Cleavage, OHIO- Our Current Adventure

 Vivint. Bright orange with white writing. The newest home automation system to date and currently, Ethan's new job for the summer. Everywhere we go now, we are noticing orange--we wear orange proudly. Ethan wears the same colors every day, except for Sunday. He's a sales representative for this company and goes out every day to knock doors. I could NOT do this every day. It's definitely a job that takes mental toughness. Our life schedule is so weird:

8:00-8:30 a.m. WAKE UP

8:30-9:00 Breakfast

9:00-10:00 Exercise, shower, and/or play with Wyatt

10:00-11:00 Study Scriptures & Motivate (music, videos, pictures, talks on tape, wife talk :)

11:00-12:00 Getting ready for meeting, studying, and/or spending time as a family.

12:00 Company meeting (training, setting goals, motivation etc.)

1:00 Eat a quick lunch

Head for the doors @ 1:15p.m.

1:00-9:30p.m.  Knocking doors. Walking all day. No communication with wife. Eating only granola bars.

10:00-11:00p.m. Arrive home, eat dinner, talk about the day, massage feet and aching body for Eefie
11:00-12:00a.m. Go to sleep

This is our life Monday-Friday, and Saturdays Ethan knocks from 9:00a.m. till 9:00 p.m. WOAH! This is how we'll be living for 4 months. Talk about an adjustment! 

Goodbye, St. George......... Hellooooooooo long road trip to Ohio. Woah.

We left our truck in Idaho after tears were shed by Ethan. (haha) We packed up our Bonny Lass and headed on our way. For me, ten minutes into driving and the car was already shaking. Something was seriously wrong. I had to turn around and go get some stuff done on the car at the shop. Headed back on the road.... after two hours, rattling was still going on.

I pulled up to a gas station and the guy there said, "Where are you headed Miss?" I told him, "Salt Lake." He got a worried look on his face and said, "Do you see these wires in your tires here? That means the rubber is g-o-n-e- on your tire." I only believed him because we'd been talking about getting tires and I could see the wires myself. I took his word and had to get four new tires. Thank goodness the tires didn't blow before that point. The Lord was watching out for me. On my way again.... I made it to Hannah's house (sis-in-law) in one piece. Phew!

Ethan drove the WHOLE TIME from state to state while I sat squished in the back in the middle seat next to Wyatt. He and his car seat was on my left and luggage/food/games were on my right. I was very squished but we somehow endured it all.

"Mom.... why couldn't you get me cars or tools or something? I'm sick of flowers."

I had a box with me that we called, "Game Box". We rotated between books, movies, and the box the entire road trip and it worked really well! Wyatt was excited each time I pulled out a new game or coloring page. He LOVED the window stickers, despite this picture I captured.

I actually love road trips because it creates some great memories and some awesome bonding time. I enjoyed every uncomfortable hour I sat in the back with him. Wyatt is such a good kid and an AMAZING traveler. He always has been, so it makes things easy for us. (I read the Hunger Games book on the trip too)

We found some place to stop every 4-6 hours so we could all stretch out and just take a break. I tell you what, I am so sick of McDonald's now. We went there because of the play place, but every time I see the golden arches now, I get a little twitch in my right eye. Nooooooo more McDonald's. Yuck.

We stopped at the "World's Largest Truck Stop" and it was actually really cool inside. So many toys, cars, weird souvenirs, cards etc. Wyatt was entertained by all the gadgets and toys while Ethan and I read all the hilarious greeting/birthday cards- they were so clever and funny to us. I did, however, get my first realization that I wasn't in "Kansas" anymore. 

Scary people, tattoo plastered people, smoking all over, honking horns the second the light turns green, lots of cleavage etc. It's just different-very different. There are still great people but it's not what we're used to. We got flipped off and yelled at in the car because we switched lanes too slow haha. Anyway, we enjoyed passing all the state lines... oh, and paying all the road tolls- not!

We found that shakes kept Wyatt happy, so we bought him quite a few along the way :)

Only a couple tantrums and rough moments.  He's not sleeping here, he's throwing a tantrum haha

We stopped at Cabella's at one point and that was really fun. It is SO easy to get lost in that store though. Ethan and I looked away for maybe 3 seconds to look at something hanging up and BOOM! Wyatt was gone. Really freaked us out. We were frantically looking for him and one of the workers noticed I looked distressed and asked what was wrong. I told him Wyatt was lost and he immediately got on his intercom and said, "CODE ADAM. We've got a CODE ADAM! Blue shirt, blue pants, boy, brown hair, sticker on forehead." I was very impressed as all the employees stopped what they were doing and began pacing through the isles until they found him. Took only a minute. It gave us a good scare but provided a good teaching moment. (That's also what I needed to realize that he must stay near me AT ALL TIMES here. He can't be as free as he was in Rexburg and St. George.... not the same kind of people.)

WE MADE IT!

Here's what the view of our new home looks like- not bad eh? Since we're on the bottom floor, we get all the action from the neighbors :-) We see everyone walking by. Which is fun, but we also have to keep things closed for privacy. We like the location though and it's plenty big for the 3 of us.

