wow...that's all I can say

hey folks.....

Well here I am. A lot has changed in our lives since the last post...It's been crazy to say the very least.
So let me start from the beginning. (ps..I'm in journal mode because that's what I planned on doing during naps, but I left my journal in our room....and that is where eliza is sleeping....thus I write here :O)
Anyway... I will start from the Beginning.

In September Aaron presented his thesis. He passed. This was 4 years exactly from when we had begun our adventure at Stanford. Since he would be graduating soon...we knew we would be needing to move.
In November, I finally FINALLLLLLY got a spot in the Spring 2009 Nursing program at De Anza. At first I was angry (to say the least :O) because I didn't get into the program starting right away in January...I had to wait CLEAR UNTIL APRIL!
Anyway, so we knew a change would be coming in April and that we would need to figure out what we were doing with our lives.....who would watch our kids while I was in school, and where we would move to.
In the beginning we felt strongly that we didn't want to uproot our kids from their life at Stanford and their social group at church as well.
Therefore, we decided when we had to move we would stay in the very close by area so that we would be in the same ward and keep the same social happenings alive.
Everything was planned to a "T". We had the babysitter, we knew we would be moving very close by in June or August...and that was that. No Suprises, right?
Ok...
So...
a few weeks ago Aaron and I decided/felt that for some reason we should be looking into different options (as far as where we may want to live). Somewhere closer to my school perhaps.
On a Saturday (a little over 3 weeks ago), we took the kids out and went hunting for nice areas in which we might like to live. Places that were closer to my school.
We never really found much, but we did have the feeling that when we did move, it wouldn't be as we thought before. We would be moving farther away which meant changing everything for the kids.. (However, keep in mind that this move wouldn't take place until June at the earliest, and August at the latest.)
On that Saturday night, after we got done looking for nice areas to live, we decided to make a map. We made a BIG Map that would show all of the places we could live, keeping in mind Aaron biking to work and me getting to school (we needed wherever we chose to be easily accessible for both of us.)
We found all of the good schools and marked them on the map as well (oliver will be starting kindergarten here, in 2010...YIKES).
So that was kind of fun for us to look at and kind of see places where we could maybe find to live.

Ok...so, this was a saturday that we did all of this.

Now...On the very next MONDAY (only 2 days after we had really even decided to start looking for places to live), Aaron got a call from the housing people at Stanford. In that call they politely explained to Aaron that we had to be moved out by March 22nd. They needed our apartment for another family.

This changed everything. If we had to move, we needed to do it quick so that we could be settled in a new place before I started nursing school.
It was a mess.
We spent the next 5 days searching night and day for an apartment. Not just any apartment, but the apartment that was best for us, and for what is going on in our lives.
There are tons of apartments here, and it was gruesome to try and figure out the best place for us to live.

I found my "dream" apartment (so I thought) on that wednesday. We called the lady and went to check it out. It had a 2 car garage, a loft, wash and dryer, 2 bathrooms, and it was really close to outdoor recreational activities...also decently close to my school.
well...come to find out (and believe me, a long story short) this place was not for us. When we arrived there for our first time, we realized that the place was EMPTY....like a ghost town really. We couldn't figure out why. As the story unfolded we found that this place was mostly filled with older people who really didn't wand ANY NOISE AT ALL! The HOA rules were ridiculous (you couldn't even leave your shoes outside by the front door. They didn't want any interacting with people, they didn't want people walking/playing on the nice grassy areas, and they didn't want kids playing after a certain time in the afternoon. WOW! And can you believe that they didn't even tell this to us until a few days later. We were thinking for a while that that was the place we would end up.
But on the next saturday morning, I called the lady and she told me this info. I was shocked.
Anyway,
In the mean time, we did find another apartment that was a possibility. However, we COULD NOT GET A HOLD OF THE LAND LORD!

(just a little fyi, and backing up...:O) During these 5 days, Aaron and I seriously were searching almost non stop for the perfect place. And on the occasion of this last apartment, we both called the lady within 5 minutes of each other and left messages. Then we called each other to tell each other about it...and it was just very comical. He called her, left a message...and then tried to call me. The line was busy because I was calling her too.... Then I called him to tell him about it... it was so funny.
Anyway...

So this last apartment looked GREAT (on craigslist), but we didn't know anything about it except that it was RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET FROM MY SCHOOL :O) :O) :O) :O)

ok...
so, where was I......
Oh ya,
It was on a saturday that I found out that we did not want to move into the "ghost town apartment" because the rules were way too ridiculous.
Aaron had gone to the store with oliver and I was frantically wondering what we should do next. The place that we had been hoping for fell through, and I didn't know what to do.

In my anxious state of "oh crap", I dialed the lady about the apartment that we didn't know anything about (except that it was across the street from my school :O).
I of course got a message and in that message I'm sure I sounded very VERY desperate. I told her we needed to find a place soon and that we really wanted to go look at the apartment so we could see if it was something that would work for us...and then told her to call me back :O)

About 15 minutes later the phone rang and it was her (I was at a friends house a few houses down, and heard the phone all the way from there and RAN as fast as I could to get it....not wanting to be too hopeful that it might be the lady I had been wanting to talk to about the apartment.

IT WAS HER!

