Cannon is 4!!!

I don't know if you can see it or not but Colt's shirt says "Family Road Trip" and boy was it ever! Plus it has a big truck on it and that's what we look for while driving, Cannon likes the Peterbuilts and Colt likes Volvo--because he can say it.

We've had a busy week! First things first though how bout those fathers and sons pics? He got me a few and most importantly they had a BLAST! Plus Isaac told me he's going to go to fathers and sons until he dies. Sweet! I had a great time too ;)

Saturday we did a few birthday presents and caught the last few innings of the Braves game. 

Sunday Cannon got his primary birthday shirt, he was so excited! He had to wear it, we made him tubby fist but he was STILL wearing it Tuesday afternoon per the travel days. YUCK. I was ready to see a different shirt! Anyway Sunday I still hadn't packed anything for the big adventure...but after church, and naps--I shouldn't have napped-- I eventually started and we got it done. Isaac patiently put up with me getting wound up for most of the time. It was miserable though trying to remember everything and get laundry done and whatever else. But about 9:00 that night we hit the road and boy--it was a LONG ONE. I hope its not often that I'm actually awake at the very time Cannon was born on his birthday but this time I was so I took a picture. 

Birthday excitement included checking out a wal-mart while dad caught and early morning nap. Wow, there was a lot of St. Louis cardinals stuff. I guess we'll see if we convert to Cardinal fans while we live there. Grampa Frei always cheered for the Cards...we'll see. And speaking of baseball, if our trip had been a little better planned the Cubs played the Cardinals in St. Louis on Cannon's birthday--that would have been awesome, but I'm glad we just got headed west and on with things too! The birthday highlight was going to dad's new school and looking at the animals (snakes-yuck) in the science building, then a gal who worked there let us into the ???? whatever they call the place where they keep even MORE animals. I wasn't going to go in with them, but they'd been in for about 2 seconds and Isaac came back out and said "You gotta see this!" So in I went, to be the camera woman. It was still kind a gross to me, but we have pictures so it was worth it. 

Other things from out few hours in our new town... I was asleep as we rolled into town Isaac said "Here we are!" and I was said its a cute little town. Then later I was REALLY REALLY tired and I commented how pretty and green it was and "those are cute little flowers all over" and Isaac turned to me and said "Those are dandelions." Oh. Whoops. Yes they were. Oh well it had been a long night. And another thing, there's a reason houses are cheap! Whoa-Isaac is good with living anywhere but...I think we're going to have to be willing to open the checkbook a little to keep me sane. Yikes. SO good though that we got to see that and not go into someplace blind. We still haven't picked a place yet but I won't be going for the very cheapest option. 

It was a long busy day in Kirksville we didn't get much rest and talked about just getting a hotel but once we started driving, we were drive'n! And we headed west. We went up to I80 then across. Wyoming is big and long and so is Nebraska! We got in quite a rain storm in Missouri but it was different from a rain in Mississippi. I'm a desert kid learning all kinds of things about rain. Isaac was like "Hey Honey-we might see a tornado!" Thankfully we didn't. But still, oh great, and we're moving there. The sky looked just like what I remember in of that movie Twister though. We have tornadoes in Mississippi but with all the trees you can't see the sky out ahead like that. We also noticed all the "dry" farms. Yeah right dry. That's a lot of water!

Anyway, we drove on! The night before the travel at night thing hadn't worked so well because the the boys wouldn't go to sleep! It was after midnight-kids awake. Crud. But they really are pretty good little travelers-better than me. Our ipad has some Disney movies that are loaded on it--but they never work, I can't get them to play. So dumb. But knowing they never work (I try every time we go visiting teaching.) We downloaded a bunch of Mormon message clips because the boys love them and they do work. So Monday night when we busted out the tablet ~we made it that far with out it, I was impressed~ Colton just wanted to watch Bob the Builder and we'd switch Mormon messages and he'd say or rather yell/sing his preference that he wanted to watch Boooob ch ch ch. Like the little theme song. It was so cute and funny! and from his point of view-disappointing. 

As we were approaching the Salt Lake valley, Isaac asked me if I'd been able to feel the back tire shake a little. I said I'd wondered if that was the case but as soon as he asked it confirmed that I wasn't crazy. Well we were taking about buying new tires sometime with summer when POP and the tread seperated...ok we'll buy new tires NOW. But blessing of blessing, we were almost to the foothill exit. We just felt so blessed that it didn't happen in the rain or in middle of the night or anything. It was a little inconvenient we had to unpack everything put the doughnut on pack back up go to the tire shop, unpack everything. But seriously it could have been SO MUCH WORSE! We were just so thankful. When we got to the Walmart with a tire place we played homeless and loaded our belongings in a shopping cart (haha just kidding) but it was that or leave our suitcases sitting there, not everything could fit in the front of our car that already had 2 careseats and a cooler in the back seat, so we loaded them up and went to grab a bite to eat. --of course I documented it, that's what I do--

After that little rodeo we finally made it to Thanksgiving point where we met up with Grama and Grampa!!! YAY!!!  They took Cannon and Colt Isaac and I crashed for naps. They had a blast.  