Wyatt absolutely ADORES and LOVES being with Ethan in the morning before he goes to work. It's the only time he gets to see him so it's precious time. Ethan and Wyatt are laughing every day together and it really brings JOY into the home.

Wyatt quickly discovered all the cool things about the apartment and this is his "Little House." We use this to our advantage when we get ready in the morning. He loves it.

Luckily, our AWESOME neighbors (Jessica & Jon Ghrist) have two darling children who have become a little obsessed with Wyatt, to say the least. Wyatt has someone to play with every day and it's been so fun. Koston & Breeze are great kids and they get along with Wyatt so well.

Wyatt is growing up and doing a lot of BOG BOY things. The latest is brushing his own teeth, taking his clothes off, getting dressed by himself, taking his diapers out to the garbage, putting his own shoes on, helping mom with groceries etc. He is really becoming independent! 

On this particular night he struggled a bit hahaha I told him, "Get your jammies on and tell me when you're ready ok?" He was very excited and worked on it for 5min. Finally, since it was taking so long, I peeked inside and had to cross my legs while laughing so hard so I wouldn't wet my pants. He was being SO INNOCENTLY FUNNY! I was dying and recorded him on my camera.

We've discovered lots of parks & libraries and that's pretty much what we do besides playing with friends. He's really getting into books now. He LOVES reading and going to the library. Makes me happy as a Mommy.

You can check out up to 50 things here! Wowzers! I use the books to make his room more lively too.

I get to spend a lot of time with the other wives and their kids and it's been a lot of fun getting to know each other. Of course we go to the pool, but I wish it were more often. The pool is like ICE, so it takes the kids a while to brave it out. The weather is a bit humid here but it's like Rexburg in that the weather changes day to day. For the most part it's pretty warm here but some nights it's been way cold.

Hee, hee, hee

It took a while before Ethan got his first sale which made it a little stressful being so far away from home. BUT when he made his first sale we were so happy & excited! I left a fun message for him when he walked in and had my camera ready for pictures.

I told Wyatt that Daddy got a sale and got him all excited about it, so when Ethan walked in, Wyatt ran to him while saying, "You did it, Daddy!" I love this picture.

You know me.... all my loudness and excitement! I was screaming & cheering so loud for Ethan that he "Shusshed" me! I didn't care. I was celebrating- I didn't care about the neighbors for that moment. Life is about moments right? So this was OUR MOMENT.

Cruise Sales Tracker.

To help motivate Ethan and keep track of his sales for the summer, I created this huge ship. Not only is it fun to check off a sale each time but it's nice to keep the end goal in sight. If Ethan sells 75 accounts, he gets to go on a cruise for free. If he sells 100-125, he and I BOTH get to go on a cruise! We totally want to do this for our 5 year anniversary this December! 

GO ETHAN! GO!

Wyatt and I have to sometimes use our creativity. This was his ship idea one day.

Garage sale hopping has become a new favorite activity for me. I found all these animals for $5. I thought it was a good deal, especially since the collection has like all the animals, dinosaurs, and bugs. Wyatt's into all of these things lately so it was perfect! I had more fun with them than he did for a while.

WE CAUGHT A FROG! One day it was just hopping around in the tall grass, so we snatched it up! Wyatt was thrilled!

THE ZOO!

Every Monday it's free for residents to go to the zoo here, so we've made this a weekly routine. Wyatt had never been to a zoo before so I was anxious to show him all the neat animals. Again, I love doing "firsts" with Wyatt. His happiness and excitement makes me fill up with JOY. He saw a camel for the first time and we're saving up his coins so he can ride it one of these days for $4.00

They have a lot of neat animals at the zoo that we saw. Wyatt loves the seals and bears. I actually got charged by a bear. No joke. Wyatt's shoe fell off into the little ditch through the fence and I couldn't just leave it there! I tried reaching it though the holes but it didn't work so I quickly hopped over the little fence, grabbed his shoe, tossed it over, looked over my shoulder as I was hopping back over the fence and I see this grizzly bear running at me! When I landed, I looked back and there was the bear, standing on his hind legs, breathing heavily, and looking right at me. AAAaaaaaa! Good thing I brought extra underwear!

When Wyat saw the Rhino for the first time he was really interested in it because something very large was falling from its bottom. Very, large, poop. I explained what it was doing and every time we see a picture of a Rhino he will say, "Mommy! Mommy! The rhino went BIGGGGGG poo-poo!" Hahaha!

Ummmm, these dinosaurs got carried away. Poor guy. Couldn't stand being frozen on the window sill any longer... just had to attack. (As you can see, I had a blast playing with these things)

Wyatt supports and cheers on his Daddy every day, and I try hard to be a supportive wife throughout this interesting chapter of our lives. Ethan is up to 19 sales as of right now and is doing a great job. His people skills totally amazes me and everyone else who sees him in action. We are fighting for a sale a day. Wish us luck! We'll be here until the beginning of September so I'll try to blog about some of the fun things we do here. We're really liking it so far. We've had some great missionary experiences here too.

"Vivint! Vivint! Vivint!"