We Made It!

We are here in Monterrey! This is the front of our house. It is surrounded with a cement wall and gates. Inside the wall is a small but very pretty yard. Our house is big and empty...can't wait for our stuff to arrive. We will be in this house for a few more weeks until our permanent house is available. Yesterday, I had my first adventure to WalMart by myself(with the kids) and made my way back through all of the one way streets to our house. I was pretty proud of myself, and finally decided I'll be able to enjoy living here, even without speaking spanish very well. I'll learn though! Monterrey is surrounded by beautiful green mountains, I believe they are the Sierra Madres, and it totally reminds Andy and I of Salt Lake. We can navigate by the mountains! I think Andy likes work so far...it's just been a lot of in-processing stuff and meeting with people. I think he'll start the real stuff in a couple of weeks. Anyhoo, we are here and alive and doing fine! I'll write more the next time we visit Carl's Jr. It is WiFi and we don't have any internet access until our next home. I'll try to survive without being "connected"!

Laredo, TX

Our last stop in Texas was Laredo. We stayed in a hotel right on the Rio Grande, between two bridges that cross over into Mexico. We were there for 2 nights, as Andy spent a day with someone from DHS at one of the bridges, so he could see the process of what happens when someone illegally comes in to the US. From what he told me, it seems that most people have a visa of some-sort, but they end up using it wrong. For example, a mom had a work visa which was valid, but she brought her son with her to go to school in the US, so now her work visa will be taken away and she’ll probably never get another again. Lots of Mexicans living in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, enter the US everyday with work permits to work in Laredo, then go back home to Mexico in the evening. Crazy, huh? Each morning, I watched dozens of Mexicans walk across the bridges to come go to work or school or whatever. It was a steady stream of cars and people immigrating pretty much all day long. I also watched our border patrol go up and down the river, decked out in their uniforms and weapons. They moved slowly along the shore on the US side of the river. So weird. I half expected to watch them find someone who had just swam across. Other than watching the bridges, we didn’t do much in Laredo. We shopped for school supplies, ate at the Olive Garden one more time, and swam in the beautiful hotel pool(of course). Swimming was really fun. Too bad, that was our last pool for a while.

San Antonio, TX

We stayed in San Antonio in a hotel on the river-walk. I’d never heard of the river-walk before. It’s a little man-made river that runs in a circle with tons of restaurants with mostly patio seating at the edges. The water is a bit brown and the river-walk is below street level, which makes it seem like it should be the sewer, but the little bridges and fountains and greenery make it very pretty and pleasant. There is a sidewalk on either side, so we walked all the way around and found an ice cream parlor. The kids enjoyed cones while we sat on a balcony and people watched. When we returned to our hotel, we all swam in the pool which was on the roof of this hotel! It had a beautiful view of the lights of the city!The next morning we visited the Alamo! No picture taking was permitted inside the church, but we did get some pics of the beautiful grounds. Jake enjoyed seeing lots of Davy Crockett’s personal items that were found in the area. We were all humming that song for the rest of our visit…”Davy, Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier!” Now we really can “Remember the Alamo!”

More Texas with Family

We spent last night with Great Grandma Ricketts, Aunt Nancy and Uncle Bill. They live in Midlothian, outside of Dallas, out in the country. They have a beautiful home and a beautiful piece of property, complete with certified butterfly gardens, chickens, a small lake, and a trampoline! We all had such a nice visit with them. Grandma treated us to dinner at another barbeque place (we were comparing Texas barbeque with Memphis...they're about the same to me...YUMMY!) When we got back, we jumped on the trampoline and played with the chickens. Their rooster kept crowing, which was really fun.This morning, Uncle Bill taught the kids to shell pecans, and Aunt Nancy made a delicious country breakfast with farm fresh scrambled eggs, homemade biscuits and blueberry muffins, bacon and fresh fruit. Needless to say, it was delicious!

Grandma is such a sweetheart, and spent so much time with the kids, telling them stories, showing them old pictures, helping them with puzzles...I think they will really treasure the time they got to spend with her and get to know her better. It was fun for all of us to get to know Grandma and Bill and Nancy better. We might plan another trip to their house now that they'll be our closest relatives!

