saying goodbye to iowa / moving / getting settled in clevland

this is the sad little face that scott made when we told him we had to move away from iowa. okay, he really doesn't understand what's going on. but he's definitely going to miss all his friends in des moines. we all are. a huge part of mine and scott's daily routine was going to the ymca where i exercised and worked in the child watch. (i could take scott with me so it was perfect) This is a picture of our good friend Deborah who worked at the cafe there. She always talked to us and gave us free food and played with scott. we are going to miss her so much. i don't have pics of the other people i worked with but i'm going to miss all of them too.

shayla fursov (one of my closest friends) brought her kids over for one last play date. scott still asks for her son isaac. it breaks my heart.

we also had one last play date with our good friend ryan callahan. he came to the pool with us. as you can see the boys (who had spent the whole summer studying up to this point) really needed some time in the sun. :)

and of course we had to have one more picnic with the tory family.

then it was time for the big move. we had so many guys come and help us move. it was slick!

thanks boys!

then we were off on our adventure to ohio. we made a few stops on the way. first we stopped in chicago. (james was so nervous about me leaning out the window to take this picture. he really thought i was going to get mugged or something. on a crowded freeway in the middle of the day? really james?)

then we went to columbus where we met up with some long lost frends. the jonses and the other palmers (james' brother bryan and his wife annie). we went to the "bunny" fountains and had a blast!

we feel so lucky that we only live a couple hourse away from these guys.

we finally made it to cleveland and are getting settled in our condo. i don't have pics of the new digs yet since its not quite finished but we were finally able to get scott his birthday present (a few months late). it's a new tricycle! and he is getting so good at it!

since james doesn't start his rotations for a while we have had a few weeks to become aquainted with cleveland. first we took scott to the zoo. scott's been a little isolated from other kids since we moved here so i'm not sure if he's more facinated by the monkey in this picture or the little boy standing next to him.

this was the coolest. the gorillas were SO close to the glass!

we also took scott to the beach. it's on lake erie and its only about ten minutes away from our house! so fun!

and then of course, when we heard there was a circus in town we had to hop on that too. scott did such a good job for the first half hour when the animals were out. he didn't love the random girls dancing inside the ring.

during intermission we took him on the train. which of course... he loved.

and most recently we all went to visit kirtland, ohio. we did (part of) the tour and went to a play. it was all really fun.

we can't wait until we have lots of visitors (hint hint) that we can take to all these cool places! :)