3 houses, 4 hotel rooms, 2400 miles, 9 states, 1 sinus infection and we're home!

So we are home to Utah! Blogging become progressively harder as we moved from house to house so I will now back track a little and let you know a little bit of what July was for us.

The first two weeks of July we enjoyed a fun July 4th in Saratoga Springs and with friends and fireworks. We took lots of walks to the park and spend a weekend with friends in Conneticut. H loved the fairs that we went to where there was cotton candy and face painting and ice cream (of course!)

Then on the 15th of July we were told we needed to move out of our house so that our landlord could move in and fix some stuff up before his next tenant moved in (funny thing is he stayed in the house 1 night before going back to the city for almost a week! I don't think he ended up making any changes to the house) So we moved into our second location-a lovely 1800's house/duplex that was super cute. We loved our new landlords but were still having some issues with our old landlord (a $230 cleaning bill-well he just took it from the deposit- showed up at our door including a $30 charge for laundry which we didn't use any of the linens in the house so this was frustrating-after one phone call, a lot of argueing and finally a very nice email from Peter we saying that we would accept it-we did get a little of the money back). So then after less than two weeks (and I developed a sinus infection and bronchitis the week before the move) we vacated another house in Saratoga and took up residency with our good friends for two nights. We had some much fun with them and the girls loved sleeping in the same room and having every meal together.

Finally on the 30th, P's parents arrived to bring us home! They came to drive our second car back which we were SO happy about. So we loaded up the cars and spent the next 5 days driving. We stopped in Nauvoo, Illinois which was neat since I had never been there.

And we made it home on Monday. We were all a little sleep deprived but happy to be with our stuff again. Sometimes I find myself seeing something in the house and thinking, "oh, I missed that!"

Since we have been back we have gone to a super fun swimming spot here in town, visited friends, roasted marshmallows and have a few more days of fun planned before we head to Alaska on Monday (yes, three days after having everything unpacked I will be packing again! This time for just a week.) Here are some photos of the last month. The order of them is a little all over the place, sorry about that.

Sprinklers and Trampolines! What could be more fun. She looked forward to this all summer and finally we got a nice day to do it!

A little trip out in the pond at our friend's house in Conneticut. It's an amazing backyard with this pond and it even came with some deer as we drove up to the house!

So because we didn't have a lot of toys, the children discovered this box and it was SO much fun for them! Notice these pictures of from two seperate days and I probably could have taken pictures from 2 dozen different days!

H got to ride a horse at the local town fair. She also got her face painted with a strawberry. She asked the lady who was leading this horse if this horse ran on the racetrack. I thought it was so cute that she thought a horse that looked like this was a possible racehorse! I love 3 year olds.

The fair had a car show too so we took this pic of her face painting and in front of this car because P thought his Dad would think it was neat.

The childrens museum in Saratoga is where we spent a lot of time. H had so much fun playing dress up and with all the pretend stuff there. It was so nice to walk there and we loved to have friends come with us

H took swimming lessons the first two weeks in July. It was an outdoor pool, not heated, and it barely reached 60 degrees during most of the lessons. Poor little girl. I do think it helped her to become a better swimmer. She is getting very brave in the water- sometimes a little TOO brave!

There is a beautiful rose garden in Saratoga that we liked going to and seeing all the different colors of roses.

Here we are in Nauvoo, IL at the temple. It was so sunny at the time of the pictures none of the pictures had our eyes open! But the temple was amazing.

Here we are in Carthage, IL. It was so neat to see the place that Joseph Smith was martyred. It was neat to be there with family and get this little three generation shot.

So that's it, phew you made it through all the pictures and writing!

So long NY, again! We will miss all our friends. Thanks for the fun times and for keeping us entertained. Come visit us!