Texas Friends

We spent Friday night with our friends the Thrashers in Plano, Texas. Rich has been Andy's friend since high school. It was fun to visit and enjoy real home grilled food (especially fruits and veggies)! The kids had a great time with Grant and Evelyn on their inflatable water park in their back yard. (It was really cool, we totally want to get one...I'm sorry I didn't get a picture.) Rich showed us cool pictures of surgeries he's performed which were very impressive, and Heather took wonderful care of us...arranging our sleeping quarters, complete with a cold water bottle on our nightstands. What a great hostess, and what a nice family!
We left the Thrashers to visit more friends, the Warnocks! We met Bryan and Colby and the kids at Beale AFB, and haven't seen them for about a year. It was really fun to hang out for a little while and see their kids all growing up! We hung out at Colby's mom's house, where the girls played Barbies, and the boys played their own version of poker. Then we had yummy diner food, and 25 cent prizes out of one of those claw grabbing machines. It's always so fun to see old friends and just pick right up where we left off the last visit!

Travelling in Tennessee

Our first day of travels brought us to Knoxville, Tennessee. We stayed right downtown and really liked the area. It was the city, but it was still quaint at the same time. Of course the highlight for the kids was the pool and jumping on the beds in our suite.



I really enjoyed the drive through Tennessee. Everything was really green with lots of rolling hills and the roads were kept very nicely. We did have to travel through intermittent rainstorms, which got pretty crazy a couple of times. During one of the downpours, everyone slowed down, except for the car coming up behind me. Suddenly he spun out and slid into the median. I'm so glad he didn't pass me and then spin out. I can't believe there wasn't a collision. Whew! When we took our exit in Memphis, I'm pretty sure we saw the car that spun out. The bumper had a strip that was hanging off the back. The driver was fine, so all was well!
We had to go out for some good BBQ in Memphis, so we chose Corky's, on the advice of our friends the Penningtons. This was the original Corky's and we enjoyed pulled pork sandwiches, pork nachos, and of course, RIBS! Rachel went with spaghetti. We really like Tennessee!

The Washington Monument

Since the first day we moved to Virginia and took a quick drive around Washington, DC, Sarah has wanted to go up in the Washington Monument and look out the little square windows! We finally got a chance to on Tuesday...our last sightseeing adventure! Andy stayed at home while the movers came and packed us up. I took the kids to the monument, and it was so great! I loved seeing all of the places that we've been visiting for the past few months. It was the perfect culminating activity. I'm so glad the weather was agreeable!

Happy Fourth of July!

We headed down to the Iwo Jima Memorial to watch the fireworks. As soon as we got in the car and left the house, it started raining! After finding that several of the roads we wanted to access had been closed for the fireworks, and driving around for about an hour, Andy found a great place to park in a parking garage just across the bridge from the memorial. Perfect. We enjoyed our picnic lunch in the back of the van...we folded all of the seats down and laid out the blanket. The kids thought it was great fun, and Rachel danced for us(only her head didn't touch the top of the van). When we finished, the rain had let up, so we headed out across the bridge to the memorial. A kind police officer informed us that another storm was expected in about 45 minutes. We had our umbrellas, so we were fine! We hung out for awhile--playing frisbee and soccer, eating tootsie pops, and hiding out under our umbrellas during the downpours--until it started getting dark! The fireworks started at 9:15ish and were really cool. From our line of sight, they exploded right behind the memorial. It was cool seeing the soldiers holding up the flag with the smoke and lights behind them. Like seeing a scene from a battle. God bless America! I felt that it was a great farewell to us, as we'll be leaving on Wednesday. Hopefully next year's celebration is as fun as this year's was!

Grace Learns to Crochet

That's right guys! I learned how to crochet.Now that I've learned,I actually think it's more fun than sewing! Have you heard about American Girl dolls? Well, I'm getting one and I'm making a shawl for her and I hope it fits. I also hope that you'll be able to crochet sometime. bye!

Ni Hao, Kai-Lan!

Here is another of Sarah's pictures of Kai Lan. She drew what she saw on the computer screen. The legs are a little long, but she did a great job! Cute, huh?