Pie is thicker than water

We met some wonderful people a very long time ago - in fact before any of us had children. In Hawaii, in fact. We kept in sporadic touch over the years, you know how these things go, and when we moved back to Colorado we discovered that they were temporarily in the area with their family too!
We met up at Casa Bonita with them..

It was so much fun to hang out with them. They are such a warm and fun family to be around!

A few weeks later, Bonita invited them over for dinner and we knew it was the perfect opportunity to make chocolate haupia pie - a Ted's Bakery favorite of ours. The pie was made and enjoyed - it was a little taste of home and sunnier, warmer days. I can honestly say we enjoyed the evening we spent with them to the last slice of time.

She is definitely her parents' daughter - she loves almost any new sweet.

Evidence we really did eat pie together!

We are so lucky to have gotten here in time to see them again!!

Sharknado

Sacrament meeting is always interesting, never dull. We even get to hear speakers one in a while. Not this particular day so much, though..

Here's that picture again.

New Year Goal #2: Be more active

We got out of the habit of playing outside, and one of my goals is to be outside for part of every warm day.

The weather was around 60 last week Thursday, so we jogged to the community playground - with dog area!

I love that Teo and Korrali can both play. Hip Hip Hooray for a family day!

L: Teo, we need to find a stick or something to fetch with
K: holds out a ball she found
L: You are the hero of the day! Hooray for Korrali!

It reminded me of Olaf (paraphrased) Hey, I'm not sure if this is helpful, but I found exactly what you needed...

"Lie down"

Korrali has become enamored of lying down in any place that looks flat. She thought this was hilarious - it's the curb on the side of the play area.

New Years Resolution #1: Move to Colorado. Check.

Where have we been for 5 weeks? Well, if you reeally want to know.. here it is. Or, just skip to the pictures. We have known for years - since we first lived in Colorado 4 years ago - that we preferred to raise our family there. When we moved away we knew we wouldn't be staying long in North Dakota, nor in Illinois but we didn't even hope it would be due to a move back to the Rockies. The second week of December J heard a position may be opening in Colorado. It was confirmed a few days later, and our excited query was answered with an offer, which was duly accepted. It was just in time to cancel our new year-long lease at our apartment with no fees - literally: one day longer and it would have been problematic. I started organizing and packing. We prayed and prayed. I organized and packed some more - I could not believe how much stuff we
1) had
and
2) used on an almost-daily basis. Way. Too. Much

J got the OK from his surgeon to move up to a 10 lb lifting weight limit, so he could start helping me shuffle boxes around our storage and apartment, and help packing some of them too. Then he got returned to full-duty work. And he stopped being able to help for more than a few minutes every day. I prayed some more. J had a couple days off of work before Christmas - he was officially done in Illinois, then he got the exciting news that a new file was his in Colorado! (We were moving locations, same company, same job, but from a more-than-full-time position to a less-than-part-time-with-hope-of-soon-building-it-up position) So he started working again.

So many friends helped watch Korrali, or gave us boxes (since we asked to move, the company couldn't help us out at all financially), or took freezer goods off of our hands.

Then we had Christmas - we have no pictures, just videos so sorry, no pictures here. Korrali loved everything, but of course was too excited the morning of to want more than her stocking candy and to ride around on her new Fire Truck!
We spent Christmas Dinner with Katie and Jason and their fun children - and acted out the nativity.

Korrali was the angel in the nativity story! She liked dressing up, but not being captured for a photo.

Then we returned to packing for a few more days - I was still working, though at half the load, so the going was a little slow.

We wanted to do one last Chicago thing - and so we thought of several things and finally decided the most fun would be to hang out with Tasha and Mike Allred and family. We ate dinner at this place connected to Bass Pro that I can't for my life think of the name for..

And, as any hang-out with them is, it was perfect.We are so so going to miss them, it was so fun to live near to them again after so many years!

More late-night packing. I don't know if Korrali thought she should be helping, or if her allergies were just really getting her down, but she wasn't sleeping very much even after we got her medication figured out. We were one tired bunch of Jalopies.

Dec 30 we got the word our rental truck was rerouted, so we spent an extra couple of hours picking up our truck - and managed to get our one and only shot of the full downtown skyline.
Then we celebrated New Years Eve with Katie and family! We will miss them so, so, so much! It's crazy how much you have to fit in when you move so fast! We needed to pack, but really memories were our biggest priority.

Baby Bell-Lie! Korrali thought she had one too for a while =) Nope, sweetie, just a pudgy toddler belly.

Perhaps this is why she has that pudge... She couldn't resist a snack before our chocolate fountain!

It's hard to tell, but Jason is dropping confetti on the kids. Logan and Ali made the confetti themselves - they are so creative!

Then we went back home and stayed up late to pack some more. Happy New Year!

