Moving day came so fast, and within 8 hours everything we own was boxed up and accounted for. The next day the movers came back to load the semi truck to put into storage for three weeks until we closed on our new house in Ohio. Wait a sec... semi truck did I say? Yes, semi truck, but I was happy to find out that our entire 2100 sq. ft. house of belongings only filled 1/4 of the truck, phew! I was starting to think maybe I should have purged a few more items :) Or maybe the movers are just really good packers.
Regardless within a day, our house went from feeling like our home to feeling like an empty lifeless house. We all cried (well, the girls and I cried) as we said goodbye to Fort Wayne but we looked forward to our new life in Ohio.
After our things left for storage, we packed up the car and drove to Ohio. On our way, Cam thought it would be fun to take a small detour and tour some of Ohio's caverns along the way which are 103 feet below the ground!
They have some of the longest and largest natural crystals in the nation in some pretty cool shapes. Can you see the water pump crystal in the second picture? The crystals are formed from dripping water, pretty amazing.
They call this one the carrot crystal...
It takes 500-1,000 years for one cubic inch of the crystal to grow, so this cavern has been here quite a while. The oldest crystal in the cavern, is about 250,000 years old. The cave is a constant 54 degrees all year round and without the lights on, it is so dark that you can't see your hand in front of your face. These taverns were found by accident by a couple of miners in the area in the mid 1960s. They decided to open it up to the public for tours in the 1970s and during each tour, they would let people touch some the crystals which they found out years later that it contaminated the crystals and made the beautiful white crystals turn brown and ugly. So now they only have one small crystal that you can touch to see what it feels like.
After the tour, the kids were able to mine small crystals themselves by sifting through a bag of sand to discover the crystals in the sand. It was such a fun detour, well worth the trip.
Look what Syd found!
No matter how many tours we get to do at the fire station between preschools and playgroups, it never gets old. Our new ward's playgroup toured the fire station last week and the kids had a ball ringing the bells, seeing the trucks, going inside the trucks, etc.
It was fun getting to know some of the Mom's and their kids a little better too in our ward which we are loving. Everyone has been so friendly and welcoming, we couldn't have asked for a better ward!
I tried to keep the girls and I busy the couple weeks we lived in the apt. until closing day. We spent lots of time at some parks and the beach collecting rocks and dipping our toes in the freezing Lake Erie water. Look at all the SAND!
We went to the zoo on a beautiful (and hot) day. Look at these cuties sporting their too cool sunglasses. They're such cute little turkeys.
And a couple weekend's ago, we met up with our friends who we got to know really well the first time we moved to Ohio and have missed dearly, Sarah, Jonny and Jessy at a nature preserve where the kids got to go on a scavenger hunt and plant their own tree seeds.
And we learned a little about Johnny Appleseed too.
Since we moved Easter weekend (I know, horrible timing), I had brought some Easter decorations and the girls' baskets with us to our temporary living in Ohio. Hallie didn't seem that surprised that the Easter bunny found us in Ohio, and of course another holiday with fictional characters brings more questions from our inquisitive little 5 year old. "How did you tell the Easter Bunny where we would be?" Hallie asked. I said, "I called him." "What's his number? So I can call him too?" I quickly brought her attention to her fun Easter surprises including a fish tank for fish!
