swiss family waldron

Oh my goodness, a lot has been going on over here.  I need to catch up on a lot (as usual) but first things first and that is that Milly rolled over for the first time today.  She is such a super chunk but she did it! She'll be 5 months on the 28th and has been trying but she did it today and then she rolled back.  I can't believe how fast she has been growing.  I feel like she'll be driving tomorrow... I also can't believe that I gave birth to her 4 months ago because SO MUCH has happened in that time.  I gave birth to Milly, then we finished our house projects, cleaned the whole thing out, and put it up for sale. After that we wandered around like lost people through salt lake valley while people came to look at our house all the time. There was lots of frantic cleaning and fast food going on, and lots of nursing a newborn in random places.  During that time, Aaron came out to Florida to find us a place here so that he could transfer out here for work.  He miraculously found a home that we felt like we should buy so we put an offer down based off of some financial acrobatics and were accepted.  A few weeks after that we went under contract on our home and then fixed more stuff and then realized that we needed to pack up our family of 6 and move across the entire United States if everything actually worked out.  Which it did so we packed and then shoved about half of our stuff into a uhaul truck and then gave the other half to family, friends, and the thrift store.  Then we drove 2500 miles through Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi. Alabama, and Florida.  We drove 12 hours a day including all of our stops for four days.  The kids were actually pretty amazing through the trip and Aaron's parents kindly drove the Uhaul truck and followed us out.  

We got to Boca and signed our papers and I got to see the house for the first time.  It was so surreal driving here and then actually being here.  It was super fun until we realized that we were not on vacation but we are getting use to things. Also during this time we celebrated Julian's, my moms, Gretchen's, and my birthday. 

 Here's Julian blowing out his candles on his minecraft cake. He turned 7 and has been enjoying an extended winter vacation but is finally going to start school on Monday.  I can't believe he is going to be 8 this year.  He is such a big help to me and is always making jokes. I love this guy so much!  

 We also went to Aaron's work party two days before we left.  We took Millie who was the belle of the ball. Yay for Christmas party in Utah.

 After we got here we unpacked and did a lot of shopping to get Christmas ready in a few short days. We went and got a Christmas tree with the kids which was so fun and we decorated as well as we could. 

we celebrated mom's bday too

Then we celebrated Gretchen's 5th birthday! Ah my Gretchy, so willfull, and so quick witted, yet saintly when it comes to being such an incredible big sister.  I love her to pieces!! She did her treasure hunt and then we went and picked out some fun toys at target and then we came home and celebrated with Moana cake.  Moana did not turn out, you know perfect, but I think you can kind of tell it is supposed to be her. Gretch wanted a Moana Christmas cake, that looked like grown up Moana with snowflakes. She said it was ok;)

At Church on Christmas Eve

And Christmas Eve dinner

And then Christmas mayhem;)

 

 

My mom was here for Christmas and we had a fun big dinner and then actually relaxed for a couple of  days while we played with the kids and their toys.   After that we went to Legoland for a quick trip and then to the beach for New Years and just relaxed at our house and watched fireworks from our front yard. 

The kids loved Legoland so much. Harry just seemed to love all the displays.  He looked like he was at home with his people;p  This was our first time there and we were afraid that we would get bored but it was so fun! Our favorite part was probably all the model cities. We will definitely go back, especially with our little lego coupons:)

The kids thought that this life size snow globe was the coolest thing ever,

And here we are at the beach for New Years,

The day started out with the treasure hunt for the treasure chest full of treats and my present for my birthday.  Fortunately there was no snow,  hence no snowman for Aaron to hide one of my clues in (which he does every year) but he still managed to keep things interesting, haha...

the brave captain holds the clue

Aaron took me out for dinner at a snazzy little Italian restaurant and it was just lovely. 

36 feels pretty much exactly the same as 35 so it was not very eventful;) Since then we have been trying to replace all of the stuff that we left behind (couches etc.) and have been doing lots of deep cleaning and painting so that it feels a little homier to us.  The house is actually really nice but coming it to it from our house in Utah, it is just older than what we are used to and Florida is so different, and tile everywhere... just lots of getting use to things.  We also had to fumigate two weeks ago because we had termites in our attic so we decided to make the best of being kicked out of our house for three days and went to Disneyworld.  That was especially gratifying because with the Florida resident discount it was like three days for the price of one! Yes please, and thank you!!  So we did park hopping and all that craziness and we had tons of fun but it was so much work!

Gretchen was soooo excited to meet the characters, it was SO fun to see her with them!

All Harry wanted was a balloon and he waited all day to get one.  He was just so happy to get it:)

On the third night these kids finally all conked out

 Harry loved the boats so much.  It's a small world after all was his favorite ride and he struggled so hard to not get off at the end.  At home he always plays with all of his ships while saying, "Aye aye captain!, Everybody on the boat," and "abandon ship! Abandon ship!" 

After our fun trip I'm starting to question wether Disney World is

really made for families.  Everything is soo far apart and everything is just so much more accessible at Disneyland,  plus there are always tons of families there.  At DisneyWorld it was like the opposite. It seemed like there were 4 adults for every kid instead of like an even amount or more kids.  Anyway regardless it was super fun and everyone was super helpful and nice. We had tons of treats and just loved how things were a little bit different but still Disney.  I haven't had that much fun at Disney since I was a kid!! Now we are all sick as dogs so that is why I am taking time to write all these things out.  This whole last year has just been insane for us and we came to Florida on a prayer, hoping everything would work out, and besides being sick, we have enjoyed meeting so many really nice people, and the weather has been wonderful, Boca is really pretty, and we are just so grateful that things have worked out.  The upside of being sick has been that I have been too sick to work on my 200 projects so I have just been hanging out with the kids more and remembering that even though we have all this stuff to take care it will never really all be taken care of and I need to remember to pace myself so that I am just having fun with my family more.  That is probably my one and only new years resolution...to just have fun with my family more.  Happy belated New Year!

A little bonus Christmas tidbit:

We took one last trip to the Southtown mall to visit the harry potter christmas spot

We also had the pleasure of watching Julian's Christmas program.  He loves to sing at home and I can tell he worked really hard:)

And here's Julian with his little buddy, ah, homesick :(