New Years Day came and a lot of wonderful Elders Quorum folk came by and helped us magically fit our stuff into the truck. Some good friends from the ward came and helped me clean, and earned my eternal gratitude - well, everyone did, but that mattered a lot to me. Then we finished packing, Mom Quillen came and saved our bums because we really had way too much left still to do. Friday rolled around, we checked out, took one last pic with our great friends across the hall..

Korrali and her son played frequently outside together - Korrali would go knock on his glass door if she saw him there and he would demand to go out. We miss them!!!

She gave us a bottle of milk (which totally saved our eardrums on the long drive over multiple toddler sleeping times.) Then we drove off over the plains. After a long and miraculous 14+ hour drive we pulled in safe and sound.. just in time for Korrali to begin 24 hours of throwing up. Wow, did that work out right.

One gas station we stopped at had a McDonalds Playplace next door. It was perfect. Korrali wore a necklace one of her best friends' older sister gave to her a few days prior the entire journey. We love Grandma!

And here we are! Living with J's parent's in their house and loving having grandparents so close by, loving the extra-sunshiny January Denver is having, and adoring the general pet-friendliness of the area. We are jumping in with all 10 of our feet (Teo has 4, in case you're counting) and hoping we get to stay here for good. If not, well, life isn't permanent anyway so why not experience more of this earth?

We are moving to Colorado

In 3 weeks.

Another surgery update

JD is still feeling great! Wanna see his scar? If not, do not scroll all the way down.... 

However, he is having what the surgeon thinks is a slight allergic reaction to the glue (dermabond) used to seal his incision. It has caused a slight cellulitis. In regular words the wound is inflamed, very slightly open and it's draining. (If you want full details, contact JD. Ew.)
He is taking antibiotics, and using routine wound care to treat until out goes away, hopefully soon.
Another side effect of this whole process is that he can't support his full weight solely  on his non surgical foot. We have no idea why or what that means, though we have hopes that it could be on the spectrum of normal.
Any way, this means he is still at home on desk duty for a little while. We are not sure what the future will hold for us, but i if you are still sending happy thoughts our way, we are still grateful as we aren't out of wonderland, or back in Kansas, or out of the woods, or [insert other fun turn of phrase used to express normalcy] yet.
Thank you again for all of your love-we have really felt it these last few weeks!

Scar below this line
______________________________________

There and back again, a surgery tale

In case my cute husband's post confused some people - surgery in fact went well.

We got to the hospital, prepped and waited for the doc.

The bed was way too short for the tall guy. Can you see his feet sticking like 6 inches off the bottom? His surgeon made us feel so comfortable right from the beginning - of course JD knew him from working with him with clients before and knew he was great, but for me it was hugely comforting to hear that JD's Independent Medical Exam (IME) MD fellow-shipped the surgeon and they had mutually great respect and good things to say about each other.

The surgery was planned for about 2 hours. It took almost 3. I worried. The MD came out and told me JD's back was a mess but it turned out great- I think JD mentioned this in his post. I was so relieved to hear it looked ok and he was alive that I just forgot to ask for details like I'd planned.

I expected 4 hours until he could come home, so I left to put Korrali down for a nap. An hours after I left the hospital they called me and told me he would be ready to come home in 20 minutes! Talk about your bounce-back-er (THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR PRAYERS AND GOOD THOUGHTS!!). I dashed back to the hospital, where we found him looking a little white, very sleepy, and weak but otherwise completely mentally there and relatively painless, and nausea-less (thank you to his AMAZING anesthesiologist!) After a little while, we found out it would be a while actually before he could come home. He made a work call - I think he blew the socks off the guy he called from his hospital bed.. the conversation went something like:

"Hi I'm sorry I missed your call, I was having back surgery.. but -"

"WHAT?! WHY ARE YOU CALLING ME?"

"Because your question was important to me - "

"Hey, don't even worry about it, just get better and then we can figure it out"

Socks = blown off.

Anyway.. I dashed back home to relieve the babysitter. Later that night - ok maybe an hour after I actually got home - JD called me to come get him. I dropped Korrali again at the babysitter and hurried to the hospital. We drove him home, helped him to bed, made arrangements so he could get the things he needed within reach and thus began his recovery.

Within a day he could dress himself and get in and out of bed and do his own hygiene care without help. Within 3 days he could walk without support and sit up in a chair. Within a week he was driving himself and working from bed, shopping for groceries for short periods of time. We didn't explain much to Korrali - except that Daddy was at the Doctor and had an ouchie on his back and that he was resting. But she picked up on it ,and ran off to snuggle him as often as she could.

Aren't they cute together? Anyway, he is doing fabulously. We can't thank you enough for all of your prayers and thoughts - they truly made a huge difference I am sure.