After dinner we went swimming, my folks were impressed at fearless little Colt. Cannon likes the hot tubs and swimming in the "warm pools" Colt gets near it, sticks his toe in and says "HOT" then bails into the cold pool.
 Then the next day we went down and met cute baby Trevyn. It was good to see her and Henley and get to visit with Tarra for a few minutes. It was a quick visit but really fun!

Then we went down to the Payson Temple open house. It was beautiful! I love getting to go through with my boys! It was extra cool too because the first night of driving we had listened to an old CES devotional were Elder Ballard was like go to the temple, if you can't go in, go to the grounds. So it was fun to take our boys--and get to go in. It is a beautiful temple and the tour was a lot more relaxed than when we went with Kathy to the Ogden temple last year. I really liked it!
I loved the pic of the boys in the little booties to cover their shoes and the one where Colt is pointing and saying "Jesus" while Cannon feel the prints of the nails in his feet.

Then we left our dad up north to work on school and work stuff and we came back down with Grama and Grampa. So far we're having a great time. We went up to see Poppa Great at the VA Home (aka "Jail" -if you ask him) but he was good -all things considered- we took him some kisses and he was happy to see the boys!

Other than that we've just been cashing in on cousin time! We had a little pizza party to celebrate Cannon's birthday. 

Nap time and go to bed time are a 2 hour process...some how I've got to fix that-I get too frustrated and truth be told its catching up to me, I'm feeling a little run down. But we'll survive!

AND this afternoon I got a great phone call when Isaac said things are going good but right now there's nothing he can do up there that he can't do here so he's going to come down!! YAY!!!

Picture Overload...

 

 

Colton is totally into selfies right now. It's pretty funny. He'll just point at the phone and say "cheese...cheese" who am I to say no? Shoot I just put on a Braves hat and played along...as I was looking through the (lots and lots and lots...) of pics from the week I found the one of him and Grama at church, I guess he's got her around his finger too...we knew that!

Baton Rouge oh my goodness the boys has so much fun from the time we walked into the hotel

And that Huge kiddie pool, it was dream! All 1 ft deep. 6 fountains and so much fun! Isaac and Cannon were making deals about getting to go swimming at dinner Friday night--then Grama let them wade a little and get a taste of how fun it was while we headed to the temple. The temple was why we went and it was wonderful! So nice to enjoy the spirit there while grama had her hands full! When we got done I got a text from Grama that said "Don't be thinking Diffi-Colt is asleep!" haha poor Grama was run ragged and Cannon being the "helper" was just getting Colt more wound up. Oh well! Anyway- Saturday morning 7:00 sure enough Isaac and Cannon headed down to the pool.Thank Heaven too because once they left Colt stayed asleep for another hour and a half! It was a bit of a rough night. Colt's first night in a big boy bed (he and Cannon slept on the sofa hide-a-bed thing) but when I heard crash of him hitting the floor in middle of the night I was up in a flash and...then it was all 3 of us on that hide-a-bed. Sleep didn't happen much, not for me anyway. I had put pillows down and that's what he landed on but I just couldn't deal with the thought of him falling again. Anyway at 8:30 when Cannon and Isaac came back Colt was stirring and woke right up. He saw Cannon in his swimming suit and wanted to go!!! Isaac said "He doesn't know Cannon got to go." I said "Bologna!" And I agreed to take Colt down there. We stopped and ate breakfast but then boy did we have fun. When I saw Cannon looking down at us from the room window I called Isaac and said "this is too fun, does he want to come back down" really he wanted a silky cuz he was so tired but at the mention of coming back down he decided that sounded fun and we had a great time. Then we packed up and headed to New Orleans. I think Cannon was asleep before we pulled out of the parking lot! Good thing we found him that silky!

New Orleans, and the French Quarter: make "quarter" sound like "corridor" when you pronounce it and you'll sound like they pronounce it...its crazy! Should I admit to having been confused?...probably not...oh well. We had a good time. It's an interesting mix! What about that disgusting thing down in the bottom left corner of the next collage? Its just gross, I liked both my boys faces--get me out of here!!

I love it when Grama's there to get  a couple pics of the whole family :) Right after we took these Cannon pics we were walking in front of the cathedral and some...less than clean looking...is that a nice way to say it??? Street vendor guy walked up Cannon and Isaac and said "Lets get you a balloon." Or something like that I was back a little ways but obviously with them walking holding Colts hand. I didn't hear what Isaac said but they just kept walking and that ornery less than clean person came up to me and snarled "If your broke stay home!" Colt and I just kept walking but when I got to Isaac I asked  "What did you say to that guy?" and he said "No thank you!" in his typical cheery voice, of course that's what he said and how he said it I shouldn't have had to ask. So then I told him what the guy had said to me and he said "hmm you should have reminded him that he was the one wanting money-not us." Haha. I thought it was kind a funny.
Isaac and Cannon ended up going up ahead and finding a ship. They were pretty excited but because of the weather they weren't doing tours any more. (we totally got caught in a torrential downpour shortly after) But we jumped on the trolley (such a rip off...they could have mentioned it was the next to last stop and you HAD to get off you couldn't just ride back the other way) anyway but worth our 3.75 rip off because A: We got another family picture :) (which I've uploaded NO LESS than 4 times and it still won't rotate and go on right so I'm putting it on anyway and I'll deal with it later-so dumb! --"Mom, don't say dumb" even when Cannon's not here his voice is in my ear, he's like my conscience.)

