Some things that make me happy
I am really so pleased with how things have been going this week. Before we moved out to California Ryan and Grandma Bayles were talking something like this;
Grandma: "Where are you moving to Ryan?"
Ryan: "California."
Grandma: "What are you going to do in California?"
Ryan: "Make friends."
So we drive up to our new home on Friday night at around 5:30 p.m. There are about 8 kids outside across the street riding scooters and bikes and playing on the grass while their parents visited with each other (3 different families) and Ryan yells out, "MY FRIENDS!" That's pretty much how things have been going for us this past week.
Our home was fixed up pretty nicely with a few minor issues, but nothing like our Provo apartments so I've got no serious complaints. I love having a garage, 2 refrigerators (ghetto as they may be), tons of windows, a window box in the kitchen, a patio for Ryan to ride his bike on, the fantastic park in our backyard, and such nice neighbors. The weather is fantastic, even chilly sometimes, and it feels SO safe in the neighborhood.
I look outside in the park and see families out there pretty often playing together, people will take their dogs on walks regularly so I have learned to expect certain people. For instance, there is a man and his wife who walk their dog and their parrot, Joaquin, each day around 2:00. The real-estate agent who showed us our place lives right around the corner and yesterday she took Ryan on a walk around the park while she walked her dog. There is a playground right around the corner and we don't live on a very busy street so Ryan will ride his bike and I'll take Katie in the stroller and we go on over to the park right after lunch. Sometimes we'll take our lunch and have a picnic. We'll get home and Ryan will be all worn out and take a 3 hour nap (YES!!) and I can work on unpacking things.
Really, this might all seem unimpressive to other people, but it just feels really good where we are. I could only be happier if Derek were home all day long with us. It is an adjustment to realize that he will be at work all day long for a good couple of years before he will get into the "swing" of things, but we'll manage, I'm sure. Derek has some great people that he is working with (probably about 15% of the lawyers there are members of the church) so that should help. Incidently, we heard that Derek is the 22nd lawyer in our ward. Crazy!
Tomorrow we're off to look for some couches so wish us luck.
I'll post some pictures of our place when we have some furniture and not just a million boxes in each room.
That tongue just cracks me up!
So there you have it Jodie. It is humanly possible to get pigtails into this hair, but don't get used to the look. I am not up for the work and I figure I've just got to take those rubber bands out four times before it rips out all of her hair and we have to start all over from scratch. So, expect the comb-over look for at least six more months. 
