Settling into the Groove

Well, We've been here well over a month now. Strange how it feels shorter and longer at the same time. Last weekend we hiked up to Stewart Falls with Bekka. It was the first time we got to try out our Sherpani Rumba Superlight backpack carrier. I have to say it was fantastic. The pack does a great job of transferring the weight to your hips and legs. This is great for me because I get backaches/headaches easily if there's a lot of weight on by shoulders. Samantha LOVED it. She even fell asleep at the end! The falls were beautiful, but very cold. I learned that it is important to pack an extra layer of clothes, especially for the baby. Fortunately we had a warm blanket for her. The leaves were beginning to change, making the valley begin to light up. We were exhausted by the end of it all. I am hoping to hike up Rock Canyon this weekend, but we shall see.

John started school a few weeks ago. He is adjusting well and loving his classes. After his art classes his favorite class is Geology! He's been getting in lots of drawing and I am getting to see some of his real life art. He's fantastic! How did I end up with such a wonderful, amazingly talented guy?

I am taking a BYU creative writing course online right now. It is so great. I remember now why I love to write so much. Next semester I hope to starting going back full time. I am really excited for that. The goal is to graduate December 2012. Its so crazy. I graduated high school in 2004 and started college. That'll be eight years ago once I have my degree. Its kind of disheartening. But then I have to remind myself that I went on a mission to Brazil for a year and a half. And I took a year and a half off to start a family. So it'll just be like me getting my degree in 5 years. Ha ha. I guess I just need to continue pushing along.

Wymount is great. We love where we are located. The church here is great too. I really like the people at church. And there are quite a few kids around Sammy's age so she'll have friends as she gets older. Sammy loves going outside and playing in the grass. Real grass! None of that icky stuff that grows in Florida. I really want her to like the outdoors and not be a TV veggie. We try to go out as often as possible. Although she does like Super Why. I think she has a baby crush on the main cartoon character. :)

The Eagle Has Landed!

Well, our herd of Herzogs has officially made it to Utah and we are unpacked. Actually, we've been here since the 5th of August and have been unpacked for about 3 weeks now. I'm just now getting around to posting about it.

The epic trip out here was long, but good. We left Florida early on the 2nd of August. We drove through 10 states--Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Wyoming and Utah. Samantha was fantastic about 90% of the time. We would leave early enough that she was still asleep, but she would get pretty grumpy in the evenings, around 5:30-ish. Fortunately, all we'd have to do is stop for awhile and feed her and play awhile and then she'd go to sleep for the evening. She was such a good little girl!

I would not recommend the drive we took on a regular basis, but its fun knowing that we did it. Everything went very smoothly. A word to the wise--it takes MUCH longer to stop at a red light when pulling a 1500 lb trailer. In fact, you may end up in the middle of the intersection. Once you realize you're there, you have to try to speed away (which is not very easy with a 1500 lb trailer) before the crossing traffic can begin to move. Needless to say, we were all safe and it was very funny after the fact.

Tennessee was by far the prettiest state that we passed through. If we had the time, I would have loved to do some sight-seeing there. Lots of caving and camping and hiking. Nebraska consists of a whole lot of NOTHING. And it was one of the longest states. We woke up in Wyoming and it was in the low 40s! It was great. No more humidity for us. We were so happy to see the "Welcome to Utah" sign.

We were very extremely blessed during our trip. After we got to Utah, I happened to check the rating on our car, and we found out that we were pulling about 1000 lbs more than our car is rated to pull. We never once had a problem with our little Dodge Neon. The wind in the mountains that everyone told about seemed to vanish once we got there. No wind at all. HUGE blessing. The worst of it was a hill in Tennessee and about three or four in Wyoming where, at the bottom, we were going about 60mph but by the top we were going about 25mph. We just kept praying the the car just kept going. We are really thankful to all of our friends' and families' prayers. We could definitely feel the Lord looking out for us.

Our new apartment is great. It is wonderful to have three bedrooms and for Sam to have her own room. I will be posting more later on this week about our apartment and the unpacking and John beginning school. We are extremely grateful for all that we have and we are looking forward to our life here in Happy Valley (Provo) for the next few years!

Sam & Dad the day after arriving