IA to AZ in 3 long days

Here are some pictures from our FINAL big move to AZ

We were so close to home and made it to Flagstaff, AZ...only

about 3 hours from our house. I needed to use the bathroom so

we pulled over at a rest stop. It was a pretty nice one and had some

nice scenery around it. The kids were climbing on these red rocks

and stretching there legs. I look at the red rock and immediately think

of a picture opportunity...of course! Hey now, this was a moment...

our first family picture back in Arizona, we are finally HOME!

A 26 foot Penske truck, one minivan, 4 adults, 2 kids and

1 infant...we were ready to hit the road!

This seriously was one of the funniest moments of the entire trip.

As you can see my children are quietly sleeping which is always

sweet bliss. Can you see the way that Tyler is sitting?

He is leaning forward like he is about to reach down for

something, but he is completely asleep. It was one of the

funniest sights ever! My sister started to video tape him

swaying back and forth and falling off of curbs for about 2

minutes. Usually it is just your head that falls forward not your

entire upper body! So great...sooooo GREAT!

This was the very first day of our trip. We were excited

and ready to hit the road! We had no idea what was ahead of us...

just look at this next picture.

This is my "are we there yet?" face. Unfortunately,

we were still in the middle of flippin Kansas.

First day of Kindergarten

Ashlynn wanted to be in a picture with her brother

really bad. She thought it was her first

day of school too!

Wednesday Aug. 8Th was Tyler's first day of Kindergarten!

He was a little nervous at first but walked into his class

like a big boy and didn't look back. I then walked away

and started to CRY! What a big day for Tyler! The next day

at school happened a little differently. I basically had to pull

him off of me and have his teacher take him to class. That

was hard on me watching him crying his guts out and

begging me not to leave. When I picked him up that

afternoon he told me that he had a GREAT DAY at school!

Today he woke up happy and was ready for the day. We

have figured that the key is to get him to bed around 7pm

and then he is awesome the next day. We are going to

have to be very anal on school nights and get to bed on time.

I still can't believe that Ty is in school and now I am back

to Ashlynn all day. How GREAT is that! He is in school

all day from 8:30 to 3:30...that has been sooooo nice!

Life is GOOD!

My Johnson Family

For all of you who haven't seen my family before...well here you go! This was the first time that we all have been together since Lindsey's wedding and that's almost 2 years. We have been having so much fun together! Tifani came down from Denver the same day that we drove into town and we have been goofing around for a week. Matt will be leaving for his mission after Christmas so we decided to take some pictures. Linds is our talented photographer and did a great job on our pics!

Tifani, Matt, Dara, Lindsey, Adria & Andrew

Matt had his Court of Honor while we were all together and got his Eagle! It was really neat, I have never seen one before so I was so glad to be there for Matt's! What an accomplishment and a lot of hard work. I was so proud to have Dave stand with all of the other Eagle Scouts in the room and help welcome Matt in. Good job buddy!

We are finally HOME!!

Oh my goodness we made it to ARIZONA! I am still in somewhat of a haze and can't believe that we are back here. It almost feels like we are just here on vacation. It will probably sink in more on Wednesday morning when Tyler starts his first day of Kindergarten! I take him to meet his teacher tomorrow night, my little boy is growing up on me! We arrived safely and like usual had a story to tell. We drove a little over 2000 miles total, starting in Tennessee. We started there then drove through Missouri, Illinois and then arrived in Iowa. We stayed there for a few days, visited with friends and then packed up all of our things in a 26 foot Penske truck. My sister Adria flew in with her family and off we went! The first day we drove through Iowa, Missouri and Kansas and stayed the night in Wichita. The second day we finished through Kansas, then went through Oklahoma, Texas and arrived in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Here is our little story to tell...as we are getting off the freeway I hear this loud noise on my front tires. Luckily we were only a mile or so away from our hotel because my brakes went out on our van! We drove really slowly and checked into the hotel, had a good nights sleep. Dave took the van into a place first thing and our breaks were almost 100% gone, all of them! They didn't understand how we even made it to Albuquerque! We knew that we were being watched over and protected because who knew what could have happened. We made it to our stop for the night and nothing happened until we got there. The hotel had a late check out and provided breakfast, so we were able to stay there until Dave was done with the van. What a miracle and a blessing! We finally got back on the road later that morning and finished driving through New Mexico and into Arizona. What a trip! I am so glad that Mark, Adria and baby Kylee were able to come with us, it made the trip so much better! The kids did really well and were real troopers, thank heavens for a DVD Player, what a wonderful invention! I have pictures but we don't have all of our computer stuff unpacked yet, so I will have to post those later. We put all of our things into a storage unit and now we just need to get settled in and situate our things at Dave's parents house. With all of this going on Dave was back on a plane this afternoon on his way back to Tennessee! The office he worked at needed him to come cover for a couple days while Dr. Breck went out of town. Poor guy, we barely get here and he off and away again. We just wanted to let you know we are here and that things are good. We appreciated all of your prayers over the past couple weeks while we have been traveling, we know they helped to keep us safe...Thank You! We love all of you and are so excited to be back home!

