Bye Bye Manhattan

Things We will miss about Manhattan:

1. Kansas State University
2. Our friends
3. Our ward
4. Tommy's family
5. Being two minutes away from Dillons for nightly snack runs
6. being so close to so many memories like Cico hill - where Tommy proposed to Chelsea or Mercy Hospital - where Zach was born
7. being able to run up to Milford when we didn't feel like cooking to get some good home cooking from Tommy's mom
8. Our fireplace
9. Running the hills (Tommy's not mine)
10. It really became our home

Things we won't miss:

1. Kansas summers
2. Kansas winds
3. our stinkin apartment with windows that didn't work, a constantly dripping sink, a broken ac unit on the third floor with sun hitting it all day long equaling crazy energy bills, a bathroom split into two parts of the house, and carpets that were at least 35 years old and incredibly disgusting
4. K-State game traffic
5. the lack of shopping options
6. Being at least two hours away from anything, including airports and temples
7. Omaha
8. Body First
9. Bird poop on our car
10. crazy work and school schedule

Things we're excited about Michigan:

1.  Our new place with TWO bathrooms and THREE bedrooms and a GARAGE 
2. our GARAGE!! Seriously a necessity and a blessing with a baby
3.  We splurged and got dish tv.  Neither of us have had it in 4 years.  we love love love it!  I can't believe how much I love having something on in the background while I'm working on something
4. Having a piano, Chelsea may learn to play fluently yet!
5. the weather here
6. being closer to Chelsea's family/Chicago
7. getting time to spend with the Wrights (we feel cheated they're leaving us so soon...)
8. Our awesome neighborhood
9. the ward
10. Have a new place to explore and learn and grow from and for Zach to grow up in. 

Graduation and a new place to live

This is just a picture post mostly.  The first round of pictures is from graduation.  After that, there are pictures of our little town home.  We don't have sd cards for our new phones so we can't take pictures and send them to family who have been begging for a picture or two. So it's back to old fashioned take a picture with a camera and send it out on email and post on a blog.  

 I apologize for the huge mess but come on, we just moved in :)

So here is the front door, entry way, stairs:

 The stairs going up:

 Hallway in the upstairs:

Zach's room.  We've already re-arranged this room to look like a room and not a storage room

The catch all office room:

 Part of our bathroom.  It's so big in comparison but NO space to set stuff on sink.  Why don't people think that's important? I've been watching way too much HGTV lately and no one thinks counter space is important.  Also, if you look in the mirror, you can see a wall paper border.  It could be worse or it could also be gone!

 Our Bedroom.  We were in the middle of rearranging stuff when I took this:

 the other part of our bedroom.  I'm happy that our furniture matches at least.

Now we move back downstairs  to the bathroom and laundry room:

 Here's the Living Room.  It's mostly set up

 Dining room/piano room.  I HAVE A PIANO!:

 Our kitchen.  Notice how many small cabinets there truly are? 6. And they're high up so guess who got a step ladder?

  Notice how there is only ONE drawer.  Where may I ask am I supposed to put the silverware?  Also, we hate lazy susans but we are now lucky enough to have TWO.  And also, more wallpaper.  But I'm sooo happy we have LIGHT wood and the kitchen was CLEAN when we moved in. 

Here's counter space and the view of the living area from the kitchen:

And the living room.  I know I know, why is the tv in front of a door? Well if you can come up with a better set up so there is a couch and a tv in this space that isn't blocking that door I would LOVE to get some ideas

So there you have it.  I 85% love our place.  It grows on me more each day.  Obviously there are things I wish were different but unless I were to hand pick every detail in a house that we custom built I doubt I'd be satisfied with everything.  In fact, even then I think I'd still find something I'd change.  At the end of the day, we have a dishwasher, washer/dryer, 3 bedrooms, and an ATTACHED GARAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!! for very inexpensive.  I doubt we could find anything better.  I also am sorry there are no pictures of Zach but I found my camera after he went to sleep.   I'll post more later.  It's late and it's time for bed!

Nauvoo

 

Here's a really funny video!  Before Zach was born Tommy would swing the overalls around.  So now that he's here, we can't not try it out!