 

Anyway the other reason it was great B: was we met these cute sailors, who told us that they served on the USS WASP which was at port a little ways down the river (at the other END of the trolley line) and was way bigger than the battle ship Isaac and Cannon had been looking at. Needless to say they were sold! Me, not so much. It was already past nap time and Colt was getting whiner and clingier and it was past lunch time too but I didn't want to get ripped off (I hate that-even though Grama was happy to buy-I didn't want her to get ripped off either.) But even whiny clingy Colt jumped on the band wagon as soon as he heard the word "Boat! Boat! Boat!" Soooo I was out numbered, we got back on the trolley and rode to the other end and got a bite to eat  waiting and hoping the storm would  blow over and they would start doing tours again. It did! (I found out later it was actually Fleet week this past week in N.O.) Anyway the important part of the story is that I totally ate crow! That ship was AWESOME! Totally the highlight for (all 3) of my boys of going to New Orleans. And I was impressed too. The boys got to crawl all over all kinds of big tanks and stuff (even down in one they weren't supposed to-whoops-) a hovercraft, helicopters up on the landing deck. It was really REALLY cool!  The soldiers where absolutely darling with the boys too! And now when Cannon sees the pictures he says "Those are the guys that keep our country safe."

 

Picture overload I know...but it was SO AWESOME, Maybe I should've made collages but I didn't.

Now at first glance this next one might not seem cool but that was the door to the hovercraft and one of the Soldiers let them watch a movie of it going from water to land on his phone. It was just cool. 

 Can you read Colt's lips? "Copter!"

 

The ONLY bad thing was once we were on that ship both my boys were ready to go! They didn't really grasp the idea of "at port" and thought we were going to get to go somewhere for sure!
We had to get one last pic with the Brits too. These guys were from Britain's Royal Navy and their ship was docked just down the way. Cannon was being shy guy. He missed out.

So it was a fun little trip and a fun weekend. But I'm not done...
Sunday I got a picture of Cannon with Elder Cannon and he gave him this book for when he's a little older written by George Q. Cannon. It has the sweetest little note to Cannon in it too. He's such a nice guy.

Tuesday we had to take Grama back but were were in pretty good spirits knowing we were going that way in just six days :)! We got some visiting teaching done and went and watch one of my primary kids play baseball. It was fun but kind of late and pretty dang COLD. 

Wednesday I don't have a picture for but WEDNESDAY WAS HUGE!

Isaac successfully defended his dissertation proposal! YAY! WAHOO!! YIPEE!! CONGRATS ISAAC. We're NOT DONE yet. But this is such a big hurdle to have crossed. And really we were hoping to defend in January or February...silly us. But we're just SO THANKFUL he is finally able to move forward! I guess the norm around here is that the proposal is a big deal-like my understanding is pretty much just as bid of deal as the final defense. But we're gathering it might not be like that everywhere...the new dean here is like "just get it (the proposal) done, the data analysis is where the rubber really meets the road." So who knows but at least we're able to move on to that Data Analysis phase.

Which Brings us to Thursday...

When Isaac decided to head back to Utah to work on his Data Analysis with a professor he me there last year! For...who knows how long?!?! He says not as long as last summer. I should be really excited but I'm kind of like, wait, whoa, what, we're going again? And he's Mr. Roll with it. And I'm Mrs. Try to tie up loose ends. For one thing the boys and I were going Monday anyway, but now we're going drive with him. I wasn't worried about it because I bought trip flex. That used to mean I could change the tickets all I wanted...but not anymore they switched it "as of March 12" I bought my tickets March 26 but I'd been looking at them for a month. UGG So frustrating. Now I could only change them once. But I don't know what to change them to, I don't know how long we're going to be gone. We ended up eating some of it but oh well. Isaac gets to come with us-totally worth it! (That drive's going to be miserable and all day Cannon's birthday :( but we'll survive and we'll party before and after)

Today we snuck in one last play date with Jenna and her kids--I'm kinda heartbroken. She's become such a good friend. Between them moving, who knows when for sure but there house is in the process of selling and that poor girl-her life is more in limbo than mine! But anyway with them going and us going for who knows how long but then ultimately to Missouri I'm kind-a heartbroken at the thought of losing our friends. We love them!

 

Isaac took BOTH boys to fathers and sons so this post is really so ridiculously long because tonight I'm totally flying solo! And JCPenny clearance rack could only keep me busy for so long. Plus we're going to have to move everything I buy so I kept the brakes on. Actually I went in several stores and just peacefully looked around cuz I could :) But now its just me and the computer and too many pictures.  Hopefully he'll have some pictures for me next week but too but this is all I've got so far...

 

 And I finally got it rotate!! Maybe it just didn't like that spot!