Corbin's Turn...

Corbin started his first day of preschool at Acorn. I searched for the perfect preschool for Corbin and was having the hardest time since we are still so unfamiliar with Flagstaff. Places were either not good enough or just too expensive. I found a lady who did a Montessori program out of her home, but couldn't start for another month (my first day of school was today as well, so needless to say, we needed something sooner). I went into another in-home Montessori school (or so they say) and was not impressed. The problem with these in-home places are is they are swarming with babies and two-year-olds and that really isn't fair to Corbin now that he is 3 1/2 and really ready to learn. One of the parents at Tatum's school told us about Acorn and how their son went there and loved it. So we checked it out...we immediately knew this was the place for Corbin. At Acorn, they have converted a house into 3 classrooms. His teacher (Mrs. Jackie) has about 8 children in her classroom. She also has a full-time aid and another aid who floats in from time to time. It's a really neat program. He will go Tues and Thurs from 9-3:30pm while I am at Coconino. They are also one of the only accredited preschools in Flagstaff and all of the teachers at least have their Masters. His teacher is so loving, but structured and that is what we were looking for. Not to mention, the location is perfect since I will be going to two different campuses and it won't matter since it's smack in the middle. He will still qualify for free private speech therapy at Tatum's school twice a week. Other than that, he's doing phenomenal!
*check out the Acorn website if you get a chance..just click on the link on Acorn*

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Her first day of many years to come...

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Tatum started kindergarten in Mrs. Roth's class today. There are 9 girls and 16 boys this year..so a very big class. Thankfully she has an aid as well as plenty of parents that want to help out. Today was a short day just to get them accustomed to going and Fridays will always be half days. We put rollers in her hair last night so she could have hair like her cousin Devin for the first day of school. She loved it! The weather was 70 degrees out and drizzling out when we got there. What an amazing school!!

Keep your fingers crossed...

Today was the day that Daryl "officially" (I use that word in quotes a lot don't I lol?) started looking for a new job. He had his resume updated, printed out on really nice paper and looked like a total stud heading out the door. The first place he went to took one look at his resume and grabbed someone to do an immediate interview right there on the spot. They said their lab manager just left for Phx and he would be perfect fit (he was already planning on just getting a lab technician title if he was lucky..he even thought he'd be stuck busing tables if he had to), but management! He has years of experience, but usually it's much harder to find a job like that...especially in Flagstaff. He could also do field work as well (I'm really hoping for a company truck..but we can't be too picky in this economy now can we). They are going to call his references and then if everything checks out, he's hired. He went to two other companies and they were giving him the whole song and dance of the winter is coming..so we won't have much work...really can't pay much...So the first place (I forget the name), calls him later today and told him the pay range obviously won't be nowhere near what it was before, but it will be more than he thought, so of course we were all elated at that. In addition to our usual bills, we will actually have some spending money..hooray! Sure we spend now, but at least it won't be on the credit card lol. We should know more in the next day or two. The place is also about a 15 mins drive from the house which is awesome! At least he will get to go with Tatum on her first day of school on Thurs. It might be the last time for a while where he'll be able to do that now that he'll be a working man again. We have been so spoiled having him home (or should I say I've been spoiled). You always have to look at the positive when the negative comes around. The biggest thing that has come from all of this is Corbin. He has come such a long way. I really feel that with the combination of his therapies (speech and OT at school), his preschool and having his daddy around ALL THE TIME, has helped so much. And now of course we are living in Flagstaff (which probably wouldn't have happened had he not lost his job). Everything is really falling into place around here and we really feel like this was meant to be. The timing couldn't have been more perfect!

We love it when friends come to visit :)

My good friend from my childhood (Melissa) came up with her family this weekend. We had such a blast showing them around town. The guys grilled, we scoped out elk on Sat night (we saw at least 20), the three older ones slept in the game room together watching a movie together...we just had so much fun. I have too much to do, so I can't really "blog" right now, but I wanted to throw some pictures up for your viewing pleasure lol.