 

This weekend we went up to Nauvoo.  This year marks Tommy's parents 40th anniversary (That's so amazing!).  Tommy's dad arranged for his kids to come up to Nauvoo and surprise his wife...how sweet is that?  I once again forgot the camera and so most of the pictures look like we just hung out at home.  I don't have any pictures of anyone!  So I would love some if you have any!

Okay so we were scheduled to leave Friday morning at 7.  Thursday night comes and I can't sleep.  I was so anxious about the trip because GPS said it was a 7 hour trip so I planned for it to be a 9 hour trip with a baby.  That's a very long time in a car seat!  So 1:00 am comes along and I'm still not asleep.  I probably fell asleep in the next half hour but at 3:30 Zach woke up to eat.  Then Tommy took him to put in his crib around 4.  At 5:00 am Tommy comes into the room and says, "Chelsea, I need you to take Zach.  I've been trying for the last hour to get him back to bed and he just won't sleep."  Awesome. Just plain awesome.  I try for about 45 minutes and we decided to just give up.  So we start getting ready and decide to leave a little earlier.   This was Zach at 6:15 am:

HAPPY AS CAN BE!

So we pick up Tommy's brother Matt, pick up some doughnuts ($8 for 8 doughnuts!  Curse you Manhattan for not having a dunkin doughnuts...what kind of town allows 4 doughnut shops to go out of business?!) and Zach is looking tired.  So I tried to get a picture of him and at the last moment his eyes shot right open at the sound of my camera clicking (on my phone? come on blackberry...get rid of that feature.  It keeps me from taking all kinds of funny pictures because ppl would hear the picture sound)  But anyways here's the picture:

SO FUNNY!

 Well, I forgot to calculate how off GPS is with timing because it doesn't calculate you driving any faster than 60 mph.  Also, Zach is an amazing travel buddy.  He didn't sleep much :( but was super happy!  At one time I got him to sleep and with the car seat covered with a blanket, I started to fall asleep.  Then I hear, "ohh, ohh, ohh..."  from under the blanket. My baby had woken up.  AHH!!! But here's some fun video of him he was so happy!

We made it to Nauvoo two hours earlier than expected! We went to the hotel to see if Tommy's parents were there and yep we saw their car right outside.  But we didn't know if they might be walking around anywhere so we went to a park and hung out (we found out later they spent the whole afternoon at the temple!) But that's okay Zach was so funny.  Tommy, Zach and I went for a walk and Matt sat and played his guitar.  Here's a video of Zach talking.  He did this all weekend long!

Well we certainly surprised Tommy's mom.  She was so happy and so touched by the whole thing.  I was so impressed things went off without a hitch!  We may have gotten lost on the way to the restaurant but luckily Tommy's parents were 5 minutes late so we squeaked on in before they got there.  The next day Tommy and I got to go to the temple because I had never done a session before there.  They always say there's a special spirit about Nauvoo.  There truly was something special about that session for me.  The spirit was just so easy to feel. 

Afterwards we went on a horse carriage ride.  Then Tommy, Misty, Mark, and I went a grabbed something to eat.  We caught up with everyone in old Nauvoo but it was super hot and Zach hadn't slept much so I decided to go back to the hotel.  Plus, I've seen the sights a LOT in my life.  I did stop at the Lucy Mac Smith house because I had read her book and just wanted to pop in.  It was neat because her house was an original that had survived the years. 

That night we went to dinner.  Zach was being a little fussy, nothing bad but he just wanted to be held I think.  Well we wanted to eat.  So in the process of trying to find ways to entertain our little boy Tommy put a burp cloth on Zach's head.  After that he was a happy little camper.  What a funny little guy!

ALL SMILES!

Here are just a few pictures at the temple that we took.  My favorite is the one of Zach touching the temple.  I know it's a corny thing to do but it turned out great!

 

 So Zach really enjoyed one of his toys.  The camera is always moving because he stopped performing when he caught me recording

HERE'S US HEADED HOME

ZACH WANTED TO DRIVE

And of course I can't help but post a shout out to my little niece and nephew.  I love getting photos of them

BRADSTER!

SHOPPING FOR HER BIRTHDAY PRESENTS (SHE'S ALMOST ONE!!)