There is no place like home

We are finally here in Kansas! We loved our time in Utah, but we missed Adam terribly. It felt so good to come "home" even though we had never been there before. My sister and my niece helped us drive out to Kansas and helped me unpack. They were life savers because Adam has been so busy with school that he did not have any time to help once we got here. I am so grateful for those family members who watched my nieces and nephew so my sister could come help me. It was a lot of fun to have that much time with her. I have really missed her and it has been a long time since we have spent that much time with each other without keeping track of kids at the same time. We worked really hard and then we were able to go to Liberty Jail and the new Kansas City temple site on our way to drop them off at the airport.

We have loved our stay in Kansas so far. It has been fun to notice the differences between here, New Mexico and Utah. Squirrels are everywhere and it is very entertaining to watch them run around the trees getting acorns. I saw a huge ugly spider the other day at the institute when we were eating lunch with Adam. I hate spiders by the way. It barely fit into the mason jar that they used to catch it. Yuck! This week we came out of our apartment door and Alina saw her first praying mantis. It was a really big one, but it wasn't just it's length that was different. All of its body parts were bigger than ones in Utah. I don't think insects should be big enough that you should feel intimate with them. This praying mantis head was so big that you could see its head turn to look at us and his eyes were staring us down.

We went down by the creek by our house (Kansas creeks are bigger than Utah's rivers!) and there were tons of little frogs. It was so much fun to see them jump all over the place. I even got one to sit on my finger. Growing up we had a polliwog pond that we would go to every spring, but these polliwogs that I saw here are huge compared to the ones in Utah! I was shocked to see how big they were. I have seen 7 wild turkeys since I have been here. How cool! I have seen my first possum (granted it was dead on the side of the road), but it was still neat to see. I feel like a little city girl who has never seen the outdoors before, but things are enough different here that I have a lot to oo and aah about.

So I found out something awesome this month. Clyde Kansas is a part of our stake!!! Let me explain why this is so exciting. My grandpa William Clayton Kauffman died when my dad was only 6 weeks old. Ever since I can remember I have felt a very real connection to him and I have wanted to know all about him. No one could ever tell me that much about him, and so I have done a lot of my own research about him. Well, he was born in Clyde Kansas and so was his mom. My great grandpa sold some of his property to the town so they could start the town of Clyde. Clyde is only an hour away from our house and now I can do lots of research while I am here in Manhattan. I don't know if you will find anyone more excited than I am to live so close to Clyde Kansas with the raging population of 716 people. I know one reason it was right for Adam and I to come to Manhattan for his schooling is so I could do family history research. I felt an urgency to start working on it and am looking forward to going out there in a couple of weeks to do some research.

I have felt a real sense of being home here in Kansas. I know it helps that this not my first time moving away from home. I have found that moving this time around I am more confident of myself and not afraid to be myself from the start. The people here have been so nice and welcoming. I have missed the mountains, but I have loved the landscape here as well, and I think it is beautiful. I think part of the beauty and mystic comes from having family roots to this part of the country. To think that my ancestors lived their whole lives not very far from here really helps me feel like, this is home.

Alina in an military helicopter on Ft. Riley. Once a year they have "Apple Days" where they open the post to the public to come and do all sorts of fun things. It was fun to have something to do while Adam studied all day Saturday.

Anna walked for the first time the first week in October. She was just shy of being 10 months old. She is getting really good at it now. I will post pictures of her walking next time.

We went on a preschool field trip to Britts Farm where we had a hay ride and picked a pumpkin from their patch. Alina loved it!

Another field trip we went to the Manhattan airport and had a tour around.

My girls