The Skinners: June 2008

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

John Thomas Biggs Sr.

It's a sad day for our family. Our Dad fought cancer for 8 years and lost the battle today. He will be missed. We love you DAD!!!

April 19, 1944-June 25, 2008

Friday, June 20, 2008

Our CASA

Here are the long awaited pictures of the house. Well really I am only posting a picture of the outside until I get pictures and decorations on the walls. Sorry, you will just have to wait.

And the picture is crooked. What the freak is up with that? I could have sworn my head was straight when I took it. Oh well....beggars can't be choosers, Right?

When we got back from the reunion I came home to a house full of huge furniture boxes. You see, we sold a ton of furniture when we moved and Landon ordered a ton of furniture and it all got delivered in humongo boxes. It was my job to unpack the furniture and throw the boxes in the garage. Which resulted in this:

Normally I would toss all this trash in the construction dumpsters around the neighborhood but this was way to much to haul. So I got the bright idea to call 1-800-GOTJUNK. The nice gentlemen came to my house and politely told me it would cost about $500 to remove all the cardboard. WHAT? HOW MUCH? FOR CARDBOARD? Are you kidding me? I said no thank you and shut the door.

Plan B. I called our local Waste Management and had a huge dumpster delivered to my driveway for nearly half of the first quoted price. All our stuff fit nicely in the 4ft x 8ft dumpster.

And it served as a nice white trash playground for the kids.

The Reunion

Here's the deal......I typed a big long post about the George and Pearl Turley Family Reunion that we went to over Memorial weekend and when I went to post it I got an Internet error and then it was gone. GONE. Isn't this blogspot crap supposed to auto save? (Note to self: always save before you post). I can't post the words on here that I really feel like saying because my kids read this, but I am so MAD!!! I am not retyping it all, so you are going to get the readers digest version with a few pictures. Here it goes:

Arrived Friday, stayed in hotel, ate yummy Mexican food, the kids swam in the indoor pool, visited Snowflake Temple, got Dairy Queen, went to reunion Saturday morning in Woodruff, visited, played games, kids ran around like animals, ate ribs and potatoes for lunch, talent show, Logan read a poem written by Grandma Pearl, Karli and Madison along with Melody's girls did a unrehearsed dance and it was cute, others sang, told stories, played their harmonicas, flutes and the piano. Then we left. That's it in a nut shell. For more on the reunion you can visit here, here, and here. The nice part about the reunion is that everybody went so there are other versions of the reunion to read, so my shortened version will do.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

The Flight

4:30am came early the morning of our flight. We were ready and out the door by 5am. Got to the airport, returned our rental car, and got through airport security without any hitches. It is always stressful traveling with kids. Our kids are older now and (if I can brag a little) well behaved but it was still a little crazy. I always feel rushed going through security. Maybe it's just me but I feel like I am holding up the line so I rush myself. The whole "take everything off" just drives me crazy cause then you have to put it all back on while people behind you watch and wait. But we did it all with time to spare.

Us, waiting to board our flight

The flight was smooth. No complaints here. Madison did get air sick. Luckily, she was sitting next to Landon so he got to take care of "the stuff". What a good Dad.

When Landon left Albuquerque the weather was in the 90's, as it was in California. As we were landing the pilot announces that the temperature in Albuquerque is a balmy 39 degrees. Mind you, I only packed summer clothes, no jackets, no jeans, nothing warm. It was supposed to be HOT. It was a very chilly weekend. We spent one night in our empty new house and then off we went to Arizona for a family reunion.

The Move

The movers showed up on May 20 and packed us up. Everything we owned went into boxes. I sat on the couch while the movers wrapped my belongings in 500 sheets of packing paper. Can somebody please tell the movers that cookbooks don't need to be wrapped in paper? They over did it on the packing paper, but whose complaining?

We spent that night in a hotel in Oakdale. My friend Jen and her family came to the hotel with pizza and soda in hand and we partied.

While Jen and I enjoyed the Jacuzzi.....

the kids had a blast swimming in the indoor pool. Naoki and I had a friendly "who could tread water the longest" competition going on in the pool. No official winner was declared because he had to leave. If you ask me....I won!!!

Landon flew in that night and stayed the night in the hotel with us. I woke up early on the 21st to meet the movers at the house so they could load our stuff in the truck while Landon and the kids slept in.

Few things are more depressing then watching that huge moving truck drive away with our whole life inside it. I had a pit in my stomach, the whole time I was praying please don't let anything happen to that truck. The truck drove away and we drove to the bay. Our flight to Albuquerque was at 7:30am the next morning so we decided it was best to spend the night in Concord, closer to the Oakland Airport.

We arrived in Concord and decided that first things first we needed to eat. Claim Jumper, here we come. You can't go to Claim Jumper and not enjoy the chocolate cake.

After dinner Landon and Logan went to see Ironman.

The little ones and I went back to the hotel for more swimming.

Then off to bed to prepare for our early flight.

Saying Goodbye....

It's been so long since we have posted I am going to try to recap the last few weeks. I will start with our goodbyes. It was very hard leaving our friends in the Central Valley of California. We didn't get pictures of everybody that we wanted to but here are a few.

My Beehive Girls