Tatum officially starts school on Thurs. I'm sure I'll have more updates soon..so stay tuned. :))

We're officially unpacked..but I don't have the pictures to prove it...

It's pretty pathetic since I am all about taking pictures and documenting certain events going on in our lives...but we've been busy (I don't have a single picture of our empty house, a before picture when it was clean and ready to rent or a picture of boxes piled high everywhere). So Dan and Jeremy came over Friday night and loaded up the Uhaul.


Then the following day, I'm going to clean our house to get it sterilized and clean for our renters and my vacuum goes out (the one I've been telling Daryl it's time to replace for about a year now). So I call Christine and she comes over with their vacuum and then in a round about way, asks us if we'd like help going up. I of course jumped at that since I knew we'd need the help and then they'd get to get out of the heat and have a place to stay. We took off about 1pm and right around the Anthem area, I notice black rubber flying at my van. Then I start laying on the horn and flashing my lights at Daryl. It was the damn Uhaul (I even thought about what we would do if that were to happen moments before). It was in the worst spot imaginable. I called Ryan and Christine who were about 5 mins behind us. We then decided to drive a little more to get out of the way. People were whizzing by us at 85 mph and not getting over (really pisses me off when people do that). We then had no choice but to drive the wrong way on one of the off ramps to pull off into a dirt field (I mean, we had 4 children with us). After 45 mins of Daryl getting put on hold with Uhaul, he finally got ahold of someone and they told him it would be about an hour. So they told Christine and I to go ahead with the kids while they waited another hour (well that's how long they thought it would take). Come to find out, the guy who was coming to "rescue" them with a new tire also had a blow out and had to wait for someone to come and bail him out. By the time we got to Flagstaff, the guys had just left. I was able to get the vans unpacked by the time they came. My cousin and her husband (who live in Flagstaff) had a load of their things as well (they were in Phx at the time). So all three guys unloaded (with some of my help of course) that night (thanks again Arianne and Dave..we owe you). We have stuff in storage in Glendale, stuff in the storage outside our door (down in the basement) and the basement is now fully cleaned, organized and fully unpacked as of about an hour ago. We got to sit out on the back porch while it poured down eating dinner tonight. Ah..this is the life!


Corbin visibly upset that his tires wouldn't work in the dirt and would just spin out (it was 105 degrees out..at least at the time). *this is when we were stuck*

Proof of our "fun".

Ryan trying to keep the kids entertained while we waited and waited...Corbin was not having it though (he was also having potty issues because of his UTI, so it was not a fun ride up).

Our first Farmer's Market. One of many I'm sure. We all took a day on Sunday and checked it out and then went to lunch at Collin's Pub.

This was halfway through the damage (it was much worse before). I just thought I should grab my camera and snap a few pics to give you an idea from yesterday...

I'll get more pictures later on of our finished job. Just wanted to give you a quick update :)

Our friends are the best!

Ryan and Christine threw Daryl and I a going away party. It was very last min. and we still had a really nice turnout. I didn't want a lot of people so we could keep it a little more intimate. Well most of our friends already have 2+ kids and needless to say, there were more kids there than adults. It was nice to take a break from the packing to have a few drinks with a few good friends.

This blog is going to be short since I'm exhausted from a long day at urgent care with Corbin and lots of unpacking (but of course I had to include a few pictures of the party). We've been in Flagstaff since Sat. and the weather couldn't be more beautiful. My poor little buddy has been peeing excessively lately and I've been telling Daryl we need to get him seen. Melissa watched our kids on Friday and noticed how much he was peeing. Finally it got to the point on Sunday where he was starting to just stay on the toilet since as soon as he would get done, he would have to go again. I completely empathized with him since I've been there done that before. We went to urgent care today and spent several hours there, but I'm glad he's on antibiotics now and he can get rid of it. They are sending his urine out for more testing just to make sure it's nothing more than a UTI and we have to go back on Thurs. It's definitely not diabetes since there was no sugar in his urine (thank God). I'll update my blog another time with more pictures of the move.