Our new ride!

November started out pretty mellow in the Maier home. But with the holidays in full swing now, things are picking up. We were blessed to spend Thanksgiving with our friends from W. Sacramento who now live in Indianapolis temporarily. The weather was perfect for the 3 hour drive and our new minivan complete with a DVD player was the icing on the cake! Oh yea…a minivan people! We took the plunge and purchased this little beauty. I never thought I’d be a “minivan” mom but I have to tell ya…it’s the best thing! There’s so much room and did a mention the DVD player? Ahhh, silence on a 3 hour drive is priceless!

October Stuff

The boys have been having a blast with their new surroundings. There are bike and walking trails in Winona Lake so we've been exploring those and collecting leaves for projects. (Pics below.) They've been bike riding, go-cart riding, playing with friends, trick-or-treating (for the first time) and just enjoying being boys. My grandparents came for a week and the boys got to try their hand at fishing with their Papa. It's been fun watching them experience all of this through their eyes. It's more obvious each day that we made the right decision in moving. Luke is doing so well with preschool. I love his teacher, she is so caring and involved. It's everything I hoped for in a preschool. Logan is adjusting well with his children's church class. On the way home from church yesterday he told us about the story of Joshua and how God ordered him and his people to march around the walls of Jericho and the walls fell down. It was heart-warming to hear that he's really participating and learning bible stories. For the first time yesterday, he waved at me when I dropped him off and said "by Mom, have a fun day at church." I've been waiting 3 years for that! So things are settling down for the most part. We've had snow already but nothing that sticks. Nate's been so busy with work and has already been to Texas for 3 days and has another trip this month. I was able to escape and do a little shopping with my girlfriends this weekend. I finally purchased some long-sleeve shirts so I'm a little closer to being prepared for the weather we're having. Well, here are some recent pictures. Bye for now!

Up, Up and Away!

I wanted to share with everyone our adventures in flying with a 3yr old and a 5yr old. They boys did great which means Beckie and I were great too! We each decided to take a child and sit separately. This was a good idea for 2 reasons: each child had our undivided attention with their very own tailored activities, and they weren’t close enough together to fight! Our layover was in Phoenix and we had about an hour. We let the boys run and run until we found the moving sidewalks. That was it…they were hooked! We must have road those things back a forth 10 times. We finally bribed them away with promises of lunch at Burger King. (Never mind that is was only 9am CA time!) We sat fairly peacefully eating our cheeseburgers when I noticed there weren’t any people waiting in line at our terminal…uh oh! We quickly gathered up our things and rushed over just in time to board. Just at the entrance of the plane, the flight attendant locked eyes with me trying to coral my kids and announced over the loud speaker that she had a family with 2 small boys just arriving. The attendant in the back then announced that there were still some double seats together in the back. Halfway through the long line down the isle…they announced again if we were actually on the plane or if they were still waiting for us. Everyone knew exactly who we were by this time…the token “family with 2 small boys”. I can only imagine what the poor men were thinking that were still sitting alone and held the only 2 seats together at the back of the plane!



Here's a picture of Luke and Logan on the moving sidewalk playing the roll of Superman!

Hello Indiana!

Hi everyone! Sorry for the delay in posting. Things have been crazy since we’ve arrived in Indiana with little down time. Even as I type this…Grandma and Grandpa are here visiting from Kansas. Our house is wonderful! I have so many awesome plants to care for that I’m afraid I won’t give them the justice they deserve. There’s also a small garden with tomatoes, jalapeño peppers and onions. When do you pick onions? Who knows…not me!!

Our lot is just about a half acre and the boys are enjoying every inch of it! They’re outside most of the day…riding their bikes, making bark stew in one of the 4 bird baths or chatting our neighbor’s ear off! OH! And the neighbors…we’ve had chocolate chip cookies delivered, welcome wishes and more babysitting offers than I know what to do with! Everyone is sooo friendly here!

