Living in San Jose, California

 February

 March

 April

May

       It has been several months since I've posted on our blog, but I really want our blog to be a journal for our family and especially the kids.  So, I'm starting up again!  A real quick synopsis of 2012 so far.  Rachel was born in January and has been the best baby in the world!!! She is so happy all of the time and absolutely LOVES and adores Andrea! I had a horrible rash on my face that I started getting when I first got pregnant with Rachel, but I finally was able to get rid of it after Rachel was born.  Andrea was a Poppy in the Wizard of Oz Ballet Performance and she was fantastic!  And most importantly, Steve graduated from Law School!!!!!!!! He GRADUATED!!!! He almost did not graduate because of his substantial writing paper, but after writing it all day on the day that he walked (graduated), all night, and half of the next day, he was able to get it good enough for his professor to pass. Thank you everyone for all of your prayers in our behalf.  Shortly after Steve graduated we moved to Manti and lived with my parents for a month and a half.  While in Manti we drove back up to Provo several times for dance practices and performances, went to Arizona for a week, and spent the 4th of July with several Barclay family members.  It was a blast, but definitely very busy as we always had several grandkids at Grandma and Grandpa's house. :-)  It really was so nice to be able to enjoy so much time with family before we left on our big adventure. 
       Now, for our adventures in California so far. . . We moved to San Jose on the 5th of July. My dad left Manti at 4:00 am and pulled horse trailer with all of our stuff in it, so he could be here in time for the Elder's Quorum members to help unload our trailer.  Steve, mom, and the girls, and I left at about 6:30.  We got up at 5:00, but by the time everything was ready to go, it was 6:30. After a few hours of driving Steve took off ahead of us so he could catch up to dad.  Dad pulled in to our house at 6:30 pm and Elders were showing up.  However, he didn't have the keys to our house. Steve had them.  They were going to wait for Steve, but one of the men was a lock smith, so he rushed home and grabbed his stuff and unlocked the door. They had the entire trailer unloaded in about 20-30 minutes.  Everything was unloaded and everyone but the bishop were already gone by the time that I got there.  It was so amazing and so wonderful. My dad was very impressed with the ward and I was so thankful that so many wonderful people had come to help us.  Mom and Dad stayed for most of the next day and helped watch the kids and unpack the kitchen. They also took us out to dinner.  We were so grateful for them and their help.  However, the next day they were gone and it was up to us to unpack.  :-)  We accomplished a little bit, but most of it had to be done through out the next week while Steve was at work.
       Some of our fun times so far. . . Our new house in all Pergo floors.  Rachel has a little walker that she spends a lot of time in, because she can go anywhere in the house now all by herself. She practically runs down the hall in her walker now.  She can completely navigate and back up, turn around, etc to get whatever it is that she wants. :-)  It's amazing!  She's only 6 months old too. Rachel also learned how to sit up completely on her own now and just this last week she learned how to army crawl and say, "Ba Ba."  Wow, it's insane. I was just telling Steve today that Rachel is such a "Grown up baby now."  She's getting around and getting whatever she wants now.  In no time at all she be full on crawling, then climbing up things, then walking. They definitely don't stay young for long.
       Andrea is so extremely smart that it's starting to get her into trouble now. :-)  It doesn't help that she hasn't been on a real schedule for 3 months now.  She knows exactly which buttons to push to get a rise out of her mother.  But, at the same time she is a fantastic older sister to Rachel.  Her and Rachel are inseparable.  Rachel follows Andrea everywhere in her little walker and if she's not following her Andrea goes and gets her and says, "Come on Rach. Come and get me." She says complete paragraphs now.  She's says the funniest things too.  I put on my white swimsuit cover/dress yesterday and Andrea laughed and said, "Mom, you're wearing Camille's dress."  She remembered that Camille wore a dress very similar to that one when we were in Manti.  I was so impressed and surprised that she even noticed that. What kind of a two-year-old notices things that people wear only once or twice?  I laughed a little and said, "You're right, Aunt Camille has a dress just like this one, but this one is mommy's."  Later that night we were sitting on the side walk watching the planes fly into the airport and I said that maybe someday we could fly to Texas to see Leah and Andrea said, "I want to fly to Texas to see Leah right now!"  She really loves her cousins.  I think at least once every day she says something about one of her cousins, aunts uncles, or grandma and grandpas.  Andrea also shows a lot of emotion now.  She gets so excited and squeals with delight whenever we mention the next fun thing that we are going to do. I love having these two girls.
       Our neighbors. . .
The first Sunday here which was our third day here, our next door neighbors Tracy and Mike came over and introduced themselves and gave us a huge platter of cookies and a beautiful hanging plant.  They were so nice and sweet. They said how nice it was to hear family noises next door.  Then later that evening the neighbors across the street came over and introduced themselves and gave us a card.  They were also so nice and sweet. They've lived in that house for 20+ years.  All the neighbors keep an eye out for each other.  We've gotten to know all of them even better now and we just love them.  This past Monday we went around the neighborhood and introduced ourselves to several of the neighbors and gave them cookies(well crunchy candy clusters).  Our immediate road has some great people. We have been blessed in so many ways.  We were blessed to be able to find this house and have great landlords, have a newly renovated house, have great neighbors, have a great ward, great yard, great weather, and the opportunity to have this adventure together as a family.  We know it will be hard, but we're excited.