There She Goes...

Kendall is officially walking!

She's can balance on her own and take a few steps before crashing or falling on her bum.  Here's the video evidence:

Just A Swingin'

Riley and Kendall enjoy playing on the swing set together.  She would stay in the swing for hours...just like her brother at that age!  Lucky for me, Riley enjoys pushing her in the swing and swinging beside her.  This is what they spent their time doing while I was grilling our dinner the other night.

Best Buds

Riley and his best bud Madison hanging out in Miss Kerri's van.  Riley is going to miss Madison like crazy when we move to Utah...I hope God helps him find a friend like her when we move because she's been such a blessing to him.

A Fun Day With Good Friends

My dear friend Leigh knew that this week was going to be a tough one for me so she decided to bring us lunch from our favorite place...Angies!  She even brought sweet tea and peruvian sauce!  Got to love a friend like that!  My friend Kerri and her kids met us at my house for lunch, slip & slide and good fun.  All of our kids get along and play well together which is such a blessing for us moms.  Everyone slept well that night.

Riley & Mad

Nick doing the slip & slide his own way.

Ford being brave and getting wet under the sprinkler.

Riley and Nick having fun together.

Miss Leigh teaching the kids how to hold a frog without getting peed on!

After all the fun at our house, we packed up the kids and headed to the beach.  There was this incredible tidal pool that was as deep as a kiddie pool so all of them had a blast!  Too bad I don't have pictures of Nick "surfing" on his pirate boogie board.  That is a riot to watch.

Baby Kendall hanging out.  She spent most of her time eating sand and then crawling all over me with her sandy little hands!

Madison had fun looking at the little fish swimming around while she was wearing her goggles.

The "Three Amigos"

Making Progress

A quick Kendall update...she's now standing on her own for up to 30 seconds...not ready to take steps without holding on to something, but it will be happening before we know it!  Watch out Riley and Penton...your worlds are about to change as the Baby Monster becomes more mobile!

"It Didn't Even Hurt!"

Riley lost his first tooth last Sunday.  It was loose for about a day before it came out...or until he swallowed it!  He was eating a roll and when he took a bite, the tooth came with it.  His first comment was that "It didn't even hurt!"  Since he swallowed it, he drew a picture of a tooth and put that under his pillow.  The tooth fairy did visit him and contributed to the Lego pirate ship that he's saving money to buy.  

Pump, Pump, Pump It Up

Riley LOVES bounce houses (that's a moon walk to those of you back in PA).  There is a place here in Jax called Pump It Up.  It is an indoor facility that houses numerous bounce houses and slides.  My friend Kerri and I took our rug rats there the other morning and the kids had way too much fun!  Here is the evidence of a fantastic morning with wonderful friends.

Mad was cruising down the slide so fast that she's a little blurred.

Riley LOVES the fast slides.

Nick being brave and sliding down on his belly.

Whoa!

Kendall found things to occupy her time.

She liked to climb up the wedge and I would let her slide down it.  That was a big hit with her.

Miss Kerri took Kendall down the slide.

Miss Kerri is such an awesome friend and Kendall adores her.

This picture breaks my heart...Riley and Madison have become such good friends and will miss each other so much when we move.  They play so well together and really love each other.  Tonight he told me that Maddie Moo was one of his best friends!  Kerri and I have joked that we should just plan their wedding now!

  

Nick and Riley after they crashed at the end of the slide!

Go West Young Man...

So by now most of you know that Andy has been promoted to Senior Vice President of the Rocky Mountain Region of Genesse & Wyoming Rail Road.  His new office is located in Provo, Utah.  He started his new job on Monday, June 1st.  We only found out that he was offered the job 2 weeks before that.  During our conversations this week, he's been telling me how much he likes his new job and you can hear in his voice how appreciative he is that he's been given this opportunity - especially in this economy when all I hear about is people losing their jobs.  He's excited about the opportunity and the impact he can make.

So now the rush is on to get the house ready for sale...We emptied out the garage into a storage unit.  For those of you who have seen our garage here in the Sunshine state, you won't believe that I actually parked my suv in the garage tonight!  We are signing the contract with an agent tomorrow...Andy will sign via fax.  We are hoping and praying that God will take care of things on this end.  We feel that this is God's calling to move to Utah and know that we have to trust him to take care of all the issues that arise.  