On the phone I told her of our situation, and told her that we really wanted to come see the apartment....we were desperate.
She continued to tell me that she was out of town and could not show us the apt....I was worried because I just didn't want to lose this place to somebody else.
Another long story short, this is what happened :O)
She told me that if I sent her a fax/copy of my drivers license, she would give me the code to the locked apartment so we could go in and check it out....without her.
I jumped on the chance and did just what she said. I was so nervous because aaron was gone and I was being so proactive about this whole apartment thing...and I just hoped that I was doing the right thing, but also felt VERY cool that I was taking the lead :O) (ps...when aaron got home and I had everything all situated to go see this apartment...he was very impressed/excited:O).
Anyway, she sent us the code and we were able to go check it out all by ourselves!
It was soooo fun.
It was fun to feel a little sneaky walking around in an empty apartment. And to do it without somebody showing us around was kind of fun. I enjoyed exploring on my own :O)

We decided we LOVED it! Here are some of the best things about this place:

1. It is a 3-5 minute walk to my Nursing Lab.
2. It has a washer and dryer (which we didn't know from the add...so we were kind of worried that it wouldn't have one. We've lived without them for 4.5 years and we were REALLY ready to do laundry whenever we NEEEEEDED!)
3. It's right by the top 1 and 5 elementary school's in the area.
4. Our ward meets in a building that is only a few blocks away.
5. It's a few blocks from a REALLLLY fun park.

As soon as we got home, we called the lady and told her we wanted it! We got money orders and all of our paperwork ready that night.
The next day we came and made it final.
On Thursday we signed the lease, and on Saturday we moved in....whew!

It has been a really hectic 3 weeks. We're excited to finally be able to get settled here. Yesterday I finished unpacking and we went to celebrate that night.

Oliver and I have been having a rough spell for the past few months now. For some reason we just have been at each other's throats (I feel like I am a kid again :O). It's been really hard.
This whole moving thing added stress to our relationship and I really felt like I was becoming a monster....not fun if you can imagine :O)

Anyway....Aaron came up with a plan. And this is what we decided...Oliver is just fine when eliza is not around. He really is a very good kid. When eliza is around, he feels threatened (or so it seems). I think this is common...but how to deal with it is the hard part.
Oliver is not very cuddly and eliza is ALL about that. So I think it bothers oliver to watch her be cuddled and loved (even though it's usually intiated by her....) it seems to bother him because I think he would like to be cuddly, but he just isn't and doesn't want to be.
Therefore he does everything in his power to make her miserable. And not only that, but he also becomes very defiant to me as well...and then I am angry and nobody is happy :O)

So yesterday evening, he and I went on a DATE! Just me and oliver and nobody else! I had to get a shot on campus (De Anza), so we decided to walk there and do some exploring. IT WAS SO FUN! Seriously it was a blast. We saw the swimming pool, a soccer field where they were playing soccer, a track...all of these places were just crowded with people and it was such a FUN atmosphere! Oliver was amazed. Then we went and got my shot (that wasn't too exciting :O).
After that we went and found a fountain and played in it for a long time. He'd throw sticks and bark into the bowl on top and then watch it flow out....it was really fun.
We even heard the bells from a bell tower, but we couldn't find the bell tower. We'll have to go back and see if we can find it. Oliver found a quarter and couldn't wait to go home and show daddy his treasure. We found a duck in a pond and oliver thought he was so cute. We think he was waiting for food because he paddled to us and looked anxious for us to do something :O). Oliver talked to him for a while and then we left. Oh, we also saw a really cool statue of a turtle on campus! It was cool.

We decided to go home and have some dinner, and we were both excited because we had also planned a family DATE to get some ice cream from McDonalds!
We were celebrating our finally getting moved in and unpacked....Crawling through piles and piles of boxes for 3 days gets REALLY REALLY frustrating.

Anyway, it was so fun being with just oliver. I want to do it more often. And it was also fun going on our family date.

This morning was fun because we just did what we wanted. Oliver is into making "cards" so we made a card, watched a little caillou and then went to the park to play! It was very fun. I took the camera and after a while oliver begged and begged to take pictures as well. I'm excited to get them downloaded so that I can post them on here. He actually took some really great pictures! :O)

We came home, ate yummy peanut butter sandwiches...and now they are napping peacefully. I love my kids.
It's been a long time since I've had a really good day. That may sound depressing, but it's the truth.
Last night was a really good night (my date with oliver and our family date :O), and today has been a really good day. I feel happy. I feel very happy, and I'm grateful for these moments when I can feel so good inside......

On Saturday (the day we moved), I did one last run up to the dish (ps. I plan on going there as often as I can, but it won't ever be quite the same....I can't just run out of my house, up to the dish and back home)...
I decided to take pictures of all of my favorite things up there...I took a lot of pictures. Basically the whole route of my run was captured on camera :O).
It's mind boggling to think about how many times I've run that thing, and all of the thoughts that have been cleared up there....all of the steam that has dissipated, all of the good talks that I've been able to have with a really good friend of mine/running partner, all of the "baby names" I've come up with (up there is where I first thought of Eliza Beth as a name for our daughter :O)....
The dish is my solace away from home. I love it up there. It's always refreshing to me, no matter how many times I've run it.
I miss it already, and hope that I can make it back as often as I possibly can.

Now, for all of you who have actually made it this far in my huge long post and who had any part in helping us with our move.... Thank you!
I seriously cannot thank everybody enough. We had friends watch our kids while we scurried to find a place to live, we had friends help us load and unload the moving truck, friends who watched our kids on the day of the move, a friend who made us a dinner for our first night in this apartment, and friends who watched our kids the last couple of days so that I could get our house in order.........
I really really can't thank everybody enough for all of your help. We couldn't have done it without you, and that is the honest truth. We feel so blessed to feel of your love and support...and to be able to be on the receiving end of such kindness. We love you all so much.

ok.

I think I am done now. I'm tired and think I will go lay down and rest for a bit!

SLY
ps...pictures to come later :O)