Getting settled in our new place

It's been an exciting few weeks as we finished getting moved in to our new home in Imperial, California after Christmas.  We are enjoying having the extra space in our rental and the boys now have their own rooms, but it will be nice to hopefully purchase a home by the end of the year that isn't so big.

 We really do like having a three car garage, especially since the garages here just aren't as deep as all the other places we've lived.

 This is the family room in the back part of the downstairs.  There is also a 3/4 bath and large guest room on the main floor.  We can comfortably host visitors!

 We have our dining table in the back part of the front room 

 The kitchen is opposite of the family room area, it has tons of storage, more than I need, but the center island has been very useful.

 Upstairs has a loft area where we are trying to keep all the kids' toys and there are three small bedrooms, a full bath, and the laundry room.

The master bedroom has a Roman tub, separate shower, and huge walk in closet.

The kids had their first full week at their new schools.  So far everything has been such a positive experience and I have been very impressed with the school district.  Austin is now at a middle school, but they do homeroom teachers for 6th grade, so he's with the same teacher for all class periods until the end of the day when he alternates between art and PE.  We live close enough to the middle school that he can walk home.  Amilia's school is 2 miles away, the pick up and drop off has been extremely easy since many students at the school take the bus and the dismissals at the end of the day are staggered so there is very little traffic.

 The kids have enjoyed riding their scooters to the little park around the corner.  There's also a larger park about half a mile in the neighborhood just south of us, so we can easily walk/bike to that one as well.  

 We are surrounded by farms, it's really neat to see the trucks out in the middle of the fields with all the boxes loading the fresh picked produce.  The produce at the stores has been amazing and it's not only delicious but affordable!

 I took Auggie and Audrey to a gymnastics center that has an open gym for little ones.  They had a blast, so we will make it part of our weekly routine!

We found a great dance studio recommended by our new pediatrician, and I'm so glad he told us about it because the girls absolutely loved it and are so excited to continue their ballet.

Shopping and restaurants have been a dream!  We have a Costco in the area and I was also thrilled to have an Aldi! I hadn't been to an Aldi since I lived in Philadelphia.  For those not familiar, Aldis are simple grocery stores that have really low prices with fewer selections, so it is so easy to get in and out.  They have the cleanest stores and their carts are hooked to locks, so you have to put a quarter in to unlock the cart and then you get your quarter back when you lock the cart back up.  We also have a Target, Sonic, Wendy's, Walmart and other retail stores and restaurants not too far away.  The shopping mall and newest retail/restaurant area is further south, it takes us about a 15-20 minutes to get there.

The people at church have been very welcoming.  It is a small ward, only about half of the seats are filled during the sacrament meeting, so that is a big difference compared to everywhere else we've lived.  They have exercise classes twice a week in the church gym, I went to Zumba last week and had so much fun.  The kids are happy, I'm happy, and Ryan is loving his job, so that's really all we can ask for.  Hopefully we can stay put for awhile.