The Ririe Report

Wow! It has been awhile. I am thinking of resurrecting the blog (again). For those of you who do read it, this is just a taste of the big things that have been going on: The beginning of November, Mitch was offered a job with Zions Bancorporation in Salt Lake City, Utah. We had been impressed several times that we needed to move to Utah. We still aren't sure why, but we felt good about the job and made the move. Mitch started work November 24. The kids and I stayed in Arkansas until right before Christmas. We had our house on the market for a week before we had an offer. That one sadly fell through, but a week after it was back up, we were under contract again. It was a huge answer to prayers. We had movers come December 11. The kids and I stayed with my parents for a week before we left on the 16th. My sister, Becky, flew out and drove the kids and I out. We stopped in at Mitch's grandma's to grab Mitch before going to Boise for Christmas. While we were there for a few hours, I went and looked at a home Mitch had looked at a few days before. We liked it, felt good about it, and put in an offer the next day. We enjoyed Christmas with all of Mitch's family. When we headed back to Utah, we stayed with Mitch's grandma for 3-4 weeks before we closed on our house. We had some hiccups with closing but ended up closing January 26. We moved in January 27 and I spent my birthday (January 28) unpacking. So, now we are here in Kaysville, Utah. We are enjoying it which surprises us in a way. We miss our friends and family in Arkansas but know without a doubt that God has led us here. We just want to be instruments in His hands. So, if anyone is coming to Utah for a visit, please let us know. We'd love to have some visitors!!

Lets see if I can finally get caught up now. We are on a pretty good routine so there isn't anything overly excited to mention here. Maybe I can add some pictures and be good. Now that Eric is in school, it is a little crazy having only 2 at home. Nice at the same time, so I'm not complaining. I wasn't planning on doing a preschool with Nate this year. We were going to be doing swim lessons at the fitness center and a class called Fit Kidz. He has been loving those classes. The wonderful teacher that Eric had for preschool last year really wanted another boy in her preschool this year (she had one boy and 5 girls!), so she convinced me to bring Nate as a friend for the other little boy. Nate is loving preschool too. So, we have gotten surprisingly busy. I have been trying to make it to the gym to go to a class I like called Tone and Tighten (yes everyday I have a new sore muscle group. It's awesome!). Then twice a week Nate was there for class and once in the afternoon for Eric to have swim and then my workouts. It's crazy how all that driving around makes for crazy days. Mitch takes Eric to school in the morning and that is good bonding time. Nate, Hailey, and I pick him up in the afternoon. We had our first parent teacher conference last week. It was a little weird to be sitting on this side of the table instead of the teacher side. Eric is a great kid (he is at home too so thats not really a surprise). He is just exploding with learning. He is sounding out almost any words he sees and is trying to spell things too. He definitely has a math mind and is constantly adding and subtracting things. All the sudden I'll hear: "4+2=6" or "Do you know what 9+9 is? It's 18!" It's fun to see him be excited about learning and trying to figure these things out for himself. We have a word wall with sight words on it and even Nate has learned a few (he knows but and four the best. He even knows that he will be four on his next birthday). Hailey is growing and getting into things. Someone once told me that girls were more calm but she is just as active and into things as my boys were! Plus, she has an attitude on top of that if she doesn't get what she wants! We are very excited for her to start talking but she isn't saying too much yet. She will nod and shake her head and knows a few signs (all done, please, and more). She is starting to say cup (sounds like pup). She has the cutest wave. My mom calls it the Miss America wave because its with her wrist too. She always waves to the boys as we say good night. I am surviving. Some days it is hard being a mom; kids don't listen, someones always hungry, Nate still has potty accidents where he pees over the entire bathroom floor because he waits too long, etc. I am trying to keep running and working out. That seems to help me handle the craziness better. I may need another race to train for or something. It is amazing the peace I find as I try to make time every day to read the scriptures. I am also trying to be diligent about writing in my journal. I was supposed to do it every day but I got bad at that and it's probably at least every few days. It has been neat to go back and read the past few months to read about some very spiritual experiences I was blessed to have at those times. It reminds me that the Lord is aware of me and will send me the guidance and direction I need for my life. It is such a blessing to know that and have that testimony. Last weekend was my favorite weekend of the year: the general conference of our church. The leaders of our church spoke to us such edifying words. Plus, we were able to hear a prophet of the Lord speak. So uplifting and inspiring. Helps me be better. Mitch is a busy guy. He is crazy busy at work and he is taking a class to finish getting his CPA. He has completed the test portion but needs 3 more credits to officially be a CPA. He is also some how finding time to look for jobs in Utah. Back in March we both had strong spiritual impressions that the Lord wants us to move to Utah. We don't understand why but we are trying to follow Him and what He wants us to do. So far we haven't found a job but we know that when the Lord wants us too we will. We are quite happy here so whenever it happens will be okay with us. Finding jobs is hard. So, if anyone knows of any finance or business jobs out there, let us know! ;) That is what the Ririe family is up to these days. Here are a few pictures for Grandma and Grandpa and any one else who wants to look at our cute kiddos! Hailey is loving books right now. She will sit and "read" them Mitch texted me this picture one day while I was out shopping. I love these crazies! We were able to go to the local baseball team's game one night with Mitch's work. Eric was into it; Hailey, not so much! Nate being goofy! Hailey started making this face at us. I'm sure its her irritated with us face but it just cracks us up whenever she does it! One evening we went up to Tanyard Creek and went walking up the stream bed and played in the waterfall with our good friends, the Porter's. It was a lot of fun! I don't know why we don't do it more. oh yeah that's right. It's too stinking humid some days! One night during FHE, Hailey wandered off. We didn't hear her for awhile so we went looking. She wanted back into the living room with a blue mouth and blue hands. She had climbed on the desk and gotten a highlighter and thoroughly destroyed it! The blue took a few days to come out completely. Don't worry, first thing we did was check to make sure it was non-toxic. Now the chair is not allowed to me by the desk if we aren't using it. I understand Nate gets tired of getting in trouble (he does go to the corner quite a bit. I'm still figuring out this little guy. He is my challenge). But when he falls asleep in the corner, it's too funny!

