Our Big Move! Phoenix to Rapid City, South Dakota

I hope everyone had a special and fun Thanksgiving day with friends/family! We had a nice day full of yummy food with just our little family! The first time ever that we weren't with a houseful of my family!

But before we get to those pictures, we gotta get through our move first. ;)

A few years ago, Paul decided to change careers, so he started school and graduated as an RN in May of 2011! When he started school RNs were in a huge demand and most getting hired were getting sign on bonuses and such. After he graduated, things were a little different! Places were getting pickier with hiring, wanting more experience and many not taking new grads at all. So we decided to try out of state. After only a few weeks, he got hired on at Rapid City Regional Health!

So started our hectic and last minute move from this house of 8 years!

We were undecided as to whether or not he would go by himself to get settled into work, find a place to live etc. And me and the kids stay here in our home until he could get a 4 or so stretch of days off to come back and pack us all up to bring us to our new home.

Well, after looking into tickets and deciding that his schedule may not allow for him to leave for at least a month or more, we decided that it would be best for all of us to leave together! So from the day he got hired to the day we left was pretty much less than a month!

To pack us all up in this one big truck and get all moved out of our house! In the few days before we left, the flu bug struck our house and Paul and a few kids were throwing up, still kept on packing up between barfs! Well, I got the luck and the day we left it hit me and 2 of the other kids!! Good thing we went prepared and had a few buckets in the car with us! So we didn't have any messes to clean up!

This was somewhere in Colorado on our second day of driving! Since I was sick the whole first day, didn't take much pictures :)

We started hitting snow shortly after leaving Pueblo Colorado the second morning. Such a beautiful, but cold, morning!

And of course at our stops the kids had to get out and play in all the SNOW! Something they never get to see:) They were so excited! All though in the packing up hustle to get out of the house, we lost a pair of shoes, so she was barefoot! BRRR!

These were somewhere near Gillette Wyoming, where we stopped for a few nights. We left our dogs, and the 2 oldest kids at a friends house to make house hunting a little easier in Rapid City!

This is near Rapid City, I want to say maybe near Spearfish? we came over a little hill and this was in the valley. So pretty with all the yellows still!

Once we got to Rapid City, we checked into a hotel for a few nights. Our "home" from Sunday-Friday morning! Not very fun ;)

Little munchkin, my baby only for a short 8 more weeks!! He is going to be in for a shock getting kicked out of baby status!!!

Of course between house searching, we did a little sight seeing! This was Friday morning, before heading over to our house to sign papers and get our keys!

Whew Finally found a house, got everything signed and got our keys! So another quick trip off to Gillette to pick up our kids and dogs and some of our stuff we left there!

Stayed at my cousins house and woke up Sunday Morning to snow! So our plans of leaving right away in the morning were delayed due to the thick layer of ice covering all the roads! It had rained pretty good before the snow, so roads were bad.

The kids of course didn't mind! They were outside playing away! The boys were sliding down the street on pure ice and loving it!

But, it came time to leave and we all headed back to our new home in Rapid City! :) The big kids were so excited to explore their new home and they all happily picked out their bedrooms first thing. We also got the kids enrolled in school the week before, so they started school the very next day. It took them a couple days to get used to everything and make friends. But they have already made some and are getting more and more comfortable each day.

More pictures to come next week! Also stay tuned for my last sessions from Arizona. And for those of you here in Rapid City looking for a portrait or wedding photographer, stay tuned! Have some specials coming your way:)