And The Baby Is A????

It is an alien!!! Just kidding. It is my little kiddo.
I went the doctor's office today to see if we could find out what this little kiddo is going to be. I have been saying all along that it is a boy, but everyone else, including Tyson, has said it is going to be a girl. Well................the verdict is in and I lost. It is a girl. I asked the technician, performing the ultrasound, if by some chance a little twig and berries might grow in the girl part spot, but she assured me this one is a girl, no doubt about it. OK! So now I have to get ready for all the "pink stuff" and just when I was getting a grip on all the cars and boy things. Vaughn is totally thrilled and Tyson thinks he is going to be the big sister. HA HA HA. He hasn't quite got it down that he will be the BIG BROTHER. We'll work on that. Here is a 4D shot, they call them, of our little darling. (I know it is a bit alien looking, but hey who knows what is growing in my stomach)Here are her little feet. Cute huh? If you look where the arrow is pointing you can see that she has a longer 3rd toe. Gets that from her dad! Here is the regular old ultrasound picture of her profile. (Makes her look less alien like)Notice she is showing off her acrobatic skills. No wonder I have been so nauseous.Look where the arrow is pointing in the center of the picture. There are three little white dots. You may need a magnifying glass. Those are girl parts. No twig and berries there. LOL That is OK. We will take her. And the doctor said that everything looks good and I am due about the 30 of October. This one will be another C-Section, to avoid any complications, so she might be scheduled a little bit earlier than that.

So there is my little news for the day. The Jackson #4 is a girl!!!

Our Humble Home

I am finally getting to this. I have been meaning to post pictures of our apartment. It is so nice to live in something that is bigger than a cracker jack box, which was our last apartment. Tyson actually has places to run around and a room of his own, plus his own bathroom. Does it get any better than this? The above picture is our living room, notice we were watching "Incredibles", Tyson's favorite show.
Here is Tyson the computer kid, thinking he can start up the computer. Luckily he hasn't figured that one out yet. (Just give him time)

Tyson's McQueen room. He loves cars and now that we are back in the states I can decorate his room properly. He loves to sleep in his "McQueen Room" as he calls it.

My dinning area. I actually have a table and chairs to sit on and not a futon. I no longer have to balance my plate on my legs while I eat. (The things we did on the island LOL)

My apple kitchen. I love having space to cook.

I just love our home. It is great to have our own place with room to spare!

I love this Mall!

The mall here in Auburn Hills has become my new savior from toddler tantrums. Not only does it have the nice food to play on, (that I blogged about before) but it also has this great carousel. It is about 2 bucks to ride it for 4 minutes. Of course Vaughn has to ride it with Tyson, the thought of me on something that spins, make me nauseous. So, thank goodness Vaughn doesn't mind getting on the kiddie ride.

Food for Play?

Right across the street from where we live is a huge mall. My friend Jenny and I will walk inside it during the rainy and cold days around here. To explain how big this mall is: to walk around it clocks at a little over a mile. Like I said, huge! After we walk we take the kids to the food court which is amazing. Right in the middle of the court is this big play area for the kids to run around. It is covered in big foam pieces of food that the kids can climb on. And the best part is, if they fall the ground is also foamy so they cannot get hurt. (Unless they run into each other, which tends to happen once in a blue moon).

Here is Tyson doing one of his famous poses next to Ashley, Jenny's daughter, and some random kid that got into the shot. On the other side of this tipped over drink are big ice cubes the kids can jump on.Tyson loves jumping on the potato chips. He thinks they are small trampolines.

The best part about walking in the mall is the fact that it opens up at 7 am just for people to walk around in it. So we aren't the only ones pushing strollers. In fact, there are more pregnant women, and moms with small kids here that I sometimes think I am back in Utah at the Provo mall. I thought only people in Utah reproduced a tons of kid, but it seems to be that they do that out here too. HA HA HA

Moving To Michigan FINISHED

We were up early the next morning to get on the road and get to Michigan. It was going to be another long, long day of driving, but that just meant that we were almost there. So we left Concordia, MO, and drove for about 1 hour when it all came to a halt. Out of the back tires of the pick up came clouds of black smoke. I radioed Vaughn to pull off the road and we followed after him. Once we were stopped we found that it wasn't the tires smoking, but the back breaks. And if that wasn't bad enough, my car started smoking as well. So we took the next exit off the road and tried to find a mechanic shop. We found a car auction place and talked to a guy in there. He pointed us back on the interstate back to Columbia, MO. We got back on the interstate just fine, the only problem was that we were going about 20 miles an hour and everyone else was going 75. We had 5 miles to get over into the far left lane to exit the interstate towards a Big O Tire shop. We made the first 3 lanes but the 4th one was a bit tricky and we almost missed the exit. Vaughn finally just pulled out in front of a diesel and I thought for sure he was going to get T-boned. I screamed. Somehow the diesel missed him and we got off the interstate. AHHHH!!!

