First thing's first

I finally uploaded the pictures on my camera from Alayna's birthday 'til now.

And all I have to say is whoa!

I have some major catch-up to do, which I realize is never all that fun for you blog readers, but maybe you'll cut me some slack since you will be hearing about Alayna's Halloween a month late and you won't mind as much now because fifty million other people aren't blogging about the same exact thing. Right? I hope so anyway.

But first thing's first around here. Before I overload you with pictures of Alayna, I wanted to say THANK YOU! Thank you for your kind comments, emails, instant messages, and phone calls!!! I am so grateful to have such wonderful friends and family. We truly are blessed. Our family is getting into the swing of our new life in Arizona and we're healing. We really are doing well.

And when I say we are adjusting to our new life. It really is in so many ways true. Over the last couple weeks since we moved into our house I have begun to notice the changes.

For one, Dan works a COMPLETELY different schedule than he ever did before. He now is on shift work. Which means he works 12 hour shifts, sometimes days and sometimes nights. (They alternate.) Although he doesn't work more than four days/nights in a row, he does get some great time off in between and once a month he gets seven days off in a row, which is really quite awesome. Coming from a family where my Dad is a professor (amongst many other things: heating and a/c guy, landowner, builder, etc.), this is foreign to me, but Alayna and I are adjusting to this schedule. Since Dan works in a town an hour away, we are really finding that the days can get long (14 hours), but somehow we are making it work just fine. I'll admit, I am having to rethink how to keep Alayna entertained for the two hours after dinner before Dan gets home. I'm so used to Dan being around then, but we're getting there.

Not having to share walls/ceilings/floors with neighbors has been, well, glorious! I will admit that there have been sometimes that I have dropped something and silently apologized to the "downstairs neighbors" that don't exist, only to realize we are it. We don't have to worry about neighbors, unless they come knocking on your door in their pajamas because their two-year-old locked them out, but I wouldn't know how that feels....

Oh, and maybe one of the biggest changes lately is the fact that I am potty training Alayna. I figure, I don't have a church calling, I don't know very many people-yet, we live 15 minutes out of town....why not? I'll let you know if I am still feeling that way by the end of the week. Maybe it won't be that great of an idea.

Oh, and I can't end my post without saying a little something about the temperature change. I hear there is snow up where we came from, but I wouldn't say that's an issue here. On Saturday it was in the 80's and a temple worker told me that I am probably liking the weather here compared to Wyoming, but it's "getting a little cold" for her liking. Crazy!

So there you have it. Things are different, but good.



P.S. Be prepared for lots of pictures in the posts to come.