Goodbye Tennessee

We are starting our move back to Arizona. We just left Tennessee yesterday and that was kind of strange. I still can't believe that we are on our way back, I am so excited I can barely stand it. We will be in Iowa getting the rest of our things this weekend and start our 1600 mile drive to Arizona on Tuesday morning. My sister Adria and her husband Mark are flying in to help us drive back! We will be getting into Arizona on Thursday, that will be a great moment! I'm so excited!

Tennessee Nights

Here are some moments of us enjoying our evenings
here in Tennessee. I got these bubble guns for the kids
& they were having so much fun with them! I'm not in
any of these pics because I'm behind the camera. I
swear we would have no pictures if it wasn't for me.
Dave loves to look at the pictures afterwards but at
the moment that I'm trying to take them...the "love"
is no where to be found! The following morning the kids
were playing in their room with these bubble guns. It was
first thing in the morning so I wasn't quite awake yet.
Tyler comes into my room to tell me that Ashlynn has the
gun stuck in her hair. I go in there and my sweet little
princess has this gun twisted in her hair! She looks at me
with a huge smile and says, "HI MOMMY!" There was no
way that I could be mad after that. Needless to say, I put
those bubble guns in a better place after all that.




Here we are swimming at the Beasley's pool. Dr. Breck
& his wife Candy have been amazing to us since we
have been here in Covington. Our kids have been
playing so well together & have become little buds!
Taylor is holding Ashlynn, she is 9 years old. Addey is
next to Tyler and she is 5 years old. We have had so
many wonderful times here with them. We've even
seemed to have picked up a little "twang" in our voices.
It's really contagious! It's hard to believe that we are
packing up and getting ready to leave our little home.
We will always have a special love for Tennessee!

Weekend in Branson

Our FUN & AMUSEMENT in Branson, Missouri!







Our kids love this guy! Ashlynn screams his name every time she sees him..."Elvis, Elvis!!!" She even gave this guy a kiss on the cheek, I think she might be the youngest fan ever. I hope we aren't doing something a little crazy to our kids. It's playful fun right? Tyler now wants to be Elvis for Halloween...we better teach him how to curl his lip!


Dave and I celebrated our 9th Anniversary last week on the 11th! We were able to get a sitter and went out to dinner to a quiet Italian restaurant and actually sat and had a conversation! How nice is that! The things we sacrifice for our children sometimes. The next day we packed up and took the kids over to Branson Missouri for the weekend. What a fun town...it's totally centered around good clean family fun! We went to Silver Dollar City for a couple days...that is a huge amusement park there. We even had time to fit in an Elvis impersonator show! We have become big fans of Elvis since we have been in Memphis so much. Ha Ha! Anyway, the show was so good and the kids loved it. We kept having to explain to Ty that this guy wasn't really Elvis & that he was pretending to be. Ty would go back and forth about him being the real Elvis or not. But he put on a great show and was taking pictures with people. So we went up onto the stage to get our picture with him. As we are waiting in line, I'm watching "Elvis" kiss every woman on the lips as he greets them before taking the picture. These women were crazy in love with this man. I was starting to get really nervous as I made it closer and closer in line. I looked at Dave and said, "Honey, what do I do if he tries to plant one on me?" My mind starts racing and I'm already thinking about having to repent if this man comes close to my lips! We get to the front of the line...luckily my sweet husband says hello first and basically made a statement without saying it out loud. I'm so glad because "Elvis" kissed me on the cheek...fewwwww! Anyway, we had fun weekend together as a family. We forced the kids to go on a few rides so that us big kids could have fun too! The things that we do to our children! We definitely want to go back! Now we are back home and need to start packing up. We will be leaving our little house in Tennessee next weekend, we are getting so excited and anxious to be back in Arizona. Tennessee has sure been good to us!