We pulled into the Big O Tire place and found out that the back breaks on the truck were shot. So they needed to be replaced. The funny thing is the drive line was unhooked and so the breaks shouldn't have even engaged, but for some strange reason they did. Just our luck!

So while Vaughn waited for them to fix those, I found a Ford dealership to see what was wrong with my car. I found out that there was a recall on a seal to the transmission fluid and it needed to be replaced. They had all the parts to fix it but it might be a day to fix it. I almost sat down and cried. I explained that I was moving to Michigan and that I had to be there the next day to move into my new apartment. They must have felt sorry for me and said they would do everything possible to get it fixed that day. (Hey, whatever works).

This all happened at 9 am and we didn't leave Columbia until 4pm. But we did leave that day with everything fixed and ready to go.

Some where along the way we crossed the Missouri River and it is a lot bigger than rivers in the West. Of course we were in the car and so this is the best shot I got of the river. We soon came to the city of St. Louis and it was still rush hour traffic, which is slit-your-wrists-dead-lock traffic. Now picture us trying to maneuver a U-haul pulling a truck through that. Not pretty at all!!Here is the great arch that separates the East from the West of the United States. I thought it was cool. If we wouldn't have been so pressed for time, we could have gone up inside of it. Pretty Cool huh?This was a nicer part of St. Louis that we saw. Like the paint job. (I was glad to get out of that city) Here is a shot of the Mississippi River, again a HUGE river, that we crossed. It was amazing to see how big it was. I got a better picture this time around. We drove and drove and drove and, finally exhaustion overtook us and we pulled off in Terre Haute, IN. We found a Hampton Inn and I didn't care what the cost was. I wanted to sleep in a nice place with a nice breakfast. Although I didn't know it came with an early morning wake up call.......an earthquake. Yes, at 5:45 am, of course we were on the 6th floor of the hotel, and the whole room shook as if a child had a hold of the building and it was made of Legos. I honestly thought my time was up. But then it stopped for about 10 seconds and started again. We were all up at this point in time and no one could go back to sleep. (Come to find out the earthquake was 60 miles away) What a deal! With a good breakfast in our stomachs we headed on the road and were determined to get to Michigan today!!Somewhere along the way we drove onto a toll road. Here is a picture of the pay station. I thought it was kind of neat. The road was clean, and very well kept. And it only cost us 3 bucks to ride on it. Not bad!

We got through Indianapolis, IN, without any traffic trouble, (what a miracle), and I was navigating. Not a good idea. I had us headed towards Ohio instead of up to Michigan. I realized this about 5 miles out of Indianapolis and we were able to correct my mistake before it was a major event. The rest of the drive was uneventful. We got through the state of Indiana and into Michigan and found our way into Auburn Hills, but then we couldn't find the entrance to our apartments. We drove pass it several times until we realized where it was. YES WE MADE IT!! Checking in was a breeze and waiting for us at our new home was our friends the Updikes. Wes helped Vaughn unload the U-haul in record time while Jenny took the kids to a park. We then went to dinner with them and then I was ready to collapse. We got back to our new home, put the beds together and left the rest for the next day.It has been three wonderful weeks here in Auburn Hills, MI and I love it. We live in such a nice community, with a safe place to walk every morning and with about every store imaginable within 5 minutes of us. It is great and we love it here. Vaughn is enjoying working at Providence Hospital and Tyson and I are learning all about driving in 4 lanes of traffic. HA HA HA It is great!A special thanks to Vaughn's mom. Thanks Sue. We couldn't have made it here without you!!

"Moving To Michigan Continued" Kansas and Beyond

If you have ever been to Kansas this might look familiar. Although it was an interesting state, very very flat, it all looked about the same. It was sad not to see mountains anymore. I knew when I started seeing scenery like this, I was truly out of the Rocky Mountains. BUMMER!

The drive was long...........................and got longer as the day progressed. We finally stopped in Salina, Kansas, for a meal and I must say it was a very nice stop. Everyone was so friendly, like out of the "Andy Griffin Show". Kind of bizarre, and the time to stretch the legs was much needed. The only set back in Kansas was that our bank placed a hold on our debit cards. They thought they had been stolen and so we couldn't use them for about half the day until I got the mess straightened out. (At least we know our accounts are being watched)

We watched a lot of little towns go by, talked on the two-way radios a lot, and finally reached Kansas City, after rush hour, thank goodness. It was a big city and trying to maneuver the U-haul with truck in tow and us behind him was no small feat, but we did it and were finally out of Kansas and into the state of Missouri.