Nate is enjoying his job (actually ‘enjoying’ doesn’t even come close to covering it!) and I’m afraid he might like them more than us at this point!! The promotion he was to wait a year for actually came last Friday…so things are moving right along for him. I’m so happy that he’s finally happy!

I attended a MOPS meeting this week while my grandparents stayed with the boys. That was fun experiencing a meeting at such a greater scale than I’m used to. I also received the gift of watching a miracle happen while witnessing our friend’s baby arrive into the world last night. How truly amazing!

Luke loves his preschool. I was worried that we’d have a repeat of the drama we went through together when he started last year, but much to my surprise, it was drama free! Logan on the other hand is having a hard time adjusting to children’s church each Sunday. We’re really hoping he comes around…for our sake and the poor volunteers too!

Hope everyone is well! Happy Fall!

1 down...3 of us to go!

Well...Nate, Cali and all of our belongings are making their way across the United States as I type this. His wonderful friends from Indiana flew in on Sunday afternoon to help him drive back. They made it to Park City, Utah last night and were hoping to play some golf or go down the Alpine Slides but both were already closed. So they ended up at some fun restaurant and played Rock Band on their big screen. They were somewhere in Wyoming mid morning when I talked with him.

The boys and I are staying with Nate's parents and we're definitely in "adjustment mode" still. Bedtime is the hardest. Logan's confused and asks for his own bed and his own house. Luke and Grandpa decided to start building a Go Cart from scratch yesterday so he's having the time of his life. But by the end of the night, he's way over-tired...you can imagine what that's like! We're all just grateful to have a place to stay during this transition though.

I don't have any pictures to post with this because I don't have access to those at the moment. But as soon as I get some, I'll pass them along! Hope all is well with all of you!

We're still here!

Have you ever procrastinated so much on something then when you actually want to do it…it’s just too far gone to tackle? Well, welcome to my blog experience! So much has happened in our lives since Yosemite that it’s almost embarrassing to ever post again. But I’ll give it a try anyway. In a nutshell…here goes:

• Nate has accepted a position with his previous employer in Indiana!
• We’ve been in the packing stage for the past month and Nate, Cali and our things will be relocating to Winona Lake, IN on Sept. 1st.
• The boys and I will still be in West Sac at Bruce & Beckie’s until we (hopefully) close on our new home there.
• We took our last trip to Monterey (sniff sniff) to visit my brother and sister in-law and have the most amazing beach pictures to commemorate the weekend! (I’ll attach those in a later post….hopefully!)
• We visited Fairy Tale Town with our local CHD support group, Hearts of Hope. Channel 10 news was there and Logan made the 5 and 6 o’clock news. (Of course he wouldn’t give the interviewer the time of day when it came to asking him questions…so his appearance consisted of sliding down “Owl’s Tree House Slide”.
• The boys had their last well-baby checks with Dr. Warden (BIG sniffles there!) and I’ll have to post that picture too. Greatest doctor EVER!
• Logan had his last check up and echo with Dr. Fallah and everything looks great! Finally, our most recent adventure was a day at the fair where we were treated by Hearts of Hope with free admission and free ride bracelets too! Again…separate post to follow.

I think that sums it up. I will TRY my hardest to keep this thing up to date. This next chapter of our lives is sure to be an adventure…a very COLD adventure!

To the TOP!

That’s what Nate, Luke and I accomplished while visiting Yosemite National Forest this past week. We made the 3 mile round trip hike to the top of Vernal Falls. And I won’t lie…it was torture! But we did it! I’m most proud of Luke. He only asked a few times for a quick ride on his daddy’s shoulders but aside from that, he did it all by himself!

Relaxing…this camping trip was NOT! But everyone had a good time. It’s so nice to spend quality time with family that we only get to see usually this one time a year. The boys had so much fun. But you know, anything involving dirt qualifies as ‘fun’. It was nice to be away but it’s always nice to come home too!