What a Day!

Before I even begin, let me something my mom used to tell me: If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.

     I am so moved by what our country did last night. Our country, young and old, looked beyond race, name, age, and chose an amazingly qualified, inspiring man to be the 44th President of the United States. I cried through his speech last night, and this morning I watched a clip of an old speech by Martin Luther King Jr., a speech we all know, and I cried and cried. This is an amazing day. I know that the next four years aren't going to be perfect, but I also know that this country will not ever be the same! It doesn't matter who you voted for, this was a huge accomplishment for our country. A country that from the beginning thought you had to be a white man to count for anything. I hope we can continue to come together as a nation and encourage our soon-to-be President. He isn't perfect and this will be a tough four years, but the weight of the county is not on his shoulders, it is on all of ours. And YES, WE CAN!

Four Blogs in One

I'm not very good at keeping this updated... so here is 4 blogs in 1!

 (1) Today was a beautiful Fall day, sunny, a little windy, and seriously 70 degrees! I took the kids to the park with some of our new friends. 

This is the little girl that after one day Grace said, "she is my best fwiend"

The park is beautiful! Seriously, there is nothing like a Missouri Autumn!

 (2) NHCC (our church) had a Halloween party the weekend before Halloween, and it was so fun. There were games, trick-or-treating, costume parades, and even a little train ride.

They liked the s'mores

We are too cool to dress up... can't you tell...

Grace was SO excited to see Snow White! She was beyond star struck. She slowly walked up to her and gave her a hug, it was so stinkin cute!

More food...

Here was the little train. The kids loved it, but being an over-protective mom I kinda freaked out when they went out of sight... and there were no seat belts... but like I said the kids had fun!

This was actually Halloween at a friends house. They had a party and we all took the kids trick-or-treating.

I was pretty excited to go also... it was my first time! Yeah, I'm such a rebel Dad!

 (3) A few weeks ago, Rob and I came home from something and put the kids to bed. I was sitting on the couch on the computer and I heard something drop down from the ceiling. I looked over by the TV and saw this:

Seriously, it was huge! At first, from a distance, I thought it was a frog! But when I got closer I realized it was some sort of grass hopper... er green... something... I don't even know! 

 (4) We have really settled in to our home. This last weekend we got a new couch for our living room, it is awesome and super comfy (our other couch is cute, but not so comfy). Also I feel pretty good about the kids rooms. The walls are still pretty bare but they look cute. 

Here is Grace's room... well some of it, her room is really big!

Wow, well if you read all of this you must really love us... or you were just bored... or both. Thanks anyway!

Ahh Politics

   I have been, unfortunately, joining in a few political conversations. I'm sorry I can't help it... I like to talk and I get really frustrated by closed mindedness! ANYWAY I just wanted to say real quickly that I am a political agnostic, "when your head is in the game, but your heart and hope are not." My new church did a great little series on politics and this is what I came away with. You can check it our here if you have a few minutes: http://www.politicallyagnostic.com/ 

That is all, November 5th cannot come soon enough...

A Great Evening!

Tonight was a great night in KCMO! We had some friends over for a yummy stir-fry and let the kids run around and play. The men folk went to a meeting which left us moms to hang out and laugh at our silly kiddos. It was really a normal night, which was GREAT! It feels so good to be making good friends and just living life with others! I'm looking forward to getting to know more people and make deeper relationships with those I've already connected with so far. 

Finally... The Road Trip

Our road trip started out in Portland, Oregon at 6:30 am and ended a few days later in Kansas City, Missouri at 2:00 pm. Total time 55 1/2 hours! Not bad with two toddlers in the car. We made our stops pretty short and our nights in hotels were short as well... actually we lost an hour each night so our nights were even shorter and I guess our total time was actually 53 1/2 hours. Anyway not that any of that really matters :) here are some pictures!

First thing first, drive-thru Starbucks!

This was a quick stop in La Grande, OR

No better way to say goodbye to Oregon than going to Safeway and looking at pumpkins...

Being silly in the car while I drive through Idaho, easily the most boring part of the trip!

We stopped for dinner in Twin Falls and found a little Idaho surprise... beauty!

Seriously... Idaho's secret

We stopped for our first night in Ogden, Utah  and after one day on the road we had a LOT of dead bugs on our car! At one point we thought it was raining but is was only the sound of bugs hitting our poor car!

The second day we headed through Wyoming which was surprisingly beautiful!

Even though it is apparently the beef state, I didn't see any cows but I did see all kinds of landscape.

I thought Nebraska was pretty cool too, I'm not used to seeing such a flat horizon. 

Our second night was spent in Nebraska, and in the morning we caught an amazing sunrise!

On our third day driving, we made it to Missouri!

I was pretty excited!

And so was Rob...

The kids were pretty tired from the travels, so once we were in our house, they took it easy!

I hope you all enjoy the pictures! We had an amazing trip, seriously even more fun than I thought it was going to be! Although, I'm not eager to drive back anytime soon, so from here on out we will be traveling to Oregon by plane! 

Say goodbye to white walls!

Rob and I stayed up until 3:00am painting the house and it was sooo worth it. We couldn't get started until the kids were in bed and so it made for a late night. Also our living room, huge dinning room, and one of the hallways all had to be done so it was a BIG job. I have lived in an apartment for the last four years and have been surrounded by white walls... well no more! Also our rugs came today! Our little house is looking so nice! Here a few pictures of our living room... hopefully I will get pictures taken of some of the other rooms soon.

The top picture shows the color better! It is a nice warm light tan that goes well with all the wood and brick in the house. 

Now I'm going to post this fast before something happens :)

So I Suck at Blogging

We have been in Missouri for almost two weeks and we have been crazy busy... but I haven't posted anything... sorry. I tried posting a blog last night with a bunch of pictures on it and there was an error and I lost all my work. I was too pissed to do it all over again, so I didn't. I did post some pictures of our road trip on myspace. 

This is where I need your help... please tell me there is an easier way to upload pictures on blogspot. The one at a time thing takes forever! And then I can't seem to rearrange them on the blog... anyway let me know and I'll be able to post more exciting things :-)