WE ARRIVED!

Well, I just wanted to give everyone an update on our status. We have made it to Florida! We are in the area that we will be living in for the next three years, but we are staying at Robert's grandparent's home until all of our stuff arrives on Monday! After that we will unpack for days I am sure. :) This past weekend we have been super busy trying to get ready. We are cleaning the apartment and taking a good look at what we will need furniture wise, etc. Today we went shopping with Robert's parents. We were looking for a new laptop for Robert to start school with and a new TV. Of course, we came back with some nice new toys. We are definitely ready to be settled in somewhere again, but we are not excited for the work and MONEY it is going to take to fill another apartment. However, I do like the idea of redecorating and shopping for the fun things!

The apartment is really nice. Definitely a step up from our last apartment, but there are always things you still miss. For instance, we found out today that there are no ceiling lights in the living room or bedrooms...oops! :) So, now we need to get busy finding some good lamps, so we are not sitting in the dark our first night. However, on the positive side we doubled the size of our living space, we now have a dishwasher, lots of storage spaces, and many fun amenities to utilize. I think with some fine touches the apartment will really come together! We have the most beautiful view ever, so what more can you ask for!

Day Four, Five, and Six...

Now we have really slowed down our trip. On Monday, August 3, 2009, we left Nashville, TN and headed to Atlanta, GA. It was only about a 5 hour drive, but we decided to stop in and visit my brother and his family for a couple days.

Here is my first time driving since I was sick for most of the trip. I am glad I finally was able to help poor Robert out who had been driving most of the way. I am so glad I am finally feeling well! It is not too much fun to be sick and on the road.

On Monday, we made it to my brother's house by dinner time. Lori made us a delicious roast and we stayed up talking, playing basketball, and Kayla and I did a lip singing dance and show from Mamma Mia for the family. It was good to be back home.

On Tuesday, the next day, we went to watch my nephew Keaton at his tennis practice. He did awesome! Look at his focus and form!

Kaden and Robert trying to steal some shade.

I couldn't resist taking a picture of this cute face!

After Keaton's tennis practice, we headed into Peachtree City where I grew up and took a golf cart ride to Cafe Pig. It is a classic Tolsma pit stop! We always want to grab a bite at the Pig if we are ever in town. It was yummy!

Kayla and I having so much fun together!

While on our ride, we ran into some deer who were feeding in the woods.

It was a fun classic Peachtree City visit. After we got back home, we had another wonderful dinner cooked by Lori and Jason. This time grilled chicken! Once we were stuffed, we played some video games on the X-box. After Robert and Jason dueled it out at Mario Soccer and our stomach's had digested we went out and played some Canadian tennis together. It was a lot of fun!

On our last day, Wednesday, we went swimming at their neighborhood pool then packed up and headed out. We left and headed to Jacksonville, FL to stop in and visit Robert's family before we head down to St. Petersburg.

St. Louis - Day Three

We woke up on day three in St. Louis! We decided to slow down our road trip and have a little fun. To start the day off we drove into downtown and bought our tickets to attend a Cardinals game. The game did not start for a couple of hours, so we walked around some parts of downtown. It was another great day to be sightseeing, and I was feeling so much better!

When we bought our tickets we got this great deal where for $11 you get two randomly assigned tickets, so we thought what the heck what's the worse that can happen. Well when we redeemed our vouchers, we were given SRO tickets. We were both like what does SRO stand for?

Well, we looked hard to find it on the seating chart, then after finally asking someone we discovered it stood for "standing room only." I did not even know there was such a thing! That is the first ball park that I have ever been to where it has "standing room only" seating (if you can call it seating) available.

There was no way we were going to stand for an entire game. I did not drive all that way to St. Louis just to stand for a game, so Robert and I decided to just pick a seat in the stadium and hope for the best. Robert got real gutsy and picked some awesome seats in left field about 10 rows up. I was thinking more like upper deck, but not Robert. :) As our luck would have it, we ended up picking the best seats! Almost every seat around us filled in, except ours. We never were asked to move or had to change seats. We totally lucked out! We even were shaded for part of the game.

It was fun to experience a Cardinals game and see all the All-Star hype since the game was just hosted there. However, it was one of the most boring games we have ever been to. There were no home runs or great plays. The Astros beat the Cardinals 2-0. There was not a lot of action, but we still had a lot of fun!

After the game we went over to the Arch, so we could go inside it. I guess our luck for the day ran out at the Cardinals game because I think we picked the busiest time to visit St. Louis. On the Arch's lawn, they were holding a huge outdoor concert, so the area was packed! It took us forever to finally get up in the Arch.

These were the carts (elevators) that we rode up in. They were tiny, and it was probably the most fun part of the whole Arch adventure.

After waiting in line forever, we finally made it up to the top!

Looking out the tiny windows they have. The room at the top of the Arch definitely surprised me. It was a lot smaller than I thought it would have been.

Well, that was our long day! We only did these two things since they took up so much time! It was worth it though, and we had lots of fun. The only downside was that after spending all day in the sun sightseeing, we had to drive another leg of our trip afterward. We decided we were going to make it to Nashville that night, so we could save on a hotel stay and spend the night at my sister and brother-in-law's home. Sadly, they were out of town, but they were nice enough to let us stay at their house. Thanks guys!

It was a long drive, but we MADE IT!

Day Two - Ahead of Schedule

Day two started out way better than day one, thank goodness! We got up early and ate some breakfast then hit the road. We made it to the Kansas City area around 1 PM.

