Our Move to Dallas!

Before leaving Rexburg, we drove around to say goodbye to our favorite places!

Our most recent apartment.

Mesa Falls apartments, where we lived for one year. We had a lot of memories here, and were part of the start of a new ward! We were the first group to move into these apartments, now there are so many buildings! I'm sure it will be old news by the time we go back to Rexburg. 

We thought it would be a good idea to get pictures of some of these places before they are torn down someday. This is where David lived in his single days. 

And my favorite place of all, my first college apartment and the place that I met David! 

Tuscany Apartments

David's building on the end and mine right next to his. We both had rooms closest to the alley, so we set up a pully system to pass notes. 

Our first apartment as a married couple, a tiny one bedroom that was under 600 sq. ft. 

We moved most of the furniture into the van oursleves, then had some friends help with boxes and setting the car up to the dolly. We had Jen and Dallin Bassett and Mike and Sarah Harrison help us clean our apartment on the last night there. Then we all went to Karie Anne's Frozen Custard but we didn't get a picture :( We will miss them and all our other friends SO much!

Jen and Dallin also got us our favorite sushi from Broulim's for the road.... So good!

We split our drive into three days. First day we went stopped in Fort Collins, CO to stay with Shelly and Ken. The second night we stayed at a hotel in Amarillo, TX where it was raining like crazy! The third day we made it to his parents house in Allen, TX. Most of the drive from Denver to Texas was rain! 

From our hotel in Amarillo

  

When we got to David's parents house we visited our pet pig Buttercup. She is so big now!

We got settled into our apartment on Saturday May 16th with the help of David's parents. Luckily we are on the first floor so we were able to throw some things over the balcony instead of walking around to the front. We found out the moving truck rental place closes early on Saturdays a little too late, so we had to find a place to park our giant truck. Luckily a family from David's parents ward (The Crosses) just moved into Dallas from Allen, and we were able to park the truck in front of their house overnight. Moving trucks are such a pain, especially driving through the small busy streets of downtown!

We were able to eat dinner at David's parents house Saturday night, since we didn't have any food yet! It will be so nice to be near some family!

Yellowstone

For President's Day, we decided to take a day trip to Yellowstone with two of our good friends Mike and Sarah Harrison. They told us about free national park day so why not take advantage?! We didn't realize that all the roads are closed in the winter so we couldn't drive through the park unless we rode on a snow coach which would take 5 hours one way! We decided not to do that.

Instead we found some fun things in the town to do. First we checked out the bear and wolf discovery. They told us that they do not interact with the bears or wolves so they are still "wild". Throughout the day they let out two bears at a time. 

Inside the gift shop we did find a nice bear to interact with!

We ate lunch at Wild West Pizza. We had to hurry and finish eating so we wouldn't miss the wolf feedings!!

This part was actually pretty cool to see how they would eat in the wild. They let two wolves out with the pieces of meat already scattered around. There was a clear dominant wolf that wouldn't let the other wolf near the food. 

Here you can see him growling at the other wolf. I would not want to be the one up against those teeth!

We walked around to some of the shops but sadly a lot of them were closed for the winter. I'm guessing this place is a lot busier in the summer!

On the way home we stopped in Archer, ID for what we heard is the best homemade rootbeer. 

We approve!

Hopefully we can visit Yellowstone again before we move, so we can actually drive through the park.  We have to take advantage of living near such a beautiful area, Dallas doesn't have much going for it as far as scenery goes :)

Christmas At Sundance

We were able to spend Christmas 2014 with David's family in Sundance, UT. His parents rented this cabin so that we could all stay in one place for the holidays, with the exception of his sister Ginny and her family, since she recently had a baby. They live close by, so they were able to come up a lot!

The inside of the cabin. I loved the big windows with a nice mountainside view.  We were within walking distance of the ski slope. 

It even came with a Christmas tree all decorated!

My favorite part was this shower which is going in my future house!

David had fun trying out this new toy! There was a lot of snow while we were there so it was nice to have.

Aunt Suzanne and her family also happened to rent a cabin in Sundance close by to our cabin! The first night we were there we went over for dinner that his cousin Wendy made. She is such a good cook! We love her food!

Suzannah, David, Jackson, Star and her daughter Scotland.

We played some Christmas songs with these bells 

Trying to follow along so we don't miss our turn!

Our music directors Jackson and Shelby. 

Back at our cabin we had a little too much fun with the whipped cream….

Who doesn't want whipped cream flung into their mouth from across the room?

Getting it on our face…

On Christmas day we made a big lunch and had everyone at our cabin. Here is the younger generation (cousin's kids)

And the whole group! (Minus David's brother Sam and his wife Eve who spent Christmas day with her family.)

We spent Christmas day eating and with family, we didn't even get around to opening presents until that night. 

 Suzannah trying out Dave's head scratcher.

Dave's parents got all of the kids robes with our initials on it. 

On Sunday we went up to Herriman, UT for little Jordan's baby blessing. 

They did the blessing in their house so that more could participate in the circle. A lot of family members were able to come for the gathering at Ginny and Adam's house. 

All the siblings together for the first time in years!

All the Butler grandkids!

Some other fun things we were able to do including snowshoeing, sledding on the side of our cabin and night snowboarding/skiing at Sundance!

It was a great Christmas and fun that we were able to have everyone together!