On August 1st, Eric started Kindergarten! I cannot believe he is old enough for school! He absolutley LOVES it. He has made some good little buddies and he tells us that he has only once had to move his car out of the "parking lot". (His teachers discipline system). Our life has gotten crazy with him gone and I'm sad its all day but he loves it and is happy. So, we are too. We stay busy with swim class and Nate just started a little preschool too. Just something fun for him to do. I love when we pick up Eric to see him running yelling, "Mommy!" with a smile on his face at the end of the day. We are always happy to see him too.

I am trying so hard to get caught up on blogging. I have been so bad for so long that there is a lot to catch up on. But, I covered the fourth of July in the last post so I am only 2 months behind. I will be there before too long. Hopefully before Halloween at the latest! Once we got back from Idaho, we got t enjoy some amazingly cool weather for July in Arkansas. We are talking low 70's. It was amazing. So, instead of hitting the pool, we hit parks and actually enjoyed being outside instead of melting the second we did. I think there was about a week I didn't have the AC on. That helped the electric bill! Here are some pics of enjoying the weather: Ever since we bought our house we have been wanting to paint. Mitch was doing the CPA so we never really had the time so I was doing one room at a time. The first summer after we moved in was the boys room. Then came Hailey's about a year after that. This spring I really started going at it. In March I did the kids bathroom. Then right before we went to Tyson's wedding, we finished the laundry room. All the small rooms were done. The big ones were left. In May Mitch went somewhere (I can't even remember now) so i went crazy on our room one night. We decided to hire out for the loving room and kitchen since we had to do ceilings too. It was a disaster which I can share that story another day. But, now everything is painted. I'll have to take pics of the big rooms and post those. Here are what's on the computer. I can't remember if I posted the bathroom already so I'll post it too just in case. The bathroom and our room are actually the same color but because the lighting is different in each room, they look different. I'll get pics of the new color in the big room and post those soon.

Towards the end of June, we were able to do a family trip to Utah and Idaho for vacation. We started our trip on Thursday, stayed the night in Denver, then drove to Bountiful, Utah where we stayed the weekend. There was a surprise birthday party for Mitch's Grandma who turned 80. That Saturday we celebrated her. We went on "the Barb tour" or important places to her. We started at the Joseph Smith Memorial building where she is a missionary two days a week. It is an absolutley beautiful building. It is neat to hear the history behind the building. It also has an amazing view of the Salt Lake City temple. We were able to go in the tunnels under all of temple square to get to the building. We weren't supposed to be down there apparently since the are doing renovations on the Salt Lake temple so security tracked us down. Luckily, we didn't get in too much trouble. :)We also were able to see Graham who was serving a mission in the family history library while we were there. We were excited about that since we won't be able to go back out when he gets off his mission the end of July. Quite the surprise for everyone. For the rest of the tour, we went to Centerville and saw where she lived and she told stories about her childhood. We enjoed yummy shakes somewhere along the line. That evening after a delicious dinner we did family pictures and had a talent show. Then a movie about Barbara. It was so fun to get to see Mitch's aunts and uncles and cousins. There are a few the kids age so the kids LOVED it. Sunday we made the drive up to Boise. That week we were blessed with some fun times with the fam. The boys favorite was probably doing S'mores a few times in the backyard. There were a few trips to the pond to swim with Grandpa, trips to the toy store with Grandma, a weekend with Wayne and Shereen, Mitch mountain biked 26 miles on the 4th with my brother in law Derek. He was pretty sore. We enjoyed the temple twice while we were there (such a blessing considering the closest one is 3.5 hours from us). The kids enjoyed the fireworks we did on the fourth: Nate was our accident prone child on the trip. One dog jumped up and bit him one day. Left quite a mark: Not even two days later he burnt his feet on the threshold of the garage apartment. It was not his trip. I enjoyed morning runs up to Camels back park. Blake joined me a few times. What a view: I was able to meet up with 3 of my good friends from high school: Hollie, Lacey and Caitlin. We had a fun morning at a park letting all our little ones play. IT's strange getting together with them because everyone seemed the same. It felt like no time had passed except we all had at least one kid.It's been a long time since I'd seen them- at least 5 years for Lacey and Caitlin and probably 8 for Hollie. It was a fun reunion. I'm bummed I didn't take pictures. Monday evening we went to the lake with my family. Enjoyed wake boarding and swimming. Eric went on the tube. The boys LOVE their far Sedrick cousins. Sad I didn't take pictures then either. I've got to be better. It was a fun two weeks. We were ready to be home and the drive home was long but it was worth it. We love our far family!