A moving experience

Greetings from the Cowboy State... 
I've really got to update the blog a bit more than once every 4 months. This feels a bit like a drama series on TV. 
..."last time on motorcycletominivan: *POW* snow showers *BAM* Easter *SHAZAM* preschool *KAPOW* moving to Casper...  "

Fast forward to August 5th... 
We are all settled into our house here in Casper. Things have gone smoothly with no (knock on wood) catastrophes. First we should point out some corrections from the last post.

1. Allegiant Air no longer flies to Casper. 
2. We were able to move the girls to a Elementary School closer to our house. 
3. I was in fact, NOT cast to play the part of Captain America in the next Avengers movie. 
4. Closing was June 18th... not May 17th.

Now we have that all clarified we can move on, erorr free! 

The girls "graduated" from preschool and have a full ride scholarship to the public school system in Wyoming! 

Packing, moving and unpacking was all a blur. I reported to work a week before we closed on the house. I came down and stayed with a family friend, and at the time we were unsure if we were even going to be closing on this house at all. I was prepared to do more house hunting. But we lucked out (the sellers had moved to Hawaii, a day after closing they had a family emergency and had to move back to Casper, we didn't find out about that part of the story until last week). During the home inspection it was determined that a new roof was in order. The seller's didn't like the fact the roof was inspected by a roofer and didn't agree to replace the roof until an independent inspector took a look, then the insurance adjuster had to check it out as well. 

We received the notification from our real estate agent of our closing day the same day a packet from the Billings Police Department arrived at our house in Billings. The letter inside said "congratulations" ..I was into the final round of the background investigation, then congratulations Officer Weston. This is a potential career path that I've chased for a couple years now, and just when the opportunity avails itself.. I'm in the middle of moving! All in all this is for the best... I am a Commercial Engineer for Charter Communications and have normal working hours, weekends off (except for the pesky on-call, and I cover the state from Jackson to Gillette, my counterpart in Cheyenne covers the southern part of WY and norther CO). Cisco routers are not armed, they don't do drugs and get into fights or burglarize property, so Krista and the kids don't worry much about me coming home in one piece. I enjoyed my time as Deputy Weston with the Yellowstone County Sheriff's Department; hopefully I contributed as much to the Department as I learned. I have no intention of doing Law Enforcement (volunteer or other here in Wyoming) although I might look into the Search and Rescue side of things next year.     

We are all adapting to our new surroundings; as with anyplace there is good, bad and indifferent. I have an office all to myself where I can put up pictures of the family and generally make it home. But this is the 1st time in 15 years that I haven't been around a large operations center/office that is open 24/7-365. The second day on the job, there was a knock at my door.... "hey we're headed out, make sure you set the alarm before you leave." it took me a minute to realize that the office closes at 5 and I was the last one there. Whoops. 

The town of Casper is interesting. The oil money is flowing through here, and it appears that the schools are one of the benefactors of this cash flow since they all appear to be well maintained and rank pretty high nationally for their scholastic placement. The playgrounds and city parks are well maintained with new equipment. The 4th of July was fun with a small neighborhood parade that starts just a house up from us and ends at a park with treats and water gun fights. The fireworks display was as nice as any I've seen in recent years (although less exciting than the ones we've had at mom and dad's the past 2 years. You haven't lived until you've had to run from a rogue/faulty firework). Parade Day kicks off the Rodeo and County Fair and the parade route runs along the street a block south of the Charter building. So I took the girls with me to work in the morning, then walked down to the street and caught the parade (and about 10lbs of candy). Casper seems to have kept some of the fun "small town" activities and yet is able to offer many of the same amenities of a larger city like Billings and for the big city stuff, Denver is only 4 hours away.

Kindergarten starts on 8/19.. I know "the girls are going to school ALREADY!?!" yeah, Krista and I are probably not ready for that day either. Verda James Elementary School is about a mile from our house and the girls will each have their own Kindergarten classroom. It'll be interesting to see how they do apart from each other during the school day. 

I need Krista to add a few lines in here; since I know, but also have no clue just how much work she did to get things packed up for our move. The realization set in when I attempted to unpack a box or two when we moved in... and I realized I may have packed 2 of the 22,093 boxes that we unloaded. We work as a pretty good team, but this move was more a credit to her organizational skills and just flat getting it done. I don't put much stock in A.D.D. (at least to the extent that it seems like 85% of kids are diagnosed with it)... but wow. In the midst of packing a box, I would get distracted by the littlest things *squirrel* sorry, where was I?


Krista's mom and her husband Bob came for a visit in July. We had a good time, took in the Casper Municipal Band concert in the park a couple of times. They even got to eat at the big person table at our house! Last fall we left a few zucchini in a box on our dining room table and one rotted and seeped zucchini juice onto the table which ended up eating the varnish off the top. I figured that I would make an attempt at re-finishing before we put it upstairs. It took me a couple of weeks, but I got it done and it looks pretty good (if I may say so myself). But while it was in the garage we were eating off the kids table... and yes it sits about 30" off the floor. Nothing like eating dinner and looking at your kneecaps!  

Now we're getting used to being "city-folk". It took the better part of a week for the girls not to leave the sliding glass door open or to realize they can't just go play in the front yard unsupervised, or that they can only let the dogs out into the back yard. We received our 1st water bill... which made it pretty obvious that we won't be able to water the yard like we did off the well in Billings; It's time to put down rock and cacti! The backyard was a bit overgrown, and that is putting it mildly. We've been able to get a bit of the overgrowth cleared, but the bulk of it won't be done until fall. It's good enough for now, we cleared a spot for a swingset and that's good enough for now! 


Anyhow... here are a few pix from our adventures. From scouting the house in mid May to Preschool graduation, Strawberry festival in Billings, Parade day in Casper and just around the house. 

Our new house @ 981 Waterford Street

The overgrown backyard.

Looking at the backside of the house.

The bar built in beneath the stairs.

Madison holding the front door.

The girls love the movie 'Brave' and decided they wanted to have a bow and arrow like Merida. Krista fashioned weapons out of branches and rubber bands.

Audrey getting a good sight picture.

The firing line.

Zoie getting ready to throw some lumber downrange.

I whittled down a twig and Madison hit the target with a rubber band bow at maybe 3 yards.
Not too shabby, we'll get her a deer tag next year. ;)

The "Fearsome Five-some"

Springtime in our yard in Billings.. can't get much better than that.

The bedtime book-club is having a meeting.

more of the "Fearsome Five-some"

Secret Agent Madison
(note the gun is color coordinated with the shoes)

Graduation..

Zoie with the "bunny" hands.

Madison acting shy.

Audrey!

The post graduation celebration with Danny and Mackenzie

Madison getting screened.

Strawberry Festival in Downtown Billings!

Brockel's chocolate strawberries!

Noms!

Good stuff!

and of course, Cotton Candy.

then there's the Strawberry Festival Mr. Strawberry.

hitting the pool at our new house in Casper, WY.

Exploring the backyard.

The girls and I out for our 1st bike ride in the city.

Krista looking back at us.

Playing on the playground.

Fun!

Madison the photographer.

Zoie, during Parade Day.

It's the Five-Oh!

Candy grabbin!

Can't have a parade without a Farmall Cub!

Playing in the garage.