There is a lot of church history in the state of Missouri and I wished we wouldn't have been on such a time restraint, so we could go and see it all. Another time! It was about 6 pm and we were getting tired. We hadn't stopped much, trying to make up time from the problems in the beginning, so I told Vaughn to find us a place to stop off and sleep. We stopped in Concordia, Missouri and found a nice little Day's Inn. Eating and sleeping were first on the agenda and in that order. Thursday was going to be another long day of driving....................or so I thought.

"More Back Blogging" The Move out to Michigan.

Here is a shot of the U-haul we used to bring our lives out to Michigan. The whole thing is loaded, and I mean LOADED with all off our stuff. Our plan was to leave Manassa, Colorado at noon, funny how things never go as planned.
So.........on with the saga of the Jackson's moving out East.

We were loaded, ready to go and just a few hours from leave time. I had to make a few last runs into town for snacks and drinks. I also wanted to see some family before we left, but as I came out of the Manassa Market, the waves of nausea swept over me like the ocean waves to the beach. I thought I would throw up right there in the parking lot. Luckily I made it to the house and then spent the next 30 minutes with my head in the toilet. (Which is becoming a frequent thing for me lately) Anyways, upon returning home I found out that the truck hitch we rented from U-haul didn't fit Vaughn's truck. EEK!! We are T-minus 30 minutes from leaving and have no way to pull the truck. If this was an indicator of how the trip was going to be, I was slightly nervous.

We called all around to see if anyone had another hitch, something bigger....no luck. We were told to get a tow bar, except that the closest one was in Pueblo, Colorado, luckily on the way. First we had to drive to Alamosa, Colorado, and drop off the hitch that didn't work, that took an hour. Being 2 hours behind schedule, we loaded up and drove to Pueblo, with my mother-in-law driving the truck, myself and Tyson in the Edge and Vaughn driving the big U-haul. We made it to Pueblo, to the U-haul place there and bought the tow bar, thinking that they put it on. WRONG!!!! No we have to put it on ourselves, which at home wouldn't have been a problem, but we were hours from home and without tools. So for 3 hours my mother-in-law called around to everyone she knew trying to find someone to help us in Pueblo. We found a man, who was located 15 minutes outside of Pueblo who could help us. He was a really nice person and ended up drilling holes on the truck to put the tow bar on. It took about 1 1/2 hours to accomplish the task and we were up and running once again. A quick stop at Arby's for dinner and we left Pueblo around 8 pm and drove 4 hours to Burlington, Colorado, which is 12 miles from the Kansas border. We stayed in this DIVE of a hotel, which supposedly had a Continental breakfast, yeah right! Their idea of a breakfast was raw eggs and toast, but beggars can't be choosers, we found a McDonald's soon after and were on the road through the flat state of Kansas.

"Back Blogging" March 16-April 14. Time in Utah

Tyson and I were able to spend a wonderful three weeks in Circleville, Utah with my mom. Although I was nauseated most of the time, Tyson had a ball playing with cousins, school kids, and running around outside. We arrived in Circleville on Easter Sunday and luckily for us Aunt D had colored Tyson some eggs. So mom and I were able to take him up to Birch Creek and roll Easter Eggs. I used to love doing this as a kid, and Tyson took to it as well. He also liked the fact that they rolled down to Grandma Westwood and then she threw them back up; so he would throw them at her. It was a great time. A lot of people don't roll Easter eggs for Easter, they eat them. Kinda strange to me, but then again I was born a redneck!We went to St. George Utah and spent some time with Aunt D and Uncle Jesse. Aunt D took Tyson swimming, which, of course, he absolutely loved and wanted to stay in the pool all day. I enjoyed the eating out at the Pasta Factory and Chili's. Even though I was still sick, I forced it down. The funniest part of the whole time in St. George, was taking Tyson through an automatic car wash with the big blue brushes.As you can see from his face, it scared the tar out of him, that and the fact that Aunt D and I screamed when it started to wash the car. He didn't like the car was and didn't want to go do it again. HA HA HA.

Vaughn flew to see us on the 12th of April, where he picked up our U-haul in Cedar. (It was cheaper to get the U-haul in Cedar than in Colorado, go figure). That next day, Sunday, we drove to Las Vegas to bless my new nephew, Cole Mark Jackson. It was nice to see family for one last time before we moved. We traveled back to Circleville Sunday night and packed all of our stuff from my parents' house, grandma's house and the storage shed. (We have a lot of crap).

We were sad to leave Grandma Westwood, but she is coming to visit us in June. We traveled, all three of us, in the HUGE U-haul all the way to Manassa, Colorado. Yeah that was an interesting ride. Tyson and his car seat in the front of that U-haul made for cramped quarters. We drove for over 11 hours and when we got to Manassa it was a mad dash to unload and reload all of the rest of our stuff that was at Vaughn's parents' house. We finished at 1 am that next morning. I was so tired I could have slept for a month, but oh no! We were back up again by 8 am with a lot more to do before we could leave that afternoon at noon.............TO BE CONTINUED.....