I've been keeping busy with cleaning out closets, a very successful yard sale, trips to storage, trips to Goodwill, touching up paint, cleaning windows, scrubbing floors, planting flowers, mulching the gardens, oh and taking care of two kids and a dog by myself!   No sweat!  

We got the reports from two different agents regarding the sale of our home...it's a worse situation that either of us realized.  We will end up taking a considerable loss on our beautiful 2 year old home.  But we know that some way, some how, things will work out.  A woman from the moving company came to do a survey to judge how much we have to move and she's also in the real estate biz.  She called me today to ask when we're going to list the house because she has a client who has already driven by and can't wait to see the inside!  Could we be that lucky? I will stay here with the kids in Jax until the house sells or school starts.  We're hoping that we will have some divine intervention and our home will sell quickly!

My goal during all of this is to make the time to do something "fun" with the kids every day.  So far we've gotten ice cream from the ice cream man, met friends for dinner twice, went to the pool and the beach.  Tomorrow will be another trip to the beach with friends if the weather holds out and Sunday is a birthday pool party for one of Kendall's friends.

One of Riley's biggest gripes about moving is that there is no beach in Utah.  So I've been trying to explain to him that there are other beautiful and fun things to do in Utah.  I told him that he can learn to ski in the winter and we can go camping in the summer.  That got him interested.  He's since been trying to convince me that my next vehicle should be an RV camper.  I tried to tell him that it would be rather difficult to navigate the grocery store parking lot with a vehicle that big, but it fell on deaf ears.  He was excited to show me where Utah was on the map though.  His Leap Pad has a map of the US and it tells you how many miles apart any two locations are...Boy was he excited to see how far it was between Fl and Ut!  When we first told him we were moving, he was very upset over leaving his friends.  I think of all his wonderful friends, he's going to miss Madison, Nick, Garrett and Ford the most...He has been so blessed with wonderful kids to play with and I know that God will provide him with good friends in Utah as well.

Andy will be coming home next weekend.  It feels like it's been FOREVER since I last saw  him.  He will only be home for 3 days before heading back out west, but I'm grateful for any time he can spend with us.  Some friends of his from work are throwing him a good bye/congrats party next weekend so that should be a good time.  Unfortunately Andy won't be home for Riley's surgery next week.  I'm grateful for my wonderful friend Kerri who has graciously offered to go with me or at least watch Kendall for me.  What a wonderful gift.  Can you imagine me having to deal with that by myself?  

I am also lucky that my best friend from college lives just south of Salt Lake!  Could I get any luckier?  Kevin is giddy as a school girl (sorry Kev!) and that just makes this whole move so much easier.  I can't wait to be able to see him all the time again like the good ole' days!  One of the conditions for Andy when we started dating is that Kevin was part of the package.  Andy has always accepted my friendship with Kevin and loved the fact that there was someone looking out for me.  Now, I've put Kevin back into that role of taking care of me once again!  Another plus is that a few of my friends from play group have either lived in Utah or spent a good bit of time there and have shared a lot of info with me as well.  We are actually getting together for a girls night out so they can answer any and all questions about Provo and Salt Lake.  One friend may actually be making a trip out there in August to visit a relative so if I'm there by then, I could potentially have my first visitor!  How cool would that be?

Okay...this has been a novel.  Usually I just post some pics and give a short summary of what we've been up to, but it hasn't been "normal" around here in quite some time...Hope that if you've read all the way to the end, you have a better understanding of what's been going on in the Chunko household.  Some days are good and some are a struggle, but we'll get through them one at a time.

Good Friends, Good Times

Over Memorial Day weekend, we had all of our wonderful neighbors over for a cookout...something we'd talked about doing for the two years we lived here.  We all had a great time.  Andy and I supplied the burgers and dogs while everyone else brought appetizers, sides, drinks & desserts.  It was so much fun.  We had 7 of the 9 families that we invited at our house.  Praise the Lord that the rain held off or our house would have been packed!  

The next day we went out to dinner with the Meeks family.  They are such wonderful people and we are so lucky to have become friends with them.  Lainey loves Kendall.  She's a great helper!  Anytime we have dinner with them, I actually get to eat a meal!