I've been tagged!

I am responding to a friends blog that I read a couple weeks ago. Here I am just barely being able to sit and get to it...life has been busy! I will do the same thing that she did in saying that if you read this post...consider yourself tagged! You don't have to respond, but if you want to...please let me know so I can read your post. (if you are my sister you better do this or else!) Hope you all learn something new about me and that I might do the same with you! Thanks and have fun!

Four jobs I've held...
1. Party Hostess at Peter Piper Pizza (fun job)
2. Office manager for a Chiropractic Office (loved this job)
3. CSR for Feature Films for Families (hated this job!)
4. Human Resource Specialist for Staffing Agency (was good & bad)

Four movies I can watch over and over...
1. Any movie with Chevy Chase in it
2. Father of the Bride I or II
3. Goonies
4. The Holiday

Four places I've lived...
1. Gilbert, Arizona
2. Provo, Utah
3. Dallas, Texas
4. Tulsa, Oklahoma

Four places I've vacationed...
1. Catalina Island
2. Puerto Penasco, Mexico
3. St. Louis, Missouri
4. Memphis, Tennessee

Four of my favorite dishes...
1. Chicken Parmesan (so good!)
2. Pizza
3. Lettuce Wraps
4. Crab Legs (delicious!)

Four sites I visit daily...
1. gmail.com (my email)
2. blogspot.com (friends & family blogs)
3. wellsfargo.com (online banking)
4. insouth.com (online banking)

Four places I would rather be right now...
1. Arizona
2. Utah
3. Lake Powell
4. Fiji

No trial is Wasted

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~I've been doing a lot of thinking this past week. All of the things that matter most to me...my husband, my children, my family, friendships, the gospel, my Savior and the blessing of eternal families. I am so incredibly grateful for the gift of eternal families. Last week I found out that my Aunt's husband passed away. I was shocked and full of disbelief. The following day I got an email from a close friend of mine. She told me that her sister-in-law also passed away on the same day as my Uncle. A million questions ran through my mind. I really believe there are reasons why things happen the way that they do. But in that moment of tragedy you often question why? We must remember to trust in God and have faith that everything will be OK. I was reading a lesson from "The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball" and I came across a paragraph that I wanted to share. "No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our character, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God...and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven..."(Orson F. Witney)
This quote helped me to remember that whatever trials we have, we will grow from them. We are here on this earth to learn and to grow. We all have trials in many forms, some more than others. We must remember to trust in God and have faith in Him. This past week has definitely helped me to look at my own life, my family and my priorities. I am so grateful for all of my many blessings. I'm grateful for this time I've had to remember these things and to cherish them. I am GRATEFUL and BLESSED.

Independance Day 2007

Happy 4th of July!!!

We celebrated down in Memphis at the

"Star Spangled Spectacular" a few days before

the 4th. It was a day full of music, dancing,

BBQ, corn dogs, funnel cakes and fireworks!

Today we went over to Dr. Breck's

house for more fun, good food & our own

firework show. All fireworks are legal here

so we had free game. Dave was like

a little kid in a candy store! Their neighbors

also had fireworks going, we were having a

PARTY! I was sensing a little competition

between the neighbors. The kids were both

so tired they were falling over their own

feet and crying at every little thing. It

probably didn't help that we got home

around 11pm! Hey, at least they went to

bed as soon as they hit the pillow.

Good times, good times!