming and hiking (both with everyone one day, and then a longer one with just some of the adults another day--Kevin's mom watched all the kids! ) and generally had a great time.   The adult-only hike was a longish one where we hiked up to Sunset Peak and then down by way of a few pretty lakes.  We started in one canyon and ended in the other (we drove two cars and parked one at the end).  I really enjoyed the hike!  I was worried I'd have a tough time, since I've been living at sea level, plus I'm not very in shape these days, but actually I did just fine and really enjoyed it.  The Hoffman reunion was short but sweet (just a few days), but I'm really glad we all made it.

After the Hoffman reunion, we flew down to New Mexico, and stayed with my parents.  Heidi and her family stopped by for a couple days after we'd just been there a few days.  Even though we'd just seen them at the reunion, it was fun to visit again!  They were there for my mom's birthday, so we all celebrated together.  After they left, we settled in a bit...quite a bit, I guess, because we are still here!

Back in LA...

Okay, okay.  As Beth has pointed out, it *has* been a ridiculous amount of time since I have posted, and a lot has happened!  Right now Abby is contentedly looking at books, so perhaps I'll have a few minutes without her clamoring to touch the screen and pull off the keys to write a bit.

First of all, we moved away from IL.  Our lease ended July 31st, and although Kevin isn't quite done with his Ph.D. yet, we did NOT want to stick around a whole other year (since it's a college town, you can pretty much only get year leases).  We also didn't want to move our stuff somewhere temporary, only to have to pack up and move again soon, so we opted to do one of those Upack/pod-like things where they deliver a couple of storage cubes to your house and you put all your stuff in.  Normally, they then take the cubes to your new address and drop them off, but since we don't really *have* a new address yet, we are just having them stored in Champaign.  At least we didn't have to unload the stuff into a storage unit, then reload the stuff again when it was time to actually move into a new place.

Kevin was still very busy with work and trying to finish up school and didn't have much time to help with the packing.  And I was busy with taking care of the bambina, who didn't much like letting her mom pack for more than a few minutes at a time.  So, we hired a college student to come watch Abby for a few hours three times a week while I packed up.  She came over for a few weeks--almost a whole month, actually--before we had to move, so I thought I'd have PLENTY of time.  Lots of people offered to help me pack, but I told them I had it all under control.  And I thought I did, right up until the last day when I suddenly still had lots of boxes to pack and no more time left!  (How in the world do we have so much stuff???  We even got rid of a TON of it beforehand, and sold most of our furniture and both of our cars too).  We did opt to pay some cleaning service to clean the house instead of having to worry about that, which was really nice.  Except that we were supposed to be all they way moved out *before* they came to clean (which was early afternoon on the 30th).  It turned out I was NOT done packing and so Kevin and I frantically threw stuff in boxes/bags and ran it down to the basement to be sorted and packed down there later, so that the cleaning ladies could do their jobs.  This meant that all that stuff later had to be brought back *up* the stairs, which ended up being a big pain.  In the end, I ended up staying up until 1am or something packing, only to have to wake up at 4am to catch our flight out.  To make matter worse, Kevin had to stay up *all* night the previous night trying to solve a work emergency at his data center.  So he *started* the day with no sleep.  He helped pack until 8pm or something, at which point he just had to take a rest (of course! I don't blame him).  Then he got back up about midnight and helped move boxes out to the cubes.  he sent me to bed at 1am and finished up while I slept a few hours (so he didn't get any sleep after his little nap.)  THEN, our plane was delayed like three hours or something, and we still had to care for and entertain the little munchkin on the plane and at the airport all that time.  It was rough.  Kevin would hold her for a while and then say "I can't keep my eyes open--you have to take her while I sleep a bit."  And then I would take her for a while, until *I* couldn't keep my eyes open, and we'd switch.  The worst part was when we were "about to take off" right when Abby had a poopy diaper, so they wouldn't let me get up to go to the bathroom to change it.  Only then we didn't actually take off for a long time, and once we did, there was turbulence, so they still wouldn't let me get up.  After about an hour, things were desperate for reasons you can probably imagine, so one kind stewardess let me get and use the closest lavatory, which was actually in first class.  (The other flight attendant was NOT happy I was there, but whatever.)

So, anyways, it was a long day.  Or couple of days, I guess.  But we made it!  We landed in Utah, picked up a rental car, and then picked up my little brother and his girlfriend once they got in, and then drove to my grandma's house in Sandy where we stayed the night.  Then we were on to some family reunions (three in a row, actually!) but I think I'll save that for another post.

You may be wondering where we were moving *to* (aside from the family reunions).  Well, we didn't really know yet!  Our plan was to go stay with my parents in "LA" (Los Alamos) for a month or so, then maybe Kevin's parents for a month or so, while Kevin finished up writing his dissertation and while we decided where we wanted to live the rest of our lives!  Since Kevin does his job from home (and he'll just be working for the same place once he gets his Ph.D., we could live anywhere!  It is awesome and difficult at the same time.  I mean, how do you decide on a place when you have infinite options?  More on that to come...