We stopped at a little town called Liberty to visit Liberty Jail, a historic church site.

We enjoyed seeing the jail. It makes everything seem more real. You could definitely get a better sense of what the early pioneers went through. This is the only picture we were able to take as we were rushed out after the presentation for another group to start. I was pretty bummed I didn't get more time to look around.

After that, we drove to Independence to visit the Church's visitor center there. We learned all about the early Mormon Pioneers.

This is the RLDS Temple. It was fun to see all the different branches off of the original LDS church all located on the same block in town. We had a great time visiting some historic sites. After spending the afternoon learning about the pioneers, we decided to continue our drive East and head towards St. Louis. As we got close, we decided to pull off an exit and check into a hotel. However, to continue the wonderful adventures we have been having, every hotel was totally booked for lots of exits. I do not know what the heck is going on in St. Louis this weekend, but every hotel was packed full. We finally found one after an hour of checking around. It is not the best hotel ever, but it will do the job tonight. Thank goodness this is our last hotel stay of the trip. After this, we will be staying with relatives the rest of the trip. Also, I am starting to slowly get better. Each day is an improvement. Well goodnight! We will be heading to Nashville tomorrow after spending the day in St. Louis having some fun.

Day One - What a day!

Sorry there will not be any pictures today for a couple of reasons. First, I woke up this morning at 3 AM with severe cramps. I did not get much sleep after that, so our plans to leave early out of Midway around 7 AM did not happen. After spending the entire morning throwing up in the bathroom, I finally decided to brave it and hit the road, so at 9:30 AM we headed out the door. I think I had food poisoning. What a crappy time for that to hit, right? I know! The rest of the day was painful and long, so now you know why I was not quite up to taking any photos. :) Poor Rob had to drive the whole way today because I was unable to sit up straight in order to drive. He rocked it though! Secondly, there was nothing to take a picture of anyways! We made our drive through Wyoming and then Nebraska where we are now currently staying. There is nothing much in those two states but wide open land. To cap off the eventful day we were having, around 8 PM we decided to continue on another hour to the next city of Kearney where we wanted to spend the night. However, we had no idea what we were in for. Out of the blue we hit this terrible severe thunderstorm causing torrential downpour and massive amounts of lightning. We were even lucky enough to follow the storm the whole way to our destination. Sounding fun huh? Well it was exciting, but scary! The news report kept threatening that funnel clouds were forming, quarter size hail, and massive wind gusts up to 60 MPH. It was the classic Nebraska thunderstorm!

Although it sounds like we had one heck of a day, which we did, there were some great moments too, like seeing three rainbows, lots of wild animals, and trying to make the best of being in the center of a severe thunderstorm.

Well that about sums up our day! We drove 780 miles today, which should be our longest leg. YAY! We are in Kearney, Nebraska tonight, and we plan to drive to Kansas City tomorrow. I hope to have pictures for you tomorrow. On a side note, I am starting to feel slightly better and even was able to keep down some dinner. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day. Good night from Nebraska!

Moving Day - Florida Here We Come!

Well the day has finally arrived! We are leaving beautiful Utah to go to sunny Florida. After three long days of packing, the moving truck finally arrived! I could not wait for them to arrive. I was so sick of packing and cleaning. I officially hate moving!

Here is an action shot of the Explorer being loaded up onto the truck underneath all of our boxes. I am so glad that we are having our stuff moved across the country by professionals. It was great to have them come and load up all of our boxes for us.

Last shot of Robert outside standing on our street.

After a long three days of hard work, we finally got to rest. As a going away present for Robert from Ford & Huff where he did his law internship at, they let us stay in their company villa up in Midway at the new Zermatt Resort. It was well needed after spending three days hunched over boxes!

It was an awesome way to kick off our trip. Tomorrow we will wake up really early and begin our drive through Wyoming and Nebraska. We are hoping to make it to Lincoln, NE tomorrow, so wish us luck!

Well goodnight! Keep checking out our blog as I will try to keep it updated as we make our trip!

Going Away Parties

So this past weekend was our last weekend in Utah before we move, so both sides of my family decided to throw Robert and I a party. This way we could see nearly everyone before we left.

To start it off we went up to my Uncle Garn and Aunt Kim's house where we got together with my Tolsma side of the family. It was a perfect day to have a cookout with hot dogs and hamburgers and play some games outside. We played horseshoes and this other fun game like horseshoes where you throw these roped balls onto a stand to earn points. It was a lot of fun!

Some of us were not as skilled as others and kept getting the roped balls stuck in the tree, so Kim had to cut some branches down to clear a path.

I think I need some more practice. ;)

Where's Tyler?

It was a lot of fun getting together again and catching up. We are going to miss being able to see our family so often.

Jenny, Aunt Lori, and Grandma Tolsma

Cousins


The following day we got together with my mom's side of the family and the games continued...

This time we played some croquet and money was at stake. I almost took the first round, but my cousin Drew took me out! Lucky bum won $20! My Uncle Murray won the second round.

Tyson, Jessica, Drew and I sitting back and relaxing after finishing up our game of croquet.



After eating taco salad and playing croquet, we took our party up to Mountain Green where my Aunt Susan and Uncle Bob just moved. We celebrated my sisters birthday and ate lots of dessert.

Farewell! Thanks to everyone for making these past five years here in Utah awesome. It is definitely going to be a bittersweet move. We are excited to start a new adventure, but sad to leave family and friends.