Tornadoes & Broken Cars

So we went up to Rosholt (about 2 1/2 hours north) to help Lando's parents move. Jill & Leon just sold their house in town and are moving out to a house in the country. Well, actually they are moving into the garage of the house in the country cuz the house isn't quite ready yet. They are doing a lot of fix-it-up work to it. It's SO nice out there though, it will be worth it!

While we were up there, there were all kinds of tornado watches down here in Sioux Falls, so we watched the news to see if our new house would be there when we got back. As luck would have it the tornados stayed south of us so we were fine.

Lando and I were driving Leon's pickup back home so we could take back a couch and some other stuff that Lando had up there. We got about 40 miles from home and the truck broke down. So Lando, Charlie and I hung out in the grass on the side of the road for awhile waiting for a tow truck. And here's the cool thing about the midwest. Everyone is SO nice and helpful. The sheriff came by and gave us a card for a REALLY helpful towing company that took us all the way down to sioux falls, a random girl came by on her tractor to see if we needed help and once we got to the Dodge dealer, there was a van there to take us home. Today we got a rental car and even though they were closing about 10 minutes after i called, they still brought the rental car right to our house!

We now have official South Dakota license's (which is more cool for me than for Lando), but get this... the DMV is a very pleasant place to go. We waited about 10 minutes, didn't have to take our drivers written test again like in California, got our picture taken and then they printed the license right there - no temporary paper thing with a 2-3 week wait like in NY & CA. Plus the fees to do that an register our car was about 4 times cheaper!

Lando is outside working on our fence. He got up at the crack of dawn to seed our lawn and has been working on the fence ever since. It's about 5 pm and he's got 4 posts and two panels up. We have a big yard so it's going to be quite the process. Meanwhile, the pregnant pile that i am feels useless so i've spent the afternoon reseaching cloth diapers! Man it's funny the things that suddenly become interesting! More pictures later!

Settling in South Dakota

So the journey began on a Friday morning.

We rigged up our moving truck and car trailer in the LG parking lot, Lando of course had to arrange the outside furniture one last time for the group coming in that weekend, then we headed off to a final doctor's appointment (no gestational diabetes here!) and then hit the road for Vegas! Stayed in Vegas with my cousin Jenny - where Charlie had a blast playing with her 2-year-old son William - looks like Charlie will pass the "kid" test!

Saturday we headed off at 4am to put in a 22 hour driving day all the way to Sturgis, SD. It was that day I experienced my first real pregnancy symptom - swollen ankles :-) It was long, but definitely worth it because we got to spend all day Sunday at Lando's aunt's house. They have chickens, goats, horses, cats, dogs, a turkey and a llama - Charlie didn't know what to do with herself!



Monday morning we headed off again to Sioux Falls. Made it to town just in time to do a walk through of the house before heading off to our closing. We've been working with some great people out here - our realtor Gregg and mortgage person, Norma - and they were both their at the closing so it was really nice. We are official first time homebuyers!!!

We've spent the last few days unpacking - which has sort of come to a standstill because we don't have a lot of basic furniture pieces, but we LOVE IT HERE! It's so nice to have space. Charlie and Chloe just chase each other around the house and it's hysterical when they get to the wood floor cuz they just slide and don't actually go anywhere!


Today Lando went to Lowe's and spent more money at one time that I think we have ever spent in our lives. So now we have a washer, dryer (we bought the same ones we had at camp!) and materials to fence in and seed our lawn. We decided to take care of the outside first, then the inside.

We are heading to Rosholt next week for a few days to help out Lando's parents cuz they just sold their house and they are moving out to a house in the country that they are redoing. Then we start work on Friday! We are really excited about that. This down time has been nice to get settled, but we are anxious to get started! Our first two weeks on the job... we are taking kids to CONFIRMATION CAMP! What a way to start!

I don't think it has set in yet that we aren't going back to California anytime soon. I am still expecting to see all the amazing people we left behind. Leaving our Wednesday night bible study was probably one of the hardest things we had to do! Here's a pic from our final night.


I guess we should rename this blog - we haven't used it in over a year! I guess we'll get to that eventually! Comment away! We would love to hear from you!